Another bright day arose as the artificial sun illuminated the City of Sin. In one of the upper districts, a young man woke up earlier than he usually did. He jumped off his cotton bed with a golden frame engraved by one of the most elegant artisans in the area. This man brushed his teeth as he gazed at the diamond-encrusted mirror reflecting his face.

I hope today’s better than yesterday.

After taking a short shower with water imbued with the emanating from a Fragment, he went outside his room. His room alone was something an average family wouldn’t be able to afford even if they spent ten lifetimes pulling together all their worth.

“Good morning, Sir Elliot.” A maid promptly welcomed the Bandgerette family’s fifth child. “The patriarch would like to invite you to breakfast.”

Elliot was immediately taken aback by the sudden attention. The patriarch of the family was his father, Lancaster Bandgerette, a very reputable Seal Solver who had accumulated an immense foundation of strength through connections. Out of all the five children that he had, all of them were despicable and useless without any redeemable qualities for becoming an excellent Solver except for Elliot.

This made the burden on Elliot extremely heavy but at the same time due to his father’s intense favoritism, quite delightful at the same time. If one of his brothers would ask for money, Elliot would get twice the amount without even asking, if one of his sisters demanded a place in the city, Elliot would be blessed with five times the land. Even without Elliot asking, he would immediately be given extremely expensive and luxurious items.

This would’ve normally corrupted a child into being spoiled yet for some reason, Elliot turned out to be a very normal kid. He didn’t have any close attachments to physical property nor did he have any grand ambitions to strive for. If anything, growing up in this kind of environment made him forget even the concept of wealth itself.

This was the case until Elliot was suddenly forced by his father to join Seal Academy, rumored to be the most merciless academy there was in the City of Sin. Elliot was confused as to why his father made him go yet he accepted nonetheless. He brought the bare essentials only to be beaten up on the first day by two random Low-borns.

Elliot was finally going to meet up with his father face to face, something he hadn’t done for a month by now. His nerves were taut as his first-day experience in such a brutal school made him act out in ways he had never thought of before. From being beaten to resonating with someone’s goal, to even seeing bloodshed, all of these experiences made him wonder just how terrifying the outside world truly was.

As Elliot went his way down the golden staircase with numerous servants immediately cleaning his footsteps as he walked, he finally saw the giant doorway where the dining hall was located. He didn’t even need to raise a finger as even more servants fervently opened the door for him, trying to leave a good impression on Elliot.

Before him, laid a feast filled with numerous dishes as far as the eye could see, there were meals that shone and reflected the light that illuminated it, there were crystallized cubes of meat that would immediately melt as soon as it met your tongue, there was even a whole pig prepared with an apple in its mouth. Even Elliot saw that this was beyond his expectations, there were so many dishes that this was extravagant even for his father.

“Elliot! Good to see you in great spirits!” Lancaster heartily smiled as he welcomed Elliot to sit right beside him. Elliot’s brothers and sisters sat all around the table, even though they were tempted to immediately dig in but as for their father’s orders they weren’t allowed to take a single bite without Elliot being here first. “Come, come! I want to announce something that made me especially happy! Elliot, you did good in school!”

“Yes, father.” Elliot meekly walked forward and sat beside Lancaster. He was a little unnerved as he asked, “There’s something I want to ask for… if you don’t mind.”

“You… asking for something? Gahahaha! Did you find your sweetheart already? Say no more, just give me her name and I’ll woo her with golden coins as far as she could see.”

“That’s not it Father, it’s something about my school life,” Elliot recalled just how helpless he was when Arin appeared. “Can you send people to help me? The people there are too brutal and I couldn’t do a single thing.”

“Hmm, protection, you say?” Lancaster recalled that as brutal as it seemed, Seal Academy was genuinely the safest academy within the City of Sin with their Mysterious Fragment healing all injuries inflicted within campus. As for the professors, they didn’t really care about life being lost but there were a few important people that were specifically selected for the professors to look out for, one of them was Elliot. With this safety net in place, Lancaster didn’t really mind Elliot suffering a little bit.

