Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra-Chapter 595: A past that has been faced (2)

Lucavion leaned his head back against the smooth stone edge of the bath, his damp hair clinging slightly to his skin. The warmth seeped into his bones, but it did nothing to ease the weight settling over him now.

He exhaled slowly, tilting his head just enough to glance at Vitaliara. Her gaze was expectant, unwavering.

No turning back now.

So, he began.

"I was a soldier."

Vitaliara's ears flicked slightly.

[Soldier?]

Lucavion hummed lightly. "Yes. Soldier."

[When?] She sounded skeptical. [You're not even that old.]

Lucavion's smirk curled at the edges, but there was no real amusement behind it.

"When I was fourteen."

Silence.

Vitaliara's eyes widened just slightly, but she didn't speak immediately.

She didn't have to.

Lucavion could feel the question forming, the weight of her unspoken thoughts pressing against him like the steam curling through the air.

Fourteen.

Too young.

Far too young.

But this wasn't a story of childhood.

No. This was war.

Lucavion exhaled, closing his eyes briefly before opening them again.

"And that's where it all began."

Vitaliara's tail twitched, her ears flattening slightly as she absorbed his words.

[Why?] Her voice was firm, but beneath it was something softer. Something cautious. [Why were you a soldier at fourteen? How did that happen?]

Lucavion's expression didn't change immediately.

But for a single, fleeting moment—his eyes did.

The usual glint of mischief, the lazy arrogance that colored his words, vanished.

This 𝓬ontent is taken from fгeewebnovёl.co𝙢.

Instead—

Cold.

Detached.

A glimpse of something locked away, buried deep beneath layers of careful control.

Then, just as quickly, it shifted again—melancholy bleeding into his gaze, something distant, something lost in the past.

He exhaled softly, rolling his shoulders.

"Circumstances made it so."

Vitaliara didn't accept that.

[Circumstances?] Her voice pressed against him, insistent. [What circumstances? You said you would answer my questions.]

Lucavion tilted his head slightly, his smirk returning, but it was subdued now—laced with something unreadable.

"I am answering," he murmured. "If you let me."

Vitaliara narrowed her eyes.

[Then tell me.]

Lucavion closed his eyes for a brief moment, inhaling deeply before exhaling through his nose.

"Let's not focus on unimportant details."

Vitaliara's ears twitched.

[Unimportant? You were a soldier at fourteen, Lucavion. How is that unimportant?]

Lucavion chuckled under his breath, shaking his head. "Because it doesn't change anything."

[It changes everything.]

His smirk lingered, but he didn't argue.

Instead, his gaze lifted to the ceiling, his voice quieter now.

Lucavion's gaze remained fixed on the ceiling, his expression unreadable. The warmth of the bath did little to ease the weight pressing against him now—the weight of a past he rarely spoke of.

His voice was quieter when he finally spoke again.

"I was sent to war as a criminal."

Vitaliara's ears twitched.

[Criminal?] Her voice sharpened. [For what crime?]

Lucavion didn't answer immediately.

His jaw tightened ever so slightly, but then—he exhaled, shaking his head lightly.

"....."

Vitaliara narrowed her eyes but didn't press him further. She let out a short breath.

[Fine. I won't pester you. Just continue.]

Lucavion's lips curled into something resembling a smirk, but it lacked the usual amusement.

"How generous of you."

A brief silence settled between them before he continued.

"They sent me to the battlefield as punishment. And since I was both young and a so-called criminal, my first battalion wasn't exactly welcoming."

Vitaliara's eyes darkened slightly.

[They didn't treat you well.]

Lucavion let out a low chuckle, but there was no real humor in it.

"I wasn't in a good state either, so it wasn't much of a surprise."

His fingers traced the surface of the water absentmindedly.

"In the first few months, I barely scraped by. Surviving in a war zone isn't about skill—it's about not being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I learned that fast."

He tilted his head slightly, his dark eyes glinting with something distant.

"At that time, I wasn't an Awakened either."

Vitaliara's ears twitched again.

[Then?]

Lucavion exhaled, closing his eyes for a brief moment.

"Then," he murmured, "I met the first people who ever showed me kindness there."

