Darkthorn Raid! -1
Deep beneath Haas, in a secret passage far underground.
"Khh... Khahahaha...!"
A female student with a pure-white hood pulled low over her head strode down the corridor, laughing at the top of her lungs.
There was no particular reason for the laughter.
She was simply drunk on the self-indulgent notion that walking through a secret passage while laughing dramatically was a very assassin-like thing to do.
The hallway struck her as oddly clean—strangely spotless, even—but she was so thoroughly intoxicated with her image as an assassin prowling a secret passage that she failed to register anything wrong and simply kept walking.
Her name was Did de Sabach.
She was the young lady of the Sabach family, an infamous house of assassins.
At first glance she might have reminded one of a certain cool-headed samurai from a certain secret organization, but her personality was slightly different from that samurai's.
If Dante was the type who was obsessed with looking cool,
Did was the type who got a thrill out of concealing her power and went around with a bandage wrapped around her left arm.
They seemed similar at a glance, but if the two of them ever met, they would almost certainly fail to understand each other and end up despising one another.
"Kuhuhu. Greetings, gentlemen."
Did deliberately flung the door wide and offered her subordinates inside the hideout a flamboyant greeting.
She had tacked on the word "gentlemen" purely because it sounded cooler that way—though she had already decided to invent a better term to replace it.
Calling the comrades of a secret organization "gentlemen" was a little bland, wasn't it?
Something cooler... Yes. From now on, they would call themselves Phantoms.
Not long ago, Did had watched a play about a mysterious phantom living beneath a theater stage, and the name "Phantom" had struck her as truly magnificent.
While she was privately applauding her own brilliant naming sense, she also began to feel puzzled. She had just made such a grand, stylish entrance—yet the usual booming chorus of greetings from her members was nowhere to be heard.
What? Did they all go out on jobs or something?
Only then did Did take a proper look around the hideout—and she froze in horror.
"Wh-what in the world is this...?!"
The hideout she had deliberately designed to look like a seedy back-alley tavern had been transformed into a glittering, sparkling pink princess room.
"So. The culprit is some maid, you say?"
"Y-yes...! Th-that's right!"
In a certain secret room within Haas—once the clandestine hideout of the Darkthorn Club, now a glittering, sparkle-sparkle princess chamber—two students were having a conversation.
"And after being reduced to that state, instead of thinking about revenge, the first thing you thought of was running away?"
One of them was Did de Sabach, president of the Darkthorn Club.
"I-I'm so sorryyy!"
The other, currently bound head to toe in rope, was a recent recruit who had tried to quit almost as soon as he joined—Kevess Lukava.
Tied to a chair with rope coiled around his entire body, Kevess's eyes were filled with pure terror.
His body was already covered in knife cuts, and the once-sparkly pink floor was stained an ugly blackish red with blood.
"Kuhuhu. Why so scared, rookie? Anyone watching would think I was about to kill you."
"Y-you're not going to kill me...?"
"That's right. I won't kill you. I won't."
Did quietly shut the door.
A man's desperate scream echoed through the empty secret passage.
"Ah, morning, Noir. Blanc."
"Yes, good morning, Talon."
"Good morning, Mr. Talon."
A full week had already passed since the practice match where so many things had happened.
Before the match, the atmosphere in our class had been awkward. Now it was steadily loosening up.
People had started talking to each other, and I would say we had at least reached the level of friendship where we exchanged morning greetings and chatted a little.
Even Ms. Ria, who barely ever spoke, sat with us at meals now. That had to count as tremendous progress, didn't it?
"Hah. This is why I simply cannot associate with stupid commoners."
"Are you calling commoners stupid right now?!"
"You imbecile. Of course I mean that you, a commoner, are stupid."
But of course, there are always exceptions.
Two people still refused to fit in and remained on the fringes of the class.
Mr. Jerry and Mr. Desang.
Those two alone continued to bristle at each other, maintaining a hostile stance at all times.
It wasn't as if they bristled at everyone.
Mr. Jerry never went out of his way to speak first to Miss Noir or Mr. Kelron, but if someone greeted him, he would at least return the greeting.
Mr. Desang likewise kept a certain distance from commoner students, yet he never treated them with the open hostility he reserved for Mr. Jerry.
In other words, taken separately, they weren't that bad.
If you wanted a conversation, you could have one. If you asked for cooperation, they would more or less give it. So it wasn't as if they were completely out of place in the class.
The problem only arose when the two of them occupied the same space.
