Inside of a large room decorated in pink, with a large king-sized bed in the middle, laid a stunning young girl with short brown hair that scattered all over her pillow. She was currently lying down beneath a set of thin blankets that could not hide the outlines of her body.
Sitting next to her, a tall man with similar colored hair, nervously looked at the young girl who was resting on the bed. Her skin which was flawless was currently pale, and if not for the fact that her breathing was stable someone could've easily mistaken her for a dying patient.
"…Mmm."
At that moment, Emma opened her eyes. Oliver Roshfield, Emma's father and the man that was in the room, noticing Emma's eyes opening immediately shot up and called for a doctor.
"You're up. How are you holding up?"
"…Fine."
Emma sat up on the bed and bitterly smiled at her father's worried expression. Soon a doctor came running in to check her pulse, but Emma pushed him away with a smile.
"It's fine, Dad. Nothing serious happened..."
"Really?"
"Of course. Do I look like someone who would get injured so easily? Plus didn't the doctor already confirm I was fine?"
"I, I did."
Hearing Emma mention him, the Doctor lightly shuddered and hurriedly nodded. Oliver Roshfield was a powerful figure who had many titles to his name. 'Flame overlord Oliver Roshfield' 89th in the hero ranking, Ashton city mayor and Vice-director of the union. Each title more fearsome than the other. The doctor knew that being on this man's bad side would only make his life more difficult.
Looking at his daughter up and down a couple of more times, Oliver eventually relented and gestured for the doctor to leave.
"…She seems fine, so you can go now."
"Yes, sir."
The doctor, without skipping a beat hurriedly ran out of the room. Looking at the closing door, Emma spoke briefly
"…Dad."
"Hm?"
Oliver Roshfield replied with a gentle tone.
"About the Parkers..."
Before Emma could finish speaking, the room's temperature increased dramatically.
"..Dad?"
Noticing the changes happening around her, Emma quickly tried to stop her father.
"Dad, stop!"
Placing her hands on her father's cheeks, Emma tried her best to calm her father down.
Despite being one of the strongest people in the human domain, Oliver Roshfield had one fatal weakness. His daughter.
Ever since his wife's death eight years ago, the only memento he had of his late wife was his daughter, Emma. Even though he was busy with his job he always made sure to find enough time to spend it with his daughter. He doted on her a lot.
Seeing her in this state, rage clouded Oliver's mind as he couldn't help but feel a stinging sensation hit his heart.
It was only after he felt his daughter's warm soft hands that his rage slowly started showing signs of subsiding.
"...Dad please stop"
"huuuu..."
Letting out a long breath, the room temperature returned to normal and Oliver bitterly smiled at his daughter.
Only she could stop him from going on a rampage
Finally calming her dad down, Emma smiled in relief and slumped back into her bed.
"Sweetie, are you sure you're okay?"
"...I'm okay, I just need some rest"
"Okay, please don't push yourself"
Tucking Emma in, Oliver stood up and prepared to leave. But just as he was about to leave he felt a slight tug at the edge of his pants.
"Dad, you still didn't answer my previous question"
"Sigh...Emma this matter is more serious than you think"
Gently sitting on the bed next to Emma, Oliver slowly caressed her head.
"What do you mean?"
"The Parkers have been eyeing our properties and resources for a long time now."
"If before they were reluctant to act because of my position, now that they know I will retaliate because of what happened, they will no longer have any restraints when dealing with us"
Pausing slightly, Oliver held his daughter's soft hand tightly and said
"...so sweetie, rest well and return to the academy once you're fully healed. The academy is the safest place for you to be at the moment"
Frowning for a bit, Emma looked at her father. His eyes which held boundless love for her were seeded with worry. Seeing this warmth filled her heart as she felt how much he worried about her.
Tightening her grip of her father's large hand, Emma's frown lessened and she nodded.
"I understand"
Smiling gently, Oliver gently kissed Emma on the cheek and left the room.
As soon as Oliver left the room, his gentle demeanor completely vanished, and what replaced it was a cold and indifferent one.
"...Norman"
"Yes master"
Turning his head towards Norman who was patiently standing outside of Emma's room, Oliver instantly issued orders.
"Start liquidating all our unnecessary assets—I want one billion gathered by the end of the week."
"As you wish"
Bowing down, Norman lightly smiled and left leaving Oliver standing outside of Emma's door.
Having known his master for a while, Norman knew exactly what he was planning. Normally, he would've been against it as the consequences of a war against powerhouses was unimaginable...but thinking back at what had happened to Emma, his eyes narrowed and his pace increased.
