After following the map projected in front of him by the student ID card for a few minutes, Vincent arrived before two buildings connected to each other by a bridge in the middle region. From the outside, he could see that the interiors of the buildings, with more than ten floors, were lit up in a golden radiance. He moved to the entrance and was stopped by a seemingly harmless mini-robot that looked cute beyond compare with its short limbs and round head comparable to a moon.
It demanded proof that he lives here, and Vincent was allowed entry after he showed his card to the robot.
After he entered the building, Vincent looked around for his assigned room. He could see a row of rooms inside the first floor of the building—a hundred to be exact.
"From the outside, it didn't seem like this building is wide enough to have a hundred rooms on a single floor. Now that I am inside, I can see they used spatial technology to its maximum and expanded the interior of the boy's dormitories," he thought to himself while walking towards the end of the hallway, where room no.99 assigned to him could be seen projected on the holographic mini-map.
Inside the room Vincent was heading towards, a slim but fit teenager wearing soft nightwear could be seen sitting on the bed, near the glossy windows, which was moved to the walls of the upper zone of the room by the boy himself.
"I thought the military and the military academy has nothing to do with me, but I am here." Varth said while holding a blue ball in his slim, white, and hairless hands, "Noah, I am feeling so happy that I can't express my feelings in words."
Noah, like its name, was a comfort ball granted to Varth when he was but a boy. He named this ball Noah when he was a boy, as it was able to comfort him and calm his agonized self hurting due to being confined to the wills of his blood relatives. Still, over the years, he managed to endure the suffering held his way through the support of Noah and finally managed to get a chance to run away from home.
"Master, I am also happy to see you enjoying yourself."
Varth beamed while looking at the ceiling of the room with eyes brightened in happiness that stems from the very core of a person's being. "Haha, I have finally broken free from the life of a puppet. Running away from home was the best choice I've made so far."
"Master, you are still not safe. Your parents won't let go of you so easily, and considering the fact that you have the eye of the abhorrent, even the head of the family will try to snatch you back." Noah worriedly said as it knew that its master was someone extremely precious to the Great Hollow Family; not as a person but as an asset.
Varth knew that the head of the family, who also happened to be his grandfather, will not let him be free from his clutches even though he has joined the military academy that strictly refused outside interference, especially if the student didn't want to face the ones from the outside.
"I know. I have already thought about it all. That's why I have decided to befriend the strongest and the most trustworthy students to create the fifth great royal family. A day will come when my parents won't be able to threaten me by any means possible." The eyes of Varth brightened in determination to create a strong family to fend off the murderous claws of his blood relatives.
"I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors, Master."
In the very next second, Varth asked, "Noah, tell me, according to your calculations, what are the chances of my blood relatives dispatching someone to infiltrate the military academy to keep tabs on me."
After a moment, once it was done calculating, Noah responded to his question: "Master, there is a hundred percent guarantee that someone you know will come to the military academy either as a transfer student or an instructor to keep tabs on you. I don't know who and exactly when, but I am sure it will be someone close to you, and they will arrive here within a week or two."
Varth nodded his head, agreeing with Noah's words.
"Noah, you're right. As far as I know them, they like to torture me mentally more than torturing me physically. The ones to arrive might very well be those among my wives who I pretended to love the most. Though that was all an act to fool my parents and blood relatives. Hopefully, they will fall for it and send someone I pretended to love. I will continue my show of love with the peoples my blood relatives will send to keep a tab on me during my stay in the academy while building my family, strengthening it, and spreading its fame throughout the planets. In the end, they won't be able to force me back to the abyssal hellhole they call home without fearing public backlash and suppression."
His plan was good, but it was nearly impossible to achieve. Moreover, his family wasn't easy to mislead as far as Noah knows them.
"Master, your parents aren't easy to deceive. Please, don't let your guard down. You never know what they might end up doing. They might send someone you hold close to your heart to the military academy to mess with you."
As soon as it said those words, Varth shook his head in refusal. "I made sure to treat the two people I honestly liked and loved in the cruelest way possible so that my blood relatives won't be able to use them as puppets attached to strings to threaten me."
Although he was refusing to even think about it, he knew that the chance of him having outsmarted his family that became one of the four great royal families by using their brain more than their fist was very small. "Ugh, whatever, I want to spend this week without worrying about anything. It's been such a long time since I laid down on a bed at night. Let me sleep."
The peaceful environment that surrounded Varth was almost like a dream, a dream he knew will become a nightmare in the times to come. Still, until then, he wanted to relish every moment of this dream, enjoying it to the point that he won't feel disheartened participating in the psychological game set by his blood relatives when the time comes.
"Goodnight, Master. I wish you have sweet dreams."
After a moment, once Noah wished him well, and as he closed his eyes to relax and enjoy the feeling of being able to sleep at night, he thought, 'Although I was looking forward to sharing a room with another person and befriended someone my age, It's good that I don't even have a roommate.'
It's bothersome to have a roommate, after all, he thought as relaxation took over his mind for the first time at night rather than blood-curdling screams.
However, he was proven wrong in the very next second, as someone opened the room and entered inside. The sound of footsteps alerted him enough to prompt him to look at the person who entered the room.
"Eh?" Varth eyes widened as he saw that it was none other than Vincent, who scored the highest in the entrance examination held in the Cloud Tower City.
Vincent also noticed that it was Varth Hollow, a person who deeply interested him, not only because of his attitude and playful nature but also because of the items he used in the last test, which he viewed on the recordings. The recording of the entrance examination was uploaded not only to the database of the military academy but also a famous streaming platform to garner the attention of peoples that might or might not invest in order to nurture Vincent. The income earned will be split between the instructors he was assigned under and himself, the instructors taking the big portion, while the small portion will be his, as mentioned in one of the many clauses of the contract he had signed.
"Hi, we're roommates." Vincent waved his hand towards Varth.