One of the perks of being an overpowered villain especially one who was only slightly weaker than the Protagonist and trained like a gym addict with abandonment issues was simply that disciplining idiots was extremely easy.
Ren folded his arms as he watched the noble sons scrambling up the rocky wall like discount mountain goats.
Most were slipping, grunting, or struggling to hold their balance and only a few made it up with any dignity.
Surprisingly, the third person to reach the top was Randy… or Reina… whichever one applied at the moment.
Ren blinked.
Despite being a woman disguised as a man, she climbed with the lightness and nimbleness of a hunter.
Her movements were efficient and purposeful as she scaled the cliff like she belonged in the mountains.
She reached the top, dusted her hands, and stood quietly, already putting distance between herself and the rowdier heirs.
'Not bad,' Ren thought. 'She really is agile… and for a crossdressing heroine, she's doing a damn good job.'
"There's no need to rush it though…" he muttered under his breath, placing one foot on the rocky wall.
Ren had something the others didn't.
Mana Wall-Suction.
A technique Ren Crowhurst had learned by accident during one of his many obsessive training sessions, though it wasn't listed anywhere in his skill section.
By channeling mana to the soles of his feet, he could stick to surfaces and treat walls like floors. It was meant for mobility and evasive maneuvers in combat situations.
Ren was using it to aura farm and flex dominance.
He lifted his other leg, channeled mana steadily into his soles, and casually walked straight up the cliff face like the world's most arrogant insect.
The moment he disappeared over the top, all the clan heads visibly relaxed below.
The Briarhallow clan head stomped toward his half-drowned son, who had dragged himself out of the water and was now hunched over in a coughing fit as strings of waterfall water dripped from his hair.
"Father…" the heir croaked, looking up with bleary eyes. He was expecting sympathy, maybe a towel too.
POW!
A kick connected with the side of his head, sending him rolling across the wet stones like a soggy log.
"GET TO THE TOP, FOOL! FIND THAT ITEM!"
"Yes, father!!" the boy yelped, scrambling upright on shaking legs.
He ran back to the wall. He climbed… got halfway up… slipped… slammed face-first onto a ledge… groaned into the rock… got back up again as his father's glare burned holes into his skull from below.
And somehow, through pain and pure filial fear, dragged himself to the top.
"That's better," the Briarhallow head grunted, already satisfied.
He turned around, removed his robe with the confidence of a man who had earned his peace, flexed his shoulders, and prepared for a morning of doing absolutely nothing productive.
Alina, meanwhile, had wandered toward a large warm rock near the edge of the springs and climbed onto it.
It was smooth and heated perfectly by the waterfall's steam which was ideal for sitting while sketching the scenery spread out before her.
She opened her drawing book with her legs tucked neatly beneath her, already scanning the landscape for where to start but a shadow loomed beside her.
The Evermere clan head… still dripping from earlier after his assassination via ice cube plopped down next to her with a heavy grunt.
He still clutched his precious goblet as if it were his firstborn child, the liquid inside somehow undisturbed despite everything.
"You're the little sister to that brat…?" he asked, sniffing loudly with water still dripping from his nose onto his round belly.
"Brat?" Alina looked up with a small frown. "You mean my big brother…? Yes, but he's not a brat."
"You all are brats to me," he shrugged without remorse, conjuring a second cup in his free hand with a lazy flick of magic from his storage ring.
With a practiced twist of his wrist, he poured a measure of golden beer into the second cup then he nudged it toward her. "You want some?"
Alina stared at the cup with a deeply torn expression. "I'm not old enough to drink beer…"
"Come on, have some. It builds resistance later in life." he insisted, pushing the cup closer like he was offering medicine rather than alcohol to a fifteen year old noble girl.
Alina hesitated but her mother's voice echoed clearly in her head: 'Never decline a gift offered sincerely from the heart.'
