Chapter 53: Price
53 53 - Price
[Weakened demonic aura found. Like the Lord of h.e.l.l, the user can make a contract with any demon. Do you wish to form a contract?]
Reading the message, Noah was surprised. He was surprised because apparently this little snake that everyone believed was a weak monster was actually a demon. To think that there might be other demons around the world just like this little snake made Noah feel excited. Being the Descendant of Lucifer, he imagined that one day he could end up commanding an army of demons, so if he could meet such demons around the world, he could end up developing the army of demons he was already imagining.
But there was something in that window that caught his attention. "What do you mean by contract?" he asked from the system. He had never really interacted much with the system. Since the information provided by the system was always very clear, he never had any major concerns of which to inquire from the system, so much so that now he didn"t even know if the system would answer him or not.
Fortunately for him, the system responded shortly thereafter.
[Lucifer became very famous in the world for the contracts he made. At his peak, humans even had a saying concerning him that said, "Be careful when doing business with the Devil." However, these contracts were not limited to humans only; Lucifer also made contracts with demons in exchange for something the demons might want. Over time, humanity began to understand how demonic contacts worked - some even managed to copy a small part of what the contracts could do. As the creator of this type of agreement, Lucifer has control over what will happen in the contract, and as his Descendant, the user also has control over it. Do you want to make a contract with this demon?]
Reading this message, Noah was momentarily surprised. If what this message was saying was true, which Noah did not doubt at all, then probably the contracts that humans were signing with the monsters were derivations of the contracts that Lucifer had made with humanity in the past. As it had been a long time since mankind believed in the Catholic G.o.d and Lucifer, it made sense that the information from where those contracts came from would have dried up.
"If I can control how this contract works, then can I make an equal contract? This little snake has shown no bad intentions towards me," Noah thought seriously as he looked at the little snake in front of him.
"Do you remember anything about yourself, little friend?" Noah asked the snake as he watched it wrap around his finger.
Strangely for her, after this human put his hand inside her aquarium, instead of feeling repugnance as she felt for other humans, this time she was strangely attracted to him, so much so that she started to feel extremely comfortable when curling up in his hand. The wounds that had been on her since she was born were now becoming more comfortable. She felt that they still hurt (it hurt if she wasn"t careful), but when she wrapped herself around this human"s skin she didn"t feel so much pain anymore.
As she struggled to remember something, the attendant looked at the snake and Noah with a shocked look. She still couldn"t believe that this young man had actually managed to interact with the little black snake and she had accepted it without complaint.
"Sir... are you going to want to keep that snake?" The girl asked, uncertainly. If the snake bit him or tried to avoid him in any way, there was nothing she could do but show him other monsters, since if the monster was not willing, the contract would not work at all. But looking at how docile the snake was acting, the girl had to accept that they were getting along very well.
It was rare for a monster to act so familiar with a human. Not even the small, bright-eyed mice, which were known to be very docile and cooperative, hardly acted as docile as the little snake was acting. The most that the mice did was to act in an indifferent way when a human picked them up, which was already the greatest sign of goodwill they could give. But starting to rub oneself in a human"s hand, as if they"ve known each other for a long time, had never happened from a monster in the store before. Looking at the snake with half-closed eyes, the girl even thought that these two had a story together.
"Yes, if I can, I want to keep it. How much does it cost?" Noah replied and asked the girl absently, looking at the snake in awe, who was still struggling with the process of getting some kind of information from her own memory.
Hearing his question, the attendant did not know if she felt good about finally being able to sell the problematic snake that caused so much damage to the store, or if she felt bad that she was not going to be able to buy the snake herself.
"Her price is discounted. Since she was born with some injuries and no human was able to win her trust, our store had to reduce her price to make it easier to sell if a customer showed up. Her price, which was originally $2,000 because of her condition and her problematic status has undergone a 75% discount, dropping to $500. That price, in fact, is less than the amount of money that has already been spent trying to cure her," the girl said with some sadness in her voice.
If it was just for the money she would have already bought the snake and tried to win it over at her house, but the store had a policy that it didn"t sell monsters that could potentially kill humans because of low affinity. If the buyer later decided to resell the monster, the store would not be responsible for any fatality.
"Alright, I will take you with me." Noah was first concerned when he heard that the snake"s starting price was $2,000. He wouldn"t be able to buy her if the price was still that high, but he was happy to have enough money to buy her now that the price had been reduced so much.
If he were still a Blessed Rank F, he would need to invade 3 Fortresses, risk his own life, and save money on basic necessities to be able to buy this snake at the discount price. If it were the original price he would have needed more than 20 Fortresses to have enough money to pay for the snake, and considering the money he was supposed to pay his uncle every week, it would probably have taken even longer to collect the money.
While Noah was happy to have become a Blessed Rank E, earning at least $1,000 a Fortress raid, the little snake was still seriously trying to decipher at least some of the memories that were in that foggy area in her mind.
Every time she tried to explore that part of her memories, she felt extremely tired. That part of her mind was like a black hole of energy, so as soon as she started trying to penetrate that part of her mind, she felt like she had spent hours running around without stopping to rest.
Fortunately, all the work she had to do to unravel that part of her memory was not in vain. She at least managed to get a small trace of information while struggling there.
Noah, who was mesmerized by the beautiful little black scales on her body, noticed that she opened her eyes again but that she became quite breathless from one moment to the next. Before he could ask what had happened, the snake said something to Noah that astonished him.
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