Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

What happened to a student when the examinations that had occupied nearly every waking thought for days finally ended?

Relief?

Perhaps.

A sudden burst of freedom? The irresistible desire to run outside, conquer the world, drink something regrettable, find beautiful company, or commit whatever lesser crimes young people traditionally associated with escaping academic responsibility?

Lucavion had expected something along those lines.

Reality proved considerably less inspiring.

The student became useless.

—Fsssshh.

Morning air slipped through the narrow opening of his window and disturbed the curtain beside it. Pale sunlight had already crossed half the room, warming the edge of his desk, the abandoned chair, and one corner of the couch where Vitaliara had apparently spent part of the night before deciding that Lucavion’s pillow offered superior accommodations.

Lucavion remained beneath the blanket.

His eyes were open.

He had been awake for some time.

That had accomplished very little.

’Interesting.’

He stared at the ceiling.

The phenomenon was rather impressive when considered properly.

For days, his schedule had possessed structure.

Wake.

Examination.

Prepare for another examination.

Occasionally offend a professor.

Study whatever portion of Arcanian magical theory had decided to personally embarrass him that afternoon.

Survive.

Repeat.

Even while resting, some part of his mind had remained pointed toward the next requirement. There was always another hall to enter, another page waiting, another question he had absolutely never encountered before but was apparently expected to answer with the confidence of someone whose childhood education had remained politely inside his head.

Then yesterday ended.

Most of it vanished.

—Tik.

The small clock on his desk advanced by a minute.

Lucavion watched it happen.

His final examination remained.

Etiquette.

At twenty-one hundred.

Right. 21:00.

An examination which, judging from the amount of terror certain students attached to it, apparently determined whether one deserved continued membership in civilized society.

Lucavion had been a noble child.

Then a soldier.

Then several other things that civilized society generally preferred not to discuss during dinner.

He suspected he could survive a test involving tableware.

Probably.

That left him with almost an entire day.

A magnificent stretch of freedom.

An open field.

A gift from the heavens themselves.

Lucavion pulled the blanket slightly higher.

’I should get up.’

He remained exactly where he was.

Another minute passed.

This, he decided, was the true cruelty of examination season.

The body learned the pressure.

For several days, every spare fragment of attention had been dammed behind deadlines, evaluations, preparation, calculations, and the simple understanding that wasting energy now meant paying for it later. He had slept when required, eaten because failing to do so was stupid, trained carefully rather than excessively, and kept enough of himself in reserve for whatever amusing disaster the Academy placed in front of him next.

Then someone removed the gate.

The stored pressure escaped all at once.

And rather than producing momentum, the entire structure simply collapsed.

Lucavion blinked slowly.

’What a scam.’

Freedom, apparently, was exhausting.

Something warm shifted beside his head.

A small paw emerged from the edge of his pillow and pressed against his temple.

—Pff.

Lucavion turned his eyes.

Vitaliara occupied an unreasonable portion of the pillow for a creature of her size. Midnight fur spread around her in complete comfort, one ear twitching beneath the sunlight while her face remained buried against the fabric.

The paw stayed on Lucavion’s forehead.

He stared at it.

She remained asleep.

"...Are you checking whether I’m alive?"

One ear moved.

Nothing else.

Lucavion considered removing the paw.

That required lifting his arm.

He decided against unnecessary exertion.

The ceiling resumed its duties.

He had things to do today.

That was the absurd part.

Elara’s homework waited for him.

Which first required the introductory magic book he had spectacularly forgotten to borrow despite having physically walked through the Western Library while surrounded by enough books to build defensive fortifications.

He should retrieve it.

He should probably reproduce those fifteen [Mana Light] formations before Elara discovered a creative method of making him regret procrastination.

He could train.

His body had recovered enough to benefit from some proper movement.

He could inspect his cores.

He could revisit yesterday’s strange hand reaction with a clearer head.

He could—

Lucavion’s gaze drifted toward the sunlight slowly crawling across the ceiling.

’Or...’

A dangerous thought.

’I could lie here for another ten minutes.’

