Within a special room that only a special few could enter, a certain girl’s table was filled to the brim with paperwork. Her mind was still trying to figure out whether Elliot’s actions were correct. She was still trying to change her ways yet it needed to take time to ensure that the direction she changed it didn’t completely go against her dream.

After carefully reading one document and rejecting it, she had decided to focus on what she should value more, her current position or her bet. She had been the Student Body President for just over a year now yet for all that time, she had barely made a dent in changing the current status quo. She had been fixated on trying to change by focusing on a select few people.

“Elliot, I want you to be honest. Was my current stance really that important or did you just not want Arin to join in?” Fiona looked to the side where Elliot had been also reading through some of the documents on his own.

“A little of both.” Elliot had already created a profile on Arin’s character. “There are too many factors at play that frankly, I don’t think we’ll be able to change everything that quickly. Stabilizing what we have should be the main focus for the time being.”

Despite having a higher Rating than Elliot, Fiona had not been accustomed to such political conflicts that she was clearly inferior in this field. That of course, was only for the time being, as Elliot slowly guided her, she was learning at an expedited speed.

“I see.” Fion placed her attention back on the massive stack of documents on her desk. She was about to pick up another document when a sudden unexpected knock interrupted them.

“Come in,” Fiona replied.

“Bad news. Arin came back and started fighting everyone. What do we do?” Alclair informed them.

Fiona’s eyes immediately focused. Before, she would without a doubt run off without even considering the situation at hand but now she chooses to be more informed with her decisions.

“Who else is with him?”

“No one else but he got a whole lot stronger! Arin went to the cafeteria and started fighting people. He’s trying to draw out both Rachel and Barlot.”

“Got stronger? That fast? Go tell Rachel and Barlot to stand back, I’ll handle him.” Fiona placed down her stamps and stood from her seat.

“Fiona you shouldn’t make a move right now. I think this is a good opportunity to show off.” Elliot grabbed her and stopped her in her tracks. “Arin’s not the only one who got much stronger, isn’t that right Alclair?”

“At the very least I won’t go down without a fight,” Alclair replied with pure confidence. He had been blessed with strength improvement treatments that he could no longer be compared to his previous self.

“You, Barlot, and Rachel should handle Arin. You don’t need to win, you just need to fight to a standstill. Even if you all lose, it wouldn’t matter as much since that’s not the point of the battle. Our goal is to show that the Student Body Committee doesn’t only rely on Fiona’s hands alone. We need to show that we are an actual force.” Elliot had already brewed up this plan in case Arin was to ever show up unannounced.

“That…” Fiona heard this plan and couldn’t help but agree. This would be a really good stabilizing move for any internal conflict that may arise. The cohesive effect of having even more fighters willing to go through and pursue Fiona’s dream would be extremely helpful in the short term.

Fiona closed her eyes and nodded. She might’ve ordered people to do tasks that were relatively easy but never has she sent people to fight against someone that even she was wary of. “Whatever the outcome is, I thank you.”

“If you want to thank anyone, you should thank Elliot. He’s been working more behind the scenes than you think.” Alclair had already decided to join Elliot’s side, wherever that may lead him, it didn’t matter, be it Fiona’s or Arin’s side.

“Thank you, Elliot. I know I forced you into this position but I know just how much effort you’ve put in it.” Elliot was the first person who had wholeheartedly aided Fiona without any alternative motive.

Elliot smiled, “As long as you keep pursuing to make the world a better place, I’ll help you.”

The three combatants immediately gathered together and aimed directly for the cafeteria. Sounds of people cheering and booing could be heard from outside. They quickly entered to see one singular person standing above the center table with his hand holding Marina by her arm.

Her dainty figure had blood splatters on her yet fortunately enough, it wasn’t hers but her follower’s.

“Leave her be!” A follower that was beneath Arin’s feet was still struggling to save her. All around him were even more students also suffering greatly.

“Make me.” Arin’s foot was exerting more and more pressure behind his back, causing his lungs to bear pressure that they should normally never experience. The follower coughed out blood as he felt his consciousness disappear.

“What do you want? More money? Servants?” Marina was shouting out in pain as Arin’s grip was tightening more and more as time went on. He was torturing them as he pleased. The worst part was that despite so many people trying to save her, not a single of them could injure him at all.

Arin’s hand injury earlier seemed as if he was vulnerable but it could not be further from fact. He demolished everyone, not a single person could even survive a single strike from him. The worst part was that Marina clearly knew that Arin was holding back because if he wasn’t, there would already be countless deaths.

He didn’t respond to Marina’s words at all, choosing to embed the feeling of despair within her bones. A sensation that she would never forget even if she wanted to.

