Sleight of Hand
Ethan could not understand why he had been sentenced to solitary confinement.
"What do you mean, why?"
Donovan rubbed his brow.
"You thought you could just waltz a cadet out of solitary and walk away scot-free?"
"…"
"You are the first person in this school's history to break a cadet out of punishment during the entrance exam."
Donovan muttered under his breath.
"And how in the world did you pick a Unique-grade lock… honestly. You really are something else, in every way imaginable."
Ah. Right.
During the entrance exam, he had broken out that orc cadet.
Dormammu… no — Dormuut.
But wasn't this a little excessive?
He had just been admitted as the top-ranked freshman of Thief School.
"Answer me."
Ethan answered.
"Headmaster, I'm the top student."
"…"
"Doesn't being top of the class come with a scholarship or something?"
Donovan blinked.
"Ethan."
"Yes, Headmaster."
The principal twisted his mouth.
"I'm not 'Headmaster.' I'm Principal."
"Yes, Principal."
"…Fast feedback."
However much Ethan hated thieves, a tour through the South Korean military made snapping to attention for a thieving principal no real strain.
It was the uniquely irrational brand of Korean army orders that had always pissed him off.
In that sense, maybe this otherworld Thief School was a slight improvement…
Donovan lifted his index finger and pointed it at Ethan.
"And what about my order to gather the kids in the auditorium? Did you trade that for a honey candy somewhere?"
"I forgot."
"Of all the… I thought you were sharp. Turns out you're a complete airhead. That is insubordination."
Donovan shuffled the cards in his hand with a crisp riffle.
"One day in solitary. And I'll deal with the insubordination separately."
Clink.
The black keyring the principal tossed him had a marking tag attached.
Access key — entrance gate
What was this?
"Next week I'm heading out on an operation, so I won't be at the school. Finish the job there before then."
"What exactly am I supposed to do once I get there?"
"You'll have to ask when you arrive. Tell them I sent you and they'll give you work."
Still bewildered, Ethan slipped the key into his pocket anyway.
"…"
"What."
Ethan opened his mouth.
"No, I mean… there's really no top-student scholarship or anything?"
Donovan furrowed his brow.
"I already told you there isn't. What kind of thief gets a scholarship?"
"…"
"In my day, even if you stole an entire frigate fleet for the Emperor, all you got was a single medal. Kids these days, I swear…"
As he spoke, Principal Donovan casually let a card slip from his hand onto the floor, pretending not to notice.
Huh. That card… golden?
Wasn't that Artifact grade?
He knew what it was the instant he saw it.
A luck-related item, wasn't it?
Worn as it looked, he remembered it had been absurdly useful.
Why drop it under the desk all of a sudden?
And so began the greatest bad-acting battle in history.
"Ah, my caaard feelll dooown."
"…"
"Hmnm. To piick it uuup I'd have to channel qiii. How trouublesome. I siimply caaan't reeach it."
Ethan blinked.
What kind of situation was this?
"Ahhh. I wooonder whiich caadet wiiill piick uuup my caaard. How eexciiiting."
Donovan fussily pulled out a dagger that didn't need cleaning and pretended to polish it.
"Ahem."
Ethan stepped on the card as if he hadn't noticed a thing.
"Ahem."
Donovan responded at once.
"Ah, the caaard has diisappeared."
"…"
"I triied to fiind it, buut it caaan't be heeelped."
Ethan turned around and quietly slipped what he'd picked up into his pocket.
It was a joker playing card.
"…Hnh."
The moment his fingers brushed it, he felt an enormous concentration of qi packed inside.
…Holy hell. Am I even allowed to receive something of this grade?
Selling this to a major trading house would buy dozens of houses, easy.
Unbelievable. Handing out a reward this massive in a way like this…
For the first time, Ethan found himself genuinely curious about the thief sitting in front of him.
Donovan kept polishing his dagger, pushing the bad acting further.
"Hm… what, you're still here?"
"Shall I go?"
"Go or don't, whatever…"
Ethan couldn't understand it.
No… if you're going to give a reward, just give it. Why does it always have to be this pretend-I-don't-know sleight of hand?
These were pickpockets who lifted wallets at the drop of a hat. Maybe gifts from the final boss of them all — the principal of Thief School — always came this way.
Ethan bowed his head.
"Yes… well. Thank you for your hard work on the Western Kingdom trip, Principal."
"R-right. Thanks. Go on, then."
"I'll be on my way."
Donovan stammered in a thoroughly uncharacteristic fashion.
Through the gap in the hand covering his mouth, a satisfied smile was hanging.
Of course, Ethan never caught that smile.
Click.
Ethan stepped out of the principal's office.
He carefully noted down the task Principal Donovan had assigned him, then tucked the memo away against his chest.
"First period today is… Fundamentals of Hand Technique and the Art of Appropriation?"
Ethan tilted his head.
One pickpocketing class, and they give it a name that fancy?
He walked the path beside a crumbling temple, lost in thought.
"I don't like the sound of it."
He briefly considered ditching class if it turned out to be nothing special — then immediately abandoned the idea. That was far too thief-like a move.
*
First period was exactly that.
Pickpocketing.
Beside him, Dormuut shook his massive head heavily.
