Do you have anything to say?

"Stand aside, then," Theo ordered the girl while using all of his willpower to keep a cold look on his face.

This was the most critical moment for the entirety of his big scheme. If he gave any hints regarding the true nature of the selection now, then all of his extensive preparation, all the time he spent in the library, all the risks he took to make it happen…

All of it would turn useless.

Theo took a deep breath. He twisted his lips into an ugly grimace of dissatisfaction.

"Anyone else?" Theo then asked out loud, right as the girl started to walk away to where he pointed her at. "Does anyone else has any problems?" he asked, raising his voice by a tiny little bit.

Most of the candidates took this situation as a pat on their back or a kick to their ass respectively, each putting even more effort into the act of viciously beating the defenseless children.

'Just watching them turn into small little monsters like that…' The thought, gritting his teeth not to let his anger and disgust appear on his face.

Most of the candidates took Theo's words as a warning. Those that hesitated before now gained enough determination to put proper force behind their whipping. Those who already enjoyed the motion only got even more into it, allowing the desperate screams of the kids to further fuel their joy of beating them up.

And out of the total of a hundred of the candidates, save for the two that Theo already dealt with, only three more took his words… and reinforced their determination not to go through with what was suggested. M

"If you are unwilling to do so little, then you can stand aside as well," Theo said, turning his face to the three other candidates that ended up refusing to partake in the beating of the kids.

The three future disciples of his either gritted their teeth or simply averted their faces, trying to hide the shame of being singled out like that.

And so, the selection continued, with a whole of ninety-five disciple candidates doing their best to beat the kids with their fake whips as thoroughly as they possibly could.

'I really hoped for some more to have any moral backbone,' Theo thought, walking along the line while observing the situation, still hoping that someone, even just a single person, would end up fed up and opt out of their misunderstanding.

Still willing to give the candidates a bit more time, Theo took a look at his surroundings.

They were in the middle of a relatively small garden, barely capable of fitting all of the candidates and kids at the same time.

And yet, even though he was just a nobody in the entire division whose only strength was the sympathy of Paichi… There were actually some spectators to the whole show.

Most of them Theo couldn't recognize.

'Elder's spies, most likely,' he thought as he ran his eyes over the faces of outer and inner disciples watching the proceedings.

Then, Theo's eyes stopped, stuck on the single face he was even remotely familiar with.

A storm of red hair surrounded an extremely beautiful face. A face that was too damn beautiful to be considered real. Looks that back on earth could only ever be an end result of the extensive use of graphic altering software.

It was the face that Theo could recognize as it wasn't the first time he saw the woman.

She was wearing the robes of an inner sect disciple. And Theo encountered her just yesterday and then even further back in the past, back when he was still busy studying everything interesting he could find at the sect's library.

'What is she doing here?' Theo thought as he laid his eyes upon a small emblem embroiled on the right shoulder of the girl's robes.

An eagle enclosed in a circle and then struck right through its middle with what looked like some sort of a fancy spear.

A mark that clearly didn't depict the division Theo belonged to!

'Did I catch someone's eye already?' Theo thought, gritting his teeth, failing to notice when a few seconds got to pass with him staring right at the woman.

'This isn't good,' Theo tightened his fists before forcing him to turn both his eyes and the rest of his body away.

The girl appeared to be around the same age as him… and yet, her face had this impossible, otherworldly charm that made it pretty damn hard to look away.

'Still, she didn't seem all that disgusted by the selection,' Theo thought once he managed to break free from the charm of that strange, redhead's face and figure. 'Rather than that, she appeared to be… deep in her thoughts?'

Theo closed his eyes for a second, trying to run all the possible scenarios through his mind. Yet, no matter how hard he tried, he didn't find a single path in which he should take any direct actions to avoid her involvement right now.

No matter how hard he tried, his options were limited to what he could do about her in the future.

'If that's the case, then thinking about it right now is nothing more but a waste of time,' Theo decided, opening his eyes and raising his chin.

"I've seen enough," the young man announced in a strong, mana-etched voice.

This single announcement was enough to cause most of the candidates to cease their hostility toward the kids. Quite notably, though, some of them were too damn into it, opting to just keep on beating the kids instead.

Still, Theo ignored all of those who didn't dare to stand up to him before. He, instead, locked his hands behind his back before slowly strolling towards the five that likely believed they opted out of the selection by refusing to follow Theo's implied commands.

"What's your name?" Theo asked once he stood right in front of the hate-filled face of the girl that he clashed with before.

'Keep a straight face,' Theo reminded himself. 'Even though it doesn't matter anymore… keeping the theatrics up before the grand reveal is the least I can do on my end!'

"It's Kaya… senior," the girl replied through her gritted teeth.

Her whip-wielding hand twitched, indicating she was on the verge of throwing her life away just for a chance of striking Theo with her whip once.

'Well, we can't have that,' Theo thought, giving up on his idea of keeping the ruse for much longer. And so, Theo raised his chin a bit more before softening his expression by a tiny little bit.

"Do you have anything to say?"