Chapter 196: Lucius Langthon
Instinctively, both of them felt the weight of the attention directed toward them, but neither lost her composure. They continued forward until they reached the center of the room.
The hall was spacious, with several seating arrangements throughout it. Some were large enough to accommodate entire groups, while others were smaller, like the one at the center of the room.
There, a semicircle of seats had been arranged, each occupied by a single person.
The two of them stopped at the center of the formation, their eyes briefly sweeping over the people around them.
There weren’t many. Only seven people.
Starting with two academy officials seated in the second-to-last positions on either side of the crescent-shaped arrangement: the vice dean, and, of course, the dean himself, both occupying the seats closest to the central position, one on each side of it.
Two more figures sat at the far ends of the crescent. One was a middle-aged man, tall and heavily built, his expression serious but composed, his gaze fixed on Lirien. Selena recognized him immediately; he was the head of one of the kingdom’s three ducal families.
Kael Dravenmoor. Lirien’s grandfather.
And then there was the other figure. Also middle-aged and of average height, but unlike everyone else in the room, he didn’t carry the same overwhelming presence of strength.
That hardly mattered, though.
The moment Selena’s eyes landed on him, her fists clenched tightly at her sides, as if trying to hold something back.
Lirien noticed the shift but said nothing, not in that moment.
She understood the reason for it well enough. The man in question was none other than the governor of Lirath, Baron Lucius Langton.
She didn’t know the full extent of Selena’s history with the baron, since Selena had never spoken openly about her past, but over time certain details had surfaced, particularly after Percival joined the academy. From that point on, it became impossible to miss the deep seated hatred Selena carried for the Langthon name in general.
She had asked her once what the reason was, but Selena had never given her a real answer.
Lirien hadn’t pushed further.
She understood that some personal secrets weren’t meant to be forced out of someone, especially when that someone was Selena, who kept much of herself hidden and rarely opened up, even to her.
Eventually, Selena’s gaze settled on the seat directly ahead of them, the one at the very center of the crescent formation, the one with the tallest, most imposing backrest of them all.
Selena’s eyes narrowed slightly as she felt the quiet, restrained power radiating from whoever sat there. She understood immediately that this wasn’t someone ordinary, though she had no idea who it actually was, let alone how powerful they truly were.
That said, judging purely by the arrangement of the seats, she could tell this person outranked even the dean himself, who was an Overlord.
Unlike Selena, though, Lirien seemed to recognize the figure on sight. She trembled slightly and immediately dropped into a kneel, her voice solemn as she spoke.
"I pay my respects to His Majesty the King,"
Hearing that, Selena, who had been curious about the man’s identity, froze in shock as she stared at the figure ahead of her.
’The King? Why is he here?’ The question crossed her mind instantly, followed a heartbeat later by the realization that answered it.
The phenomenon that had transported them to that strange place had apparently caused far more damage than she had initially thought.
She didn’t know the exact extent of what had happened, but during the short time they had been given to rest, she had overheard enough to understand that the situation was far more serious than they had originally assumed.
And yet, even that had apparently been an understatement, given that the king himself had come to the academy in person.
Selena, unlike Lirien, didn’t kneel right away, partly out of shock at the realization still settling in, and partly because doing so felt, to her, like bowing not just to the king but to everyone standing beside him, Baron Langton included. Every cell in her body rebelled against that thought.
Seeing this, several people in the room seemed to narrow their eyes.
The Dean, in particular, couldn’t help but shake his head.
He knew her personality well enough. After all, she was one of the academy’s most promising talents.
He knew she had some kind of conflict with the Langtons, but that was about it. He had never bothered looking into the reason behind it.
As long as it caused no trouble for the academy, he had no intention of interfering with or prying into his students’ personal affairs.
He didn’t ask the two girls many questions when he went to retrieve them from the forest near Ravenhold.
Not because he had nothing to ask, but because he understood that it wasn’t the right moment.
He had seen their condition.
Contrary to what one might expect, they were relatively fine, a little injured, perhaps somewhat malnourished, but nothing as severe as he’d originally feared.
What he had noticed, though, was a clear and undeniable change in both of them, Selena especially.
Her strength now sat at the peak of D-rank, on the verge of breaking through entirely, something that genuinely surprised him.
The girl was barely eighteen, yet her strength already rivaled that of the academy’s second-year talents, bordering on what some third-years could manage.
That was an exceptionally rare thing. He genuinely couldn’t think of another student with a talent quite like hers, someone who’d reached this level of strength at such a young age.
It only deepened his opinion of her, and he decided then and there that once this whole matter was resolved, he’d need to speak with her personally and arrange a dedicated training regimen suited to her level, something that could push her potential as far as it could go.
Not many students could handle that kind of attention, and fewer still had proven themselves capable of living up to it. But she had. And he had no intention of letting a talent like hers go to waste.
’Seems she’s still a little too naive about certain things,’ he thought, shaking his head, though he didn’t blame her for it. That said, given the current situation, her attitude wasn’t exactly the wisest choice.
Lirien, seeing that her friend wasn’t moving, wanted to say something. The same went for the nearby guards, who seemed ready to step in and force the girl to her knees. But right at that moment, the king raised his hand slightly, a quiet signal not to act, and simply looked at the girl with an expression of open curiosity.
Feeling the weight of his gaze settle on her, Selena felt, for a moment, as though she had no protection at all, as if he could see straight past whatever front she put up.
A flicker of surprise crossed the king’s face, the first time his serious, regal expression shifted into something else entirely.
"To think a talent like this existed within our kingdom."
"Hahaha, perhaps the heavens aren’t so cruel to us after all."