In the Archon Academy, no one could openly challenge royalty. The royals were arrogant, untouchable — and if you humiliated one of them, it wasn't only you who paid the price. Your whole family became prey.
But Brook had a plan. He had something colder than courage tucked behind his quiet face.
The day after magic class, he walked straight through the sunlit halls to where the Third Prince and his cronies lingered. The prince smirked at the sight of him, the kind of smile that ate gentleness for breakfast. Brook bowed low, voice steady.
"Please, Your Highness. Accept me as your servant. I was a fool to challenge your authority."
Laughter burst from the prince's circle — cruel, bright, practiced. The prince stepped forward, regal disgust dripping from every word. "What were you thinking? Do you imagine you and your lizard family can stand before royalty? Just because your line calls itself 'dragon' doesn't mean you are one. If you'd come sooner, I'd have tolerated you. But you dared to defy me — and I take pleasure in breaking insolence."
He leaned in, eyes dark. "Know your place. And as for taking over your family… your sister will be enough. I hear she is very beautiful."
The way he said it made Brook's skin crawl. The prince's expression twisted into something filthy, the kind of look that promised violations beyond insult.
Brook's voice trembled and collapsed into pleading. "Please, my majesty… don't discard me. I will do anything."
"You will do anything?" the prince purred.
"Yes. Anything." The word left Brook like a blade.
The prince's grin turned crueler. "Then lick my shoe."
Silence slammed into the courtyard. Brook hesitated for the briefest fraction of a heartbeat — then bent his face toward the polished boot. The act was a show of utter humiliation, and the prince's nobles roared with approval, praising their heir's dominance. Look how the Golden Dragon heir grovels, they jeered. Such obedience from one who should be proud.
But a new sound split the laughter — the heavy thud of a door thrown open. "Robert! What are you doing?" A voice thundered.
The prince—Robert—snapped, rage flashing. "How dare you shout at the Third Prince of the Kingdom?"
The academy headmaster's face was all stone as he pointed toward the window. "Look."
Robert tore back the curtain. The scene outside tore his composure apart. For every student in that plaza, for the staff, and for the prince himself, a living broadcast flickered across the sky of the capital and the academy screens: every taunt, every command, every forced humiliation — all transmitted in real time.
Robert staggered backward, eyes wild. "What is this? Who did this?" The projected feed stuttered and cut. The headmaster said, flat and brutal, "Looks like someone deactivated the spell."
Robert's voice rose. "Who dares—?"
Lucas — Brook in Lucas's skin — stood and straightened, voice low and sharp. "Maybe… someone who doesn't like you."
A messenger burst in, breathless. "It's not only the academy, Your Highness. It broadcast in the capital itself. His Majesty has summoned Prince Robert at once."
Robert didn't hesitate. He fled to his carriage, face twisted with a fury that could not find a way to strike.
When the courtyard finally emptied, Brook let out a single laugh — surprised, pleased, a little proud. "My acting was pretty convincing, wasn't it?" he muttered, then reached for his communicator orb. "Plan succeeded," he told the voice at the other end.
A flashback unfurled like a ribbon.
The previous dusk, Brook had returned to the dorm and set the trap into motion. He had an artifact at his disposal — a merchant's luxury most nobles assumed was myth: a round transparent sphere that allowed long-distance communication and projection. It wasn't a common device like a simple talking globe; it was a projection system that could broadcast real-time audio and video when paired with a capturing orb. Those capturing orbs were rarer, nearly sacred — and outrageously expensive. The academy itself owned only a handful.
Money, however, solved many problems. The Golden Dragon family had wealth enough to bend rules; Brook had wealth enough to buy the crucial piece — or at least beg it from the family vault. He had wept and pleaded in front of his father's gilded desk, and his pleas had been granted. The capturing orb became his for a day.
But he could not do it alone. He had friends — other students the prince had humiliated, young men and women whose pride had been crushed by the same boot. Brook recruited them quietly, passed the capturing orb to one, smuggled it into the prince's private Strategy Club — a room the prince had established as a private den. Instead of teaching tactics, Robert used it as a private stage for bullying. The club was the perfect place to trap his arrogance.
What Brook lacked was a connecting key: the prince's communicating orb. Only royals had the royal-frequency link that could operate the academy's projectors and the capital screens. Brook's solution was a forbidden little instrument — a mana-frequency catcher. It didn't create control; it sniffed and matched the royal orb's mana signature. With that frequency lock, the capturing orb would automatically pair with the projectors whenever the prince broadcast from his Strategy Club. The equipment was so expensive that one day's rent could buy palaces. Brook had begged for that too — and the tower of magic had, grudgingly, lent it for a day.
Under cover of night, his friends installed the capture orb in the Strategy Club. At Brook's signal, the frequency catcher intercepted the prince's communicating mana and linked the capture orb to the academy's projectors. Then Brook performed — the humiliation, the groveling — all while the kingdom watched.
Gold could buy devices. Talent and daring could buy a moment that would break a prince's mask.
And in the aftermath, Brook felt no triumph of cruelty. He felt only the cold comfort of justice done: he'd defended his sister's name, stripped a predator of his shield, and exposed the rot in a palace that smiled for pictures while starving decency.
He pocketed the communicator and walked toward the dorm, mind already turning to the next move. This is only the beginning, he thought. If the royals want to play, I will change the rules they live by.