I Reincarnated into a Single-celled Organism! - Chapter 226

“When did you become so popular?” I looked back to see Headmistress Domini returning, watching as Lord Blanche returned to the front, only to be surrounded by a flock of smiling sycophants.

“How so?” I asked, taking a glass of wine she offered me.

She sipped her own wine before answering. “I was gone for only a short while, but I’ve seen you speaking with Stride, Lou, Boran, and Blanche families. Given that I’m a Domini, you’re married to a Capala, owe a warden money, and are friends with the broken prince, the only power in the city you’re not connected with is the Frankford family.”

“Have you been watching me so closely?” I teased.

Her cheeks turned red. “I invited you here as my guest. If you created trouble, it would look bad on me and the academy as a whole. Thankfully, you seem to have many friends.”

“We’re hardly friends.” I chuckled. “I’d consider some of these relationships outright antagonistic.”

I took a sip of the wine. I had been working on my taste buds recently, and while I couldn’t say that I could perfectly emulate a human palate, the wine was pretty close to what I remembered. It had a rich and complex palate, a deep, ruby-red concoction that had the aroma of cherries and a subtle spicy flavor. However, I was no wine connoisseur, and would honestly rather have a good beer, not that either had the alcohol content necessary to make me feel inebriated without me intentionally producing alcohol in my own body using my Fermentation skill.

Headmistress Domini shook her head slightly. “Connections are connections. Today’s enemy might be tomorrow’s ally. This is the way the game is played among the families. Don’t let your emotions affect too many of your choices. No one else will be acting with their emotions. They will make the most beneficial choice for themselves, even if they have to sacrifice their own to do it.”

She spoke that last part with a bitter expression. Then, she took another long sip.

“Well, if we’re including enemies, I’m sure you could say I’m connected to the Frankford family as well. Hell, you can even add Lord Maxwell to the list.”

Headmistress Domini nearly spat out her drink, swallowing hard. “Lord Maxwell? Where have you heard that name?”

“You’ve not heard of him?”

“How could I not know the names and faces of all the provincial lords. They are the strongest powers in their respective territories,” she said with a frown. “However, I mean no offense, but how, as a commoner, do you hear of their likes?”

She was looking at me intently, so I knew I wasn’t allowed brush off the question. “We met. The meeting didn’t go well. If you’re curious, ask Erika Blanche.”

Her expression flickered, but she thankfully didn’t push the issue. “You seem more interesting every day.”

“Is that why you invited me to this dinner?” I asked innocently.

She considered my question more seriously than I expected. “You could call in a hunch. I feel like things in this city might be undergoing a major change in the near future, and something tells me you will be part of this change.”

“Are you psychic now?”

“Don’t be silly. I’m not part of the sect of precognition and temporal divinations.” She laughed.

I blinked. Such a thing really did exist in this world? I suppose, considering magic was pretty much a thing, why not future sight?

“Strange…” I unintentionally responded out loud.

“Is it?” She blinked. “I’m not particularly good at mathematics, and divination requires a great deal of math, using probabilities and statistics to predict the flow of life energy.”

“Wouldn’t the act of observing the future change what happens?” I asked.

She made a noise of surprise. “You’re familiar with the Young Paradigm?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t have the double-slit experiment?”

“Hmm? What’s that? The Young Paradigm is an observation about predicting the movement of life energy. A young evolutionist proved that by observing life energy, you change how it functions, making accurate divination impossible. Ah, but don’t tell this to a precog. They renounce Young’s findings, and there are still plenty of people who find members of their sect both amazing and mysterious.”

I eased my breathing, although it was more instinctual than a necessity. I was shocked at the mention of Thomas Young. He was the scientist who first did the double-slit experiment in the 1800s. In short, he wanted to find out if light acted as a wave or a particle. So, he shot light at two closely aligned slits and had them hit light-sensitive film on the other side. If light were a particle, then it would fly straight, and you’d see two slits appear on the film. If light were a wave, then once the light hit the slits, it would spread out, the waves interfering with each other, which created a pattern known as an interference pattern.

