Arthur’s expression didn’t change as he saw Stark suddenly appear, intruding this private property and even destroying the door.
“Seems like you’re back,” he sighed as he took a step forward.
Now all the attention was on them, and the pure amount of aura coming out would be enough to make most people faint, everyone present in here was interested.
“Thought I was dead?” Stark smiled as he began to walk toward them as well.
Many people were wary of him as they already knew who he was: black-hair, bunny-mask, and that familiar aura…
All of them knew immediately knew this was the ‘bunny-masked man’ that had made it in the news all around the world.
‘Stark!’ Lana wanted to shout, but she knew that he wanted to keep his identity secret if he was wearing the mask, so she just sobbed silently, happy that he was actually alive.
“So… why are you here?” Arthur lifted his eyebrows, “It’s been 3 weeks with no news from you…”
“…” Stark didn’t answer.
Of course, all classifiers present here knew that Arthur had acquired the rights to conquer the ‘Sierra’s Death Path’ rift, but hadn’t been able to for two months because of the sheer difficulty of the task.
“Let me guess… took you 3 weeks to escape that nightmare rift, heh~?” Arthur smiled, seemingly amused that Stark did all of this for no reason.
“Seriously?”
“I mean… no matter how you look at it, there is no way you don’t get hit by those arrows…”
“Yeah, he probably ran away, but at least he is alive?”
Stark remained silent as he heard the murmurs of the crowd, they were mere spectators, but thoroughly enjoyed the drama.
Stark took a few seconds to look at the decoration around the party room, it was lavishly decorated, with paintings and furniture all over, as well as a giant chandelier in the ceiling.
But what was most interesting was…
The giant screen panel placed in the middle of the room for everyone to see.
It didn’t take long for Stark to figure out what it was.
…
[Top Classifiers of Fellarburg!]
[Top 100: Naegi, The Electric Blade]
[Top 99: Ursi, The Torch Woman]
.
.
.
[Top 8: Arthur, The Archer King]
[Top 7: Junko, The Despair Queen]
[Top 6: Ludvik, The Doom Slayer]
[Top 5: Kirigiri, The White Jade]
[Top 4: Sonic, The Lightspeed Warrior]
[Top 3: Olya and Olye, Dream Team Twins]
[Top 2: Kevin, The Potion Freak]
[Top 1: Drakon, The Dragon Tamer]
…
The giant screen would occasionally scroll down and up to showcase the names of all the people present, and obviously, the higher the rank, the stronger they were.
Arthur seemed to be the top 8 strongest person in Fellarburg, and as for the others, he had never heard of them, but they were people Stark shouldn’t mess with yet.
They each had a name, of course, but next to that name was their ‘classifier name’, something used to identify them, much like Arthur with his ‘Archer King’ title.
Stark looked around, and he could see on the gazes of all these people that they were mocking him for trying such a reckless thing as defeating that rift which had a ‘Godless Demon’ apostle inside.
And yet…
‘Spatial Inventory,’ the void appeared beside Stark, and he put his hand inside without even looking, pulling out the [Arrow Quiver] that had been rewarded to him for killing Sierra.
~FWISH, CATCH~
With a simple movement, he threw the quiver toward Arthur, who caught it then immediately looked inside.
‘…!’ his eyes widened for the first time as he noticed that there was indeed a stack (64) of [Arrows of Sierra] inside, and immediately he lifted his gaze to see Stark smiling.
People were confused, what was that even supposed to mean?
“So you did in fact complete that rift,” Arthur clapped his hands together slowly, “Didn’t expect that.”
“So you expected me to die?” Stark smiled harder.
“…” Arthur didn’t speak for a few seconds, cornered, “It’s just that it’s been three weeks, so I thought that you had died,” he recovered himself.
The tension in the air was now becoming palpable, and every classifier looked at one another.
THAT rift, which even some of them refused to enter, had been completed by that kid?
And that could only mean one thing…
“You didn’t get hit by a single arrow?” it wasn’t Arthur who spoke, but another red-haired classifier, he was buff and there seemed to be sharp spikes coming out of his arms, stomach, back, and also at the top of his head.
Everyone that knew about Sierra and her rift already had the knowledge about her arrows and their special perks, which were something even level 200 classifiers feared.
“…” Stark looked at him for only a single second before turning his gaze back to Arthur, not even bothering to answer.
He wasn’t interested in the others.
But…
~CRASH, BOOM~
From the same direction the red-haired classifier spoke could be heard a giant boom, and when Stark looked at it, he noticed that another person smashed the ground.
“Teach him a lesson, son,” the classifier that spoke to Stark smiled as his son’s eyes began to burn with aura.
A mini-version of that classifier appeared, he was a bit smaller in size, but his muscles and hair were the exact same.
[Class: Warrior]
He didn’t seem to use a weapon either, but just like his father, his entire body was surrounded by sharp spikes, although his control of them seemed to be lacking.
“Holy… are Derek and his son Karl getting involved…?”
“I heard Karl is getting into ‘Rift Conqueror’ too… that boy is dead no matter what he tries now…”
The entrance ceremonies for academies were only in a month, and it looked like Karl wanted to show off in front of the other classifiers, his father also wanting to show that their family was strong.
“…” Stark sighed, he knew that losers like these would appear.
But… he just needed to get rid of them.
All the attention was now on Stark and Karl, who was approaching the bunny-masked boy, the spikes in his body shaking and moving like waves, and his silver aura growing more after each step.
But Stark wasn’t impressed.
‘Time to show off my new skills…’ he smiled as he began to breath in and out and focus.
Since the beginning, Stark knew that the top classifiers wouldn’t fight with him, he wasn’t an ‘interesting’ opponent after all, which was why they would send off their children at him.
[FIGHT!]
A crimson panel appeared before him, and only visible to him, an indicator that he needed to be ready now.
