Noah wasn't about to let the group in front of him know that he didn't even currently have the strength to summon a fire dagger, so with the most imposing appearance he could muster, Noah tried his best not to show weakness in front of these people, because he knew that if he showed something like that, they would be the first to take advantage of him right now. Also if he pushed his luck too far, maybe the situation of extorting these people could even end up reversed, where they would take advantage of the fact that he was currently weakened to try to get something from him instead.
"Hi guys. Did you like the show?" Noah asked with a big sarcastic smile on his face.
When the rich young men saw him approaching, Robert was not the only one who had a sour expression; the other young men did too. The heads of their families or companies were Blessed with Rank C power, the same as they believed this young man in front of them had, that is, if this young man wanted to do something to them, there was not much that their families and companies could do to avoid this, since they had almost the same strength.
"Yes, the battles were incredible. Thanks for making such a great show. Too bad you didn't win the tournament, but I'm sure you could have done it if you weren't up against that guy." One of the young men thought quickly, and no doubt had already begun to flatter Noah.
Seeing how shameless this friend of theirs was being by changing sides so quickly without caring at all how fake it sounded, the other young people realized that this would be a great strategy for them as well, that maybe acting with Noah so he'd just forget that they had ignored him, or just ignored his situation and treated it as irrelevant.
"Yes, for sure, I loved the fights," said a young man.
"Truly a pity that you didn't win. I cheered for you in each battle," said another young man.
Robert, seeing his friends selling themselves that way without any pride, made him feel a little disappointed in them, except he knew he would do the same thing that was in their situation. He just felt uncomfortable being the only one involved in the issue directly, after all, it was him who had made fun of Noah all the way here, and made fun of Noah in front of the rest of them.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt"And you Robert? What did you think of my fights?" Noah asked as he continued to give Robert that sarcastic look.
Seeing Noah looking at him like that, Robert knew that Noah was really angry with him at that moment. But there was nothing he could do but put pride aside and act like his friends were acting now, as if nothing had happened.
"For sure. Just as I imagined, your fights were definitely the best, just like I said before we came. I really thought you could win the tournament. Too bad it didn't happen. But don't worry; if you want I can bring you here next week," Robert replied with a forced smile on his face. He knew that everything he just said was bullshit, let alone believed that Noah would have managed to win the tournament before seeing it with his own eyes. Bringing Noah here the following week would definitely be something horrible for him; the only thing he wanted at that moment was distance from this 20 year old.
Unfortunately for him, Noah was not in the mood to be so friendly anymore. "Really? What about that sacrifice story? About me being something like... too weak to last a round? That you guys would just have fun seeing how I was going to die on stage? Maybe I didn't understand that part," Noah said while perfectly imitating an expression of genuine curiosity.
Seeing that expression on Noah really made the young people believe that he was truly in doubt about it, but seeing how incisive the question was, it was obvious that he was doing it just to taunt them, otherwise he would have asked innocently when they made their comments before he made his.
They couldn't just say that they really thought he was going to die on stage, so with the best smile they each could manage, everyone started to flatter Noah, saying things like "It wasn't exactly that..."
But Noah continued to stare at Robert, waiting for his answer. In fact, he didn't care about these young people themselves; the only person he wanted to take revenge on was Robert, who had brought him to this dangerous place with false promises just to try to trick him and watch him die.
This had already gone too far for Noah. It was one thing for a person to be saying nonsense without knowing what he was talking about; that would not have offended Noah. But the moment Robert plotted for him to die, then Noah felt angry and wanted to make Robert suffer in some way.
"That... actually, I said that just to make you angry and make you work hard to prove that we were wrong. I think it worked, didn't it? Seeing as you came back safe and sound." Robert said while trying to reproduce the best friendly smile he could.
With that, Noah also opened a smile for Robert, but underneath that simple smile he opened, it was possible to see a trace of sadism, which only Robert noticed, and which made him sweat much more than he should have.
When the other young men realized that Noah's problem was specifically with Robert and that he didn't care about them, they quickly thought of an excuse and left as soon as possible, leaving Robert and Noah alone to discuss their problem alone together.
Since Robert had already seen Noah's sarcastic smile and some of Noah's resentful anger, he finally resigned to the fate that awaited him and asked. "Okay, what do you want from me? I'm sorry for earlier; I didn't know you were that strong..."
