Chapter 118 – Taking a break with creepy dinner

While Samantha's team rested, Noah, looted the dead bodies in the hope to find some useful clues that would lead them to the enemy's second team's location. After the search, he stored the corpses and sprayed the forest with the smell-covering powder that he found in the assault team's possession in abundance.

For an assassination team such as this, this kind of alchemical compound was a must-have thing. Adventurers used it sparingly as it only served them in rare cases they hunted monsters with a keen sense of smell. Assassins on the other hand would need to cover track to get away safely.

Walking from place to place, Noah covered the traces of their presence in the forest with the battle golems approving gestures when it confirmed that it could not feel any more traces of enemy smell around them.

Even with the new body, the wolf had the same large circle of detection on Noah's minimap, confirming that all his abilities from the previous body had transferred into this new body, including its keen sense of smell, which was even better than the werewolf's. With these actions, they hopefully prevented future problems with the Bloodhound clan that might send some people to trace their missing kin. The entire time they performed these actions, their every move was intently watched by the three women.

"You are quite good with your trace-covering actions." Said, Lilly. "You used to be an adventurer?"

"I am an adventurer. Although I am just a newbie with just a month of active duty on my shoulders, I had to run away quite a few times already, so I learned my lesson and studied some counter-tracking theories. From books mainly."

"I see. That explains it. You forgot something." Said, Lilly.

"What?" Asked Noah

"You covered the traces of those assholes but did not spray yourself or us. Now when we start moving we will leave a new smell all around the place. Before erasing smells all over the place, you have to make sure you would not leave any of your own smell around the place too."

"Oh. Right." Said, Noah. He gave the women a bag of powder to erase their own smell. Then sprayed Brianna himself and Wolf. After that, they walked around the place erasing their recently left smell traces all over again.

"Was there anything useful in their possessions?" Asked Samantha, standing up after their rest.

"Nothing to lead us in any direction." Said Noah and Samantha's face became gloomy.

"Then we have no other choice than to backtrack to the place where we were attacked and search for their traces on the way. But if they all had this powder…"

"Maybe we'll find some other traces. Footprints or something." Said Noah thoughtfully.

"We would have to be ready for ambushes. Getting close to our hideout where we were ambushed might be dangerous. Someone may be waiting for us there."

"Let's hope they do. At least then we will have someone to interrogate. Wolf is very good with presence detection. He can find an ambush with no problem. And we can communicate from a distance so if he goes ahead of us, we will have enough time to make a plan and take action against them. In case of danger, I can simply unsummon him so that he would not get harmed." Said Noah nonchalantly.

All three women nodded with impressed expressions. They never met a Tamer before as it was quite a rare system, however, if every tamer had such abilities as Noah, then it was understandable why they were so highly esteemed in the Adventurers' Guild.

Noah once told Samantha that he was a Tamer, so he opted to go with this cover, for now, deciding to not give out too much information. If they found some of his skills did not coincide with what they knew of Tamers, then he would just lie that he is a bit of a special case.

Once the women were done recovering they quickly traveled in the direction that the girls run from two days ago in hopes to find any clues that might lead them to where Danny was held.

In their wounded and exhausted states they traveled for two days, with Noah's stamina potions and slime that could lessen the potion overuse aftereffects, the same road took them barely a day. Still, potions were not omnipotent and could not exchange rest and sleep. As they hurried a lot and moved with quite a quick pace, even with the stamina potions, their bodies could only go so far without a good rest, and by the end of the day, they felt their bodies give up on them. To prevent any dangerous situation where they had to fight fully exhausted with stamina potions not taking any more effects they decided to take a break.

Noah also worried that with the speed they burned through the potions he had in stock, they would soon run out of them. After all the only potions he had on him were only the ones he and Brianna crafted in the last few days of their cooperative search for the best product for sale. His previous stock, including all the potions he stole from Samantha's party, were all used up in the fight for the ruins of Vega village, where he made more than thirty poison slimes to save adventurers. After that, he did not get the time to restock before he had to leave the town because of the shadow hit squad.

As the potions were less effective from their utter exhaustion right now, it was smarter to take a good rest before continuing any further.

