By the ti Noah returned, the atmosphere outside felt noticeably different.
Noah’s eyes moved across the gathered creatures, instantly noticing the subtle tension in their expressions and body language. So avoided direct eye contact, while others watched him too carefully.
Even Fenrir’s deanor was different.
The dreadbeast stood at attention as if he never slacked behind a guard, but his eyes followed Noah more attentively than usual, as if trying to gauge his emotional state before deciding how to react.
Noah inwardly sighed.
He had underestimated how deeply his emotions would spread through their bond when they spiraled out of control. The others weren’t just sensing his mood anymore. They were being affected by it.
That wasn’t sothing he could allow to continue. He needed to find a way to prevent that from happening.
Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it right now. There would need to be tests, and before he tried anything, he’d rather focus on improving the distance that had been gradually building.
Noah’s gaze shifted toward the center of the gathered group.
The atmosphere remained awkward, but he didn’t address it directly. Instead, his eyes moved across each of them slowly, lingering on the exhaustion, and even the excitent so of them still failed to hide after the earlier battle.
"I should’ve ntioned this before, but I’m proud of all of you. You all did well... The enemies today were strong. But none of you disappointed ."
"However, what happened today wasn’t special. This... will only be the beginning."
That excitent lingering among so of the monsters eased slightly as they listened.
"The enemies that co next will be stronger. The fights will beco harder. Eventually, it will literally be us against the world, simply because we exist."
His gaze softened slightly afterward.
"But I don’t regret any of this. If I had to choose again, I would still choose to go on this path with you. We will force the world to understand that it can not deny us the right to live."
Noah couldn’t stop himself from being affected by his own speech. Thinking about everything they had been through and what they will continue to go through had almost completely gotten him riled up.
His emotions quickly began to affect the others, filling them with fierce pride.
Fenrir’s chest swelled slightly, resisting the urge to howl. Even Arachne straightened herself, the earlier embarrassnt fading beneath the rising emotions spreading through all of them.
Among them, Gwen looked back and forth between the others before her gaze settled on Noah again. Her hands slowly balled at her sides.
She wasn’t affected by Noah’s emotions like the others were, but she still found herself sympathizing with them.
"So don’t beco satisfied with what happened today. Continue growing stronger..."
His eyes briefly flickered with emotion, causing the others to stir instinctively.
"Because there’s still a chance that we could be consud by this world. And I don’t want any of us dying while regretting that we didn’t try hard enough."
The area fell silent afterward. It was hard to think about. Despite knowing that the possibility was there, none of them regretted staying.
Among all of them, only Pandora looked confused.
"The world? ...Consud?" She repeated, her senses branching outwards to inspect the life around them.
She wasn’t that far from coming to the conclusion that Noah was speaking literally about the world trying to consu them. If that were the case, she began to wonder whether she should consu the world first before it could consu them.
The thought ca naturally to her. For a mont, she pondered draining everything she was connected to.
Both Noah and Gwen had noticed imdiately where her thoughts were headed.
"Pandora... that’s not what I ant."
Pandora’s attention snapped back toward him. She didn’t ask anything else; she rely sat there, waiting for an answer.
Noah paused briefly, trying to think of how to explain it in a way she would understand.
"He doesn’t an the land itself," Gwen spoke softly by Pandora’s side. "He ans the people living in it."
Pandora fell silent after hearing that.
People. She focused on that world as she pondered.
Were monsters considered people? Were the creatures that attacked them people as well? How was she supposed to know the difference?
The more she thought about it, the more she began to believe that people were everything that existed outside their domain.
Her nature led her to observe and understand herself, so instead of speaking, she beca hypervigilant to everything in their territory.
If these "people" eventually ca, then she believed she would naturally co to understand what Noah and Gwen ant once she saw them herself.
Noah could tell imdiately that Pandora still didn’t understand.
But he didn’t address it for now.
As long as Pandora wasn’t about to do anything drastic, then he could take the ti to properly explain it to her later.
For now, there were more imdiate matters to deal with.
His gaze shifted toward the cats and dogs further behind the others, all of them quietly listening in while pretending not to.
"You guys will have to sit this one out for now." Several of them tilted their heads at once.
Noah’s gaze shifted to the side.
"Dog."
The large white beast imdiately straightened at being called.
"Go with them and keep an eye on them. I don’t want a repeat of what happened with Ararchne’s followers."
Dog let out a low bark in acknowledgnt out of habit before his posture turned more serious afterward.
Alexandria didn’t like what she heard.
Her discomfort had little to do with Noah’s warning itself. Instead, her eyes remained fixed on Dog.
The white beast had changed too much compared to before. His strength, his presence, and even the way Noah addressed him made it obvious that he now held a different level of trust among the others.
And that only made the gap between them feel even larger.
A part of her couldn’t help but feel that she and the rest of the cats were slowly being left behind.
That dogs were simply proving themselves more useful.
Dobby noticed her growing restlessness almost imdiately.
The hairless feline slowly approached her side before sitting down calmly beside her, his tail curling neatly around himself.
"There’s no need to rush," he said in his usual calm tone. "Your ti will co."
Alexandria’s ears twitched slightly, but she didn’t respond.
Dobby’s eyes remained half-lidded as he continued.
"Impatience will only expose the inadequacies within yourself."
Alexandria finally looked toward him with a hard-to-distinguish expression.
Dobby didn’t look back at her with judgnt. If anything, he sounded as though he was speaking from experience even though Alexandria was certain that he had neither the experience or the knowledge before their world had changed.
But the trust she had built up with him allowed the tension in her body to slowly ease before finally letting out a long sigh of resignation.
Unfortunately for her, that was also the mont Dog approached them.
The large shepherd werebeast stopped directly in front of the group, his posture straighter than before as he looked over them with an unusual sense of responsibility.
—
Noah watched as they distanced themselves, only stopping when they reached the cover of the trees, so they continued to observe.
He then looked around to the creatures that were left. He could sense that so of them were nervous, and then there were those that were already anticipating what was about to happen, looking as if they were about to go through a battle.
And finally there was only one who didn’t have a clue what was going on. Unfortunately, he also happened to be the one Noah worried about the most.
Noah helplessly shook his head before acting without another word.
Five tendrils shot out from his body, weaving past the others in the group fast enough to make several of them instinctively tense.
However, Noah wasn’t looking at any of them.
It was only after the tendrils had completely passed them that they realized Noah’s attention was never focused on them.
They cald slightly before turning to follow the tendrils’ direction.
It only took a glance to realize who the target was.
And once they understood, most of them imdiately accepted that Noah was making the right decision.
Dummy, however, had no idea what was happening.
The gluttonous beast rely looked around in confusion as the tendrils rapidly closed in around him.
He had only been curious about what they brought back.
They were supposed to fight a new enemy, and a new enemy ant a different type of food he had never tasted before. The stronger the enemy was, the more delicious they usually turned out to be.
Unfortunately, Dummy had missed nearly everything.
During Ethaniel’s attack, the glutton had apparently wandered toward the outer edge of their territory searching for food after growing bored. At so point, he had found sothing large enough to satisfy him, only to gorge himself until he fell asleep afterward.
By the ti he returned, everything had already ended.
Noah still didn’t know whether to feel relieved or irritated.
More importantly, Dummy should never have been able to leave the territory so easily in the first place.
Noah’s eyes briefly shifted toward Pandora.
The dryad noticed the look imdiately, tilting her head slightly in confusion.
To Pandora, there had been no reason to stop one of "theirs" from leaving.
Noah inwardly sighed.
That would have to change.
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