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!"
"Uh…thanks?" I blocked a sword strike from him, and then easily twisted it out of his hand. My duel partner was not focusing on training, which slightly annoyed me. Not to mention, being first years who had no experience in fighting, they were a far cry from the second and third years I usually dueled against.
Let's be honest…if I were to participate in matches now, I could still easily climb the rankings by preying on vulnerable, inexperienced first year students. In fact, many schoolmates in my year, or my seniors did exactly that, challenging a huge number of the new students in order to boost their own rankings.
However, I was not despicable enough to take advantage of that and exploit the new students. I had been a victim of that last year, which contributed to a significant fraction of my ninety-nine losses. It was damaging to the self-esteem, but I tried to deal with it by mastering advanced summoning spells in hopes of getting revenge. Obviously that didn't turn out as I hoped.
Pausing, I gestured for my opponent to pick up his fallen sword and waited patiently. Harvey snatched it up and readjusted his stance before lunging at me. I easily parried his strike and tripped him up.
"Whoa!"
Harvey stumbled, but I didn't seize the opportunity to finish him off by hitting his back. This was training, after all, not a life-and-death duel, or a ranking match.
"By the way, Senior…"
As Harvey righted himself up, he turned to face me.
"Which society are you in? We've been asking around, but it doesn't seem like you're in any of the clubs."
"I'm not," I confirmed.
"Eh? Oh…" Harvey's face fell. I knew why he was asking. Like I said, I somehow had a group of fans after my impressive performance last week, and he wasn't the first one to ask me about it. There were quite a few first year students who adored me and wanted to join the society I was in, even though they didn't really know me that well, or the truth.
I tried to return his attention to the duel by slashing at him, but Harvey only blocked it half-heartedly.
"The recruitment for the societies will be soon, though. All the societies will start organizing booths and stuff to recruit first year students over the next few days." Harvey stared at me. "Are you sure you aren't…?"
"Nah. I am not worthy enough to be in a club."
I knew what he was talking about. I had seen the other second and third year students begin to set up booths for their societies, such as Black Roses. Dong Fang Yue Chu had also tried to ask me again, but I rebuffed him.
I wondered briefly if he would ever succeed in recruiting any members into his society.
Oh well…it wasn't my problem. For now, I had my own things to worry about.
*
Probably because of all the societies setting up booths to recruit the first year students, I didn't receive any challenges today. So I decided to head to my personal training room to polish my raw skills, and review the lessons I had learned from both combat magic and summoning. I was hoping to become a combat summoner.
After my self-training, I left my room and headed home. As Harvey mentioned, all the seniors were setting up booths along the campus courtyard. I could see them constructing tents, moving props and banners, and basically doing everything. Several were plain and simple, many were colorful and extravagant. The bigger the club, the larger their budget, and the more capable they were in putting together the materials for recruitment.
Not that it was any of my business.
While thinking that, I headed for the school gates. Before I could reach them, though, I heard a loud crash.
"H…hey!"
A familiar voice cried out in protest. I turned around and caught sight of Dong Fang Yue Chu sprawled over the broken remains of a tiny booth, and surrounded by several burly guys. I recognized them as being from the Iron Fist Society.
"Get your ass out of here, loser!" one of them snarled, his meaty hands on his hips.
"But…but this slot has been allocated to me…" Dong Fang Yue Chu's lips were quivering. One of the Iron Fist Society guys kicked him.
"So? Who cares? It's not like your society officially exists, anyway. You'll be disbanded by next week."
"No, we won't!"
"Stop lying!" Another of the Iron Fist Society guys stepped forward and backhanded him. "You need at least five members to form a society. You have only one. And there's no way any first year student will be stupid to join your trash society. You might as well give your slot to us."
"Shoo. Go away." A fourth guy chased him away with a dismissal wave of his hand. Dong Fang Yue Chu bit his lip, but didn't move.
"You want us to bodily throw you out?" one of them reached out to grab him. But before he could touch Dong Fang Yue Chu, I grabbed his arm. All five members turned to gawk at me in shock.
"That's enough," I told them firmly. "The Iron Fist Society, right? I remember you guys sending me a challenge. I'll take all of you on right now."