“Cough! Cough!!”, with no soul in sight I found myself near the bank of the stream at a place that seemed completely unknown to me.

‘How long have I been out for?’, I thought but wasn’t able to come up with an answer as my head was feeling dizzy and it felt to me that I would throw up at any moment, but fortunately, after waiting for a bit I felt somewhat better and the dizziness in my head also disappeared.

Getting back on my rear, I sat down on the grassy land and tried to calm my rugged breathing, and started thinking about my next course of action, after all, now that this guy Aziel’s role is almost complete in the novel I doubt that anything I do would really harm the plotline in any way, and well, even if it does affect the plotline, I don’t really care.

The events can change for all I care, all I want for myself is to live a happy life.

So yeah I guess now I have been officially promoted from the position of a ‘minor character whose only role was to die’ to a ‘mob’. Should I celebrate this achievement of mine?

Well, I guess celebrations can be done later, right now I only need to focus on what’s about to come next, after all, in this world as long as I am weak, I am unsafe, this was the rule that I had formulated as the basis of this world.

And considering everything I had gone through today this belief of mine has only been strengthened over time.

Firstly those 4 women from Amifa, next Adam, and lastly even the adoptive father of this body, Gerund, these people have been extremely successful in relaying the fate of the weak to me.

If you are weak then you deserve to die, yes, that’s the fundamental rule of this world.

But who am I to complain? This world is not much different from earth, is it? So what I need to survive in this wretched world is simple as well, I just need to get stronger.

‘I am going to become stronger and once I achieve an adequate amount of strength, I will beat the hell out of that bastard’, I thought while remembering Adam’s face, honestly, thinking about him I couldn’t help but curse in my mind.

“Fu…”

Taking a deep breath and getting my mind off the annoying protagonist I tried to think about my next course of action.

So what should I do next?

Right now there are many places I can visit to get different powerups but considering the meager strength that I possess, I doubt I would be able to get anything there, being honest, I might actually die there before I am even able to get anything useful, that’s how weak I am.

Plus there’s also Adam, I don’t know if he knows about me surviving or not, in fact, I truly hope he does not but considering my bad luck, the chances of him knowing about my survival should not be very low.

Then, considering that Adam somewhat knows about me and my survival, the chances of him knowing about the hidden ruins and such through Astaroth would probably be very high.

In the worst-case scenario, he might try to go to places where I will be likely to appear or maybe he could leak the location of those ruins to other institutions thereby rendering me unable to go there and reap any sort of benefits that I have been eyeing.

Tsk! What should I do?

“How do I deal with a bastard who knows every single one of my desires!?”, I exclaimed while slapping myself on the cheek thinking about the reason behind my dumb past self even having a thought about giving a cheat like Astaroth to the protagonist who was literally OP from the very start.

“Hm?”

But then suddenly a thought crossed my mind, ‘A person who 'probably' knows every single one of my desires’, that’s what who Adam was for me, but if I think about it carefully, aren’t I the person who knows every single one of the protagonist’s moves, his dreams, his friends, his enemies, and even his love interests the best.

So… what if I… no! No! This action might harm the plotline, but… now that I think about it, do I really need to care about something like that?

I mean even if the main antagonist of the novel, The King, ends up winning against the God, it’s not like he will try to harm the people who didn’t do anything to him, and in case he loses against the God then it’s not like the God would punish those who refused to take part in a suicidal war, after all, King is the main villain of the series and not many would have the strength or the guts to face him.

So as long as I don't piss off any of the powerhouses like the King or the God then I would probably be safe.

‘Hmm… doesn’t this mean that unless and until I don’t kill off the protagonist and his party of heroes, everything would be alright?’, as soon as this thought crossed my mind, my lips arched upwards to form a small smile.

'Oh Adam~, I am so going to enjoy this', I thought while rubbing my two palms together.

***

At a place, a large distance away from where Aziel was currently resting, a boy, probably 16-17 years of age having a handsome face with pitch black hair and deep blue eyes passed through the tall metallic gates of a large establishment, now known as the Ashby Academy, and grabbed the attention of everyone he passed by.

The boy had now gotten numb to the stares around him as he had been subjected to them ever since he was an infant, so not paying much attention to the people in the background the boy kept on walking towards his destination, The Dean’s Office, where he had been called once more not too long ago.

*Knock* *Knock*

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Knocking on the wooden door of the dean’s office the boy stood at the gateway until he heard the words, "come in’", from inside and politely opened the door to enter the office.

The moment he entered he was greeted by 4 figures, out of them one was a boy around his age who averted his gaze from him the moment the boy entered the office, and the other two were two men probably in their late thirties or early forties, both of them glaring daggers at the boy, as for the last one, he was an elderly man in his sixties, he was sitting on a chair and calmly looking at the boy, as if he was trying to evaluate him.

He was the headmaster of the Ashby Academy, his name was Sir Patrick Douglas.

He has been in service for around four decades but never in his long career has he ever seen a boy as trouble attracting as the one standing before him, Adam Jenkins, the son of the famous Jenkins Merchants who have their business expanded throughout the Nine Heavenly Continents, Two Forbidden lands, and the Realm of Wisdom and were also considered strong in their own right as they have very close relations with the Love Mercenary Guild.

The youngest child of the Jenkins family whose talent is known throughout the world was a troublemaker in his own right.

