One of the Royal Academy's rules is that visits by parents during the school session are strictly prohibited, regardless of whether the visit was requested by the student or the parent.
It was one of the rules that must be adhered to, regardless of the individual's rank.
However, for someone like Arthur-
"Rules? What are those? Are they edible?"
-there's no way he'd adhere to such a rule.
"Arthur, it's not allowed for students to request their parents to visit, much less another person's parents."
"Then how else are we gonna find out what the Count has that whoever is behind the Marquis wants?"
"You could always send a message you know, these devices called 'phones' can do that."
"Nahh... I prefer to talk in person."
This was the conversation happening between Arthur and Layla as the both of them were making their way to the nearest teleportation gate.
As for why they were doing that, Arthur had told Nicole to contact the count and get him to come over to the Academy, which he did as quickly as possible. In just a week, he had arrived from his territory to the capital star system where the Academy was.
However, as one of the Academy's rules is that visits by parents were not allowed, the director on duty was intending on punishing Nicole appropriately, she told them this so Arthur and Layla were making their way to the office of the director in question.
"And off we go."
The teleportation gates placed around the Academy's grounds were all connected to each other, however, it did not mean anyone could go anywhere.
In order to go to a certain place, one needed a permit that allowed them to use the gate to teleport to that area.
The student IDs and their Rank monitoring watch all came with inbuilt permits for every area a student was allowed to go to.
Arthur however, possessed a permit that allowed him access to anywhere in the academy via the teleportation gates, courtesy of his mother.
Apparently, she had such a permit made after she threatened half the directors of the academy, the other half agreed to the creation of such a permit after seeing the fear in the faces of their rather unfortunate colleagues.
She had it made simply because she found it absurd for her son to be restricted from going to wherever he wants.
"So much for the rule that said all students are of equal status."
Layla sighed while looking at the card Arthur held in his hands that gave him free access to anywhere on Kreiz where a teleportation gate was placed.
"Once again Layla, what on Kreiz is a rule?"
"The thing you're currently breaking."
Layla answered Arthur as they stepped into the gate, after almost a minute of feeling weightless and seeing nothing but bright lights everywhere, they stepped out of the gate into the director's office building.
The guards watching the gate looked over to see who came through, upon seeing it was the whimsical prince and his fiancée to be, they decided to ignore it and go back to doing other things.
If Layla knew the thoughts of the guards looking at her, she would have most likely spent an hour trying to clear their misunderstanding, fortunately, or unfortunately, she did not know this.
Going up the Elevator, straight to the top floor, Arthur and Layla walked in to see a surprised director and Nicole. Sitting beside her was a black-haired man with a troubled expression on his face.
"Count Harper?"
"Yes, that's him, Arthur."
"Good."
After receiving a confirmation from Layla, Arthur ignored the dumbfounded trio and walked over to the director's desk, pulling out his chair, he comfortably sat down like he was the owner of the place.
"Prince Arthur, what is the meaning of this rudeness?"
Naturally, the director would not let such actions go even if he was the prince, however, Arthur just started saying strange words.
"May 16, Year 712, at the 5th year science building."
The others were confused about why he suddenly called a date that had passed, however, the director's face visibly paled.
'Impossible, how could he know about that!'
Arthur grinned evilly and continued speaking without a care in the world, much to the director's chagrin.
"On that day, a certain intermediate stage low-tier deity realm devil was spotted on the 12th floor of the 5th year science building, he wore a green-"
"Take your time Prince."
Arthur's... story was interrupted by the director who immediately vacated his office as fast as he could. Looking at the door after it was closed, Count Harper couldn't help but feel slightly scared of Arthur.
'That director, he was in the intermediate stage of the low-tier deity realm, just what sort of dirt does the prince have on him?'
And the question he had in his mind, was voiced out by Layla,
"What sort of dirt do you have on him?"
"Nothing serious, just a record of his illicit affairs with a certain 6th-year female student."
"That's not 'Nothing erious'!"
As Layla shouted out, Nicole and her father nodded in agreement, Arthur however, decided to drop another bombshell.
"Oh please, the other director who was having a threes-"
"Stop!"
Layla stopped Arthur the moment she realized what he was about to say, turning around to see Nicole titling her head with a curious look on her face, she sighed in relief.
