There were probably more than twenty students that came with Tyran.

Arnold looked at the big guy that Tyran had spoken to whilst pointing at Flora.

‘He’s a senior,’ Arnold noticed his tie, ‘A sixth year, huh. Ronia has this many followers from the academy?’

Students from the academy weren’t that important to a faction unless they had skills in a particular field besides magic and fighting. In today’s world, the pen was mightier than the sword when it came to political power.

Because of this, Ronia much rather preferred to ensnare politicians, fieflords, or bureaucrats. Of course, she wouldn’t outright reject anyone willing to support her, no matter how insignificant they are.

Arnold noticed that Luke was about to stand up.

“Don’t interfere.”

“But…” he noticed Arnold’s glare and kept quiet.

Arnold sighed when he saw that Flora was ignoring the group that was obviously here for her. She was merely flipping through the menu.

“Hey, look at me, bitch!” Tyran was about to approach but the senior stopped him.

“My friend here said that you punched him because he was flirting with you. Is that true?” the senior asked in a deep tone of voice.

Arnold couldn’t believe the bullshit that he was hearing.

“Not going to answer me, eh?” the senior walked towards their table.

His minions only glared at them from afar, looking menacing. Most of them were first years so they weren’t that intimidating.

“Girly, I’m talking to you.” He put his large hand on her shoulder.

“Get your disgusting hand off me before I knock your teeth out as well. Your young master ate my right fist. Do you want my left fist?”

“Oh? So you did hit him? Why? He told me that he was only having some fun with you because you were so gorgeous. I’m not going to lie, you look far beautiful than my fiancé as well.”

Flora turned her head creakily towards the door and looked at Tyran. Arnold knew that if he didn’t act now then this entire building would be destroyed by Flora.

One table being destroyed was enough.

The peanut gallery(other students) only watched them while still sitting at their tables. Some were whispering amongst themselves.

“Crap, it’s Arnold von Berkley. These guys are dead.”

“Hey, should we leave?”

“Hell no. I want to see what happens.”

..

“Gentlemen,” Arnold stood up and put his hand on the senior, “Why don’t we talk outside? You’re disturbing our fellow students’ meals. Our behavior here will also affect the owner’s reputation.”

“Huh? Why would I go outside when my business is right here?” the senior looked at Arnold as if he was an insect, “Buzz off, kid. I’ll be taking this little girl back with me.”

He grabbed Flora’s arm and pulled her out of her chair.

“Please let go—” when Arnold was about to speak again, the senior slapped Arnold with his backhand.

“B-Brother!” Luke cried out.

“Me and the boys will have some fun with her before we go back. I suggest you play hero somewhere else or face the consequences from messing with us. Let’s go, guys.”

Flora didn’t even resist as she was dragged away.

The reason she didn’t resist wasn’t because she was scared. No, not at all. She was going outside with them so that she could beat them all up. Causing more damage to the restaurant would end up being the Berkley House’s responsibility.

Well, Arnold wouldn’t just let Flora have all the fun. Not after what had just transpired.

“Sit down, Luke. Take the menu and order something for all three of us as takeaways. I’ll be right back.”

◇◇

The entourage had definitely just come for Flora. Their motive was as clear as day:

They wanted to violate her. This was a common occurrence among noble children at the academy so no one was surprised if it happened today.

The young master had even forgotten about the earlier stunt he pulled in the restaurant. He was drooling while looking Flora up and down. He was sniffing Flora’s neck while they were walking down the street.

“Dammit, this woman is fucking delicious, isn’t she, senior?”

Flora was indeed a beauty with her long green hair and honey brown eyes. Her skin was fair and unblemished even though she had been training her swordsmanship for years. Even her hands weren’t chapped like many other people who trained the same amount of time as she had.

“I suggest you stop before things get out of hand.” Arnold appeared in front of them out of nowhere.

He used Dash to get in front of them.

The skill was more effective depending on one’s level difference with your opponent. Arnold was level 40, which was insanely high for a fourth year student. These measly insects were probably not even over level 20 so it was easy to deal with them.

“What the fuck!? You again!? Piss off!” Tyran shouted.

Arnold only glanced at him, “What’s your purpose for pulling such a predictable stunt back there? Are you just some idiots flaunting around your household power?”

“I-Idiots!? You dare call the young masters of the Hulf House and Ayried House idiots!?” one of the henchmen pulled out his sword.

It was a short first year so his exclamation sounded cute.

