The Royal Military Academy's Impostor Owns a Dungeon [BL] novel Chapter 453

Chapter 453: Search Results

Crunch!

The sound was deafening.

And not just physically, especially psychologically, for the girls who hadn’t expected it to be this bad.

None of them thought they’d be here, forced to witness something so ridiculous, so romantic, so aggressively domestic that it felt borderline illegal in an academic setting.

Kate’s teeth ground together.

She wanted to kick the other girls. Hard.

She’d worked so hard to stabilize Lyka’s mood after the last incident, when someone (AHEM, Janine) thought it would be a good idea to show her the forums. And now? Now they’d gone and pointed out those two over there.

Those two.

Kate could feel the migraine forming.

And if her family didn’t still owe the Vela family a mountain of debt, she might’ve just let Lyka spiral into the void of her own delusions. Full throttle. No brakes.

When they were younger, hearing Lyka talk about her "life plan" was cute. Dedicated. A little unhinged, but passable.

She’d go on about her fiancé, how she was destined to marry Lord Kyle Nox, how it was all part of the great marriage web spun by noble society. And back then, Kate didn’t question it.

Then she met Lord Kyle Nox.

At one of those gatherings.

And realized, with the chill of reality crawling up her spine, that Lyka was just a candidate—one of many. And clearly not the chosen one. Because they didn’t even know each other personally.

But Kate couldn’t say anything. Her mother had just given her a look and whispered, "Just let her be. It’s normal. Girls in arranged engagements cling to the hope. She’s not hurting anyone. And usually those people who think like that do so because they’re confident in landing the agreement."

Right.

Right.

Except now, she was absolutely hurting herself.

Over the years, Kate had just...indulged her because Lyka was decent. Harmless. As long as you didn’t mention K-Y-L-E.

Because just like a bomb-sniffing beast, Lyka would snap at the mention of his name. Her ears twitched like a feral creature. Her eyes dilated.

But things had gotten worse lately.

To the point where Kate had to actively stop her friend from committing minor crimes out of desperation.

Because even the blind could see it.

Lord Kyle Nox wasn’t just taken—he was emotionally, spiritually, and quite possibly biologically invested in one Ollie Mylor.

If he were a beast, that mechanic would’ve been marked. Body fluids and all. And not even the dumbest noble daughter could pretend that wasn’t a message.

The signs were everywhere.

The problem?

Lyka refused to see them.

And Kate? Kate had no energy left to shake sense into her. Because who could argue when this was how those two studied?

Who studies like that?

Who lives like that?!

Apparently, they did.

And the forums weren’t short of opinions about their unusual study habits.

[If studying came with cuddles like that, I wouldn’t even mind exam week.]

[Ha! You could, there isn’t a shortage of people who would eagerly do that, you know?!]

[Speak for yourself. If someone non-inspirational tried that on me, I’d file for harassment.]

[Is Jackson Taylor still single?! Asking for a friend. Me.]

[Upstairs commenter, get in line. No, literally. There’s a form.]

Kate didn’t even need to scroll. The threads were endless. Entire digital libraries were dedicated to this chaos.

She almost—almost—felt bad for Lyka.

Because, in a stroke of cosmic irony, two overly eager learners—who had apparently forgotten they’d disabled their privacy settings for group study—also forgot what exactly they’d been studying earlier.

However, he wasn’t alone. Because how was Ollie supposed to maintain even a shred of dignity when he’d just been caught compiling "research materials" on his not-quite-boyfriend-but absolutely, undeniably, not his brother?

Because there, in full glorious resolution, was his terminal—projecting the products of their earlier research: a suspiciously curated collection of someone’s face, someone’s torso (usually mid-training with shirt artistically hiked up), and the most random clips of said someone blinking, stretching, and—dear stars—smiling.