Nathan looked at the students, who were about ten in number excluding his remaining six servants, thought for a moment, then muttered to himself,
"Hm, it seems I need to find a place to be our gang's headquarters."
Everyone heard his muttering.
Steven ignored what was happening and passed them, heading out of the place, while David also started thinking about a place for their gang, as he liked the idea of a gang and being one of its leaders.
Suddenly, the student who was leading the rest of the students spoke. His name was Miles.
"Leader, we'll look for a suitable place ourselves, don't worry."
Nathan raised his eyebrow, then smiled.
"Alright, now all that's left is a name for our gang."
Nathan turned back to get Steven's opinion.
"Boss, what do you suggest…!"
Nathan tilted his head in confusion and asked David,
"Where's the boss?"
David looked around, then shrugged, indicating he didn't know.
Nathan sighed, then made his decision.
"Alright then, I'll name our gang myself."
David stepped back, his jaw trembling as he pointed at Nathan.
"You! Y-you! No, no, I don't want this!"
Nathan ignored David's reaction. An idea came to his mind, and he clapped his fist into his hand.
"I got it."
Miles and the other students looked at him in confusion.
Nathan pointed at them and spoke,
"Our gang's name will be the Bone Breakers."
After hearing the name, Miles and the other students fell silent.
"….."
The students looked at David with looks that said, "Save us, please."
Meanwhile, David clenched his teeth.
'This can't be happening. I have to catch up to Steven—he needs to change this. He only listens to him.'
David looked at them, then ran out of the classroom, trying to find Steven.
Nathan looked at him, tilting his head in confusion.
"What's wrong with him? Why did he run out so suddenly?"
Miles shook his head quickly.
"I don't know."
Nathan shrugged indifferently, then smiled.
"Well, the gang name is decided. All that's left is the headquarters."
Miles looked nervously at the other students. When he looked at Nathan, he froze in place, then nodded quickly.
"We'll take care of the headquarters. We'll go now."
Miles and the other students turned around and hurried out.
…..
That day was different from the other days in only one thing: there were only two lectures.
On other days, there were three lectures, and sometimes even four, not including some regular physical training sessions that were held daily for students. These trainings could be considered optional, so students could skip them without any grade deductions.
These trainings weren't of any interest to Steven. To him, it felt like teaching an adult how to walk, so he never attended them.
Steven's interest was directed toward the academy's museum, where he continued to go daily to examine the students' artifacts.
The number of artifacts was huge, and not all of them were special. There were some artifacts that could be considered completely useless, but the academy was tolerant in allowing students to display anything they wanted inside the museum.
Because of this, the students called the museum "Trace," a word that symbolized that no matter how useless or untalented you were, you had to leave some trace of your existence—even if that trace was very small and barely noticeable, that was fine.
The museum contained many surveillance cameras, so it wasn't easy for Steven to examine the items inside.
So he limited the number of artifacts he examined on each visit, and he even returned again at night to examine more artifacts.
But despite his continued inspections over the past days, he found nothing.
He began to doubt whether the museum was really the center of the disappearance operations.
The number of missing students suddenly increased after the celebration incident, reaching five missing students in just those three days.
This was the first dilemma Steven had faced in a long time.
If not for the cameras, his work would've been much easier, but hiding his power was truly annoying.
However, it would be even more troublesome if his identity were discovered—not just more annoying, but also more dangerous.
After Steven interfered with the demons' plans several times, he might have become known to them.
If the demons learned his identity, they would definitely learn about his connection to Mark and would target Mark.
So Steven preferred to remain hidden rather than be exposed and put Mark in danger.
After Steven had walked a short distance toward the museum, he noticed someone running toward him at full speed. When he focused on who it was, he found it was David, running toward him with a serious expression on his face.
Steven's eyebrows furrowed.
'Why does he look serious? What happened in the three minutes since I left?'
"Steven!"
Steven asked in confusion,
"What is it?"
David stopped in front of Steven. He didn't seem to need to catch his breath despite running, but his expression was extremely serious, as if he had discovered something extremely dangerous.
