Noah was already very familiar with Carlos and did not care about courtesy and simply ate until he was completely satisfied. He knew that on his own he would not be able to pay for a meal at this restaurant anytime soon, so he wholeheartedly enjoyed the free meal and ate until he couldn't get any more.
The other members of the team were still a little ashamed of eating a lot at Carlos's expense, since even though they were friends, their friendship was not so deep that they didn't mind making their friend spend so much. But when they saw Noah eating almost all of the food on the table, they ignored that feeling and started eating as if the food would just disappear from the table if no one stopped Noah from eating more.
What was supposed to be a simply fraternization for friends to eat peacefully ended up turning the table into a battlefield where the strong were left with a full stomach and the weak would just look aside with envy and the desire to eat more. In the end, everyone laughed together at the situation and it only served to bring them closer together.
Today was a day that Noah had decided to just rest. He wouldn't play Valorwatch; he wouldn't research anything; Noah's goal for today was just to rest his muscles and mind for the Fortress that the group would invade tomorrow.
Since they had decided to invade a Rank D Fortress, all members of Jasper's invasion group decided to rest today in preparation for the next day. They wanted to be at the peak point in order to invade the Rank D Fortress. And that's how Noah spent the rest of the day, just playing with Lilith, Terence, and cooking for them.
As the other eggs did not hatch, Noah had sold them. He was content with just sharing a house with Lilith and Terence, which had given the house a liveliness where it had once been so lonely for him. Having two other lives to care for, pay attention to, and play with had changed the air in Noah's house, which had previously been just sadness and a bad feeling of nostalgia. Now it was one of happiness and good memories that they were creating there together.
Since the Blessed Rank D had a smaller number, it allowed their salaries to be high enough for them to be able to live a very luxurious life. They were able to buy a car whenever they wanted, which was exactly what they did. Each Blessed Rank D would go to the Fortress with their own car instead of going together.
If the Blessed person died inside the Fortress, GBC would call a family member to pick up the car, or if no one came, they would sell the car and keep 20% of the vehicle's value before sending the rest of the money to the family.
That may not have seemed like much, but if you think that every day dozens of Blessed Rank D or higher died, the amount of money that GBC earned from selling the luxury cars that the Blessed Ones with higher rank left after dying became quite significant. Often, these cars were even sold to others who were Blessed with a discount on the sale price of the normal car, since the Blessed Ones had more money and wanted better cars, and GBC wanted to sell the cars as soon as possible. Then when those Blessed died, GBC took the cars back and sold them again, thus making it virtually an infinite money factory.
Unfortunately, not all of the Blessed Rank E in the party had a car, so to make it easier for these people in their first Rank D Fortress, the group decided to meet at the GBC headquarters where they always met to give a ride to members without a car.
Noah was part of this group that needed a ride to go to the Fortress, which he ended up getting from Jasper, who spent the whole trip complaining about how Noah needed to help him to control the monsters from a distance. And finally, to Jasper's happy surprise, Noah agreed this time to help him fulfill that role.
Before, Noah did not help Jasper because he trusted Jasper's ability to fulfill the scouting role for the team, but in a Rank D Fortress that they were not familiar with, Noah would not let Jasper risk himself unnecessarily, and agreed to help him for the first time inside this Fortress.
So far only Jasper knew what Noah could do when teleporting, since Noah never needed to use this ability during raids these past couple weeks, which made Marcel absolutely sure that he made the right choice by placing Noah as the main wizard in the group, much to Jasper's despair.
This time, however, Jasper was excited. He wanted to see what Marcel's reaction would be when he saw that Noah was a better assassin than a magician. Jasper knew that Noah was a really good wizard, even being the best of the group, so much so that he was considered the main wizard, but between a wizard who burned monsters occasionally and a mitigator scout who teleported frantically on the battlefield harvesting lives like someone picks flowers, obviously Jasper preferred the latter.
As they headed for the Fortress inside Jasper's Audi sedan, Noah looked around inside the car and really liked the vehicle. He had never stopped to notice cars before, but soon needing to have a car to go to the Fortress, Noah started to watch more cars on the street and think which one would be best for him, which one he would feel most comfortable driving, and not to mention which one would be most fun.
He hadn't noticed, but after living with Lilith, who was at this moment wrapped around his wrist, and having talked to Maggy so much about it, Noah came to consider his own happiness far more than he had before. Formerly for him, his happiness was based solely on Maggy, but now he started to give importance to himself more than before, considering fun things for himself as a small priority, which was already a great start.
But Maggy was still his main goal. Noah could only feel good because he could see himself in the near future getting money to pay for Maggy's treatment so she could leave the hospital. Even though she always tried to look content to him, to try to show strength and that she wasn't suffering, Noah still knew that his little sister was not doing as well as she wanted to show.
And now, Noah had the opportunity to take a step further in his plan to become stronger in order to have enough money to take care of his sister. From a distance, Noah could already see the portal used to enter the Fortress, the portal that would take him to the place where he would rise to level 3 and hopefully become much stronger with a new useful skill, a powerful evolution for [Hell Flames], and who knows; maybe he would use [Hell Tunneling] often enough inside until that skill would level up too?
This would be Noah's first major evolution. Rather than having just one skill leveling up or just his level going up alone, Noah wanted this Rank D Fortress, which would probably yield much more exp for him, to be the trigger to allow him to level up all three at once: his system level, [Hell Flames], and [Hell Tunneling]. Not to mention that in addition to Noah leveling up, the residual exp that would go to Lilith would also cause her to finally finish recovering and possibly cause her ability to unlock as well.
Noah was sure that he would enter this Fortress as someone strong, but the person who would leave this place would certainly be much stronger than the current him, not because of the life-and-death situation that he would likely go through in a place as dangerous as a Rank D Fortress, but because of the system that was changing his life. And now it would cause yet another big change, a change that Noah was very excited to witness.
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