"I have a story for you, one that would make you forget about your classes."
Without giving anyone a chance to retort at the ridiculousness of the situation, Arthur began speaking.
"March 29th, Year 709 of the 50th General Calendar.
On this faithful day, I was in attendance to a certain auction held on the now dwarfed planet iddis, in the inter-stellar space of the southern Burning Realms.
Imagine my shock when I found out that this auction, was illegal, many of the things being sold there were goods that had been forbidden or banned across the Devildom.
As I encountered this situation, it was naturally my obligation as a royal, to put an end to such a thing.
Commanding a few of my guards, we laid waste to the auction, however I was but 9 years old then, I also am not exactly the best at commanding others, naturally I missed some of these criminals."
He put on a tearful expression as he spoke, making the ones listening wonder why the person was talking about catching criminals with a smile on his face few seconds ago was suddenly about to cry.
As for the teacher, his body had stiffened in shock ever since Arthur called out the date.
Arthur paid all this no mind and continued.
"This saddened me greatly, I was depressed for days. How could I have let such criminals go scot free? I was ashamed, despite my mother's attempts to console me, I still remained sad.
It was then, one certain day I had an epiphany, I decided I would mobilize all the forces I could in order to find these criminals, .
They may have gone far but I'm a prince, the son of the Devildom's princess, I had an enormous amount of resources at my disposal so I put out bounties for them, even got some drifters to help.
They weren't much left so I was able to find all of them, alongside evidence of their crimes.
Each and every one of them, they were hiding in various places, places one would least expect.
However, my guard troop was able to fish out most of these criminals, they were so efficient at it too.
Ended up giving them bonuses on their pay, they really did a good job.
As for the ones they did not capture, that was simply because there wasn't enough evidence to give them capital punishment, but that does not mean that there isn't any evidence available."
He picked a bottle of juice out of his bag and drank it, looking over to the class representative who wanted to interrupt him but was being held down by his two seat mates he spoke.
"You seem to have questions?"
"Of course. What was the point of telling us all that?"
Some of the students nodded at his words, they didn't understand the reason he went to such lengths just to say that.
Arthur just laughed and looked over at the teacher before asking.
"Once again can you make this a free period?"
The man finally recovered from his stupor at Arthur's words, he clicked his tongue lightly and spoke up.
"Chapter 4 exercises 3-9 would be your assignment, due next Friday. The rest of the period is self-study."
He then walked to the door that led out of the class, not before secretly glaring at Arthur.
His actions shocked all the students, even the class representative, he didn't expect the teacher to suddenly agree to Arthur's suggestion.
Arthur on the other hand, just disabled the artifacts and let the teacher leave. Turning to the dumbfounded students, he shouted.
"Senior Pearce!"
He then ran up to Zach's seat and sat down on the empty seat beside him.
"Nice to meet you, Senior Pearce."
He greeted as politely as possible, and the one on the receiving end of the greeting was completely nonplussed, nevertheless he didn't forget to reply properly, junior or not, Arthur was still a prince.
"Nice to meet you, your highness."
Arthur smiled and turned around to greet some of the members of this class he was familiar with.
At this point in time, the students had recovered from their shock and accepted the fact that their teacher just bailed on them, giving them a free period.
Many brought out their phones to play games while some began chatting with themselves.
"Yo! Tom, long time no see."
"Long time no see prince Arthur."
Tom replied and bumped fists with Arthur. He was a member of Belphegor's household. One of his many great-grandchildren, he had been friends with Arthur for years and was also frequently dragged along with the latter's antics.
Nevertheless, Tom still saw Arthur as a playful younger brother and always indulged him whenever he could.
"What brings you over today? You chased our teacher out of our class with a weird story and you're suddenly acting all familiar with Zach over here, I don't recall the both of you knowing each other."
"Yeah, what's the occasion?"
Hearing Tom's words, a few others chimed in, hoping to know Arthur's aim in coming to their class.
"Well you see, Senior Pearce over her happens to have caught my attention lately."
Arthur turned around to Zach and smiled widely, ignoring the Latter's obvious confusion, he continued.
"A few days ago, it came to my notice that Senior Pearce proposed to a friend of mine. You should know her right, she's the new third-ranked in my year, Nicole."
"Ah! Count Harper's daughter?
We heard about it too, the girl looks so fragile and innocent yet she's surprisingly brutal in battle, watched one of her duels yesterday, she used water magic to create a bubble filled with high-pressure water and wrapped it round her opponent's upper body, poor dude."
"Shit, that sounds like it'd hurt."
"Course it does, the dude ended up in the infirmary afterwards, and the worst part was she stared at him twitching on the floor with a curious look on her face as if she didn't understand why he was in pain."
"She's one of those types huh? The ones who don't know how strong they are."
A few other boys gathered around Tom and Arthur and began chatting about Nicole.
Arthur just laughed at this and went on with what he was saying.
"Yep. She's the one I'm talking about."
Putting a hand on the shoulder of Zach who was trying to escape sneakily, he continued.
"This guy over here proposed to her a few months ago, she was quite troubled over it and ended up telling Layla who told me in turn."
"Layla? You mean Grand Duke Eryrth's daughter?"
"Yep, she's kinda best friends with Nicole, so she told me about it. Count Harper was quite worried as his daughter got the attention of someone with a reputation like Senior Pearce's.
So I came up with the idea of screening the one who proposed to her, and got official permission too."
He brought out a few files filled with multiple copies of a document stamped with the Count's magic seal, giving him all rights to screen the one who was proposing to his daughter.
Tom picked up one of the copies and read through it, he then let out a shocked voice.
"What on Kreiz? This is simply a statement that gives you a legal reason to bug someone unnecessarily for months."
Hearing his words, Zach picked up one of the copies and read it through, his facial expression darkening afterwards.
"What's the meaning of this?"
"Exactly what it looks like Zach, I can call you that right?
The count was quite worried his innocent daughter might get abducted by a wolf cub so he asked me for help, and I accepted.
In other words, for the next few months, I'd be buz-, I mean, hanging around you a lot."
He pulled out two canned drinks from his bag, gave one to Zach then said.
"Here's to us getting along for the next few months, if it would last that long."
He smiled widely at Zach, whose facial expression kept on getting worse.
Some of the guys around them laughed at his situation, some even tapped him on his shoulder and offered their condolences.
None of them was foolish, they all realized that the one who made the Count sign that document was none other than Arthur himself.
He was known as the whimsical prince who liked to mess around with people so they were sure that Zach was his rather unfortunate target this time.
Zach alternated his gaze from the drink in front of him to the paper in his hands and finally to Arthur, he had one thought in his mind.
'Fuck!'
The Marquis was currently laying low due to the warning he received from Diablo, as such it was up to Zach to coax Nicole into accepting the proposal.
Although he knew Arthur had taken interest in it, he didn't expect Arthur to openly meddle in the matter.
Although he was one of those who looked down on Arthur for being unable to use his energies, it didn't change the fact that Arthur was a prince.
Openly offending him would lead to serious repercussions, and his plans with his mysterious cooperator could come to light, that was the result he did not desire.
'I'm having a hard time controlling myself recently, and now he just comes around and decided to make things worse!'
He was fuming internally but still managed to give a crooked smile towards Arthur.
"Good to h-have you on board, your highness."
Of course, Arthur realized he was raging internally but still smiled widely as if he was oblivious to this.
And so began Zach's hellish days of being continuously trolled by Arthur