NOVEL WEB Chapter 28: The Puppet's Strings
The dimly lit history classroom hummed with the monotonous drone of Professor Eldrin's lecture. The old man, a walking relic with a beard that seemed to contain the dust of forgotten empires, was rambling on about the Third Dragon War. I had slumped in the back row, my head pillowed on my folded arms, the world a blurry, uninteresting smudge. Beside me, Sasha Whitehall sat rigidly straight, her posture a testament to a lifetime of disciplined knightly training. Her quill scratched across a sheet of pristine parchment, her notes perfect, her focus absolute.
[System: You do realize this is "Great Betrayals in Magical History"? Might be relevant for a professional backstabber like you.]
I ignored the jab, letting my eyelids droop shut. The professor's voice faded into a meaningless background noise, a lullaby of ancient violence and political treachery.
An hour later, I stirred to find the professor still rambling, now on the topic of the Shadow Schism. The clock on the far wall taunted me—another sixty minutes of this mind-numbing torture. My gaze slid to Sasha. Her knuckles were white where she gripped her quill, her jaw tight with a tension that had nothing to do with the lecture. She was a coiled spring, a drawn bowstring, and I found myself morbidly curious as to what would happen if I gave her a little push.
[System: Bored already? Try not to corrupt the honor student too much. It's unseemly.]
Leaning in, I dropped my voice to a conspiratorial murmur, my breath ghosting over her ear. "Hey Sasha. Did you know Eren stalks you?"
The quill in her hand snapped with a sharp crack, splattering a Rorschach blot of black ink across her perfect notes.
"W-What?!" she gasped, her head whipping around to face me, her brown eyes wide with a mixture of shock and horror.
[System: Oh, this should be good.]
I smirked, feigning a look of sympathetic concern. "Didn't think a prince like him would understand real love, huh? He's always ranting about how 'women should know their place.' That his perfect wife would be an obedient puppet, a beautiful doll to adorn his arm, even if he walked the wrong path." I tilted my head, my voice laced with a carefully crafted pity. "Guess you changed him. Or... maybe you're just the puppet he's always wanted."
Sasha's expression frosted over, the initial shock replaced by a cold, familiar anger. "I don't care about him," she said, her voice a low, fierce whisper. "I know exactly what he's like—that's why I'd rather die than be bound to him in some political marriage."
[System: Dramatic. I like her.]
"But your father is the Knight Commander of the Whitehound Duchy," I pressed, my voice a gentle, insistent probe. "He serves Eren's father. If Prince Eren demands you, what choice do you really have? Your fate was sealed the day you were born."
Her breath hitched, the sound sharp and painful in the quiet classroom. "Can't I choose my own path?" she whispered, her voice cracking, her carefully constructed composure beginning to crumble. "Is my fate already sealed? Why... why me?"
For a fleeting, unexpected moment, something unfamiliar twinged in my chest. A flicker of genuine empathy. I saw in her trapped, desperate eyes a reflection of my own past, of a life dictated by others. Then, I seized the moment, and her wrist, my grip firm and reassuring.
"Listen to me, Sasha. Your fate isn't written yet," I said, my voice dropping, becoming intense, hypnotic. "I swear on my mother's name—even if the gods themselves are scripting your life, I will rip the pen from their hands and give it to you."
[System: ...Who are you and what have you done with Ashen?]
Sasha's eyes widened, her tears held in check by a new, burgeoning hope.
"You're brave," I continued, my shadow curling around her fingers like a living promise. "You're kind. You deserve to forge your own path. And any obstacles in your way? I'll reduce them to ash."
[System: Okay, seriously, this saint act is creeping me out.]
I released her, my lazy, arrogant grin returning as if it had never left. "Who said anything about sainthood?"
I tapped my bracelet, pulling up a holographic recording interface. With deft, invisible movements, I had recorded our entire conversation. Now, with the cold precision of a master manipulator, I began to edit. I enhanced the despair in Sasha's voice, trimmed my own more... heroic lines, and spliced her choked sobs into a heartbreaking narrative of a girl trapped by fate.
[System: Ah. There's the bastard I know.]
"Now," I whispered to myself, "let's deliver this little masterpiece to Eren's desk before break ends."
Twenty minutes later, I slipped into the vacant Whitehound dormitory, a ghost in the silent, opulent halls. Eren's room was a testament to his obsessive, militaristic nature. His desk was perfectly organized, every book and scroll aligned with an almost insane precision.
