22:

  Whispers spread through the room like a wildfire as the group of teenage nobles that had had their conversations cut short by a particularly rare breed of their kin, a Noble who eclipsed them all in status technically yet was also the one who least belonged amongst them, amongst those with the pedigree necessary to reside in the Belvedere.

  “Is that really him?” A blonde-haired girl asked her friend, her voice kept to a whisper yet falling just barely within Lucan’s earshot.

  “He looks so… ordinary,” Her friend, who had been sitting on a high-backed chair opposite her, with a small table separating them, remarked, forgetting to keep her voice to a whisper and speaking softly instead.

  “The one with a shadow affinity…” Someone to Lucan’s left whispered as he walked behind the butler.

  “They say he’s addicted to the bottle and is known for terrorizing the city-folk back in the north,” A boy to his right whispered, from where he was seated on a sofa with two other nobles.

  “I feel bad for the duchess,” The girl seated next to him whispered back.

  Lucan realized that his heart rate had picked up speed and cold sweat had begun to bead on his forehead. There was no way the nobles didn’t know that he couldn’t hear them and while the academy might claim equality amongst all, insulting the heir of the Duke with the second greatest military force in the entire kingdom was not the brightest of ideas—- usually. But it was clear that the nobles present did not respect his claim, or rather, were likely instructed not to.

  And it was getting to him, even if he tried to fight back against the shame that threatened to color his cheeks.

  The duchess was behind this, there was no doubt in Lucan’s mind, but that didn’t mean that rationality could overcome the genuine embarrassment he felt, because at the end of the day, he wasn’t Silvas Anderle, he wasn’t some hero out of the legends and he wasn’t even considered a full grown adult yet.

  Lucan kept his gaze trained forward, fighting the urge to drop his head and hide from the shame.

  I can’t show weakness or they’ll destroy me, Lucan reminded himself, certain of the truth behind the wisdom of the Aura Knight.

  He kept his gaze trained on the butler’s back and focused on putting one step after the next.

  Multiple pairs of footsteps that sounded out quite distinctly among the sea of whispers approached him, which caused Lucan’s gaze to shift in search of them.

  A trio of students stopped in the way of his butler’s path.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t the famous Lucan Velmoria,” The one standing in the middle of the three-man formation, a boy that approached Lucan’s tall height while also having a toned frame instead of Lucan’s lanky, near malnourished one. His hair was hued in a vibrant red and his eyes, a very identifiable amber and at his waist, was a wooden wand that had intersecting lines of molten silver running across it— an enchanted wand, no doubt, which made it more valuable than all of Lucan’s possessions combined. “My dear Alastair, I am sure that esteemed Mr. Velmoria here can find his way to the reception desk himself,” He gestured behind him, where true enough, there was a reception desk placed next to an open doorway through which ornate spiral stairs were visible.

  Getting the message, Alastair stepped out of the way of the two noble heirs, before turning his gaze in Lucan’s direction, “Sir Lucan, I will be at my desk. Please come to get your room assigned within the next two hours, as after that hour, other duties will occupy my attention.”

  Don’t abandon me, you weirdly handsome butler, Is what Lucan Velmoria thought, while he just offered him a nod in turn. A butler wouldn’t be much help in a political duel between nobles, no matter how much Lucan wished otherwise.

  That left Lucan Velmoria staring at the red-haired boy, who stood flanked by two cousins who shared his features, albeit their hair was less vibrant and the hue of their eyes more of a light orange than amber.

  “Fourth-Circle Specialist Magma Mage, Cedric Ashworth, second Noble Son of Marquis Larian Ashworth of the Southern Marches. Date of Death, 29th Octavus, 531. Suspected cause of death, Slaughter at the hands of the Night Watch, the strike team of the Cyndrian Empire’s Elite Forces after he attempted to flee the capital a day before the final battle was fought in the Southern Marches’ capital. The Ashworth family is known for inheriting A-C grade Fire Mana Affinities and the Ashworth line of Fire Spells that range from 1st to 5th Circle in complexity, A bold, commanding voice made its thoughts known in Lucan’s mind, its boisterous presence making itself forcibly known.

  Lucan froze, as he tried to process the information that he had just received. Cedric Ashworth was going to go on to become a criminal of the worst kind— a Noble Deserter, who, after being granted so much power and wealth by the King, had chosen to abandon the very people he was tasked to protect with his life in their moment of need and given up on the land that his title stemmed from.

  And I thought I made for a shitty noble, Lucan thought to himself. The Cedric of the future was someone Lucan should rightfully fear, because whatever a magma mage was, it sounded fricking terrifying. But the snotty seventeen year old before him was definitely not a Specialist Mage.

  “How can I help you, Cedric?” Lucan finally asked, addressing him by his name directly. The other two cousins of his hadn’t gotten an introduction from Silvas and Lucan had glanced twice at each one’s faces to spur a recollection, but nothing had happened. So they were irrelevant to the war, in one way or the other, if they weren’t worth Silvas remembering them.

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  “House Velmoria is known for its strength, so I was just curious how their heir would measure up, especially with your… powerful affinity,” Cedric explained in a mocking tone and while his tone would’ve sounded incredibly childish to Silvas Anderle, it immediately annoyed Lucan.

  The two cousins next to Cedric wheezed and one even covered his mouth to prevent himself from laughing.

  “So, how many spells have you learned?” Cedric pressed. “You know, spells that are unique to your affinity. House Velmoria has such a long history, I’m sure you could find some dusty tomes, eh?”

  Lucan’s fist clenched. He sure as shit knows I don’t know any.

