Chapter 90. Child-Rearing Advice
The referee stepped forward in the next moment. He cleared his throat. “Winner, Rhys Foundling.”
“This match is invalid! He was beating my child indiscriminately!” the well-dressed man, Florian’s father, insisted.
“Haaa, is a match invalid if your child loses? I didn’t see you complaining when Florian was beating the other students,” Rhys bluffed. He didn’t know that Florian had one-sidedly beaten his opponents—honestly, Florian hadn’t stood out enough for him to actively watch the kid—but given the way he’d instantly tried to overwhelm Rhys and spent the entire battle talking down to him, it would surprise him more if Florian didn’t beat his opponents half to death. His sexual-assault attack alone meant the man didn’t respect his opponents, and his initial attack had meant to capture Rhys in ice and immobilize him so Florian could pierce him full of poisonous needles. Rhys had been able to feel them through his Impurity and Poison Resist skills, which meant the potion was nothing to shake a stick at. Anyone but him would have been frozen upright and paralyzed after the first barrage.
What Florian did after that… well, Rhys could fill in the gaps, and it wasn’t anything good. Especially since he himself had been able to indiscriminately beat—ahem, teach Florian a valuable lesson as long as Florian hadn’t been able to fully speak his concession, what Florian did, was essentially take away his opponent’s physical freedom, then their freedom to speak, and once he stripped all their agency, Rhys had read enough news stories about rich people to know what happened to his opponents. Honestly, looking at Florian now and finally putting the pieces of his attacks together out of combat, where he had more space to think it out, Rhys felt rage grow in his heart. He should’ve beaten the scumbag harder. Who knew what shit he’d gotten up to, throughout his uppity asshole life?
Of course, he could be totally wrong. Florian could be a good-hearted shitstain who just happened to have a sequence of skills he was familiar with using that completely robbed a person of their agency and left them at his mercy. Right. He innocently owned paralytic drugs, and definitely didn’t ever misuse them. Sure. Because that played out so often at his college, people just innocently owning paralytic drugs…
Rhys shook his head. It was a different world. There were legitimate reasons to own paralytics, if he imagined himself as a rich kid with little personal strength, who could face challenges from far stronger students. It was his experiences back home that were coloring his impression of this kid, he openly admitted it, but nonetheless… Florian was a piece of shit who liked beating the poor and helpless by his own admission, and deserved everything Rhys had done to him and more.
From the way Florian’s father’s face reddened from Rhys’s accusations, though, he was far more on the mark than he wanted to be. He jabbed a finger at Rhys. “You must have guts to mock Cassian Coyale. You will hear from me. Watch your back after dark, child.”
“Shocking. I see the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” Rhys said, crossing his arms.
“What do you mean?” Cassian’s voice had a dangerous note to it.
“But then, who am I to spit upon a time-honored family tradition? Just because I disagree with beating the helpless…”
“You dare? When you beat my helpless son?”
“Helpless? Far from it! We both entered this tournament, did we not? Was he not launching attacks at me? You’re the one who violated the sanctity of this match by sweeping in and saving your son, not me,” Rhys pointed out.