“I was wrong! I’ll never do it again!” The lack of response from Arin pressured her into panicking. She had the thought process of if he didn’t need anything from her then what was stopping him from doing what he wanted? Not knowing what the future was more terrifying than knowing the outcome.

“Arin, here I am.” Barlot walked out from the crowd. As expected, his monstrously large frame made everyone all around him look like ants.

Rachel and Alclair showed up right behind him. The three had tacitly understood that out of the three of them, Barlot had the highest strength.

Turning back, Arin threw Marina away, letting her fly through the room. Her followers quickly maneuvered to catch her, preventing her from falling down. She rubbed her bruised arm in fear and ran off, not wanting to further enrage Arin.

“It’s been a while. You’ve better gotten stronger than last time.” Arin then gazed at Rachel and Alclair. He was pleasantly surprised that the other two had grown tremendously compared to last time.

If the current Rachel fought his previous self then he would’ve met his match. She was a genuine monster on the likes of Barlot in terms of strength. He understood that she was good enough to join the special class yet he didn’t understand why she didn’t make it.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

As for Alclair? Arin could clearly sense just how improved his physique was. Although he wasn’t as strong as the other two, his battle sense should be at the very least on par with his. He was a foe worth fighting for his previous self.

And lastly, to the greatest surprise, Barlot had started showing off signs of gaining strength that no normal man should be able to handle. Arin was extremely glad, he had based off his current strength on Barlot’s previous strength. As for Barlot’s current condition, he was sure to put up a fight if they fought purely based on brute strength.

“Where’s your leader? Not here?” Arin had somewhat expected Fiona to come and intervene. She was the only person he was genuinely wary of out of everyone here.

“She doesn’t need to be here! I’m more than enough!” Rachel roared. She had extremely high strength to the point that one would have to question where she could gather this much strength with her small frame. She had somewhat learned from before and ran off, launching an attack directly towards Arin.

Unfortunately, the physical boost Arin received from consuming 5 grams of Essence was just far too unfair. Like a grown man playing along with toddlers, they could only take the hit.

He waited for this exhaustively slow punch to reach him. Casually grasping her hand, he muttered, “Is that enough? You’re still as slow as ever.” Arin then clenched his hand tightly, kicking her stomach three consecutive times.

Arin had expected her to kneel down when he saw her grit her teeth in perseverance. Mustering all her remaining strength, Rachel used her free hand to try and land a hit on Arin.

Arin couldn’t grasp Rachel’s other hand since his remaining hand was still a mess from earlier. Instead of dodging or blocking her directly, he pulled her other hand dragged her over his head, and slammed her directly on the floor. A few cracks appeared on the ground with how much force he had used.

Even still, Rachel had shown no signs of taking any damage at all. She was quite an anomaly. Even though her skin wasn’t broken nor showed any signs of bruising, she seemed to be critically injured with how much damage was inflicted towards her.

Alclair quickly followed up right after Rachel was overhead. He tried to take advantage of Arin’s weak side to grab ahold of him, preventing him from being too mobile. He had accurately determined that their weakness was mobility, if they could somehow prevent Arin from moving as Barlot struck him then they had a high chance of victory.

Barlot saw what Alclair was planning and immediately came right behind him, gathering up his strength to land a decisive blow as quickly as he could.

“Terrifying endurance.” Arin couldn’t help but comment on Rachel. She was simple-minded but her persistence was something to be noted of.

Seeing through Alclair’s plan, Arin smirked and decided to let it happen. He was here to test his strength after all, getting hit by the Barlot was something within his expectations.

The last time Barlot had grabbed ahold of him, his ribs were broken. If Barlot didn’t underestimate him and didn’t play around then there was a high likelihood that the fight could’ve gone the other way. If he didn’t use a defective Fragment then he would’ve very likely lost.

His arms were expertly locked behind him as Alclair prevented him from escaping. With this, Alclair was directly behind him, any attack Arin received would have some effect on him as the drawback of this restraint.

Barlot now took this seriously, his brute strength wasn’t a joke. He had always tried to keep his hands away from everything around him since it would already break in his hands. He would already cross his arms to ensure that no one would be affected unknowingly. This was the first time he was using his full strength on a living person.

Arin manically urged him, “Let’s see how strong you really are! Go for it!” Arin had given up all his defenses except for solidifying his stomach to prepare for the punch. Barlot took this invitation at face value and twisted his body, delivering as much momentum as possible.

As soon as Barlot had met contact with Arin’s stomach, the effects of the sheer brutal power behind it could be audibly heard. The shockwave it caused was heard by everyone in the cafeteria.

