The Royal Military Academy's Impostor Owns a Dungeon [BL]-Chapter 925: Under the Capital Lights

"Do you think they’d be okay?" Luca asked worriedly as they waited for their next important visitor.

"Yeah. They should be fine," Xavier replied.

But his little wife didn’t look entirely convinced, especially when those two had left looking like they’d just fought a very long battle.

Kyle, who had caught up to speed after receiving an intensely detailed blow-by-blow account from his heavily-invested little star, added, "Lord Curtis may seem a little confused sometimes, but he can take care of Lady Eden. So far, they’ve made it this far without actually killing each other."

"Huh? Take care of Lady Eden?"

Everyone paused.

Several heads turned toward Luca at the exact same time.

"Why?" the curious blonde asked, having just finished arranging a small snack platter for emotional stability. "Is there something wrong with Lord Curtis taking care of Lady Eden, brother?"

Jax, who was in the middle of gathering his hair into a bun, glanced over. "Well, if anything, I ran into them before they were about to leave, and between the two of them, the Deputy looked more like he was about to cry."

"Right?!" Luca straightened immediately, clearly validated.

"Because the entire time, Lady Eden was more honest. But Lord Curtis looked like he was ready to burst and didn’t get the chance to."

"Eh?"

"Really?" Princess Kira, who had been anxiously waiting for a certain someone, turned to ask.

"Yeah!" Luca nodded earnestly. "So I actually think that today, the more vulnerable one is Lord Curtis. What if Lady Eden eats him alive?"

The question was asked with pure sincerity.

Unfortunately, it also caused several males in the vicinity to sputter at the same time.

It was, apparently, a very efficient way to discover that certain towering individuals required psychological cleansing, because none of them could properly explain the sudden malfunction of their respiratory systems to Luca.

Then again, the golden-eyed cadet wasn’t entirely wrong about his concerns.

__

From inside the hovercraft, the capital looked almost unreal.

Glass towers pierced into the night sky, their edges traced in white and gold light. Suspended transit lanes glowed faintly in the distance as vehicles streamed past like slow-moving constellations. Holographic billboards shimmered and faded in cycles, casting brief washes of color across the windshield before dissolving into the dark.

It was well past midnight, but the city never truly slept.

Curtis and Eden sat side by side, the hum of the engine low and steady beneath them. The only irregular sound in the quiet cabin was Eden’s small, stubborn hiccups as she tried to control her breathing.

She pressed her lips together.

Inhale.

Exhale.

Another tiny hitch in her breath.

Eden thought that even if she’d cried her eyes out earlier, she hadn’t looked at the city this clearly since everything crashed. For the first time in years, the skyline didn’t blur at the edges. It didn’t feel like something she had to conquer or outrun.

It just... existed.

Quiet. Twinkling. Patient.

Admittedly, all of those sounded a lot nicer than the awkward silence threatening to engulf the entire hovercraft if not for Curtis deciding to break the silence.

But he sure decided to go all out from the get-go.

"Why did you leave?"

Eden didn’t look at him. She kept her gaze on the lights ahead, watching a distant building flicker through an advertisement cycle.

"You already know why I left."

"No. I don’t." His voice was calm, but there was something restrained in it. "You gave me an answer for why one would leave in such situations. But I’m asking why you really left."

That made her turn.

She looked at him properly for the first time since they got inside the vehicle.

"I just had to," she said.

Then her eyes softened slightly.

"But that’s not what you’re really asking, are you?"

There was a pause.

Curtis looked forward again, jaw tight.

"You’re right. It’s not."

His gaze shifted back to her, and this time he didn’t look away.

"What did I do for you to leave me like that?"

The question came slower now.

More vulnerable.

"Did you seriously think I’d believe them too?"

A beat.

"Is that why you left even when I said wait for me?"

The expression on Curtis’s face was certainly a mixture of things. But for some reason, even with that pointed glare, it was rather obvious that he was hurt.

"You didn’t do anything," Eden replied quietly. "And I know you wouldn’t have believed them."

She looked back at the skyline.

"But that’s just it. Even more of a reason to leave."

His brows furrowed deeply. He clearly didn’t like that answer. It just didn’t make sense to him.

And then, as if bracing himself, he asked something almost reckless.

"It wasn’t because of Celine, is it?"

Eden actually rolled her eyes.

"Look at your face. Even you can’t believe you asked such a question."

He huffed under his breath. "Right."

"If even you didn’t believe everything she tried cooking up in that brain of hers," Eden continued dryly, "then what makes you think I’d believe the idea that she might just be pregnant with your kid?"

Curtis straightened so fast he nearly hit his head on the roof.

"The fuck?"

She blinked.

Then gave him a look.

"Ah. That’s rare. Your inside voice actually coming out."

He stared at her. "What are you talking about?"

"It seems like you didn’t know," she went on calmly, "that in her narrative you were about to be a baby daddy she didn’t want to inform because she didn’t want to distract you from the last leg of your officer training."

Silence.

Curtis’s expression went from disbelief to something dangerously close to fury.

Over his dead body would that have ever happened.

He opened his mouth, ready to dismantle that entire fiction piece by piece.

But Eden leaned her head back against the headrest.

"I knew it was impossible from the get-go."

Eh?

"..."

"Huh? How?"

She inhaled slowly, then shrugged.

"One, she kept giving dates that collided with you not even being on the same planet."

She turned her head slightly toward him.

"And two, it’s just not your style. If it had been true, she would’ve been offered marriage instead of needing to tell me she hoped I wouldn’t force you to choose when we weren’t even actually together back then."

The aghast Deputy stared at her.

He knew Celine was vile. He knew she’d deliberately shown him those photos she was allegedly "concerned" about.

He thought he’d already taught her a lesson, but apparently driving that woman away like that wasn’t enough.

Because he simply hadn’t realized she’d gone that far.

And yet...

Eden was saying it wasn’t that.

So what was it?

Even when she returned and he let himself fall into her trap, he hadn’t dared question her like this. He had just jumped into a relationship because he’d been scared she would disappear again.

But this?

This was going to drive him insane.

If he didn’t figure out what kind of atrocity he had supposedly committed, he wouldn’t be able to sleep.

"Then if not that," he said, voice lower now, "why? Why did you leave just like that?"