Chapter 70 - Interview

The press club members were influential in the sense that most people tended to believe whatever news they spread.

Naturally, there have been those who spread fake or incorrect news for various purposes. The school personally took actions to sanction those students and disband their clubs.

They were also forbidden from joining any other clubs till their graduation. To be more specific, the ones who took action were the directors of the clubs department of the Academy.

As such, not many dared to publish fake news for any reason of any sort.

The press club members have a reputation for going through great lengths in order to get their information.

Some students avoided them because they feared any personal information or secrets being exposed. Due to this most of the press club members hid their identities.

They even had undercover members who acted like they were in other clubs and mingled among other students with the aim of fishing out juicy stories to be published.

During the battle on Saturday evening, a lot of the press club members were on the scene in order to capture the battle moments as closely as possible.

Some of them even personally participated so they could get the best photo shot.

As for Arthur's battle, a few press club heads personally went over to record the scene of his battle.

Their presence was the reason Arthur used the veil of darkness in the first place, so they would not see him using his magic.

He made no gestures when using it, even his magic power manipulation was too swift for them to even notice anything was wrong.

This was the reason they did not think Arthur was not the one that casted the veil of darkness. There was also the fact that Arthur being unable to use magic was an established fact in their minds so they unconsciously believed it was Lute's doing.

One of the more popular press club heads who had a personal blog where she posted events that happened in the school, caught most of Arthur's battle on video.

She posted the video there alongside some catchy taglines and it instantly attracted the attention of many.

It was shared thousands of times and even became her blog's most viewed post. The reason for this was very simple.

Arthur's appearance while fighting against Zach, was to sum it up shortly; Amazing and Cool.

The sight of Arthur, who had a face that would put some celebrities to shame, coupled with his visible laid back attitude through most of the fight caught the hearts of many.

For the boys, they admired him.

For the girls, he became their new idol.

The scene of Arthur dodging Zach's barrage of energy projectiles while locking swords with the latter, with movements that looked like he was dancing, was the icing on the cake.

Like Layla gained more popularity for her efficient commands in dispatching most of the monsters, Arthur gained more than thrice that for his battle against Zach.

Another fact to be noted was that Zach was confirmed to be a superior stage grandmaster, in other words Arthur overwhelmed someone an entire realm above him while not using any sort of magic or energy.

Although the final blow was said to have been dealt by Lute, it did not diminish his popularity. It made perfect Sense that he should not be able to defeat a grandmaster on that level without magic.

There were some negative reactions but those were mostly from those jealous of him, they were also instantly bombarded with hundreds of insults from Arthur's fans.

"So that's pretty much it."

"I thought I asked for the short version?"

"This is the 'short version'."

Arthur and Edward stared at each other for a few seconds in silence, until Arthur abruptly took a bite of the last steak on his plate.

The amount of time that Edward spent narrating was enough for Arthur to finish most of his meal. During the narration, various students came over asking for autographs from Arthur.

Although Arthur wondered what they were going to do with them, he still signed them either way.

Sighing deeply, Arthur took a drink before turning his gaze to the press club heads who were seated at the table wanting to ask him questions.

Pondering on it for a moment he rose up five fingers in front of them.

"Five minutes?"

"Five questions, pick the most important five, I've got other things to do."

The group instantly huddled up like football players before a match and began discussing what to ask him.

Arthur used the time they were discussing to finish his meal, he then took out his phone to reply to Layla's angry messages that he had been receiving for the past ten minutes.

When he was done, the discussion between the heads was also completed and they began asking him questions.

"Now then your highness, it's been three days since the incident yet the waters haven't calmed at all. A LOT of students wanted to hear what opinions you had on the incident. They sent us questions they wished for us to ask you and we picked five out of this

Number one, according to one of your classmates, you were not surprised when Zach suddenly attacked you all on Saturday, as if you expected this, could you tell us if this is true and why?"

Arthur narrowed his eyes and stared at the smiling devil in front of him who was holding a recorder out for a few moments before answering.

"That's not one but two questions but I'm gonna let it slide as this is the first."

A Few of the press club heads clicked their tongues at this but Arthur ignored them and continued his words.

"If you want to know if I knew of and expected Zach's attack, then yes, I did. However I did not expect it to be on that Saturday. I thought it would have been the Friday before. 

As for why I knew? It was because I noticed his corrupted energy weeks ago, one of the reasons I was hanging around him the past few weeks was because I realized he was in the process of monsterizing." 

This shocked many people who were listening, some took out their phones to stream the interview and those watching these streams were shocked.

"Wow, I had thought he just happened to be your next target for your…pranks?"

"Ah, that was 50% of the reason, 30% because I wanted to mess with a high ranking noble's kid, 20% because I noticed he was monsterizing."

Many laughed as they heard an answer that only Arthur could nonchalantly give out. Chuckling lightly, the interviewer continued asking.

"Second, Zach was a superior stage grandmaster, with an energy pool that let him maintain a summoning circle that spat out five superior stage grandmaster level monsters and many more.

How did you defeat him, or rather how were you able to suppress him?"

"Ahh, naturally I had the help of some artifacts."

Raising his hands and gesturing to the bracelets on his arms, he continued.

"This one lets me see through all sorts of concealment, that's how I noticed he was monsterizing, the other is a bracelet that accumulates energy over time and uses that accumulated energy to increase the wearer's strength accordingly.

I had been accumulating it for a week now and it boosted my physical strength by nearly 3 times

As for how I was able to dodge his attacks even if he was invisible, that was because my energy senses are quite accurate despite not being able to use my energy.

I simply sensed the ridiculous amount of energy that his invisibility rune was unable to conceal completely.

Locking swords with him and dodging his magic attacks, well that was obviously because I'm just that skilled.

Coupling my genius skill, accurate senses and this artifact multiplying my already monstrous physical strength, I don't think the average superior stage grandmaster can survive."

Arthur's words could be summed up in one word. Arrogant.

His words were arrogant and slightly narcissistic but no one cared, it was the arrogance of the strong, arrogance of the gifted.

Most of them doubted they could achieve what Arthur did in his situation.

To start with some of them could not fathom the thought of being unable to use their energy. As such, Arthur's arrogance was seen as an obvious thing as what he achieved was enough for him to act like so.

Some even gave a round of applause for him after he was done speaking.

Arthur then glanced at his phone before exclaiming loudly.

"Is there a problem, your highness?"

"Um... So something really urgent seems to have come up, so I might only have time to answer one more question."

While many were saddened at this, they had no right to obstruct Arthur if he did not want to answer them at all.

Him answering then in the first place was already good enough.. The heads huddled up once again and deliberated before finally asking the last question.