"No."
"No what."
From somewhere unknown, the orc produced a major textbook.
On the cover it read How to Cook Water Deliciously.
…Wasn't that a cookbook?
More importantly, what did "cooking water" even mean?
"What is that book supposed to be?"
Dormuut ignored every one of those questions and continued with what he wanted to say.
"Fundamentals of Hand Technique and the Art of Appropriation."
"What…"
Ethan gave up on human-style conversation and switched to orc-style.
"That's pickpocketing."
"Different."
Dormuut clapped his pink hands together and pressed on.
"If you strike a sleeve, the wrist flies off."
"…"
"So this technique is correctly called Fundamentals of Hand Technique and the Art of Appropriation."
"What are you even talking about."
"If you learn Fundamentals of Hand Technique and the Art of Appropriation, you can extract an object without sending the wrist flying."
Ethan was briefly thrown by the orc's remarks from the neighboring seat — then fortunately activated racial discrimination mode and arrived at understanding in short order.
✗ Examine the correlation between the technique and flying wrists with a nuanced understanding of racial characteristics
→ Tedious and pedantic
○ Ah. He's just an ordinary dumb orc
→ Clear and intuitive
When Ethan nodded, Dormuut sniffed the air.
"What were you thinking."
"Nothing."
"There's a rude smell on you. Your eyes say it."
Ethan flinched, then activated social skills.
"I always respect you, Dormuut."
"Do you know what look is in your eyes right now, Ethan."
"…What."
"The look I give humans."
Ethan asked quietly.
"What kind of look is that."
"You are a human I like. So I will not tell you what that look means."
What on earth was this guy saying?
Orcs were a species you never quite figured out, no matter how hard you tried.
He simply stopped trying to understand.
In any case, Dormuut was a useful teammate in plenty of ways.
Come to think of it, Dormuut's strength is genuinely solid.
In most RPGs, weren't strength thieves dumpster characters?
He still couldn't decide whether bringing this guy along would be a good idea or not.
"Sniff sniff. What were you thin—"
"Please just be quiet."
While the two of them bickered, a familiar cushioned sensation pressed against him from the next seat.
"This is… Sera Barakin?"
"Huh?"
The classroom was so cramped that Sera's cushion had brushed his arm.
"Sera Barakin."
"Eep!"
She had the same first-period class.
Sera's ears shot straight up.
"E-Ethan!"
"Yes, Sera Barakin."
"I t-told you to call me Sera…!"
"? Are you feeling all right? Your face is awfully red."
"I-I'm fine…!"
Sera ducked her head, hiding her flushed face behind a curtain of silver hair.
Her mind was a complete tangle.
Why on earth did Ethan say that to me…?
That he wanted to walk the same path for life…?
What is that supposed to mean!?
Sera Barakin.
Truthfully, she had grown up receiving something close to princess treatment herself…
When Ethan said they should go together, walk the same road — she hadn't fully grasped what those words meant.
She knew on instinct that the situation was embarrassing. She simply lacked the ability to guess whether it had been a confession or something else entirely.
Of course, Ethan had meant nothing of the sort.
For some reason, whenever I'm next to Ethan, my heart just keeps racing…
Sera was still, by Korean age standards, nothing more than a high-school girl in the full bloom of adolescence — the kind who left tinted lip balm around the classroom mirror.
And then.
The world flipped upside down.
"Huh?"
No — it hadn't.
"Good morning, everyone."
The professor had walked in across the ceiling, upside down.
Ethan's eyes went wide.
"That's the magician professor who gave Carson demerits."
Click, click — footsteps tapped along the ceiling.
"You all worked very hard through the Dormitory Scramble."
"Yeees—."
Still little peeping chicks, the Novice Cadets at least excelled at answering in unison.
"This is your very first class since enrolling at Thief School, isn't it?"
"That's riiight—."
The professor smiled.
The scent of fresh Novice Cadets — something he hadn't smelled in a long while.
It stirred the child in him.
It's been a full year since I felt this. Fresh every time.
At a gesture from him, a board slid out from a gap in the wall and was drawn up onto the lecture platform.
A slate board hanging precariously in midair.
The upside-down professor wrote on it, character by character, with a mana chalk.
Fundamentals of Hand Technique and the Art of Appropriation
The professor slowly surveyed the cadets.
Then he glanced at the attendance roster and blinked.
"…Ethan Cass? Not present?"
Ethan quietly raised his hand.
"I'm here."
"…Huh?"
Only then did the professor spot him, eyes narrowing.
What?
Confusion crossed his face.
That seat was empty until just a moment ago.
A Novice Cadet who had completely erased his presence — even with the professor's senses stretched to their limit.
Even a Thief Master would struggle to wipe his presence this cleanly at such close range.
The Cass family? They have nothing to do with thieves.
So this was Ethan Cass.
The cadet every professor had been praising.
He'd heard the proctors claim the boy was completely undetectable and assumed the rumors were exaggerated.
I couldn't even hear his heartbeat.
For Professor Felix — himself a high-ranking hero — this was an unprecedented experience.
"…Huh."
He laughed with his mouth slightly open.
"So the rumors were true. This cohort really did take in a monster."