A Farewell Without Sorrow

For the past two weeks, the servants of House Astell's main estate had been muffling their footsteps whenever they passed the youngest master's chambers.

Everyone assumed he was drowning in despair. The story that he had been the one to request the annulment was, they whispered, nothing but a lie to salvage the family's dignity. The truth, according to the rumor mill below stairs, was that Lady Eleanor had discarded him outright.

Catch the eye of a young master with a notoriously foul temper at a time like this, and there was no telling what you'd suffer. A taut, brittle tension hung over the manor.

Contrary to everyone's expectations, however, Ethan wasn't thinking about any of it.

He simply woke in the morning, loosened his body with a few light stretches, finished his meals, and read in his room. He had learned the hard way, across previous lives, that forcing training onto a body with F-Rank Magic Aptitude only ever backfired.

If he was going to train, it would be after he enrolled at the academy, where proper facilities actually existed.

Until then, Ethan intended to quietly savor this brief stretch of stillness.

...I used to run myself ragged, once.

People whose names would ring out in a few years. And people who, in a few years, would kill by the thousands.

He had recruited the talented and put the criminals down. F-rank mana had never been a problem in the face of the combat experience his regressions had given him. Digging into Chris the Sword Master's past, finding his weaknesses, unearthing his corruption, blackmailing him into a powerless figurehead. Crushing the duke who had treated him like dirt, face to face.

He had done none of it this time around.

Move, and you inevitably drew eyes.

The annulment with Eleanor was unavoidable. Beyond that, living as quietly as possible was the goal.

"...If they throw me out, farming in the countryside wouldn't be so bad."

A memory surfaced unbidden — the rural village he had stumbled into while fleeing an assassin in his sixth cycle.

"Young Master, preparations for the entrance ceremony have all been completed."

Lia's voice, calmer now, came from beyond the door.

It occurred to him that he hadn't seen her face in quite some time. He had barred her from entering his rooms for the past two weeks, to keep her from getting tangled up in the servants' wild speculation or any of the family's pointless sniping.

"Lia."

"Yes, Young Master."

"Bring me a cup of tea before we go."

"Would Coolan be acceptable? I, um... you didn't seem particularly fond of the tea I brought last time..."

...Coolan tea.

A special blend of leaves that Eleanor was said to have gifted him, once upon a time.

"It doesn't matter."

Perhaps because he had been drinking it across ten full regressions. His palate, already trained to that bitter taste, was not so easily changed. The tea Lia had brought not long ago, claiming it was a precious southern leaf, had sat unfinished — he hadn't even made it through half the cup.

...One thing won't kill me.

Forcing even his altered tastes back to what they used to be was more trouble than it was worth.

Lian Academy sat in the very heart of the Imperial Capital.

The grand hall of the Empire's finest institution was packed wall to wall from morning with nobles and incoming students. Young men in splendid uniforms and young ladies in formal dresses clustered in groups, murmuring among themselves.

Mana-crystal artifacts filled the soaring ceiling, pouring down a dazzling white light. From every marble pillar — each easily ten meters high — hung banners bearing the crests of the high noble houses that held up the Empire, draped with arrogant splendor.

And among them, Ethan alone wore the basic uniform. A couple of buttons undone, he leaned at a slant in the corner.

Unlike the other noble sons, whose family crests were embroidered in gold thread with lavish care, his clothes were utterly plain.

A child even a ducal house had washed its hands of — not even permitted the family's own emblem.

A low murmur rolled through the hall like a tide, washing in and ebbing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠out. A few phrases stuck clearly in his ear.

F-rank. Disgrace. Debt.

Words he had been hearing for nearly ten years. By now they were just sound.

Except one unfamiliar turn of phrase mixed in.

"...But I heard he wasn't the one who got dumped — he kicked her to the curb first?"

Ethan, eyes still closed, let out a faint huff of a laugh.

That, at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠least, was something he hadn't heard in a long time.

If this had been the Ethan of his first cycle, he would have clenched his fists and flushed red at those words. In his third, he would have ground his teeth until he wept blood. From the fourth cycle on, he hadn't even enrolled at the academy, just to avoid seeing that spectacle.