  “It’s none of your business,” Lucan replied coldly. “Now, since you know who I am and we have been introduced, please step aside so I can be on my way.”

  “Oh well, I’m sure we will see these spells of yours in action soon enough. You know, because the combat module is mandatory for every student of military magic,” Cedric revealed the information like it was common knowledge. “Step aside, my dear cousins”

  Lucan’s heart almost skipped a beat. The Duchess had made sure he didn’t get any curriculum or communications from the academy, so Lucan had known none of that. Naturally, of course.

  The two cousins moved a few steps away from cedric, so Lucan could pass through them without being obstructed.

  Lucan decided the best course of action was to just walk past the teenager that was clearly baiting a reaction for him, while keeping a close eye on his wand. His own wand was kept in his luggage but even if he had it on hand, it would do him no good— his skills as a mage had atrophied too much to use in a combat situation.

  So focused was he on the wand, that Lucan didn’t understand how he tripped and lost his balance until he hit the ground.

  In front of a crowd of nobles, Lucan had been tripped by a clever interfering leg that had been held out at the last moment.

  So he defaulted to calling upon a set of memories that had been so engraved in Silvas Anderle’s memories that it was a part of him.

  First he assessed the situation he was in.

  He had dropped to a knee and his left knee did sting. His opponent hadn’t defaulted to using magic, which meant that he couldn’t even use a weak spell to harass him while the formation spell was active. But his physical attack had not registered as one in the eyes of the formation.

  It was unlikely that the formation didn’t have a way to restrain aura knights and far more likelier that it hadn’t registered because the physical contact was so light. And if kinetic energy was being measured by the standards of aura knights, if Lucan retaliated, then the formation spell shouldn’t activate either.

  Hopefully.

  He scanned the crowd as they let out scandalized gasps, before his gaze turned to the butler who was conveniently looking in a different direction.

  It didn’t look like anyone was going to stop the farce that was going on, but it didn’t look like they were going to join in either.

  Lucan had never physically attacked anyone in his life. Silvas Anderle had ripped apart mana beasts with his bare hands when his longblade was no longer in his grasp and yet the job still remained unfinished.

  So Lucan slowly rose, observing the grin on Cedric’s face as he began to speak from the corner of his field of view, “The marble flooring is really slippery here. Sorry about that, my leg slipp-”

  Lucan rose and as he did so, pivoted on his left foot, his hip rotating as he shifted his weight from his back foot to his front, bending his knees just enough, all to propel his right fist forward with the maximum amount of momentum he could generate from the position he was in, his arm extended and his fist pulling inward at the moment before impact so his knuckles would strike flush against the target’s chin.

  The gasps turned to a scattered mesh of yelps and a few high-pitched screams as Cedric hit the ground like a sack of potatoes.

  In that moment, Lucan’s punching form had overlapped with Silvas Anderle’s and it felt like the Aura Knight was punching using his body as a vessel

  That impression faded when Lucan found two wands being pointed at his chest, as the two cousins pointed them at him with expressions that fell somewhere in between hate and shock.

  Thankfully, Lucan had factored in the fact that he was going to lose in his assessment. Cedric had attacked him first and Lucan had retaliated with equal force, at least from the perspective of a mage. If they wanted to expel him, they had to expel Cedric too. Or they didn’t and the whole thing was rigged against him from the beginning— he was going to get expelled either way.

  Either way, Lucan was tired, he was so fucking tired of being belittled, of being humiliated, of living in a constant state of shame for circumstances that he had no hand in. No one wanted his life, even a commoner would realize that theirs was a better fate than a Ducal Noble bastard. And every ounce of Silvas Anderle’s instincts told him that showing weakness meant death on the battlefield.

  Lucan Velmoria believed it and… if everything was going to go to shit anyway, he had to take a different path because whether they liked it or not, he was going to survive. They had called his affinity useless, they had called his character beyond terrible, they had insulted his heritage, they thought of him as an addict and no matter what Lucan did, he would never, ever be a part of their club.

  So they would get what they wanted.

  “Hey, my hand slipped,” Lucan replied casually, as if he was taking a stroll in the park and commenting on the weather.

  The tips of their wands glowed crimson.

  “Whoa now, if you’re going to point a weapon at me,” Lucan spoke slowly, enunciating each word, his eyes brimming with malice as he stared one of two cousins in their soul. “Do me the courtesy of pointing it at my head. Because if you don’t kill me, if I somehow survive, I will find you. And I will do to you what you failed to do to me. I promise you that,” He declared, even as his heart threatened to explode and his wrist throbbed with a pain that could only be described as a thousand needles skewering it at once.

  Silence reigned in the hall at Lucan’s proclamation, as a few of them remembered that despite it all, he was still the heir to a Duke and his threats did carry power.

  Lucan feigned a charge at the cousin standing to his right and instead of the cousin firing off the spell, which the formation would intercept anyway, the glow in his wand winked out and he stumbled backwards, his expression one of confusion and just a hint of fear.

  The other cousin had a hesitant expression on his face, but that didn’t stop him from slowly but surely lowering his wand.

  Lucan gazed upon the scene, shook his head as if he was disappointed, then turned around and walked over to the reception, where the butler’s eyes were as wide as saucers.

  He offered the butler a wide, genial smile as he said, “My keys please.”

  Only after Lucan had climbed the spiral staircase and departed for his room did the discussion in the reception hall resume, even as Alastair called for a medic to come and attend to the Belvedere with utmost urgency.

  “Is he a knight?” The boy who had called Lucan an alcoholic asked, his tone one of complete befuddlement.

  No one had an answer.

  Thus began the legend of the Wastrel Heir of Velmoria.

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