Chapter 245 245: Still Gonna Walk Away?
I narrowed my eyes, staring through the thick glass at the empty courtyard where Emma had just disappeared.
My appetite was completely gone. I quickly shoved the last spoonful of stew into my mouth, swallowed, and pushed my chair back against the stone floor.
"Nature's call," I announced flatly, standing up.
Kyle, who was in the middle of completely obliterating a glazed potato, paused. He raised a skeptical eyebrow, a smudge of gravy on his chin. Sira and Tobias also looked up at me, clearly sensing the abrupt shift in my mood.
"Just eat," I said, waving a hand dismissively before they could ask any questions. "I will be back in a minute."
I didn't wait for a response. Just turned and briskly walked out of the loud, echoing dining hall.
The moment the heavy oak doors swung shut behind me, cutting off the noise of the student body, I ducked behind a massive stone pillar in the outer corridor.
My eyes glowed with a faint cyan light as the interface materialized behind my retinas.
[Target: Self (Jin Raith) -> Modify Property: Agility]
The world around me seemed to instantly slow down. I pushed off the stone floor, completely vanishing from the spot where I stood, in a blur of dark blue fabric, moving far too fast for any normal student's eyes to track.
And caught up to them in seconds.
I leaped onto the low stone wall bordering the courtyard, silently running along the top of the manicured hedges.
There, I tracked Emma and the three boys as they moved away from the bustling central campus. They navigated through a series of winding, open-air cloisters lined with ancient statues, eventually heading toward the older, less-frequented western wing of the Academy.
The architecture here was dated, the polished marble giving way to rough-hewn granite and heavy iron fixtures. It was a block of unused storage rooms and old club spaces, completely deserted during the lunch hour.
The group turned a corner and walked into a lone, isolated room at the very end of the dead-end corridor. The heavy wooden door clicked shut behind them.
I dropped down from the high stone archway, my boots hitting the floor without making a single sound.
And then I glided up to the door and pressed my back against the cold wall, peering through the narrow crack between the heavy iron hinges.
The sunlight filtering through the dusty windows inside finally illuminated the leader's face.
My jaw clenched.
It was Marcus. The same arrogant, noble who had mercilessly beaten Kyle into the dirt and mocked him just an hour ago.
Marcus casually hopped up onto a dusty professor's desk at the front of the abandoned room, letting his legs dangle. His two lackeys immediately took up positions by the closed door, crossing their arms and blocking the only exit.
Emma stood entirely alone in the center of the room. She was trembling slightly, still hugging her bookbag to her chest like a physical barricade.
"So," Marcus drawled, his voice dripping with suffocating condescension. "Did you finish it?"
Emma swallowed hard, keeping her eyes glued to the floorboards. "Y-Yes. I finished the advanced runic translations for Professor Aldous's class. Just like you asked."
"Good," Marcus smirked. He held out his hand, snapping his fingers impatiently. "Hand it over, commoner."
Emma slowly reached into her bag with shaking fingers. She pulled out a thick stack of meticulously written notes and handed them over.
Marcus snatched them from her grip, completely ignoring her flinch. He unrolled the parchment, his eyes scanning the incredibly detailed, high-level magical theory work she had obviously stayed up all night to complete for him.
"Not bad," Marcus hummed dismissively, tossing her hard work onto the desk beside him as if it were trash.
"It will guarantee me top marks for the week. But that was just the interest, Emma. We still have the principal matter to discuss."
Emma's breath hitched. "P-Please, Marcus. I did what you wanted. I wrote your assignments. Just leave my family alone."
Marcus let out a barking laugh. He hopped off the desk, slowly advancing on her until he was completely invading her personal space. Emma shrank back, but one of the lackeys shoved her forcefully forward again.
"Leave them alone?" Marcus mocked, leaning down so he was eye-level with her.
"Your father's pathetic little merchant stall missed its protection tax to my family's guild for two months. Two months, Emma. You think a few homework assignments pay off that kind of debt?"
Marcus reached out, violently grabbing a fistful of her chestnut hair and jerking her head back. Emma let out a quiet, pained gasp, tears finally welling in her blue eyes.