'She was the Roshfield reverse scale'
Seeing that Norman left, Oliver sighed and looked at his daughter's room.
Gently caressing the door to Emma's room, Oliver turned around and silently spoke
"...If I don't deal substantial damage to the Parkers by the end of this, then I shall not be called Oliver Roshfield!"
Though his voice was quiet, it held boundless rage within it.
===
Closing the book down, I lightly sighed.
...It seemed like things were going to get difficult from here on out.
A lot has happened since my near-death experience. In about a week's time, Thobias Church will be assassinated.
Since my life and death moment in the dungeon, I increased my training time from five hours a day to nine hours a day. Whenever I had free time on my hands, I would train. It was only after I almost died that I realized that life was as fickle as it could be. Just a single moment and I could die. Only if I was stronger would I be able to live.
Unbeknownst to me, my outlook on life had slowly started to change. I used to think that all I had to do was train and slowly follow along with the storyline.
I had this babysitter type of mindset.
Just follow the protagonist and cover for them if anything that was beyond the plotline happened. Those were my ambitions. Nothing else.
...but the further I stayed in this world, the more I realized that there was more to this world than just a story.
The people, the beautiful sceneries, the professors, my classmates...everything around me was real. This was no longer a novel, and there were no second chances.
If I learned something since reincarnating inside of my own novel was that I needed power...
In the first place. If I had power, I wouldn't need to babysit the plotline.
...no if I was stronger, then nothing could stop me from achieving what I wanted.
Be it the protagonists, the union, the demon king...if I was stronger then no one could stop me from living the life that I desired.
Though I still didn't plan on interfering with the main storyline, my previous ambition of just babysitting the protagonists was no longer there. I need to think more about myself than them.
Did I want to go through another near-death experience again?
No, I didn't. The feeling of having your life toyed with wasn't something I would want to go through again.
...no longer did I want to be chained by someone else.
I wanted something for myself...and only through power could I achieve that.
I may choose to remain low-key for now so that I could build power without getting into any unnecessary conflicts, but the day that I decided to expose my power to the world will be the day that the demons will shake at the mere mention of my name...Ren Dover!
...and in order to achieve this, I decided to remove every distraction around me. Soon I started training like crazy. Every day I would wake up early, go to the gym, take classes, eat, go to the gym and repeat.
A thing that has become bothersome though was that the gym had started becoming fuller as the days went by. Moreover, the atmosphere in the gym was not right...
About two weeks had passed since the events of the elective fair.
and a tense atmosphere enveloped the whole academy, as the first, second, and third years started eyeing each other. This was mainly organized by Fabian who hired people to start conflicts with the first years.
In the first week, things weren't that bad as only small conflicts happened. However, past the first week, entering the second week, the conflicts started escalating to a whole new level.
It first started when a second-year beat up a first-year for bumping into him. Soon, some of the enraged first years took it upon themselves to teach a lesson to the person responsible for the incident.
A day after the first year was hospitalized, three-second years were sent to the hospital heavily injured, including the one that hurt the first year who was the one that had the heaviest injuries.
Following that the conflicts started escalating more and more.
It had gotten so bad that the teachers could no longer turn a blind eye on the situation and firmly stated that whoever was caught fighting within the academy would be expelled. With no exception. Regardless of rank or family background.
Thanks to this announcement, the conflicts within the academy died down.
...keyword. within.
This meant that once you stepped outside the academy boundary it was free for all.
fortunately for me, I didn't really have anything to do outside of the academy so I was fairly unaffected by this whole conflict. Moreover, since my rank was low, I was treated like crap regardless of whether they were juniors or seniors.
No discrimination there...
Another major thing that had happened was that the Parkers and the Roshfield had finally started acting against each other.
The stock prices of each company fluctuated every day as businesses owned by both parties started going bankrupt left and right.
It was total chaos.
The conflicts were starting to escalate and soon will reach all the way to the academy...
ahhh
I wasn't sure how to feel about this. The atmosphere around the academy was so tense that it started affecting my training. Fortunately, because of my low profile nature, I was still in the clear...for now
-Click!
Closing the door to my dorm, I walked towards my elective {Food exploration}
Yup, just like the name suggested, the elective I chose was an elective that focused on food.
But don't get me wrong, this wasn't my first choice, in fact, it was probably one of my last choices.
...but because of all the conflicts within the academy where seniors would reject first years added with the multiple rejections I got due to my rank, I was left with no choice but to apply for this elective. An elective that mainly focused on food...well it wasn't that simple but it was along that line.
