Inside of a large room decorated in pink, with a large king-sized bed in the middle, laid a stunning young girl with short brown hair that scattered all over her pillow. She was currently lying down beneath a set of thin blankets that could not hide the outlines of her body.
Sitting next to her, a tall man with similar colored hair, nervously looked at the young girl who was resting on the bed. Her skin which was flawless was currently pale, and if not for the fact that her breathing was stable someone could've easily mistaken her for a dying patient.
"…Mmm."
At that moment, Emma opened her eyes. Oliver Roshfield, Emma's father and the man that was in the room, noticing Emma's eyes opening immediately shot up and called for a doctor.
"You're up. How are you holding up?"
"…Fine."
Emma sat up on the bed and bitterly smiled at her father's worried expression. Soon a doctor came running in to check her pulse, but Emma pushed him away with a smile.
"It's fine, Dad. Nothing serious happened..."
"Really?"
"Of course. Do I look like someone who would get injured so easily? Plus didn't the doctor already confirm I was fine?"
"I, I did."
Hearing Emma mention him, the Doctor lightly shuddered and hurriedly nodded. Oliver Roshfield was a powerful figure who had many titles to his name. 'Flame overlord Oliver Roshfield' 89th in the hero ranking, Ashton city mayor and Vice-director of the union. Each title more fearsome than the other. The doctor knew that being on this man's bad side would only make his life more difficult.
Looking at his daughter up and down a couple of more times, Oliver eventually relented and gestured for the doctor to leave.
"…She seems fine, so you can go now."
"Yes, sir."
The doctor, without skipping a beat hurriedly ran out of the room. Looking at the closing door, Emma spoke briefly
"…Dad."
"Hm?"
Oliver Roshfield replied with a gentle tone.
"About the Parkers..."
Before Emma could finish speaking, the room's temperature increased dramatically.
"..Dad?"
Noticing the changes happening around her, Emma quickly tried to stop her father.
"Dad, stop!"
Placing her hands on her father's cheeks, Emma tried her best to calm her father down.
Despite being one of the strongest people in the human domain, Oliver Roshfield had one fatal weakness. His daughter.
Ever since his wife's death eight years ago, the only memento he had of his late wife was his daughter, Emma. Even though he was busy with his job he always made sure to find enough time to spend it with his daughter. He doted on her a lot.
Seeing her in this state, rage clouded Oliver's mind as he couldn't help but feel a stinging sensation hit his heart.
It was only after he felt his daughter's warm soft hands that his rage slowly started showing signs of subsiding.
"...Dad please stop"
"huuuu..."
Letting out a long breath, the room temperature returned to normal and Oliver bitterly smiled at his daughter.
Only she could stop him from going on a rampage
Finally calming her dad down, Emma smiled in relief and slumped back into her bed.
"Sweetie, are you sure you're okay?"
"...I'm okay, I just need some rest"
"Okay, please don't push yourself"
Tucking Emma in, Oliver stood up and prepared to leave. But just as he was about to leave he felt a slight tug at the edge of his pants.
"Dad, you still didn't answer my previous question"
"Sigh...Emma this matter is more serious than you think"
Gently sitting on the bed next to Emma, Oliver slowly caressed her head.
"What do you mean?"
"The Parkers have been eyeing our properties and resources for a long time now."
"If before they were reluctant to act because of my position, now that they know I will retaliate because of what happened, they will no longer have any restraints when dealing with us"
Pausing slightly, Oliver held his daughter's soft hand tightly and said
"...so sweetie, rest well and return to the academy once you're fully healed. The academy is the safest place for you to be at the moment"
Frowning for a bit, Emma looked at her father. His eyes which held boundless love for her were seeded with worry. Seeing this warmth filled her heart as she felt how much he worried about her.
Tightening her grip of her father's large hand, Emma's frown lessened and she nodded.
"I understand"
Smiling gently, Oliver gently kissed Emma on the cheek and left the room.
As soon as Oliver left the room, his gentle demeanor completely vanished, and what replaced it was a cold and indifferent one.
"...Norman"
"Yes master"
Turning his head towards Norman who was patiently standing outside of Emma's room, Oliver instantly issued orders.
"Start liquidating all our unnecessary assets—I want one billion gathered by the end of the week."
"As you wish"
Bowing down, Norman lightly smiled and left leaving Oliver standing outside of Emma's door.
Having known his master for a while, Norman knew exactly what he was planning. Normally, he would've been against it as the consequences of a war against powerhouses was unimaginable...but thinking back at what had happened to Emma, his eyes narrowed and his pace increased.
'She was the Roshfield reverse scale'
Seeing that Norman left, Oliver sighed and looked at his daughter's room.
