409 [Call of the Wild]

When Headmistress Wave left, Bloed fell deep in thought.

In his mind, he repeated the words and expressions of the Headmistress once and again, trying to find a trace of lies or falsehood on them, however, he could not find anything.

Letting out a deep breath, he spoke up to the Valkyrie connected to him.

"Regina, you heard the entire conversation, right? What do you think?"

A voice immediately replied in his mind.

[To be honest, master, I don't like her.]

"Really?"

[Yes. I don't think she has what is necessary to be your master… But, at the very least, she seems a trustworthy person.]

Bloed nodded. Coming from Regina, that was already a pretty high evaluation.

After all, Regina was someone that put Bloed's safety above everything else. If she thought that there was a chance of Headmistress Wave hurting Bloed, she would have told Bloed about it immediately.

[Even so, master. Don't you think you are being too rash? I think it's better if we observe her for a while longer.]

"Perhaps, but this is a good opportunity, and I think it's a necessary risk if I want to accomplish my dream. Plus, I plan to observe her during our cooperation. If I notice something wrong, I plan to stop immediately."

[I understand… Regardless of it, no matter what happens, I'm going to protect you, master.]

"Thank you, Regina."

With a small smile on his face, Bloed thanked his lover as he thought about his plans in his mind.

…

Bloed didn't tell anyone about his conversation with Headmistress Wave. Only Regina and he knew about it.

However, he started to think about ways of increasing the ranking of his club.

The headmistress's requirement was that Machine Revolution reached the top thirty. However, it was much harder than it sounded. Very hard, actually.

Originally, Machine Revolutio's ranking was 86. Afterward, due to the club battle against Gathered Feathers, the club ranking increased to rank 72.

Moreover, before leaving, Headmistress Wave told Bloed that, as a reward for discovering the tunnels, Machine Revolutio would receive one thousand points, increasing its ranking to 54.

It was already a pretty high ranking for a small club as Machine Revolutio. Unfortunately, that ranking would most likely fall soon as the other clubs gathered more points.

But Headmistress Wave's requirement was to bring Machine Revolutio to the top thirty. Bloed felt a headache just thinking about how to achieve it.

He soon was forced to stop thinking about that, though.

Because in the afternoon of that day, Bloed received an unexpected piece of news.

"We were challenged again?" Bloed asked stunned.

Toby nodded with an awkward expression. "Yes, I received the news just now."

Bloed thought for a moment before heaving a sight.

Well, it had been more than one week since the last challenge, so he should have expected something like this.

"Gather the others in the main hall in half an hour. We will talk about the challenge there."

…

Half an hour later, all the club members including the newcomers were gathered in the hall.

To start, Bloed asked Toby about the challenge.

"It was from a club called [Call of the Wild]. Ranked eighty-six. It's a medium-sized club with around forty members, however, it has several A-Ranks."

"A club in the top one hundred?" Bloed, Liu Ying, Aya, and the others were surprised.

But suddenly, Bloed noticed something unusual.

For some reason, Sara and Gina had strange expressions. In fact, Sara was biting her lips and Gina gritted her teeth in rage.

"These bastards…" She murmured in an almost inaudible voice.

"Sara? Gina? Is anything wrong?"

"My lord? N-No, nothing is wrong."

"N-Nothing, my hero. I was just thinking about something."

Bloed raised an eyebrow in confusion at the obviously suspicious behavior, but when he saw that the sisters did not plan to tell him anything, he did not insist.

Anyway, he trusted them. And if they truly knew something that they needed to tell him, he was sure that they would do it.

Instead, he looked at Prince Calisto.

"Do you know anything about that club?"

As one of the Princes of The Great Savannah, Prince Calisto had access to a lot of information. Due to that, Bloed put him in charge of information gathering.

And the little lionkin prince did not disappoint him. He thought for a moment before speaking in a slightly childish and nervous tone.

"I-I know about them. They have a total of forty-six members. Eight A-Ranks, fifty B-Ranks, and the rest are C-Ranks. Moreover, three of the A-Rank members are at the late stages of A-Rank."

Bloed fell silent and his expression turned serious.

You must understand that three late-stage A-Ranks were much more powerful than all the members of this club combined (Excluding Eres).

Moreover, this club still had another five A-Ranks. In other words, it was much more powerful than Machine Revolutio.

Just the number of members meant that [Call of the Wild] was much stronger than [Gathered Feathers], the previous club that challenged Machine Revolutio.

Seeing Bloed's serious expression, Prince Calisto put on a complicated expression.

"Actually, I heard that this club was much stronger before, but something happened recently and some members left... I'm not sure about the specifics, though."

Bloed nodded. "I understand. Right, Toby, what kind of challenge was chosen?"

"Tower Defense."

Bloed immediately let out a sigh of relief.

"… So our luck is not that bad yet, huh."

Tower Defense was similar to Tower Conquest, the previous challenge. But instead of competing to see which club conquered the enemy tower first, this time, the challenger would have to attack the tower while the challenged defended it.

If the challenger was unable to conquer the tower in the determined time, then the victory would go to the challenged.

In all honesty, this kind of challenge was very advantageous for the defensive side.

Moreover, it was even more advantageous for Machine Revolutio. After all, the tower that was the headquarters of the club had some pretty good defensive measures.

"What is the plan, brother?" Eres asked with a frown.

But to her surprise, she found that Bloed seemed pretty calm.

"… Let me see. Toby, when is the challenge?"

"T-Two days later."

"Great. I'll be completely recovered by that day. Listen, I will tell you about the plan. For this battle, we will rely on the defenses of the tower."

"You mean, the things that you talked about last time?" Liu Ying asked with a strange tone.

She remembered when Bloed explained to them the tower's defensive measures. Back then, she was so dumbfounded that she did not know what to say.

Just imagining the faces of the enemy club when they face these surprises made Liu Ying unable to contain her smile.