Alclair who had right behind Arin felt most of the impact from it, causing him to feel his organs move around within his body. It felt as if his guts had been rearranged unwillingly. The power behind it caused him to lose all sensation from his body, falling to the ground. He didn’t expect that Barlot’s strength was so great that it could even rupture his organs despite going through Arin first.

Barlot had put his guard down. There was no need to continue the fight, it was already their victory. No matter how disgustingly terrifying Arin was, there was no getting out of that unscathed. He was sure of his victory.

Arin had been set free by Alclair. The pure power behind that strike forced him to drop down on his knees. It was the only way to bear the pain of having so much force strike him. He crawled over and coughed out blood, there was definitely internal damage from that attack.

Despite being in such a sorry state, a menacing cackle came from him. “Hahahahaha! Is that it? It didn’t even knock me out! Now it’s my turn!”

Barlot heard this and immediately reacted. He had decided to strike one more time despite seeing Arin bleeding like this. His instincts were crying out that if he let Arin make his move then he would be one-sidedly humiliated.

As he was about to deliver another strike, Rachel had come from behind Arin, locking his limbs. It wasn’t as masterful as Alclair’s technique but at this point, it was more than enough.

“Barlot, do it now! Strike as hard as you can!” Rachel tightened her hold on Arin. He had seen what Barlot’s strike had done to Alclair yet she wasn’t dissuaded at all. “I can handle it!”

Barlot took her word for it. He had seen just how resilient she was, if anyone could handle it then it was her. He launched one more attack, aiming to put Arin down for good.

As the recipient of the attack, Arin was madly grinning, awaiting for the perfect opportunity. Barlot's attack was in mid-air when he suddenly gathered all the power within his legs and kicked, twisting his body in a way that made Rachel be the first impact. As she was hanging onto Arin’s back, her body couldn’t react as fast as her mind could.

Barlot’s monstrous attack struck Rachel’s back, creating a creepy cracking sound and the color in her eyes disappeared. Even her resilience had a limit. Arin madly cackled, laughing at the result of that short exchange.

Rachel lost all feeling in her body as her spine had been broken apart. Countless bone fragments struck out as she could only helplessly stare up, seeing Arin be relatively unharmed.

“That was much more manageable.” Arin stood up and started eying Barlot down. “If you wanted to bring me down then you shouldn’t have had attacked your teammates.”

Barlot didn’t expect the tides to turn this badly. Although he had monstrous strength to the point he didn’t need to learn how to fight, this created the very weakness that came from his arrogance. He didn’t improve himself since he felt that he had already achieved the peak. This caused his downfall.

Arin was internally bleeding, his hand was a mess, and the damage that had accumulated within his body was more than enough to knock someone out yet despite knowing all of this, Barlot knew that it was his defeat.

Arin was swaying side to side, trying to keep his balance when he suddenly disappeared from Barlot’s eyes. At the very next moment, Arin appeared below him, “Clench your teeth.” The beating he had received was returned tenfold.

It was not because the power behind Arin’s fist was ten times stronger than Barlot’s, no, it was because he had attacked Barlot with the same amount of power that his fist had ten times over. Within the blink of an eye, Barlot was standing tall, overwhelming everyone with his presence yet at the very next moment, he was kneeling down with a dazed look in his eyes. His brain had shut off his consciousness to protect his mind from the pain that came with Arin’s attack.

Barlot, the giant that had once stood as the epitome of strength, was put down by Arin. He kneeled before Arin, unconscious. His pride didn’t allow him to fall down any further than this, a will that transcended his limits.

Arin cackled and lightly kicked him, finally forcing Barlot to fall back, staring into the ceiling with an empty gaze. He had lost within a blink of an eye.

Everyone else was completely shocked at just how quickly everything happened. They expected it to drag on for quite a while but reality was the exact opposite. Alclair chose a risky move that relied on Arin going down after one hit. If this had worked then Arin would’ve lost, letting the Student Body Committee finally regain some of the limelight.

Little did they expect Arin to not only survive the attack but also turn the tides in such an effortless manner. What made it even worse was the fact that Arin had actively decided to let this happen. If he didn’t even give them the opportunity then it was safe to say that this would’ve been one-sided.

Arin looked around to see the sea of bodies surrounding him. This was a fruitful encounter. He had managed to test out his current strength, as far as he was concerned, the only person who could put up a fight with him right now was Fiona.

After testing out his current self, he started walking away. He was clad in injuries so he had decided to get healed in the clinic. After his departure, a few members of the Student Body Committee as well as a few kind-hearted souls decided to bring everyone away.

He had fought everyone he needed to for the time being, being weak for the day wouldn’t affect him at all at this point. He headed back home immediately after that. He was now going to tackle the solo Maze-level Trial to finally try and get a Perfect Clear. It was time.