“Stark… do you want to attend the Rift Conqueror Academy?” Arthur suddenly smiled while speaking to the boy.
He had already expected something like that the moment he began to talk about academies, but ‘Rift Conqueror’ was the top 1 in Fellarburg, and considered the top 3 in the world.
“…” Stark looked at the blond-haired archer for a few seconds before sighing, “I don’t have the money or talent to attend.”
Of course, the latter was a lie since he was confident in his abilities to dominate others using the domination class, but the money part was true.
“Ohoh~ but I have seen you fight inside that rift, Stark, and I can promise you that you have everything you need to attend,” he nodded, reminding Stark that Arthur was the leader of the crimson moon squad (although he never participates, he had just formed the team), and so that meant he knew Stark participated.
He knew that the person before him was the bunny-masked man everyone was talking about, and he would make sure to take advantage of that.
“Dad, you want him to attend with me, don’t you?” Lana pouted, suddenly speaking for the first time, “I don’t need protection!”
“Princess~ it’s not about you or anything, I just feel like granting such a strong person access to a way to get stronger is a good thing, your relationship with him can go the way you want it to go…”
She blushed at the last few words, but stayed silent.
“I still don’t have money,” Stark shrugged, confident that this would be enough to let him off the hook.
‘To be honest… it can’t be that bad…’ he thought, plus attending such a big school would mean the possibility to get not only stronger, but also access better rifts.
The 95% failure rate didn’t scare him at all.
And maybe, just maybe, there was another domination user hiding among the crowd? After all he knew that some others existed thanks to the domination association.
But of course, the 25 million fee was still too much, so he obviously didn’t plan to go.
Or at least, that’s what he thought.
“Oh, but it’s fine, Stark, we can pay your tuition fee for you,” Arthur smiled, his tone indicating that he had ulterior motives.
“DAD?!” Lana slammed her fists against the table, lucky she didn’t have much strength as an archer or else it would have been destroyed, “You’re going to pay for his tuition?!”
Louise and Aoki seemed to already know about this, so the two of them just stared at the conversation with blank expressions.
“Princess…” the aura around Arthur became nauseating all of a sudden, it was one of the perks of [Focus]: the ability to sense the intentions of someone, and this meant that whatever the archer king wanted from him was no good, “Of course it won’t be free…”
Stark raised an eyebrow, suspicious of Arthur’s sudden generosity, “And what do you want in return for paying my tuition fee?” he asked cautiously.
Arthur chuckled, his blue eyes glinting with amusement, “Actually nothing… but there is one small problem…”
‘Here we go,’ Stark sighed, he knew there was a twist.
Arthur placed a weird device that resembled a watch in the middle of the table, and after pressing on a button, several holographic pictures appeared.
“Rift Conqueror has no admission test, the only way to attend is to prove your worth,” he began explaining, showing the image of a rift portal, “And well… if you want to attend and for me to pay the tuition, you need to do one simple thing…”
“And that is…?”
Arthur grabbed one of the holographic pictures and increased its size, it was the picture of a cave in the middle of nowhere, and at the end of it… a closed rift could be seen.
“This rift was found recently…” his tone became serious, almost as if he wanted to sell something to Stark.
“I can already see where this is going, you don’t even need to tell me…” Stark groaned and interrupted the archer king while he was still explaining.
“HEY ASSHOLE, DON’T INTERRUPT FATHER,” Aoki suddenly took out his bow and pointed it at Stark.
But Stark wasn’t impressed.
They had revealed their true intentions the moment the word academy and rift was spoken.
“…?” Lana looked around, confused as to why the atmosphere had become like that.
‘They are using her relationship with me to trick her…’ Stark internally laughed, they seemed like good parents, but oh well, he was wrong.
“So you want me to go to this rift and conquer it, that’s what you want, don’t you?” Stark smirked as he slammed his fist against the table, but just using a bit of his aura was enough to crack the glass.
Arthur raised an eyebrow at the damage Stark had caused, but continued his explanation. “Yes, that’s correct. If you can conquer this rift, not only will you gain entry to the Rift Conqueror Academy, but you will also receive a generous sum of money for your trouble.”
“So basically…” the aura around Stark became overwhelming, he wasn’t joking anymore, “You want me to do YOUR dirty work =)?”
“Dad, what is happening?” Lana titled her head while asking her family, “Why would you need Stark to do that…?”
“Princess~ we just need to see if he is worthy of entering the academy, that is all!”
Arthur without even waiting for Stark to say anything else pulled out the third holographic image, and on it he could see an arrow with a white heart at the edge of it, as well as a powerful aura surrounding it.
“We need you to bring the ‘Arrows of Serria’, that is all we ask,” Arthur looked at Stark, “And if you do that…”
He clicked on a watch that was on his wrist, and a suitcase suddenly appeared on the cracked table, it was full of money, “We will not only pay your tuition but also give you 5 million rher coins, meaning this is a 30 million rher coins mission.”
“Go fuck yourself,” Stark flipped him off with not a single moment of hesitation, he wouldn’t be sold like that by money.
If he wanted, he could go to another rift by himself and get all the items he wanted to become rich, he didn’t need all that bullshit.
Lana still seemed quite shocked of whatever just happened, “Father! What the fuck is happening?” she actually started to be mad, “You ask MY friend to do your work?”
And although Stark was grateful to her for getting mad for him… he still decided to leave.
“It was nice to know you, Arthur,” Stark got up from his chair and began heading toward the exit.
“Are you sure, kid? This rift may be more difficult than the one you previously went through, but it also means a greater chance to get experience.”
“If I want experience i’ll just go somewhere else, just hire somebody else to do the work, shouldn’t be difficult with all the cash.”
“Well… that is true, but the ‘Arrows of Serria’ are guarded by one of the ‘Godless Demon’s’ apostles…” Arthur scratched his chin, seemingly undisturbed by Stark’s behavior.
“Quit it dad, Stark won’t accept such a request!” Lana crossed her arm.
But no… Stark stopped in his tracks as he had heard something that made him excited.
The reason was simple: that old man just mentioned a godless demon apostle.
And that meant…
‘I need to complete the ApostleDex,’ it was his chance to clear one of the remaining 13 squares.