He ended up seeing an interference pattern, concluding that light was a wave. However, future experiments have also proved light is a particle. It turned out to be both, but things got weird during the modern era. Additional modern experiments on electrons found that whether it was a wave or a particle depended on whether you were watching it, meaning the act of watching it changed its behavior. The craziest part of all of that was that there was a temporal property to it.

When someone observed an electron after it went through the slit, it still changed its behavior. It changed it in a way that only could have happened before it reached the slit. In other words, somehow watching it changed how it acted before they observed it! Like many things I had discovered, this world had something similar to the science I was familiar with, but just a bit off. I realized that Headmistress Domini was staring at me with the wine cup up to her lips, but she wasn’t drinking.

“What?” I asked.

“You are also mysterious in your own way,” she answered. “I wonder if you’ll be a positive influence on this town… or something more… negative.”

“I prefer to remain neutral,” I responded.

“No one stays neutral…” She shook her head sadly, but then her eyes caught something behind me, and her expression immediately turned cold. “Speaking of negatives…”

“Spirit!” a voice called out happily. “I just heard you were here!”

I looked behind me and smiled as Sammuel approached with a grin on his face. He immediately grabbed me, boldly patting my back as we shook hands. It had been a while since I had seen Sammuel, but while he hadn’t changed, I started to notice things I hadn’t before. His appearance was slightly disheveled. His shirt was untucked, his coat was just a tad wrinkled, and his hair was uncombed. His cheeks were rosy, and his breath smelled of alcohol.

When I had been hanging around drunk commoners at the bar, he had stood out as an example of prim and proper, but such an observation was relative. Now that I had spent some time with the paragon families, I began to understand why people kept their distance. He had an unhinged quality about him, a man who had lost too much and drowned his sorrows with alcohol and women. His name as Sammuel the Broken made more sense. This didn’t change how I welcomed him, though. I had been a gang member and then a college student. The depressed and inebriated like him were the majority of those I knew back then.

“Don’t you mean you just stumbled here from the bar?” Headmistress Domini mumbled under her breath, but Sammuel pretended not to hear her.

He let go of my hand but kept his arm around my shoulder. “How are you holding up in solitude? Being cooped up in the Capala household can’t be easy, but perhaps it isn’t so bad keeping a beauty like Lady Capala company.”

“As if you would know anything about that!” Headmistress Domini hissed and then turned to me. “I’m sorry, I smell something foul and must get some air. If you’ll forgive me.”

She didn’t even give me time to say goodbye before she turned her back and walked away, clearly agitated. Sammuel took the drink from my hand and downed it in one swallow.

He swallowed hard, looking at Headmistress Domini with a pensive expression. “You’ll have to excuse Lady Domini. You see, she was formerly my fiancée.”

“Formerly?”

Sammuel looked down at the empty cup and frowned. “Is it so hard to imagine? I was once the prince. It was expected that my father would arrange a marriage between me and one of the great houses. Lady Domini was it. However, when the coup occurred, their family couldn’t wait for my father’s blood to dry before annulling our engagement.”

“I’m sorry,” I responded.

He shook his head and sighed. “She tried to let me down kindly, but I was in a bad place. I called her many unkind words. I… implied that we consummated our relationship. It was a lie I have since corrected, but rumors spread. Many young lords still treat her as tainted. That’s the real reason she is still unmarried and joined the academy. I don’t think she’s forgiven me for that.”

It was then that a glass clinked the crowd went quiet. Master Blanche finally made it back to his table and was ready to make his announcement. One by one, everyone quickly found their seat. I glanced over at Headmistress Domini, but she had found an isolated seat and was distinctly not glancing my way. Had I offended her by speaking with Sammuel? I wondered about that.

“Come on, let’s get a seat before they make us sit outside.” Sammuel led the way without glancing the headmistress’ way.

Once everyone was settled down, all of their eyes fell on Master Blanche. “I suppose there is no point in dragging this out. I’ve gathered you all here to announce the marriage of my daughter, Erika Blanche!”