Hearing what he said, Noah felt even more exasperated. He didn't imagine that anyone could be as shameless as Robert was. He had literally admitted that he thought Noah was weak, so he was planning to let him die, but if he had known Noah was more powerful than he imagined, he definitely wouldn't have done that.
In other words, Noah only survived because he was strong, and Robert did not regret trying to kill him, but rather didn't know that he was strong enough not to die.
Robert did not notice the slip up he made with the words he said, but he did notice Noah's expression getting colder with each passing moment, to the point where it was not possible to read any emotion from Noah's face.
Noah had already lost almost all of his patience on hearing this and just wanted to end it soon, before he just lost what was left of good composure and used Robert's body as a source of fuel right there.
"Okay, let's get this over with. I don't want to see that ugly face of yours ever again, and for that you're going to pay me compensation. Tell me, what are you willing to give me in terms of recompense?" Noah said in an unreadable voice that Robert couldn't tell if he was angry, happy, excited, afraid... nothing. It was just a robotic voice playing in his ears.
"Come on... I'll give you the prize money out of my own pocket... How about that?" Robert asked, a little hopeful that Noah would accept. "Even if you didn't win the prize, to end this dispute that we have, I will give you the same amount of money and we can forget what happened."
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmWhat he said surprised Noah a little. Robert was driving that expensive car, which probably alone could already buy a big mansion with only the purchase price, and yet he still had at least $85,000 in his bank account? "Do you really have that kind of money?" Noah tried to keep his tone from sounding skeptical.
Hearing Noah ask this, Robert got excited and was happy that Noah was apparently interested in the money. In fact, that money was an amount he had saved for emergencies, whether it was days when he couldn't afford the car payments, or if he needed that money for situations like this now. "But of course, I will certainly be able to pass this money on to you. After all, one thing I learned from my father is that the most important thing that a man should value is friendship. So what are a lot of numbers in a bank account if they can't even fix a possible friendship that started off wrong? And that's just what happened to us; we started our friendship wrong, but we can make it better in the future! That amount of money will only be symbolic of that, don't you think?"
Hearing his explanation, Noah controlled himself again not to laugh, but with a serious expression he pretended to ponder and accept. "Okay, I think what you said makes sense. We can use that money to fix our friendship that started off wrong. I mean, it will be just a symbolic amount to fix our friendship, like you said, $85,000 is nothing too important," Noah replied.
Hearing what Noah said, Robert was amazed. He didn't expect Noah to accept just that amount of money as compensation, and if what they were discussing was truly realized, it would be far better for Robert to be friends with a Blessed Rank C than to have that money in his account, after all, Blessed Rank C were big and important people who often did not even mix with other "normal" humans because they had a very high status level. And being able to call one of these people a friend for just $85,000 was very cheap, since the friendship of people like these was priceless. Not to mention that this money would probably also save his life.
"Please give me your account number so I can transfer the money right now, buddy. Let's put this matter aside right away to enjoy our friendship," Robert said with a big smile on his face, this time a little more genuine.
Noah also returned his smile with another smile, while he gave his account number so that Robert could transfer the money to his account.
It didn't even take 10 seconds for Noah to receive notification on his cell phone that the money had been transferred into his account, which made Noah feel a lot better, since he had received $85,000 from Robert and would probably receive another $85,000 from Leon, which would give him $ 170,000 in total. Adding in his share of the prize money from the Valorwatch tournament, Noah would most likely already have enough money to pay for Maggy's treatment, and there would enough money left over for him to pay down his uncle's loan, but Noah also could resolve that without any difficulty by paying a visit to his uncle in a short while.
Opening a smile, Noah turned to Robert and said. "Friend, now that we have resolved our enmity of friendship, I believe that we must now deal with the compensation for you trying to take my life, right?"
Hearing Noah's words, Robert felt his spine freeze.
Please read the author's notes down here! hehe :3 ↓↓↓
We reach 6k votes this week, so we will have 6 extra chapters!
[3/6 Extra chapters this week.] [1/2 Daily Chapter]
Every 900 power stones will be +1 extra chapter for next week beside the 2 daily chapter :)