An Unexpected Encounter
The man walked away, his back growing distant. Both Elion and Charlotte watched Kyle Berwen in silence.
“He’s a strange one,” Charlotte said.
“Indeed.” Elion nodded in agreement.
Only a few days had passed since they entered the Academy, yet the bond formed during the train ride had already led Elion to speak casually with Charlotte. It hadn’t been easy—after all, she was royalty from another nation—but Charlotte’s insistent request had made it possible.
“At the very least, he doesn’t seem like the person the rumors described.”
Elion silently nodded once more at Charlotte’s words.
Kyle Berwen.
In truth, he had heard a few rumors about the man even before enrolling at the Academy. It was only natural. He was the eldest son of the Berwen family, after all. Even if he had lived an ordinary life, such information would have circulated throughout the Empire. But his behavior had been anything but ordinary.
Commoners might not have known, but there was no way the nobility could have remained ignorant of the stories surrounding him.
From the beginning, Elion had possessed a general understanding of both the man and his reputation.
Yet the stories he heard after entering the Academy painted an even darker picture.
It was only natural that talk of Kyle would come up. Seniors and classmates alike would warn him, almost as if issuing a threat, never to get involved with Kyle Berwen. They would list off the incidents he had caused and the infamy that clung to his name.
The Berwen family’s good-for-nothing. A mad dog that must never be entangled with. Anyone who displeased him would be beaten. He would try to kill commoners simply for meeting his eyes. He couldn’t keep his hands off women and had already laid them on several girls within the Academy. Not a single positive word could be found about him.
However.
Elion no longer believed those rumors.
Because the Kyle Berwen he had seen in person was far too different from what the stories claimed.
Someone might ask how he could judge a person after only two encounters, but Elion trusted his own judgment.
He was sensitive to people’s dispositions and emotions. He could instinctively sense what kind of person someone was and what feelings they harbored.
And from what Elion could tell, Kyle Berwen was no villain.
He might not be a flawless saint, but at the very least, he seemed far removed from being an evil man.
The way he had asked for a potion, claiming he wasn’t feeling well, had probably been to avoid burdening Charlotte. If he accepted nothing at all, she would have felt uncomfortable in her own way. So he had shown consideration.
Elion felt intrigued by Kyle.
He felt curious.
Was it because the man differed from the rumors? That wasn’t the reason.
It was the look in Kyle’s eyes when he gazed at him. The emotion dwelling within them.
Pure goodwill.
And—
He hadn’t seen it wrong. Elion was sensitive to emotions. The life he had lived had made him that way.
Goodwill itself was not a foreign feeling. Elion often received goodwill from people he met for the first time.
However, that goodwill had almost always stemmed from his appearance.
It felt a bit awkward to say it himself, but Elion was well aware that his looks were far from ordinary. He also knew that other people’s kindness toward him began with his face.
But.
‘It’s different.’
Kyle’s goodwill was not like that. It did not originate from his appearance. It was pure goodwill born from something else—something he could not identify.
‘Why?’
Why on earth would he feel such pure goodwill toward him? Toward someone he had never met before, a person he was seeing for the very first time.
What was even harder to understand was the pity.
Pity? Why? What could he possibly know to feel sympathy for him?
Elion could not fathom it.
“……”
By now Kyle’s back had disappeared from view, yet Elion’s gaze remained fixed on the direction where he had vanished.
In a single day, he had met Bellard, then Elion and Charlotte, and even held conversations with them.
Strictly speaking, the encounter with Bellard had been more of a one-sided warning than a conversation, but considering how Kyle Berwen was currently treated within the Academy, it was undeniably a special occurrence no matter how one looked at it.
He wasn’t making a fuss over nothing.
Ever since possessing this body and entering the Academy, he had not engaged in any real conversation. Everyone who saw him would either frown or stiffen their expressions and back away. How could conversation even be possible in such a situation?
Therefore, today—when he had spoken with others not once but twice—could only be called a truly special day.
Yet it seemed the special nature of today would not end there.
After parting ways with Elion and his companion, just before reaching the dormitory, he stopped in his tracks once again.
It hadn’t been intentional. His feet had simply halted on their own.
The moment a certain woman’s figure entered his sight, it happened naturally.
Thump. Thump—
His heart began to race.
This, too, was not ‘his’ reaction. It was Kyle’s.
Just as it had been when he saw Bellard.
The only difference was that the intensity was on an entirely different level compared to then.
Thud. Thud!
Finally, their eyes met.
The woman’s eyes widened ever so slightly, as if she had recognized him as well.
He knew that face.
He knew her name.
That woman’s name was Rosalyn Blanche.
She was none other than Kyle’s former fiancée.
Kyle had a fiancée.
Or, to be precise, he had one.
The engagement had been arranged long ago, when Kyle was still a child. In Earth terms, he would not even have entered elementary school yet.
One might wonder what engagement a child so young could possibly have, but among the nobility of this world, it was a common occurrence.
Moreover, Kyle’s family was the Berwen house. Even noble families of moderate standing often decided on engagement partners before their children were even born. For a house as powerful as Berwen, such a thing was only to be expected.
The fiancée in question was Rosalyn Blanche, daughter of the Blanche family.
The Blanche family was one of the Empire’s prestigious houses with a history as long as that of Berwen. While their influence might fall slightly short when compared to Berwen, they were still a formidable family.
What set the Blanche family apart was their wealth. They operated a massive merchant guild whose reach extended beyond the Empire and across the entire continent. Their fortune was so vast that even the Berwen family might have to concede when it came to pure financial power.
In other words, she was a more than suitable match as the fiancée of the next Berwen family head.
