Ch 83: Make It Quick

Lucien, having finished his second class, was seated in his office room. His back was pressed against the chair, his chin resting over his right fist with his elbow propped on the armrest. He was gazing at the door that, out of nowhere, was being knocked rapidly in succession.

Knock! Knock! Knock!

Lucien felt a burden just hearing the knocking sound. Yesterday he had welcomed someone knocking on his door because he had been fine yesterday, but right now his throat was feeling dry, his fingers were slightly twitching, and his legs were impatiently tapping against the floor.

This feeling was not foreign to him, and he hated it because he felt he was not in control whenever he felt this way. And, the symptoms that came with it were not normal either, he would start to have an itch in his throat, tightness around his neck, sweat would start gathering on his palms, and breaths would become shallow and rapid.

And, all of these meant, he was having a thirst for killing.

Lucien wanted to go out and kill something, he wanted to snap the neck or slice clean through the skull of an opponent, he needed something, a beast, preferably a miasma-corrupted beast, to vent this killing urge against. But right now he was confined to his office room, and he would have to quickly exit the academy and cross the mountain that was on the north of the Solarin city, the city in which the academy sat at the centre of.

Lucien had to either exit the academy right now or wait until nightfall to quietly slip away unnoticed and kill a beast or two to silence the killing urge clawing at the inside of his chest.

Until yesterday he had not felt this raw, ravenous feeling, but right now, suddenly and without any warning, this killing urge had erupted from within and he was feeling deeply uncomfortable, so much so that he wanted to abandon the academy at the very moment and head straight to the mountains to hunt some beasts.

If not the mountain, then he had to look for a nearby dungeon. No, absolutely not. Dungeons would not do, the mountains were the better option, and yet there was a problem. He had to cross the mountain and reach the other side where miasma beasts lay rampant, and he had to sneak through without drawing attention. But for that, he had to wait until the sun lay to rest on the horizon.

Venturing out in this broad daylight was far too risky and would garner far too much unwanted attention.

While Lucien was trying to think through his next course of plans, the door was knocked multiple times again.

"Professor, are you inside?"

Lucien immediately knew who the voice belonged to. He felt torn between whether to allow entry or not because he did not want to lash out at the princess, and she might notice that something was wrong with him. His secret was not known by many and it was certainly not known by Amber, and he had to make sure she did not get even a single clue about it.

He resisted the initial urge to stay silent and pretend he was not inside, but when the knocking on the door grew louder and more persistent, he relented and allowed entry.

"You can come in, the door is not locked," Lucien called out, his voice coming out dry despite the fact that he had drunk plenty of water earlier and a half-empty bottle still rested on the desk beside him.

It was not a thirst for water that plagued him but rather a thirst for battle.

Lucien had expected that his killing urge would be somewhat subdued after seeing his mother healed, but as things stood now, the urge had erupted with a viciousness he had not anticipated. In the original story his killing urge had grown so overwhelming after his mother’s death that he had ended up killing a student, an innocent human, simply to satisfy the need, but so far he had mostly killed beasts and miasma-corrupted creatures, with the only human deaths on his hands being those of traitors and assassins that had been sent specifically for him.

Lucien had not killed innocent lives until now and would like to keep this fact up for as long as possible because killing an innocent was not something he preferred, but if this killing urge ran rampant it could very well lead him to that. So, he had to keep his calm in front of the princess, not let it show, and more importantly not allow himself to lunge at her. Though he seriously doubted he would lunge at her because he had controlled himself in most situations thus far.

The princess slowly opened the door and entered the office, her stride slow and regal in the way that spoke plainly of her noble upbringing. Her uniform fitted her frame closely, accentuating her figure in a beautiful and dignified way, and her long white hair freely fell to her waist like a stream of cascading water. Her red plump lips were tightly pressed against each other, her dark pupils gauging Lucien with quiet wariness as she came to a stop before his desk.

Amber’s hands were clasped in front of her, and she looked visibly torn by reasons that had compelled her to come to him at all.

She had mostly avoided him after Lucien's engagement with Eleena had been broken off. The princess had felt a deep sense of injustice at that development and had even tried to persuade Lucien to reconsider, to not break Eleena's heart in such a manner, but Lucien, having made the decision for the betterment of both parties, had told the princess with absolute and clear intention that the engagement was already done and he would not consider taking it back under any circumstances. Their once friendly relationship had taken a considerable hit since then and they had maintained a polite but deliberate distance, exchanging only occasional words and pleasantries when unavoidable.

"What do I owe the pleasure?" Lucien spoke, trying to make his voice sound as natural as he could manage, quietly pressing his toes together inside his shoes to try to will the killing urge to stop for even a moment.

The princess shifted uncomfortably and glanced at the chair situated before her. She pulled the chair slightly out and paused and looked back at Lucien.

"May I sit?" Amber asked.

Lucien would have liked to say no, to tell her not even to think about sitting on it and rather she should speak quicklyand leave without delay, but he decided against it.

The girl was going to play a crucial part in the future, and if his previous dealings with the princess and Eleena could be looked past, he genuinely wished to maintain a good and amiable relationship with the both of them, though he would be careful not to grow so familiar that he would end up interfering with the plot and disrupting the course of events that were supposed to allow the protagonist to help the girls, from which point they were meant to build a meaningful relationship with the hero.

Lucien gave a short nod.

"Go ahead," he replied, and quickly added, "but make it quick."

***

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