Elegant.

Reasonable.

Possibly the finest tactical decision he had made since entering the Academy.

Ten minutes contained very little destructive potential.

The library would remain standing.

The books were unlikely to flee, although after witnessing them fly yesterday, Lucavion could no longer dismiss that possibility completely.

Elara would survive a brief delay in his educational development.

Civilization itself could endure until twenty-one hundred without his etiquette.

His eyes closed.

’Ten minutes.’

The promise possessed all the sincerity of a man who had already decided to renegotiate it later.

Outside, the Academy had thoroughly awakened.

Footsteps passed along the corridor.

—Tap, tap, tap.

Somebody farther downstairs called after a friend. A door shut. From beyond the residence came the distant ring of training steel, followed by the faint pulse of mana dispersing somewhere across the grounds.

Life continued with irritating enthusiasm.

Lucavion sank another fraction into the pillow.

Days spent under pressure had taught his body to preserve every scrap of energy it could find.

Now that the pressure had eased, apparently the body intended to collect its debt.

His mouth curved faintly.

’Fine.’

For once, he could afford to lose an argument with himself.

He had the whole day.

Lucavion enjoyed that conclusion for approximately thirty seconds.

Then his body began objecting.

At first, the discomfort was small enough to ignore. His shoulder wanted to shift. One leg felt strangely restless beneath the blanket. His back, perfectly capable of enduring hard earth, wagon floors, tree roots, military cots, and whatever Gerald had once considered an acceptable sleeping surface, apparently found a soft mattress intolerable once Lucavion had consciously decided to remain inside it.

He turned onto his side.

That helped.

For perhaps five breaths.

Lucavion rolled onto his back again.

’...’

His eyes returned to the ceiling.

Something beneath his skin kept insisting that the day had already started without him.

The feeling had very little to do with responsibility. Responsibility could be negotiated, delayed, redirected, or occasionally handed to someone who looked more enthusiastic.

Habit was considerably more unreasonable.

Years had built his mornings out of movement.

Wake.

Check the surroundings.

Check the body.

Stretch what hurt.

Move before stiffness settled in.

Eat when food existed.

Train when time allowed.

If there was work, begin it.

If there was danger, find it before it found him.

Even after the battlefield had ended, those habits had followed him. Gerald had sharpened some of them. Travelling had reinforced others. Cultivation had eventually turned several into necessities. His body had spent too long learning that stillness belonged to injury, recovery, concealment, or the brief pauses stolen between one demand and the next.

Lazing around simply because he possessed free time?

Apparently, that lesson had never been included.

Lucavion’s foot emerged from beneath the blanket.

Then retreated.

’We can still win this.’

His stomach answered.

RUMBLE!

The sound rolled through the room with enough conviction that Vitaliara’s ear twitched beside him.

Lucavion stared downward.

A hollow pull twisted through his abdomen.

His stomach rumbled again, quieter this time, as though clarifying that the first statement had indeed been directed at him.

He sighed.

"Traitors. All of you."

Vitaliara remained asleep.

Lucavion threw the blanket aside.

Cool air immediately brushed over his legs.

—Fwhp.

He sat up.

The transition alone seemed to satisfy something inside him. His shoulders rolled almost automatically, followed by his neck, then his wrists. A faint stiffness along his lower back loosened when he bent forward, and by the time both feet touched the floor, the strange irritation that had followed his attempt at idleness had already begun fading.

His gaze moved toward the clock.

06:08.

Lucavion blinked.

He leaned slightly closer.

06:08 remained 06:08.

’That’s depressing.’

Even on the morning when he had consciously chosen laziness, his body had apparently arranged for him to fail before most sensible people considered the day properly begun.

He stood.

The old habits had survived after all.

Lucavion ran one hand through his hair and headed toward the bathroom.

"Ten minutes," he muttered.

The shower answered his optimism with cold water before the heating formation fully awakened.

—SHHHHH.

"Ah."

Lucavion stood beneath it anyway.