“Ayried?” Arnold looked at Tyran with his flaming red hair, “So you’re related to that person, huh…”

‘Well, it makes sense now. The Ayried House is supporting the imperial faction after all.’

That was only the main family.

This young master was probably from the main family. Stella was from a branch family. Her father had her with his distant cousin from the branch family which was why she was related to the young master.

Of course, her being from a branch family and having a heirloom sword passed down through the generations wasn’t something you’d see every day. It was usually the heir from the main family household.

But Stella had it. This would obviously cause some strife between the households but since Stella’s father gave her permission to wield the sword, no one could do anything but accept it.

Arnold looked at the sword at the young master’s hip.

‘He has the Moon Orchid which isn’t near Fire Lily’s level at all. It’s a B-rank sword crafted by the blacksmiths but he was brainwashed into believing it’s a powerful sword.’

Meaning that it was a trash item.

Just like him.

“Oh, dear me. Where are my manners?” Arnold bowed exaggeratedly, his blue hair swaying and his back straight.

It was a curtsy that even the average noble couldn’t perform perfectly.

“Humph, you better know your—”

Before the senior could speak, a disgusting sound of saliva flying sounded.

Twice.

Arnold spat in both the senior and Tyran’s faces.

“Huh…”

“Wh-What just…”

“T-That guy just spat in their faces!?”

Flora couldn’t help but burst out laughing.

Arnold smiled amiably, “I’ll be taking that girl now. She’s a precious friend of mine, you see.”

Flora took Arnold’s hand and went towards his side.

He was initially thinking of leaving them alone but decided not to.

Despite knowing that he was a duke’s son, they bravely messed with him as well since everyone believed that Marcus disowned Arnold. That would make it seem like Arnold wasn’t part of the Berkley Household anymore.

Arnold didn’t want to let these pests go.

The senior—who was supposedly a child from the Hulf household—looked at the spit he smeared off with his hand.

“Aaaaah!? What the fuck!? Disgusting! Disgusting!” Tyran fell onto his knees and used his blazer to smear off the spit but the situation only worsened since it got into his mouth.

He took out sanitary wipes but struggled to open it up. The wipes fell everywhere on the pavement. He tried to grab one but they all flew away from the wind.

‘Huh. I didn’t know this guy is such an extreme germophobe.’

“!!!” A deafening scream came out of his mouth.

Arnold scratched the inside of his ear, “What? Surprised that there’s someone who has the balls to stand up to you? Sorry if my breath smells odd, I couldn’t find my toothbrush this morning.”

“….” The senior’s face twitched and his molars clenched, “I’ll kill you!! You bastard!”

His body was surrounded in Ki. He lunged forward, wanting to strangle Arnold’s neck.

‘A monk class, huh.’

Arnold merely swatted away his hands after activating his Aura. He clenched his fist and surrounded it in his aura. The concentration was much denser than the rest of his body.

Although Ki was much more effective in hand-to-hand combat due to the density of the power in comparison to aura, that wouldn’t matter if the aura user had a much larger pool of energy than the Ki user.

Sensing the impending danger, the senior used [Fortify Body] to add extra protection to his body.

“—!?”

But Arnold’s fist broke his defense easily and broke the guy’s jaw.

In a contest of strength, Arnold was the winner. The senior’s muscles didn’t even matter. Potential and aura pool were the winners here.

“Uagahu! Gauagkd!” the senior collapsed onto the ground as blood spurted out of his mouth.

“You shouldn’t go around slapping people. See what karma does to a person?”

Arnold lifted the guy by his hair. He noticed that the crowd was looking at him as if he were a monster.

He merely shrugged and dropped the guy on the ground.

“Aaah! You bastard!” one of the henchmen ran towards Arnold with a sword in his hand.

Flora moved for the first time. She caught the guy’s sword with two fingers.

“You guys clearly can’t tell the difference in power. So fucking stupid.” Then she shattered his sword just like that.

Multiple gasps came from the crowd.

Tyran pulled one of his henchmen by the sleeve.

“L-L-Let’s go! He’ll pay for this! H-H-Her Highness will h-h-handle him once I tell her!”

“Y-Yeah! You… You haven’t heard the last of us!”

Despite the fact that there were over twenty people, all of them ran away after having seen what just happened. Arnold could understand why they were scared since most of them were first years trying to act cool with their seniors.

The school hierarchy would collapse the moment they saw a person who held undeniable and unfathomable power.

Arnold was that exact person.

