Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 974: It was quite fun

The silence in the ring wasn’t new.

He’d felt it before—after battles, after burials, after victories that didn’t feel like victories.

But this?

This was something else.

Arcten remained in place, the dull weight of the training sword still gripped in his hand, though his fingers no longer felt the texture of its leather wrap. The feedback dome had long since dissipated, its fading runes leaving the air cold and still. Lucavion’s footsteps had vanished minutes ago, swallowed by the stone and dust of the academy corridor.

Yet Arcten hadn’t moved.

He stared ahead at the space where the boy had stood, blade pointed at his chest, calm as a frozen lake. Not trembling. Not exhausted. Just… certain.

Too certain.

’The barrier broke. That much is simple.’

His eyes drifted to the floor where the mana imprint still faintly shimmered—cracked lines where the runes had overloaded.

’But it didn’t just break. It shattered after taking too much damage. After being struck cleanly. Repeatedly.’

That wasn’t a failure.

That was an execution.

He let the blade drop from his hand. It struck the ground with a soft clink, harmless now. Arcten brought a hand to his face and rubbed his jaw, slow and thoughtful. The bone still ached from where his teeth had clenched too hard somewhere in the third exchange. A ghost of tension still lingered in his wrist, the memory of deflection after deflection.

’No one’s broken my barrier in ten years. And that kid… That first-year… He didn’t just break it.’

A humorless breath pushed from his lungs.

’He could’ve done it five times over.’

The strikes had all been clean. Deliberate. Measured like a veteran’s, not a student’s. And worse—Lucavion hadn’t fought with instinct or panic. He’d fought with intention. No wasted movement. No reckless gaps.

’Even with that off-balance blade, he moved like it was a part of him. No estoc. No real edge. Just flow. Adaptation.’

Arcten exhaled again, this time slower.

’I wasn’t sent here for a real fight.’

No—he’d been pulled into this by the quiet machinery of noble favors. Crown business, veiled as school politics. A request made in the language of old debts: humiliate the boy, break his record, remind him where power flows.

And Arcten hadn’t questioned it. Not deeply.

He didn’t want to destroy Lucavion. But he also didn’t plan to lose.

’So what the hell am I supposed to do now?’

This wasn’t a mistake that could be erased with phrasing. This wasn’t a student who had merely exceeded expectations.

Lucavion had dissected him in front of the dome’s watching eye.

And it wasn’t just defeat that lingered—it was confusion. Arcten had experience. Better weaponry. Twice the mana control. But still…

’Why the hell did he feel faster than me? With less mana? With a body that shouldn’t have held that kind of form?’

He didn’t want to admit it. But it crawled at the back of his mind anyway:

’His body’s built different.’

Arcten closed his eyes for a long moment.

He felt tired. Not battlefield tired. Not exhaustion-of-body tired.

The kind that settled into your bones when the world moved a step too fast—and left you behind.

“I wasn’t meant to deal with this,” he muttered aloud, the words flat, almost sardonic. “Came here to teach swordsmanship, not get dragged into a damn thesis on anomalies.”

He looked to the side, toward the high wall where the observation room sat dark behind shuttered runes. Someone had watched. They always did.

’And now they’ll want answers.’

They’d ask why the test ended that way.

And Arcten was not to answer that easily….

He was a swordsman. A soldier. Not a scriptwriter.

He was supposed to train them, not choke on their potential.

He gave one last look to the center of the ring. The air still felt like Lucavion was in it, lingering like the aftershock of a storm that hadn’t been forecasted.

“Sigh…”

Arcten ran a hand through his hair and laughed under his breath, dry and empty.

“Arcten, you bastard… all that karma’s catching up to you after all.”

And with that, he turned away from the ring. Slow steps, heavy with thoughts he couldn’t shape yet. He’d write the report. He’d find a way to phrase it.

Or maybe he wouldn’t.

Maybe, for the first time in years, he’d tell the truth. That he lost.

Because sometimes, the blade didn’t care who held the rank.

Sometimes, it just pointed toward the future.

And it was wearing a crooked smile.

