Reborn As A Nephilim: The Rise of A Manaless Prince

Wilfried sighed as he watched his wife smother Arvell in her bosom.

"Honey, you're going to kill the poor kid; at least let him breathe."

Lienna's eyes widened as she realized Arvell was desperately struggling for air.

"Sorry, Arvell, dear, I got too carried away!"

She immediately let go of her fierce bearhug.

After he managed to get away from Lienna's clutches, Arvell desperately gasped for air.

"Cough, cough. I'm fine."

Lienna looked at Arvell with a worried look.

"How are you feeling?"

Knowing she was talking about his body condition and not how he was after managing to survive her bear hug, Arvell responded.

"I feel slightly tired, but other than that, I'm doing perfectly fine."

Wilfried and Lienna breathed out a sigh of relief.

"That's good. When we saw you yesterday, we had a panic attack!" Lienna shivered.

Arvell smiled when he heard Lienna's worried tone.

"Thank you."

The Silvercolt family was thrown in a frenzy yesterday when they heard the examination had ended early due to the introduction of a rank 2 beast.

While Zen firmly believed in Arvell being safe and sound, knowing just how careful of a person Arvell was, the rest of the Silvercolts began to fear the worst.

Arvell was quite strong for someone his age, but sometimes that wasn't all needed to survive.

Dealing with a rank 2 beast was a herculean task for a mere kid who didn't even start attending a magical academy yet.

For example, if it was someone like Angela, they could kill it in a one-on-one confrontation.

However, this was only because she was a peak 6th-stage 2nd circle mage.

She was on the threshold of breaking through to the 'late-stage' category of the 2nd circle.

Taking on a single early rank 2 beast wouldn't be too complicated for her to deal with.

However, for your average 13-year-old who hadn't even formed their mana core?

It was a death sentence.

Hearing that their son's sworn brother was thrown into a forest with a beast like that, they naturally began to fear the worst.

This was something that never should have occurred in the first place had the academy staff correctly completed their work.

When the academy staff had finished evacuating the remaining students out of the Urnio woods, they were shocked, to say the least.

More than half of the students who went in didn't make it back.

While they didn't find any evidence of other beasts that surpassed the rank 2 threshold.

Even having just the Rasian Python set loose among the students was like letting a fox into the henhouse.

The hens, being the students in this scenario, were killed so that they could not even call for help.

They were either burned into puddles of acid or swallowed whole.

Having no way to fight back, all they could do was die.

Die and become food for the beast which killed them.

Turning into its fuel to go and hunt for other examinees.

One thing Arvell noticed was he couldn't see the faces of Antoinette's group nor the 4 boys who assaulted Lydia among the survivors.

Most likely, they had become snake food.

'At least one good thing happened from the whole ordeal.'

Arvell was neither a good nor bad person.

The way he treated those around him depended on how he viewed them.

If they pissed him off, he would take pleasure in their suffering.

If someone helped him, he'd do his best to repay the favour.

He had no mercy for those 2 groups of people.

The former tried to force him into becoming their lady's pet, while the latter attempted to assault and kill Lydia.

An action which Arvell found immensely detestable, considering the number of run-ins he had with r*pists.

He didn't bother enough to try and do something as meaningless as 'reform' them.

If they were dead, it would be less filth to get his hands dirty with later.

They weren't strong either, so he found no value in them staying alive.

While he felt some satisfaction knowing those two groups were probably dead, he still felt terrible for the Rasian Python's other victims.

Most were just ordinary with grand ambitions of attending their country's number one prestigious academy.

Ambitions abruptly halted the instant they heard the Rasian Python's hiss.

Even as the Silvercolts took him back to their estate, Arvell was amazed at the sheer number of what he assumed were grieving family members.

Countless mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters were looking through the survivors to see if their loved ones had returned.

Some were lucky, while many were devastated by the knowledge of their loved one's passing.

They weren't even given a single corpse to remember them by.

A reality which was far too cruel for these poor souls.

While each examinee signed a waiver stating that the academy wasn't responsible for any injuries or loss of life during the examination process, many of the examinees assumed it was just a formality.

Those who survived the ordeal opened their eyes to the world's harsh reality.

The people they had talked to, laughed with and even competed with only one day ago had been taken away.

Never to be seen again.

'What if that was me?'

That single question began to plague the remaining survivors.

If they were the ones to have seen the menacing snake beast, would they have died in their stead?

That single question drove the survivors into a gnawing feeling of fear and despair that, coupled with their distrust in the academy's capabilities, caused countless surviving examinees to withdraw their entrance applications in fear.

'The strong survive while the weak die. Those who don't have the resolve to get stronger should just hide and waste away the remainder of their lives, submitting to the strong to protect them.' Arvell scoffed to himself.

From his point of view, the examinees withdrawing from the academy for fear of losing their lives was pure stupidity.

If these people don't want to lose their lives, all they need to do is get stronger.

Strong enough to dictate their own life.

Throwing away their chance to get stronger to turtle away in some self-perceived 'safe spot' was the most illogical decision they could make.

After all, unlike Arvell, they didn't have Lykos coaching them.

The academy professors were all they had.

Wilfried looked at Arvell with a grim look on his face.

"They identified the individual in charge of verifying the strength of the beasts in the area. Apparently, he snuck off to a tavern during his appointed schedule, got drunk, and faked his report later."

Arvell looked at Wilfried with a conflicted look.

"Wasn't Sky Sword supposed to be a prestigious academy? So how was someone like this hired?"

Wilfried massaged his temple.

"This is supposed to be kept a secret, but as a duke, I got ahold of this information through my information network."

'Why are you bragging about your status as a duke and your information network to a 13-year-old-kid?' Arvell wondered inwardly.

"What did you find, if you don't mind me asking?"

Arvell's interest had been piqued.

"This person got his position through shady means. He didn't get the job because he was competent. No. He got the job because… he had ties with one of the princes."