Vol 8. Chapter 22: A Loving Father and a Filial Daughter

Seeing Leon so fired up, Rosvisser couldn’t help looking at him curiously too, wondering what sort of “brilliant idea” he’d come up with that could possibly convince Jane and Claire.

Leon, unafraid of Noa’s claws, bent halfway down in front of the two Blazing Sun candidates. He held out his hands to them both and said:

“Claire, Jane, each of you hand me twenty points’ worth of cards.”

Jane frowned in puzzlement.

“What for, Uncle Leon?”

“According to the Academy and your clan’s rules, what we’re doing here—this kind of extra interference—counts as cheating. As proctors, we’re not supposed to intervene unless absolutely necessary. And facing my daughter, your odds are close to zero.”

Leon explained:

“So if this went the normal route, she’d easily take your cards. And if you wait until she comes to collect, it’ll be a lot more than twenty points you lose.”

Claire scratched her temple uneasily, not understanding.

“So if we hand over twenty points ourselves, your daughter will let us off?”

Obviously not. From the pile of cards Noa had just shown, it was clear that a mere twenty or twenty wouldn’t satisfy this strict Youth Division overachiever.

Leon shook his head.

“No. But I know my daughter’s temperament. There’s a way to bargain with her. Each of you give me twenty, then each of you also hand me one fifteen-point card.”

In other words, seventy points in total.

The two exchanged a glance. Claire hesitated.

“Jane, what do we do? Do we fight that girl, or trust Uncle Leon?”

Jane, who’d been all fire and blood a moment ago, had cooled down.

He knew that even if he and Claire fought shoulder to shoulder, they were no match for that girl. From the way the other candidates had scattered like mice, it was clear just how terrifying she was. If they rushed in anyway, they’d only end up losing their cards—and likely far more than twenty points.

Weighing the odds, Jane dug out twenty points’ worth of cards from his pocket and placed them in Leon’s hand.

“Here, Uncle Leon. We’ll trust you.”

Leon smiled and took them. “Good.”

Seeing Jane trust Leon, Claire followed suit and handed over her twenty points.

Then, per Leon’s instructions, the two of them each took out one more fifteen-point card.

With the cards gathered, Leon stood, walked forward slowly.

“You’re scheming some weird deal again, aren’t you, Dad.”

Noa had her father’s number. The moment she saw he wasn’t bringing the two candidates forward, but walking up himself, she knew he was up to something.

“You’re so young and already know that sitting down to talk works better than fists. Truly my daughter!”

Only Leon could brag about his daughter and slip in praise for himself in one stroke.

Rosvisser’s face read pure exasperation.

“Out with it. What are you planning?”

Leon lifted the stack of cards he’d just taken from Jane and Claire.

“Here—forty points total, from those two. I’ll give them straight to you.”

At that, not only Noa but even Claire stirred. She nearly stepped forward to protest, but Jane stopped her.

“Jane, Uncle Leon’s just handing our points to °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° her? How can this be?”

Claire grabbed Jane’s arm, whispering urgently.

Jane was just as baffled, but murmured back:

“Trust Uncle Leon.”

Claire bit her lip. Since Jane said so, she forced herself to keep quiet.

Rosvisser, meanwhile, was watching this long-missed father–daughter clash with great amusement, curious to see what would come next.

“Why just give them to me?” Noa asked.

Leon shrugged.

“If I let you fight those two kids directly, you’d waste time and effort, wouldn’t you?”

Noa eyed her father, then nodded.

“True. So your great idea is a speedy surrender? Handing over points? But you’re right—if I fought, I’d win more than this. So even if you surrender, I’d still take a bit extra.”

Before the Youth Division set out, the Academy had assigned each of them a business target—

In other words, a KPI.

The quota varied by ability.

For younger ones like Ryan and Aurora, whose specialties lay outside combat, the targets were low: they could take under twenty points per candidate.

For a super “smurf king” like Noa, though? Even though there weren’t many of her caliber, if unleashed she could massacre the field. So the Academy capped her at under sixty points per candidate.

On her way here, Noa had been harvesting candidates like crops. She could decide how much to take from each. The Academy’s intent was to see more possibilities in a joint exam and to train examinees in different ways. So within the rules, Noa was controlling the difficulty.

If she really squeezed every candidate to the sixty-point cap, the final results would be a massacre.

So even if her father had just handed her forty-plus points, she wasn’t about to leave it at that.

Controlling difficulty was one thing; deliberately going easy was another.

“Of course I know this won’t satisfy you. So—”

Leon set the forty points on the ground, then pulled out two more fifteen-point cards.

“Let’s make a trade. Remember when we played Werewolf in the old castle that one time?”

Noa arched a brow, memory flashing back years.

After a moment’s recall, the overachiever nodded.

“Of course. I used a prop card to force Dad to play the bell-snatching game with me. And I won.”

Ahem.

From within her consciousness, the ancestor’s voice coughed.

Noa instantly took the hint, muttering under her breath:

“Fine, fine. I won because of you, okay?”

“So how about we play that again now?”

Leon clipped the two fifteen-point cards to his waist.

“If you can snatch these two from me in fifteen minutes, then you get them along with the forty I set down—seventy total.

But if you can’t, you only get the forty.”

The queen, watching quietly, nodded thoughtfully.

“So that’s how it is...”

Claire, younger and more naive, tilted her head, eyes wide.

“Auntie Rosvisser, what’s going on?”

Rosvisser crouched down, slipped an arm around her shoulders, and explained patiently.

“As Leon said, normally you’d fight Noa. But your strength doesn’t match hers. You’d lose more points.

So Leon skipped the normal step. He offered a base payment—forty points. With that guarantee, he could bargain.

Simply put: facing Noa, losing points is inevitable. What Leon’s doing is minimizing your loss.”

Jane scratched his head. After a moment’s thought, he asked:

“Why would Uncle Leon help us? He’s a proctor. He doesn’t need to.”

“Yeah, and...”

Claire chimed in:

“And how does he know Noa will accept his condition? Her strength is above ours, but surely she’s not stronger than Uncle Leon?”

Jane nodded.

“I don’t think Noa would agree to challenge Uncle Leon.”

To their doubts, Rosvisser could only mutter:

“You two don’t know our family’s traditions.”

“Don’t worry. Noa will—”

“No problem, Dad. Deal!”

Rosvisser smiled a knowing smile.

“Told you. Now, let’s enjoy the show.”

One of the classic Melkvey family traditions—fatherly benevolence, daughterly filial piety!