Eren's stunt had damaged the Slughorn house more than he had anticipated. And it was now on the back foot because of the Edinburgh kingdom standing against it.
The house finally understood the message the kingdom wanted to convey with its actions loud and clear. It stopped pouring money into the underground network and decided to wait a while. It was going to be a long while before the dust settled in for the Slughorns. That is if they don't get dragged into another storm by a certain shapeshifter who had screwed them big time.
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Three months after the Slughorn Scandal.
Nothing much had changed since the scandal became general knowledge among the rankers and cultists of the Edinburgh kingdom. The rankers were still hunting the cultists and the two people who were directly involved. The cultists were also hunting those two people in secret while staying in the shadows.
The two sides were again placed in front of each other. And another series of cold wars had begun. But since it was a cold war, it had stopped being apparent. Now both sides fought in the shadows, and their battles took place in the dark.
The reason behind this whole incident was now facing another of his inter-year ranking wars. And he didn't seem worried at all.
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The Slughorn Scandal had created a huge sensation in LA too. A lot of rich students had been forced to leave the academy or they had gotten out voluntarily. One could hear all of them cursing only one name under their breaths: Edward Jener.
The guy had not only taken their bribe once or twice. He had also organized a fundraiser event to make them cough up Extols for something that he couldn't control at all.
Bue Edward didn't stop there. He also got himself involved in cultist activities. And fuc*ked one of the few entities in the kingdom that shouldn't have been fuc*ked. And by doing that, he had also widened their holes because of his association with them.
The rich kids and the families behind them were angry at Edward Jener and all those he had been presumed to be associated with. But since LA had played it safe and came clean in not defending its lab-in-charge, it was only natural for it to persecute the other students who were involved in the bribery as well.
It had started kicking those rich students out of the LA grounds who were involved in the incident out after confirming their involvement. That's why to save their skin, the other kids had decided to leave the academy themselves to salvage any further losses.
LA stopped pursuing the students who had left the premises after their voluntary exit. That's how the entire group of first-year students almost became clean of its parasitic student rankers.
The butcher's act didn't only cause destruction. It had also brought other lesser privileged students some breathing room now that the game of talent was hard-reset again.
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Eren didn't care or find pleasure in the fact that some of the hard-working students were low-key celebrating the Slughorn Scandal. He hadn't done what he did for them anyway.
Eren and his team were standing in front of their opponents. It was Roody's Wreckers. And no, it wasn't a coincidence. Roody had used his "right to battle" pass against Eren's team to summon it on the battlefield against him and his team.
"Eren Idril, long time no see. Did you find joy in beating my team when I was forced to stay out of it? Did you enjoy beating my teammates when they were down?
Tell me, Eren, what are you expecting from this match? Do you have any hidden battle passes that I don't know about? Hehe!"
It was clear that Roody had been keeping tabs on Eren and his team. The butcher was busy in his pioneering sessions. He had focused most of his time on honing his elementary skills. So he had to obviously neglect the ranking matches and the battle points.
His ranking in every field dropped. And because he did bare-minimum matches with absolutely no surprising moves or stunts, he didn't earn any battle pass.
Eren's teammates had been in the same boat as him. That was because the butcher had assigned specific goals to work on. They were working almost as hard as he was on their schedule.
If Eren couldn't earn a battle pass during this period, there was no point in talking about his teammates doing something like that. They also did their compulsory matches and became part of the bare-minimum gang of students.
Roody's snarky remark was a testament to the fact that he knew that Eren's team couldn't pull any more magic tricks this time. The guy was waiting for his first-year opponent to admit his wrongdoings because of encroaching despair.
But Eren surprised him yet again. For the worse.
"What are we expecting?
Hmm. We are expecting to lose this battle, of course. Our chances of success are non-existent without the right battle passes.
Why did you ask that though? Do you think we are delusional? Or do you expect us to be some sort of protagonists from cliched novels to make us stand above the rest no matter what?"
Roody still had the same smile plastered on him that he had flashed at the start of the conversation. But that smile somehow looked to be in a sorry state because of Eren's blunt and honest reply.
Orton Jr. raised his hand and pointed at Eren to say something. But he didn't have words to describe what he was feeling. He found joy that the opponent that had shamed him and his team in the last inter-year ranking war in front of his second-year buddies was now admitting openly that he and his team were inferior.
But there was no despair or shame in Eren's voice that he was expecting. It sounded like he was just saying the usual things. Like two plus two equals four. And in this case, it was.
But that didn't stop Roody from being dumbfounded by Eren's nonchalant expression.