So far they did not find any traces of the enemy's second team and Noah saw that the three women's faces were getting gloomy with every minute they lost searching for their friend. But they were a professional team of experienced adventurers and understood their priorities well. If they were too exhausted they would not be able to save their friend at all. Rest was a must.

Moving slightly off the path they were following, they made a small camp in the forest. Luckily camping gear and travel food were in abundance among the looted stuff so Noah and Brianna did not have to lie on the ground.

"We should put a watch." Said Samantha when they found the place to stop.

"Don't worry about it. Wolf and my snakes don't need rest. They will guard the perimeter. Brianna left some threads that would alarm us of any movements as well." Answered Noah.

Samantha warily looked over the two strange beings falling on the ground from Noah's arms and slithering through the grass after hissing at each other for a few seconds. Then she watched the Wolf's back as he headed into the forest lush in silence. She nodded without commenting on their actions, thankful to be able to rest without worry, which would quicken their recovery.

Cooking food on the fire at this moment was an unnecessary risk, so everyone opted to make do with dry food and water. Even though they accepted Noah's offer to help, it did not mean they accepted him as a trustworthy ally, so the camp was divided into two where Noah and Brianna sat some distance from Samantha's party.

Brianna, who was raised in a shut off from the world environment for the best part of her life, until she and her sister mastered the metamorphosing skill, with the only other place they ever visited being her aunt's mansion and the closest to the mansion town, felt immense joy from every little thing that she now experienced. Just eating dry food while sitting on the camping mats in the forest brightened her face with a joyous smile. She dreamed of getting out of her home and going on an adventure her entire life. And here it was. Her dream come true.

Noah rolled his eyes with a slight smile, seeing her naive girl's joyous smile, but could not help but be happy from letting her experience this joy. Even though this all happened spontaneously.

As they ate in silence, Samantha caught herself staring at Noah and the girl that was sitting at his side with a wide happy smile on her face while chewing the dry jerky as if it was a delicacy. She quickly averted her gaze with a slight blush that she hoped no one noticed, however, Kate and Lilly looked at each other with raised eyebrows noticing their party leader's behavior but opted not to comment.

Once they were done with their quick bite, the three women sat on their sleeping mats that they took out of dimension sacks and quickly closed their eyes making use of every minute to save as much time as possible. Lilly fell into a deep sleep almost immediately. Kate sat in the lotus positions, choosing to use her mages meditation skill, which could pretty much exchange the sleep while also quickening her mana recovery and strengthening her spirit for easier future development.

Just like for warriors that needed constant training in martial arts, simply leveling up for mages was far from enough to make them competent. Only idiots and nobles would quickly level up without building their base with meditation. First ones, because they only thought of how to show off with their levels yet were forever seen as subpar mages at most, while later usually needed just to complete a level quote forced on them by the Royal family, before sinking back into their serene life and not caring that they lacked as mages. After all, they had the money and prestige to hire others to perform tasks for them.

Samantha lay with her eyes closed but Noah could feel that she did not sleep. From time to time she would throw a sneaky gaze in his and Brianna's direction, where they sat chatting in whispers.

After some time Noah noticed his serpentine companions return. One after another Rope and Whip slithered through the grass dragging with them some small prey they caught in the forest. For simple sustenance, they both only needed the energy that Noah provided them with through their connection, as Noah and the System have so far understood from his experience with slimes. Consuming the food was only needed for regeneration or advancement.

In Whip's case, Noah noticed that it could pierce the body of its prey with the thorns that could appear from its body and suck the small animal's blood, leaving behind the bloodless corpse.

For rope, however, there was no way for consuming anything. It simply strangled the small animal it caught and left its body at Noah's feet before slithering back into the bushes.

Before Noah could hide the corpse in the pocket dimension, whip jumped that corpse as well and prickled its whole body with thorns sucking out the blood from its entire body as well, before dropping it down and slithering in a different direction from the Rope.

When they both were gone from his sight, Noah shivered with his whole body feeling quite disturbed from seeing such a performance of his pets.

"That was creepy." Said Brianna with a forced smile.

"I know, right?" Said Noah sitting in a stooping pose. Slimes were so cute and well-behaved, but these two gave him the creeps.