[System: You do realize this might start a civil war ]
"Good," I thought, a cold thrill running down my spine as I plugged the flash drive into his personal terminal. "Wars make excellent distractions."
The edited footage played on the holographic screen. Sasha's tear-streaked face, her voice a broken whisper declaring, "I'd rather die than be Eren's bride!" followed by my own carefully edited, pitying narration: "Poor Prince Eren—it seems even the girl he loves would choose death over a life with him."
[System: You're evil. I approve.]
The classroom door had barely clicked shut behind me when three figures materialized from the shadows of the corridor—elven nobles, their silver hair gleaming under the academy's enchanted torches, their pointed ears twitching with a barely contained, arrogant fury. It was Lirien and his two lackeys.
"Crimson," the tallest sneered, blocking my path. "Mark your calendar. In two months, the Rank Challenge opens. And I'll be the one to personally drag you down from that stolen pedestal of yours."
I exhaled slowly, my mother's voice, a memory from another life, echoing in my mind. Patience, my storm. Not every battle needs blood.
Then the second elf laughed, a high, grating sound. "Look at him. Mother's little pup. How could a woman of noble blood raise a bastard like you? Weak. Cowardly. Winning through tricks—"
The third smirked, his eyes filled with a venomous disdain. "Maybe his mother was the same. Bad genes always—"
SHING.
A blade of pure, solidified shadow lashed out—too fast to dodge, too sharp to even feel.
The elf's tongue hit the marble floor before his scream did.
Silence. Then chaos.
The remaining two lunged, their faces masks of shocked fury. My boot cracked the ribs of the first before he could even blink. A fist, wrapped in shadow, shattered the nose of the second. A knee drove into a stomach. Blood, a shocking, vibrant crimson, splattered the marble floors, the ancient walls, my uniform. My own knuckles split open, but I felt no pain—only the white-hot, cleansing burn of rage.
The students in the corridor froze, their faces pale with terror. The professors who had been leisurely strolling the halls stopped in their tracks, their expressions a mixture of horror and indecision. No one moved to intervene.
Until— This version was sourced from M|V|L^EMPYR.
"ENOUGH."
A voice like frozen steel, sharp and absolute, cut through the violence.
The Judgment
The disciplinary office of the Student Council smelled of old ink, polished wood, and suffocating authority. I sat in the center chair, my hands resting calmly on my knees, my shadow writhing on the floor around me like a caged, snarling beast. Across the massive, obsidian table, two women regarded me with a glacial calm that was more terrifying than any open rage.
Layla Nowa, the Student Council President and Liora's elder sister, was elegance incarnate. She was tall and slender, her silver hair coiled into an intricate braid that seemed to defy gravity. Her violet eyes, sharp enough to flay skin, examined me with a cold, analytical precision. Unlike her more emotional sister, Layla carried herself like a queen who had personally executed traitors before breakfast. The golden "President" badge on her lapel gleamed like a guillotine's edge.
Beside her, Lucielle Crimson—my sister—sat perfectly still, her back ramrod straight. Her crimson hair was bound tight, her golden eyes burning with a quiet, contained fury. The silver Vice President's insignia on her collar might as well have been a brand, marking her as part of a system I had come to despise.
Layla steepled her long, elegant fingers. "One severed tongue. Two broken ribs. Three concussions. And a permanent stain on a two-hundred-year-old marble floor." She tilted her head, her expression unreadable. "Would you like to explain, Lord Crimson?"
I licked the blood from my split lip, the coppery taste a familiar comfort. "They insulted my mother."
Lucielle's quill, which she had been holding with a white-knuckled grip, snapped in two. "And that justifies mutilation?" she hissed, her voice tight with a barely controlled anger.
"Yes."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop by ten degrees.
Layla exhaled, a long, slow sound. "The elven delegation will demand your expulsion. Or your head. They are not known for their forgiveness."
I leaned forward, my shadow stretching across the polished obsidian table, a creeping tide of darkness. "Let them try."
Silence. A heavy, suffocating silence that was broken only by the sound of my sister's ragged breathing.
Then Lucielle spoke, her voice barely audible, a whisper of pain and confusion.
"Why must you always choose destruction, Ashen?"
I didn't answer. I just met her gaze, my own eyes a cold, empty reflection of the abyss she feared.