He had just proven to everyone that one’s strength didn’t depend on one’s age or family name. The Hulf and Ayried houses were equal in status to the Berkleys since all three of them were three out of forty ducal houses of the empire.

“That wasn’t necessary, you know.” Flora punched Arnold’s arm.

Arnold merely laughed, “I can’t have you killing people just because they’re a little rough with you. Luke would lose his sword trainer.”

“Rough? I’m sure they wanted to do some unspeakable things to me. Why would I allow such a thing?”

The two of them were idly chatting, much to the confusion of the crowd.

Someone suddenly clapped their hands.

Arnold looked around in confusion.

Another person also began clapping their hands, followed by another. Soon, the entire street of the Sturt district was filled with applause.

Many of the students took this street when going to places to eat during lunch break so most of the school would hear about what happened tomorrow.

Arnold scratched his head with a wry smile.

◇◇

“Big brother is so cool! You stood up to the bullies!” Luke was all praise and glory when Arnold returned. The three of them were now walking back to the academy.

Arnold was told by the manager—who got there earlier during that chaos—that he would be given a free meal every time he visits the restaurant. Of course, he wouldn’t reject such a graceful offer.

That girl they assaulted was apparently his daughter who was working there to pay off her loans so she had no experience since it was her first day.

The students had apparently been watching the entire situation from afar, including Luke.

‘They could’ve stepped in, at least. All of them are a bunch of cowards.’

Even though everyone should be treated equally, there’s always that one bastard or two that forced their household names down everyone’s throats.

For example, there were many situations where the seniors could coerce the younger students into sleeping with them. If they refused them then their entire school life would be ruined by bullying and beatings.

Olivia had been a victim of this as well in the past.

“Luke, you should remember to protect Olivia at the academy, alright? Elna won’t always be there. It’s your duty to protect your wife anyway.”

“Ah, about her highness…” Luke seemed to want to say something.

“What?” Arnold glanced at him as they were walking.

“Uhm, remember about what we talked about last time?”

Arnold sighed, “That again… I’ve made it clear before that the two of us would always be at each other’s throats.” He glanced to the top of the street they were walking on. In his line of sight was the imperial palace.

‘There’s no way in hell I’m getting involved with Olivia who has a death flag. Any trigger could set her off.’

Arnold knew that Luke was only trying to be helpful by acting as the mediator in their relationship. One thing people hated and loved about Luke in the game was his persistence.

He would probably continue suggesting Arnold and Olivia get back together until something opened his eyes that that would never happen.

“Things aren’t what they were when we were kids. Can you believe that we were together almost daily but now we barely see each other?”

“I heard about your childhood from miss Anna, yes…”

“If anyone could restore our friendships then it must be Celeste.”

She was the big sister who always looked out for them after all. Either Celeste didn’t want to go against Olivia’s feelings or she herself felt that it was pointless to glue together a broken piece of glass.

“I suddenly remembered something…”

‘Olivia said that she wanted to see me, right? Would she be in her office right now?’

It was the final class after lunch break. There were originally supposed to be six in total but since final exams are coming up, the academy decided to shorten the classes to four.

There was only one lunch break so students had three classes before and after lunch break. But two were removed to fit the exams’ schedule.

This was to allow fourth to sixth students to focus more on their training and preparations. The first to third years would be writing a written exam. It wasn’t exactly hard for Luke to write it since it just tests their knowledge about the basics.

Arnold was deep in thought when they suddenly arrived in front of the academy gate.

Flora turned towards Luke, “I guess I should be going now.”

“Yeah…”

“Don’t forget to exercise every morning and don’t ever skip meals or else your body will lose strength. Okay?”

“I-I got it.”

Flora smiled before patting him on the shoulder.

“What, you’re not gonna kiss me goodbye?” Arnold made a snarky remark.

Flora just looked at him with a disgusted expression before walking the opposite direction and waving goodbye.

Luke had an expression of longing on his face.

Arnold noticed this and asked, “Don’t tell me you have a crush on her now?”

“W-What? No!” he firmly denied it, “S-She’s just… a good person.”

“Hmm…”

Of course, Arnold didn’t believe that was what he meant to say.

‘Just look at her,’ he thought to himself as he gazed at Flora’s back, ‘Beautiful long green hair, a body that could make other women bow their heads in shame and a face that could be considered high class. There’s no way Luke hasn’t thought of her at night while… At this rate his love for Norn—an ordinary farmgirl—will fade away.’

Arnold grinned while looking at Luke.

Luke noticed this and cried out: “It’s not what you think!”