Lady Lyra Jorn shrunk in her seat like a trapped rat.

The party remained unaware of the small drama developing in the corner of the room. Music kept playing, dancers kept moving at the band’s rhythm, and the enchanted dinnerware flew undisturbed around the ballroom. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of Duke Jorn. A part of me knew that if I lost sight of him for even a second, he could vanish into thin air. [Awareness] made clear that losing sight of him would be dangerous.

“It wasn’t my fault I was expelled—” Lyra said, but before she could finish the sentence, Duke Jorn silenced her by merely clicking his tongue.

“I don’t want to hear excuses, Lyra,” Duke Jorn said, massaging his temples. His voice carried no emotion. It wouldn’t have been so unnerving if he had yelled and shouted. “Why have you put our family to shame? Why can’t you be more like your sister?”

Lyra’s eyes flickered with fear. The tension in the air was almost suffocating. Despite Duke Jorn barely emitting any mana, his mere presence crushed me against the seat. I didn’t need [Awareness] telling me he was dangerous to know that one wrong movement could end up with my blood spilled on the floor. It somehow reminded me of the Sniffers.

“I didn’t mean it to happen this way,” Lyra muttered, throwing her head forward, protecting herself from her father’s eyes. Her blonde hair spilled over her face, shielding it, but Duke Jorn's cold gaze seemed to bore into her. “I’m already Lv.28, I—”

“I said I don’t want to hear excuses. No daughter of mine will taint the honor of House Jorn. You’ll be returning home first thing in the morning,” the man said coldly.

“No!”

The words escaped Lyra’s mouth before she could catch them.

“No?” Duke Jorn asked.

Despite the man not having moved a millimeter since his arrival, he seemed ready to pounce over Lyra and drag her out of the party despite the Fortifier’s barrier.

“I can’t go back home. I was arranging a mentorship with Master Clarke. His homeland has a similar geography to Ardia, so I guessed he could help me develop alternative transport methods for our scouts,” Lyra said without hesitation. She was a good liar. “If we implement Master Clarke’s ideas, we could get notice of Monster Surges within hours instead of days, even without high-level scouts available.”

Duke Jorn’s attention slowly drifted toward me. I couldn’t ignore Lyra’s pleading eyes.

“It’s a preliminary schematic, but Lyra is a promising Scholar, and I believe she will be able to refine the idea to produce a working prototype in the short to medium term,” I followed with the lie, grabbing Lyra’s sketchbook and opening it in the page of the glider, hoping the girl was referring to that and not the car.

Duke Jorn didn’t bother to look at the sketchbook. Instead, he focused on me. My mouth became dry, and my palms started to sweat. I was transported back to the Farlands during my first days in this world. Duke Jorn had the same dark presence as the Wendigo.

Lord Vedras stood and put a trembling hand on my shoulder. “Let me introduce both of you. This man is Robert Clarke, Scholar. His resume is remarkable, even for the Imperial Academy standards. He is the Headmaster of the Rosebud Imperial Academy.”

Suddenly, a glint of acknowledgment gleamed in the depths of Duke Jorn’s eyes.

“Robert, this man is Lord Sellen Jorn. Duke of Ardia,” Lord Vedras continued.

I nodded.

“A Scholar? The man who caught Prince Adrien's attention?” Duke Jorn asked, shifting his attention toward Lord Vedras.

Oxygen returned to my lungs.

“A Scholar and a skilled fencer. Lv.5 [Swordsmanship] no less. His titles as a Scholar are even more impressive,” Lord Vedras replied. I couldn’t help but notice a hint of nervousness in his voice.

Duke Jorn cast one last glance at Lyra before locking eyes with me.

“It’s settled then. Contact my steward to arrange the accommodations. I’ll be expecting results,” he said.