She peeked sideways at her father… who was too busy loudly arguing about bathing etiquette with the Morcant and Dawnlarke heads to notice anything happening near the rocks.
She swallowed nervously and she took the cup.
Just then…
WHOOSH!
A griffin dropped from the sky like a furry missile and landed directly on the Evermere head's skull with both taloned feet.
The poor man collapsed instantly under the creature's weight, folding like a bad hand of cards.
"Ahahahahaha!! I have arrived!" a triumphant voice rang out across the entire waterfall valley.
Standing on top of the griffin like it was a personal parade chariot was a brown-haired girl wearing loose adventurous clothing.
She struck a dramatic pose with one hand planted on her hip and her short cape catching the breeze behind her. Her eyes swept the area, landed on Alina, then dropped immediately to the cup in her hands.
"Is that hot chocolate…? For me?"
Before Alina could form a single syllable of protest, the girl reached down and snatched the drink, tilting her head back and chugging the entire thing in one fluid motion.
She threw the empty cup aside like an anime protagonist discarding a finished energy drink.
"Why does this taste so… different…?" she murmured as she swayed slightly on her feet, blinking with slow confusion. "My head… feels really light…"
Her knees buckled dramatically and she collapsed backward onto her griffin's neck with her limbs splayed and twitching gently as the alcohol introduced itself to her bloodstream without warning or mercy.
Meanwhile, the Evermere clan head had resurfaced from beneath the griffin, sputtering and shoving the creature aside only to watch in slow, dawning horror as his Infinite Beer Cup rolled across the rock toward the edge of the spring.
Rolled…
Tilted at the edge… and fell in with a quiet, devastating plop.
"NOOOOOOOO!"
He launched himself forward in full slow motion with his arms outstretched and robes blowing behind him as he hit the water head-first in a spectacular splash that sent waves rippling across the entire pool.
"Ah, Ryan has initiated it." Jeremiah Morcant observed from the sideline calmly.
He removed his outer robe to reveal a pair of aggressively patterned elastic swim shorts underneath, cracked his neck once to each side, and pointed at the steaming water like a general ordering a charge. "Dive, men!"
The remaining clan heads exchanged one single solemn nod between them then hurled themselves into the springs like a group of overgrown children who had been waiting for permission all morning.
SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH! SPLASH!
Steam erupted upward in massive clouds and water flew in every direction, someone was already laughing.
Alina sat on her rock and stared at all of it with bewilderment in her eyes.
'They're acting like children…'
She shook her head slowly and looked back toward the girl draped across the griffin.
The girl had recovered enough to sit back up, shaking her head wildly and sending droplets flying in a halo around her.
"Hey!" she said brightly, as though none of the last thirty seconds had happened.
She leaned forward with an enormous grin. "I'd like some more of that stuff… it makes everything feel floaty!"
"Um…" Alina started.
"What's your name?" the girl asked, already moving on. "I'm Esmeralda Morcant! Daughter of the great Jeremiah Morcant, currently swimming over there like a seal!"
"I'm Alina Crowhurst," Alina replied carefully.
Esmeralda's eyes went wide, she slapped both palms against her cheeks hard enough to make a sound. "Amazing! Let's be friends!"
Alina blinked.
The word landed differently than she expected.
Most noble children kept a careful distance from the Crowhurst name… maybe because it was too intimidating.
Friendship wasn't something usually offered to her so quickly without a reason attached to it but Esmeralda was looking at her like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
Alina's small smile grew slowly. "Okay."
…
Meanwhile, Ren was having a significantly less wholesome time.
He stood deep within the upper forest, surrounded by the fresh debris of a brutal fight… with snapped branches, gouged earth, and a bit of cold wind in the air.
In his arms was an unconscious tomboy heroine.
Reina Dawnlarke's body was draped across them like a limp ragdoll, her silver hair spilling over his sleeve in a cascade.
Ren looked down at her then at the destroyed clearing around him.
"How did this even happen…?" He muttered.