Chapter 363 363. STRANGE
Noah and pride circled that weirdly placed town in the center of a thick forest for whole minutes until he felt he had gotten enough of that view.
\'I\'d like you to get down now,\' Noah spoke inwardly, happy that Pride had been listening to his commands without much effort. He even had eyes on a landing spot, a hill-like elevated land surface very close to the town.
There were clearings available, but he didn\'t want to land inside the magical beast territory, at least not until he had informed the town of his arrival.
However, Pride refused to listen and simply continued to circle the area with any evidence of willingness to dive down towards the hill.
Noah furrowed his brows and repeated his inner words. But she wouldn\'t listen, heck she began to fly away from the hill and even out of the town\'s range, and Noah couldn\'t help but get alerted.
"Hey!" He screamed at the four-legged beast, but she only barked in response. High-pitched barks almost like squeals.
The sound of her displeasure was so loud, that it stunned Noah. But even that didn\'t deter him. He tried to move towards her fur, but she began to perform flips that made him hold on to her while still on the saddle.
\'Son of a-\' Noah couldn\'t complete his thoughts since she suddenly folded her wings before unfolding them again, causing her figure to jerk. An annoying event to Noah.
Noah spouted more inward curses but had to call upon the power of the Half-bond.
"Land on the hill," He commanded, and immediately, although, with a squeal of pain, she turned to the hill and began to fly towards it.
Flapping her wings while she landed stably, Noah clicked his tongue at the annoyance of her sudden disobedience. But it also put him on alert. Had there been something she had sensed that he had not?
He couldn\'t be sure, but he would remain careful anyways.
Noah began his journey down the hill, and onto a clear carriage path that looked like it had not been utilized in a while.
At some point, he began to have issues with Pride.
She had begun to bark loudly and showed every intention to not go further. And the town was only a few hundred meters from their position.
Noah out of understanding allowed her to stay put but made sure he had her close enough to call. Her communication with him didn\'t come in clear words, but emotion-like experiences.
She was afraid and didn\'t want to move closer to the town.
Noah began to wonder if there were stronger beasts that weren\'t mentioned in the mission. So he put on the faceless mask, allowed Muliix to appear on his figure, and wielded his daggers for faster attacks.
He also had different spells at the tip of his mind, all that due to the growing worry and paranoia he experienced.
At some point Noah made Muliix recede into his skin and allowed his guild attire to be seen.
His figure eventually arrived before a big stone wall featuring a metallic gate. From that alone, he could tell the town was big.
"Who goes there?!" A male voice reached his ears, coming from the wall, and Noah caught sight of a light-armored individual who had an arrow pointed at him.
From his experience with Madison, bows were really annoying, to say the least, but he soon realized that the arrow would be unable to do anything to him since the man only had a cultivation base at the peak of tier 2.
To be honest it had been a while since he gazed at a human expert that weak, and a smile couldn\'t help but crack on his face when he recalled how far he had come.
"I am from the divine lightning guild. I have come to deal with the beasts," Noah spoke softly, but he allowed his tier 3 aura carry his voice, expressing his power more subtly.
The expert felt the incredible aura and trembled in fear.
The expert moved from his position, however, and a series of murmurs that Noah could hear due to his powerful ears reached him.
In no time the sound of heavy metal moving disrupted the deadly silence the forest around them had, and three figures exited the gate followed by four peak 2 experts.
"Good day young master," One of the three individuals who were all men in their fifties bowed, while the others bowed too.
"You may rise," Noah commanded playing into the role. He was from the prestigious great guild, his tone and demeanor had to express that, especially before such weak experts. Noah could wipe them out if he sneezed too hard, and he wasn\'t even exaggerating.
"I have come from my guild the divine lightning guild to deal with the beasts that trouble you. May I see the town\'s head?" Noah spoke according to how Lina had explained to him. Before he had left she had explained to him the steps he had to make.
One of the more important ones was meeting the head of a settlement since they probably knew about the mission and would be the ones their payment would come from.
Unexpectedly though, the three men all dressed in fine-looking garments showed confused expressions.
"Young master, which beasts do you speak of?" The man at the forefront asked in a perplexed tone while he glanced at the other ins shared confusion.
Noah furrowed his brows, but due to the mask, no expressions were made. In truth, he looked creepy with the mask.
"This bill states that you need assistance with a pack of magical beasts, I have come to solve that issue," Noah showed them the stamped paper. He was just as perplexed as they were.
"This must have been something from a few years ago young master," The man at the forefront spoke reading through the paper. "Our town has no issues whatsoever with magical beasts. We have been enjoying peace for quite a long time now," the individual added confusing Noah even more.
He recalled Lina telling him when the paper had arrived, and she definitely couldn\'t have been wrong. She had even asked him to take care of it quickly so as not to have it removed.
Noah\'s tall figure remained silent for a while as he seemed to fall into deep thought, but the faceless mask continued to weird them out.
"Young master if you do not believe, why don\'t you see for yourself," the man on the left side commented, gesturing at the slightly opened gate.
Noah nodded in affirmation and they quickly brought him closer to the town until he even peeked inside.
His eyes fell on a bustling community at that point, everything was loud, surprising him how he had not heard anything from outside the gate.
The people looked good and cheerful, not how he expected a town filled with weak existences threatened by a pack of tier 3 beasts should behave.
"I am left with a hard choice at that point," he sighed. "It would seem there have been some mistakes," Noah remarked turning to go find Pride and be on his way. Though he still wondered why she had been so scared, she didn\'t want to get closer.
"Young master you\'ve come all this way, we can\'t let you return without even a proper welcome. It would be an honor to host a member of the great guild divine lightning," The man who had been at the forefront spoke again--his tone pleading.
"You don\'t have to worry. Though I would still like to speak with the village head," Noah made known his intentions, and the individuals accepted, but he had to spend at least a night with them.
Apparently, it was to prepare gifts for his departure. Noah could only wonder if all his guild-mates were always treated like that.
At some point, Noah gave in to their pleading and promised to spend a night in the town.
Of course, he still had lots of reservations as a result of Pride\'s strange reaction, but a part of him couldn\'t help but drop most of his worry when he got to enter the town and witness how weak the humans inside it were compared to him.
His journey throughout the lands of the Cusk nation and the floating city had made him forget the condition of the world outside the guild.
The town didn\'t look poor in any way. It had a few high-end facilities for s town with such weak individuals but that didn\'t change the fact that he could single-handedly level the whole place.
He didn\'t find one expert that entered tier 3,m and most of the mas had power within tier 2, some even held might inside tier 1.
For him, such experts were lesser than ants. He could one-shot higher stage beings at his peak, tier ones and two\'s were beyond weak.
His passage with the three individuals who he would later recognize as the elders of the town since the people called them that; was filled with stares.
Noah stood tall and powerful amid that escort and he soon arrived before a normal building isolated from the rest of the town. It had no details that would make him look twice, but there was something strange nonetheless, but he couldn\'t lay his finger on it,