Noman was younger and less experienced than Nero, but that did not mean he was stupid. He did not understand Nero's purpose in saying all this, yet what he was certain of was that Nero's relationship with Vanessa was not so straightforward.
At the same time, he seemed to be confirming that Vanessa's interests were not exactly aligned with the mission they had. Then again, their only mission was to protect the researchers, so technically it didn't matter what she did in Perilith - they just had to protect her.
But technicalities were concerns for lawyers, not soldiers. They all knew that they were only here to retrieve precious ingredients, so that's what she should have been doing. It wasn't as if they were wasting time, but as someone who had been studying Vanessa very closely, Noman could tell that her actual interests seemed deviated from the actual mission.
But as ambiguous as the situation seemed, Noman stayed and watched as everything unfolded.
