Chapter 103 - 96: Prelude To Chaos

The girl-- no, Shio, for the first time in her life, someone treated her with no disgust on their face. Except for the matron in the orphanage, no one had treated her with kindness.

But now, it would be taken away. She killed those students, and those law enforcers would arrest her and lock her in an underground dungeon. She's sure that even the King wouldn't save a murderer like her.

"Why do you have that sad look on your face? C'mon, I'm not going away." Hikaru said, smiling kindly at her and carrying her gently in his arms.

She looked away and said, "B-but won't I be arrested for killing my classmates? The law enforcers in the Capital aren't exactly kind to people like me."

Hikaru went silent for a minute before he laughed a little and said, "Do you think that I'll abandon you? Don't worry about that, because from now on, you'll be treated like a princess."

"Fueh!?" She reacted cutely.

He glanced at Cristoff and said, "Hey, from this day forward, Shio will be a princess of my kingdom. Announce that later."

Cristoff took out a notebook and wrote something there before saying, "I've added it to the things I'll be doing later. But your majesty, shouldn't you be doing the announcement? You're the monarch of this country, it won't look good for your image if you have a lowly servant, like me, announce to the whole kingdom about such an important announcement. Appointing a commoner to become a princess isn't exactly that common."

Hikaru thought about it, then smiled and said, "It doesn't really matter. And besides, you're not exactly someone I look lowly at. You're my loyal subject, am I right?"

Cristoff then kneeled down and yelled, "Yes, your majesty!" He had tears pouring out of his eyes. To be appreciated by the King himself, it was an honor for someone like him.

Hikaru just shook his head and thought, 'I should really get used to his antics.'

He then looked around him and saw a lot of people staring at them, they are mostly students though. There were some teachers there, but Hikaru thought that they would be a lot stronger than this. Almost all of them are in between Tier-7 to 8. At least the headmaster is a Tier-9, but he's supposed to be the strongest in the academy? What has the world gone to?

'Weaklings, all of them. Maybe I should change all the staff in school with powerful people? Adventurers should do it, I may be able to invite some diamond-rank adventurers to become the staff here.' Hikaru said in his thoughts.

He wanted to at least show off in front of all these people, but now his mood is ruined. He'll take care about the staff changing later, but for now, he's just going to wait in the castle for something exciting to happen.

He's just going to fight some bosses in the System, they're the only creatures in this universe that can possibly kill him, or at least injure him. Maybe he'll fight the Soul of Cinder next? He fought him once when he was weaker and died, but maybe he can defeat him now?

Well, nothing's going to change unless he tries.

He held Shio in his arms as he turned around and said, "Let's go, Cristoff." He then flew towards his castle while carrying Shio, and Cristoff followed along.

The students were left dumbfounded, and some of the teachers were fuming. Most teachers in the academy are from noble families. The Royal Academy was bribed by the noble families to treat their heirs or family members better than most students.

This entire academy is controlled by the noble families, making it virtually useless.

The Royal Academy was supposed to be for all people to join, even the people in the slums, as long as they have enough talent. But the corrupt nobles decided to change that along with the former King. The Royal Academy is now nothing but a place for the younger nobles to hang out. It was even a miracle that Shio managed to become a Tier-7 Wizard under all this corruption, because most of the resources given to the academy by the monarch was all used for the betterment of the heirs of every noble family in the Capital.

And the teachers and the headmaster get huge amounts of gold coins from the nobles after doing what they were asked for.

That's why the teachers were fuming, because once his highness decides to change something in the academy, they're all basically f*cked.

Hikaru didn't care about those students who were killed because of one thing, they were all offspring by those nobles. He knew all about this before coming to the academy, and was about to teach them all a lesson. That was the meaning behind his words "I wanted to show off". Basically, he was about to spank every staff member on the butt in the school.

But his mood was ruined when he saw the poor girl, Shio, like that. She just reminded him so much about Azumi that it was scary. Since taking her in wouldn't harm him in any way, he decided to make her a princess of this Kingdom.

(A Few Hours Later)

Hikaru now sat behind his desk in the office of the King. This room is the workplace of the King, it's where he does paperwork and stuff. But those things have already been taken care of by Cristoff, so this place is just for meetings and the like.

In front of his desk was Cristoff handing some doc.u.ments to him while standing.

Hikaru studied every doc.u.ment about the noble families in the Capital, and found something strange.

