Chapter 4: The Elken Rangers Alliance
Truthfully speaking, Claude's strength truly wasn't average.
He had trained all the muscles in his body to its maximum potential for combat.
By the Old Era's standard, Claude could have been one of the strongest people amongst the normal humans.
But the people of Elken Rangers Alliance were all people who had been born into and forged by the wild environment of the Forest Biome: Eden.
Furthermore, most of the Rangers in ERA had been reconstructed through the specialty strengthening method of the Alliance.
Yes, a strengthening method!
The story dated back far into the olden days of the Alliance.
The founders and forefathers of ERA had been searching far and wide to find some way for mankind to survive and stand up against the wilderness of the New Era.
Their journey took up decades of their life, with mankind becoming more and more oppressed by Nature with each passing day.
But eventually, through years of research paid by the blood and tears of their comrades, the results of their effort soon borne fruit when they'd finally found the way!
Simply put, it was the way to increase a human's innate potential as a species at its core.
A method created solely for the sake of mankind's continued existence.
They named the strengthening method "Bio-Contact"!
The method was then quickly introduced to the old ERA's populace who, at that moment, had not been able to survive a few days even in the safer areas of Eden.
But just like that, in the following year, the mortality rate of the whole Elken Rangers Alliance had dropped by half!
And that was only the first year statistics! The survival rate of the Alliance had kept on growing year after year ever since, making the small alliance of Rangers into the large civilization that they are today.
Since then, Bio-Contact became the basis of Elken Rangers Alliance's power.
.
.
It was mid-afternoon.
The group of six Rangers and Claude had already past the halfway point on their journey home.
The roads had been rather difficult with uneven terrains and gigantic tree roots blocking them every which way. But everyone in their ranks, including Claude, had coped with it without any problems.
And just like last time, Claude had been quite proactive in throwing questions at Rex.
"...I see. So that's why you were telling me to close up the tunnel back then." Claude nodded in understanding towards Rex.
"Yes, it is never a good thing when two different ecosystems started mixing together." He replied,
"And it's not just some baseless fear either. A couple years back, some researchers and explorers from GEARS had successfully discovered the existence of an Underground Biome beneath Eden."
"If that tunnel really extends further down, it is more than likely that it'll enter some parts of the ecosystems within the Subterranean Biome: Naraka."
'Eden and Naraka... What's with all the religious sounding name?' Claude pondered silently as he walked.
"It was a whole thing back then... What with all the talk of a joint operation between ERA and GEARS to explore the place." One of the group's siblings readily chimed in at the topic.
"That was bound to fall through from the start. Our two civilizations are too radically different from one another we might as well be different organisms." Rex responded to the guy with a shaken head.
"It really can't be helped." The guy too nodded in agreement.
"...So, no conflict between you huh?" To the side, Claude couldn't help but to poke at Rex by referencing their earlier conversation about there being no fight or conflict between the civilizations.
"Hey, I didn't say that we are all living in harmony either. If we were, why would there even be a need for two different civilizations to exist?" Rex still refused to budge on the matter.
"That is true." Claude smiled and left the topic at that.
"Then, the differences between the two civilizations--"
"Ask someone else!" Rex quickly put a stop to him before Claude could continue on with his next line of questioning.
Rex was exhausted, Claude had been asking him every kinds of question he could think of ever since they'd departed.
If there had been any suspicions on Claude's identity being some sort of spy previously, all those suspicions had been blown away by now.
The identity of someone who didn't know any of the basic knowledge of this world would be far too suspicious and would serve no purpose to a spy.
'I'm the one who suggested that he might have amnesia but... Don't tell me it's actually true?' Rex truly couldn't figure out any other reason for a person to not know so much of the world.
.
With the only person who had been giving him so much information refusing to engage in further conversation with him, Claude was forced to turn to the others for knowledge.
He quickly turned his attention to the rest of the group.
Realizing his intention, all of them hastily avoided any eye contact with him before picking up their pace. Claude, of course, noticed all of this from his point of view.
