Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 836: Words of steel (3)

That smile—

Jesse saw it. That faint curl at the corner of his mouth, subtle, unspoken, but maddeningly familiar.

That was his smile.

The one he used back then—when she’d fumbled her grip for the third time in a row, cursing under her breath as the training blade slipped in her palms.

The one he wore not when mocking, but when watching her try.

Back then, she thought it was arrogance. A smirk from a boy who’d clearly seen too many fights and thought too highly of himself. But now—

Now she knew better.

Lucavion only smiled like that when he saw progress.

When he saw effort becoming understanding.

’You bastard,’ Jesse thought, eyes narrowing. ’Still smiling like you’re watching some half-dead recruit try to walk straight.’

The blade lock broke.

Lucavion moved again, fluid, his estoc weaving a feint that mimicked a high thrust—but Jesse read through it. She leaned under the path, pivoting on her left foot, using the downswing of the Reaping Form to answer.

—CLANK!—

Steel met steel again, but it didn’t clang wild.

It clicked.

Like the closing of a lock.

A memory fell in, unbidden.

“You’re not learning to fight,” Lucavion had said once, sprawled out on the training yard grass with his hands behind his head, one eye open. “You’re learning how not to lose.”

Jesse had rolled her eyes then. She’d watched knights—real ones. Her brother’s instructors, her uncle’s old guards. They followed forms, chanted oaths, moved like they belonged on war banners.

Lucavion did none of that.

He called his training the basics.

Not some blood-bound family style. Not an academy-refined sequence of forms. Just—

“Move like you’re listening to what your body tells,” he’d told her. “It already knows where to go. You’re just here to not get in its way.”

Back then, she didn’t understand.

Back then, it didn’t make sense.

“Move like you’re listening to your body.”

She’d furrowed her brow at that, confused and frustrated, wiping sweat from her brow with the back of a bruised wrist.

What kind of instruction was that?

She remembered the drills her family’s knights barked. Measured stances. Fixed forms. Pivots recited like scripture. This foot here. That slash there. Again. Again. Again.

Lucavion hadn’t cared about any of that.

He taught her to feel the pull of balance in her spine. To lean into instinct. To pivot not when a form dictated it, but when her body screamed for it.

At first, it was chaos.

She missed parries.

She fumbled draws.

She fell—twice—in one night and heard him chuckle from behind a half-eaten ration bar.

But something strange happened.

The more time passed, the more her body stopped fighting itself. Her stance stopped being a shape. It became a rhythm.

And when the war began in earnest—

It started to make sense.

Her squad had been ambushed outside Mornrock Vale—jagged cliffs, too little cover. They’d formed a standard line.

She didn’t.

She moved.

She listened.

And her blade struck first. It struck true.

Not because of form.

Because of instinct.

Because of him.

She hadn’t wanted to fight in a war. Hadn’t wanted to kill. Jesse had imagined earning her stripes through command work—logistics, mana recovery, even communication lines.

Not the front.

Not the screaming.

Not the way the blood sprayed when you got too close and the other person didn’t wear a helm.

But survival didn’t ask what you wanted.

It taught.

And it cut.

Her hands learned before her mind accepted it.

But he—Lucavion—he didn’t know what came next.

He didn’t know what happened after he left.

’After you left…’

Her teeth clenched.

After he left, she’d been reassigned. There was no dramatic exile, no tribunal. Just a signature. A sealed order. And a silent understanding that no one would say it aloud—

But everyone knew.

She’d trained with him.

She’d sparred with the deserter.

And in the Empire’s ranks, that meant something.

Even if she didn’t follow him.

Even if she stayed.

Especially because she stayed.

The first squad they placed her in—the 17th Mobile.

She remembered the stares.

The too-long silences.

The way her new commander handed her a schedule and never once looked her in the eye.

’Illegitimate noble.’

The 17th Mobile had been stationed in the Shale Expanse—barren, wind-scoured, brittle as cracked bone.

The perfect place to bury someone quietly.

Jesse still remembered the way the sand scraped her knuckles raw during trench drills. The way they handed her half-rusted gear while the others wore polished mail. No explanations. Just glances.

The silence was worse than the insults.

Because silence said: we know who you are.

Not Jesse Burns.

Not a soldier.

Not a comrade.

The one who trained with Lucavion.

A deserter.

A traitor.

And worse—still loyal enough to stay.

At that point in the war, the Lorian Empire had already begun to fray. Resources thin. Casualties high. The upper command bristling under Arcanis pressure. Hope had become brittle—like porcelain left out in frost.

They needed scapegoats.

And Jesse?

She was perfectly shaped for the role.

Illegitimate daughter. Reputation tainted by association. No political backing strong enough to shield her. No noble father stepping forward to deny or defend.

Just the girl who used to train with Lucavion.

And Lucavion, in their eyes?

He wasn’t just a deserter.

He was a symbol of abandonment.

Proof that even the prodigies would turn their backs when things got dark.

So they looked at her and saw echoes of him.

They didn’t shove her into ambushes outright.

But they assigned her to lead them.

First wave. Thin recon. Forward scouts into terrain too unstable for proper maps.

It wasn’t discipline.

It was slow execution.

But she survived.

Gods, she survived.

Not because of luck.

Because she had to think.

Adapt.

She used Reaping Form when it made sense. She used Lucavion’s rhythm when her enemies got clever. And when both failed?

She made her own way.

’You who left me,’ she thought now, parrying another smooth arc of Lucavion’s estoc, ’you don’t get to look at me like that.’

That same smile still hung at the edge of his mouth.

The one that once meant support.

Encouragement.

Now it felt like a blade on old scar tissue.

Her blade swung—diagonal, not quite Reaping Form, not quite his chaos either. It was hers. A curve meant to mislead, to pressure without overreaching. Lucavion countered—

—CLANK!—

But this time?

She pressed harder into the bind. Forced it to shift. Forced him to pivot first.

He did.

His eyes flicked, only briefly, but she saw it.

That shift.

’Do you know how much pain you caused me?’