Thus, Kyle had become engaged to someone he had never met, without any say in the matter. Surprisingly, however, Kyle himself had not found the arrangement distasteful.
No—he had actually liked it.
The reason was simple.
He had taken a liking to his fiancée.
Rosalyn Blanche was not merely a girl born into a good family.
She possessed the signature chestnut hair and lake-like brown eyes of the Blanche family. Her appearance was so lovely one might think a fairy had bestowed its blessing upon her, and she possessed a brilliant mind. She was the beloved treasure of the Blanche family, doted upon by every member.
That was Rosalyn Blanche.
And the moment Kyle laid eyes on her for the first time, he had fallen for her at first sight.
Although the engagement had been arranged between children far too young to even discuss marriage, their relationship had been surprisingly good.
Kyle, who had fallen for Rosalyn at first glance, had awkwardly yet sincerely tried to express his affection for her. And from the very beginning, Rosalyn had shown him nothing but pure love in return.
Their relationship had been harmonious, and it seemed as though the two great families would one day bless a happy married couple.
…That is how it should have been.
The relationship that had seemed like it would remain harmonious forever began to crack at a certain point.
It started from the moment the family head brought his second wife into the household.
To be exact, their relationship had not immediately soured right after that.
When Rosalyn learned of the situation, she had comforted Kyle and tried to help him. Kyle, drawing strength from her support, had worked even harder.
To protect his position as the heir.
However, despite his efforts, Kyle’s situation only grew worse. His influence within the family gradually shrank, while Bellard’s position grew larger by the day.
And then, at some point, Kyle was completely pushed out of the line of succession.
At that moment, Kyle had felt both rage and overwhelming despair.
How could he not, when an illegitimate younger brother who had suddenly appeared one day had stolen even the position of family heir from him?
Starting with his mother’s death and ending with the loss of his rightful place as successor. It would have been strange if a young Kyle had not been devastated.
Back then, Kyle had wanted someone to comfort him. In the midst of a despair so deep it felt as though he might let go of everything, he had longed for someone to support him.
There was no need to say who he had wanted that person to be.
Rosalyn Blanche.
The only hope left to Kyle.
After losing his mother and essentially being abandoned by his father, she was the only one he could lean on.
Kyle had yearned for her. He had craved her comfort and her love. He had wanted her to help him, just as she always had.
…No. In truth, it wasn’t even about wanting help.
He had simply wanted her. He had wanted her to stay by his side.
But.
That desperate hope had been shattered into pieces.
The memory still remained vivid in Kyle’s mind.
The moment he had poured out everything to her. The moment he had told her that he had lost his position as the successor.
The expression she had made.
Was it sadness? Anger? Disgust? No.
If she had shown any of those expressions, the shock Kyle received might not have been so great.
The expression Rosalyn had worn after hearing the entire story was…
Utterly blank.
It had been a cold, frighteningly emotionless face.
With eyes so icy that not even the slightest trace of warmth could be felt, she had looked at Kyle and said:
A voice completely devoid of emotion had pierced Kyle’s heart.
At those heart-wrenching, razor-sharp words, Kyle had instinctively reached out toward her.
But Rosalyn had mercilessly slapped his hand away.
Looking at him with eyes as if she were staring at filth, Rosalyn had turned away.
Those final words she left behind had been seared into Kyle’s heart like a brand of fire.
And so, Kyle had truly been left alone, falling into an abyss of despair. Into a bottomless pit where not even a single ray of light could reach.
After that, Kyle had changed as a person.
He drowned himself in alcohol and caused endless trouble. He moved according to his instincts alone.
Revenge? He had not even considered it.
Of course, the anger had been there. The fury toward his father, his stepmother, Bellard, and Rosalyn had certainly burned within Kyle’s chest.
However, he had never dreamed of using that anger as fuel for revenge.
He knew too well. He knew his own limits and the power of his opponents.
The strength of the Berwen and Blanche families was immense, and Kyle had possessed nothing.
If he had at least possessed outstanding talent, things might have been different, but Kyle’s talent had been painfully ordinary.
Revenge had been nothing more than an impossible dream.
And so Kyle had become a good-for-nothing and begun to waste his life away.
Just as Rosalyn had said at the end, he had truly become a human with no worth whatsoever.
However.
Not all of her words had come true.
The part about never having to see his face again—that alone had been wrong.
After enrolling at the Academy, Kyle had been reunited with Rosalyn.
Kyle had never forgotten Rosalyn for even a moment. The mark she had left on his life had simply been too great.
Still, he had thought that even if they met again, things would not be the same as before. His heart, torn apart by the blades she had spoken, had broken beyond repair. He had believed he no longer loved her.
But.
That had been Kyle’s mistake.
Thump. Thump—
The moment he saw Rosalyn, Kyle’s heart began to pound violently.
The heart he had thought dead roared back to life with fierce intensity.
He had believed he had let go of everything, but he had been wrong.
Kyle still harbored lingering feelings for her.
He still loved her.
Of course.
That was only Kyle’s story.
Rosalyn was different.
She held no lingering attachment whatsoever.
No—beyond that, she had completely erased the existence called Kyle from her world.
Even when she saw him, even when their eyes met, she showed no reaction at all.
It was as if the person named Kyle did not even exist in her sight.
Faced with such a reaction from her, Kyle had been unable to respond in any way.
He could not speak to her. He could not approach her and cause a scene.
Even the notorious troublemaker who feared no one became completely powerless the moment he stood before her.
In the end, as time passed, Kyle had fallen even further into ruin. Even more so than before he had entered the Academy.
The reason was clear.
Rosalyn. Her very existence. Her reaction.
They had only accelerated Kyle’s self-destruction.
And now, that very Rosalyn stood right before his eyes.