But, so what?
*tap*
He tapped the back of Dio's shoulder with a beaming smile on his face.
'Dammit!!' Dio almost screamed his thought out loud.
"..."
"..."
*SIGH*
A loud and audible sigh was heard before Dio eventually turned to his back,
"The Elken Rangers Alliance didn't follow the concept of a civilization in a traditional sense..." He had given up on resisting and had already accepted his fate as the next walking dictionary for Claude.
"As you've already known, we are a civilization that grew from a group of people who are striving to survive in this wild world." Dio looked up to his surroundings as if pondering,
"Truthfully speaking, ERA hasn't been the small alliance that it once was for a long long time. But there's a reason that we kept the name Alliance to call ourselves instead of calling it an Empire or a Great Nation and the like,"
"It's because even as a civilization, we are not bound by territories. If we're speaking purely on a territorial basis, even Sector-07 is still located within the boundaries of GEARS's rules."
"And they can't do anything about it, because we are the frontlines. The first response if ever any natural disaster were to occur in the vicinity." Dio kept on explaining everything to Claude who was listening attentively at the side.
"If you want to know the main differences between the two civilizations it's simple:
It's the difference in their ideologies and visions for mankind's future.
ERA strives to create a new ideal structure of society that is adaptable to any changes in this wild world.
While GEARS strives to rebuild the past glorious societal structure of mankind where there is no struggle for survival and everyone is free to pursue what they want to pursue in life."
*hooo*
Dio stopped for a while to take a deep breath.
"Anyway, you'll understand once we've reached Sector-07. Everything ERA does is for the sake of adaptation,
We spread ourselves into multiple Sectors of small populations to be able to pull out faster and keep casualties to a minimum should any danger occur.
We have no centralized headquarter or command center to eliminate any fatal weaknesses in our structure.
Last but not least, we keep the number of occupations to a minimum. Every citizens of ERA are usually divided into 1 of 5 available divisions.
By the way, our group is from the 4th, the Conquest Division!"
Claude was stunned, 'What a complete survivalist mindset...! How extreme.'
Claude tried to imagine the daily lives of all the people that were living in every Sectors of the Elken Rangers Alliance.
'But then again, this was probably why they were able to survive for so long.'
It had been a while since Claude last experienced a culture shock of this degree. It was quite understandable, he was someone who had lived through the era that the people of GEARS today strove to achieve.
From his perspective, he could at least relate to the desires that the leaders of GEARS had envisioned for the future more than ERA.
After such a lengthy explanation, Claude needed some time to digest what he had learned and therefore posted no more questions for the rest of their way back, to the delight of the group.
.
.
Some more hours passed by in a flash.
The group too, soon arrived at the vicinity of Sector-07!
In the far distance,
Tall blocks of steel pillars were posted at regular interval encircling the area behind them with rows and rows of thick cylindrical railings stretched horizontally between each pillars, creating a solid structure of a fence.
A thick, enormous steel fence.
Claude was in the middle of admiring it from afar when he saw a relatively large bird trying to pass through the space in-between two horizontal railings of the fence before it was suddenly electrocuted into ashes out of nowhere.
'It's an electrical fence... The way it generated electricity seems to be slightly more advanced than the normal ones.' He deduced.
At the center of the fence was a large metal gate that was supported by two of the fence's pillars at its joints. It was the checkpoint entrance to enter Sector-07, and was manned by Rangers wearing a slightly different variation of the same uniforms as the group.
The entire checkpoint looked rather deserted with almost no one going in-and-out of it. But Claude thought that this was normal, seeing how dangerous the outside world was and that this place was not really a commercial city.
"So, what are your plans from here on out?" Dio asked Claude who was standing to his side.
"I dunno... Do I have to become a citizen to live inside?" He grinned.
"That, or a prisoner." Rex who hadn't been seen talking ever since that last time chimed in as he walked forward,
"You need an identity to have a safe roof over your head, this holds true wherever you are. Or would you rather try that bunker once more?"
