395 Challengers Blood Wine (1/2)
Akatsuki and his Spirit-branded Retainer left.
Seiji sat alone in the private room of the coffee café, looking at the three cups of coffee that remained untouched, watching them cool.
His cell phone rang.
When he checked the caller ID, it was Natsuya as he expected.
”Hey, Seiji! Are you alright!?”
The moment he accepted the call, the student council president's voice hurriedly spoke up on the other end.
When she saw his text message, she felt nervous and tense as she immediately called him.
”It's alright, Natsuya…” Seiji responded, but discovered that his tone of voice was a little grim, so he coughed to clear his emotions. ”Akatsuki Mitarai has left already. He was only here to talk to me.” He managed to restore his tone to normal.
”…What did he say?”
”Take some money and get the hell out of my way.”
”Eh?”
”Well, that was the gist of what he said to me.” Seiji chuckled.
Natsuya fell silent for a moment.
”He must be worried about my Haruta Family, and feels that it's too risky to just kill me, which is probably why he said what he did.” Seiji paused for a few seconds. ”It seems that even though I'm currently exiled, I still enjoy the protection of my family name.”
”Seiji…”
”I've been too arrogant, Natsuya.” Seiji leaned back against the coffee café's sofa and looked outside the window. ”Even though my strength is still insufficient, I still acted all high and mighty, thinking that I would be able to accomplish something. How foolish of me.”
Natsuya didn't know what to say.
”I apologize that I was unable to force him to stop calling you by name, nor was I able to just beat him up again.”
”Huh?”
”I really wanted to beat that face of his! Just like what I did during the Winter Snow Festival. However, his Spirit-branded Retainer was staring intently at me the entire time… I could only endure.” Seiji's voice revealed his discontent.
Natsuya was rendered speechless.
She didn't know what expression she had right now anymore.
”The current me is still far too weak. Although I'm steadily increasing my power, it's still not enough. I need to improve even faster,” Seiji said in a serious tone. ”Natsuya, is there some location where I can seclude myself for cultivation? The type of place where I only need to stay and cultivate at for a while, helping me to absorb energy from the environment and then transform myself.”
”What the heck type of transformation would that be! There's no such thing.”
”What about some place where I can obtain a powerful spirit beast?”
”There's no such place, either!”
”What about trying to go to some place with sealed ancient artifacts?”
”Even if there were such places, I couldn't possibly allow you to go!”
So this last one really existed?
”Life isn't a shonen manga…” Natsuya sighed. ”To be serious, yes, there are such methods, but most of those methods have more downsides than benefits…”
At this moment, she suddenly paused as if having recalled something.
”Did you think of a good method?”
”No… it's nothing.”
”I don't think that it's nothing. You must have thought of something, so please tell me what it is.” Seiji chased after this lead.
”…I don't want to say.” Natsuya softly refused.