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Chapter 53 - Eve Before The Trip [3]

The air around the room was tense. It felt suffocating. Almost as if I was stuck inside of a cramped room with no room to breathe.

The reason for such atmosphere?

Quietly sitting on my chair, a stunningly beautiful young girl with glossy black hair and porcelain white skin devoid of any imperfections, was curiously looking around my room.

Amanda stern.

Someone who I had never thought of interacting with privately.

Seeing her sit on my seat as if it was the most natural thing to do, my eyebrows twitched.

Just what did I do to deserve this?

...no, I knew why, I just wanted to deny reality.

Sighing, I spoke up to try to break the awkward atmosphere.

"Would you like green tea or water?"

Hearing my voice, Amanda's eyes paused on my face for a couple of seconds and after a short pause she said

"...green tea"

"Alright"

Heading to where my teapot was stashed, I took it out and poured steaming hot water into the pot.

After a couple of seconds, I took a bag filled with tea leaves and gently threw them into the pot.

While waiting for the tea to be ready, I turned around and noticed Amanda's obsidian black eyes staring at me.

Taken aback by her odd behavior, I asked

"...Need something?"

Hearing my voice and seeing that I had caught her red-handed, Amanda looked to the side and acted as if nothing happened as she lightly murmured.

"...Nothing"

Smiling, I looked back at the teapot.

What do you mean nothing? You were obviously staring at me!

Even a blind person could tell you were looking at me.

Pinching my brows, I decided to think about this in a positive way.

From the looks of things, it at least seemed that she had no hard feelings against me. Since I knew her personality well, I knew that if she were to have had a grudge against me, she would've avoided me at all costs.

Treating me as if I was nonexistent.

Seeing how she had actively come looking for me, I knew that she didn't hold what happened against me.

...so what did she come here for?

There was definitely a reason for her visit. I sort of had a hunch on what it was, but I wasn't too sure.

Most likely, she came to express her gratitude for saving her.

If so, I better get this over with fast. If someone found out 'the Amanda Stern' who was the talk of the academy was having a private meeting with a boy in his own room, I wouldn't even know how I died.

The fact that she was in my room meant that my life was in danger.

Sigh.

Just when I thought things weren't going to become more troublesome suddenly a new troublesome situation arose.

Looking at the water in the teapot that had started turning murky brown, I carefully removed the teapot from the heater and poured the tea into two porcelain teacups.

Walking back to where Amanda was seated, I handed the steaming hot teacup to her and sat in front of her.

"Thank you"

Taking the teacup with both hands, Amanda gently blew on the cup and took a sip.

Closing her eyes and savoring the taste of the tea, Amanda nodded slightly said

"...it's good"

"Thank you"

Sitting in front of her, I also took a sip of the tea. It had a slightly bitter aftertaste that even after a couple of seconds lingered at the tip of my tongue. It was quite good.

"...so, what did you want to talk about?"

Seeing that we couldn't just spend all the time drinking tea, I decided to get straight to the point.

Placing the teacup down, Amanda's indifferent face stared at me. After a while, she finally spoke

"...Thank you"

Frowning slightly, I said

"For what?"

"For saving me"

Shaking my head, I leaned back on my chair and said

"I don't ever recall helping you"

"Yo-.."

Just as she was about to answer, I cut her off

"It seems like you forgot what I had told you before"

'..forget what you saw'

Listening to my last sentence and remembering what I had said, Amanda remained quiet for a little bit. Her brows continuously knit and relaxed, and after a while, she shook her head and apologetically said

"I can't do that..."

Rolling my eyes, I placed my teacup down. Her response was within my expectations.

Staring at her crystal black eyes that were looking back at me, I thought for a moment before saying

"Sigh, alright if you're really sorry then give me some money"

Hearing my reply, Amanda sighed in relief.

She was visibly relieved by my request.

"Okay"

Taking out her phone, she quickly went to her bank account.

Seeing her like this, I couldn't help but bitterly shake my head.

Amanda's personality was just like this.

She disliked owing anyone anything.

She didn't want to feel indebted to anyone other than herself. No, it was more like she only trusted herself and herself alone.

She made sure to pay back every single favor she owed so that she wouldn't build any unrealistic expectations of others.

"Is 5 million U fine?"

"5 million U? I guess tha..."

Sipping on my tea, I initially nodded apathetically, but as soon as I processed what she had said, I almost spat all my tea on her face

"haaa? what did you just say?"

Innocently looking at me who had just stood up and was looking at her with wide eyes, Amanda said

"is 5 million, not enough?"

"What do you mean that's not enough, that's plenty!"

Waving my hand, I immediately shut her down.

Damm rich second generation kids treating money as if it was nothing.

"...so 5 million okay?"

"Sigh, hold on"

Slumping back on my chair, I started thinking.