If Mr. Desang said something, Mr. Jerry would pick it apart. If Mr. Jerry said something, Mr. Desang would ignore it entirely.
And so the loathing in each pair of eyes only grew, and the atmosphere would sour until they were on the verge of actual violence.
"Bokja, paw!"
Hmph.
But as someone once said, humans are animals of adaptation.
Amazingly enough, our classmates had grown so thoroughly used to Jerry and Desang's war of nerves that they had reached the point of simply leaving the two of them alone, fight or no fight.
At first people had tried talking things through and clearing up the misunderstandings, but instead of improving, the situation only got worse—so everyone eventually gave up.
These days, if we didn't hear the two of them arguing, we started to worry that something had gone wrong.
"Kyaaah! Bokja's so cute!"
Jjjuuuung!
At Ms. Rouge's command, Bokja raised a paw, and Ms. Rouge squealed with delight as she scooped it into a hug.
Ms. Chelln, who had held out her hand in exactly the same way only to be passed over in favor of Ms. Rouge, stared at Bokja with a complicated expression—but it couldn't be helped.
Ms. Chelln had a habit of bringing cucumbers and carrots as healthy snacks.
Bokja was hypersensitive even to the faintest hint of cucumber, so unless Ms. Chelln gave them up, Bokja was never going to approach her first.
—Rattle.
"Everyone, quiet."
The noisy classroom door opened, and the teacher and Ms. Ria walked in.
Morning assembly had already started with no sign of the teacher, so Ms. Ria had sighed, said she would go look for him, and left the room—that had been a full twenty minutes ago.
At last, Ms. Ria had found him and returned with the teacher in tow.
"Haaawn... We'll begin morning assembly..."
Slap.
After a long yawn, the teacher launched into morning assembly, and Ms. Ria smacked her own forehead and shook her head.
His hair was an unapologetic bird's nest, and the sleep crust clinging to his eyebrows announced in no uncertain terms exactly what he had been doing to make himself late.
Ms. Ria's face flushed faintly—as the teacher's personal disciple, she seemed mortified by his wretched appearance.
—Ding-dong-ding-dong.
"Oh. Morning assembly's over. Good work today, everyone."
The bell rang the instant the teacher started assembly.
He scratched his head and wandered out of the classroom, and Ms. Ria, watching him go, launched a vicious dropkick at his retreating back.
Did figured out who had defiled her hideout in no time at all.
Among the students of Haas, there was only one person who went around in a maid uniform—so finding the culprit had been simpler than expected.
A girl whose snow-white hair left a lasting impression.
Pure and pitiful, as if she had never killed a single person in her life.
Did had already finished confirming her personal details.
Blanc of the first-year Owl Class.
Exclusive maid to the young lady of House Leonhart—Noir von Leonhart.
Those idiots got taken down by something like that?!
A first-year fledgling. Not even a professionally trained mercenary or the child of a prestigious house—just a maid.
Did's body trembled.
The sheer humiliation of having the Darkthorn she had raised with such care wiped out by a mere maid was almost too much to bear.
And so Did fully intended to take thorough revenge on that maid.
For three days she tailed Blanc, diligently observing her every move.
The girl was the ideal maid—a perfect maid in every respect.
She rose early each morning to clean Haas, then prepared lavish meals for the young lady she served in Haas's kitchens, repeating the same routine day after day.
The way she came and went from Haas's secret spots as if they were her own private rooms, and the way Chef Regon—famous for his fierce pride as a cook—acted unusually humble around the girl, were a little odd... but beyond that, Did could find nothing unusual.
Our Darkthorn really got cleaned out by someone like that?
She couldn't believe it.
But every last one of them had testified that they had been beaten by that maid.
So Did resolved to proceed with the utmost caution.
An assassin, after all, always handled her work carefully.
She would wait for the perfect, ideal timing to strike.
As if a mere first-year could ever notice her flawless stealth technique.
Hmm. I can feel that passionate gaze on me again today.
I glanced casually over my shoulder and spotted a brown-skinned young lady discreetly watching me.
Fufu. Such an ardent, intense stare.
I am not so foolish that I cannot guess who she is.
Without a doubt, she is either a fan of mine, or—like Miss Mist the other day—someone who hopes to become my master.
I may not be able to serve as her maid, but I can at least allow her to look.
With a perfect maid such as myself right here, how could anyone's eyes help but be drawn?
"Fufu..."
A maid who keeps working diligently, completely unfazed by her fan's gaze...
Ahh... How wonderful that is...♥