The camp had made quite a bit of progress, the portal was still active and swathes of drones came out with all sorts of materials, as well as food and drinkable water. Walls made of steel had been erected and the camp looked entirely different not.
Of course they worked fast, Twilight and Wellington funded this excursion, they had bought almost all the materials secretly and did their best to be covert and they did this over the span of months! Not only that, they built special drones just for this. Twilight had a small part in this excursion, the Wellingtons on the other hand did almost everything.
The people worked fast, most of the members of the party who had gone inside the portal were there, clearly having returned before night fell.
They seemed to be...cooking something? However Alan couldn't see what it was.
Alan descended and his appearance caused a ruckus, before they could come outside they landed and he let Sabrina down.
The group caught notice of them, thankfully for Sabrina they hadn't seen how she was being transported.
Kazikato came a little bit late, however, the dunce crashed into the steel walls and caused a significant dent in them. His head was strong. It seems he was moving too fast for his own good.
Some of them went to help Kazikato, mainly members of Twilight. Logan approached the two of them and asked.
"Explain your absence young lady."
Ah, it wasn't 'them' but only Sabrina. He had quite the annoyed expression on his face as he questioned her. Sabrina was unfazed, as if this was a normal occurrence.
Meanwhile, Alan was trying to figure out if this was worry for her or actual annoyance. Logan's expressions and mannerisms made it hard to discern.
"Scouting, Grandpa, can you gather everyone? This is urgent?"
Fortunately, seeing the urgency in his granddaughters eyes Logan let go of his worry and decided to talk to her at a later time, he gestured for everyone to come and soon enough, the people had gathered over a bonfire.
"So that's what it was..."
It looked like they were cooking what appeared to be a sheep, it was large as a human and the aroma it gave was truly splendid.
"What did you want to talk about?"
Logan asked. Everyone looked alert. Richard was the only one who wasn't here, he had apparently gone back to take care of his own business at the guild.
"What were the results of everyone's scouting missions?"
Sabrina asked, soon, the leaders of the teams that had went answered.
"There is a forest with large trees with leaves that look like metallic needles in the east, we didn't venture into the forest and we caught this sheep at the outskirts of it. It's a C rank monster."
"There's nothing but the sea in the west, it's normal saltwater and we didn't find any fish."
"Up south is just a plain, it was getting dark so we returned. We didn't find anything special except the green grass. No monsters...nothing but grass."
"How far did you go?"
Sabrina asked the last man, considering their situation was the same...she wondered if there was something similar in the south.
"About a few dozen miles."
She muttered, before she said.
"There maybe another civilization here."
The words came out quick, but the reaction to them stayed. Logan's eyes grew wide and it was the same for everyone else. He hurriedly asked for more details.
"There is a mountain range a few hundred miles in the north. The mountains are home to monsters resembling yetis and mammoths...Maybe more. Strange statues of ice surround the mountain and at the peak...there is a city."
"We don't know much, but it's ginormous. Made with bricks the size of houses."
Logan grabbed her by the shoulders and inquired.
Alan answered in her stead.
"No, I can assure that...The city looked desolate but there was something wrong with it."
Maxwell interjected, Alan answered.
"I...don't know. My gut was just telling me to stop and run."
Instead of berating him for not getting more information, Maxwell congratulated him on doing the thing that made the most common sense.
If Alan's dragon instincts were telling him to run, it was better to not approach that at all.
"Is it close to the strange mana well you all mentioned?"
"No, a little further, The mountains seem close but are actually far. It was like an illusion was cast on us."
Everyone grew alarmed.
The very fact that this planet was habited by a native species...one that could build structures like them, and at such a large scale as described was...terrifying.
Humanity was new to mana, that was an fact that almost everyone knew.
The fact that a civilization inhabited this planet...made it's conquest harder. Twilight and Wellington may not be able to keep this mission as covert as they wanted. Perhaps...they may even need to recruit people who weren't trustworthy or other guilds or families.
A curse finally escaped the mouth of one person, and broke the silence.
"The statues you saw...what were they of?"
"And the strength of those monsters in the mountain?"
"I don't know, but a rough estimate would be A or S rank."
Logan cursed as he sat down on a chair, the others had grim expressions on their faces as they listened to Sabrina, and Alan, who wanted to tell them their actual strength decided it was best to not do it.
He looked at Kazikato and gestured at him to be quiet, Their dragon eyes showed them that the strength of the monsters was S rank, and that was only the weakest of them...
The mood was already sour, they didn't want to worsen it.
Maxwell caught sight of Alan's gesture, but he knew how to read the situation and stayed quiet. He figured it would be best to ask about it later.
Logan, facepalmed and stood up, addressing the rest with a loud voice, he said.
"Everyone, We have some new protocol to follow."