Without saying a word, the reunion between father and daughter ended. Duke Sellen Jorn walked away, almost gliding over the floor until I blinked and lost track of him. Only then could I breathe in peace. The feeling seemed mutual because Lord Vedras slumped back in his seat, and Lyra seemed to melt in her chair. Even Elincia, who had maintained a steely expression, breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thanks,” I muttered, my body covered in cold sweat. “That was intense.”

“Damned Prestige Classes,” Lord Vedras replied, gulping half of his wine glass in one go. After a second, color returned to his face.

Lyra’s expression was a vortex of fear and anguish with a hint of gratitude. Her fingers nervously flickered with the eagle necklace like someone who had managed to bury even deeper in trouble. She was trembling like a leaf against the autumn wind. It took her a minute to gather enough courage to speak.

“You don’t have to mentor me. I’ll come up with something to fix this, I swear. I’ll send a letter to my father telling him the glider didn’t work, and you’ll be free from this mess,” Lyra said, her lower lip trembling so hard that I barely understood her words.

I wasn’t entirely sure about the fine details of Lyra’s family problems, but she was a promising Scholar and the daughter of a Duke. Moreso, she was neck-deep in trouble. I couldn’t just leave her out to dry.

Elincia read my expression .“You want her to stay, don’t you?”

“I don’t see the problem. We have like twenty empty rooms,” I replied.

Despite my knowledge of modern technology, I wasn’t confident in my ability to implement most of those ideas. I lacked practical knowledge, and while Ginz was a great craftsman, he lacked the deepest insight into my designs. Lyra might be the right person to compensate for our shortcomings.

“Would you like to stay with us for a season? I think it would be easier than continuing this lie,” I said.

“That would be nice,” Lyra replied hesitantly.

Elincia gave me a worried expression. “You don’t get expelled from the Imperial Library for doing nothing.”

Our eyes fell on Lyra.

"I swear it wasn’t my fault. A letter arrived one day, and the next, I was out,” she said.

Elincia crossed her arms. “I won’t expose our kids to someone I can’t completely trust. If she wants to be part of the orphanage, she has to tell the whole truth. Believe me when I say I can sniff lies.”

“You can be frank with us, Lyra. Nobody will judge you,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “Tell us what happened.”

Lyra stopped fiddling with her necklace.

“I left Ardia to the Imperial Library still as a Scribe, not a Scholar, so my father had to collect some favors for me to be accepted in the Upper Circle. Given my background and titles, Preceptor Holst was kind enough to accept me under his tutelage,” Lyra said.

I exchanged a glance with Elincia.

“Preceptor Holst made clear he had been pressured to accept me, yet after a month, he seemed satisfied with my performance,” Lyra continued. That sounded more like the Holst we knew. “I was a Scribe. There was only so much I could do, so Preceptor Holst told me I should focus on research until I became a Scholar. He was studying the war that caused the old Empire to shatter, so he took me as his personal assistant. I helped him catalog the unlisted books at the Library while focusing on my own research. There are more than a million unlisted books, so there was a lot of work to do.”

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“What were you researching?” I asked.

“Enchanter Baram’s history. I was trying to distinguish historical truth from myth,” Lyra replied. I couldn’t detect any lies. “I got [Invigoration] as a Scribe, so I didn’t need more than three or four hours of sleep daily. That helped me to cover more books per day than other researchers. I submitted to Preceptor Holst the chapters and passages I deemed useful for his research while compiling those who spoke about Enchanter Baram.”

“So, Holst expelled you because you messed up?” Elincia asked.

“No, it wasn’t like that. It’s true that Preceptor Holst isn’t the easiest person to deal with, but he was fair with me despite being a Scribe,” Lyra shook her head. “After a couple of months of sleepless nights, I had gathered a sizable dossier about Enchanter Baram. Snips of stories from second and third-degree witnesses, a few legends, and little more.”

The true identity of Enchanter Baram was a big question mark even for me. Like me, he was a Runeweaver, but I couldn’t prove he was a dimensional traveler. I scratched my chin. The relationship between runes and the System language could be a dangerous discovery.

