"Sorry, I didn't recognize you, Elder Stern!"
Al heard these words and saw the man bow perplexed. She had no idea of what they were talking about. Stern was obviously Noah's family name, yet, Elder? She had never heard anything about it, let alone being an elder, she saw him as a kid, but what about him was enough to make people like these, whom she saw as absolute rulers bow. 'Elder Stern?' she asked herself, as she looked aroun, trying to read the mood. Yet, everyone else's faces were relaxed and normal, as if they all already expected this to happen anyways. This was completely absurd in her mind. Noah was an orphan, who worked day to day chores in order to feed himself and pay his mother's debt. He was a weak blessed who only recently started becoming stronger as his blessed improved. That was all she knew and heard. And that he had a speaking monster that shouldn't exist.
But now, people like these were bowing at him and calling him Elder. Her mind was thrown in disarray, as she swam through the conversations that had happened, the power his small sister and friend showed fighting an unbeatable monster, and the fact he said he was moving to the capital. It all started to click in place, yet she still had not idea of why or how.
"Elder?" she asked aloud, although not enough everyone could hear. However, Maggie was by her side, and heard it.
"Yeah, he became one earlier today!" she said, extremelly gleeful. "He's the elder of one of the Nine Families after helping the Head." she continued, fueling Al's disbelief. "He also won that arena they organize every other week together with the people from his group that dives fortresses..."
While she talked, the information became too much for Al to absorb, and she found herself dazing away from Maggie's words and dumbly staring at Noah's back.
"Elder Stern, is your friend okay?" the man addressing him said as he looked to his side, seeing Allie's frozen expression with an open mouth.
"Huh? Oh, her..." he muttered as he held on to his laughter after looking over his shoulder at Al's strange expression. "She just didn't know I became an elder." He shrugged, trning himself back to face the man. "The old man on the back is the owner of this place. He refused my offers to treat his injuries and has unfortunately passed. He is a person I have known for a long time and has no family other than this woman. I would appreciate if we could discuss a proper burial service," he said, making the man swallow dry.
"It won't be necessary. Your request is already approved and will be paid for by the City under the'Unforeseen Fortress Event' policies that have been put in place after last Fortress Spillage." Noah stared at the man who was sweating bullets, and quickly understood that he was being given special treatment.
'As per usual with this disgusting power structure...' he thought, piquing Lilith's curiosity.
'That's not how the city deals with this kind of thing, is it?' she asked, quickly grasping the entire situation.
'Of course not. All those people out there will get absolutely no support whatsoever. Even if the Policies' part is true, they'll find excuses to not uphold any of that for the regular folk...' he told her in his mind, nodding in silence to the man, in order to avoid the oddity of remaining in silence. 'I hate how this kind of thing works.'
'Because you were on the other end?' she added in, making Noah clench his fists.
'Because I no longer am on the other end,' he retorted, turning his back to the man and pulling a chair for himself, before sitting down while facing him. "We'll wait for the proceedures to be completed. Do you need our explanation on what happened?" he asked, wiping the dust from his shoes with his hand.
"N—No! We can already understand based off the damages and monsters around," the man hurriedly stuttered his words out, his eyes wandering until meeting Bel's bloody figure. "Is the boy injured?" he asked, turning back to Noah.
"No need to worry. If he was, we would have already dealt with it," Noah said, as the snake around his waist slid up his arm and around the back of his neck, making him give off the feel of a mobster.
"Understood," the man said while bowing, before walking past everyone, followed by what Noah assumed were his underlings, and they started taking pictures of the place and taking the old man's body back to their van.
After a full minute, the man walked in front of them again, as the other five headed to the door.
"Thank you for your cooperation. The situation here as well as the rewards for the monsters in the vicinity will be forwarded to you and so will the acknowledgement for your deeds. Thank you for protecting the lives of the non-blessed civilians," he said while bowing again. "It was a pleasure working with you, Elder. The proceedures regarding the forwarding of all documents and transference of assets from Mr. Youseff Schwan to Ms. Allie Stout have also been approved by the City's department. Have a pleasant day," he took a stern stance and adressed both Noah and Al at once.
"Pleasure was ours," Noah nodded, and stood as he saw the man walk out behind his colleagues. "So, I guess we can start moving the ice-cream now," he said, turning around and walking behind the counter, while Maggie took a couple of steps towards Al.
"Al, are you alright?" the girl asked, as she held the woman's hand.
"Not really... But I'm sure your brother isn't either. The old mas was someone he cared about a lot," Al answered, looking up to Noah's back as he reached in to pull the large metal vats full of ice-cream from inside the no-longer-powered freezer.
Maggie saw the depressive hue on her words and face, and stood on her toes to speak in her ear, "Don't worry too much about him, he's gonna eat fries and wings with Carlos later and drink it out," she whispered, making Al leak a small giggle. "See? We should care for each otehr a bit, the boys know how to take care of one another," she said, making Allie doubt her age for a second.
"I see... I'll look forward to us throwing a small girl's night, okay?" she said, a smile on her face as she rubbed her watering eyes with her hands, and threw a glance at Noah.
"Wanna help me out?" he asked, smiling upon seeing Maggie's success with her.
"Sure!" she said, quickly walking over.
In the end, there were over twenty flavors of ice-cream, which meant almost twice that number of vats. "I'm not sure we're gonna be able to fit all of this in the car," Noah said, upon seeing the many vats atop the counter. There were also some sealed boxes underneath them, which ought to contain even more product.
"Don't forget the pops on the vertical freezer," Al said, as she dropped two more vats onto the counter, the last pair.
"How are we even gonna take all this? I think we'll need at least three trips to take them on the car," he said, looking at the sheer volume of ice-cream.
"And don't forget where to put it. I don't think your place has anywhere near that much space for frozen stuf," she complemented him, making Noah scratch his head.
"Ahem," Carlos butted in, leaning onto the counter. "While you two focused on emptying the freezers for some inexplicable reason, I called a refrigerated truck to take this stuff. Also, I happen to have a massive walk-in freezer at home we can store all of this. But it would be more manageable if we could take the freezers from here instead," he said, looking over at Al.
"Huh? Ah, yeah. You can take them. This place will need a lot of renovation before reopening, so it doesn't matter if we take them," she said, making Carlos grin.
"Noah, you know what this means, right?" he asked, looking at Bel and Maggie's excited faces.
"You don't plan on stuffing those two full of ice, do you?' Noah asked, stupified.
"... You didn't have to put it that way," Carlos rolled his eyes, before looking back at him. "But maybe an ice-cream party with all invited is not that much of a stretch, right kids?" he asked, making Bel and Maggie cheer.
Not long after, the truck arrived, and two men helped them load all the ice-cream and popsicles inside. There was still a lot of empty space, so they loaded up the truck with all three freezers, and saw it go to Carlos' house.
"So, now we go, right?" Carlos asked, turning around to see Al and Noah sat around a table, resting.
"Sure," Noah quickly stood up, and they left towards the almost—unharmed car. It hurt Noah to see the many small dents and scratches on the pristine vehicle that were left from the shrapnel, but there was little he could've done to stop it. More importantly, the inside was still as pristine as before, despite the whole car being covered in a thick layer of dust, kicked up by the battle
After all six entered the car, including Lilith who was still hung over Noah's neck, Bel's voice reminded Noah of something important, "So, are we going to Carlos' place or yours without even taking this girl to get her stuff?" he asked, making both Noah and Allie realize they had completely forgotten about that.
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