Meeting Two Strangers

The next day Alice and Noah spent the morning travelling like they normally did. Along the way clearing dungeons.

They had just left a D Class Dungeon.

Alice holding the reins of her horse sighed, "That was difficult, it took forever just to kill one monster. Then the Dungeon Lord seemed unkillable, the defence just keeps on increasing as we go to higher classes. Actually, isn't the defence of monsters similar to health points in video games? I guess if monsters had low Defence we could kill them in two shots."

Just as Noah was about to respond he focused in front of him, "Alice someones approaching, be alert." He dipped his bamboo hat lower to hide his face. Alice took out her mask and wore it.

Alice soon sensed them as well. Two men walking saw Noah and Alice on their horses.

"Finally someone! Greetings, can you tell us the direction of PurpleCloud Town, our map was torn so we lost our way." One of the men said. They both were young, around their early twenties. The other looked towards Alice and was stunned by her beauty.

Her purple eyes glowing with her dark flowing hair and black mask veiling her face gave her an ethereal look. Other than her looks, he was also surprised by what she had equipped.

Noah pointed in the direction of PurpleCloud Town.

"Thank you so much." The man smiled and gave a slight bow of the head, then dragged away the stunned man as he left.

Noah and Alice started moving forward. But as he did he felt his emotions drop. Through his Spatial Sense, he was able to see the two men talking to each other with gestures as they walked.

He couldn't tell for sure, but it seemed like they were planning on doing something bad. Pushing it to the back of his mind, Noah continued forward.

...

The two men came to a stop far away from where they had met Noah and Alice.

"Were you able to form tracking marks on them?"

"I formed one on the girl, the boy looked dangerous. It might be better to skip these two" The man who had been stunned said. He had a talent that allowed him to form a mark on and constantly track anyone he had seen.

"Didn't you see what they were wearing? The girl had two pieces of armour and two high-class daggers. The two staffs and gun the boy hung on his back both looked expensive as well. Plus, they are loaded, the horses they were riding cost at least 3 silver per day. It's worth the risk." The other man who had spoken to them said.

The young man who was uncertain was convinced, "We'll do it the same as last time then? Follow them until they camp and then take action?"

"This time we shouldn't kill them after I put them to sleep, let's tie them up and have them empty their inventories and then kill them."

...

After a while, Noah couldn't sense the men so he hadn't said anything. Alice didn't seem to have noticed their intentions and he didn't mention it.

Just like the men had judged Noah and Alice, Noah had judged them. He noticed that the men had a scent of blood coming off of them. They had likely killed humans since monster blood was different from human blood and didn't have the iron-like scent.

They went and cleared another D Class dungeon and then set up camp for the day. As they sat around a fire and ate Noah sensed people approaching. They were quite far so Alice still hadn't noticed.

"Are you going to sleep now?"

"You aren't?" Alice looked back at Noah.

"I'll go for a short walk and then come back." Noah got up and left. He took off a staff from his back. It was his new favourite staff, the Gravitational staff. He then dropped the Levitation Staff and flew in the direction the two men were in.

Holding both the Gravitational Staff and Black Wind Noah came to a stop above the men.

"How much further are they? We just need to get close enough so they can hear my flute, then they won't be able to wake up for the next five minutes."

"They are still some distance away, the horses they are riding on are fast, it'll take time to catch up."

"Oh, it's you guys from before, what are you doing here? PurpleCloud Town is in the other direction." Noah loudly said as he floated down.

The men were shocked by the sudden voice, then saw Noah, they both looked at each other and immediately pulled out their weapons. One of them pulled a silver flute and the other a bow and arrow.

The man with the Flute started playing, while the man with the bow pulled his arrow back and shot it.

A Mana Screen formed and blocked the arrow. Noah then released the Gravitation Staff activating its skill as he dropped it. The staff stuck out straight from the ground as it formed a stronger Gravitational Field around the men pulling them down.

The two fell to their knees trying their best to stand up, they couldn't use their weapons anymore and started to panic. The man who was playing the flute tied his best to finish casting but Noah wasn't affected. Noah moved in closer but staying out of the field or he would be pulled down as well.

"I'm sorry, we shouldn't have attacked you! I was against it but he forced me to do it. Please don't kill me." The man who had been reluctant earlier begged. He barely knew his partner so didn't mind betraying him.

"What?! You wanted to go after them just as much as I did! Stop lying!" The man with the flute yelled.

Noah, bored by their act pulled up his gun and was about to shoot them.

"No, don't kill me!" The man who had begged earlier, threw his hand out in the Gravitational Zone an item appearing in it, taken from his inventory.

Seeing the object thrown at him Noah Flash Stepped back and shot three times. The item thrown exploded as the bullet hit it. The men near it were caught in the explosion then killed by Noah's bullets.

Noah pulled up his Gravitational Staff and looked at the two corpses with mixed feelings. He didn't like killing people, he would have them go if they turned back and left instead of attacking him. However, he stopped feeling bad remembering they were still alive on earth.

The two corpses slowly disintegrated and dropped equipment, just like monsters. The items of their inventory hadn't dropped rather all the items they were wearing as well as two skill books.

Noah put away the items that dropped. A piece of armour had dropped, but he didn't wear it since the attributes weren't great and weren't enough to make him wear something that was worn by a criminal and now corpse.

One of the skills that dropped was interesting.

[Lv.1 Blind]

E Class

Lower the targets ability to sense by casting a -5 Sense for 20 seconds debuff onto them.

Cast time: 5 seconds

Cooldown: 2 minutes

Noah learned the skill and put the other away and went back to camp. After resting for a while he left to clear dungeons alone. He had consistently kept at it till now since his combat style was always changing. Each new skill and equipment required constant practice so that he wouldn't make mistakes and was always improving.