Bella’s Invitation

The soldier was anxious. "I swear upon my holy soul that it's true!"

Hiro cursed inwardly.

Ordinary people didn't have a holy soul, only seekers did. However, the mechanics of the game ingrained the belief that everyone had a holy soul, it's just that most had yet to awaken it due to the fall of Lord Babylon.

"Alright, I'll get going immediately."

Hiro didn't want to bother with this guy anymore. After all, it's just a scripted scenario that he needed to follow.

Since the battle was going to take place within the empire's lands, Hiro quickly searched for the teleportation circle in the town.

After paying a teleportation fee of 1,732 gold coins, he waited 33 seconds for the teleportation circle to activate.

The next moment, Hiro experienced a shift in the environment. Explosions and sounds of air rupturing surrounded him on all sides, and he quickly noticed that the entire base was in disorder.

"Destroy the teleportation circle!"

A shout descended from above.

Hiro's expression changed. If the teleportation circle was destroyed, the reinforcements would have to travel for two weeks at the very least.

Just as he looked up, Hiro noticed a black lightning bolt descending from the sky.

He immediately channeled his spirituality and shouted, his staff pointed to the sky.

"Barrier spell; Sigh of Protection!"

A massive, faceless projection emerged from the void behind Hiro, using its translucent hands to cover the teleportation circle.

It was a wide surface that could fit thousands of soldiers, and Hiro could only go all out with one of his newly unlocked spells with an AOE effect.

Crack!

Thin webs spread on the surface of the translucent hands, and within seconds, the spell was on the verge of collapse.

"Is this going to be a defensive battle?" Hiro mumbled, already seeing through the essence of this quest.

Then, he began to chant, drawing the elements of nature and investing them into the spell, reinforcing it.

As expected—the three High Sorcerers from the enemy camp were trying their best to destroy the teleportation circle as soon as possible, to the point where they ignored the vulnerable army below.

If they weren't NPCs in a game, they might have used the army as a hostage to force Hiro's hands.

Then again, even if they did do that, Hiro wasn't sure he would have tried to protect the army unless the quest stipulated so.

Hiro's eyebrows furrowed tightly as he tried to imagine the same scenario playing out in real life; what would his choice be then?

…

A phone call early in the morning disrupted Hiro's sleep. Even then, he was already about to wake up and prepare for school, so he wasn't grumpy about it.

Hiro groggily reached for his phone and answered, "What's up?"

"Hey, I helped you arrange a meeting with Dad today after school, make sure to clear your schedule for dinner!"

Hearing Bella talking through the phone, Hiro sobered up and asked in a puzzled tone, "Eh? Couldn't you have just sent a text message?"

"I don't want you to give me an excuse later, saying that you didn't see it! Anyway, I've already booked your evening for the day, so you can't forget about it."

Hiro sighed, shaking his head. "You make me seem like a busy guy, but I have nothing else to do other than wasting my life away in school and the dormitory for the moment."

Although Hiro said this, he had to admit that something might have happened during the day to change his priorities.

Noticing that both Marcus and Elvin had already left the dormitory room, Hiro got up to wash his face and prepare when he noticed that someone was standing at the foot of the bed.

Mhm? Isn't this the fourth roommate? He looks kinda familiar…

Hiro was a little confused to find his school uniform folded neatly and offered to him by the fourth roommate—this guy usually disdained talking to any of his three roommates.

Hiro brushed it off as a superiority complex at first because this guy was very smart, scoring among the top 10 freshmen in terms of overall score when applying to Inter-High.

"Wait… you're one of those six guys, right?" Hiro quickly recalled where he saw him.

It was only that the room was a little dim last night, and those six were huddled up in the corner, shrinking in fright.

Now that he looked closely, he immediately recognized him.

The boy's face paled, and he shook his head like a rattle drum. "What six guys? I don't know what you're talking about, brother. Please don't talk nonsense…"

Hiro quickly realized his mistake. Yeah, I shouldn't go shooting off my mouth about last night. Even then, I'm not even scared about it, what is he afraid of?

Nonetheless, Hiro waved his hand magnanimously. "I understand. You can act naturally around me from now on… Hm, since you're my roommate, you'll be my liaison in the future; my eyes and ears, understand?"

Hiro thought about it and asked, "Your name was Jodi, right? Jodi Roxfield?"

He answered immediately, "Yes, my friends call me JR or Lil J for short, you can call me Lil J, too…"

He was also happy to be assigned such a key position, but it was only natural since he was the leader's roommate.

After placing the uniform next to Hiro, he immediately fiddled with his phone. Hiro assumed that he must be updating the other five about this development.

As for Hiro, he also began to fiddle with his phone.

"Oh?" Hiro checked the Virtual Keyboard Warfare group. That Great Sage guy was bragging again, saying that the test run for the VR helmet was going to be launched today.

After the internal auction, the helmet will be available for preorders online, and it will hit the market in less than three days.

This means that Hiro would start to earn about 28% of the sales profits in three days.

Although 2/3 of that income would be deposited into the company's account directly, even a third of the profits was an incredible amount of money for a high school student like Hiro.

Just as he wanted to send a message to the Great Sage, asking him if he could tag along to watch the live test, he remembered his upcoming meeting with Bella's family.

Hiro pursued his lips, already regretting giving her that promise.

Sigh… Who told me to be an upright, righteous man of my word? I'll just follow the live broadcast.

Hiro checked the Real Manhood Challenge group chat to see if there were any new additions to the gang.

After all, only the first test was devised by Broski personally; everything after is decided by the six lead figures in the chat, especially after Mr. Monocle muted himself.

Those six would have their own tests and criteria to inject new members, but they wouldn't be as harsh as Broski's requirements.

With this in mind, Hiro put his phone aside and finished preparing for his second day in school. If there was anything worth looking forward to, it was the war of three kingdoms.

Erm, more like the war of three factions between the trio gunning for the class president seat.

Hiro laughed bitterly as he fixed his hairstyle according to the boss lady's instructions from the beauty salon, closed the dormitory room, and left for class.

Five minutes to the toll of the bell, Hiro was already in his seat, flanked by Elvin and Marcus from his right and front.

"You got to the dormitory late last night, so Elvin persuaded me to let you wake up naturally on your own," Marcus said after the greeting.

Elvin smiled and waved his hand. "I was planning to give you a call if you didn't wake up, but I noticed your status on iMessenger had switched to online, hence why I didn't bother."

When Elvin smiled, a few girls shrieked silently, and Hiro could already imagine himself starring into some BL fantasy in their heads with this feminine elf guy.

Hiro shuddered and waved his hand. "You don't need to keep an eye on my activities in the future, I can handle myself…"