Chapter 341 341 - Maggie's Avatar
"You mean, play together like a family?" Bel asked, still looking up to Noah and Lilith as something akin to his parents.
"Sure, why not?" Seeing Bel's eccited face, Noah agreed without much thought. After all, the thought of how Lilith would show to portray herself in-game was something that wouldn't slide off his head. However, there was still the question whether the tiara would be able to pick up her thoughts like it did with regular humans. The workaround of having her become massive to make her head larger was not a guaranteed thing, and there was still the chance she wouldn't even be able to log in.
But a loud yawn made everyone focus on the person who was thinking the hardest in the room. Noah himself putting it out.
"Are you getting sleepy already? It's not even past 10 yet," Maggie looked at him like a pup, wanting to play around a little more before he left once again.
"Yeah, I'mma go head to bed just about now." But Noah paid her no mind, making the girl pout.
"Noah, can we stay here a little more? I wanna finish that fight," Bel asked, even though he had blamed Maggie for watching it before.
"Sure, just don't stay up all night," Noah told him, before turning and pinchinh Maggie's pouting cheeks and letting Lilith coil up his leg.
'Are you sure about that?' Lilith asked him, as he turned to leave. 'You know she'll probably spend the whole night watching the arena fights.'
'I mean, yeah. But we have nothing to do tomorrow aside from going out to buy Bel and you a phone and getting myself a better setup for playing Valorwatch,' he responded, waving at the kids and walking back towards the room. 'Also, I'm really tired right now, and if I told them to leave the tv, I'd have to deal with them until sending them off to bed.' Noah was, at this point, only lazing off of his duty to take care of the two. But them already being fairly responsible, and having no obligations, a single day sleeping late shouldn't be that big of an issue.
Getting himself to bed, Noah soon closed his eyes, and slept.
Only to once again have a strange dream.
'Just what the fuck?!' he thought, as he raised his upper half from the bed, only small fragments of the cacophony of screams and pained moans remaining in his head. By his side, Lilith was sleeping, coiled in her usual self, the windows still showing the darkness of night. "I wonder when the nightmares will stop..." he murmured, before shakign his head, and going back to sleep.
"Noah?" Lilith's voice sweetly called him, making him open his eyes to the image of the snake in front of him.
"What, did something happen?" he asked, half-asleep.
"Maggie knocked on the door just now. It's lunch time already," she said, sliding off him as he raised himself, and stood out of bed.
"Already? Damn, I slept a lot," he said as he went straight to the wardrobe, and picked a change of clothes. "Wanna wait for me with them or here?" he asked, as he walked towards the bathroom, looking back to see the snake crawling into the sheets.
"I'll wait here for a bit," Lilith said, lazing off, as he went get himself ready.
"The hell is wrong with you? I think you slept over 20 hours hours since yesterday," Carlos welcomed him to the table with a caustic remark, just as usual.
"I was probably too busy at night you know, with your... Not today, the kids can't hear this," he cut himself off, making Carlos and Maggie burst into laughter. "Did they leave?" he asked Carlos, as he did not see any mention of his parents anywhere.
"Yeah, they left for the capital early in the morning. On another note, Maggie said you want her to play Valorwatch?" He turned to him, as Noah sat across from him at the table.
"I think it would be good for her to learn how to deal with blessed." He shurgged, as he started to serve himself.
"Don't you think you sister would become... erm... a bit of an urban legend in game?" Carlos asked him, taking a sip off his glass of juice.
"What the hell do you even mean with that?" Noah asked, confused, as he stared into Maggie's playful expression.
"You know, the whole putting people on fire thing," Carlos continued, still sipping his juice.
"Guess she's be a fire demon, then," Noah said while still serving himself, and started to eat, leaving Carlos staring blankly at him without any expression.
"Did he just ignore me?" he asked Lilith, with a dumbfounded face.
