I Broke Off My Engagement and Got a Job at the Academy

0 – 0. Disintegration

I gazed at the woman before me.

The usual silver hair, the usual amethyst eyes. However, the woman before my eyes now appeared more unfamiliar than anyone else.

No… perhaps it was a familiar sight. A face I had seen countless times in my imagination.

“…I’m sorry.”

She apologized, extending an apology towards me.

I remained silent. I knew. From the moment she called me, saying she had something to tell me, I knew it would come to this.

Yet, my heart couldn’t help but fluctuate.

Eight years. That was the time we had walked together as betrothed partners.

However, the engagement could no longer be sustained.

After a prolonged silence, I finally spoke.

“…It’s okay.”

It wasn’t okay.

But there was no other choice. Because, as someone from a fallen family, I could no longer stand beside her, the Duchess of the Kaienese House, a prominent figure in one of the Empire’s five, no, four major noble houses.

How did it come to this?

Once, I too was an heir to a noble house. The successor to the Kaienese Duke, one of the Empire’s five major noble houses.

Unfortunately, my family met a sudden demise.

In a conspiracy plotted by the Hwang family, which stood in opposition to the Kaieneses, and some factions of the other four major noble houses who followed the Hwangs, I lost everything – accused of treason, stripped of all the family possessed, and demoted from a Duke to a commoner.

After losing all status and wealth, my father took his own life, and the loyal followers of Kaieneses scattered.

Having lost everything, including the mansion, I had nothing left. I was left relying on the goodwill of someone who used to be a fellow follower of Kaieneses.

So, parting ways with her, who had become so distant, was not particularly surprising.

“It’s not like I wanted this…”

“I know. Ariel. It must be the advice of the divine beings.”

I looked at her, who was wearing an expression of apology.

Ariel. Ariel Cielene, the Duchess. It was only natural for her, who became the head of the house at a younger age than me, to seek the advice of the divine beings.

If you think about the past when I helped her, she might have found it distasteful, but it was inevitable.

It was her decision after listening to the words of the departed, and anyone would agree that it was the right thing to do in the current situation.

Even if Arielle had truly resolved to hold onto me, there might have been a chance for us to maintain our relationship. But in the end, Arielle chose to heed the words of the departed, and today our connection has been severed.

I apologize, but that’s all there is to it.

Perhaps, from the beginning, our fate was meant to be like this. That’s what I thought.

Maintaining our engagement wouldn’t have benefited her family, and choosing her own family with Arielle as a priority was only natural.

Arielle looked at me. Confusion and a slightly melancholic emotion were reflected in her amethyst eyes.

I took off the ring on my ring finger.

It was the engagement ring that she and I exchanged at the age of 12. No matter what happened, I never took it off my hand, but ironically, over the years, the ring slipped off my finger so easily.

As if to cut ties, as if our relationship was only worth this much.

“Wait…”

Arielle tried to say something to me, but I smiled and said,

“Thank you for everything until now.”

She tried to say something to me, but I turned away from her and left the Cielaine mansion.

With this, it was over.