Not that it had mattered. Once a label stuck, it followed you forever.

And that was the restrained version, coming from noble children with strict educations. The stares outside were far more blatant. Once, lingering at the edges of high society, he had been openly snubbed by some young lord who idolized Eleanor.

Anyway. The point was that talk like that didn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠touch him anymore. It was so predictable it almost made him yawn.

Ethan found a reasonably out-of-the-way seat, sat down, and closed his eyes.

At that moment, the heavy main doors of the grand hall opened, and the noisy chamber fell silent as if water had been dashed over it.

With neat, measured footsteps, a girl with long silver hair walked in.

Eleanor von Rosenberg, wearing the silver-and-blue uniform reserved for the top-ranked freshman.

Wherever she passed, nobles parted of their own accord. A low ripple of sighs followed in her wake.

But the eyes of Eleanor, standing in that brilliant light, were cold as ice.

The past two weeks. She had loosed three informants.

She had hoped they would catch something — black magic, a secret tryst, binge drinking, gambling, even a scandal with a maid. Anything. Just one thing, and she could have pulled him back into the palm of her hand.

The reports that came back were all identical.

Eleanor reread those three words again and again.

At first she suspected the informants' incompetence. Then she suspected his skill at covering his tracks. In the end, a possibility she did not want to admit remained — that truly, nothing had happened.

This wasn't a fight for control?

She could not accept it. That a man who had clung to her so desperately, begging for her favor, could overnight treat her as if she were nothing at all — as if he had simply turned over his hand.

And at last, Eleanor's gaze found Ethan in the corner of the hall, leaning against a pillar, stifling a yawn as if bored.

The corner of Eleanor's mouth twisted.

So you came.

Eleanor moved without hesitation.

The eyes of those who saw the direction she was heading widened in shock. The top-ranked freshman, the finest young lady in the Empire, was walking straight toward the discarded youngest son of House Astell.

"...Young Master Ethan."

"You've arrived, my lady."

Nothing more than a light nod of greeting.

Eleanor drew from her coat a neatly folded Engagement Annulment Pledge.

"As promised, I have come to give you my answer here. Before the Imperial House and every noble assembled, I will ask. Do you truly intend to dissolve this engagement... unconditionally?"

A stage she had set to publicly humiliate him, or to extract an apology. Every noble gaze in the hall snapped toward them at once, but Ethan's expression did not so much as flicker.

He merely sighed, a small sound, and glanced down at the pledge in her hands.

"Did you gather all these people just to confirm that answer?"

"...I beg your pardon?"

"I gave you two weeks. I assumed you'd have signed it and brought it with you. I didn't expect you'd still be hesitating."

Without a moment's pause, Ethan took the pledge from her hands, pressed it against a nearby pillar, and signed his name in a few brisk strokes. It took less than three seconds.

Then he held the pledge back out to her and looked at her with a gaze as dry as dust.

"There. Now you only need to sign, my lady."

A low stir ran through the crowd. The man they called the disgrace of House Astell had just publicly discarded the genius of House Rosenberg.

The ink was already dry. No trace of haste, no trace of hesitation in the hand. Each stroke was so excessively even that it, if anything, grated on Eleanor's nerves.

For a signature meant to sever a relationship, it was far too clean.

She put force into the fingertips holding the paper. Faint nail marks pressed into the thin sheet. The impulse to crumple it and throw it, and the reason that told her she need not even give him that much of a pretext, collided briefly.

In the end, the strength in her fingers merely eased. The pledge was not crumpled.

"Ethan. Are you... truly unmoved by this? I am the one discarding you. House Rosenberg is discarding you."

A fine crack opened in Eleanor's voice.

Ethan dropped his gaze as if bored, and asked quietly,

"Does that matter so much?"

"...!"

Ethan offered a perfunctory bow of the head. It was a gesture even less sincere than what one might give a stranger passing on the street.

"I'll be going, then."

Watching Ethan turn and walk away without a single moment's hesitation, Eleanor could only stand there in the center of the grand hall, frozen like a woman turned to stone, the pledge still in her hands with nothing but her own name left unsigned.