Reincarnated Hero System

Chapter 1286: The Condemnation Ball

The Royal College’s graduation eve party was held in the main hall of the College, where lecture conferences and other similar events were usually hosted.

In an effort to keep it from growing beyond control, no families were allowed to attend, but every student was expected to participate.

Families would attend the formal celebration the next day anyway.

The party ranked just below the matriculation and graduation events in opulence, and this particular year, there were many outstanding students graduating, individuals who were both admired and envied by many.

All students were required to dress in a manner befitting their status as students of the nation’s number one higher educational institution, and for the scholarship students who couldn’t afford expensive attire, the school made provisions for them to rent clothes for the night.

By the time Evan and Sharon arrived at the hall, the party was already in full swing.

The floors were polished marble, where one could easily see the reflection of the chandeliers above, and every lordling and lady in attendance was dressed in their finest, with excitement visible across their features.

Evan had spent the day moving through the academy while under the effects of his concealment skill, and had suddenly appeared in the Chancellor’s office while Sharon was speaking with them and declared his intent to attend the graduation ball.

However, he said he would attend incognito since he had only come to find someone, which was why he was now in a corner of the hall beneath one of the galleries, petting the golden-furred cat in his hands as he looked around.

Evan was also wearing a mask, the kind typically worn at masquerade balls for nobles, and although such masks did little to conceal one’s identity, Evan infused it with a bit of magic that induced partial face blindness, resulting in him being able to move about without being recognised, even though his face had been on the news that very morning.

’Getting the Akashic Page was a big win. Having access to everything from all 50 World Magic Spells to small utility spells like this right at my fingertips is something I can never be ungrateful for.’

Such thoughts passed through Evan’s mind as he glanced at the untouched rows of pastries laid out for the party attendees, who were too occupied with trying to network and form connections one last time while they were still within the college, where most rules of the nobility didn’t apply.

"Which ones do you want, Kayla? Red velvets?"

[The blue ones.]

"Okay."

Evan reached out and picked up some cupcakes, bringing them to the mouth of the cat in his arms, and as she quietly nibbled on the cake, Sharon, who was nearby, asked,

"You’re not going to talk to anyone?"

"Hmm? I don’t have any reason to. Why’d you ask?"

He looked up at Sharon as he spoke, and the princess, also wearing a mask infused with magic like Evan’s, glanced toward the centre of the hall before replying,

"You said you came here to ’experience’ a school, so I expected you’d want to talk to the students as well."

"Ah, I see," Evan said with a nod. "I don’t really feel like doing that. I just want to find my acquaintance and then leave."

He returned his attention to feeding Kayla after responding to Sharon, offering a small service to reward her for all the time she had spent away from him searching the entirety of Eblor for just one individual on his orders.

But just as he reached out for another cupcake, a loud shout reached his ears.

"I’ve had enough of this!"

"??"

The music didn’t stop immediately, but conversations died midway through sentences as heads turned toward the source of the sudden outburst.

Evan blinked in confusion and turned his attention in that direction, while Sharon also looked toward the centre of the hall with a frown, wondering who lacked enough decorum to raise their voice in a setting like this.

People close to the disturbance quickly moved away from those involved, creating a circle of onlookers who watched the three figures at the centre of the parted crowd with expressions ranging from mild interest to obvious annoyance, while some couldn’t care less and continued the conversations they’d been having before the sudden shout interrupted the atmosphere.

The ones drawing everyone’s attention were a trio made up of two young women and a young man, standing at the bottom of a staircase leading up to the gallery.

The young man standing three steps up the staircase had short dark hair and refined features, his formal attire tailored with the level of quality expected of a noble.

Beside him, clinging to his arm in a way completely unbecoming of any noblewoman, was a young lady with honey-coloured curls and wide, glistening eyes. She wasn’t holding onto his arm the way a companion might politely rest her hand upon a lord’s sleeve, but instead had her fingers wrapped around his forearm while pressing herself close against his side, as though the concept of propriety was something she’d never once been taught.

It was not the manner in which any noble lady ought to conduct herself, especially not with a man who wasn’t her fiancé, and many of the students present who knew the man she clung to was already affianced to another young lady frowned openly at her behaviour.

However, the man in question didn’t appear to have any problem with this behaviour, his posture stiff with the particular self-righteousness of a man convinced he stood entirely in the right.

"I will no longer tolerate your selfish misdeeds!" he shouted, lifting his hand and pointing directly at the dark-haired young lady standing on the lower steps of that same staircase while looking up at the two of them.

"Consider our engagement broken!"

By this point, the hall had fallen completely silent. His earlier outburst had already drawn attention, but those words echoed off the high vaulted ceiling and reached every corner of the hall, and every eye in the hall turned toward the young lady on the lower steps.

She looked up at him, her expression unchanged as she replied, "I’m not sure I understand, Lord Aldric."

Her voice was calm, and not the careful calm of someone suppressing panic, but the calm of someone who genuinely saw no reason to raise her voice.

That calm of hers only seemed to anger Aldric even further, and his expression contorted with displeasure.

"How could you not? You know perfectly well what you’ve done to poor Mira!"

He looked down toward the young lady beside him as he spoke her name, his expression softening into something warm and affectionate before his attention returned to the dark-haired young lady and hardened into an accusing glare.

"She’s a charming and devoted girl, gracious and gentle in spirit, completely unlike your cold and emotionless self, and you couldn’t even offer her the most basic level of decency.

The 5 years I’ve spent pretending to be your fiancé have been the single greatest stain upon my otherwise spectacular life."

At his declaration, the dark-haired young lady calmly denied the accusations against her.

"I have not done anything."

"To think you’d continue lying even now." Aldric shook his head.

She blinked softly, the first genuine change to appear on her face, before tilting her head slightly. "Lord Aldric, our engagement was arranged between my Holt Marquisate family and your Voss Ducal house, and was thereafter sanctioned by the Royal Family itself. Do you truly believe that you have the authority to dissolve it at your own discretion?"

"I certainly do," Aldric replied confidently, "considering the terrible things you’ve done."

The dark-haired young woman, Lady Holt, blinked once more. "Terrible things? As I’ve already stated, I’ve done nothing."

"Lies." Aldric’s voice rose higher. "Mira has told me everything about how you became jealous of my growing affection for her and started bullying her maliciously throughout the entire college year."

As he spoke, Mira nodded beside him, her expression collapsing into one of tearful misery.

Hearing his accusations, everyone present in the hall was left stunned, including Sharon and Evan, who were watching the entire spectacle from a corner of the hall.

Sharon, especially, could barely stop her expression from turning into one of pure anger.

’This idiot!’ she screamed inwardly. ’Out of every possible moment to pull this kind of nonsense, he chooses here? At the graduation eve party? In front of all these nobles?!’

Sharon was incensed, and with good reason. She recognised Aldric, and although she didn’t recognise Mira, who was clinging to him, given she was a no-name Baron’s daughter, she most certainly recognised Lady Holt, the woman Aldric was attempting to break his engagement with.