Reborn as a Duke's Son… I Became Her Yandere Villain Chapter 7: In Shadow

The maintenance path was narrow.

It ran along the outer wall of the training grounds, shielded from the main practice area by a row of storage sheds that housed equipnt and spare summoning materials. Wide enough for two people to walk side by side, which ant that the two older students had positioned themselves very deliberately to block the exit. They were not standing there by accident. Soone had chosen this spot because it was the one section of the academy grounds where you could have a conversation that the instructors could not see from their standard positions.

I had noted it as a problem location the first ti I walked the grounds this morning.

The student backed against the wall was nad Corvin. First year, commoner intake, which ant he had passed the entrance examination on rit alone without the backing of a noble house or an established summoning family. The novel had not given him a significant role but I rembered him as a background figure in the early academy Chapters, one of the commoner students who generally kept to themselves and worked harder than most of the noble intake because they understood that one failed assessnt could end their enrollnt entirely.

He was pressed against the stone wall with the specific posture of soone who was not going to show they were scared but was definitely scared.

The two older students were third years. I recognized the type imdiately without knowing their nas yet. Academy veterans who had developed the particular confidence that cos from three years of knowing the hierarchy and exactly where they sat in it. The one on the left was average sized and unremarkable. The one on the right was the problem. He had a summon active beside him, a warrior class entity with physical augntation running at a level that was producing a visible heat distortion around it. The summon was not moving. But it was ready to.

The third year on the right was talking when we rounded the corner of the last storage shed.

"The thing about commoner intake," he was saying, in the specific tone of soone who had rehearsed the condescension until it sounded natural, "is that the examination tests aptitude. It does not test whether you belong here. Those are different asurents."

Corvin said nothing. His jaw was set and his eyes were flat with the controlled anger of soone who had heard so version of this before and had learned not to respond to it.

I stopped at the entrance to the maintenance path.

Both third years looked up.

Their expressions went through the sa sequence in under two seconds. Recognition of who I was. Assessnt of the situation. Recalculation.

I looked at the active summon. Then I looked at the third year on the right. "Your summon is running at combat output level," I said. "In an unsupervised location. During open practice." I tilted my head slightly. "That is three separate violations of the conduct guidelines introduced this morning. I was paying attention during orientation. Were you not there for orientation, or did you just decide it did not apply?"

The one on the right pulled his summon’s output back. Not because I had frightened him. Because I had handed him a ladder out of the situation and taking it was smarter than not taking it.

"We were having a conversation," he said. His tone had recalibrated to sothing more careful.

"You were having it in a location specifically chosen because it is not visible from the instructor positions," I said. "Which tells sothing about the nature of the conversation." I looked at Corvin briefly. "Are you done here?"

Corvin looked at with an expression that was working through several things at once, including what my involvent ant and whether it ca with its own set of complications. Smart instinct from him.

"Done," he said.

He pushed off the wall and walked past the two third years without looking at them. He stopped beside at the path entrance and I let him get a step ahead before I turned back to the third years.

"I do not know your nas yet," I said. "I will by tomorrow. This academy is smaller than it looks and the first week is when people establish what they are like." I kept my voice pleasant, the sa register as giving advice. "I would think about what you want to be established as."

The one on the left had not said anything the entire ti. He was looking at Seraphine, who had positioned herself to my right with her hands loosely clasped and her expression carrying the serene attentiveness of soone watching a moderately interesting stage performance. He was doing the ntal calculation of what she was capable of and coming up with numbers that were making him reconsider several things.

Good.

I turned and walked back to the main training grounds.

Corvin fell into step beside once we cleared the storage sheds. We walked in silence for a mont.

"You did not have to do that," he said finally.

"I know."

"It will probably make them more careful next ti rather than stopping them entirely."

"Yes," I said. "But more careful ans less visible and less visible ans they eventually do sothing stupid that gets caught properly. The alternative was leaving it which solves nothing."

He was quiet for another few steps. "You are Dravenmoor. The one from the ceremony."

"That is ."

"Why?" he said. It was a direct question. Not ungrateful, just genuinely asking for the actual reason.

I thought about how to answer that honestly without giving him more information than was useful.

"Because I needed to walk past that path anyway," I said. "And standing there watching while soone gets cornered is a choice too. I did not want to make that choice."

Corvin looked at sideways. Then he nodded once, the nod of soone filing information under a category they will return to later, and peeled off toward the section of the training grounds where the commoner intake students had grouped up.

Seraphine moved back to my shoulder.

"That was well managed," she said.

"Do not sound surprised."

"I was not surprised," she said. "I was noting it."