What made things worse was that this elective was the elective that Amanda took.
By some sort of weird twist of fate, I ended up in the same elective as one of the main protagonists that I wanted to avoid.
...At this point, I was starting to doubt whether my plan to remain low-key would even be achieved as I was constantly being put through situations where I would either interact with the main cast or fight against mid-novel bosses.
Like seriously, what was wrong with this world?
I was literally going through more hardship than the protagonist himself.
The elective was in room B17
When I entered, the rows of the classroom were already filled with students, most of which were wearing a familiar azure blue blazer. There were about 40 first years of which 32 of them were girls. The reason for such disparity in gender probably had to do with the class president's bewitching appearance.
After glancing at the room for a couple of seconds, I turned towards Amanda's direction and sat a few seats behind her. All the front row seats had been taken by the girls.
Sitting down, I could smell a nice rose-like scent coming from her direction promoting my nose to greedily take in the smell. After being exposed to this scent for five minutes…
An elegant young man, with nicely combed hair, entered the classroom. He had a gentle smile on his face, and his looks could've been considered to be on the higher end of the spectrum.
...The club president finally showed up.
Arriving in front of the podium, the young man calmly placed his stuff down and looked at all the students that had come. Smiling he said
"Nice to meet you. I'm Elijah Turner. I am very pleased by your participation in our elective, food exploration."
Elijah Turner, the current president of the elective and a third-year.
As he smiled, apart from Amanda, all the girl's faces flushed red in excitement
Rolling my eyes, I rested my head on my right arm and carefully looked at Elijah. Though the class may be ignorant about his true nature, I wasn't
Elijah Turner was a Villain and professor Thibaut's second in command. Soon, several incidents would happen in the academy, including an incident involving Amanda. Elijah would be the mastermind behind it.
Of course, I had no reason to make trouble for myself by shouting, 'This guy is a Villain alongside Professor Thibaut—!'
They'd probably glare at me and kick me out of the club.
Wasn't worth the effort.
In any case, Elijah had made a pact with a demon that was part of the charm clan, a sub-branch of the demon clan of Lust. In exchange for selling his soul to the demon, he obtained his current appearance and an ability called 'Bewitchment' which was very similar to Donna's enchantment art. The only difference was that it only worked on females, whilst Donna's worked for anyone regardless of gender or race.
Currently, his main goal should be Amanda. Being such a talented individual, alongside her impressive background, the demons highly coveted her.
That was part of the reason why his contractor was a high-ranking demon within the Charm clan despite his talent being on the lower side.
"Since today is the first day, I'll do a brief introduction about myself and what the club consists of"
His charming voice drifted across the classroom pleasantly entering everyone's ears like it was a beautiful note from a fine-tuned instrument. Instantly the eyes of the female students started shining even brighter.
"In food exploration, we research and discuss monster and plant composition. We will look at which monsters and plants are edible, and how they benefit our bodies. The topics that we will cover in this course are, monster identification, methods of cooking, poison extraction, what combinations were most optimal, and plant identification."
"It may sound boring and all, but don't worry as that's just the boring part..."
Smiling brightly, Elijah looked at everyone in the class. As he was looking his eyes slightly paused on Amanda, who was quietly listening to the lecture.
Rolling my eyes, I scoffed at him. 'You think no one noticed you staring at Amanda?'
"...for the fun part, with the permission from the academy, we will be going to different places and taste amazing food!"
A wave of cheers instantly enveloped the class as the male students celebrated the fact that they were able to leave the academy, while the female students cheered for a different reason.
'Food exploration' as odd as it may sound, was one of the most sought-after courses for lower-end academies as not only did it pay well, but it also didn't have as high of a risk compared to dungeon hunting. This was especially tempting for those who didn't have any combat talent. As despite lacking talent in combat, they could still be widely recognized and regarded by most people. The more famous chefs even had celebrity status that rivaled that of most S ranked heroes.
Walking towards the table that was neatly set up in front of the classroom, Elijah pulled his sleeve upwards.
"I'll show you guys a quick demonstration. Let's take a look at this steak. As I'm sure most of you know, this is the meat of a D rank creature 'Man-o-War horse'."
Tapping his ring twice, a large steak appeared on the table. The steak which was the size of a wheel had fine white threats of fat extending like a spiderweb all over the steak reminding me a wagyu steak. Just one look and it was enough for me to start salivating.