"That one I'll pass, thanks." Claude grimaced at the thought.
"Then you better heed my advice, it was one thing to try and be mysterious around us since I don't give two craps about where you're from,"
"But that attitude won't fly well when they investigate you in there. With the situation as it is, everyone's on edge. They'd sooner get rid of unknown variables like you rather than giving you the benefit of the doubt."
After saying his piece, Rex gave Claude another once-over from head-to-toe,
Presently, he was still only wearing his black ragged pants and nothing else. Even his feet had had no protection whatsoever during their whole way here.
Oddly, the group of six also didn't find this level of endurance to be anything of note either.
"...Still, good luck anyway." He turned around and continue walking.
Dio who had listened to the conversation from start to finish also added his own advice saying,
"He's right you know, no lie's worth dying over. Plus, even if the people inside decided to let you live, you wouldn't last a day in Eden without Bio-Contact."
"Bio-Contact?" Claude was intrigued at the new term he'd heard.
"DIO!" Rex suddenly yelled at him from the front.
Even the rest of the group who'd been eavesdropping at their talks groaned and palmed their faces at him.
Rita was the most blatant, mouthing the words 'Are you an idiot?' while giving an incredulous look towards Dio.
'Oh, right... Sh*t!' When he himself realized what he'd done, he almost wanted to hit himself for it.
The atmosphere became awkward really fast, before Claude suddenly replied as if nothing happened,
"Well, don't worry about me, there's nothing to hide after all." He smiled politely.
'Like hell there's not!' was the thought that resounded in everyone's mind at the same time.
.
Claude soon reached the checkpoint on the giant fence that he had seen from a distance.
"Rex! You're back early, how's the investigation?"
One of the guard manning the entrance who had spotted the group from afar smiled in greeting before talking to Rex.
"Our camp got ambushed. But don't worry, we've discovered something while we're out there, so we decided to go back and report." Rex gave the man a short reply as he continued,
"We've also found an Unidentified!" He pointed at Claude with his thumb.
"Oof! Seems like a very eventful trip overall. Still, at least no one's dead~" The guard responded nonchalantly at the report as he counted the number of people in the group.
His eyes lingered at Claude a little longer than others and asked, "And? Are you going to take him in yourself or would you rather have one of us do it?"
Rex turned to look at Claude in inquiry and saw the man in question shrugging his shoulders as if saying he'll leave it up to him.
"You guys take him, I need to sort out my inventory from this trip. I've just used up my one Grade-2 Power Grenade."
*pffft*
"Hah! You know they're not gonna reimburse you for that right?" The guard laughed at the news.
"Shut up!" Rex huffed loudly and turned around,
"...Well, it's up to here. See you around Claude." He turned back and walked inside as he waved his hand back over his head.
Following him, the rest of the group also started to walk past Claude, passing over the entrance into Sector-07.
"See you around."
"Take it easy."
""Good luck!""
A flurry of back taps and goodbyes were passed onto him. Dio was the last one to leave, he also turned towards Claude and said,
"Remember, don't lie. You're bad at it, where the hell's 'Europe'?" Before going his way.
Claude returned a wave to each one of the people from the group. He didn't show it, but he was more than a little grateful to them for freeing him from that hellish cage AND teaching him all the common knowledge that he'd lacked in his new environment.
The guard waited without interrupting until everyone had left before approaching Claude.
"Don't worry, if nothing goes wrong you might see them again in the future." He smiled, misunderstanding Claude's expression as a look of worry.
"Hey! Take my post for a bit, I'm taking the Unidentified into the administration cabin!"
Shortly after that shout, one of the guards who'd been resting inside the fence came strolling near to take over the guard's post, leaving him free to guide Claude inside.
"The name's Gill, of the 5th Division, let's go get you sorted!" He gestured for Claude to follow, to which he replied with a nod.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
SuperHippo
SuperHippo Thanks for reading as always!
The next chapter will most likely be released on Monday the 27th~
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