The lingering ache in my muscles was a familiar companion by the time evening descended. After a tense and largely silent dinner with Damien and his circle—where I could feel the weight of Damien's occasional, thoughtful glances—I retreated to the sanctuary of my room. The mental exhaustion from a day of wearing Lucian's mask was even more profound than the physical pain. All I wanted was to lock the door and lose myself in the grueling, honest work of my secret training.
I had just taken off my uniform jacket and was stretching my sore shoulders when a firm, deliberate knock sounded on the door. It wasn't the impatient rap of a servant. It was the knock of someone who didn't need permission to enter.
My blood ran cold. It was Damien.
I quickly threw my jacket back on, smoothing it down as I walked to the door. My mind raced. A private visit was unusual. It was a deviation from the script. I opened the door to find him leaning against the frame, a thoughtful, unreadable expression on his handsome face.
"May I come in, Lucian?" he asked. It was a question, but it held the weight of a command.
"Of course," I replied, stepping back to let him pass.
He swept into the room, his presence immediately shrinking the space. He didn't sit, but instead wandered around, idly inspecting the titles of the books on my desk, his fingers ghosting over their spines. I stood by the door, my posture rigid, every sense on high alert.
My Soul Resonance was screaming. The casual, relaxed air he projected was a complete facade. Underneath, his intent was a tightly coiled spring of sharp, probing suspicion. He was here to investigate.
"I found your little… outburst in Professor Gidean's class to be quite fascinating today," he began, his back still to me. "The 'informational matrix degradation' of runes. A surprisingly complex thought. Where did a layabout like you come across such a theory?"
The interrogation had begun. It was subtle, framed as a casual inquiry, but it was a test.
"I told the professor, it was just something I half-remembered from an old book. A lucky guess," I said, forcing a dismissive shrug into my voice. "Honestly, the attention was embarrassing."
Damien turned, one perfect eyebrow arched. "Was it? The same way you were embarrassed by your sudden focus in Mana Control? Or the way you looked during our spar? Not panicked, but… analytical." He took a step closer, his golden eyes pinning me in place. "You've been different these past few days, Lucian. Quieter. Sharper. You've stopped seeking my approval for every little thing. Tell me, what has changed?"
My heart was a frantic drum against my ribs. He had noticed everything. His perception was far more acute than the novel had ever portrayed. My mask of the bumbling fool had cracks, and he was examining every single one. I needed a lie. A good one. A lie that contained a kernel of truth.
I met his gaze, my Soul Resonance straining to read the fluctuations in his intent. He wasn't just looking for an answer; he was looking for a return to the power dynamic he understood.
"You," I said, my voice quiet but firm. "You changed things."
Damien's expression flickered with surprise. "I did?"
"Your 'lesson' in the courtyard," I continued, infusing my voice with a hint of remembered humiliation and bitter resentment. "You didn't just beat me, Damien. You shamed me. You showed me—and everyone else—that I was nothing more than a useless decoration clinging to your side." I looked down at my raw hands. "I realized that my family name and your patronage are worthless if I have no strength of my own. I'm tired of being a joke. Tired of being weak."
I watched him through my lashes, gauging his reaction. The lie was designed to appeal to his colossal ego. It positioned him as the catalyst, the master whose harsh methods had sparked a change in his underling. It framed my newfound drive not as a bid for independence, but as a desperate attempt to become a more worthy, more useful servant to him.
Through my Soul Resonance, I felt the shift. The sharp coils of his suspicion began to loosen, replaced by a cold, calculating amusement. He wasn't entirely convinced, but he was intrigued. And he approved of the narrative.
He smiled, a slow, predatory curving of his lips. "Well, well. It seems my methods have borne fruit after all. Good. Ambition, even born of shame, is a far more useful quality than laziness. A tool that sharpens itself is a valuable thing indeed."
He had accepted the lie, at least for now. The immediate danger had passed, but I knew I was now under a much finer microscope.
"In that case," he said, his tone shifting from inquisitor to commander, "I have a new task for your newfound focus. A tool, after all, is meant to be used."
He paused, letting the weight of his words settle. "That commoner, Leonidas val Aris. His progress is accelerating at an unnatural rate. He is becoming a symbol for the low-born rabble and an inconvenience to my own plans. I want you to watch him."
My stomach tightened into a cold knot. This was it. The mission that, in the original novel, set Lucian on a direct path to ruin.
"Observe him," Damien commanded, his voice low and serious. "I don't care about his performance in class. I want to know his weaknesses. His habits outside of his training. The friends he trusts, the places he goes. What does he value most? Find me a vulnerability. Find me a lever I can pull to crush him when the time is right."
It wasn't a request. It was an order that left no room for refusal. To say no would be to reveal my changed allegiance, a swift and certain death sentence.
"I understand," I said, my voice carefully neutral.
"I expect a report by the end of the week," Damien said. He walked to the door, pausing with his hand on the handle. He glanced back at me, his golden eyes filled with a chilling mixture of approval and warning. "I am pleased with this new drive of yours, Lucian. See that you direct it properly. Do not disappoint me."
And then he was gone, leaving me alone in the suffocating silence of my room.
The exhaustion I had felt earlier was completely gone, burned away by a surge of pure adrenaline and dread. I had survived his scrutiny, but the price was my entanglement in the novel's main plot. I was now actively tasked with spying on the hero, to find a weakness that this ruthless villain would exploit.
I walked over to the window and looked out at the two moons hanging in the night sky. My secret training was no longer just about long-term survival. It was now a desperate, immediate necessity. I was being forced to walk a tightrope between the story's implacable hero and its terrifying villain, with a fatal drop on either side. My nights of fighting ghosts in the dark were over. I was about to start fighting a real war, and I was completely, terrifyingly outmatched.