Shattered Innocence: Transmigrated Into a Novel as an Extra

Chapter 992: Olarion’s element

”...Is that... silver?”

”No, not silver—it’s too dull. More like—iron?”

”Wait, no—it’s changing. It’s darkening—look, it’s turning into that hematite hue...”

The murmurs reached Valeria before she even touched the sphere.

She stood before the pedestal now, alone at the center of the Crystal Hall, just as Lucavion had moments before. But unlike his trial, there was no tension in her limbs. Her hands weren’t clenched. Her stance didn’t falter.

She was calm.

Measured.

The whispers behind her thickened.

”Who is she again?”

The last word struck harder than the others.

Valeria placed her hands on the sphere.

And the color inside responded immediately.

It surged—not in erratic pulses, not in flashes—but in controlled waves. A deep steel-gray, dark and radiant, began to spread from her fingers outward, blooming like tempered alloy under a forge’s breath.

Not flame.

Not stone.

Not shadow.

A refined core trace began to weave through the sphere—fine lines of glowing ore-script, glyphs of weight, appearing.

One instructor leaned forward, eyes narrowing behind his spectacles. Another tapped their slate twice, muttering low under breath.

”...Metal.” He muttered.

And as he muttered that the students were a little silent.

It was an affinity that did not appear today, after all. It was the first time they were seeing that.

Just like that light affinity of the girl.

Another whisper followed, half-skeptical, half-awed.

”Is that even a recorded affinity?”

The instructors were murmuring amongst themselves now—three of them crowding closer to the artifact, examining the way the runic lattice had stabilized in near-perfect formation inside the sphere. The ore-colored light had shifted into a near-reflective sheen, rippling with a muted glow that carried density, not flare.

”Are we sure?”

”Yes. Look at the glyph trace—it’s not reacting like mineral mana. This isn’t stone...”

”No, it’s too refined. Too... heavy.”

”It’s metal,” the eldest among them confirmed, lifting his gaze from the arcane slate as the diagnostic line finalized. ”No elemental flicker. No split-glyph interference. That’s a clean metal resonance.”

Another examiner nodded slowly as he checked her name again.

”Valeria Olarion.”

And then, without hesitation, he turned to the others, voice low but certain.

”...No need to call the professor.”

They all nodded at once—recognition dawning.

Of course.

There was no need.

A descendant of Olarion Family wouldn’t need a second review with this element concerned.

She carried legacy in her breath and steel in her bones.

One of the instructors raised his voice for the hall to hear, tone brisk but with a thin layer of formality—respectful in a way none of the others had received thus far.

”Primary Affinity: Metal.

Secondary Affinity: Earth.”

A soft stir of murmurs passed through the students again, but this time with no challenge. Only acceptance—some quiet, some reluctant.

”Metal...”

The word echoed again, quieter this time—but laced with recognition.

And then came the rest of it.

”...Wait—pink hair?”

”Purple eyes—yeah, that’s her.”

”She was the one who stood next to Lucavion at the banquet, right? When everyone else kept distance.”

”Oh right—I remember her now. That’s Valeria Olarion.”

The murmurs swelled—not with the same heat they had for Lucavion, but not with reverence either. There was weight in the name. But it wasn’t the kind students bowed to.

It was the kind they watched.

Judged.

”Olarion... aren’t they the ones who used to serve the royal family?”

”Not anymore. They lost that position years ago—Drayke took it.”

”The last Olarion Duke was stripped of his title, wasn’t he?”

”Demoted. They’re just high nobles now.”

”And still clawing their way back.”

The words weren’t shouted. But they didn’t need to be.

Valeria heard them all the same.

She always had.

Her blood carried a name that once meant something in courts and council chambers. A name that had stood beside the Imperial Throne for generations, bound by steel and oath. But after the succession fallout—after the failed defense of the eastern borders and the political scandal that followed—the Olarion family had lost everything but its name.

And names could only carry you so far.

Especially here.

Especially now.

But even with all the weight behind those whispers—Valeria didn’t shift.

Her posture remained composed. Her expression unreadable. She didn’t rise to the implication. Didn’t flinch from the venom.

Because she had grown up inside it.

And the steel that ran through her affinity... ran deeper still through her will.

She stepped back from the sphere.

