Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 913: Enough

Selenne could not place him.

The boy’s manner was too deliberate to be simple arrogance, too measured to be careless bravado. He moved like someone who knew exactly which threads to pluck, which fault lines to press—enough to draw eyes, enough to make others lean in without realizing it.

From the outside, it looked like pointless needling. First Marisse, now Marcus. Even Lucien himself. But the precision of it… that was what unsettled her.

He wasn’t just provoking them. He was choosing them.

Her gaze flicked briefly between the three—the two professors, the crown prince—and then back to Lucavion.

Nothing. Not a tremor in his expression, not the slightest flinch in his posture. The boy’s black eyes were like sealed wells; whatever moved in them didn’t reach the surface.

But it was Lucien’s reaction that made her pause.

Those red eyes, so often softened with polite charm in public, weren’t smiling now. The weight behind them had shifted—slightly, but unmistakably. His focus on the boy wasn’t that of a prince dismissing an insolent student. It was sharper. Measured. Almost… wary.

Why?

Selenne did not know this Lucavion well—only enough to note his irreverence and the faint ripple of unease it left in his wake—but something in this exchange told her she was missing more than idle gossip could supply.

In the Academy, even the boldest nobles learned early to respect the subtleties of rank. They smiled at the crown prince even when they despised him. They used “Your Highness” as both shield and dagger.

Lucavion hadn’t done that.

Not out of ignorance. Not out of rebellion, either.

No—he had looked at Lucien the way one looks at another player across a board, not the way one looks at royalty.

And Lucien… had looked back the same way.

It was enough to stir a rare thing in Selenne—an unanswered question she could not yet thread into sense.

What are you playing at, boy? And why do you think you can get away with it?

Maybe he had someone backing him.

The thought slid into Selenne’s mind unbidden. It would explain the way he spoke—as if there were no consequence sharp enough to touch him.

Or perhaps it wasn’t protection at all. Perhaps it was overconfidence, the kind that came from strength untested by the sort of trials that left scars.

Either way, Lucavion carried himself as if the space between himself and danger was already accounted for.

And that… was rarely the mark of someone without reason.

Marcus’s gaze on him had sharpened to a cold, deliberate line. Lucien’s was no different, the prince’s red eyes fixed like a weight meant to push an opponent into bowing whether they wished to or not.

But Lucavion didn’t bow.

Instead, the atmosphere thickened as a few of the nobles behind Lucien—eager to curry favor—stepped forward.

“You should learn your place,” one said, his tone all too pleased to echo the prince’s unspoken displeasure.

“Addressing His Highness like that… who do you think you are?” another added, voice sharp with manufactured outrage.

A third smirked faintly, but the edge in his words was clear. “People have been expelled for less.”

Lucavion only gave a small, almost lazy wave of his hand, cutting through their noise without even looking directly at them.

“I’ve said what needs to be said,” he replied, voice smooth and final, as though the matter were already beneath him.

Then, unexpectedly, his gaze flicked to Selenne.

Just a glance—quick, unhurried—but there was something in it she couldn’t quite name. Not challenge, not amusement… not even the same calculated sharpness he’d shown the others.

It was different.

She couldn’t pin it down, but she made a mental note of it all the same.

Marcus’s voice cut through the courtyard like a drawn blade.

“Lucavion,” he said, the syllables clipped, deliberate, “you seem very eager to test the limits of your welcome here.”

The hum of students around them dulled into a quieter, sharper kind of noise—the sound of people leaning closer.

Lucavion didn’t flinch. Didn’t straighten. His posture was the same loose, leaning ease as before, the faintest trace of a smirk still playing at his lips.

“Test the limits?” he echoed. “I thought we were supposed to explore new horizons here.”

A few scattered chuckles from the commoner students broke the tension for half a beat, only for it to coil tighter again when one of the nobles stepped forward.

“You’re awfully quick with your mouth for someone who’s only here because of charity,” the boy said, his polished crest catching the light. “Do you think the rest of us will tolerate that forever?”

Another stepped in, his tone sharper. “You insult His Highness in public and speak to your professors as though they’re beneath you—how long do you think that will last?”

“Not long, I imagine,” Marcus said, his eyes never leaving Lucavion. The weight in his voice wasn’t raised, but it pressed into the air like an oncoming storm. “And when it ends, Lucavion, I assure you it won’t be on your terms.”

Lucavion’s black eyes shifted briefly to Marcus, calm and unbothered.

“Maybe. Or maybe I’m just harder to get rid of than you’d like.”

That earned a faint ripple of disapproval—an audible breath from one noble, a muttered curse from another. One of them stepped half a pace closer, clearly ready to escalate.

“You wouldn’t last two minutes in a real fight.”

Lucavion’s gaze slid to him, slow and deliberate, like a predator taking measure of its prey. Then he smiled—not wide, but enough to bare just a hint of teeth.

“Two minutes is generous. I only need one.”

Lucavion’s hand moved with lazy precision, his fingers brushing against the hilt at his hip before drawing the blade just far enough for polished steel to catch the light.

The gesture wasn’t aggressive—not quite—but it was deliberate. The tip angled ever so slightly toward the noble who had spoken, as if marking him in the crowd.

“You know,” Lucavion said, his tone carrying the ease of someone discussing the weather, “if you’re so curious, I could let you have a taste.”

He tilted the blade just enough for the light to flash along its length.

“I’m fairly confident I can match you in quickness.”

A few chuckles rippled through the onlookers—mostly from the commoner students, though one or two nobles smirked despite themselves. The noble in Lucavion’s sights, however, only stiffened, a flush creeping up his neck as his glare sharpened.

Before he could reply, Lucavion slid the sword back into its sheath with a soft click.

“Oh, and—” his gaze cut briefly over the noble’s face, “—your fish brain seems to have forgotten what you saw yesterday.”

That earned a few puzzled looks at first… until the memory seemed to settle over the crowd.

A day ago.

The sparring yard.

Lucavion’s duel with Rowen—son of the Knight Commander himself.

No magic. No tricks. Just steel against steel.

And it had ended in a draw.

That alone had been enough to stir whispers. Rowen wasn’t just some noble boy who happened to have a sword—he was drilled since childhood, honed by the man who commanded the empire’s finest knights. Most challengers didn’t last more than a minute against him.

Lucavion had lasted all the way through.

And hadn’t lost.

Eyes began to drift toward Rowen now, a ripple of silent acknowledgment moving through the gathered students.

Rowen stood in the back, the sunlight catching faintly on the silver clasp of his cloak. His expression didn’t change—not so much as a twitch—but the shift in the air around him was noticeable.

Without a word, he began moving.

Not toward Lucavion.

Toward Lucien.

The air between the two groups had tightened to a drawn bowstring—just waiting for one more word, one more step, to snap.

That was when a calm, clear voice cut through it.

“Enough.”