*****

The chill of morning lingered as Lucavion stepped out of the West Arena, the broken light of dawn finally cutting through the once-frozen sky. The gravel beneath his boots no longer felt like stone—it felt earned.

Each step away from that battlefield left behind not just the echo of blade and motion, but the remnants of a silence that Arcten couldn’t quite break.

The barrier had dimmed. The match had ended.

But Lucavion’s rhythm? Still flawless.

He slid his hands into his coat pockets, exhaling a breath that clouded the air in front of him.

CRACK—CRICK.

His neck rolled with the sound of bone shifting back into ease.

“Damn…” he murmured, half to himself, voice low. “Didn’t think I’d run into him today of all times.”

The words hung in the cold, weightless but not aimless.

A few scattered students milled near the walkways, some half-awake and shivering as they passed—none of them aware of what had just happened inside the arena.

No witnesses. No applause.

Just as he preferred.

Lucavion’s fingers tapped the edge of the suppression bracelet still clinging to his wrist. He didn’t remove it yet. Not until the dorm. Not until it was safe to let the world forget again.

He tilted his head back slightly, letting the wind brush his hair aside as he stared into the paling sky.

“I didn’t think I’d meet Instructor Arcten right here… at this hour…” His voice trailed into a hum, a small grin playing on his lips.

“Who would’ve thought?”

Because the man he just fought…

He was from the novel.

A name half-whispered between the bloodier Chapters—a figure who’d once carved through entire formations with a blade known not for elegance, but sheer force. Instructor Arcten.

A warhound given a sword.

’But that sword…’

Lucavion’s eyes lowered to his palm, remembering the weight, the angle, the shape of Arcten’s swings.

’It was different.’

n the story, Arcten wielded a weapon embedded with a mana-reactive core, designed to split reinforced shielding like paper. Its edge was infamous. Brutal. Nearly alive.

But the weapon Lucavion had just clashed with?

Dull. Suppressed. Unremarkable.

Certainly not the blade from the story.

Lucavion’s eyes lingered on the horizon a moment longer, then dropped to his hand again—flexing his fingers slowly. Remembering. Measuring.

’Maybe he hasn’t claimed it yet.’

Or maybe he’d lost it. Maybe this version of Arcten was still climbing.

Still surviving.

“I guess everyone improves in some ways,” Lucavion murmured, the corner of his mouth curving.

Because power wasn’t static.

And no one’s current station—whether rusted, dulled, or quietly worn out—could determine what they’d become.

He knew that better than anyone.

This was a different stage. A different war.

And every blade still had time to sharpen.

Lucavion gave a soft hum and pushed open the dormitory door.

The door eased shut behind him with a soft click, the dim morning light barely spilling past the frame. His steps were soundless—habitual quiet, not caution—until—

“Meeooww…”

A lazy yawn followed, almost theatrical in its stretch. The soft rustle of fur on wool reached his ears as the small, silver-furred cat uncurled herself from atop the pillow, blinking at him with those golden, too-knowing eyes.

[Welcome back….yawn…]

Lucavion’s black eyes slid toward the source of the voice, catching the flick of a silver tail as it curled back into place. Vitaliara was still sprawled atop his pillow like it was a throne, the soft tufts of her fur catching the dim morning light like strands of moonlight laced in smoke.

He dropped his coat over the chair without ceremony and gave her a languid smile.

“It’s not often I get to hear your yawn like that. From peeping cat to sleepy cat. Quite the evolution.”

[Shut up,] she muttered, eyes only half-lidded.

“Sleepy cat,” he added, voice feather-light with mischief as he passed by her.

[…]

She glared at him. No sharp teeth, no claws—just that narrow, silent judgment she delivered with such grace.

Lucavion only chuckled, already halfway to his bedside.

Behind him, her voice trailed after him—calm but pointed.

[How did it go?]

He paused, tossing his gloves onto the desk. “The exam?”

[What else?]

A breath. Half a smirk. He didn’t turn around yet.

“Heh…”

Then, softly—like sharing the punchline of a joke only he had heard:

“It was quite fun.”