Some high-ranking nobles didn't do anything special for the Kingdom, and yet they're the richest out of all of them. All of them had no special achievements, but they were high-ranking nobles. It was really bizarre for Hikaru, because these wealkings became nobles for no proper reason at all.

"Cristoff, why are some of the nobles don't have any good achievements towards the Kingdom, is it possible that they earned this position in the Kingdom because of their connections or families?��� Hikaru asked.

"Yes, your highness. Even though some nobles are plain useless and worthless, because of their familial connection towards some high-ranking nobles, they became nobles themselves. It's something that has been taken as normal in the Kingdom, even though the people hated that kind of rule. These nobles are fat pigs living behind their names, but the former King didn't do anything about them." Cristoff explained.

Hikaru then thought deeply about it, then said, "Hmm, what are the chances of a civil war happening if I execute all of them for no reason?"

Cristoff widened his eyes in shock, then he was pulled into a deep thought as he calculated the possibilities of a civil war happening, then he answered, "There's an 80 percent chance that a civil war in the Kingdom will happen, if your highness decides to execute them." Hikaru was about to say something, when he added, "But we can lower those chances if we can catch them red handed on their crimes, or move them into a lower position and then execute them. But there's another option, we can just assassinate them and no one would know."

"Hahahahahaha!"

Hikaru laughed madly as he thought of something fun.

"What's wrong, your highness?" Cristoff asked worriedly.

"Hahaha, no, it's nothing. It's just that, why don't we provoke them more? The more we provoke them, the more they will show their true colors. While some high-ranking nobles had made achievements to get to the position they're currently in, there are useless nobles that achieved their position because they were related to a high-ranking noble. And the only way to cut them is to strip them off their position, but why don't we add more to fuel the flames?"

Cristoff gasped and said, "You mean…!"

Hikaru stood up and turned around to look outside of his window, then said, "That's right, let's create chaos in the capital until we've flushed them all out. I'm gonna play them slowly until they break. After I'm done, all the nobles in the capital will be replaced. The old nobles shall be executed after I'm done with them."

'I would've never believed if someone else said that. But how is he going to do that? I'm quite curious.' Cristoff thought.

"But your highness, the casualty from creating a civil war will be around 30 percent of our total population!" He worriedly said.

"Heh, did I say anything about a civil war? I'm just going to create chaos behind the scenes." Hikaru then took 10 pouches of gold coins and a paper, each pouch has 1000 gold coins in, "Use these gold coins to hire the best assassins and thieves. Order them to ruin every land of the nobles I'm going to list in this piece of paper. Tell the assassins that they shouldn't kill anyone, because our goal for now is to ruin their lands. But if worse comes to worse, they're allowed to kill to leave no witnesses. Do you understand?"

'Madness, this is pure madness!' Cristoff yelled inside his head.

"I understand, your highness. But do I tell them to steal too?" He asked.

"No, they're all allowed to steal anything and keep anything they stole. Do absolutely anything to ruin their luxurious lives!"

'He is really set on ruining the noble families' lives, even going as far as whipping out 10,000 gold coins just to hire those people. But to ruin everything…' Cristoff said in his thoughts.

"But your highness, we still need more than this to hire people from the Assassins' Guild and Thieves' Guild. Another 10,000 should do it." He said.

Hikaru just took out another 10 pouches of gold coins out of nowhere and said, "Tell me if you need any more, money is not a problem."

Cristoff collected the pouches into his spatial bag and said, "No sir, this is enough."

"Then you're dismissed."

"Yes, your majesty!" Cristoff then promptly left through the door.

'Soon, I'll give the position of the King to Hiroshi. I should clean up some messes, so that Hiroshi can rule this Kingdom smoothly. There's probably no item or ability to send him back to earth, so as his friend, I should make his life comfortable in this world. Heh, an a.d.u.l.t like me is friends with someone younger than me.'

This year, Hikaru is officially 22 years old mentally.

'Now that I think about it, since when have I celebrated my birthday? I've even forgotten what the date was, it must've been somewhere around March.'

From all the things he've been through, he has completely forgotten about his own birthday. Maybe dying over and over again messed up his memories? Well, he has no proof.

Hikaru looked outside of the window behind his desk and thought, 'A lot of people are about to die, yet I don't feel anything. I've really gotten used to killing, huh…'