Chapter 88: How To Eradicate Violence (3)

“I am sure you see the reason behind my actions and words now. That’s right. I am an honored guest who is currently staying at the palatial quarters after being summoned by Her Majesty. Therefore, any action that insults me is the same as committing the grave sin of insulting Her Majesty.”

“…”

Lloyd’s clear voice echoed through the cafeteria. No one responded. No one could dare do it. As the silence continued to fill the room, he continued to speak.

“Moreover, I have heard of the beautiful story of how this academy is under the grace and support of the queen. And that means all the students are under the support of Her Majesty. And yet, it has never occurred to me that a student under Her Majesty’s auspices would dare insult her honored guest and regard her royal authority as nothing but trivial.”

A corner of Lloyd’s lips rolled upward. He shot a glance, daring the headmaster to give an answer.

The latter replied with a question, his shoulders drooping. “However, uhm, is it not your one-sided argument?”

“One-sided argument?”

“Is there any objective evidence that my student, Diego Lacona, has insulted you?”

“Evidence, you say? Hahaha,” Lloyd chuckled and shrugged his shoulders. And he added, “Certainly, there is. Don’t you know about the proof better than me?”

“Excuse me? What do you-”

“This boy right here, Julian Frontera.”

Thud. Lloyd held out his hand and placed it on Julian’s small shoulder. This made Julian flinch, but Lloyd didn’t mind. He nonchalantly had it remain there as he stared at the housemaster.

“I am telling you this just in case you might not know it, but this boy is my younger brother.”

Julian flinched once again, and this time, the housemaster’s eyes trembled for a second. Lloyd continued to speak.

“You insult him right in front of me, you insult me. You harass him, you insult me. As such, that is the same as ruining the reputation of Her Majesty. If that is not showing any disregard for Her Majesty’s authority, then what is?”

“How does that…”

“Are you trying to negate what I am saying?”

“…”

The housemaster clamped his mouth shut. Lloyd’s acrid remarks continued.

“And I’m sure you are not telling me that you and the students behind you don’t know what kind of relationship Diego and my brother has, right?”

“…”

Silence once again. No one could haphazardly throw a response at Lloyd, and it was obvious why. There was nothing secretive about Deigo harassing Julian on a daily basis. But it wasn’t the affair relating only to Diego. All the other nobles of the high class did so as well. They all joined as one to ignore, discriminate, and insult Julian. A lot of students gathered behind the housemaster were Julian’s harassers, who joked and made a bet among themselves on which method was the most innovative and novel way of making Julian’s life miserable. Their rationale behind such abuse was that Julian was from a provincial baron family, and yet, he got praised multiple times by professors for his academic achievements. That is, everyone bullied him because Julian acted without any knowledge of who he was. And so, Julian became the target for discrimination and scorn in the academy.

This is the reason why I’m doing this, you brat. Lloyd tightened the muscles in his arm, pressing down to stop Julian from removing his arm. Lloyd felt the glare Julian was shooting and understood the message he was sending. What’s the deal with this ruckus? What’s the point of this? Are you going to leave and have me deal with what comes after? Julian’s resistant glare burned Lloyd’s cheeks. But he ignored them all, for he was convinced that patience and endurance weren’t the answer to responding to unfair discrimination and school violence.

Enduring it won’t solve anything. It was true. He wasn’t just saying his opinion. What he was doing was based on an actual and real-life event, the fluorescent light incident. He had learned his lesson there.

I got all scared after causing trouble the first time. But as time passed by, it wasn’t the case. Things started to take off in an unexpected way. Right after Lloyd beat the daylights out of the bully with the fluorescent light and chair, the school was turned upside down in shock. Parents were summoned, the school violence committee opened up, and things began to develop unfavorably for Lloyd at first. It was understandable. After all, the only wrong the bully did was order Lloyd to get some bread and hit him a few times. But on the other hand, he struck back by sending the bully to the hospital. Thus, he got suspended, and he thought that was the end of things. However, it wasn’t.

