He helplessly thought to himself as he watched the tier one potion work its magic. The potion was faster than any healing power he has seen so far, it was even faster than his healing when he had healed Arachne.

He saw how the wounds closed, leaving no scar with fresh blood covering the surface. He wasn't sure if the potion was this effective because it was a higher tier than the person using it or if these could be considered superficial wounds.

Looking at her, he couldn't help but recall how helpless she was without her skills.

'It's only a matter of time before she actually diesIf those two evolved birds decided to attack her instead of me then she would've been a goner. Should I form a pact with her? Or is there another way? If only we could get her some moreskills?'

His inner dialogue reminded himself of the place where he was able to get skills. The mysterious shop keeper's appearance was still fresh in his mind.

'I need to find it again, but how am I-' Noah was cut off from his thoughts when he felt he was receiving a notification. He wasn't aware if he had a notification the whole time since after the fight or if it had just occurred. He assumed that it must be the former reason since he hasn't done anything at this moment, but he was somewhat confused. The prodding he usually felt now felt like a pull.

When he tried to visualize his notifications like he usually did, the only thing he saw was darkness as he looked at the back of his eyelids.

When he opened his eyes he realized the pull was gone. His brows furrowed in deep thought, he didn't like when something happened and he couldn't even form his own reasoning about why it occurred, he didn't notice that Ailetta was staring into his eyes with an embarrassing and hesitating expression.

He thought deeply over the last action and thought he had in that moment. When his thought reached the subject about finding the mysterious shop keeper again, the pull had appeared again.

This time he concentrated on that feeling and was shocked by what he thought it meant.

'Is it pointing me in the direction of the shop?' Was his initial thought, but he wasn't a hundred percent sure. If that was the case then why would it require him to think of it just to show him the way and is it something he could always do or did it only come available to him after he advanced his class?

"Ack!" Ailetta was startled when Noah suddenly looked down towards her,

anxious that she may have been caught staring. But now that he could tell she was better, his preoccupied mind wasn't worried about anything else except.

"What happens if you try to think about finding the shop?" Noah briefly reminded her of the shopkeeper.His curiosity trumped over asking her about her well being.

At this time the others were finally withdrawing from the nearby building. Their confidence was even more slumped than before. Not only were they not properly equipped to fight off flying creatures, but they weren't prepared for birds to even try to eat them!

Unlike the mindless zombies that ran in a straight line, birds constantly moved sporadically, the new addition of the small woman with the bow couldn't possible keep up with them with such a short notice,Ailicia had used the majority of her knives in the fight before and wasn't able to retrieve the knives that were lodged into the zombies heads so her fighting ability was drastically reduce.

The mages weren't able to perform their magic within such a short amount of time, while the combat specialists were mostly suitable for one on one approaches.

Their eyes instantly went towards the buildings rooftops in fear of any other birds waiting to ambush them again.

Meanwhile Ailetta looked onto Noah with a puzzled gaze, even when she tried thinking about the shop, nothing worth mentioning occurred, she wasn't sure what exactly he was asking for. But her lack of an answer was enough for Noah to come up with his own conjectures.

'If it's really pointing me in the direction of the shop then that should be my first priority, but is it really just a coincidence?' He thought as looked in the direction the pull was directing him too. The direction was the same direction they were heading in now, and it just happened to be the street where the zombies ahead of them were behaving weirdly. They were quite a distant away, but even then, the noise they created from the earlier fight wasn't enough to grab their attention.

Coughs*"Noa-Noah? Can you let me down now? I think I should be able to stand on my own." Ailetta spoke softly while brashly looking away.

Noah behaved as if his worried switch was turned off. Now that she was out of danger, his mind was only focused on two things, his loot and finding the shop. He was so focused on those two things that he reacted instinctively to her words and set her down immediately without addressing her before proceeding to the chest that dropped.

