Chapter 9: Return

"I will become a monk and dedicate my life to the theological study of cabbage cultivation!"

His glorious, cowardly declaration lasted precisely until ten o’clock the following morning.

Lucien was seated comfortably in the sunlit morning parlor, dressed in an impeccably tailored navy-blue coat with silver frogging, daintily dipping a strawberry-glazed pastry into a cup of hot, spiced chocolate.

The double doors of the parlor did not open; they practically detonated inward.

Duke Darius Everhart strode into the room like a tectonic plate shift.

He wasn’t wearing his comfortable woolen house tunic today; he was clad in full, polished ceremonial clothes forged from the finest silk, the cape of white wolf fur trailing behind his shoulders like a royal standard.

His heavy war-boots slammed against the parquet floor with thunderous, rhythmic authority.

Behind him marched Edwin, carrying a set of polished leather traveling trunks stamped with the Everhart crest, followed by two junior footmen carrying weapon cases and dress uniforms.

Lucien froze, his pastry hovering two inches from his open mouth.

"Father?" Lucien squeaked, the strawberry glaze suddenly tasting faintly of impending doom.

The Duke stopped directly in front of the tea table, casting an enormous shadow over Lucien, the silver teapot, and the half-eaten pastries.

The Duke folded his arms across his massive chest, his dark eyes narrowing as he glared down at his second son.

"One week," Darius rumbled, his voice low, heavy, and vibrating through the teacups.

"I... beg your pardon?"

"One week, Lucien!" the Duke roared, slamming a fist against the walnut mantelpiece with enough force to cause a decorative porcelain vase to hop three inches into the air. "Seven full days! You have spent an entire week swaddled in velvet like a newborn piglet! You have consumed twelve bowls of oxtail soup, eighteen roasted partridges, and enough buttered pastries to supply an imperial garrison through a winter siege!"

"The... the doctors said I suffered severe nervous shock, Father," Lucien offered weakly, carefully setting the pastry down on the saucer with trembling fingers. "My soul pathways were fractured. I am in the delicate, fragile stages of spiritual convalescence."

"Your spiritual convalescence is currently eating strawberry tarts!" Darius bellowed, though the fierce gleam in his eye carried far more exasperated affection than genuine rage. "I have tolerated your sloth because you threw yourself in front of a monster to save Lord Ashford’s boy. It was an honorable act! A stupid, reckless, utterly suicidal act, but an honorable one that brought great prestige to our house! The Ashfords sent three crates of aged brandy and two pedigree hunting hounds to thank us for your idiocy!"

"That was... very kind of them," Lucien murmured. Rowan’s family sent dogs? I almost died, and my compensation is some puppies?

"Kind? It was appropriate!" The Duke leaned down, placing his hands on the edge of the table, bringing his rugged, handsome face level with Lucien’s. "But the holiday is now over, Lucien. The academy’s post-incident suspension period has concluded. The lower levels of the catacombs have been sealed by the Imperial Knights. The semester resumes in two days."

Lucien’s stomach dropped through the floorboards, through the wine cellar, and directly into the earth’s molten core.

"Resumes?" Lucien choked out, his voice squeaking again. "Already? But Father, the trauma! The psychological horror! Whenever I close my eyes, I see the scythe-claws of the Crawler! I am emotionally unfit for the academic rigor! What if an instructor drops a heavy book and I suffer an apoplectic seizure?!"

"You won’t suffer an apoplectic seizure because your brother will be standing right outside your lecture hall with a broadsword," Darius dismissed with a wave of his armored hand. "And your sister will freeze anyone who looks at you inappropriately."

"That is precisely what I am afraid of!"

"Nonsense!" The Duke straightened up, puffing out his chest with immense, unyielding pride. "You are an Everhart! We must endure! We do not hide in country manors eating pastries while the rest of the noble youth sharpen their claws at Astraea! Furthermore, the Imperial Awakening Ceremony takes place at the end of this week. Every noble student whose core has not yet settled into a designated combat class must present themselves before the Grand Astral Orb in the central spire."

Lucien gripped the edges of his silk-cushioned chair.

The Grand Astral Orb.

The memory hit him like a bucket of ice water.

In the original novel, the post-expedition awakening ceremony was a massive, high-stakes plot event!

It was the moment when Cassian Valemont’s party officially registered their specialized combat classes, where the academy’s rankings were redrawn, and where the political factions within the student body began jockeying for position ahead of the annual inter-academy tournament!

In the original timeline, Lucien Everhart hadn’t been there because he was three feet under the sacred sod of the family cemetery!

If Lucien went back now...

If Lucien stood before that magically sensitive divine artifact in the center of the academy with an abnormal soul, an undefined SSS-Rank potential, and an undiagnosed parasitic system festering behind his ribs...

’The crystal won’t just measure me,’ Lucien realized with cold, sickening horror. ’It will probably detonate. It will turn black, scream in an ancient dialect, and summon three battalions of Imperial Inquisitors to cleanse my soul with holy flamethrowers before lunchtime.’

"Father," Lucien said, his voice dropping into a tone of desperate seriousness. "Listen to me very carefully. I don’t think it is wise for me to return to the academy. In fact, I believe my true calling lies right here. In the western provinces. Managing the grain tariffs. Reviewing the timber allocations. I have an extraordinary, innate passion for double-entry bookkeeping that I have never previously disclosed to you."

The Duke stared at him.

For three long, agonizing seconds, the master of House Everhart blinked in silence.

Then, his face split into a booming, thunderous laugh that shook the crystalline chandelier above them.

"Double-entry bookkeeping!" Darius roared, slapping his thigh with a sound like a blacksmith’s hammer striking an anvil.