Ch 51: Princess Amber
Lucien did not linger near Gerard any longer as he found his own mouth filling with a sour taste. He moved ahead, giving the boy no further glance, feeling a simmering anger just from the sight of his face because a memory was threatening to resurface. Lucien wanted nothing more than to bury that memory and keep it locked away where it belonged. Because if it did surface, he did not know how he would control himself, for that memory had one particularly dangerous event hidden within it, an event that had completely changed the trajectory of his life. And he wanted at no cost to remember it, because he would lash out at Gerard and might even kill him, the boy toward whom he still harbored a deep and festering hatred.
Shaking away the turbulent thoughts from his head, he moved his eyes around the room and found himself soon standing before Princess Amber, who despite being one of the main characters was struggling so terribly. So much so that he wanted to laugh at her and genuinely ask himself whether she even deserved to be counted among the main characters, because he had not seen much of her in the first part of the story until Lucien had died.
Lucien had only considered her one of the main characters because her half-blood brother had wanted to skin her to death and had been scheming something in the shadows, something which Lucien had to prevent at any cost. Because Amber looked strong, she stood on the very cusp of the end of the Elite [Upper] Rank, and in the future she could prove to be a great help against the impending doom of this world that Lucien still had no full understanding of.
And if he could piece together the plot from the other stories he had read in his previous life, Amber would indeed be considered one of the main characters, because her half-brother was keen on killing her to death, and what better than a protagonist arriving in shining armour and protecting her from the very brother she had all her life thought innocent and kind. And from there, like any proper fantasy story, the princess would fall for the shining armour protagonist and would chase him with every bit of her heart.
I am truly a genius. Lucien smirked to himself, and the closed-eyed princess abruptly turned toward him. A small wisp of energy that had been drifting out from her hand disappeared at once. She looked like someone had jumped in front of her while she was walking alone through a dark corridor. Her face was tense and she seemed to be struggling to say something, as though the words were stuck somewhere deep inside her throat.
"Let me speak for you, student Amber," Lucien said, putting his index finger to his chin. "You want to say that it is nigh impossible for you to cast a tier two spell, and that even casting a tier zero spell is becoming a problem due to your mana restricting bracelet that allows only fifteen percent mana circulation, right?"
Amber visibly shifted in her seat and clenched her fist, her black eyes trembling slightly at his blatant mockery, but Lucien did not care about her feelings and continued on. "You want me to change your mana circulation bracelet to thirty percent like everyone else, but you are so fearful to say it because I was able to cast mana expansion, a tier five spell, so easily with my meager five percent of mana, right?"
"How laughable," Lucien scoffed. "Practice more, after all you have one of the greatest potential." He stressed deliberately on those last two words, making the girl flinch and bite her lower lip.
Lucien smirked slightly seeing her like that. "What are you looking at, student Amber," Lucien said with quiet mockery. "Start your practice, or do you want to receive less marks?"
With those last words he resumed his walk, not caring to look back for her reaction. He knew she must be itching so hard to slap his cheek and if possible utter every curse she reserved only for her enemies, the ones she wanted to kill to the very last breath.
Lucien's eyes moved across the room and he raised his brows slightly at the students who, instead of practicing, had been busy watching his exchange with Amber, the one where Amber had stayed quiet and he had been the vocal one. The students, like startled chickens, squirmed in their seats and turned their heads down, all of them except one.
Prince Jasper.
Jasper's smile was gone, replaced by a frustrated and angry pout on his white pale face, his white hair trimmed neatly to the side. He looked to be on the very verge of complaining, as though the words don't bully my sister were sitting right behind his teeth.
Haah, how cute of an actor. Lucien would have totally believed that the boy was angry at him for mocking his half-sister, but having read how utterly ruthless Jasper truly was behind that facade of kind smiles and an innocent face, he could not bring himself to swallow that look for even a moment.
"What are you looking over here for, student Jasper?" Lucien said. "Focus on your practice, or do you want to be taught like your dear sister?" Lucien did not miss stretching on the word dear. And for a very brief split second, Jasper's mask seemed to slip, and his yellow eyes had that cold glint appear within them for just a moment, only for it to dissolve back into a smile. A creepy smile.
"Sorry, professor," Jasper replied. "It is just that I did not like how you spoke with my sister."
Lucien heard a sharp intake of breath from the nearby students, and for a moment Lucien wanted to smash that creepy innocent expression clean off of Jasper's face.
"Oh, is it so?" Lucien said, his voice drawing inward with every inch of coldness he could summon, trying to suppress the hatred he felt for that particular smile. "I am doing it for your dear sister's wellbeing. After all, she has far greater potential than you, who has been stuck at Elite [Lower] Rank all this time."
And there, just as Lucien had wanted, the mask fell from Jasper's face. For a single second the boy's terminally ill body seemed to radiate a power far beyond Elite rank, something close to Master rank altogether. The boy had been hiding his true power using some kind of artifact or hidden treasure, and it had been done so thoroughly that Lucien had been completely unable to gauge Jasper's real strength before now.
Lucien had made sure to check the records early morning regarding Jasper and had found only Elite [Lower] Rank listed there, which had puzzled him deeply because he simply could not believe it. Even Gerard, a third rate villain, was closing in on Elite [Upper] Rank, and the idea that a villain like Jasper who came from imperial lineage would be stuck at Elite [Lower] Rank was completely unthinkable and indigestible to Lucien.
More than anything, Lucien had been right all this time, because just for that one second he had felt something close to Master rank leaking out before Jasper hid it away immediately and brought his frozen fake smile back to where it had been a moment ago.
"You are right, professor, I am lacking in potential but I will compensate with my hard work," Jasper said, with no hint of anger nor fear toward Lucien, and turned his head back ahead.
Lucien wanted to shout at Jasper to stop the fake facade and show his real power, but he did not have any proof yet. And accusing a prince of wearing a facade might not prove good for him. But that was not the only reason he let the bastard go, because if he interfered too much and revealed Jasper to the world, then the little plot he knew would go down the drain entirely. The protagonist would not be properly challenged, nor would the protagonist get the chance to save the princess, which would lead to no relationship developing between them at all.
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