It turned out the bully had caused more than a little trouble before then. About three days after the incident, Lloyd received a call from a father of his classmate. And he explained that it seemed his son had been bullied by that jerk for a long time and seeing Lloyd fight back gave his son the courage to speak up about it for the first time. That was the beginning. Similar calls continued to pour in. The bully’s dirty acts were made plain. Bags, clothes, hats, and shoes. Game consoles, cash, bicycle, cellphone, and laptop. They discovered one hundred dollars to two hundred dollars, and even up to thousands of dollars of money. As the evidence of his harassment was collected, the scale of his extortion proved to be larger than everyone expected. Karma finally hit him well. The parents gathered to file a lawsuit against him, and he was thrown into juvenile court. Victims teamed up to internalize the message, “Karma’s a bi***, you jerk.”

And so, I need to go all out when responding to these things. If I’m going to do it, I need to do it right. Lloyd couldn’t just sit and trust the school to do the job. He needed to make sure that the law, police, and press sided with him. And to do that, he needed to make a large issue out of this incident. The larger the incident became, the better chances he had of winning. That was the plan he had in mind before taking action. He had beaten the living soul out of Diego. It was time to crush the school’s silence around it.

“So, housemaster, pray tell me. Are you still thinking that what I did is wrong?”

“…”

Lloyd cocked his head to the side. The housemaster began to get a headache. This is troubling. A crease was formed on the housemaster’s forehead. Of course, he, too, knew that Julian was a punching bag to the other students. He’d turned a blind eye and declared that it wasn’t his business. But he wasn’t particularly sorry about that. What was happening right now was tradition.

He’s nothing but a son of a provincial baron. Julian got scorned and mocked by the sons of upper class families in the capital because he was from the province. He was bound to intermittent disdain and physical abuse. The headmaster saw nothing wrong with it. After all, this was something that had taken place for decades in the academy. A natural occurrence. He didn’t even think about correcting this, and since it was a loss for him to cut ties with the sons of the powerful families, he didn’t want to meddle in this affair. His desire to stay out grew all the more when he thought about the flashy and powerful families that backed these students. Therefore, he turned a blind eye. Everything was fine until this moment. It wasn’t fine anymore. When the brother of the harassed student was an honored guest of the queen, the whole situation took on a whole different meaning.

“Take issue with it? I would never,” the housemaster uttered, his mouth forming a smile. He changed his attitude after quickly weighing things in his head.

“As you know, I am a person who is in charge of managing the dormitory. And so, it is my responsibility to verify the claims when an unfortunate event like this happens in the building.”

“So what are you trying to say?”

“Should you find yourself in a dispute in the future, please call for me instead of taking action by yourself,” the housemaster replied.

“Aha. You mean you’re going to provide me with a great service of reconciliation called mediation, yes?”

“I am glad that you know what I mean.”

The housemaster was experienced in his role and knew how to act at this dormitory that was filled with noble children. Seeing his face, Lloyd thought to himself…

What a snake. The housemaster skillfully yet subtly abandoned Diego and decided to befriend a new power. It seemed to Lloyd that the housemaster wanted to form a new connection from this incident. A snort escaped Lloyd, and the housemaster gave a proper bow before leaving. The students chattering among themselves scattered away, but Lloyd imprinted every single one of their faces in his memory until all were gone.

I’m going to get you all good. You wait and see. Lloyd internally made the resolve. He’d already intervened, and it was water under the bridge. If he stopped now, he’d be throwing his and his family’s reputation down the drain. And if this incident worked to form a bad public image of him to others, it’d hurt his business for a long time.

So I have to finish what I started. Suppressing the dark desire to have their heads on a platter, Lloyd said that he was done for now. Then, he turned and looked at Julian.

“I lost my appetite. Let’s go.”

“What?!”

Julian kept glaring at Lloyd and tried to free himself from Lloyd’s arm that wrapped around his shoulder. One of his eyebrows quirked up.

“Go? Where to?” huffed Julian.

“Just follow me.”

Lloyd then moved, keeping his arm on Julian’s shoulder. He then got out of the cafeteria, almost dragging Julian. They heard the murmuring noises from both sides, but Lloyd ignored every single one of them. He even ignored Julian fighting to free himself. Just like that, they strode across the corridor and headed to the opposite way of the lobby, where there was the office Lloyd had previously located a while ago. He figured it’d be like the administrative office in the school. Thinking such, he pushed the door open.