“Most of the stories I collected were about incredible enchanting feats: the Royal Cursed Sword, bottomless water bottles, whetstones that wouldn’t wear out, flying machines, the Osgirian Invisibility Cloak. Nothing strange,” Lyra explained. “Then, I stumbled upon a few loose pages of an authorless field journal about runic language. It wasn’t mere suppositions about Enchanter Baram’s crafting process but actual recipes. If those were real, I’d be famous in no time.”

A shiver ran down my spine.

“Enchanting recipes? That sounds like a sham. Not even high-level enchanters can replicate Baram’s creations,” Lord Vedras pointed out.

“I know, but soon after making that discovery, I became a Scholar, gained most of my skills, and started stacking Investigator titles! I knew I was up to something! I just had to keep digging!” Lyra replied feverishly. “Then, a letter from the Headmaster arrived, and I was expelled. No summary, no defense, nothing. I barely managed to gather my things before a squad of royal guards escorted me out of the premises. That’s it.”

“Who else knew about your research?” I instantly asked.

“Preceptor Holst knew I was studying the story of Enchanter Baram, but I never disclosed any specifics to him. I didn’t want to share the authorship of my findings with anyone,” Lyra said.

“But if he was your mentor, he had access to your investigation. He could’ve read it when you were away,” Elincia said.

Lyra shook her head. “Preceptor Holst wasn’t interested in my investigation. We only interacted when I had a book or a chapter that could help his investigation.”

Elincia squinted as if she was trying to find a weak spot in Lyra’s story.

“Maybe he knew you had a crush on him, and he decided to press your expulsion before his honor could be tarnished by gossip,” Elincia said.

Maybe he wasn’t trying to find holes in Lyra’s story as much as she was trying to blame Holst for everything. I was also tempted to blame him, but my gut told me there was more behind the scenes—things even Lyra might ignore. Academic sabotage was a thing, but I wasn’t leaning toward that answer either.

“I didn’t have a crush on Preceptor Holst!” Lyra said, flustered.

“And yet your Personal Sheet…” Elincia pointed out.

“I had a crush on Lord Astur, just like half of the girls in the Imperial Library,” Lyra said.

“Lord Astur is very handsome. I remember him having quite the following during the year I spent in the Imperial Library studying alchemy,” Lord Vedras pointed out.

Lyra’s story made sense. If she was about to make a huge discovery about Baram’s runes, then the System might have put some of its counter-measurements to work. If what the System Avatar had told me was true, then the System had two kinds of counter-measures: internal and external. The internal measures were a set of sub-systems in charge of monitoring Corruption and cleaning up bad code. The external ones were the Quests the System gave to the Zealots.

Lyra must’ve found part of Byrne’s investigation. Then a Quest popped up for a Zealot, warning them about a Scholar making dangerous discoveries. After a letter from the High Priest to the Headmaster, Lyra was expelled without explanation. House Jorn was a small and poor dukedom, so nobody could fight the situation.

I felt terrible for Lyra. The girl had all the qualities necessary for a successful career as a researcher. She was bright, hardworking, and had a little too much obsession.

“Would you show me these supposed ‘recipes’ for enchantments?” I asked.

Lyra nodded, opening her notebook on an empty page and grabbing the pieces of the broken charcoal pencil. A series of familiar runes appeared on the paper. I recognized some of them. Gradual. Fire. Light. I couldn’t tell what the enchantment was supposed to do, but I knew Lyra wasn’t making up stuff. Those tunes were the real deal.

After a minute, Lyra tore out the page and pushed it over the table for us to see.

“Looks like scribbles,” Lord Vedras said.

“Yeah, it doesn’t look like they hold any kind of power either,” I replied, performing my best ‘absorbed Scholar’ act.

I couldn’t tell Lyra she was up to something there. Not yet.

