Reborn as a Duke's Son… I Became Her Yandere Villain Chapter 20: Nobody Touches His Collar

The note was three pages.

Three pages of Evelyne’s precise angular handwriting, tucked inside the red volu with the careful placent of soone who had thought about exactly how to fold it so it lay flat against the spine. I found it after lunch, settled into the library corner table, and unfolded it expecting maybe half a page.

Three pages.

I sat there for a second just looking at the volu of it.

She had found sothing significant.

The first page was the evidence chain. Primary docunts, cross references, dates. Clean and logical, the kind of argunt structure that did not ask you to take leaps, just walked you from one solid fact to the next solid fact until you arrived sowhere that felt inevitable.

The second page was her analysis.

The third page was one paragraph and a question.

I read it all twice.

Then I sat back and looked at the library ceiling.

The third party in the Accord’s engineered failure was not a noble house. It was a summoner organization that had officially dissolved forty years before the Accord was signed. Officially. Evelyne had found correspondence suggesting they had not dissolved so much as gone quiet, changed their structure, and continued operating under a different na.

A na that still existed.

A na that was currently connected to several faculty mbers at this academy.

The one paragraph on the third page said: I do not think this is historical. I think it is present. Tell if I am wrong.

She was not wrong.

I knew she was not wrong because the novel had established this organization as a background threat that did not beco foreground until arc three. They were called the Hollow Compact. They operated through existing institutions. They had been watching summoner developnt at Veyrath Academy for at least a decade looking for specific capability profiles.

Specifically the Sovereign Mark combined with deep-reach Ancient Class binding.

Which was .

Wonderful.

I was three weeks into the academy and I had already attracted the attention of a secret organization with faculty connections. Ahead of schedule. Excellent. Gold star for efficiency.

I took out my pen and turned to the blank page at the back of the volu.

You are not wrong. I know more about this than the docunts show. Not here. When can you et properly?

I left it and went to afternoon practice.

Seraphine was waiting outside the library. She fell into step and took one look at my face.

"Sothing in the note," she said.

"Sothing in the note," I confird.

"Good sothing or bad sothing."

"Complicated sothing," I said. "I will explain tonight."

She accepted that with the specific trust that she had been developing over the past weeks, the willingness to wait when I said wait that she had not had on day one. It was a genuine change. Small but real.

"There is also sothing in the training ground you should see," she said.

"What kind of sothing?"

"The kind that arrived this morning and has been watching you since the combat assessnt," she said. "Female. Second year. Summoner family background, you can tell by the way she holds her hands when her summon is active." A pause. "She asked Maris about you at the midday break."

I looked at her sideways.

"You tracked her entire morning," I said.

"I track everything in your environnt," she said. Not defensively. Just factually.

"Everything," I said.

"Everything," she confird, with the serenity of soone who saw absolutely nothing unusual about this.

I had an Ancient Vampire Queen running comprehensive surveillance on every person who expressed interest in . As one does.

"What did Maris tell her?" I said.

"That you were the first year with the Ancient Class binding and you had hit a third year with a shoulder check this morning," she said. "She seed interested in that information."

"Interested how," I said.

"Interested in a way I do not appreciate," Seraphine said pleasantly.

That answered that.

The training ground for afternoon practice had a different energy today. The morning’s combat assessnts had shifted sothing in the cohort. People were more serious. More focused. The gap between talking about fighting and actually fighting had closed this morning and now everyone was recalibrating where they stood.

I found a clear section and started solo fusion work.

The third layer was still more theory than practice for . I had the second layer functional up to about two minutes sustained now, which was progress from ninety seconds, but the third layer required a depth of channel opening that I was not consistently hitting. So attempts it opened cleanly. So attempts it stayed at second layer no matter what I did.

Seraphine said the inconsistency was about emotional static in the channel. The ambiguity thing from Calvet’s lecture. I had been thinking about it and not resolving it and it was showing up as instability in the fusion work.

I sat cross-legged on the training ground and opened the channel carefully.

Second layer settled. Clear and imdiate now, the familiar flood of Seraphine’s perception running under mine. The sharpening effect. The specific quality of her presence in the channel that was warm and pointed at with the certainty of a compass needle.

I pushed deeper.

The third layer was different. It did not flood. It was quieter. More like stepping into a room that was full of sothing you could not see but could feel against your skin from every direction at once. The emotional component beca much more direct at this depth. Not just the edge of her presence but the actual shape of it, large and old and particular to her.

I held it.

Ten seconds.

Twenty.

At thirty sothing shifted in the channel and the connection snapped back to second layer.

I exhaled.

"Thirty seconds," I said.

"Better," Seraphine said behind .

"Still not functional in a fight," I said.

"No," she agreed. "But three weeks ago you were not finding it at all."

I stood up and turned around.

The girl Seraphine had ntioned was standing at the edge of my practice section.

She was tall, dark haired, with the comfortable posture of soone who had been training since childhood. Her summon was active beside her, a mid-tier wind class entity that was currently doing nothing but existing with the patient readiness of a well-integrated bond. She was looking at with an expression that was openly evaluating and did not seem to find anything wrong with the openness.

"You are Dravenmoor," she said.

"Generally yes," I said.

She smiled. It was a good smile. The practiced kind that knew it was good. "I watched your assessnt this morning. The shoulder check was clever."

"Thank you," I said.

"The hit at the end was preventable," she said.

"My instructor said the sa thing," I said. "And a student I know. And now you. I am sensing a the."

She laughed. Also practiced but genuinely warm under it. "I am Lyra Vane. Second year, wind class, top of the second year assessnt rankings currently." She said the last part with the ease of soone used to it being true and seeing no reason to pretend otherwise.

"Caelum Dravenmoor," I said. "First year, Ancient Class, recovering from a sword to the back."

She looked at Seraphine.

Seraphine looked back at her.

The look lasted approximately two seconds and contained several things that did not require words.

"