“Yes. There was a syndicate that even dared to try and kill students inside it so I’m afraid that they might go after me next.” Elliot told his father all the troubles plaguing his mind, even taking a crystallized cube of meat from one of the trays and consuming it.

“That sounds interesting, what happened?” Lancaster gestured to his other children to eat after seeing Elliot take the first bite.

“It was a syndicate called the Rising Syndicate and they wanted to show off their strength against the current Student Body Committee. Apparently, a guy named Mason was their target, one of Fiona’s close people. I tried to stop them but they beat me up as well.”

Even at this point, Lancaster wasn’t agitated in the least, even hearing his most prized child get beaten was something he expected after he sent him to Seal Academy. If anything, if Elliot wasn’t hit in the gut even once then Lancaster would have to start questioning Seal Academy’s reputation.

“Continue.” Even Lancaster was feeling famished, as he started to stuff his plate with numerous delicacies in front of him.

“So after we got beaten up, two people I met earlier on helped me out.”

Lancaster’s eyes widened in shock as a thick slab of meat got stuck in his throat. He coughed uncontrollably as he slammed his chest with his fist. Elliot saw his father recover quickly and curiously asked, “Why did two people help you out?” The sheer thought of two random people helping him out even though they didn’t know his status was extremely rare in Seal Academy.

“To be honest, they extorted me earlier that morning. If it wasn’t for that guy changing their minds then the events later on would’ve changed drastically. Anyways continuing on, these two bullies helped us out by dealing with those syndicate members. After that, we ran away for quite a while before realizing that they were trapping us within their web. So Mason spilled that they were actually going to kill him to show off their syndicate’s strength.”

Lancaster nodded approvingly to what the syndicate did, to oppress a weak and reputable club to expedite their status was something that he agreed with. Up to this point, Lancaster was listening in with an understanding look.

“After those two bullies had a change of heart, we suddenly got surrounded by a lot of 2nd-year students. Luckily enough they were really weak and I managed to follow the plan. I managed to get help and it ended off without anyone dying.”

“Now, I’m curious, how did Fiona deal with that horde?” Lancaster was extremely intrigued by this person who suddenly showed up out of nowhere. A girl who was backed by nothing more than a Seal Solver suddenly made Seal Academy bend their rules and actually force them to hand her an extremely important position. Even her Rating was beyond belief, 563 was superhuman, beyond humanity’s current limit. Learning as to how Fiona dealt with the horde was something he was interested in.

“That’s… I didn’t get Fiona’s help. It was someone else. Regardless, can you send someone to protect me?” Elliot tried to dodge the question, he didn’t want to emphasize his relationship with Arin at all. If anything, he wanted to get out of Arin’s sight as soon as possible.

“Someone else?” Lancaster felt that it was a cut and clear case but when he suddenly heard that the group was dealt with by someone other than Fiona then he might need to start doing a little bit of investigating.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“That’s not important, though?” Elliot faked a cough and tried to redirect the conversation. “He’s not right in the head and I want nothing more than to get out of his sight. Father, can you pay one of the seniors to help me out?”

“We can talk about that later, who is this ‘he’ you’re talking about?” Lancaster made his voice deeper, in a much more commanding tone than his casual one earlier. “Elliot, this is an order, tell me.”

Elliot clenched his fists, “It’s a person named Arin-”

“Arin?” Lancaster immediately gave off an overwhelming aura. “And this… Arin, what’s your relationship with him?” Whether it was an angry one or a happy one, no one could tell.

“Nothing.” Elliot immediately tried to explain what kind of person Arin was. “He’s a psychopath that tortures people for the fun of it. He made five hundred students stay put and got the spectators to batter them. He even made one of the Rising Syndicate’s core people into a living corpse! I need people to save me from him!”

“No.” Lancaster immediately looked into the distance, plotting something deviant. “You’re not getting any support from me. In fact, you’re not allowed to live in this house anymore. I’ll buy one of the mansions near the academy, you’ll be living there now. As for your daily necessities, other than a small amount of money, you’ll get nothing else from me.”

