Chapter 318 - 318 Strange Uncertainty
"M—Master Noah, this is..."
"Don"t worry about it. It"s my treat," Noah said, tapping the man"s shoulder, while walking past him towards his car, the man"s son pushing the cart behind him, not understanding his father"s reaction just yet. It was only after Noah had left that he would come to know how much money Noah had handed them out of a sheer whim.
Silently, Noah let the boy put his armor and weapons in the trunk of his car, before hopping in and placing Lilith on the pa.s.senger"s seat.
"You"re a lot more generous than usual today, did something happen?" Lilith asked him as they made their way down the spiraling parking lot, quickly pa.s.sing towards the entrance of the restaurant.
"Not really. It"s just that I felt like giving those people a good memory for once. You know, people like them bust their a.s.ses every day just to make a living. It"s not like they are the top of the food chain, even in a restaurant like that," Noah explained, making Lilith feel him not being quite the Noah she knew.
"Since when are you this caring of others? Who are you, and what did you do to the blunt and unsociable Noah?"
"Oh, shut up!" the two joked around, relaxing a bit as the car slowly made its way to the driveway. "By the way, Lilith, have you grown fat?" Noah asked, provoking her.
"f.u.c.k off! I can"t get... wait, I did get quite a bit larger, didn"t I?" Lilith looked at herself, coming to a sudden realization.
"Yeah... Just a day ago you could go around my arm like a bracelet. You"ve more than tripled in size, I think... Wait! Where the heck did all that go?!" Noah turned himself to the side completely, leaving driving to the car, as Lilith suddenly grew tiny once again.
"Aparently, I can control my size to some extent... I wonder how big I can become," Lilith said, slithering across the dashboard and onto Noah"s arm.
"Me too, but let"s not try that while in the car, okay? We can try it later inside a fortress when we are alone," Noah rolled his eyes, focusing back on the street as he felt Lilith go up his arm onto his neck.
"I know at least that much. By the way... about what happened earlier, do you have any idea what happened?" Lilith asked him, which made Noah anxious.
"Do you not remember what happened?" he asked, probing her.
"I do, kinda. I remember a little more about myself now, but I know something"s missing. I also remember I made a barrier of sorts and that time seemed to stop, but I don"t remember anything that happened after that, at least not until you and the healer there were using blessings on me," Lilith"s words confirmed Noah"s worries, but also allowed him to relax a bit, knowing she didn"t remember how she had felt then.
"I"ll explain everything later. But I got access to alot of the information of your status that I couldn"t before. However, as you stopped time, something interfered with us. I can"t know for sure what it was, but it seemed to be an angel. And it questioned you about something, and warned me not to trust you. It thought I was just a human, so everything"s fine for now," Noah said, oversimplifying and trying to play the whole thing down, so that he woudn"t worry her.
"... I don"t really get what all that means, just that I guess the other side realized I was here... It looks bad, doesn"t it?" She laid her head on Noah"s neck, making him realize her feelings to some extent.
"Yeah... But it also said something about not interfering with humans. So, I think as long as you don"t stop time or something outrageous like that again, we should be fine," Noah said, taking one of his hands off the wheel to caress her. While Noah also found it slightly eerie, he couldn"t deny he found this side of his snake companion a bit cute.
"I see... Well, just let me be here for a while, okay?" Lilith coiled around his Neck, occasionally moving her head. Noah kept her there, as he drove the car towards Carlos" home.
All in all, it took them just a bit over half an hour to reach the large mansion. Traffic wasn"t bad, but considering how late it was, Noah was annoyed they still found that much traffic.
"Noah!" Noah was welcomed my Maggie, jumping at him and hugging him as soon as he opened the door.
"Sorry man, I just couldn"t stop her," Carlos said from the side, next to whom an anxious Bel waited while not stading still, hopping on his feet from side to side as he waited for Noah and Maggie to finish hugging.
"Hey, girl... How was the rest of the day?" he asked, borderline ignoring Carlos and Bel, and focusing on Maggie for a second.
"It was amazing! Carlos had a huge screen we used to watch your fights! They were awesome! I just wish you hadn"t used that stupid fire dome thing on the last fight... I wanted to see you put them up in flames!" Noah laughed as his little sister"s pyromaniacal wishes, putting his hand on her head and fussling her hair.
"Next time I"ll make sure to let you see everything, I promise," he told her, looking up to talk to Bel. "How about you, young man? Is everything okay with you?" Noah asked, looking straight at him.
"Of course not!" But Maggie answered in his stead, "He kept pestering Carlos and me about you and Lilith being in danger! I couldn"t get him to shut up for a minute before you two arrived," she complained about Bel, but Noah didn"t saw him in a bad light.
"It was just because I was worried... I felt him here, so I thought you two were in danger," Bel told him, looking towards his feet.
"It"s okay, Bel. But everything"s alright now, okay? Me and Lilith are back home, all safe and sound," Noah tried to rea.s.sure him, holding back from asking too much in frong of Maggie and Carlos. "We can talk more about how you felt and what you felt later, okay. But now, I really need to go and get myself a bath," Noah told all of them, after feeling his body a bit tacky. It was natural, after all, that he needed a bath after all those fights. "Lilith, do you wanna stay with them for a bit?" Noah asked, telling her to stay with them, but the snake had other plans.
"Not really... I"d rather go with you," she said, leaving Noah a bit troubled.
"But," he started protesting, but swallowed his words as he recalled what had happened just a little earlier. "I guess she"s still a little scared," he thought to himself, walking up to one of the suites he always used when sleeping at Carlos".
Noah quickly got himself into the large bath, sinking himself in the warm water. His muscles were sore, and getting himself into the water really helped him relax after such a day. His phone had been notifying him for a few minutes now, but he just didn"t feel like leaving the bath yet. Until he heard the sound of water.
Slowly, a large snake, longer than he was tall and about as thick as his arms, climbed the edge of the bathtub, slumping its body into it at a very quick pace. "Are you really joining me?" Noah asked, as he saw Lilith"s head, now larger than his fist, emerge from the water, staring at his face.
"Yeah... I felt this would help me feel a bit more like myself," she said, moving towards him. "Also, I feel there"s something troubling you since earlier, but you"re not telling me the truth," she told him, still floating onto the water.
"I"m just worried about you, it"s not that important," Noah brushed her off, but he didn"t hold back this time. "Earlier, when the things you don"t remember happened, it was the first time I saw you scared. I never imagined you could even behave like that."
"Do you really see me as that cheeky?" she asked, to which he nodded, teasing her. "You idiot..." she smiled inwardly, having broken the strange feeling between the two, "You know there"s no point worrying about me like that, right? I mean, you saved me from that store, what else could I do if I didn"t at least help you here and there..."
"Don"t be like that," Noah put his hand beneath her chin, and started patting her with another hand. "You"ve been by me for a long time now. I just hope this will pan out favorably." Noah said, not aware he was raising a large flag.
"Oh, also, this all happened because you tried to read my status, right?" Lilith asked. "Have you tried checking it ever since then?"
"Not really, why?" Noah felt confused. "Let"s try, what bad can there be in accessing the status?" He thought out loud, but instead of the usual, a strainge message appeared.
You do not have the qualifications to read this individual"s status.
The fire words that would generally have given him all the information he wanted, refused to give him anything at all.