Lucavion's gaze remained fixed on the rippling surface of the water, his fingers tracing idle patterns as he spoke. His voice had lost its usual playfulness—there was no teasing, no amusement. Just something quieter. Something reflective.

"It was then," he murmured, "when my squad was changed."

Vitaliara remained silent, waiting.

Lucavion exhaled, his eyes flickering with something distant. "That's where I met them."

[Met them?]

"Yeah…" His voice softened just slightly.

"Mateo, Felix, Garret, Elias, and Clara."

The names hung in the air, weighty with something unspoken.

[Who were they?]

Lucavion tilted his head back, letting the warmth of the bath soak into his weary muscles, but his thoughts were no longer here. They were somewhere else. A battlefield long past.

"They were the first people who didn't care about my so-called crimes," he said lightly, though his voice carried something deeper. "Didn't care about the rumors surrounding me. They just… accepted me as I was."

For the first time in a long while.

He could still picture them.

Garret.

The one who had been a blacksmith before the war stole that life from him. His hands were rough, his voice gruff, but beneath that exterior, he had been steady. A mentor, of sorts. He never looked at Lucavion like the others did—never with suspicion, never with contempt.

Mateo.

The one who always spoke of home, of the family waiting for him. A wife, two children. A man hardened by war but softened when he spoke of them. His sharp mind had kept them alive more times than Lucavion could count.

Felix.

The thief. The troublemaker. The one with the mischievous grin and quick hands, always slipping something from someone's pocket, even in the middle of a warzone. But beneath the playful arrogance was a deep, bitter hatred—for the nobles who had ruined his family, for the world that had taken everything from him.

Clara.

Fierce. Stubborn. She had joined the army to escape, to carve out a new life with her own hands. She never let anyone dictate her fate. Never let anyone tell her what she could or couldn't be. She had been reckless, sometimes too much so—but she had never been afraid.

And Elias.

The scholar. The quiet one. He wasn't built for war, not in the way the others were, but his mind was sharper than any blade. He read battlefields the way others read books, saw patterns in chaos, found answers when there were none.

Lucavion exhaled through his nose, a ghost of a smirk on his lips.

"Back then, I wasn't an Awakened. I wasn't strong. I was just another body thrown into a war I didn't ask for." His voice was light, but there was something beneath it. A quiet weight.

"And they were the ones who taught me how to survive."

[Sounds like good people.]

Vitaliara's voice was quiet, almost mumbled. Her golden eyes flickered with something unreadable as she curled her tail slightly around herself.

[They might not have been 'good' in the eyes of the Empire or its laws. But they were good to you.]

Lucavion exhaled, his smirk softening just slightly.

"They were."

A beat of silence passed between them, the warm mist curling gently in the air.

Then—

[I see… Then…?]

Lucavion's eyes darkened slightly.

"Then," he murmured, "everything went down."

The words hung in the air, heavy with something inevitable.

"It was just another day of fighting on the frontlines, holding the Valerius Plains. Our squad was working as usual. The same routine, the same strategies."

His fingers traced the surface of the water, as if following the shape of an old memory.

"And then, the day before… Clara Awakened."

Vitaliara's ears perked slightly. [She did?]

Lucavion hummed. "Yeah. A full Awakening. We were all celebrating—quietly, of course, since there wasn't much time for that. But it was… a moment. A rare one."

A flicker of something crossed his face, gone as quickly as it had come.

"We were planning a small surprise for the team on the battlefield," he continued, his voice lighter, almost amused. "Just to inform the team that we know had an Awakened rising from our ranks.

His smirk faded.

"But then…"

Vitaliara's breath hitched.

She already knew.

[Aldric… Did he…]

Lucavion chuckled, but it was hollow.

"Well, you can guess, can't you?"

The water around him felt colder now.

"The Arcanis side was the first to send the Awakened onto the battlefield." His voice was smooth, too smooth, as if he were merely reciting a fact instead of recalling a memory burned into his very core.

"And that…"

He let the words settle, his fingers tightening slightly against the stone edge of the bath.

"It wasn't even a fight."

His gaze was distant now, lost in a battlefield long gone.

"It was just a one-sided massacre."