Elliot’s eyes widened in surprise, and for his other siblings, they were even more shocked. For their father to cast him aside this cruelly then Elliot must’ve broken some kind of taboo that completely angered their father. To put it in perspective, Lancaster’s way of punishing his children was lowering their ten million coin allowance down to nine million, for such a drastic change to occur they could only speculate. Of course, it wasn’t entirely the reason why.

“W-Wait, Father?” Elliot was about to cut into his meal when he lost all sensation and dropped his utensils. “You… you can’t be serious, right? Did I do something wrong?”

“You didn’t, in fact, this is a great accomplishment, greater than anything I could have ever dreamed of. So great that everything makes sense now. Did you know that you scored the highest in that mock exam, Elliot?”

“W-What…?” Elliot was caught off guard at what his father was alluding to.

“You scored a terrifying Rating of 319, that’s a number that would directly put you in the Academy of Supremacy’s enlisted elites. This would’ve already made me fully groom you into becoming my successor yet you somehow managed to get this person’s attention. I don’t know whether it’s good or bad for you but I know one thing for sure, learn from this person Elliot.”

“Father? Who is he? Who’s Arin?” Elliot was carrying Noland to the clinic when Fiona exposed Arin’s background to everyone. Although irrelevant, possibly changing nothing from the current outcome, it was still something that he could’ve braced for.

“Arin Theo, the adopted son of Kian Theo, a Labyrinth Solver.” Lancaster delightfully took a mouthful of meat and vegetables, eating his fill. “A problem child they say, a completely immoral child that constantly goes on fights as if his life depended on it. A temper so fragile that a single sneeze and he’ll break you apart. A sense of sadism so cruel that even the devil would shy away from his victim’s corpses. That sounds about right, Elliot?”

“It’s… much worse up close.” Elliot felt his entire break apart, even though he hadn’t asked for much to know that his safety net was cast aside meant that his life was in real danger.

“You should also know to never disrespect his relationship with his father. And I mean never, the last time that someone called him adopted, it was safe to assume what happened. Even his father loves him as if he were his real child, so if anything, Arin’s his only real weakness. So after that person died miserably, do you know what happened? His entire bloodline disappeared from the city, you should know who did that, right? That’s one of the four unstoppable forces in the city.”

Elliot gritted his teeth, “At least tell me why.” Even though he asked this, he clearly knew why. Lancaster had always wanted to groom his children into becoming a well-respected Solver like himself, unfortunately, none of his children were up to par with his expectations except for his youngest child. With this one core idea, Elliot also knew that his father was forcing him to learn and rely on Arin, learning his brutality first-hand. He also knew that he was sharp yet at the same time knew that his weakness was his body. Looking at his father’s perspective, sending him to Seal Academy to make up for his weakness was the correct move.

Despite knowing that it was logically sound, Elliot still felt that it was wrong to be sent out like that. His logical and emotional self contradicted each other, a real internal struggle.

“You know the answer yourself. Don’t worry though, if you achieve my expectations then I’ll give you my full undivided support. Let’s see… by the time you reach your 2nd-year I’ll check on you again. Eat well, son, this is the last time you’ll be seeing this place for a long time.” Lancaster finished up his meal and left Elliot stunned at how his life suddenly changed. Whether it was for better or for worse, it remained to be seen.

Elliot’s terrible mood was suddenly interrupted when one of Elliot’s brothers immediately jumped out of his seat and came to right beside Elliot, “Cheer up, little brother! I believe you can do this.”

Despite these four siblings being spoiled beyond belief, they all had a close relationship as a family. They all had their own interests and desires that didn’t conflict with any other of the siblings. This made them able to be tight-knit and close, resolving problems that each other had. As to why Lancaster kept supporting them as much as he did, as useless as they were in being a Solver, they all had their own talents that could be polished in other fields.

“Thanks, Jauve. Say, you’re in the real estate business, right? Could you help me find a spot somewhere else? I don’t want to be too close to the academy.”

“No problem!” Jauve took one of the pieces of meat that Elliot had on his plate and gulped it down. “I’m sure my dear older sister would like to pitch in as well, right Cathy?”

“Ugh, so insufferable but… It’s not as if he’s wrong.” Cathy went up to right beside Elliot and whispered in his ear. “I have the state of the art hidden-weapons ready for testing, so what about it? Ready to have a little bit of fun?” Cathy’s stern expression turned quite devious as she giggled while saying her words.