Slow. Measured, as she descended from the pedestal with quiet steps, the echo of her announcement still humming in the high air of Crystal Hall.

”Sigh...”

A breath left her—not loud, not weary. Just a controlled exhale. Like steam venting from tempered steel.

But just as she passed the first row of seats, the words slipped out.

”She does not even deserve to be a servant yet walking like she owns the place.”

Valeria stopped mid-step.

Slowly, she turned her head. Not all the way—just enough to catch the edges of the voices. Three girls. Their uniforms sharp, pressed with house crests. One of them—the one who’d spoken—met Valeria’s gaze, if only for a second. Her smirk was small. Calculated. The kind meant to provoke without earning punishment.

The moment hung.

Valeria said nothing.

But her eyes—sharp, violet-etched steel—locked onto the girl’s, and held.

Not with fire.

With weight.

The girl’s smirk faltered just slightly, her shoulder stiffening, before she looked away with a quick toss of her hair—as if dismissing Valeria before Valeria could do the same to her.

Valeria turned without another glance.

She didn’t need to respond.

She’d been dealing with smirks like that since she was twelve.

But still... her fingers twitched at her side.

No blade. Not here. Not today.

Before she could get too far, a murmur rolled through the hall—different this time. Sharper. Focused.

A change in the wind.

All heads turned toward the eastern archway of the Crystal Hall, where a formation of students entered—not quietly, but not loudly either. They didn’t need to be.

They moved like they belonged.

At the front were two figures that stood apart even in the symmetry of their group.

A young man in pristine black-and-blue regalia, his golden hair gleaming under the hall’s light-crystals, eyes as pale as winter sun—Prince Adrian Lorian, first son of the Lorian Kingdom.

And beside him, graceful and composed, walked Isolde Valoria, heir to House Valoria and Adrian’s betrothed.

Lavender eyes.

White-blonde hair cascading down like silken frost.

Composed. Regal. Every step was practiced. Measured. A daughter of cold mountains and colder politics.

Valeria, having returned to the main platform’s base, looked up just in time to meet that gaze.

And for a moment—just a flicker—those lavender eyes turned in her direction.

Isolde smiled....

And Valeria sensed something in that gaze.

’...What?’

A sudden chill, for a split second.

Hm.

Valeria stood still for a moment longer than she intended, arms folded, eyes narrowing slightly.

That look...

Isolde’s gaze had lingered.

Just long enough to register.

Just long enough to mean something.

There was a calm to her smile, yes—but beneath it, something colder. Measured. Not quite disdain, but not neutrality either.

No... That wasn’t just a passing glance.

It felt like the click of a blade slipping halfway from its sheath.

She exhaled softly and turned back toward the examination circle, letting her body settle into stillness—but her thoughts remained sharpened.

’I’ll watch.’

She wasn’t sure why yet, but her instincts said: watch.

Around her, the murmurs were rising again—excited now, curious, even fawning.

”He’s even more handsome up close.”

”That girl....she doesn’t even look real.”

”And she’s so elegant...”

Mostly from lower ranked nobles were these words.

Valeria didn’t need to look to know the girls near her were practically swooning. A few boys, too. It wasn’t just admiration—it was the layered awe of court-bred perfection.

And she could understand it. Prince Adrian...well, he was handsome, but most princes were pretty good looking.

It was the one beside him that....

Isolde Valoria had walked into the hall like she’d never once tripped in her life.

Even she herself who had attended the banquets and as a knight could somehow understand the reason for ”fawning”.

But all of that faded into silence as the instructors—who had stood with hands behind their backs in quiet formation—finally moved.

One of them stepped forward and raised his voice:

”Prince Adrian Lorian. Lady Isolde Valoria. You may proceed.”

”Thank you.”

They walked forward in unison—Adrian’s stride deliberate and grounded, Isolde’s lighter, graceful, each foot placed as if to music only she could hear. They didn’t acknowledge the crowd. Didn’t wave. Didn’t nod. They didn’t need to.

Royalty didn’t ask for attention.

It was simply given.

They reached the twin testing spheres at the head of the platform.

Two instructors approached—one for each of them.

Adrian moved first.

His hand pressed against the sphere with the casual confidence of someone who’d been told all his life exactly what he would become.

A beat passed.

And then the sphere responded.