The sun had already hit its zenith when Ellen finally knocked on my door.
"Lord Adrian... Lady Alicia Valentine arrived half an hour ago. She is waiting in the Grand Parlor, and her patience is rapidly deteriorating."
"Half an hour?" I murmured coldly, snapping shut the heavy grimoire whose arrays I had been meticulously re-engineering. "Let her wait. Absolutely nothing in my operational schedule shifts for a variable that fails to respect my time."
I slipped into my black trench coat and strolled down the manor's corridors with unhurried, measured steps. I didn't rush. Instead, I passively analyzed the manor's magical defensive structures along the way, clinically diagnosing them as hopelessly primitive systems entirely unworthy of my maintenance.
When I pushed open the heavy double doors of the Grand Parlor, Alicia was seated in a posture of exaggerated royalty, draped in an obnoxiously expensive crimson gown. The moment she saw me, she rose with mock grandeur, her eyes practically dripping with unfiltered contempt.
"Adrian... it seems your illness didn't merely cripple your magic, but completely rotted your brain as well. Making a daughter of the Valentine family wait this long?" She sneered, her gaze sweeping over my stark, unadorned attire. "Is this the pathetic level of respect you offer your fiancée?"
I didn't bother taking a seat. I stood before her, a towering pillar of absolute, freezing detachment. With my hands shoved deep into my pockets, I calmly let my eyes dissect her through [Status Statistics Analysis].
[Target Entity]
Name: Alicia Valentine
Rank: 2nd Circle Mage
Mana Capacity: 180 / 210
"I was occupied debugging critical structural flaws in my research," I stated, my voice echoing with a dry, mechanical apathy. "As for your wait... Time is an independent variable. Its value is strictly dictated by the significance of the event. And in my calculations, your arrival did not warrant a reassignment of my daily priorities."
Alicia's aristocratic features momentarily short-circuited at my utterly alien tone. Then, she let out a harsh, mocking laugh.
"Big words for a bedridden failure. Adrian, I am here to finally put an end to this pathetic farce. Our engagement was a political miscalculation from the start, and I refuse to shackle my future to a cripple who cannot even manifest a single magic circle."
She aggressively pulled a parchment bearing a heavy wax seal from her sleeve, slapping it onto the mahogany table. "Sign the annulment. Salvage whatever microscopic shreds of dignity you have left before I publicly announce to high society that I threw you away."
I looked down at the parchment. Then, I shifted my gaze back to her. A freezing, infinitely arrogant smirk carved its way onto my face.
"A miscalculation?"
I stepped toward the table. My movements were so deliberate, so suffocatingly heavy with an incomprehensible authority, that Alicia instinctively flinched, taking a hesitant step backward.
"You are absolutely correct, Alicia. But you have drastically misidentified the compromised party. To me, this engagement is nothing more than a system 'Overload'—a parasitic drain severely hindering my operational efficiency. I didn't walk down here to beg for your retention."
I picked up the quill. With sharp, ruthlessly efficient strokes, I signed the document.
"I have just officially deleted an unnecessary variable from my life," I whispered coldly, tossing the quill aside. "Now... take your paperwork and leave. Your exceptionally limited intellect is beginning to elevate the ambient noise ratio in my room."