"Finally, it's over," Noah muttered, returning home. Removing his battle suit, he stretched out lazily on the sofa. The past few days had been incredibly hectic. Although his powerful body didn't know fatigue, somewhere deep down, a strange sense of exhaustion had accumulated. Perhaps now was the time to take a short vacation and get some proper rest.
"Let's see what the reward for this mission is."
After completing the mission by killing the Leader, he hadn't rushed to claim the reward, deciding to do so after returning home.
He opened the mission panel. The interface was always simple and concise: besides the current missions, there was nothing else there. Two incomplete missions, both A-rank, were displayed at the top.
[A-rank Mission: Awakening of the Celestial]
[A-rank Mission: Lord of the Void]
The first mission was related to the Celestials, the second to the massive Void quest. Noah wasn't in a hurry with the Celestial mission – he had plenty of time. Even if the events surrounding their appearance began earlier than anticipated, he would still have a whole year to prepare. He planned to tackle this task when he was confident he could face at least one Celestial. After all, the most interesting part would begin after completing this mission.
As for the "Lord of the Void" mission, the system had placed it in the A-rank mission category, but he suspected this was due to the system's maximum difficulty level being capped at A-rank.
In reality, this task was probably much more complex. Just one side quest of this mission was estimated to be at least B-rank, and there were surely more such sub-tasks ahead. He couldn't complete this mission in the near future. He even thought that without summoning Aurelion Sol, he would never be able to handle it.
After briefly reviewing the information on the two A-rank missions, Noah shifted his gaze to the B-rank mission area and pressed the mission completion button. A calculation screen appeared before him.
[Mission Complete. Summoner receives 1000 essence units.]
"1000, huh? Well, that's about what I expected." Noah remained calm upon seeing the amount of essence.
The mission to eliminate the Leader wasn't particularly difficult, but due to the enemy's constant evasion, the difficulty lay mainly in finding him. Once he was located, the Leader was dispatched with a single blow. 1000 essence units was an average reward for a B-rank mission. The highest reward Noah had ever received for a B-rank mission was for destroying Ivan Vanko and his army of robots – back then, he received 2500 essence units.
"Another 1000... Looks like it's almost ready." He opened his inventory and checked the amount of accumulated essence.
[Essence: 5800 units]
"Just 200 more units, and I can perform another ten-summoning."
He pondered, looking at the remaining essence. Just two simple C-rank missions, and he would have enough for a new summoning session. It was already past midnight, and the available missions had refreshed, but he wasn't in a hurry to complete them.
Noah checked his inventory and closed the system menu. The books he borrowed from the Kamar-Taj library lay on the table before him. These ancient tomes had been quite beneficial, significantly improving his spatial magic skills.
He carefully stacked the books and decided he would return them to the library tomorrow. At the same time, he planned to borrow some books for beginner mages – they might be useful for Gwen.
Having dealt with these minor matters, Noah started thinking about what might happen in this world in the near future. His thoughts returned to the Hydra agents Nick Fury had just taken away. He wondered what Fury would do when he learned who they really were.
"Nick Fury will probably be able to extract the necessary information from them," Noah thought. He wondered if the Hydra agents had undergone any special training that would prevent them from talking. But for an experienced agent like Fury, interrogating tough nuts was routine. And in the Marvel world, there were surely truth serums and other methods for extracting secrets.
He suddenly recalled the events of "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" and the Hydra agent named Jasper Sitwell. Judging by how easily he cracked under the threats of Captain America, Black Widow, and Hawkeye, perhaps Hydra agents weren't as well-trained and brainwashed as he thought.
Noah wondered if Nick Fury, during the interrogation, would realize that S.H.I.E.L.D. was riddled with Hydra agents. If he discovered this, would he decide to dismantle S.H.I.E.L.D., as in "The Winter Soldier"? Although, he might try to rebuild it, as he did in the movie, despite Captain America and Black Widow's refusal.
The existence of S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't particularly concern him. Now that Hydra had appeared before him, he needed to think about how to deal with this organization. Based on Noah's assumptions, his parents in this life might have died because of Hydra. He had previously instructed Coulson to find the two agents who survived that mission. He wondered what Coulson had managed to find out.
"I'll go and find out tomorrow," Noah thought, rubbing his temples.
He had a plan for destroying Hydra – find Dr. Arnim Zola, who had transferred his consciousness into a computer. Zola was originally a Hydra scientist and, after its defeat, was recruited by S.H.I.E.L.D. After his death, he transferred his consciousness into a massive computer and was now hiding in one of Hydra's secret bases.
This scientist-turned-AI had been weaving his intrigues all this time – "Project Insight" was one of his schemes. Noah thought that if he could find Dr. Zola, he could obtain all the information about Hydra's members. Of course, this was just an assumption. If that didn't work, then he could turn to Alexander Pierce, the leader of Hydra, who surely possessed many secrets.
"Alright, we'll deal with it tomorrow."