“Sis, I don’t think I’ll need hidden-weapons. Maybe a good light sword will do the trick? I don’t think I can handle anything heavy right now but maybe in the future.” Elliot wondered about when he would be able to wield anything grand.

The fourth child of the family, the second youngest jumped off her chair and also came to the fray, “Maybe… if you… uh…” She weakly pulled a pill bottle out of her hand and tried to nudge it close to Elliot. “This should… help you a bit…”

Elliot opened the unlabeled bottle and sniffed the pills, the effects were so potent that his heart immediately started racing as his blood pumped out throughout his body, invigorating him to an immense degree. Elliot closed off the pill bottle as quickly as he could, “Jane, what are these pills? They’re so strong!”

Elliot pointed at both Jauve and Cathy who were both almost knocked out on the floor from the sheer potency of the pill. They were experiencing their body deteriorate and regenerate at an extremely fast speed, wholly strengthening them.

“It’s… my newest creation… as the youngest you should grow big and strong!” Jane pumped her hands as if she was convinced that this was how she could help him. “Is it… too weak-”

“No!” Elliot had to clear up any misunderstanding before his genius of a sister made something even more tyrannical. “How about you give me something more long-term? That should build up my foundation.”

Jane nodded and went right behind Elliot, hugging him. “I’ll do as my cute little brother says.”

Elliot let her strangle his neck unwillingly. He was now only waiting on his oldest brother, hoping that he wouldn’t do anything even more absurd than the last.

“Brother-” Elliot’s neck was strangled by Jane making it difficult for him to speak. He saw his eldest brother, Reid, calmly walk up to him.

“Elliot, you’re a sight for sore eyes, aren’t you?” Reid laughed as he sat on the table while playing with Elliot’s meal. “Here’s my gift, use it well, alright?” Reid threw Elliot a blank golden card which made Elliot completely caused his eyes to widen in pure shock. Out of all of the gifts that he had gotten, this was the most insane one.

Elliot used all his strength, barely getting Jane off his back as he shouted, “So, you’re telling me that you’re why our family is so rich?” Elliot tried to reach out of his brother’s back yet he didn’t even stop.

Reid smiled, “It truly was a terrible lifestyle back then, good thing I had a good sense of money. How else do you think Jauve got approval to buy that wasteland?”

Jauve was barely conscious when he suddenly shouted out, “It’s not a wasteland! It’s a good strategic stronghold!”

“When Cathy spent millions buying that piece of useless technology?” Reid smirked.

Cathy was also barely hanging on when she argued back, “Useless? You should know more than anyone how valuable it is! Ancient technology is priceless!”

“Or when Jane… never mind you should know why.” Reid sighed as Jane walked up to Reid and kicked him in the shin which Reid jumped in pain from. She scoffed and went back to Elliot’s side, “Elliot, attack!”

Elliot calmed Jane down as he tried to reconfirm with Reid, “Brother, is it really infinite? What if someone steals it?”

“You should put more trust in me, little brother. It has Cathy’s technology hidden in it by using some kind of mumbo jumbo power from the maze-”

“Fragments!” Cathy interjected while she was lying on her back on the floor.

“Uh, Fragments to bind it to you. If someone else tries to use it then, pop.” Reid waved his hands around, mimicking an explosion. “So you should keep this safe, for everyone’s sake. So have fun with nearly infinite wealth, though not too much fun, I say infinite but it’s not really infinite so watch your budget. Still, I don’t think money’s going to do anything for you there, you’re smart you can handle it yourself. And as always, if you need anything just call us, and we’ll be right there for you.”

Elliot looked back at his siblings as he laughed, grabbing them all together. Even Reid, a 29 year-old-man was ‘forcefully’ taken away by Elliot as they came together, enjoying their time bonding. By the door, Lancaster was sneaking on them by watching from a distance, he slowly walked away, giving his children time to bond with each other.

Elliot, I hope you learn to be cruel enough to protect your siblings. If you’re terrifying enough then no one should even think about touching those precious to you.