Beast Gacha System: All Mine-Chapter 259: Choosing to Forget
The news spread like wildfire through every corner of the continent.
"DAWNORO HEIR TO WED ORPHAN GIRL"
"Athenaeum’s Top Student Captures North’s Most Eligible Bachelor"
"Who Is Cecilia Araceli? The Commoner Who Conquered the Northern King"
Headlines screamed from every newspaper, every magical newsletter, every gossip rag that could get ink on paper.
The engagement of Arkai Dawnoro, the famously aloof, notoriously hard-to-please heir to the north’s most elite magic family had been announced, and the world wanted answers.
Most people had never heard of Cecilia Araceli. They scrambled for information, digging through conference attendee lists, academic records, any scrap of data they could find. Who was this woman? Where had she come from? How had she done it?
The rest, those who had witnessed the conference disaster, who had seen her power firsthand, who had followed her academic career, already knew.
In a small café near the Athenaeum, three familiar figures sat hunched over steaming cups, a newspaper spread between them.
"You remember how Arkai Dawnoro went off at the conference?" Mimoxa’s eyes were wide, her finger tracing the article. "No wonder. She was his fiancée. Of course he’d be mad at their incompetence."
Sloan, unshaven and rumpled as always, nodded sagely. "Yeah, I’d also be mad if something like that happened to my fiancée. That was dangerous. People could have died."
"Brother." Yakub’s voice was flat, his ink-stained fingers wrapped around his cup. "As if you’ll ever have one."
"Hey!" Sloan’s outraged squawk drew glances from nearby tables. "I’ll have you know I’m quite eligible!"
Mimoxa giggled, hiding her smile behind her cup. "Sure you are, Sloan. Sure you are."
Gossip swirled through every level of society. Nobles whispered at salons. Commoners debated in markets. Mages analyzed and speculated and wondered.
Outside the Athenaeum’s walls, the conversations remained focused on the couple. The handsome heir and his mysterious bride-to-be. No one dug deeper. No one asked the obvious questions.
But inside those walls, however, among the students and staff who had watched Cecilia navigate the past weeks, the conversations were very different.
"Did you hear?"
"Of course I heard. Everyone’s heard."
"But—but she’s already with—"
"Ssssh! Keep your voice down!"
"How does that even work? She’s engaged to Dawnoro, but she’s still—"
"Still with Edengold. And Alicei."
"Three? She has three?"
"At least three. Maybe more. No one really knows."
"And Dawnoro is just... okay with this?"
"Have you seen the way he looks at her? He’d be okay with anything."
"Or... or has she decided? Have they broken up? Is Dawnoro the winner?
"This is insane. This is—this is scandalous."
"Is it? She saved the entire conference. She’s the most powerful student mage in a generation. She’s connected to the princess, the Edengolds, and the Dawnoros now. At this point, she can do whatever she wants."
"...fair point."
"Fair point? That’s all you have to say?"
"What do you want me to say? She’s terrifying. I’m not getting involved."
Meanwhile, in the Dawnoro Patriarch’s office, the atmosphere couldn’t have been more different.
Cecilia was lounging on the sofa, the same sofa where she had sat during her first confrontation with August and where she had received Arkai’s mother’s jewels.
Wearing a simple black dress that was pooling around her like shadows, she held a newspaper aloft, reading with obvious satisfaction.
August and Arkai sat across from her, side by side, both speechless.
"See?" Cecilia’s voice was light. She tapped the paper with one elegant finger. "The news has changed course completely. Now there’s almost no negative narration coming the Dawnoro Family’s or the Athenaeum’s way."
She glanced at them over the top of the newspaper, a small smile playing at her lips.
"Even Arkai’s outburst at the conference after everything that went down is now framed positively. Protective fiancé defends beloved from incompetent organizers." She read the headline aloud, savoring each word. "It’s almost like someone planned this."
August’s jaw worked silently. Arkai simply stared at her, that helpless, wondering expression back on his face.
Cecilia lowered the newspaper and beamed at them both.
DING!
[You’ve succeeded in the task: Make him claim you in front of everyone!]
[Reward Rank 4]
- [5 Stars Artifact: President!Arkai’s Woven String Bracelet]
+50% CritDMG
[Unlock Rank 4 to gain this reward!]
[Would you like to roll?]
Seeing the task notification still hanging in her vision, Cecilia made a mental note. The last thing she needed to do was make this man remember the real world.
Everything else was done. Only one thing remained.
"Tomorrow is the beginning of our last semester in the Athenaeum, Arkai." She smiled at him, that warm, gentle smile that seemed to hold entire worlds. "Spend time with me."
Arkai glanced at his father.
August looked at them both with an expression that could only be described as tired. The kind of tired that came from having your entire understanding of your family upended in the span of days.
The kind of tired that came from realizing your daughter was capable of horrors, your son was in love with a woman who terrified you, and your own position in the world had shifted in ways you hadn’t yet processed.
He shooed them with a motion of his hand. It was as if saying, go, just go, I need to sit here and think about my life choices.
Cecilia stood. She bowed her head to him, then turned away without another word. A melodic hum escaped her as she walked, light and untroubled, as if she hadn’t just rearranged an entire noble house to her liking.
Arkai bowed too. He didn’t say anything, but not because he didn’t want to. It was because he genuinely didn’t know what to say.
His relationship with his father had become strange after Sienna. After Cecilia. After everything.
Well. Arkai thought, how would a father feel after bringing a new wife home to mother his son, only for that wife’s daughter to drug his son and nearly rape him?
Even though, yes, Sienna had become like a real daughter to August over the years. Even though she had become a real sister to Arkai. It was still insane. A nightmare scenario that no amount of familial love could simply erase.
A lot of shame was involved. A lot of complicated emotions. A lot of how did we get here and what do we do now.
And just after all that, August had pushed his son together with the woman the boy loved, had arranged their engagement, to save face? To salvage something from the wreckage?
Ha.
Arkai followed Cecilia out of the office, leaving his father alone with his thoughts and his regrets and the strange, unsettling silence of a house that would never be the same.
But better.
Arkai had a feeling that everything would get better.
It was unfamiliar. Disorienting. For as long as he could remember, his life had been a series of responsibilities, expectations, carefully managed crises. There was always something to fix, someone to protect, some fire to put out before it spread.
But now—
Now, for the first time, he felt eased.
Liberated.
Validated, even.
Sienna would be corrected. His father had done the right thing. No one was hurt. No one was destroyed. The family would heal, in time.
No one was hurt.
No one...
But something... something was missing.
The thought flickered at the edge of his consciousness, elusive as a fish in dark water. He reached for it, tried to grasp it, but it slipped away each time.
What was missing?
Right. It must be because of Cecilia’s plan to also marry two other men. That was it. That was the source of this lingering discomfort, this sense of incompleteness. What else?
But why didn’t that feel quite right either?
There was something else. Something in the back of his brain, scratching at the walls of his consciousness. A memory he couldn’t access. A truth he couldn’t name.
No. It must be the other two men. It must be because of them.
"Cecilia..."
The words escaped his mouth before he could stop them.
"Can’t... can’t I be your one and only?"
In the corridor of Winter’s Keep, Cecilia’s step faltered.
.
.
.
.
.
.
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Bonus Chapter! (From a new review ♥️)
