Chapter 714 - Taming the Fifth Year - Truth
Chapter 714: Chapter 714 – Taming the Fifth Year – Truth
Klein looked around, verifying that nobody was close enough to overhear.
The area bustled with activity. Students celebrating their hauls, comparing quantities, making plans for wealth they’d never imagined possessing.
But in the small bubble around Klein and Ren, the noise felt distant. Muffled. Like the world had contracted to just the two of them and whatever Klein was about to say.
The others from their team were occupied celebrating their gains too, comparing amounts, making plans that sounded equal parts ambitious and naive. Zhao talked with the new evaluator about something technical.
Nobody was paying attention to the quiet conversation happening in the corner.
“It’s about Luna,” Klein began, his voice tense.
Ren’s expression changed instantly.
His posture tensed. Shoulders drawing back. Weight shifting to the balls of his feet in unconscious combat readiness. His eyes narrowed, focus sharpening from casual attention to absolute concentration.
Almost like a transformation… From relaxed genius student to something far more dangerous in the space of a heartbeat.
“What about her?”
The words were carefully neutral, but Klein could hear the edge beneath them… The promise of violence if the answer was something Ren didn’t want to hear.
“You need to know something. Something that…” Klein swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “Something she probably doesn’t want you to know, but that I think you need to know anyway.”
He breathed deep, gathering the courage that wanted to flee.
“A few weeks ago they called me… Luna’s uncles… Orion Starweaver specifically.”
“They called you?” Ren frowned, confusion mixing with growing concern. “Why?”
Why would the Starweaver power players contact a fallen noble heir with no apparent connection to their family politics? The question hung unspoken but obvious.
“They offered me a ’paper role’. The role of…” Klein paused, the words sticking in his throat like physical objects he couldn’t quite force out. “’Husband’… In an arrangement.”
The air between them became dense with mana.
Dangerous.
Not an overt technique, not a deliberate attack… Just raw energy pressure leaking from someone whose control was slipping under the weight of sudden rage. The unconscious power expression that happened when emotion overwhelmed discipline.
Klein felt it pressing against his skin. Making breathing difficult. His own beast stirring in response, recognizing the threat even if Klein himself had expected this reaction.
“Continue,” Ren said, his voice dangerously low.
The kind of low that suggested violence was being held back through sheer force of will and might be released at any moment depending on what Klein said next.
“They blackmailed me with a property that was formerly ’mine’.” Klein spoke faster now, recognizing that delay would only make this worse. “One of many the crown had taken when my family fell into disgrace because of my idiot brother. Luna’s uncles bought it afterward along with many others, and they told me they’d ’return’ it if I acted as I should.”
The words tumbled out in a rush. Confession mixed with explanation mixed with desperate need to get this said before courage failed completely.
“In fact they had much more they could gradually give me… Until I got them the ’heir’ they want one way or another.”
“Heir?”
Ren’s voice was ice. Pure fury that made the surrounding temperature feel like it had actually dropped several degrees.
“Wait, let me finish.” Klein raised his hands, sweat beading on his forehead despite the suddenly too cold air. “When I heard that, the house didn’t matter to me. Nothing about that mattered… But I accepted meeting with her anyway, because it meant I’d talk to Luna about an arrangement.”
“Why would you do that?”
The question carried implications. Why help the uncles? Why participate in schemes that sounded increasingly sinister? Why agree to meet Luna under false pretenses?
“Because they told me Luna had already categorically rejected having anything to do with Jin.” Klein explained quickly, words racing to get ahead of Ren’s building rage. “She said he was an idiot kid who’d be a headache to negotiate with. Her exact words. So that left Seiya and me as the best prospects according to her uncles, and an endless list of minor nobles who wouldn’t be a good match given House Starweaver’s size.”
He paused, gathering some more courage for the next part.
The part where he admitted to having been driven by a desperate need to fix his past mistakes.
“I realized that if I wanted to do something to make up for my former idiocy, to redeem myself for the stuff I did in the past, I had to act here before they sent that Seiya. At least offer help to Luna… So that’s what I did.”
“What kind of help?” Ren asked, his tone still cold but with a hint of curiosity forcing its way through the anger.
A crack in the ice. Not forgiveness… but at least willingness to hear the full explanation before deciding whether Klein deserved whatever violence Ren was contemplating.
“When Luna allowed the visit and we met, she was just going to scold me.” Klein smiled bitterly at the memory. “She thought I’d become insistent again after so many years of leaving her alone. That I was reverting to my academy days behavior of pursuing someone who’d made it clear they weren’t interested.”
The shame of those memories still burned. Klein had been an arrogant ass during their first school years. Had treated Luna’s rejections as challenges to overcome rather than boundaries to respect. Had made himself into exactly the kind of entitled noble that made people hate the aristocracy.
“But I was quick to tell her everything I knew and thought. Everything about the blackmail, about the offers, about what her uncles wanted.”
“And?”
“Her mana eyes read me completely.” Klein remembered that moment with crystal clarity. Luna’s gaze stripping away every defense, every careful mask, seeing straight through to his genuine intentions. “She saw I only wanted to help and redeem my past actions. So Luna allowed me to know some things about what she wanted…”
Klein was blushing heavily now but he looked directly at Ren.
Ren relaxed a bit, seeing easily that all Klein had said until now was true.
“So she saw that you really wanted to help, then… What did she tell you?”
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