"Yep, he did," the snake confirmed, though holding back on laughing. "Maggie, did you already chose how you'll make your character?" Lilith changed subjects, as Noah ate, trying to strike a more meaningful conversation since Carlos shriveled up like a raisin and started eating in silence.
"Um, I'm not so sure yet. I think I could make it something like a fire elemental type monster since I'm gonna set things on fire all around," she said excitedly, making Noah raise an eyebrow, but continue to eat his meal without issue. "By the way, Noah, are you ever going to play with us using your Lucifer account?" Maggie turned to him, asking something he was still thinking about.
"I mean, probably yeah. It's not like I am a professional player," he said, as he grabbed a glass.
"If anyone who plays and knew you were the lucifer who won last tournament heard this, they'd probably curse you to hell and back," Carlos murmured, looking away, which prompted Noah to use Hell Tunelling to appear behind him.
"No need to curse me. I already go there and back often," he joked on his ear, making Maggie laugh at Carlos' scare.
"Noah! Don't do that, man... If you get that chair stained from the fire mom's gonna be really annoying," Carlos complained.
"That's just an excuse. The issue is that you almost peed your pants," Noah teased him, as he walked around the table back to his seat.
"Oh, fuck you!" Carlos cursed, while Maggie and Bel laughed at the whole situation.
Most of lunch was this kind of thing, until Noah called Maggie and Bel out. "You two, get yourselves dressed for us to go buy the stuff to play," he told them, making the two hop up their seats and run towards the inside, leaving him, Lilith, and Carlos back at the table. "Now, Carlos, man, I need your opinion on this whole thing," he said, making carlos raise his gaze from his phone. "Is it the right time for her to get used to attacking blessed? Or should we wait a little more?" he asked. His doubt was plastered across his face that was so expressioness it felt odd.
"I don't know, man. I understand you being afraid of her hurting people and also being hurt... Maybe we should stick with the Imps for a lottle more?" Carlos said while shrugging, before changing subjects, "By the way, we dealt with the outsiders. It was just a couple people that were recently hired, so I hope we won't have that problem again."
"I see..." Noah tapped the table with his fingers, before talking more. "I'm still waiting on Marcel about the missing Essence. I think he's probably caught the person already," he said, thinking about yesterday morning.
"... About that thing, Noah, don't you think it's kinda weird it all disappeared under his nose even though he knew that people were going after it?" Lilith asked, making the two young men turn and face her, contemplationg her words.
"Do you mean, he may know something about it?" Carlos asked, probing Lilith's opinion which left Noah a little shocked.
"I mean, I can't know for sure, but if he knew the risks, having it happen is strange. Also, the amount they took wasn't small enough to think we wouldn't notice, but also not large enough that it made it worth the risk of facing the anger of the Khan Family," Lilith started, her words souding a little pensive, as she pondered over the things. "It would make sense for him to at least know it happened, especially if the Family's Essence store is lacking," she completed the thought, leaving Noah a little aprehensive, until his phone rang, pulling his attention towards it.
"Talking about the devil," Noah said, seeing Marcel's name on the caller id.
As soon as that happened, as he was connecting the call, Carlos started signing him, prompting him to put the call of loudpeaker. "Hey man, what's the news," he asked, not specifying much about the subject, and waiting for Marcel's answer.
[Not much, really. I just wanted to tell we found the person that took your essence.] The voice came from the phone, and Noah was about to accept it without word, until he completed. [There's just a little problem we need to deal with,] Marcel's voice said, leaving Noah incredibly weary.
"Say," he spoke in a single, short, and concise word, waiting for Marcel's explanation.
[So, what happens is, he didn't have any of it on him anymore when we aprehended him,] he said, taking a deep breath. [And since we can't exactly verify how much essence there was before and after the thing, I'll need your help to make sure you get recompensated for it,] he said, to which Carlos frowned, movign his mouth and pointing at his ear, signaling Noah to take more attention to the next few sentences. [Are you okay with being paid for them in cash?] he asked, almost throwing Carlos into a fit of laughter.