“I think someone looked into your investigation without your permission and denounced you with the Church. I have seen accusations of heresy for a lot less,” Lord Vedras shrugged. “Competition was always brutal at the Imperial Library, and sabotage among peers was common even in the alchemy course.”

“That might be it,” I replied, kicking Elincia’s shin under the table.

I needed to know what else she had discovered.

“I guess we can get her a trial period at the orphanage,” Elincia said reluctantly. “But there will be rules. First, lying is strictly forbidden. Second, you’ll have to teach a class five hours a week, plus help with the chores at the orphanage. Third, encouraging Robert to do dangerous stuff is strictly prohibited. Understood?”

Elincia seemed to have forgotten she was talking to the daughter of a duke.

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am. I’ll do my best, ma’am,” Lyra said, her back almost as stiff as it was when Duke Jorn appeared.

I gave Lyra a pitiful look. Shu was going to tear her apart. For now, any more questions will have to wait until the privacy of the manor.

Suddenly, the music stopped, and the Marquis walked up to the small stage at the end of the ballroom. The guest turned around as the man asked them to walk to the side of the room. They obeyed as if they knew what was going to happen. Elincia shrugged.

A moment later, the tables and chairs flew through the air, forming a U-shape long dinner table covered in a lovely white tablecloth. Then, silver cutlery, porcelain plates, and crystal glasses crossed the ballroom, taking a tidy formation upon the table. Finally, a door opened, and dozens of trays appeared with various meats, vegetables, soups, and pasta.

My stomach growled. Everything looked delicious.

“Dinner is served,” the Marquis announced.

“Until later, then,” Lord Vedras said as the guests looked for their designated seats.

“Until later,” Lyra said.

Prince Adrien was sitting at the head, with the Marquis at the right and Lord Osgiria at the left, followed by the rest of the dukes. Low-level nobles and soldiers sat on the arms of the U, while merchants and notable commoners sat near the end of the table. Elincia and I found our seats on the left arm of the table, close to the dukes.

We were better positioned than most of the nobles, which did not escape the curious eyes of the guests.

“I knew you were going to like Lord Vedras. Non-combatants tend to flock together, like sheep,” Captain Kiln suddenly sat to my left. With her party dress, she was almost unrecognizable.

Raudhan Kiln swiftly came after her. He wore a red military uniform with a couple of small medals on his chest but no sword. His appearance was perfect; there wasn’t a single hair out of place.

“Auntie, you are supposed to sit near the Marquis. You are the Captain of the guard. That’s my seat,” Raudhan said.

Captain Kiln sighed.

“I’m not going to be subjected to more political drivel. I’ll stay here with Rob and Elincia and enjoy the food. Go cover for me; it’s a great honor,” Captain Kiln said, shooing her nephew with both hands.

“I’m going to tell everyone you named me your successor,” Raudhan joked.

“I don’t care. Go away,” Captain Kiln replied.

“Difficult night, Captain?” I asked.

“You don’t know the half of it. I have received no less than two marriage proposals,” she replied, tapping the crystal glass before her with a finger. A second later, a bottle of wine flew across the room and filled the glass.

“It must be hard being so popular,” Elincia joked, imitating her.

“Shut it, long ears. I saw you two also had your own share of problems.”

“Please, lift your glasses,” the Marquis said when everyone had found their seats.

Raudhan Kiln gave us a mocking look from his place of honor.

“Tonight, we drink to remember those who had fallen in battle,” The Marquis continued. “Worry not. My grandfather hated long speeches, so I won’t bore you with one the day we honor his death.”

The guests laughed, relieved. The food was too enticing to endure a long speech.

“For those who paved the way before us. For the kingdom’s unity,” the Marquis said before drinking from his cup.

Raudhan’s cup fell from his hand, shattering against the table. The room became silent. Before anyone could help, he fell to the ground, foaming at the mouth.

Then, a second cup shattered.