"Come with me, this is extremely dangerous."
David grabbed his hand and started running back toward the classroom.
While running back, David spoke,
"If you don't change the gang's name, I don't want to be in it at all!"
Steven was completely confused by this situation.
"The gang's name?"
David nodded in disgust.
"That damn Nathan—he named our gang the Bone Breakers!!"
David looked at Steven seriously.
"You're the only one who can change that bastard's decision."
Steven almost sighed at how ridiculous this "extremely dangerous" matter was.
As they got closer to the classroom, the two suddenly heard a loud sound of someone's head slamming against the ground.
They gradually slowed down until they stopped firmly, staring ahead.
Nathan stood there without his usual provocative smile. He was radiating killing intent and looking with deadly cold eyes at the student whose face was being pressed hard against the ground under Nathan's palm—so hard it almost seemed like Nathan's hand would crush the student's skull.
"Trash, he sent you, didn't he?"
Without waiting for an answer, Nathan pressed his hand even harder on the student's head. The student's body trembled in pain. Nathan lifted the head and smashed it hard against the ground again.
"If you ever say that again, I'll kill you."
...
Earlier—
After Nathan left the classroom, a student suddenly stopped him.
Nathan raised his eyebrow slightly.
The student looked at Nathan and smiled, his smile carrying some tension.
"I want to talk to you."
Nathan smiled in amusement, thinking the student wanted to join the newly formed gang, and nodded.
The student looked at Nathan. His hand trembled slightly, then stopped as he gathered his courage. He smiled again, but this time mockingly.
Nathan tilted his head slightly in confusion, feeling a bad premonition.
The student spoke in a mocking tone,
"Your mother misses you."
When Nathan heard those few words, his mind stopped working. His usual smile disappeared, and he looked at the student with killing intent.
The student felt nothing but a powerful fist pressing against his face, slamming his head into the ground.
...
Now—
Nathan lifted the student's head and smashed it even harder against the ground.
The increasing sound of the blows made the watching students tremble.
Blood began to spread, staining the academy's clean floor.
Just as the student was about to die from the beating—
Suddenly, a strong grip stopped Nathan's arm as he was about to smash the student's head into the ground again.
Nathan looked murderously at the person who stopped him, but when he realized it was Steven, his gaze softened slightly, though he spoke coldly,
"Let go."
Steven looked at Nathan, who clearly wasn't acting like himself, sighed, and spoke calmly, trying to calm him down,
"If you hit his head one more time, you'll kill him."
Nathan looked coldly at Steven.
"So what?"
Steven fell silent for a moment, then spoke again,
"…If you kill him, you'll be expelled from the academy."
Nathan repeated the same answer,
"So what?"
Steven's body stiffened. He lowered his eyelids and spoke again softly, in a low voice,
"After you're expelled, you'll lose… your friends."
This time, Nathan didn't speak. He just stared at Steven for a while. His expression softened further, and he spoke,
"Alright. I've hit him enough. I'll stop."
After looking at him for a moment, Steven nodded and released Nathan's arm. Nathan removed his hand from the student's head.
David approached and looked at Nathan in disgust.
"You insane, brainless man."
Nathan raised his eyebrow and smiled teasingly at David.
"What, are you afraid I'll hit you too?"
David scoffed, raised his head, and spoke confidently,
"You won't hit me, because I'll beat you and knock some sense into you."
David had read before that if you wanted to bring someone back to their senses, you just had to hit them, and he was confident that if Nathan went crazy again, he could punch him back to sanity.
Nathan burst out laughing.
"Hahaha."
After he stopped laughing, he looked at the surrounding students, whose stiff faces showed fear.
Then, with a half-smile, he looked at Steven.
"Looks like our reputatio n will increase."
Steven frowned.
'Our reputation?'
David raised his eyebrow and spoke sarcastically,
"Yes—straight into the gutter."
…..
Sorry for the delay, it's Zina's fault 🥺
But I'll make it up to you—the next chapter won't be delayed.
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