Chapter 135 133 - Leaked

The next day, Milo's training regimen involved getting the team involved in closing a virtual gate, this way he could get a baseline to determine a strategy for when they closed a real one. Overall the team did well, Chris was being a little too aggressive and was needing help more than anyone else, but the formation Milo came up with worked very well for the abilities that the team had.

After closing the gate, Milo and his friends were eating lunch when a group of first years came up and approached Milo. Milo was not expecting this, the student had heard about his reawakening and also about the New York incident. Milo wasn't sure how this had spread but his friends appeared to be just as confused as he was. The student asked for his autograph before going back to his table.

"Do any of you know what that was about?" Milo asked his friends.

"No idea, but someone obviously dug into some info on you, maybe someone from the X ranked class? Any students who were in the class last year would know about your reawakening since you showed it off when that new student challenged you."

Milo thought about it for a bit and figured that could be the only explanation. After eating his dinner, he and his friend's made their way out of the cafeteria only to stop in shock. Cameras were flashing, and reporters could be seen trying to break through a line of school security that had stopped them before they could enter the building.

"There he is! There's the student who reawakened during the New York attack!"

Hearing this, the other reporters all began to fire off questions towards Milo who was wide eyed in shock. Camera flashes filled his vision as the security guards continued to block the wall of reporters attempting to get to Milo for an interview.

Maria, who had dealt with the press in the past, due to her family name, pulled Milo and the rest of the group out of the area and got them back to the dorms safely, avoiding the cameras as they moved. After they were safely inside the dorms, Milo said thank you to Maria before splitting off from the group to collect his thoughts, he was obviously flustered. He asked people to hide that he was reawakened so the fact that it had somehow leaked made him worry about how crazy people would act now.

Milo flipped on the TV and wasn't surprised to see his face on the local news channel.

"As we said, a local student at the Awakened Academy was recently found to have reawakened thanks to an anonymous source. The student whose name is Milo Fenix is originally from New York City and is believed to have undergone reawakening during the recent attack by the Fellowship there have been sightings of the student around the Academy's campus but no statement from him or the academy has been recorded yet. As more information comes out you can find it here…"

After watching the short report about himself, Milo began to weigh his options about what he should do about his secret being revealed. After Milo turned off the news channel, Alucard who was sitting on the bed began to speak into Milo's mind.

"Is master famous now?" he asked.

Milo chuckled a bit before responding, "I might be, although it wasn't the plan."

Milo flopped onto the bed still unsure what to do. Soon he heard a knock at the door. He opened the door to see Krista who appeared to be out of breath. She immediately asked if Milo knew about what was going on. He told her all about being ambushed outside the cafeteria. Hearing about this she wondered how Milo was going to deal with this. She knew about him wanting to cover it up, but thought that maybe revealing it might be the better choice. If he truly wanted to find the Fellowship, building connections with the media could be a good way to start.

Milo still wasn't sure about Krista's idea but it could be a good place to start. First he would have to talk to Mikael, David or Jorge about it, being professional gatecrashers, they would know better than anyone about how relationships with the media could be both good and bad. He'd handle that in the morning however, as all this worrying about being revealed had left him beat.

When he woke up, Milo jumped into his morning routine hoping to maintain some normalcy. During his training in the combat hall, Milo talked to Mikael about his new media attention. Mikael said he should do what he felt was right, if he felt that the media would be able to help him reach his goal faster then he should use it to his advantage. Mikael said that personally he avoided the media as he was focused solely on slaying the beasts he didn't care for the exposure, he explained that his goals didn't line up with the exposure so he avoided it but another person's goals may be different and they should be considered when doing something like this.

Milo continued to think on it while he practiced his swordplay. Mikael's words left quite the impression on Milo. It made Milo think of his goals, first and foremost was to get stronger, would getting involved with the media make him stronger? He ran through different things, although it wouldn't directly impact his strength, through the exposure he could get contacts from higher places, this would allow him to meet more powerful people and maybe even earn some extra credits through media appearances. His second goal was to defeat the Fellowship, with the media exposure he could do a few things with it to get closer to this goal. He could use it for information by getting contacts with the news to feed him information. The only downside would be the exposure this would also give the Fellowship, his name would be out there for the world to see, at the same time though he could get information if the Fellowship sent people after him.

Overall Milo was seeing more upsides than downsides. His biggest worry was that his system could end up being exposed, but as long as he was careful he should run into no issues, and by giving into the media it would also allow him to sate their appetite for his attention which would also allow him to avoid exposing it once all the rage about him finally calmed down.

It seemed like Milo had made up his mind, the media would lead to more horizons so he would give them at least one interview to test the waters, or at least to calm the attention towards him for the time being. Milo texted David and informed him of the craziness he had to go through, causing the other party to feel very sorry, they were in charge of keeping this under wraps and it had somehow gotten leaked to the media. David asked if there was anything he could do, Milo told David about his plan to just go through with an interview and asked him if he could set one up for him. David said he'd see what he could do and the two's conversation ended there.

A few hours later and some more craziness from the reporters and Milo received a new text from David. David had set up an appearance on a popular TV show that was focused on gatecrashers. It was started a year previously by an ex gatecrasher and was a common show for people who were interested in the people who close gates to watch and see what was going on in the gatecrashing world. It was very common for up and coming gatecrashers to appear on the show. Jorge had even made an appearance before he started his own guild.

Milo thanked David for his help, and marked the date for the interview on his calendar, it was set to happen 3 days from then. He also received a message from the show's producer who told him some more details. The interview was set to take place on the school campus in the practical training hall, they apparently wanted to paint Milo as a bright up and coming gatecrasher who overcame a horrible trial. Hearing their plan, Milo couldn't really complain, his hope in doing this was to draw attention from guilds to get connections and their idea would do just that.

They told him the questions they would be asking so that he could plan his answers in advance and thanked him for choosing them as the ones to break the story. After hanging up Milo prepared himself for the interview. The questions were basic ones that he'd seen other reporters ask reawakened people. There were also a few others asking about his life at the academy, what he had been doing previously and other basic things like that. Overall it seemed like the interview would be a normal, but it almost seemed too normal which caused Milo to wonder if there was anything they weren't telling him.

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"So the mystery student's name is Milo Fenix," a man in a black mask said. On his forehead a golden weeping angel symbol could be seen. "I will be keeping a close eye on you, your strength will be a large thorn in our side from here on out."