Although he never tries to get mixed up in trouble he also doesn’t make much effort in regards to avoiding them.

He is talented, no probably the most talented individual to have enrolled in the Ashby Academy in the last century, that’s why he always ends up attracting trouble from others.

Today a similar thing happened between Adam and another boy by the name of Brutus Quarry, the heir of the Quarry household. Brutus, picked up a fight with Adam after the morning class that led to him getting beaten up by Adam in front of everyone.

Ashamed of himself, Brutus at first thought of getting stronger in order to take his revenge but after realizing that he stood no chance against Adam no matter how strong he got, Brutus decided to inform his family about this affair and get Adam punished by the headmaster.

The headmaster kept on looking at Adam, he knew that on the surface Adam was innocent, but in reality, he was the one who had actually instigated the conflict.

Being the headmaster of a prestigious institution, Patrick was well-versed in the art of reading others.

He knew full well that Adam knowingly did something that would lead to a fight with Brutus. Why? Because he wanted to pick on Brutus and humiliate him in public. The reason behind this was very simple, revenge.

Brutus, on the first day of school, insulted Adam in front of everyone by calling him the son of weaklings as merchants are generally not known to be powerful.

But after seeing Adam’s strength and talent Brutus realized what he had done and stopped pestering Adam.

Adam, who looked to be polite on the surface, was actually much more ruthless in reality.

In order to take revenge on Brutus, Adam started showing off his strength in public which lead to him becoming the number one target of every single person in the class, especially the boys, there was a time when he had to fight with three people all at once and even then he ended up defeating all three of them.

This caused many of the girls in his class to develop feelings for him, and one of those girls who confessed to Adam was none other than the childhood best friend of Brutus, the one he had been engaged to since he was just a 7-year-old kid.

This caused Brutus to issue a challenge against Adam which finally led to Adam fulfilling his wish of crushing Brutus publicly.

Thinking about the planning Adam must have had to do in order to get Brutus, Patrick couldn’t help but nod his head in approval at his intelligence, but in the end, he still had to reprimand him as the headmaster of the Ashby Academy, otherwise, the entire order in the academy will collapse.

Shaking his head in worry, Patrick slowly opened his mouth to say what he had wanted to, “Adam Jenkins and Brutus Quarry, both of you shake hands and go back to your class”,

His words caused the expressions of everyone apart from Adam to change.

One of the men who had come to cause trouble for Adam looked at Patrick with a baffled expression on his face and said, “Headmaster sir, are you really letting him get away so easily? This beast dared to beat up young master, he should be punished!”

Irritated by his words Patrick released his Qi and glared at the one who spoke just now, “So what do you propose Norman, should I execute Mr. Adam on the spot? Or should I break his limbs to make an example of what would happen to anyone who would dare to spar against your young master, hah? Or if you would like me to, should I step down from my post and appoint you as the new headmaster so you would be able to take care of Adam yourself!?”, Patrick stood up from his seat and gestured for the man named Norman to sit down on his seat.

Norman backed away with a scared expression on his face and fell to the ground.

Seeing this scene happen, even Adam couldn’t help but gulp down his saliva.

But even so, he wasn’t going to apologize to Brutus, even if Patrick tells him to, after all, even though he schemed against Brutus, he only did so because Brutus had first disrespected him.

In all honesty, Adam was quite innocent.

Patrick continued looking at the man named Norman for some time and then turned around and got back to his seat while at the same time restraining his Qi from harming the surroundings.

Getting back in his seat, he once again looked at Brutus and said, “I won’t allow any more misbehavior in my school. Brutus before you try to become strong; learn how to become humble."

Turning his head he looked at Adam and said, "Adam, although your actions weren’t all wrong, you still did commit a grave crime of planting the seeds of discord throughout the whole academy. Looking at you, I doubt you will ever apologize, so thereby I am punishing you and Brutus with two weeks of detention”

He continued while looking at the two adults who arrived at the office with Brutus,

“As for you two, don’t annoy me with these matters anymore. I am very busy right now and I don’t have the time or the patience to deal with the problems regarding a bunch of youngsters. Also, it would be better for you to drop this matter right here as the Jenkins family won’t let you off if you dare to harm their young lord”,

Patrick finished speaking and casually waved his hand but the amount of power there was in that casual wave was so large that it caused everyone in the room to be thrown out of there.

Humiliated so openly, the two men could only grit their teeth and get away from everyone’s eyes as soon as possible, as for the other two boys, one of them went tagging along with the two men and the other one kept on lying on the ground until someone extended their hand for him to get up.

Looking at the extended hand the boy gave a warm smile and whilst holding it he got up from the floor gathering the attention of everyone present in the lobby.

The one who had extended their hand right now was none other than the female lead of the novel that Aziel had been writing in his past life, Cerise Love, the young mistress of the Love Mercenary Guild, the one who was supposed to be his biggest support and source of relief throughout the novel.

She looked at Adam with a pout on her face and said, “That’s what you get for seducing other women! You know, if I don’t look after you then you’ll be eaten by those wolves hungry for your blood”, she said pointing at the bunch of boys who were intently looking at the two of them with envious looks.

Adam in response to her just gave a warm smile and patted the top of her head before turning around and going back to his dormitory.

Looking at his shrinking back Cerise couldn’t help but curse under her breath, “That bastard! Treating me like a child again”, she said before touching the top of her head and going away with a smile on her face.