Ch 42: Vice headmistress’s Office
Lucien stood before the vice headmistress's office door, impatience coiling beneath his composed exterior. The hallway stretched long and was lit bright by lamps placed at even intervals along the walls. Darkness had already descended as night had begun, and the academy's hallway looked nothing short of a ghost city's street, not a single soul to be seen as all students had already returned to their dormitories and professors likewise had retreated to their own separate quarters or to the private estates that some of the wealthier faculty had built or purchased in Solarin city, which housed the imperial academy at its heart.
"Do you really not know why my schedule only has two classes?" Lucien asked sharply, turning to his right where his attendant Connor stood with his head lowered.
"Yes, my lord. I do not know about the sudden change in the schedule for this year," Connor answered honestly, then added, "I even asked the one in charge of the rosters, but he said the order came from the vice headmistress herself. So I truly do not know."
Lucien shook his head in disappointment. "Did you not ask the vice headmistress about it then?"
Connor almost froze in his position and with a fist placed against his chest, he bowed to a full ninety degrees. "I did ask her, my lord, but she said you yourself had to come to her to know the reason."
Lucien immediately flared at the sheer audacity of the vice headmistress, making him walk all the way to her office simply to ask why he had only been tasked with two classes, class 1-S and class 2-S. Two meager classes for the whole day, and not just for today but for the entire year. Since he took his duties with the utmost seriousness, the vice headmistress's decision to pull him away from all other classes filled him with a burning irritation. How audacious.
"You said she is still in her office, so why don't I hear any sound from inside despite all the knocking?" Lucien moved his hand over his slicked back hair, anger flaring in his voice and inside him with every passing moment.
"That I am not sure of, my lord," Connor said, still bowing even now. Lucien would have struck his attendant had his head not already been lowered toward the floor. How dare he bring him all the way here on uncertain information? It had been Connor who insisted that Vice Headmistress Charlotte was in her office and had not yet returned to her private dormitory. Because of that Lucien had decided to visit her today even though night has already descended. He wanted to soon resolve the issue of class as he felt today had been not so productive. So, he had hoped to end the day with a productive day at least to some extent.
Lucien knocked on the door again. He had already knocked five times by now, each attempt separated by several long minutes, waiting patiently as he felt that perhaps she was occupied with some private matter. But no matter how many times he knocked or how patiently he waited, the door did not open and not a single sound escaped from within.
Lucien wanted nothing more than to burst the door off its hinges, but he did not want to be the one responsible for damaging academy property if the vice headmistress turned out not to be inside at all. His rash action would not look good on him.
He would have already returned to his private quarters by now but since, the door was locked from within, which had become clear after his repeated failures to turn the handle, the knob refusing to yield no matter how firmly he twisted it which implied she was inside. That at least made him wait. But the wait was not being facetious in the least bit.
"Are you certain she is inside?" Lucien asked once more, wondering whether the door handle itself might be malfunctioning.
"I was informed by the guard prior that the vice headmistress had not exited the academy," Connor answered as a matter of fact, though his voice carried a thin undercurrent of hesitation, as if he himself was uncertain whether the guard's information could be fully trusted. He added, "Thus there is a chance that she might n-."
Connor's voice died in his throat as the very air around the hallway shifted.
The moment Lucien understood that the guard had not actually seen the vice headmistress exit the building, he took two deliberate steps back, wrapped his mana around his right leg, and raised it to crash the door open.
His leg moved toward the door at a pace that would have been an impossible feat in his previous world, the very air around it crying out with the force of his movement, and just as the tip of his foot reached the surface of the door, it swung open before he could land the blow. He stopped his leg instantly and brought it back to the ground.
Lucien looked ahead. His eyes traced the familiar face that now felt strangely unfamiliar. Charlotte stood before him, her body resting against the door frame, her purple hair falling haphazardly around her back with several loose strands draped across her face. Her black eyes were visibly unsteady, and a smile so seductive sat on her lips that it looked nothing like the composed, formal expression she always carried. His gaze moved lower and he noticed that her white robe hung loosely, one end having slipped from her right shoulder to reveal her top undergarment, half visible in the lamplight.
"What are you doing here?" Charlotte asked in a voice thick with drink and yet sweet as honey, her eyes tracing slowly across his face and drifting below his waist.
"You bad boy." She took a step toward him and stumbled forward, falling against his body, her arms wrapping loosely around his neck. "Why are you so handsome?"
"Connor, call her secretary immediately, right this moment." Lucien called out sharply to his attendant, who vanished from his position like a gust of wind.
"You reek," Lucien said, pushing Charlotte away. She stumbled backward and would have struck the floor hard had she not caught hold of the door frame at the last moment.
"So cruel," Charlotte complained with a pout, pressing a finger to her lips. "You could stand to be a little easier on me, you know?"
"I am being generous with you," Lucien replied, and he meant every word. "Had you not been the vice headmistress that I respect, and had you been some unknown drunk woman who laid her hands on me smelling the way you do, I would have cut your arms off without a second thought." He was not opposed to alcohol in principle as he himself drank on occasion, though always in moderation and rarely so deeply that he became a stench to those around him.
Charlotte, on the other hand, had drunk far beyond what her body could handle, swaying on her feet with every breath carrying the sour bite of it. Also when he said he respected her, he meant it completely. He genuinely respected the vice headmistress and the power she commanded, which outmatched his own considerably. She was a Heaven [Lower] rank, one full rank above him, who was still at Sky [Mid]. In terms of raw power, she outclassed him completely.
"Hah!" Charlotte let out a sound of dismissal and appeared before him, moving in steps that bordered somewhere between a march and a stumble, as though she might collapse at any moment yet somehow never did. She grabbed his right hand and began pulling him into the office.
Lucien wanted to jerk her hand away but seeing the condition of the woman, he relented fearing the woman might do something dangerous as she was barely walking.
"You liar. How is any of this being good to me?" She stopped at the centre of the office room and turned to face him, then raised her left hand, formed into a small fist, and lightly tapped him on the chest. She looked up at him with wide, expectant eyes like a puppy and added, "because of you I had to drown in paperwork over that girl you dragged in. Could you not at least thank me?"
***
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