Tapping on a button, a holographic image of a large horse popped up for everyone in the class to see. Just like its name suggested, the 'Man-o-War horse' was an evolved version of a horse. Having an enormous body that was as tall as three people, the 'Man-o-War horse' was an extremely strong D rank monster. What made them troublesome was their ferocious and fearsome personalities that would cause them to attack anything at minimal provocation.
"As most of you probably know, the Man-o-War horse is an extremely hard creature to kill let alone capture. If not for the fact that after careful research and analysis we found its weakness, this steak's value would already be in the five digits."
As Elijah talked, a sudden wave of tiredness swept over me. It mostly had to do with the fact that I was overworking myself these days, but it also had to do with the fact that I already knew the contents of the lecture.
"Huaaaaaam…"
A yawn soon escaped from my mouth and the corners of my eyes teared up.
The yawn, which was fairly loud caused Elijah's eyebrows to slightly twitch. Soon every female in the class turned their heads in my direction and hatefully glared at me. It was like they were telling me 'How dare you interrupt our prince when he's speaking?'
Honestly, I wouldn't even be surprised if they attacked me for real if I yawned one more time. The girls had fallen deep.
Only Amanda kept her eyes on the hologram and ignored what was happening around her.
"Cough..."
Elijah let out a dry cough before continuing his explanation.
"Because of the food it consumes, which mainly consists of highly fatty food, the Man-o-War horse's meat as seen here is highly marbelized..."
...
-Ding! -Dong!
50 minutes have passed since then, and finally, the loud sound of the bells signaling the end of the lectures rang. Standing up, I packed up my stuff and prepared to leave. This time I held my impulse to yawn as I didn't want to get attacked by Elijah's crazy fangirls.
You never know how scary fangirls were...
I was on my way to the door when I saw Elijah approaching Amanda. My feet soon stopped.
"Junior Amanda."
"...hm?"
"Here, this is a small gift for entering the elective."
Taking out a small black object from his pocket, Elijah handed it to Amanda.
As I focused a lot on Kevin in the novel, I didn't really know what happened in between the events that led to the incident between Elijah and Amanda...so what he was doing now and what the black box was I had no clue. But I knew he was scheming something. Rather than that being just a gift for joining the elective, Elijah probably handed her something valuable just to strike a good impression with her.
"Ah, yes, thank you."
Amanda took the box and indifferently left the class. That seemed to be the end of their first encounter.
...well that was more anti-climatic than I expected.
Was expecting something more entertaining to be honest, but I guess Elijah was much more patient than I gave him credit for as he just smiled as if nothing happened.
Shaking my head, I walked out of the classroom.
'Well, not like I care anyways.'
All I cared about at the moment was getting stronger. As long as the plotline of the story didn't deviate too much from the main story, I couldn't care less about the minor details.
Walking out of the classroom, I thought for a bit before deciding to go back to my dorm.
I think I deserved a bit of rest. It wouldn't do me any good if I overworked myself.
...
-Click!
Arriving in my dorm, I opened the door and entered.
-Pomf!
Placing my keys on the wall hanger, I lazily slumped on the bed.
-Ding!
"..hm?"
Hearing the sound of a notification coming from my phone, I took my phone out and unlocked the screen.
[Class A25, A24, A23 announcement]
—Dear students we will be going on an excursion two weeks from today. We will be going to Hollberg, and we will visit their famous monster processing plant. The trip will be approximately a week long and thus will require you to come prepared. Read more....
"...ooof"
Lazily throwing my phone on the bed, I couldn't help but feel a massive headache coming my way.
Two weeks from now our entire class will be going to Hollberg, a city two hours away from Ashton city.
The goal of this trip was to let students see how monsters were processed and how they were used to create weapons and artifacts.
It was a very useful class as it helped students understand some of the topics in class better—it was always easier to learn visually rather than theoretically.
...too bad the trip was not as fun as it may seem on the surface.
"Just...ahh"
Thinking about the future that awaits me, a long tired sigh escaped from my mouth as I used my arm to cover my eyes.
"Let's just hope that I won't have to expose myself"
Though I said that, my hopes were low. The trip was definitely one that I would have to participate in even if I didn't want to.
Normally, in my previous world, in order to skip school, I could've faked a sickness or something. But here...the technology was so advanced that pretending to be sick wouldn't work.
With a simple check, the doctor could immediately tell if someone was lying or not.
"Let's hope for the best..."
Paragraph comment
Paragraph comment feature is now on the Web! Move mouse over any paragraph and click the icon to add your comment.
Also, you can always turn it off/on in Settings.
GOT IT