Chapter 95: Not a Couple

Valerian’s eyes snapped open as a bad feeling came over him for some reason.

’Valerie, how much time has passed?’

-...-

’Valerie?’

Seeing as there was still no answer and the bad feeling only increased, Valerian took out his watch and checked the time.

When he saw what time it was, his heart sank. It was only 20 minutes before the banquet would start, and he had almost missed it.

Jumping from the bed that was way too large, Valerian called for Twilight to make some clothes for him. But halfway through, he remembered the rulebook he had read before falling asleep.

One of the rules of the academy was that the apex had to wear their uniform to every official school event to show their status as the leader of their year.

’God damn it!’

Stopping Twilight from forming his clothes, he began to search for the spatial ring with the tailored uniform. After throwing around the blanket and pillows for a bit, he found the ring.

Not even looking at the design, he put it on as quickly as he could; since he was already late, he didn’t have the time to do anything else about his outfit or appearance.

So, with his head of messy, long silver-white hair, he ran to the door as soon as he was finished putting on the uniform.

As he left the dorm building, he ran into another problem: he had no idea where the building the banquet was being held at was.

So he ran and searched for a worker as fast as possible. When he finally found one, the woman pointed him in the right direction, and Valerian began to run.

After a few more minutes, he finally found the building and entered it. At the same time, he heard Valerie’s voice in his head.

-Wait, what is going on?-

Her sleepy voice rang through Valerian’s mind as he tried to find the right way.

’We both fell asleep, and now I’m late!’

Making another turn, he ran straight through another long corridor as the time was getting tighter and tighter.

’Fuck, fuck, fuck!’

Valerian ran along the large hallways of the academy. His boots sounded heavy against the fine marble as he moved as fast as he could.

-I’m sorry! I didn’t know how exhausted I was!-

Valerie’s voice echoed in his head, but he had to ignore her for now, as he had a more pressing matter to attend to.

He was getting late for the banquet. After taking his little nap, Valerie, who is connected to Valerian through his soul, also fell asleep, since the damage also impacted her. So he barely woke up in time to put on his apex uniform and sprint to the banquet hall.

He channeled as much mana as he could through his limbs, trying to speed up even more. Thanks to the spatial distortions that were practically everywhere in the academy, he couldn’t use his teleportation most of the way, and it didn’t help that his soul still slightly hurt whenever he tried to manipulate space.

So he had to rely on the good old sprint to make it in time. Since the academy was so massive, it took him way too long to even make it into the building where the banquet was being held.

Turning around a corner, he could see the door leading to the hall at the end of a long hallway.

Seeing as the destination was so close, Valerian activated his space affinity, closed the distance, and appeared in front of the double doors. A burning and stinging pain appeared in his chest as the pain from teleporting caught up to him.

’I made it.’

Throwing one last glance at his watch, he walked close to the doors, which opened on their own, making way for him to walk inside.

When he barely made it inside, his eyes directly found two people he didn’t expect to see together.

Arthur was just about to talk to Seraphine; as Valerian took a step forward, he could hear Arthur’s loud voice.

"About a month back, your dear Valerian was busy seduci-"

Valerian’s eyes turned cold. His mana crashed into Arthur, who immediately felt the gaze and turned with a sweaty face toward Valerian. Valerian could clearly see the gulp as Arthur realized that he had heard him. In fact, not just Valerian heard him.

Seraphine and all the students around him heard him as well, causing whispers to break out among them.

"Did you hear that? The apex seduced someone."

"Yeah, and the Arthur guy said ’your dear Valerian.’ Do you think there is history?"

"There must be!"

"Is no one going to talk about the Voidwoods part...?"

The half-spoken word also echoed inside Seraphine’s head as she processed what Arthur had just told her.

’Seduced. Seduced, Valerian seduced someone...’

Before her mind could spiral into something else, Valerian ran up to them and took Arthur in a headlock.

"What the fuck are you saying?! There was no seduction!"

Arthur wailed as Valerian held him in the headlock. Seraphine just watched them with cold eyes.

Valerian noticed the cold gaze on him, and when he turned to Seraphine, his stomach dropped as their eyes met.

"W-wait, there was no seduction, really."

Seraphine’s eyes didn’t change, and her voice was emotionless.

"Why are you telling me? It’s not like we are a couple and you have to justify yourself."

For some reason, these words hurt more than Valerian had anticipated. Suddenly losing the desire to hurt Arthur, he let go of him and just looked Seraphine in her cold eyes.

"You’re right. We aren’t a couple."

The coldness in her eyes disappeared for a fraction of a second before it appeared again.

Arthur looked at them both from the side as they just looked at each other, neither wanting to back down.

’Seriously, these two are hopeless. Even a blind man can see what is happening.’

Arthur could only sigh in disbelief at his friend and the elf girl.

Their stare-down was interrupted by the loud voice of Sylas as he started the banquet.

"I’m glad every new student decided to join us on this wonderful day."

A large projection appeared on every floor of the massive hall, and the ones on the bottom floor were the lucky ones, because instead of the projection, they got to see the real Sylas as he hovered above them in the air.

His eyes swept across everyone present, but they stopped when they met Valerian’s, and a grin appeared on Sylas’s face.

"What better way to open the banquet than to hear the speech our newest apex prepared, wouldn’t you agree?"

Not waiting for any kind of response, he clapped his hands, and Valerian appeared beside him, standing seemingly on thin air.

That was what surprised Valerian the most; being teleported against his will was already something he had become accustomed to during his short time with the principal, but he could clearly feel that his feet were standing on something solid.

While it did interest him how he did that, a more glaring issue came to mind.

He didn’t prepare a speech at all.

’Fuck it.’

"Don’t disappoint me now, Mister Apex," Sylas said to him, and Valerian could clearly hear the grin on the ancient elf’s face. But he didn’t really have the opportunity to do anything against him.

Having to wing it, Valerian stepped forward as his projection appeared on all the floors.

Unlike the other students and attendees, he, as the apex, had to wear his apex uniform to official school events.

The academy uniform was mostly black, fitted, and formal, with thin silver lines tracing constellations across the coat. Small purple details broke up the dark colors without making it too flashy.

The strangest part was the inside of the coat. It wasn’t fabric at all, but a living view of the cosmos. Stars drifted across the darkness, distant galaxies slowly turned, and faint purple nebulae moved whenever the coat shifted.

Paired with his high charm stat, even though he didn’t prepare himself at all since he almost overslept, the sight of him still took away the breath of everyone who saw him.

His long, silver-white hair hung behind him like a banner of divinity, with his healthy pale skin making a stark contrast to the almost purely black uniform.

His two onyx horns decorated his head like a regal crown, as a purple light shone softly from within them. His purple eyes glowed with a miniature galaxy, creating a perfect connection to the apex uniform that was tailored specifically for him.

His entire aura screamed cosmic deity, and some of the weaker students even had the urge to bow building up inside them.

His perfect mouth opened, revealing his pearly white teeth and slightly longer than normal canines.

Everyone was tensely awaiting whatever Valerian, as their apex, would tell them. Would the speech be about never giving up, or maybe about the hardships that forged him? To them, he was an anomaly that they couldn’t understand.

Valerian began his speech, and everyone lost their words.

"You are all worthless."