The results of the challenge between Machine Revolutio and Call of the Wild quickly spread through the city. Many people were surprised when they learned that Machine Revolutio overwhelmed Call of the Wild completely, until the point where Call of the Wild was unable to retaliate.
Thanks to that, Machine Revolutio started to be considered as a club with great potential.
After winning two challenges in a row and securing a place as the forty-seventh club of the city, many students and teachers started to see Machine Revolutio as a promising club.
Just a few hours after the challenge finished, more than fifty people came to the club to join it, and the next day, the number increased by another hundred.
Unfortunately, Bloed could not simply accept all these people.
According to the rules of Academy City, a club could have only a maximum of one hundred and fifty members. This was to avoid having a club monopolizing all the talent in the city and to give the opportunity to other clubs to develop.
Even so, most of the clubs did not fill this quote. Normally, successful clubs had around one hundred members or so.
Thus, Bloed had to decide who among these people to accept.
After thinking for a while, Bloed decided to make an interview.
But after interviewing the first five members, Bloed wrinkled his brows with a serious expression.
"Something is wrong."
"Master? What happened?" Regina asked curiously.
"Two of these people did not have good intentions," Bloed said with an ugly face. "They hid their intentions very well, but it can't escape from my eyes."
Bloed's eyes were very special. Thanks to them, he could even analyze the slightest changes in someone's expression to know if he was lying.
This method was not perfect, and people who were good at lying could fool it. But even so, normally it was very effective.
And just now, Bloed had managed to detect two people with ill intentions among the five people that he interviewed.
He was sure that these people did not want to join Machine Revolutio because 'they admired the club' as they said.
"What should we do then, master?"
Bloed thought for a moment before sighing.
"It's true that I want to make Machine Revolutio bigger, however, I don't want to invite spies or people with second intentions in the process. I prefer to have a few and trustworthy members than many members that I can't control."
"Are you going to reject the people that want to join our club then?"
"No." Bloed shook his head. "However, I will have to select them carefully… Mm, I have an idea. Regina, tell Gina and Prince Calisto to come to see me."
"Understood."
Five minutes later, Gina and the lionkin prince appeared before Bloed.
"I need your help to evaluate the people that we will accept in our club," Bloed explained to them. "Gina, you will use your ability on them to see if you can find their true intentions, and Prince Calisto, you will help me to investigate their backgrounds later. Can you do it?"
"Huh? O-Of course, my hero."
"Don't worry, big brother Bloed. I know what to do."
Bloed nodded satisfied. He then invited the next person to be interviewed to enter the office.
The next person was a girl around twenty years old or so. She was a B-Rank mage with five years living in Academy City. According to her, she had joined another club before, however, she left for personal circumstances and decided to join Machine Revolutio when she heard about it yesterday.
Bloed asked her a few questions before nodding softly and smiling.
"Thank you for your answers, Debora. We will consider your application and contact you later."
"R-Really? I-I hope you can accept me. I really want to join this club."
"Don't worry. Wait for our news."
"Understood."
After the girl left, Bloed looked at Gina.
"Then, what is your opinion?"
"Not good," Gina replied without hesitation. "She was contacted by someone a few hours ago who paid her to join our club. She is not trustworthy."
"As expected," Bloed sighed and nodded. He had already seen some signs that the girl was lying, and Gina's words confirmed his suspicions.
"Prince Calisto, erase her name."
The lionkin prince nodded and crossed out her name from the list.
This was the method that Bleod proposed. If they found someone suspicious, they would cross him out immediately. If he was not suspicious, then Prince Calisto would investigate him later to determine if they should add him to the club or not.
For the next two days, Bloed, Regina, Gina, and Prince Calisto were busy interviewing the candidates to join the club. More than two hundred people were interviewed.
To Bloed surprise, around fifty of them were spies or people sent by other clubs to infiltrate Machine Revolutio.
"This number is a bit too high…" Bloed said with a frown.
Prince Calisto nodded.
"You are right, Big Brother Bloed. It's normal to send people to infiltrate other clubs, but this number is too exaggerated. Something is definitively wrong."
"Etto... I think I know the reason."
"Little Gina? What is it?"
"My hero, just now, while I was using my ability to follow the traces of the people that wanted to infiltrate the club, I discovered that most of them came from three places."
"Three places?" Bloed was startled.
"Yes. one of them is the Kingdom of Alterna, seven students are related to it. The Guardian Order is another, with nine students related to it trying to infiltrate the club. Finally, there are thirteen students related to a young man called Nathan Sigel."
"The kingdom of Alterna I understand. As for the Guardian Order, it should be something that Mu Quan ordered. But… Nathan Sigel? If I'm not mistaken, he is the leader of [Wings of Liberty], right? What does he want with us?" Bloed was confused.
He could understand why the Kingdom of Alterna sent people to infiltrate the club, after all, he and Eres were in it. He could also understand Mu Quan's motives. Most likely, he wanted to confirm if Liu Ying was the exiled demon princess or not.
However, he did not know about Nathan Sigel's motives.
But just then, little Gina put on a strange expression.
"My hero… I just discovered another interesting thing."
"Huh?"
"That Nathan Sigel… He was the one behind [Call of the Wild] as well. Also, he is the one that tried to close our club before."
Bloed was completely stunned.
...
P4TRE0N: patr-eon.com/aidnovels