บท 33: 33 - Punching Bag

Noah looked at Jasper and asked, "As you have been with the group since the beginning, how do you judge the chances of an invasion of the goblin camp?"

Hearing this question, Jasper put a hand on his chin as he pondered. "Honestly, this group is well below average. Both when it comes to combat experience or powerful Blessings, I would say that invading the goblin camp without a spectacular strategy would result in at least two deaths if we were to be as optimistic as possible."

"You already saw what my Blessing is. I believe that there is not much to explain about my flame, right? And what does your Blessing do?" Noah said, maintaining a calm tone, not wanting to expose his own Blessing more than he should. He left Jasper to make his own assumptions about what he had seen and take that to be true.

"I still have doubts about the classification of your Blessing to be honest. I think it is illogical that a Rank F Blessing, as Abigail said you possess, would have as much firepower and destruction as you demonstrated. I believe that, like me, you are also a Blessed One Rank C, probably with a current strength at the top of Rank E? Anyway, I was Blessed by the god of wind as I said, with a Rank C Blessing. My Blessing increases my agility in proportion to the amount of energy I spend, to the point of almost doubling my speed." Jasper replied with a proud look. His Blessing had always been a source of pride since he knew that by training hard he would become a Blessed Rank C in the future, earning thousands of dollars from his strength.

Noah was surprised that Jasper had a Rank C Blessing, but it was just that - a slight surprise. Unfortunately, as Jasper's Blessing contributed so much to his speed, if Noah asked for the dagger as compensation now, even if Jasper gave it to him, they would be greatly weakened in the battle to come, since without a powerful weapon Jasper would not be so useful, unlike Noah who, even with a weaker knife, still had his own flames to cause damage and contribute to the battle.

Leaving the matter of compensation until after the encroachment of the enemy camp, Noah and Jasper talked until the group arrived at the stream.

"Okay guys, let's rest here for two hours. I believe that in that time everyone will be able to restore both the physical endurance and the energy that was spent with their own Blessings, so don't waste this time," Jasper said in a friendly voice to the group, again assuming the role of leader.

This was a good feature that Noah noticed in the man who was only a few years older than him. Jasper, even when he was going to issue an order, did not use an authoritarian tone, always seeming to only give a suggestion to the group. That was the difference between a boss and a leader. Noah knew very well that he would not be able to convey that soothing aura of leadership that would make strangers want to follow him. Perhaps at most he would be able to make people follow him out of fear.

As he had always been treated badly by the other Blessed, his view of the vast majority of them was of a bunch of rude and petty people who only thought about their own benefit. Noah was no different from them; he always cared much more about his own benefit than for the well-being of a stranger, but not as rashly as the other Blessed would have done to the point of pointing fingers and criticizing people just for something that was out of their control.

The group sat around the stream and each person took some pieces of dried meat and energy bars from their own bags to eat. While the mages used something like meditation to recover the energy spent in battle, others were already lying with their eyes closed in a kind of nap to recover their energy. Each Blessed had, over time, developed their own energy recovery tactic after so many invasions of Fortresses. The only one who didn't need this kind of thing was Noah, as [Hell Flames] used bodies and sins as fuel for his energy - that is, as long as he burned the bodies of the monsters he killed, the ability would never expend more energy than it had recovered.

If the Blessed others knew about this, it was very likely that they would spit blood in envy. Who had never dreamed of never running out of energy in a Fortress? However, Noah could still run out of energy during a battle if he couldn't burn a single body during that time, either because he didn't hit the attacks or the monster's body was much more resistant than the flame, just like in the fight against the Super Boss in the Rank F Fortress. Even so, just not needing to recover energy between one battle and another was already something that the rest of the Blessed only dreamed of having someday.

While Noah sat on the branch of a tree taking advantage of the elevated position to keep on the alert for any possible enemy attack and try to mentally rest for the next battle, he saw a woman approaching him. Seeing her expression, a slight and imperceptible sigh left his mouth as he thought. 'Here comes a problem.'

The woman saw Noah's gaze pass over her while he was sitting on the branch of the tree and thought he was going to say something to her, but when she realized that he just treated her as if he hadn't seen her and looked back in another direction, the anger she was trying to suppress because of Noah was already starting to get out of hand. "You've been hiding in the forest since we entered, right? Why didn't you come to help earlier? Because of you, the group almost lost some members."

Hearing this, Noah almost lost the poker face he always wore, switching from disinterest to an expression of astonishment at this woman's lack of shame. At first she had humiliated him by saying that he was weak and that it would just be a delay for the group, and now she was brazen enough to say that it was his fault that they almost lost the battle?

With a cold look, Noah glared at the woman as if he were looking at an idiot. "Did you really come here to say that? I believe that if your memory was not as bad as that of an insect, you would remember who was to blame for my not entering the Fortress with the group. Maybe you won't remember, but how about looking around and seeing if the rest of the group doesn't remember as well?"

As the group had been very quiet in order to rest, even though the two were not talking in a loud voice, it was still possible for everyone to overhear their conversation. At first, hearing what the woman was saying, some people in the group started to be outraged at Noah for not coming to help them at the beginning of the invasion, but after hearing what he said, they remembered who was the real culprit for him not coming along.

They knew that if they had had a Blessed as skilled as Noah in the group, they would not have had to spend as much energy in that endless battle, not needing to recover for so long before breaking into the enemy camp, and not having to waste as much time as they were losing now.

The warriors who suffered some cuts and scrapes, the wizards and archers who were hit with some poison darts that made them weak, all of them began to realize that if they had teamed up with Noah since the beginning of the invasion, none of this would have happened.

When the woman looked around and saw the accusatory looks that people in the group were giving her, she felt ashamed. She had been the Blessed One who lasted the longest in the battle, but that was only because she spent little energy to control her own arrows and she had brought a large stock of arrows to use throughout the Fortress. However, she had almost completely spent the arrows she brought before they even invaded the goblins' camp.

As Noah was very quiet and almost all the Blessed ones cursed him at the Rank F Fortress that she participated in with him, she thought that now he would just be quiet and serve as a good "punching bag" for her to vent her own frustrations, but this had turned out to be the complete opposite of what she expected. Not only did Noah not sit still listening to her complaints, he also responded back and made her the public enemy of the group.

The first time she might have judged that he had changed a little, but being rebuked by him once again in public made the woman reevaluate Noah and realize that the lamb she saw some time ago was now revealing that this image was nothing more than a facade and, in fact, a wolf was hiding inside a sheep's clothing, just waiting to attack whoever came within his reach.

'Maybe I should just put this aside and go on with my life...' The woman thought as she remembered the cold look she received from Noah, quite different from the frightened look he kept on his face the first time she broke into a Fortress with him.

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