“I’m here for business.”

The water was already spilled. The people in the office widened their eyes as they gazed at Lloyd. They were too taken aback to ask what business he had here.

Lloyd said to one of the dazed clerks, “I’d like to file a leave of absence. The duration will be one year.”

His name is Julian Frontera. The shocking declaration caused Julian to go wide-eyed.

♣

“What are you doing?! Are you out of your mind?”

They were in front of the main gate of the academy in the cold winter. Julian’s shrill got raised by a pitch. How else would he react? He was struck dumb to the point of passing out.

“Who do you think you’re for causing all that mess back in there, huh? And who do you think you’re for filing a leave of absence against my will?!”

Huh? Julian recalled the event that happened a moment ago. Lloyd had barged into the office and filed for an LOA without so much as asking a question to him. There wasn’t any time to stop Lloyd. And so, he was forced to stop studying for a year in the academy.

This isn’t happening! Julian was livid. He couldn’t understand what Lloyd was doing. It was so thoughtless and irresponsible.

And he doesn’t think at all! Julian jumped out of his skin when Lloyd suddenly began whacking Diego. A part of him did feel good because Diego constantly pestered him. The sight of him getting beaten up granted Julian an immense sense of pleasure, and when Lloyd brought out the pendant, Julian’s heart tingled in excitement.

But so what about it? What’s the point of this good feeling when it’s just temporary? Nothing. Meaningless. This good feeling was transient, and once Lloyd left the capital, Julian would have to bear the massive weight of the mess Lloyd had created alone. They would retaliate for sure, and the harassment would worsen by a few more degrees. Even if Lloyd had brought out the VIP seal, the reality he was in wouldn’t have changed by much.

They can always bully me in secret. From the point of the sons of noble families, they held bounty ways of secretly making a living hell out of someone. The mere thought of it brought chills to his spine, and Julian wasn’t confident he could endure it. Just when he thought things couldn’t get worse, Lloyd unilaterally filed for a leave of absence!

“Speak now. Are you telling me to run? Huh? You’re the one who messed up. Did you get me out of the academy because you know you can’t be responsible for what you did?! Is that it?!” bawled Julian.

He didn’t want that. Even when things became hellish, Julian wanted to stick around in the academy. He wanted to continue studying regardless of the tribulations and frustrations. That was the only way he could help his family.

If I don’t study, my family will be done for. That mindless brute will ruin everything for my family. Julian would have to spend his lifetime correcting what Lloyd had ruined. To do that, he needed to be educated and form connections, which he had already planned to do. But what? A leave of absence? Julian saw red at the decision. He felt it was a tyrannical act of trampling his determination. And so, maybe that was the reason why a wry smile formed on Lloyd’s face.

“Ha! You think I’m doing this without any plans in mind?” asked Lloyd.

“What…?”

Duh! Julian wanted to shout that aloud. But Lloyd’s declaration intercepted and pierced into Julian’s ears first.

“First, I think we need to clarify your misunderstandings and go through some harsh training.”

“What are you… Misunderstanding? And what? Training?”

“Yeah.”

“What am I getting wrong?” asked Julian.

“Well, the first one is that I’m acting like a maverick. And second, you’ll be able to handle Diego or any pricks by yourself once you get trained.”

“…”

Julian felt the words stop in his throat, sensing that the way Lloyd stared at him was too serious. No playfulness or arrogance. That was a bit of a surprise for Julian since it was his first time seeing so. Maybe he was persuaded by Lloyd’s gaze. Or maybe Julian was piqued by the possibility that he could deal with Diego by himself.

“Training…? What training? Where? Like sword fighting?” asked Julian, stuttering without his knowledge.

Lloyd scoffed and smiled. He then shared the secret that would toughen up Julian’s weak body and mind.

“What else is there? At the construction site. Shoveling.”

And just like that, Julian Frontera, the slim and frail child with beady eyes, became one of the laborers in the suspension bridge construction, which wasn’t part of his destiny.