Chapter 54: 54. TENSION
Feeling a strong tug on his left hand, which pulled him towards that position. Noah watched in utter shock and surprise, a metallic spear, wheeze past his former position, and struck the sitting Matthew on his head, piercing it, and killing the man on the spot.
It took Noah only a milisecond to understand that, James had saved his life. He didn’t always expand his consciousness, because it hurt his head, when it was out for an extended period of time. Which was why he didn’t notice the spear.
Immediately the spear struck Matthew, it didn’t take another second, before multiple spells were launched by the rest of the team, who had reacted almost immediately.
Large explosions resounded due to the collusion of spells. Immediately that event happened, Noah saw the figure of Luke jumping down the carriage, as they all formed a circle, each of them protecting themselves.
At that point, Noah was able to expand his consciousness, as surprise still filled his mind. Though his consciousness had not been out, he ought to have sensed the attackers presence, but he sensed nothing, which was really weird.
Though twenty five meters wasn’t much, whoever that attacked should be within such a range, or at least he would be able to sense another attack.
Multiple minutes passed, as no other attacks appeared, the tension building inside their minds reached new levels, as nobody wanted to be the next target.
Eventually something happened, but it wasn’t an attack, it was the sound of footsteps, which belonged to Luke.
Walking out of the circle, Luke went towards the dead body of Matthew, seemingly ignoring the scene, he removed what looked to be a scroll from the end of the spear.
Reading it’s contents, Luke’s expression changed to that of calmness, which made the already overflowing tension, rise even more.
“You all should calm down, they are currently gone,” Luke’s voice rang out, as he seemed to try and hold back the anger, that was beginning to find it’s way through his calm expression.
No one moved for another minute or so, each of them seemingly reviewing his words, until it dawned on them, ‘They are gone, how?’, each of them said Inwardly.
Seeing that his employees were calm, Luke walked towards the carriage and entered it.
Everyone stopped raising their weapons at that point. It seemed Luke was right, since at this point over thirty minutes had passed since the spear.
Though their guards weren’t down completely, as each of them apart from Noah, couldn’t help but get jumpy.
This didn’t happen to Noah, because his consciousness was already out, and he had activated the effects of the speed force, which made his perception of the environment, even more slower than normal.
Storing his staff inside his inventory, Noah’s eyes fell on James, as he opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted.
“You don’t have to thank me, just manage to stay alive until we get out of here,” James said, as his eyes were on the dead body of Matthew.
It didn’t seem to bother him too much, but Noah could see that he was currently reminiscing. So he only nodded, and decided to leave him alone to his thoughts.
Noah swept his gaze on the figures of the remaining six mini experts in his team.
Astonishment couldn’t help but flow inside Noah’s mind, when he saw that none of them had fear on their expression. They simply looked worried, and battle ready.
Smiling lightly at that sight, Noah decided to have start a conversation with them.
Walking over to their position. The six had all sat in a circle, to probably always have someone watching their backs.
“Hey,” Noah said as he sat amongst them. His figure seemed to bring surprise to their faces, as they all followed his movements with their eyes.
“It’s been one heck of a day,” Bern said, as his gaze landed on Matthews corpse, before returning back to them.
They all did the same, until a sigh escaped their mouths. “Do y’all think he had a family?,” Jessica the middle aged woman said.
Silence reigned in their midst, until Noah talked, “Who knows, the only person that does is him,” pointing at the corpse.
“After all we all signed up for this, knowing it would be dangerous,” Noah added, and the others nodded.
Although they were all forced to be present for the mission, they still didn’t complain, as the pay enticed them into staying. After all if they so wanted, they could have escaped during the journey.
“So what should we do now?”, Henry the mid twenties man said.
“We can only obey what our employers say,” James butted in, and sat down beside Noah. Nobody complained about that gesture, as they had all seen, that he was the reason Noah was alive. Some even began see him in a new light.
They all nodded at the answer, and all glanced at the carriage, that had been silent for a while now.
It seemed whatever Luke read was directly connected to their mission, or the situation in the Holon family.
They sat like this for hours, as talks about their life and situations spread, that activity really helped in reducing the tension.
Although they were considered moderately powerful in the lower society, someone in that same status had died in the blink of an eye, without leaving any trace of his existence.
Nobody wanted that to happen to them, which was why they all silently agreed to talk about their life. In the span of a few hours, Noah learnt a lot about the personalities of his team members, which greatly relived them of their situations tension.
During their talks, Bern had brought up the question of their Elemental affinities, and ‘Jonas had been the first to answer, which was that he had an affinity for Fire. Followed by ‘James who had an affinity for water, then ‘Bern who had an affinity for earth, then ‘Jessica who also had an affinity for earth, then ‘Henry who had an affinity’ for wind, then ‘Heath the woman who looked the oldest, who had an affinity for water.
Followed by ‘Mona who was the youngest looking woman, she suprisingly had an Affinity for ice, and was on her way to Crilion to meet a guild agent. Though she had not mentioned which guild, many ideas formed in the minds of the others.
Finally it got to Noah’s turn, when he told them about his double affinity, the look of surprise still on their faces due to Mona’s element, vanished as it went through different changes, which ranged from astonishment, to envy, then back to surprise.
It seemed double affinity users had a bigger chance at reaching greater heights in life.
Eventually they spent the whole night talking, none of them felt the least bit sleepy, as their meal coupled with the still present tension, and the fact that they were tier 2’s in the middle stage, made that possible. Heck they could stay a week without sleeping, though that would put a lot of strain on their bodies.
It was when the sun rose, that they saw the figures of Luke, and his young master Augustus.
Although unlike his normal calm expression, Augustus’s face radiated coldness and anger, as he swept his gaze across the already standing mini experts, and lastly the covered corpse of Matthew.
Then back on his still-alive employees, as his voice; which sent chills down the spines of everyone present, rang out. “There has been a change of plans”.
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*Author’s note*
I found that most people don’t read the authors note, so I’ll be staying here whenever I want to pass out an important information. Thank you.
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