Chapter 55: Hehe
55 55 - Hehe
Once in a while when a child pa.s.sed by it, the bright eyes of the white mouse caught their attention, which meant their mothers had to pull the children quickly away, already thinking about the excuse they would have to give for not giving a pet monster like that little mouse to their child. After all, that little mouse alone had the same price as famously expensive dogs.
The problem with all this was that if someone were just going to buy a monster, for an average family to collect $500 to buy a mouse, it would be a lot of money, but not an impossible amount. What made the situation more difficult was that for them to be able to adopt the monster, they would need to have a relatively powerful Blessed One in the family to protect themselves if the child gave the monster a wrong order. Also, if the child"s affinity with the monster was not high enough and they were unable to make a contract, that $500 could not be reimbursed without buying additional insurance, which, if approved, would cost even more money.
Even if the child was very interested in these little monsters, for an average family to risk buying a $500 "toy" that for some reason might not even work was out of the question.
Everyone who pa.s.sed Noah on the bus and saw him with the white mouse in the cage a.s.sumed that he only had that one little monster, but that was not true. On his left wrist, if he lifted the long sleeve of his shirt, a strange black scaled bracelet would appear. In truth, the bracelet was Lilith, who after working hard to remember her name, wrapped herself around Noah"s wrist and started sleeping, as if that place were the most comfortable bed in the world.
Noah had no problem with this; he didn"t feel anything unusual about the little black snake that was sleeping on his wrist. In fact, he even felt happy because she was so small and sleeping in that place was so practical, that the people he interacted with after leaving the store, even though they saw the snake sleeping on his wrist, just considered it to be just a bracelet and ignored it.
What he noticed was that after 30 minutes while the snake slept on his wrist, Noah began to realize that the wounds on her body were slightly starting to close.
"Didn"t she say that no matter what the Blessed Ones did to her, her wounds didn"t heal at all? Maybe this has to do with it...?" Noah wondered mentally as he looked from the snake toward the system notification window that was still open in front of him. He had not accepted or refused the suggestion of the system. If he wanted to consider the snake as a friendly companion, both in personal life and perhaps in battle, he felt he needed to ask her about it first.
If Noah didn"t know beforehand that this mouse was actually a monster that came from a Fortress of at least Rank D, he would completely believe that this little thing was actually just an ordinary mouse.
Arriving at the hospital, Noah knew that the attendants did not allow anyone to enter with animals, so he found a thicket and carefully hid the mouse cage there in a way that hardly anyone else could find it unless they really were looking for something there in the first place, which Noah believed was unlikely to happen.
The little monster that had shown no abnormal reaction the entire time, was now noticeably confused by what was happening. He couldn"t understand why this human was putting him in a place full of weeds and apparently leaving him alone. Noah did not care what the mouse was thinking and just left before entering the hospital and greeting all the attendants as he always did.
Upon arriving at his little sister"s room, she was using the old model cell phone she had to watch something. As the screen was flipped horizontally, Noah imagined it was one of those MyTube videos she enjoyed watching. When he was still at school, he liked some MyTubers very much, for a while he even considered the possibility of recording videos on the internet for fun, but after the accident that happened to his mother, he never thought about it and just placed the idea in the back of his mind.
When Maggy saw Noah entering the door, without thinking twice, she put her cell phone on the table next to her bed and smiled at him as she opened her little arms and kept moving her little fingers as if to say, "Come and hug me, quick!"
Noah knew very well that was exactly what she meant, so without saying anything, he approached her and gave the little girl a hug that had become the reason for living for him and why he focused so hard on breaking into Fortresses.
The two had a short conversation where she told Noah everything she did in the time that they didn"t see each other, and Noah told her everything he went through from the party at Carlos"s house to the invasion of the Rank E Fortress. Maggy was very happy and excited to know that her brother had risen in rank, now becoming even more powerful.
In her mind, after her mother died, the most important person in her life had become her older brother Noah. He always gave her an impression of being someone invincible, someone who could do whatever he wanted, and just as she imagined, her brother was someone who was so powerful and confident, seeing him move up the ranks was a happy thing, but nothing unexpected.
Maggy faithfully believed that it was only a matter of time before Noah reached Rank A. Even though he had already tried to tell her that this was something very difficult in the past, before his system had awakened, she never listened to him. She always said with certainty that he would truly reach great heights with the Blessing he received, even though she didn"t know what that Blessing really was.
"I bought you a gift, sweetie, but you"re going to have to keep it a secret. Do you think you can do that?" Noah asked with a warm smile toward Maggy.
When Maggy heard the word "present", her face quickly broke into a happy and excited smile. She was happy to be able to receive a gift of something new and unknown, mainly because that gift was coming from her brother, but when she remembered the financial problems they were in because of her illness, Maggy felt instantly guilty for what she was putting her brother through.
"Noah... I... I don"t need a gift; you are already my gift. You can return it and get the money back," she said with a sad look but trying to open a warm smile on her face so that Noah wouldn"t realize what she was trying to do.
But Noah knew his little sister very well. When he saw the change in expression that she had gone through, he had already discovered exactly what she was thinking and what she planned to do.
"No, no. The store I bought the gift from is UNFORTUNATELY not accepting a refund, you hear? So, tragically, you will now be forced to keep the gift I bought for you," Noah said, trying to pretend he was disappointed in the store, but the small smile in the corner of his mouth did not escape Maggy"s eyes, who immediately understood what he was doing.
As much as she felt guilty about making her brother take chances to make money, watching him do it all for her really warmed the little girl"s heart who mentally thought, "I"ll pay you back someday, bro."
"Okay, well, I promise I"ll keep the gift a secret… but where is it?" Maggy gave up on refusing the gift, knowing that Noah would be mad at her if she continued to do so, and simply resolved to accept the gift with a mindset that she would reward Noah in the future when everything improved.
"I hid him in a secret place. Be quiet and wait here. It"s a surprise, hehe." Noah let out a slightly evil laugh before teleporting using his h.e.l.l Tunneling out of the hospital, right where the little white mouse was hidden. This was his master plan on ??how to bring a forbidden monster into the hospital. As he was fully confident that he would be able to protect his sister in the case of an unforeseen eventuality, he did not care about the rule that prohibited patients from having pets, not to mention that technically, a monster was not a proper animal.
What Noah didn"t know was that when Maggy saw him teleport out of the hospital with his skill, instead of being scared that it would burst into flame, she was shocked for another reason.
"Is my brother Lucifer who appeared on the PigMan live stream?" she asked herself in a loud, shocked voice.