Capítulo 17: 17 - Fuel
Seeing Noah's reaction, the woman was slightly surprised. "Now, it seems that the little mouse managed to get his hand on some money. What happened? Did you manage to run, desperate for your life during the invasion of a Fortress, and leave with part of the money?" She asked him in a mocking voice.
Hearing what she said, the two Blessed Rank E laughed and looked at Noah with disgust. For them, Blessed who invade Fortresses from time to time, people like Noah were the worst kind of person they could have as an invasion partner, since inside the Fortress he would do nothing but run and not help the team with anything. It could be said that hitting Noah was like a way for them to take revenge on all the useless companions they had in other raids.
Noah could tell well that he had been one of the most important people in the invasion of a Super Fortress, but he would not gain anything from telling them that. Quite the contrary, he had no reason to tell the enemy how powerful he was, and that he was no longer the Blessed one who posed no threat to these Blessed Rank E.
"Where I got the money doesn't matter; what matters is that I have the money in hand." He said in a cold voice. Noah obviously did not want to give the money that he had to risk his own life to get to these people who always had the goal of taking everything from him and his little sister. But he couldn't do anything about it, since if he didn't pay, they would have the right to take their house from them.
Hearing Noah confirm that he really had the money left the secretary surprised. She knew how much a Blessed Rank F usually earned in a Fortress, and seeing that Noah really had enough money to pay the accrued interest piqued the woman's curiosity slightly. "Then transfer the money to my account, now."
Noah took out his cell phone and as he did every week, he transferred the money. Just like that, $900 of the $1,000 he had earned from the Fortress disappeared before he even had a chance to spend any of it. The life of a low rank Blessed was very painful; he knew that soon he'd need to find another way to earn money in addition to the money he would earn from raids of Rank E Fortresses.
Seeing that the $900 was actually deposited into the account, the woman narrowed her eyes and looked at Noah suspiciously. "Boy, tell me where did you get that money from?"
He was no longer in a good mood, having to transfer the money that he almost died to get to this woman, so when he heard her asking from where he got the money, Noah was not the least bit polite. "It's none of your business."
Hearing the "frightened little mouse" whom she always mocked answering her like that hurt the secretary's pride. "Who do you think you're talking to, kid? You're just an F-Rank shit, you don't even have a useful Blessing!… Actually, I think I get it now! You finally started using your Blessing to make money!" she said with a look as if she finally realized something that was plaguing her with doubt.
The two Blessed Rank E thugs looked at her doubtfully, not yet understanding what she meant, until the taller of the two asked, "What do you mean, Miss Jenny? Do you think his blessing was useful in a Fortress?"
Hearing the man's question, the secretary also known as Jenny sighed with disappointment and explained to the man as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Look at the mouse's face! He has a Blessing that made him beautiful. What do you think he can do to make money? Of course he finally understood his place and must have looked for some rich lady to sell himself to her."
Hearing what she said, Noah didn't care at all. That kind of stupid judgment would obviously not affect him. However, what one of the men said next hit the boy's weakness.
"Well, I figured at least he used the Blessing for something. I think it suits him well, being a prostitute. It even reminds me of his mother, with such a hot bod that she made a perfect hoe-" Before the man could finish the sentence, Noah had already advanced towards him while he took the knife out of the small tactical bag he had strapped to his leg.
Noah could tolerate without any problem when anyone spoke ill of him, since for all these years, the number of people who mocked his appearance, strength, and "uselessness" in the Fortresses were countless. But if someone spoke ill of the woman who practically gave her life to look after him and the little sister he swore at his mother's grave to protect, Noah would make that person pay somehow. And seeing as he was strong enough now, he wouldn't be anything more than a coward if he allowed a piece-of-garbage like this man say something like that about those whom he loves.
To say that the man was surprised would be an understatement, since in all these years that he had come to harass Noah, Noah never retaliated, never attacked back. He just always accepted his fate quietly to avoid being beaten more. It was from this which the nickname "frightened mouse" came about, since every time Noah faced danger, instead of fighting back he acted like a mouse and tried to hide.
But not today, today this "little mouse" suddenly decided to show the fangs towards the man. Harassing Noah so many times caused the man to let his guard down near the boy, but the instincts of a Blessed Rank E screamed fast enough to make the man dodge Noah's knife.
With his brain working at high speed, the man started to think about what he could do to hurt Noah. He had received a Blessing from the forest god that made his body receive properties of a wooden log, giving the man more resistance in addition to a denser mass, which helped him to withstand more impacts in addition to increasing the strength of the blows he made.
Thinking that after dodging Noah's stab Noah would have nothing more to do in response, the man had his right arm take on some properties of wood and prepared to hit the boy he thought was helpless. But when he reached for Noah's left hand, he saw something he never imagined he would see him have.
Noah knew very well what the man's Blessing was, since the man had used it a few times to hurt Noah greater with less effort. So when Noah went to attack, he purposely used the knife as a feint and hid his left hand, closed, while waiting for the right time.
He knew that the man would attack him after he "missed" the stab, so when the man turned his own arm into wood, Noah knew that he had gained the advantage in their exchange, since when the man noticed the flame coming out of his left hand, it was too late. The strange wooden arm started to burn strangely.
Seeing wood burning is normal for people - after all, firewood has always been considered one of the main fuels for fire since ancient times. But the way this "firewood" was burning was not normal. The flame was devouring the wood at an alarming rate; before the man could think of doing anything, his hand had already been charred to ashes.
Thinking fast, the man reversed the transformation of his arm so that the arm was no longer wood and the flame would no longer burn anything. But for a flame that, with little experience, managed to burn a Super Boss from a Rank F Fortress, which alone probably had a strength almost at the level of a fully trained Blessed Rank D, burning the flesh of a Blessed Rank E without any protection was only slightly slower than burning wood.
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarggggggghh!" A cry of pain, agony, and despair came from the mouth of the man who did not know what to do while watching his own body being burned as if it were nothing by that strange flame.
If even Noah was surprised at how strong the flame was, since he hadn't tested it yet after absorbing so many monster bodies from the Fortress, there was no need to even comment on the astonishment that Jenny and the other man were feeling when they saw this Blessed Rank E, whom they already knew how strong he was, being burned alive right in front of them as if it were nothing by the flames of someone they considered a weakling.
The two were frozen in place until the screams were gone - not because the man was no longer in pain, but because the man had burned to death by those hellish flames.
Jenny swallowed a mouthful of saliva that she didn't even know she was holding in her mouth and looked at Noah with a strange look. She had seen this boy being bullied without ever fighting back for 4 years. Seeing him now, not only fighting back but killing a man in cold blood, made her have a bad feeling, a feeling that was only confirmed by her, even more, when she saw that in Noah's eyes there was not a shred of fear or excitement. He was looking at the dead man as one would look at a sack of potatoes. And if she was not mistaken, it seemed that the boy even had an almost imperceptible smile on his face as he looked at the charred ash remains of the man, as if he were not even seeing him; it was as if he were just staring at something invisible.
When the boy stopped looking into the void and instead looked into her eyes, Jenny again swallowed another mouthful of saliva that she didn't know she was holding in her mouth.
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Sunday's Extra Chapters Challenge!
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PENSAMENTOS DOS CRIADORES 
Zhanye
Zhanye We really will reach the 2nd goal too? omg... 3 chapters published tomorrow?
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1.000 Stones = 1 Extra Chapter
1.200 Stones = 2 Extra Chapters
+500 Stones = +1 Chapter
[Chapter edited by Azurtha]
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