5 million U would definitely help me. With that much money, I could pretty much solve the problem of finding a sword manual..ah!

Looking at Amanda, an idea suddenly came into mind

"Can I ask for something else instead of money?"

Frowning lightly, the room temperature dropped and Amanda's demeanor became increasingly colder.

Understanding that she was probably misunderstanding something, I quickly followed up by saying

"No, I am not asking for any dates or anything that is remotely close to that"

Hearing my next part, Amanda's brows relaxed. Nodding her head she said

"...Okay"

Sighing in relief, I said

"Can you get me a sword manual?"

"A sword art?"

Taken aback by my request, Amanda looked at me strangely.

At first, I was confused by her reaction, but remembering what had happened a few nights ago I realized why.

"...I am looking for something to disguise my main sword art"

"oh"

As if she understood something, Amanda nodded

Seeing her react like that, I knew she still had a misconception about my strength. In the end, I said nothing. I was honestly too tired to solve the misunderstanding.

Plus no matter how much I'll try to solve the misunderstanding, chances were that she wouldn't believe me.

In the end, It didn't really matter if she misunderstood or not. At the end of the day, she wasn't the type of person to treat people differently regardless of her strength.

Moreover, she wasn't a blabbermouth. Meaning that my secret was pretty safe.

"What type of sword art would you like?"

Thinking for a bit, I said

"Let's see, I would like a sword art that primarily focused on defense"

Touching her chin for a second, Amanda pondered for a moment before saying

"How many stars?"

"Hmmm, since you were previously offering me around 5 million U, I guess something that went along that price"

Thinking for a bit, Amanda scrolled through her phone for a couple of seconds before nodding.

"Okay, let me have a look"

Turning on the holographic function on the phone, a long list of sword manuals appeared before me.

"This is what I got from the criteria that you had given me"

Seeing the long list of manuals, my mouth twitched. If I said I wasn't jealous right now, that would be a lie.

...As expected of the daughter of the guild master of the number one guild in the human domain 'Demon hunter'

She had access to an immeasurable amount of resources and manuals that would cause anyone to turn green from envy.

For the next few minutes, we went through the long catalog of sword manuals that Amanda had access to. After a while, and a lot of contemplation I finally decided on the sword art I wanted.

[★★★ Ring of vindication] : Highly advanced sword art that creates a perfect ring of defense around the user. Upon mastery, the ring can create a three-dimensional sphere that protects the user from all sides. Because of the lack of offensive capabilities, the manual was graded three-stars.

Talk about a perfect sword manual.

Though it was a three-star manual, it was in fact a four-star manual if the only thing that was taken into consideration was its defensive properties.

This went along perfectly with my wishes as this was exactly what I needed. [Ring of vindication] for defense and the [Keiki style] for offense.

...this was exactly what I wanted

After selecting [Ring of vindication], Amanda nodded and messaged someone.

Soon the room was enveloped in an awkward silence.

"..."

"..."

After a couple of minutes of silence, Amanda stood up and said

"...thank you for meeting me, I'll take my leave"

"No problem"

Smiling, I escorted her out of my apartment. I could finally be free!

Arriving at the door, Amanda indifferently waved her hand

"Goodbye"

Smiling, I waved back and said

"See you"

...

Leaving Ren's room, Amanda was satisfied with the outcome of their meeting.

She more or less got a better understanding of the student that had helped her.

His personality was a far cry from what it was when they met at the party. Despite no longer hiding the fact that he was hiding his strength, his demeanor did not return to what it was back in at the party.

Cold and emotionless.

He was a far cry from that. He wasn't cold nor emotionless.

He was calm and collected, and despite the fact that she was standing in the same room as him, it didn't seem like he was entranced by her beauty which was a first.

His demeanor was completely different from what a regular sixteen year old kid should have. He was neither overbearing nor arrogant, and aside from the fact that his expression was really easy to read, he was quite easy to talk to.

It felt like she was talking to an adult.

It honestly felt weird.

Walking along the corridor of the dorm, she suddenly noticed many eyes staring in her direction.

"What is Amanda doing in the horned sheep dorm?"

"Was she meeting with someone?"

"Nah, she was probably coming to check on something. There's no way Amanda would talk to those peasants living in the horned sheep dorm"

Along the way, Amanda heard people whispering amongst each other as she walked back to her dorm.

Being used to such attention, she promptly ignored what they were saying and exited the building.

Taking out her phone she quickly dialed a number.

-Ring! Ring! -Ring!

After a couple of seconds, an aged voice entered Amanda's ears.

—Hello? how may I help you, young miss?

Because Amanda disliked making small talk, she immediately got straight to the point

"Send the three star manual [ring of vindication] at the location I messaged you a while ago".

After a short pause, the person on the other side of the phone spoke

—...very well.

"Thank you"

-Tak!