'Thankfully she wasn't corrupted.'
She then glared at Arthur who was holding his stomach while laughing with his legs stretched out on the desk, scattering the files arranged on it.
"Although you threatened him and got him to let us use his office, doesn't mean you can scatter his stuff."
Layla picked up the scattered documents as she said that and placed them on the smaller table at the side of the room.
"Okay, let's get down to business."
Arthur abruptly stopped laughing and put his legs down, looking at the count, he asked.
"Can you do a quick scan of the room and fish out the bugs here? You've got to have at least one type of scanning magic right?"
"Bugs?"
"Listening devices or artifacts."
The count nodded in understanding and spread out his magic aura, he was a being in the inferior stage of the mid-tier deity realm, possessing Authorities over Swords, Fire, Storms and Slaughter.
Even so, he was still capable of using his energy sense to search for things like listening devices within a certain range.
He opened his eyes in shock as the results of his search were not what he expected at all. He only searched because the prince told him to, but he did not really expect to find many.
"There are over twenty in this room I can sense."
"Twenty?!"
Layla's surprised voice rang out, she was stunned, and she did not understand why there would be over twenty listening devices in the director's office. Arthur's next words, however, only served to increase her surprise.
"Not as much as the last guy huh? This one is quite low ranked among the directors."
"The last guy? Who else's office have you hijacked from them?"
"I didn't 'hijack' their offices, they let me in 'willingly'."
Arthur replied to Layla's question with a smile, the count, on the other hand, was destroying all the listening devices he noticed. He brought the last one to Arthur as the Latter had gestured for him to bring it to him.
"Why are these here though?"
Nicole asked with a quiet voice, she, like Layla, did not understand why there would be such a huge amount of Listening devices in the director's office and who put them there.
"The directors are not exactly the best of friends you know, there are over hundreds of them, and there's no way there won't be factional disputes and power struggles, this guy seems to be a target for members of opposing factions, so they had those so they can listen in in case of any dirt they can fish out."
"Then didn't your words just now expose him?"
"Yeah, he seemed to have cleared most of them but there were some he could not sense. As for the ones who heard that, it would be quite fun to see them battle against each other."
He spoke into the microphone of the listening device before crushing it in his palm, throwing the pieces on the floor he spoke to the Count once again.
"Now, let's actually get down to business."
◇ ◇ ◇
A blue-haired man, sitting in front of a desk, clicked his tongue at the report he just read, he squeezed the papers in his hands and they caught fire, burning to ash in seconds.
"Damned little girl, you think you can escape my control forever huh?"
"Calm down Roseborn, as you said she's just a little girl who's lived barely over fifty millennia, she won't be able to evade you for long."
Another man, one with red hair and eyes walked into the room while uttering those words. He poured two drinks from the mini-bar close to the door and gave one to the blue-haired man he called Roseborn.
Sitting down, he took a drink before asking,
"Still, the one she injured, has he recovered?"
"No, he has to be replaced. She damaged his soul and put some kind of hex on his wounds that rewind them every time we try to heal them."
"Seems her control of time is getting better by the day, to put such a hex that remains active when she is hundreds of trillions of light-years away."
Finishing his drink and dropping the glass on the desk carelessly, Roseborn replied with anger,
"She joined the candidate selection just so she could rebel against me, then she injured one of the main entities of my capital universe."
The red-haired man, stood up to pour himself another drink and asked after a few moments of silence.
"Her Rule Breaker, it was called 'Chrono Controller' was it?"
"Yes. Still, even that won't save her from being captured soon enough, your son is taking action personally right?"
Bringing out a chessboard from the small cupboard beside the mini-bar, he set it down on the desk and arranged the pieces on it before replying.
"Though he is prohibited from directly harming her, his subordinates are not. Soon enough, your daughter, Alexia would be caught. Just relax my old friend."
Roseborn nodded at the red-haired man's response. He moved a chess piece on the board and smiled to himself.
"Sooner or later, you'd fall into my clutches, my foolish daughter, Alexia."
As he laughed out loud, his aura flared as if in response to his mood.
The man was a Superior Stage Monarch and the master of the Vladi Universal Super Cluster.
Alexia's father;
Roseborn Vladi XIV.