Entering the house, Noah carefully observed the surroundings. His eyes traced the dark mana for a few moments before he moved towards the source. And as the usual cliche goes, it was coming from a hidden floor door below the carpet where the basement was.
-Creak!!
And opening up the basement door with ease, Noah observed the light coming from below. It wasn't the light from magic, but from fire lamps that were placed at the walls of the basement.
[Should I increase your stats?](Elios)
'No. Let's keep that as a hidden card.'(Noah)
Noah slowly walked down the stairs, erasing the sound of his steps using the movements that he had honed in his previous life. In a way, he even erased his complete presence for now, while moving down.
"You go and check."
A voice came from below followed by the voice of steps coming towards the stairs.
[Self-Curse: Limited Inversion!
Grade: D
Effects:
-Makes the user extremely difficult to notice by the naked eye! All those who would try to look at him, will start having difficulty with their vision!
-Makes the user difficult to approach! People would feel irritation around the user! And those who try to reach him, will have random strokes of bad luck!
Cooldown: 5 Minutes!]
And with that, Noah moved slowly down, keeping himself in areas which were darker than others.
The man slowly reached up, his eyes trying to analyze the stairs and the open door, totally ignoring Noah who was hiding in the shadows right beside him. Though, rather than killing him, Noah slowly moved down and tried to analyze the situation without getting caught.
Perhaps because these were normal people, they were not able to sense Noah's presence, unable to find him even though the amount of light was fairly enough.
[Four normal people. Don't seem to be dark mages. Hmmm… what's that? Noah. Can you focus on that strange circle on the ground?](Elios)
The basement was about 50 meters wide, and 50 meters long, making it quiet big for an ordinary house. Perhaps it was connected even with the other houses around here, though only one entrance was present, through which Noah just entered.
'Found them.'(Noah)
And at the moment, Noah found a bunch of people tied up in the corner. There were 4 girls and 2 boys, ties up in a corner, probably unconscious, right now.
"There is no one boss. But the gate is open. What should we do?" The one went above, came back down, a bit scared right now.
"Since the gate was open, somebody was definitely there. Could be a child who came for the kid? Or perhaps one of the soldiers… damn… why did we even kidnap her?" Another one spoke, while they were all contemplating on what to do.
"Let's wait for the sir Mage to come. After that we will leave from here. He should be here any moment now. Just a few minutes and we will get out of this forsaken city once and for all," spoke the man who seemed to be the leader of the group here.
[What should we do? Saving them does take priority but it would be nice if we can get that mage as well. What should we do?](Elios)
-Whoosh!
And Noah, who couldn't put the life of a child on the line, moved to take out the bandits by himself. First of all, Noah had no idea if he could fight that mage with the hostages here. His best bet was to save them all and then figure out what to do next after that.
-BOOOM!
A punch to the face, knocking one out completely. While Noah wanted to kill them all, he decided not to. They didn't seem to have done anything wrong other than kidnapping.
[Ah! I remember now. That's a summoning circle. It uses sacrifices to summon monsters from other world.](Elios)
-Crush!
[You have killed a Human (Evil Alignment)!]
[You have gained +50 Exp]
[+10 Karma!]
There were messages that made Elios both happy and a little sad. While the reward for killing them was fine, killing a human being wasn't something that he was still not used to. Despite not being the one who actually took action, he was somehow was able to share the emotions with Noah, in these cases.
As for Noah…
[You have killed a Human (Evil Alignment)!]
[You have gained +50 Exp]
[+10 Karma!]
[You have killed a Human (Evil Alignment)!]
[You have gained +50 Exp]
[+10 Karma!]
He killed three of them, with the only one left was the one who was knocked out. Though Noah didn't had any thoughts of letting him live either.
"[Bind]"
And then a voice came as dark vines appeared out of thin air, binding Noah in his place. Noah's eyes then looked at the man walking down the stairs from above.
"They were pretty useless. But still, that doesn't mean you can kill them, young one?"
A Dark Mage. And a very powerful one at that.
"I-"(Noah)
"Nuh uh. No prayers in my presence. Unless of course you are praying to the God of Chaos," the Dark Mage spoke as his smile brightened before he moved down. He reached closer to Noah, analysing him for a few seconds before speaking,
"Seems like you have been cursed by someone. A pretty interesting curse, I must say. Too bad, that's all that you amount to."
Elios was just about to make Noah berserk again but before he could do so…
"And I was really going to get angry if he didn't appear," the voice of a woman appeared from behind. Noah looked from the corner of his eyes, only to find two of those women were now standing now, walking closer to them.
"Hmm? Ladies shouldn't you-"(Dark Mage)
"[Silence]" one of those women, the one with long black hair, spoke as she looked at the dark mage with a slightly cold and irritated gaze. Her eyes then looked at Noah and then at those dead guys down there before she sighed,
"Making my work harder. Always you temple people."
"Miss Iris means she is thankful for doing your duties," and then the other girl, this one with long azure hairs, spoke as she smiled at Noah before looking at that dark mage who was unable to speak even a single word.
His eyes shocked, he took a step back before trying to run away from here. He even undid Noah's bind, ignoring everything else just to run away from here.
"[Heavy!]" (Azure haired girl)
As the azure haired girl spoke, the dark mage got on his knees, barely able to lift himself up. She then looked at me with a kind smile before taking out a paper. It was similar to the request that I had taken, except it seemed more formal and neat.
[Missing disappearance? Sights of cold mana? Hmmm… seems like the adventurer guild already put it to issue, huh? Wait! A-Ranked Quest?!! No wonder he was so strong!](Elios)
"Hurry up, Everice. Sir Neptune asked us to finish this and meet with him this evening. He seemed serious about it."(Iris)
"As you say Miss Iris. Ah! Kid. Can you help those people out? They would be confused a little but you can sort it all out right? We will leave it to you."(Everice)
And under the slightly stupefied gaze of Noah, the two insanely powerful girls took the last man as well as that Dark mage with them. As for Noah, he looked at his own hand, wondering if he could have came out alive if he were alone right now.
And the answer to that was…
[You have me. And then your skills aren't half bad. While it may have been tricky, I doubt we could have died here. Although, if the mage was more powerful than this… I don't know about that.](Elios)
Noah came to the same conclusion as well. In the end he sighed before moving to those unconscious ones while mumbling,
"Let's earn some Karma and then get some useful skills first."
[Sure.](Elios)