Ailetta wasn't able to comment on his blatant disregard after he literally just saved her life and she was somewhat familiar with his one track mind. She felt idle and self conscious of her uselessness when she looked over and saw Noah's creatures moving towards the birds one at a time and removing the stones that Noah called mana stones.

She felt that if anything she should help out to be considerate, but when she approached one of the fallen birds and proceeded to bend over. A tall looming figure suddenly approached her, the threatening growls and heavy breathing told her everything she knew about who it was.

It's hard for anyone not to panic when approached and intimidated by such a creature whose gaze alone can send shivers down your spine, let alone Ailetta who had two life and death

encounters against the beast. She held a slight trauma in her heart when it came to Fenrir as he clutched her arms to her chest and quickly backed away.

"Fenrir, that food might be Noah's possible 'mate'let her be for now."

Arachne stepped in to diffuse the situation. Ailetta wasn't sure if she should feel thankful, embarrassed or insulted concerning the tone and contents of what Arachne said about her. Who would like to be regarded as food? But the word mate was enough for her mind to offset the insult,

however she couldn't help but the way Arachne's tone was concerning the word mate.

Ailetta had a vague suspicion about Arachne's thoughts concerning Noah, she couldn't help but recollect how many stories consisted of situations that were comparable to this, but when did the interest begin and was Noah aware of it?? She felt there was no way it could happen, there was no way Noah could be with such a monster even if Arachne could be considered part human as well. Yet when she thought about the subtle changes already happening around him, she realized that her thoughts had yet to catch up to reality.

'It's not that he could be attracted to a monster as a humanbut he's actually becoming a monster' Her heart felt heavy as she thought of that. She thought back to the advice that he gave her before, 'why am I only thinking of this now?' She screamed inwardly when she remembered that in her mind she thought he meant it metaphorically.

She felt that not only did she now have to become stronger to stay by Noah's side, she now had to find a way to literally become a monster if she wanted to compete with someone like Arachne if she wanted to have a chance. Her thoughts have been going farther down the road of insanity that she didn't realize that she was no

longer thinking about what she wants or that she could be wrong.

Noah was oblivious to what was going on, he was busy being too disappointed about what he received from the golden chest, or better yet, what he didn't receive.

He really wanted to obtain another upgrade stone as fast as he could so he could upgrade his chimera skill. He felt the need to increase his body stats to increase his odds of survival and the best way he believed to do that was to obtain the genes of the current strongest creature he's encountered so far in terms of body attributes and that would be Fenrir. His only concern would be that Fenrir's skills didn't seem to fit with what Noah really wanted for himself, but he couldn't be . picky.

But not only did he not receive an upgrade stone, but this was one of the few times he had yet to receive an attribute orb, he felt that he was being cheated.

However there were three items that he saw within the chest that at least made him feel somewhat content with what he obtained.

One being a torso armored piece. The top mid section consisted of metal plating while the mid section was covered with an unknown grey leather material. The armor also came equipped with long sleeve counterparts consisting of the same grey leather armor but around the entire forearm consisted of the metal plating like before. And what gave the armor the final touch was the feathered collar that not only wrapped around the back of the neck but it also extended towards the shoulders pads of the armor. He was already enamored by its appearance that he didn't question its stats.

If it wasn't for the fact they were in the middle of the streets, he would've

immediately stripped just to put on the new equipment since his previous gear was an entire piece of clothing.

Not letting his excitement get the best of him, he moved towards the last two items. One of those being a pitch black sword with a handle that seemed to form wings. The end of the handle was pointed as if the handle itself was a weapon while the blade was pitch black with a silver seam going down the middle.

He was sure when he would ever replace his current sword, but that didn't mean he didn't appreciate the sword's aesthetic appeal.

The last item is what stumped him, it was something he was expecting, but at the same time he felt it was probably the most highly valued item with the chest.

He reached in to pull out a collar, just like his armor, the theme seemed to be feathers, but the appearance wasn't what had him befuddled. What was the use of a dog collar?