Ashley Roderick closed his eyes for a moment as he took a long, deep breath before exhaling slowly, before he opened his eyes and looked at a bespectacled young man with a fashion sense who always managed to do his job of hurting his eyes by combining a baby green sweater with black trousers, with his already old sneakers. The young man's hair was not even neatly styled with the front hair falling down to cover his eyes, preventing anyone near the young man from knowing what kind of reaction the young man was showing him.
As it was right now. But clearly, he was absolutely sure that this trash was scared of him. It can be seen from the way the young man tightly gripped the pile of books he was carrying—typical of nerd people who he did not even want to spare his time to understand their existence—and the young man's two legs were shaking so badly that he felt that in a moment the young man would fall if he continued to stand with shaking legs like that.
Well, that was none of his business. His dealings with the young man were far more important than the young man's feet.
"Michael Raymond."
"Y... yes!" the young man jumped in surprise, stepped back, was about to find a way to escape, then swallowed hard when he saw his back hit the wall behind him, telling the young man that there was no escape from him. Besides the young man, three of his friends—Gabriella Garfield, Sawyer Florence, and Cain Melville—stand in the way of the young man.
"I am sure I already told you what work you have to do, didn't I?" he stepped forward towards the young man until the distance between their faces remained a few centimetres. His irises turned into hazel, which reflected clearly in the eyes of the young man, who was now trembling with fear when he saw the colour of his irises. "And where is my assignment that you were supposed to do and give me today, Michael?"
His hand landed on the young man’s right shoulder, gripping it until the young man winced in pain from his grip.
"I...I forgot to bring it..."
"What did you just say to me? You forgot to bring it to me?" he repeated in a high-pitched, full of annoyance, as he was unable to contain his irritation any longer when he heard the classic excuse the young man had spoken to him just now. "Do you think that's a good reason?"
This time, he could no longer contain his anger. His hand moved away from the young man's shoulder, then signalled his three friends to stay away from him while he immediately grabbed the human youth by the collar and threw the body away from them for a few meters, creating a loud boom that echoed through the lobby of the university building where they were currently.
"I just gave you one simple task, Michael!" he shouted loudly, approaching the figure of the young human man who was trying to stand up with difficulty after the throw earlier, and then punched the young man's cheeks in turn, repeatedly until the glasses worn by the human lad fell off his face. "I just ask you to do one easy, simple task and I will leave you in peace. Wasn't that our deal?"
"I a ... am sorry ...," the young man mumbled softly, closing his eyes tightly. "I..."
"Do you think your apology will fix everything?"
Ignoring the human lad's painful moans, he continued to throw his fists. Not even the human lecturers who passed them dared to prevent or break up the quarrel, closing their eyes and walking with brisk footsteps, pretending to have seen nothing. It could be said that this was one of the advantages he could get by living in this city and being a werewolf was, they occupied the highest position in society's social strata.
There would not be a single human who would dare to pick a fight with the werewolf for the reason that since the ancestors of the werewolf in his city managed to stop the hunting of witches and werewolves during the witch hunt on the plains of Europe, their ancestors succeeded in forcing the nobles and also the human priests to sign treaties that benefited the werewolves more.
First, the leader of the city would always fall to the werewolf, with a rotating division of the ten strongest clans elected every three years using a general election system. Humans are still allowed to cast their votes in those elections, but no more than that.
Second, in the government system, humans can only fill less than thirty per cent of the seats in government positions. The rest will fall into the hands of the werewolves.
Third, whatever the werewolves did to humans, humans would not be able to do anything other than just resign themselves to whatever they were about to receive. There is no law that will strengthen the position or will take a side for the humans.
And a lot more to explain. In short, there are still lots of rules that limit human movement in this city. Obviously, the rules made by his ancestors had succeeded in creating a social gap between humans and werewolves with such a deep chasm.
He belongs to the werewolf group who wanted to keep these rules exist. For him, who was born into the Roderick family—one of the three most respected families in the city with their high power and vast influence—that rule greatly benefited his position. He even felt surprised when recently he saw the movement of the werewolves, who asked the higher-ups of the werewolf clan to change the ancient rules so that later, humans and werewolves would coexist.
It was a beautiful idea, he had to admit. And clearly cool. But, be that as it may, he absolutely did not want the proposal for the new rule to be granted by the werewolf higher-ups. Why would he defend humanity when it would not even bring him any advantage?
“Stop what you are doing right now!”
He was just about to punch Michael in the cheek again when a hand out of sudden appeared, blocking his movement with a firm and steady grip without hesitation, forcing him to shift from Michael to the person standing behind him and blocking him.
Who would dare to stand in his way...
***