The first shock chased the last traces of sleep from his head almost instantly. A few moments later warmth spread through the water, steam beginning to gather against the glass while he scrubbed away the stale warmth of sleep and yesterday’s lingering sweat.

By the time he emerged, his thoughts had settled into something considerably more cooperative.

He dressed simply.

Dark trousers.

A fitted black shirt.

A lighter outer layer suited for the morning chill.

His estoc settled at his side through habit rather than expectation, and he tied back the portion of his hair that threatened to fall into his eyes before giving himself one brief look in the mirror.

Acceptable.

Civilized, even.

Perhaps he was already prepared for the etiquette examination.

Lucavion left the room.

The corridor outside carried the subdued life of an early residence. One door stood half-open while someone hurriedly searched through a stack of papers. Another student descended the stairs with a book held directly in front of his face, trusting either memory or divine protection to keep him from breaking his neck.

Lucavion watched him disappear around the landing.

’Dedicated.’

Or suicidal.

Academia appeared to make the distinction difficult.

He descended another floor.

The residence became livelier with each level. Students crossed the common hall carrying notes, books, writing boards, breakfast wrapped in cloth, and expressions that suggested sleep had become an optional luxury sometime around midnight.

Lucavion stepped outside.

Cold morning air greeted him immediately.

—Fwoosh.

He breathed it in.

The Academy had only begun catching the sun. Gold touched the upper edges of towers while most paths remained blue-gray beneath the long shadows of buildings and trees. Dew clung to trimmed hedges. Thin mist rested above one of the lower gardens, and mana lamps along the pathways were only now beginning to dim as daylight replaced them.

The air smelled clean.

Wet stone.

Grass.

Cold earth.

Somewhere nearby, fresh bread had entered the world, and Lucavion’s empty stomach immediately developed political opinions regarding his destination.

He took three steps toward the central path.

Then slowed.

Students were everywhere.

Perhaps everywhere was unfair.

But for six in the morning?

Lucavion counted seven people crossing the nearest courtyard alone.

Two young mages walked side by side while one recited definitions from a notebook and the other corrected him between bites of bread. A swordsman sat beneath a tree with several pages spread across his knees, mouthing something while repeatedly tapping the same line with one finger. Farther ahead, three students hurried across a bridge, robes half-fastened and bags bouncing against their sides.

One girl passed Lucavion while whispering what sounded suspiciously like a list of noble greetings to herself.

He turned his head and watched her go.

"Damn... This early?"

She failed to notice him.

Lucavion continued forward, although his attention now wandered considerably more than before.

Perhaps the final day had driven everyone into desperation.

That made sense.

People who still had written examinations ahead of them had only a few remaining hours to shove whatever knowledge they had neglected into their skulls and pray that the relevant portion stayed there until the paper arrived.

Or perhaps the Academy always looked like this at dawn.

That possibility bothered him slightly more.

’Have they been doing this every morning?’

He had been occupied.

Examinations, training, the Mana Control Trial, professors, Elara, Isolde, various nobles with deeply unhealthy amounts of free time—

Lucavion glanced at another student jogging past while reading from a booklet.

Maybe he simply had not noticed.

The thought possessed an uncomfortable implication.

He might have accidentally become one of the less academically dedicated students in the institution.

’Let’s keep that private.’

His reputation had suffered enough.

Lucavion turned onto the next path.

Someone approached from the opposite direction.

He registered the figure casually at first.

A young woman.

Her hair had been tied back for convenience rather than decoration, leaving her face unobstructed. Her clothing followed the same practical logic: neat, fitted for movement, and considerably less concerned with presenting wealth than most things worn inside the Academy grounds. She walked with her spine straight and her steps measured, carrying herself with the quiet certainty of someone who had spent enough time outside safe cities to stop wasting attention.

Then Lucavion noticed her eyes.

Sharp.

Observant.

And currently fixed on him.

Their gazes met.

The woman’s expression changed.

Her brows drew together.

Her mouth tightened.

Lucavion slowed.

That look seemed remarkably judgmental for six in the morning.

He tilted his head.

"Urgh... what is with that expression?"

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