"You're going to do exactly what I tell you, every single day," Marcus hissed. "Or my father burns your family's shop to the ground and sells your parents to the border labor camps. Do you understand me?"
Marcus's grip on her hair tightened, forcing her to look up into his arrogant, sneering face.
He shifted his hand, violently grabbing her chin in a bruising grip.
"And if you don't want to do that..." Marcus grinned.
A sickening, predatory smile that made my stomach violently churn.
Behind him, the two lackeys guarding the door exchanged a dark, knowing look and began grinning too, their eyes raking over Emma's trembling frame.
"There are plenty of other ways to pay for it," Marcus whispered.
Emma's breath caught in her throat. A fresh wave of absolute terror washed over her pale face.
"N-No..." she choked out, her voice cracking. "I will do what I am doing... please, not that."
Outside the door, my jaw clenched so hard my teeth ground together.
The sheer, overwhelming urge to kick the heavy wooden door off its hinges and put all three of them into the academy infirmary spiked in my blood. But I forcibly held myself back.
Not because I was scared of some noble brats.
I could break Marcus's neck before his brain even registered the pain.
But I had no idea what kind of leverage his family truly held over Emma's parents. If I just burst in and beat the absolute shit out of an aristocrat, Marcus would retaliate against the people who couldn't defend themselves.
I needed to gather more information first.
But things were rapidly spiraling out of hand.
Marcus chuckled, his thumb aggressively stroking her jawline.
"Oh? Well then, do you think I should just wait until our wedding day?"
My eyes widened in the dark corridor.
Wedding?
Then before Marcus could lean in any closer, I raised my hand toward the heavy oak door, my cyan interface flaring to life.
BANG! RAAATTLLLE!
The heavy door violently shook in its frame, emitting the distinct, heavy sound of someone accidentally bumping into it from the outside, followed by the heavy scuff of boots against stone.
The two lackeys instantly jumped, their hands flying to their training weapons as they backed away from the wood.
Marcus violently pulled his hand back from Emma's face, his predatory grin instantly vanishing, replaced by a tense, irritated scowl.
He whipped his head toward the door. "Who's there?!"
But only silence answered him.
Marcus stared at the wood for a few seconds, his jaw tightening. Then he let out a loud, frustrated click of his tongue.
"Let's go," he snapped at his lackeys. "Some fucker ruined the mood."
He turned back to Emma one last time, jabbing a threatening finger directly at her chest.
"You better not breathe a word of this to anyone," he warned, his voice a venomous hiss.
"And don't you ever go near those so-called friends of yours again. Even if some of them carry noble titles, my family's backing is infinitely stronger. If I want to, I can ruin their lives just as easily as yours, understand?"
Emma gave a frantic, miserable nod.
Marcus shoved past her, yanking the heavy door open.
I was already gone, had instantly blurred into the deep shadows of an adjacent alcove, pressing my back flat against the cold stone.
Marcus and his two lackeys stormed out of the room, marching down the corridor and heading back toward the main campus without looking back.
I waited in the shadows until their footsteps completely faded away.
A long minute passed. Then, the heavy wooden door slowly creaked open again.
Emma stepped out into the quiet hallway. She took a deep, shuddering breath, using the sleeves of her uniform jacket to aggressively wipe the tears from her cheeks.
She then meticulously straightened her collar, forcing her posture out of its terrified slump, trying to rebuild the mask of a normal, unbothered student.
She turned down the corridor, her boots clicking softly against the stone as she began the long walk back.
I stepped smoothly out of the shadows, planting myself directly in the middle of the narrow hallway, completely blocking her path.
Emma was looking down at her boots. She didn't notice me until she was only a few feet away. When she finally looked up and saw me, she froze entirely. All the color violently drained from her face.
She took a panicked half-step backward, her knuckles turning stark white as she gripped her bag and immediately turned her head, looking frantically over her shoulder, fully preparing to bolt in the opposite direction just like she had from Kyle.
I didn't move. I just looked at her.
"Still gonna walk away?"