Hanging up the phone, Amanda felt a weight lift off her chest.

Turning back towards the horned sheep building, she lightly murmured

"Now I don't owe you anything...."

Chapter 54 - Eve Before The Trip [4]

Six days had passed since the meeting with Amanda, and just like she had promised, my new sword manual arrived the next day.

When I first opened the package and saw the manual, I was once again reminded of how much influence Amanda had in the Demon hunter guild.

The manual looked like it had just been freshly copied, with no creases or stains on it.

It had to be noted that it was not that easy to make a copy of a manual.

Because for obvious reasons guilds were trying to minimize the circulation of manuals, a lot of procedures had to be taken before being allowed to make a copy of a manual.

It had to be approved by a vast majority of the board members and the guild master, and this was especially hard since a lot of the members were conservative people that hated sharing things with outsiders.

Simply put, the fact that Amanda was able to give me a copy the next day meant that she had just as much influence as her father. The guild master.

That aside, during these past six days, since I had nothing to do, as soon as the manual arrived I decided to train it.

Surprisingly, because my swordsmanship had improved to level 2, I was able to grasp the contents of my new manual fairly quickly.

Though I was nowhere near reaching the minor realm of mastery, the time it would take me to reach that level would be a lot faster compared to what it took me to reach that level with my main sword art.

Though I said that, it would still take me quite a while before I could reach that level of mastery.

Unlike the [Keiki style] which had five stances, [Ring of vindication] had three levels which were, Ring of Aegis, Gravitational ring, and Elemental alternation.

The first level, Ring of Aegis, created a ring in the air that acted as a shield. How strong its defense was depended on the degree of mastery of the sword art.

The second level was a more advanced version of the first level, Ring of Aegis, and added a gravitational pull on the ring that redirected all the attacks towards the ring. This was extremely useful, as only one ring needed to be created to defend rather than multiple rings to deflect multiple attacks coming from different directions. This way, I didn't have to split my focus on defending different areas.

Lastly, the third level, elemental alternation. This level consisted of manipulating psyons in a way that the ring attained elemental attributes. This was extremely useful in countering elemental attacks, as fire attacks could be countered with a water attributed ring.

However, in order for one to be able to pull this move, they had to have a high degree of mana control. They had to be able to harness the precise psyon they wanted to use and create a ring with it.

That alone was incredibly hard to do, and if someone did not reach a certain level of mastery towards mana control it would impossible.

These were the three levels of [Ring of vindication], and the first time I learned about their effect I couldn't close my jaw for a whole hour.

After the shock died down, what replaced it was pure excitement as I couldn't wait to start practicing it.

...and here I was now, six days later standing in the middle of the training ground practicing the first level, Ring of Aegis.

"Fuuuu..."

Sucking in a deep breath, I closed my eyes and slowly drew a ring in front of me with my sword. In the process of doing so, I focused entirely on channeling my mana to the tip of my sword.

Slowly as I drew the circle in the air, if one looked closely, a dimly lit line followed the tip of my sword. After one full circulation, it formed a yellow ring in the air.

However, exactly two seconds after I drew the circle, it broke down and scattered in the air.

Opening my eyes and looking at the scattering circle, I let out a satisfied smile.

"Two seconds..."

Though it didn't seem like much, in the first three days I could barely even draw a full circle. That's how much I progressed these past few days.

However, I was still far cry from reaching the point where I could actively use this sword art.

Although I could create a ring that lasted for two seconds, it could barely be used to defend. It still had no substance to it, meaning that right now it was nothing but a beautiful decoration.

One thing I noticed these past few days, as I was practicing the sword art, was how flawed the grading system for manuals was.

Despite the fact that [Ring of vindication] had no offensive properties, if one practiced this art to the fullest, I would doubt anyone could penetrate its defenses.

It may have not been a five-star manual, but it could definitely have been a four-star manual with its defense alone.

This was especially so if one considers the fact that the greater the mastery of the sword art one had, the stronger it would become.

If one day I were to reach the perfected realm of mastery, no, even the essence realm of mastery, I would without a doubt not have to worry about my defense.

That said, I shouldn't get ahead of myself. I was still very far from reaching that level.

Let's not delude ourselves.

-Click!

Placing my sword back into the scabbard, I looked at my watch

It was precisely 8:00 p.m., and because tomorrow was the day of the trip I decided to head back and rest.

If things were going to progress just like I thought they would, I needed all the rest I could get...

Looking at the darkening sky, I murmured

"This is going to be one hell of a trip..."

...

Parker Tower, Ashton city.

-Knock

Sitting at his desk looking through some papers, Micheal Parker, the current head of the Parker family, heard a knock coming from the other side of the door.

"Come in"

Putting the papers down, Micheal looked in the direction of the door.

