25 Chapter 25: Bullying (1/2)

It didn't take more than a few hours for Dad to get whatever answers he needed. He emerged from the study at evening, presumably for dinner…or so I thought, but he indicated that he had already gotten whatever answers he needed.

”Richie, I'll be leaving tomorrow,” he told me shortly.

”Another mission?” I asked, already used to this sort of thing. Dad nodded.

”Yeah. I've found out who's behind this attack.” He narrowed his eyes. ”The Syndicate. I'll be heading to their headquarters to destroy them.” he glanced back at the study. ”I had better move fast before they realize I'm onto them, and evacuate their base.”

”Understood. What do we do about our 'guest'?”

”Hmm? He's already been disposed of. Don't worry about him. Just sweep the floor and clean up the room after I leave tomorrow.”

”…”

Dad could be ruthless when he had to. I almost felt sorry for the Syndicate, and for the fella inside the study. Almost. The bastard tried to kidnap me earlier, so that he and his group could threaten my Dad and kill him.

They deserved death.

That was the problem with bullies. They only knew how to pick on the weak. They couldn't beat the strong, like Dad, so they aimed for the weak like me. They obviously didn't expect me to be able to fight back. It felt so satisfying incinerating them with my Vermillion Phoenix. Honestly, I was still a long way from matching Dad's power, but I could hold my own against relatively small numbers.

Still, those professionals were powerful to conjure defensive barriers that were capable of withstanding Vermillion Phoenix's firepower. They were no ordinary foes. Even ordinary adult mages wouldn't be able to take a hit.

I had developed my summoning magic to be able to conjure the Celestial Guardians for a reason.

”All right. I'll watch the house while you're away.” I did a mock salute, which elicited a laugh from Dad. He placed a hand on my head.

”I know you will. I'll be counting on you then.”

Dad then turned and headed toward his room, getting ready to pack for his trip. I closed my eyes briefly, wondering how long he would be gone for this time, and then went to the kitchen to prepare dinner.

The least I could do was ensure Dad had a decent meal before he left.

*

The next day, I went to school as usual. This time, there were no suspicious adults tailing me in an attempt to abduct me. Before I left for school, Dad departed, presumably to catch his flight. He had booked his flight yesterday, after extracting the necessary information from his victim, and packing his luggage. He didn't carry much, as usual.

With a farewell, I had watched him take a cab and disappear down the road. No one was stupid enough to attack the infamous Huang Shun Yin directly, not unless they had a death wish. So I wasn't worried about that.

After such a close brush with abduction yesterday, I continued to be cautious on my way to school. Fortunately, as I said, there were no kidnappers this time, and I reached the campus grounds without incident.

”Hah…”

Feeling exhausted, I sprawled myself over the desk as I waited for Teacher Fielding to arrive for the first class. Which, as usual, was combat magic.

None of my classmates approached me. I wasn't very approachable, often keeping to myself, but that wasn't the only reason. Most of my classmates were first year students, so there was a generation gap between us. Okay, maybe ”generation” was the wrong word, but you get what I meant. The younger students were intimidated by the prospect of coming up to talk to me.

As for the second year students…well, I had a reputation of being a loser since the last year. Even though I somewhat surprised everybody by team killing Crowley's Grand Arcane Academy's representatives last week, everyone knew my weaknesses and the truth. Furthermore, I had not accepted any new challenges since then, and avoided having any matches. My acquaintances clearly viewed this as me ”quitting while I was ahead” and weren't pleased with that. Either way, they didn't want to associate with me.

That was fine with me. I wasn't antisocial or scary to the extent where I couldn't find anyone to pair up with, and I could always rely on the first years, who weren't as acquainted or aware of my loser reputation. If anything, the first year students seemed to hold me in high regard and admired me because of what I achieved last week.

”All right, everyone!” Teacher Fielding strode in, and clapped his hands. ”Pair up! Light sparring again today. We'll be going through the new techniques I just taught you yesterday! I hope you still remember them!”

I certainly did, having combined several of the new techniques with my summoning magic yesterday, during my personal training session in the room Alicia secured for me. That was exhausting, which was why I went straight home instead of wanting to test them out immediately after. It was always both physically and mentally draining to experiment and try out newly created skills and spells again and again, especially since I experienced such a high failure rate and often had to start from scratch each time.

I ended up facing a first year student named Harvey Deng. He looked at me curiously as we exchanged a few blows. Like me, he had chosen to use a sword.

”Senior, I heard that you've been avoiding matches for the past week or so?”

”Yeah.” There was no point hiding anything from him. Everyone could obtain the information online, or heard rumors about it.

”Why? You're ranked at the bottom, aren't you? Shouldn't you try to raise your rank?”

The poor junior thought I had only recently obtained my summoned beasts just before the match against the Crowley Academy students, and believed that I would embark on a winning streak if I started accepting all the challenges and participating in matches.

”There were some problems with my techniques that I wanted to iron out first before I start dueling other students,” I replied honestly. It was the truth.

”Oh!” Harvey seemed like he couldn't imagine what sort of problems I could possibly have with summoned beasts as powerful as Vermillion Phoenix or White Tiger, but I wasn't obligated to tell them. Nor was I stupid enough to share my weaknesses with others. He beamed, displaying how he was a fan of mine. ”I look forward to seeing you fight again soon!”