After Lucien left, the classroom was filled with discussion all about Lucien.
"He wasn't like the rumours at all.."
"I have never understood magic better from anyone else like I did from him."
"B-but what did he mean by the that, Seraphine?.."
One of the noble girls sitting next to Seraphine asked.
"I-I don't know..."
"Do you know professor Lucien..."
"No this is the first time we have met."
*.....*
Lucien went straight to his office.
After organising future lecture plans and finishing the rest of the tasks of a professor.
He quickly prepared to leave for the Magic tower but just as he was about to board the carriage a cold voice sounded behind him.
"Lucien."
Lucien turned back and saw that it was a young woman with silver hair looking at him with a frown.
'My fiancee, Isolde.'
"Yes, lady Isolde?"
"Why did you do that?"
"Did what?"
Lucien said with confused eyes.
"I already heard about, what you declared in your class...Why did you lie about your rank?"
"How is it possible for you to be a Grade 5 mage?"
"..."
'Well, from her perspective Lucien a third rate mage just after a month of training claimed to be a Grade 5.'
'But I never thought, she would be so emotional, although from her perspective I was simply breaking our promise and going back to my old ways of flaunting my non existent talent..but she is clearly overlooking something.'
"Please take back your word I still hope
you..."
Isolde continued but her voice grew weaker and weaker until she stopped, after looking at Lucien's hurt and disappointed face.
"..."
"Miss Isolde...You must know that I quit alcohol right?"
"Y-yes.."
"That all I have been doing in the past month is nothing but training all day.."
"Yes"
"Just to keep our promise..."
Isolde suddenly felt guilty and slightly lowered her head.
"I..am sorry for getting agitated, I know you have been trying hard to change...but must not be so easy to change your old habits..even so what you did was wrong.."
"So let's just go and retract your statement as a joke...I-I will go with you, just correct-"
Lucien interrupted her.
"Miss Isolde, You must have heard what I said right?"
"Yes."
"Then did you not hear that I will be giving the promotional exam today?...Do you think I would lie when the results will be public by today evening? Or Do you think I could buy out the entire magic tower?"
At my reasoning Isolde's face became slightly stiff.
"U-uh..n-no that.."
"I know that it's not believable for you that I am a Grade 5 mage...and I don't ask you to believe me.."
"Even that day I never asked you to trust me I only asked you to give me a chance to prove myself."
"..."
"I know what kinda of person I was before, but now I have truly changed so atleast let me prove myself before...accusing me."
Lucien paused slightly and said the last part in a low voice specifically to make her feel guilty.
Isolde trembled slightly.
"T-that.."
"No need to be sorry, I can understand..but it still hurts."
Lucien said while getting on his carriage he didn't look back boarded directly.
Isolde flinched at his words as she looked at his back boarding the carriage.
Isolde stood there for a long time staring blankly at the direction the carriage disappeared into.
*.....*
'Did I overdo it?...Now I feel guilty for making her feel guilty..'
Lucien thought while looking out the carriage.
"Sigh~"
"Although I did it on purpose, but it's not like whatever I said was false...No matter what I need to get closer with her in order to protect her and get her help and according to her setting this is the fastest method to make her trust me...as long as I get the Grade 5 rank today I can make her feel guilty enough that making her more inclined to move against dangers hidden in the Academy when the time comes..."
"As for our political marriage and making her fall for me, I never once thought about it...after all even after inheriting all of Lucien's memories and emotions I don't feel any love towards her... Because the original Lucien never actually loved her...he had only obsessed with her."
"Even if she is beautiful, I don't really feel attracted to her, even more so to her strict and righteous personality.."
"But I will try to make our relationship better at the least so we can part amicably."
"As for keeping this political marriage, I never once considered it...I will break it off sooner or later."
"I have already lived a life dictated by my parents and politics I want to live freely in this life."
"Maybe make real friends that I have never been able to make in my previous life or maybe even fall in love..."
Lucien, in his previous life, had never had a real friend not did he ever even get a chance to experience love, perhaps if he had stayed in his previous life, in a year or so his parents would have forced him to marry some woman from an powerful background to make connections -- a marriage without love purely for benefits.
That why he felt repulsive towards his engagement with Isolde rather than Isolde herself.