The Royal Military Academy's Impostor Owns a Dungeon [BL]-Chapter 935: Sheer Inability

Scratch that.

Rahil, the self-proclaimed idiot, should never have opened his mouth.

Clearly, there were better ways to spend what remained of his fragile lifespan. He could’ve counted the number of hairs he still had left on his head. He could’ve studied ceiling cracks. He could’ve even pretended to faint.

Heck, he could’ve just nodded politely and kept breathing.

But nooooo.

Rahil just had to talk.

And now the temperature in the room had dropped several degrees.

In fact, he was fairly certain that if he dared to glance down, he might discover the early formation of icicles near his boots.

For the sake of his own sanity, he decided there was only one way forward.

Confess.

Clarify.

And then shut up forever.

"For the record, there’s never been a meetup!" he blurted out. "I swear everything was over Star Net apps!"

Now, with the projected posts and carefully curated photos hovering in front of everyone, who would actually believe him?

But he wasn’t lying.

He could even swear on his master’s love life.

Which, considering who his master was, should’ve carried significant weight.

"For the photos, that’s Prince Elior and me!" Rahil practically screeched.

"..."

"..."

The silence that followed was not reassuring.

It was the kind of silence that suggested several people were simultaneously recalculating everything they thought they knew.

Everyone slowly turned.

Not toward Elior.

Toward Princess Kira.

The elven aide wanted to disappear.

Kira narrowed her eyes.

Rahil ever so slowly closed his eyes.

How did one manage to offend royalty from different races within the span of a few minutes?

Was this a hidden talent?

Was this his bloodline ability?

Nonetheless, since he was already halfway buried, he might as well finish digging.

"The others thought we were editing the photos," he rushed to explain. "No one knew about Prince Elior’s ability back then, and unfortunately, we weren’t exactly artistic. But more importantly, women... they’d know."

He swallowed.

"We don’t know how they always figure it out, but from what we observed, they always do. Something about shadows. Angles. Skin tone consistency. It was terrifying."

A few heads nodded faintly.

"So we couldn’t let that happen. What we did was, I’d wear the face-altering mask, and Prince Elior would partially morph his hands into a woman’s hands. Or something similar."

To minimize the strain on an already sick prince, they opted for partial transformations.

Hands.

Wrists.

Occasionally, a strand of altered hair.

The result?

Aesthetic.

Tasteful.

Seemingly candid.

Photos where a delicate hand adorned with an oversized gemstone ring would cover Rahil’s eyes, who was disguised as Luca. A bracelet just slightly too ornate to belong to a male heir. A polished manicure barely visible at the edge of the frame.

"Rather than obvious couple photos, we discovered subtlety worked better," Rahil continued, now fully committed to his own destruction. "Like footwear accidentally caught in the background. Or a different colored strand of hair brushing against a shoulder."

He paused.

"But what was crucial to the playboy image was the timing."

He didn’t dare look around the room.

He didn’t have to.

He could feel it. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

The room had split cleanly in two.

On one side, extremely curious listeners who were leaning forward in undisguised fascination.

On the other side, their large, very dangerous handlers who sat behind or beside them, radiating silent threats.

Gulp.

"Timing?" asked the golden-eyed cadet.

Of course, it was him.

Of course, the one person who deserved the truth, and also the person who sat on the lap of someone so menacing that the hairs on Rahil’s arms were seriously standing up.

"Yes," Rahil replied weakly. "The photos had to drop while entertaining messages from a few hopefuls."

Crackle.

He heard it.

That subtle sound.

Something fragile giving way.

Rahil did not look.

He did not want to confirm whether that was a hallucination or real life.

__

To be fair, all of this sounded bad.

Terrible. Truly terrible.

But in reality, it had been much more surface-level and conscientious than it appeared.

They weren’t whispering sweet nothings under moonlight. They weren’t scheduling secret rendezvous. It was mostly responding politely to messages and offering at least one genuine compliment.

For heaven’s sake, Rahil was as single as the next person. There were limits to what one socially anxious elf could accomplish through a screen.

To save his rapidly shortening life, he hurried to clarify.

"Wait a minute," Ollie interrupted, brow furrowed. "So my brother became famous as a player because you replied politely and praised people for their beautiful eyes? How is that philandering? My mom always said to only give genuine compliments."

Rahil almost wanted to cry from relief.

Finally.

A reasonable question.

"Because it happened to several people at roughly the same time," Rahil explained quickly. "No actual relationship would form, but eventually someone would share their conversation with someone else and realize they were talking to the same person."

He gestured helplessly at the floating projections.

"It didn’t matter if we were discussing the weather. The fact that multiple people received responses became the issue."

Gasps.

A few muffled noises.

He pressed on before anyone could sharpen a weapon.

"But I swear, it was mostly greetings, listening to rants, and positive affirmation! I never promised anything to anyone! We never made plans! They just started arguing amongst themselves!"

He looked genuinely distressed.

"And even if we’d wanted to go further to solidify the image, that was as far as our combined ability to flirt could reach!"

Unfortunately, fate decided that was the exact moment to intervene.

From the side, an Orc who had managed to remain eerily silent until now spoke up.

"...Then my Bunbun? Just who was I talking to?!"

Rahil froze.

Clearly, he should’ve anticipated the question and given an early disclaimer. Because now he was going to sound like he was making excuses.

Even so, his survival instincts kicked in.

He pointed immediately.

"That would definitely be Prince Elior, Your Highness!"

This time, a hiccup could even be heard together with the whirring of one system that was gobbling this up.

Princess Kira’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

"You better not be lying to me!"

"No, Your Highness!" Rahil squeaked. "I’m telling the truth! If I was bad at it, he was much worse! Only he would be sending those emojis with a nose when I already told him to knock it off!"

Beside him, Prince Elior contemplated ending his own aide.

Publicly.

Swiftly.

Instead, before the Princess could decide to personally mince Rahil into ornamental garnish, Elior cleared his throat and stepped in.

"You were really talking to me."

"And that started because of the conscription edict," he began calmly.