Chapter 16 - 15: The Seed of Curiosity
Handling Chief Marshal Seraphina could wait.
As I walked through the vaulted stone corridors leading toward the Arcana Division, a quiet, dark chuckle escaped my lips. Recalling the sight of Lucas getting smashed into the mud by Seraphina’s unweighted iron sword brought a lingering sense of satisfaction. The Church’s golden boy had tried so hard to look like a divine paragon, only to be tossed aside like a ragdoll in front of eighty cadets.
And Seraphina... she was almost cute in her futile resistance. She hit Lucas to prove to herself that she wasn’t the Church’s obedient lapdog, completely unaware that by doing so, she was playing directly into the exact wedge I was driving between her and the Holy See. She was strong, but until she realized the full extent of the Church’s leash, any direct move against her was premature.
"Let her stew," I thought, adjusting the silver cufflinks of my dark uniform. "She will come to me when her world begins to crack."
I pushed open the high oak doors of the grand lecture hall. The room was a massive, stepped amphitheater filled with second-year students from both high noble houses and scholarship commoners.
The moment my boots crossed the threshold, a dark-violet prompt flared across my vision.
[ DARK SOVEREIGN SYSTEM — QUEST TRIGGERED ]
[ MISSION: CLAIM THE DIVINE SAINTESS ]
[ Objective: Break Elena’s destined ties to Lucas von Radiant and enforce submission within 30 days. ]
[ Success Reward: Divine Purification Core Integration & Absolute Loyalty of the Saintess. ]
[ Failure Penalty: Permanent loss of the Divine Saintess path. Elena will be fully claimed by the Grand Church and appear as a high-tier enemy in the future narrative. ]
My eyes drifted past the translucent screen, settling directly on the lower benches near the front of the hall.
There she sat Elena.
In the original web novel, Elena was the ultimate tragic heroine. Born a commoner, her ethereal beauty and talent for holy magic made her the target of endless jealousy from high-born noble girls. She lived in a world of lower-district fairy tales, dreaming of a noble knight coming to save her from the dirt. In the original timeline, Lucas always arrived with heroic timing, stepping between her and her bullies to earn her starry-eyed admiration.
Later, her brother Kael would be corrupted by dark mana, turning into a bloodthirsty berserker. Lucas would "subdue" him, and the Grand Church would imprison Kael deep in their subterranean vaults. Under the guise of searching for a cure, Archbishop Varos used Kael as leverage to chain Elena, forcing her to join Lucas’s party and serve as their puppet Saintess.
A masterclass in Church extortion, I thought, taking a step down the central aisle. "Unfortunate for them, I have no intention of playing the heroic knight."
At that moment, three noble scions from House Varney were crowded around Elena’s small desk. Lady Clarissa sneered as she deliberately tipped her inkwell, letting black ink ruin days of Elena’s hand-copied lecture notes.
"Oh, my apologies, commoner," Clarissa mocked, her companions giggling behind their silk fans. "I didn’t see your trash on the desk. But then again, someone of your low bloodline shouldn’t even be occupying space in a high arcana class."
Elena kept her head bowed, her small hands clasped tightly in her lap as her shoulders trembled. She had no money, no noble standing, and no power to fight back only the fragile hope that someone, somewhere, would be good enough to help her.
I didn’t utter a word. I simply continued walking down the steps.
As I passed Clarissa’s group, I didn’t draw a weapon or issue a heroic speech. I simply released a microscopic thread of my [True Sovereign Core].
*THUD!*
A suffocating, terrifying density hit the air.
Clarissa’s breath was instantly knocked out of her chest as her knees buckled, sending her crashing hard against the wooden edge of the desk. Her two companions gasped for air, clutching their throats in absolute terror as their mana channels froze under the weight of an invisible, crushing pressure.
The entire lecture hall fell dead silent.
I didn’t even look at Clarissa as she cowered on the floorboards. My steps didn’t slow. I simply swept past Elena’s desk, my dark coat fluttering softly in the quiet air.
As I passed her, my eyes shifted downward, meeting Elena’s wide, trembling hazel eyes for a single, brief second. Her high purification affinity allowed her to feel what the others couldn’t an ancient, absolute authority that dwarfed the simple holy energy she was used to reading about in her storybooks.