Gently caressing the door to Emma's room, Oliver turned around and silently spoke
"...If I don't deal substantial damage to the Parkers by the end of this, then I shall not be called Oliver Roshfield!"
Though his voice was quiet, it held boundless rage within it.
===
Closing the book down, I lightly sighed.
...It seemed like things were going to get difficult from here on out.
A lot has happened since my near-death experience. In about a week's time, Thobias Church will be assassinated.
Since my life and death moment in the dungeon, I increased my training time from five hours a day to nine hours a day. Whenever I had free time on my hands, I would train. It was only after I almost died that I realized that life was as fickle as it could be. Just a single moment and I could die. Only if I was stronger would I be able to live.
Unbeknownst to me, my outlook on life had slowly started to change. I used to think that all I had to do was train and slowly follow along with the storyline.
I had this babysitter type of mindset.
Just follow the protagonist and cover for them if anything that was beyond the plotline happened. Those were my ambitions. Nothing else.
...but the further I stayed in this world, the more I realized that there was more to this world than just a story.
The people, the beautiful sceneries, the professors, my classmates...everything around me was real. This was no longer a novel, and there were no second chances.
If I learned something since reincarnating inside of my own novel was that I needed power...
In the first place. If I had power, I wouldn't need to babysit the plotline.
...no if I was stronger, then nothing could stop me from achieving what I wanted.
Be it the protagonists, the union, the demon king...if I was stronger then no one could stop me from living the life that I desired.
Though I still didn't plan on interfering with the main storyline, my previous ambition of just babysitting the protagonists was no longer there. I need to think more about myself than them.
Did I want to go through another near-death experience again?
No, I didn't. The feeling of having your life toyed with wasn't something I would want to go through again.
...no longer did I want to be chained by someone else.
I wanted something for myself...and only through power could I achieve that.
I may choose to remain low-key for now so that I could build power without getting into any unnecessary conflicts, but the day that I decided to expose my power to the world will be the day that the demons will shake at the mere mention of my name...Ren Dover!
...and in order to achieve this, I decided to remove every distraction around me. Soon I started training like crazy. Every day I would wake up early, go to the gym, take classes, eat, go to the gym and repeat.
A thing that has become bothersome though was that the gym had started becoming fuller as the days went by. Moreover, the atmosphere in the gym was not right...
About two weeks had passed since the events of the elective fair.
and a tense atmosphere enveloped the whole academy, as the first, second, and third years started eyeing each other. This was mainly organized by Fabian who hired people to start conflicts with the first years.
In the first week, things weren't that bad as only small conflicts happened. However, past the first week, entering the second week, the conflicts started escalating to a whole new level.
It first started when a second-year beat up a first-year for bumping into him. Soon, some of the enraged first years took it upon themselves to teach a lesson to the person responsible for the incident.
A day after the first year was hospitalized, three-second years were sent to the hospital heavily injured, including the one that hurt the first year who was the one that had the heaviest injuries.
Following that the conflicts started escalating more and more.
It had gotten so bad that the teachers could no longer turn a blind eye on the situation and firmly stated that whoever was caught fighting within the academy would be expelled. With no exception. Regardless of rank or family background.
Thanks to this announcement, the conflicts within the academy died down.
...keyword. within.
This meant that once you stepped outside the academy boundary it was free for all.
fortunately for me, I didn't really have anything to do outside of the academy so I was fairly unaffected by this whole conflict. Moreover, since my rank was low, I was treated like crap regardless of whether they were juniors or seniors.
No discrimination there...
Another major thing that had happened was that the Parkers and the Roshfield had finally started acting against each other.
The stock prices of each company fluctuated every day as businesses owned by both parties started going bankrupt left and right.
It was total chaos.
The conflicts were starting to escalate and soon will reach all the way to the academy...
ahhh
I wasn't sure how to feel about this. The atmosphere around the academy was so tense that it started affecting my training. Fortunately, because of my low profile nature, I was still in the clear...for now
-Click!
Closing the door to my dorm, I walked towards my elective [Food exploration]
Yup, just like the name suggested, the elective I chose was an elective that focused on food.
But don't get me wrong, this wasn't my first choice, in fact, it was probably one of my last choices.
...but because of all the conflicts within the academy where seniors would reject first years added with the multiple rejections I got due to my rank, I was left with no choice but to apply for this elective. An elective that mainly focused on food...well it wasn't that simple but it was along that line.
What made things worse was that this elective was the elective that Amanda took.
By some sort of weird twist of fate, I ended up in the same elective as one of the main protagonists that I wanted to avoid.
...At this point, I was starting to doubt whether my plan to remain low-key would even be achieved as I was constantly being put through situations where I would either interact with the main cast or fight against mid-novel bosses.
Like seriously, what was wrong with this world?
I was literally going through more hardship than the protagonist himself.