Opening the door, an elegant elderly individual with a butler outfit entered the room. He had long white hair accompanied by a finely trimmed mustache that rested below his nose. Despite his age, his face barely had any wrinkles and aside from the pigmentation of his mustache and hair, someone could've easily mistaken him for a forty year old man.

"Greetings master"

Elegantly bowing in front of Micheal Parker, the butler looked at his master and waited for him to speak.

"Are the preparations ready?"

Looking at the butler before him, Micheal's authoritative voice rang across the room.

"Yes master, everything has been prepared" freewēbnoveℓ.com

Hearing the butler's response, Micheal nodded slightly. Pausing for a moment and looking at Ashton city from the window he said

"...has the Trivot squad been dispatched?"

Hearing the word 'Trivot' being mention, the butler's demeanor faltered for a split second before recovering.

"Yes...everything is as you have ordered."

"Good"

Letting out a satisfied smile, Micheal slumped on his chair and lightly murmured

"With the Trivot squad in charge of this case, I don't have to worry about anything"

Looking at Micheal Parker with a complicated look, the old butler couldn't hold it anymore and said

"...Sir, though it may be rude of me, are you sure you want to send the Trivot squad for this mission?"

As soon as those words escaped the butler's mouth, the temperature of the room dropped to freezing points.

A strong oppressive force started emanating from Micheal, as he looked at his butler.

"Richard, it seems that I had been too lenient with you...despite having served me for over fifteen years, you still doubt my decisions?"

Subjected to such immense pressure, cold sweat dripped from Richard's back as he immediately lowered his head.

"n-no, I jus-t thought that after raising them for so long, it would be a waste to let them go just like this"

Smirking, Micheal shook his head

"Naive, this is the best time for the Trivot squad to come into play. This mission requires the assassination of several high-profiled individuals whose backing is just as strong as our family if not even more...a single failure could cause everything that my father and grandfather had built to go down the drain"

Looking back at the butler, Micheal coldly said

"If anyone catches wind of what we are planning, the fate of the Parker family would be on the line. A single mistake and we could very well be wiped out from the face of this planet. Only if we utilize the Trivot squad will we be able to complete our plan without worrying about it implicating us."

Squinting his eyes, the pressure around Micheal intensified many folds.

"ukhh"

"...do you understand why I am employing the Trivot squad?"

"Understood"

Struggling to adjust himself to the pressure, Richard forced himself to nod.

The pressure was too much for him.

"Good"

Letting out a satisfied smile, the pressure around the room dissipated.

Feeling the massive pressure lift from him, Richard finally managed to catch his breath.

After a while, a complicated look appeared on his face.

There was only one reason for his sense of discomfort.

The Trivot squad.

An elite squad that was secretly raised by the Parker family and created for the sole purpose of killing high-profile targets.

Each member, who were raised from a very young age, had no other purpose to their life aside from serving the Parkers.

They were essentially discardable elite soldiers. Once used, they would be killed. They were a one-time use squad.

Regardless of whether they succeeded or not, they were fated to die after completing the mission.

The reason for such a procedure was because the Parkers didn't want to leave behind any loopholes in case any of their missions failed. Even if they succeeded or failed, no other person apart from a few trusted individuals could know what they had done.

The fewer people that knew the better.

"...you may go"

After seeing that his butler had somewhat understood his intentions, Micheal waved his hand and dismissed him

"As you wish"

Standing up, the butler bowed once again before leaving and closing the door on the way out.

Soon, Micheal was left alone in his office. Looking at the papers in his hands, Micheal's eyes paused on a few profiles.

'Kevin Voss'

'Emma Roshfield'

'Amanda stern'

'Jin Horton'

'Han yu fei'

'Melissa hall'

Those were just a few of the names of the people he was planning to have assassinated during the academy start of year trip.

He was planning on killing them all.

He planned to kill all of the individuals who were either too talented or were direct competitors of the Parker family.

Twenty years.

That's how long he had been training the Trivot squad. It was all for this moment.

He wanted to deal a fatal blow to all of his competitors. One that would cause them to lose what was most precious to them.

He wanted them to dispair.

He wanted them to suffer a pain that was worse than death. Just like what he had been through all those years ago...

Reaching for the corner of his desk, Micheal flipped over an old wooden picture frame.

Staring at the photo behind the picture frame, Micheal's indifferent face slightly softened as he lightly caressed the glass on the frame.

After a couple of seconds, his fingers started trembling and his voice shook.

"Soon my dear...I'll see you soon"

-Tak!

Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Micheal flipped the picture frame down. It took a couple of seconds before he was able to revert back to his previous indifferent demeanor.

Standing up, Micheal walked to the edge of his office, where thick reinforced glass replaced the walls, allowing him to overlook the whole of Ashton city.

Interlocking his hands behind his back, he coldly murmured

"Hollberg will be the first step to my revenge"