?A few minutes had passed and both Alex and Orion looked pretty bruised. They were outranked and ganged upon by several other people. All of this spelled their utter defeat.
They might possess the capabilities to fight against and even possibly win against people whose sub-ranks were higher than them. But this didn't mean that they were experienced enough to exert that prowess.
It hadn't been long since they had gotten their respective cheats, thus having nearly no combat experience. Not only were they lacking in several aspects, they had also become increasingly arrogant, leading to their own demise.
"If you're trash, you should act like one", one of the bullies spat out them, quite literally in fact.
'I must say, I really do agree with this.'
If you acted all high and mighty but had nothing to back it all up, you very much deserved all this.
Soon the crowd dispersed and vanished, just like the popcorn I had. Alex and Orion were just laying down on the ground yet nobody even bothered to help them out, even after the bullies were gone.
This would teach them a lesson to never look down on people and work hard. A lesson that they would follow only for a month at most, after which they would get drunk on their new powers once again.
Sneering at them in disgust, I left them and entered the building, one that was going to get pretty familiar to me for the next few years. Traveling across the halls of the building, I saw several other students also getting bullied just like those two arrogant protagonists from earlier.
Purposely steering myself into a hallway without any crowd, I found what.. or rather who I was looking for.
Having his head banged across the wall, slightly bleeding from his forehead, there was a blue-haired boy with red eyes. His eyes portrayed sadness and grief as he was helpless to do anything against the one beating him up.
Isaac Turner, the future tech genius, was one of the people who possessed an affinity for the rarest of the elements, [Time].
I walked up to them as they both turned their eyes towards me at the same time.
"What do you want, are you trying to interfere in here?"
The nameless bully growled at me while taking a step back.
I drew out the power of my [Earth] element, as I coated my hand with jagged rocks to form a gauntlet. Controlling and restricting the strength and agility of my body, I dashed into him with a speed at which he couldn't react but still could see me coming over.
While I was punching him in the abdomen, I reduced the momentum of my hand, so as to not accidentally kill him or possibly even cause a lot of damage to him.
He went flying for a bit before he dropped down, unconscious.
Looking at the side, I could see Isaac's eyes glowing brightly as he stabilized himself before getting near me.
"Thanks a lot for what you've done. A lot of people saw me getting bullied but nobody ever stepped out to help me. I'll do whatever I can to repay you."
Isaac was a naive, stupid, and childlike pushover. He readily believed anything he saw and tended to trust people a lot.
In short, he was someone who could be easily exploited at low rates.
'Kekeke, I got my second slav- I mean employee in a very easy manner.'
"Don't worry, it's all fine. I was passing by and saw him troubling you so I just lent a hand. It's no big deal really. Also, I'm Asher Gradivus by the way. Nice to meet you."
I extended my hands towards him while thinking of ways to make a contract that would enslav- *cough* make him work for me for his entire life.
Luckily for me, Isaac's family situation wasn't working out really well recently. Coupled with the fact that I already had his trust, it wouldn't be hard for me to hire him.
After making small talk, and exchanging our contacts, I left him alone as I made my way through the hallways once again. I couldn't push everything in one day as it would make me look suspicious.. even to a pushover!
Before leaving, I handed him a cookie as I remembered from the novel that Isaac was obsessed with them. He happily took the cookie from me, munching on it like a cute little hamster.
As a wise man once said, World Domination always begins with a cookie.
.
.
Walking into another desolate hallway, I waited to meet up with another person. Soon, I heard footsteps from a particular direction as I turned towards it.
There he was, my first employee, a man with the [Space] element, just like Anthony's. It was the nameless bully from earlier. He must have had a name but that didn't matter since I called him goon so that's what his name would be from now.
He extended his left hand towards his face as he made a grabbing motion with it. Suddenly, the view of his face distorted, or well it should have for normal people as a green mask came out with a skin-like texture.
I had lent him one of my artifacts which could change his face into any he so desired. Of course, the face he could change into had a limit of [D] charm at maximum which was pretty good.
"Good work, Goon. You did better than I expected."
"But my name is Chr-"
"Shhh, your name is Goon and that's all that you're gonna use."
I cut him off as I told him about the fact that his name didn't matter anymore. Goon was originally a minor character who had helped Alex along the way, but in the end, was simply forgotten by him. Well, Goon did profit slightly from it so that was all good. Guess this is all that a protagonist amounts to.
As long as you weren't a woman, you'd be forgotten in 5 chapters. I purposely chose to ignore the fact that I was the one who wrote Alex that way.
Goon was someone I had recruited before I even entered the Academy. He was really useful for miscellaneous stuff. Not only did he have the [Space] element which would be used to build my Virtual world later on, but he was also pretty cheap as long as I helped him get stronger.
That wasn't really a big deal as I knew where some of the cheats that Alex originally got were, and I could simply take some of them and give them to Isaac and Goon instead. freewebno(v)el.com
I had ordered Goon to go beat up Isaac after which I would show up to save him, thus effectively gaining his trust. Ever since I had taken over Asher, I seemed to have become more manipulative.
"Couldn't you hold back on your punch a little?"
"I didn't even crack a single bone of yours so it's all fine, isn't it? Also, you did well with the other matter I asked you about too. I might give you a pay raise soon."
In the novel, when Alex and Orion were getting bullied, they had originally managed to fight off some of the bullies. To stop them from doing this, I had ordered Goon to instigate some other higher-ranked bullies who then effectively pummeled those two protagonists down.
I had done all of this simply to help develop the plot more efficiently, totally not for my personal entertainment.
"What about the last thing I ordered you to do?"
Goon was someone who did anything I asked him to, without asking any questions which was something I highly appreciated.
"You asked me to go up to a specific hallway on the fourth floor but when I went to the location you ordered me to go to originally, I couldn't find a person named Anthony Reis at all. There was nobody who matched the image description you gave me.
Rather, I found that Alex Silvercrest from earlier who had gotten bullied in that particular hallway. He was talking to the Rank-2 in our Academy, Ellis Moonwhisper."
I scrunched up my eyebrows as I fell into deep contemplation.
'The place I ordered Goon to go was the place where Anthony originally met his lover Ellis for the first time. So what was Alex doing there instead? I don't think I did anything special in particular to change the plot so much. It might be troublesome if Alex got together with Ellis, for Anthony that is.'
'But what was Anthony even doing? He was supposed to be there so he could once again meet his lover he made before his regression.'
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