This newcomer was wearing the standard Aegist blazer, except for the black-and-gold armband on his right bicep. He walked with his chin lifted and both hands loose behind his back, the way a man walks through a room he's been told is beneath him.
Hooh? Well, well, well. What kind of drama is this?
Lucian's gaze had been drifting back over the Hollow Ecology theory, which he found dull given that he already knew the endgame content, if not quite in detail. Now it sharpened with interest.
Which of these guys was causing trouble? Obviously he didn't count himself. He had only just recovered, and this person meant nothing to him.
As for Seraphina, as he had said countless times, she simply wasn't that bored, and it didn't suit her personality either.
So which faction are you?
As for this person who had just walked in like he owned the place? No impression. No character this arrogant and rude on the committee side had ever been mentioned in the original story.
And as expected, the instructor, who had perhaps already been annoyed enough teaching this low-level class, found himself interrupted. He set the chalk down on the ledge and did not pick it back up. Veins bulged at his temples as he looked at the newcomer. "Officer Cole."
He said it flatly, without any courtesy, not even glancing at the emblem on the newcomer's right bicep. "This is my classroom."
Officer Cole turned his head back with a frown, only his head. His shoulders stayed square to the aisle.
"The lecturer is here, and the door is here, it opens quietly.“ But Officer Cole didn't even look at the instructor again. His cold gray-blue eyes had been sweeping the rows, and now they were searching.
"Do you have a message from the committee, as per-" the instructor started, but just as his expression darkened at being ignored, Cole cut him off.
"Committee business," he said without glancing back, and then they stopped. On him.
Hmm? One of Lucian's eyebrows went up. The way those cold gray-blue eyes passed over the room and then locked onto him gave Lucian a bad premonition.
Then a second person stepped through the door.
And the premonition stopped being a premonition
The familiar bulk. The thick neck. The short sandy-brown hair slicked back with cheap gel. The heavy square jaw, the small dark eyes. He came in stiffly, right arm strapped in a dark sling, and he did not look at the instructor. He looked at the floor.
Lucian's brows eased. The hunch that had been nagging at him since the door opened stopped being a hunch.
Fuck me.
Of course it was none other than the fucking nobody, Derrick Holt. The one who had assaulted him in the Recovery Ward. And as expected, the moment he entered, those small dark eyes, so tiny they barely fit his frame, locked onto him.
"Lucian Croft," the arrogant man who had been ignoring the instructor spoke, fixing his cold gray-blue eyes on him. "You are formally charged with using illicit alchemical contraband to permanently cripple Sir Derrick Holt's wrist during an unprovoked altercation in Recovery Ward 3."
The moment everyone in Class 1-D heard this, they gasped the way side characters do.
"No way, so Derrick was injured by an ambush?"
"As expected from the Rat Heir."
They were mocking him openly, and even the instructor, who had been about to shout, was now frowning at Lucian.
He knew this student. A coward, and plenty of other faults besides. He wasn't even the brightest when it came to theory or combat.
There had been a rumor that Derrick's wrist was shattered in seven places and required surgical bone-grafting. Now it turned out this had been some underhanded tactic, which every knight naturally despised.
And Travis, full name Travis Cole, was watching him coldly, the corner of his lips curling into a sneer, expecting a mere baron's son to crumble and sign a confession.
But under that pressure, Lucian didn't even stand up. He leaned back in his seat, crossed his ankles, and fixed his gaze not on Derrick, but on the arrogant Travis Cole.
"Article 14 of the Veridian Chivalric Code: An uninvited knight who breaches a private medical ward and channels offensive aura against a bedridden noble commits aggravated battery against a peer of the realm, a Class One offense ."
He said it casually, then leaned forward, his ash-grey eyes locking onto Derrick, unblinking. "And Derrick struck first. My body simply didn't break. If you wish to contest the physics of his clumsy punch, summon the official witness."
The room went silent. Almost every student in 1-D turned to look at him. Before, when the instructor had questioned Lucian, they had all brushed it off. But the person sitting there now looked nothing like the Lucian they knew.
Because this was the Student Committee. They were already grateful just to sit in this class and go unnoticed, and yet Lucian, one of them, not only talked back, but cited the rules at the Student Committee, as if reminding them of their own words.
Travis's blink slowed. Just one, and then another. By the second one he had already looked away, over his shoulder, at Derrick.
Derrick was staring at the desk. One finger was tracing an old scratch in the wood, over and over, the same groove. He hadn't looked up once since he walked in.
Travis's expression tightened. He clicked his tongue.
It was a small sound. It carried anyway, because the room had gone that quiet.
Then he turned sharply back to Lucian and glared. "What witness? Are you bluffing?"
Next, he didn't wait for an answer. He pulled the citation folio off his belt with one hand and opened it without looking down.
"Committee Procedural Rule Six: Any accused party claiming a witness to an incident must declare that witness in writing before the citation hearing, under penalty of forfeiture. A verbal claim, made in a hallway, in front of classmates, is not admissible." He straightened his back, one eyebrow lifting.
"So. Name them. And I'll enter it into the case record myself."
And Lucian, as if he had been waiting for exactly this, as if he had expected this arrogant man called Cole to cite that exact rule, finally smiled.
If you want to play by that rule, so be it. I'm also quite bored. His eyes moved to Derrick. Of course he could predict what would happen after he said these words.
"Lady Seraphina Lysander. She was sitting right beside my bed. Shall we bring her before the High Magistrate to give sworn testimony under mana oath?"
This time Travis's mouth fell open. Of course he had plenty to say. There was a blood-brotherhood bond between their minor noble houses and by the old custom, Derrick's house was the senior house. Travis outranked him at the Academy. In the brotherhood, he answered to him , but to put Lady Seraphina's testimony on the record?
In public, no less, with her fiancé standing right there. How could she not defend him?
His eyes darkened. He glared at Derrick, then looked back at Lucian.
"You talk big for a cripple, Croft. Let's see if your mouth holds up during the 2:00 PM Practical Sparring Session. Sparring Ground Four." He paused. "Decline, and you forfeit your student stipend."
This time it was Lucian's turn to go still. His expression didn't change. But his thumb, resting on the desk, stopped moving.
Eh? Why is it you? Why not him?