I gave her no smile, no comfort, and no reassurance. With a look of absolute, cold indifference, I pulled my gaze away and walked straight past her toward the upper row, leaving her staring after me in pure, breathless surprise.
POV: Elena
The heavy oak doors of the Arcana Division lecture hall creaked shut behind me, but the suffocating weight in my chest didn’t lift.
As I entered the class, I was getting bullied, just as I expected.
"Look who’s here..."
"A low-birth commoner who doesn’t even belong in this academy, let alone high arcana..."
"Low-birth trash..."
The harsh words echoed through the lecture hall, but I kept my head down, clutching my worn leather notebook against my chest. Why am I getting all this hostility just because I’m low-born? I questioned silently, a familiar ache tightening in my throat. I knew the truth behind their venom it wasn’t just disgust; it was jealousy.
At first, some of the noble girls had acted nice to me. They smiled, offered false compliments, and sat nearby only to ask for my hand-copied lecture notes or to copy my homework. But the moment I gently refused to hand them over and let them take credit for my late-night work, their fake kindness shattered. Overnight, they started calling me an "arrogant bitch."
I had no friends here. Not one.
Still, I was enduring it all to give my family a better life. I thought of my brother, Kael. "He must be enduring his own struggles right now, working just as hard to make a path for us."My brother and I were the hope of our entire family, and the pride of our humble village. Everyone back home was counting on us to succeed. I couldn’t afford to break here. I had to pass with top grades from the Imperial Academy so I could secure a good job hopefully even a permanent position here at the academy itself. Thaloris was the richest, most prosperous city in the empire, and moving my family here to live on their expectations was my ultimate goal. I must endure it.
I presumed today was going to be the same miserable routine, a quiet, agonizing ordeal of low-grade cruelties and condescending laughs. But then, something entirely unexpected happened.
Someone helped me today.
It wasn’t a chivalrous hero stepping straight out of a fairy tale. It was the academy’s villain.
I sat frozen at my desk, left shocked and cautious. Everyone in the academy knew the dark, terrifying rumors surrounding Victor Vance that the villain Victor harasses women and takes what he wants, ruling as a ruthless black mark on the noble ranks.
He was a fallen noble from a house that used to be one of the top houses in the realm until they betrayed the empire, a crime proven by the Grand Church. Their family head was executed 80 years ago during the purge, demoting their line into ruin.
And yet, now, the academy’s most feared villain had just helped me. He had crushed Lady Clarissa’s arrogance without uttering a single word, leaving the entire hall in stunned silence before walking away.
"Why?"
I stared down at my blank desk, my fingers trembling slightly. "Why would someone like him bother to interfere?"
I tried to shake the thought away, telling myself that a man like Victor Vance only acted out of self-interest. But somewhere deep inside my mind, despite all my caution, a tiny, persistent seed of curiosity was built.
[ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ]
[ Target: Elena (Divine Saintess) ]
[ Target Favorability / Connection: +5 ]
[ Status: Curiosity Awakened / Initial Defense Fractured ]
POV: Victor
A faint, amused smile touched my lips as the system notification dissolved from my vision.
[ SYSTEM NOTIFICATION ]
[ Target: Elena ]
[ Favorability / Connection: +5 ]
[ Status: Curiosity Awakened ]
I felt a surge of satisfaction. The seed of curiosity had already been planted. I almost owed Lady Clarissa a word of thanks for handing me such a convenient opportunity on a silver platter.
Elena was an innocent girl, raised within the quiet borders of her modest home, her head filled with fairy tales and books about noble heroes saving helpless heroines. Force her into submission directly, and a girl like that would only rebel, clinging to her fragile ideals out of pure defiance.
She couldn’t be broken by crude force; she needed to be slowly trained. Step by step, her romantic delusions would be dismantled until she learned absolute obedience and it had to be completed before the Grand Church discovered her true potential as the Divine Saintess.
I leaned back as I walked down the stone corridor, my eyes narrowing with anticipation.
I couldn’t wait to corrupt her innocence.