Homework Companions
The world is burdened with countless duties.
A student's duty to obey the academy's regulations.
A freshman's duty not to wander after curfew.
An examinee's duty to complete assigned homework diligently.
Regrettably, satisfying every single one of those duties at once was a near-impossible feat.
"How am I supposed to obey the curfew when the homework literally requires setting up targets at fifty, a hundred, a hundred and fifty, and two hundred meters in the middle of the night?"
Zhuang was brimming with complaints.
Hitting the marks was hardly the problem. Her master had drilled ranged throwing techniques into her until she was sick of them. She could nail a bullseye with her eyes closed, strike mid-dive through a shattered windowpane, or hit a target while plummeting from the roof of a high-rise or the canopy of a towering pine tree. The real problem was finding a clear indoor range that long, compounded by the annoying reality that once a throwing weapon flew, someone had to walk out and fetch it.
Guess going straight to sleep tonight is completely out the window.
Her master had explicitly warned her before departure: roaming late at night stunts your growth, so make sure you sleep soundly once you enter the academy. At this rate, it seemed she was destined to hold the illustrious title of third-shortest freshman of the 981st cohort for a very long time.
"Hey. Have you seen Orknodi by any chance?"
"Haven't seen her, nya."
"Are you sure?"
"I was staring out the lounge window the whole time because I didn't want to study, nya. Positive, nya."
"Thanks. If fish is served in the dining hall tomorrow, I'll give you mine."
"Whoa! You're so nice, nya!"
According to Jenya—a feline beastperson whose reflexes were blazing fast even if her brain was hopelessly dim—Orknodi had not returned to the dormitory. Considering Orknodi was enrolled in Ranged Weapon Mastery just like her, that tidbit carried substantial weight.
She plans to finish her assignment outside before coming back, doesn't she?
Orknodi possessed an uncanny, almost unnatural wealth of knowledge about Gift Academy. By now, Zhuang knew where at least part of that lore originated: the Room of Double-Sided Paper Strips, a secret chamber lined with the accumulated wisdom of upperclassmen, accessible only at a precise time in a specific place.
There's bound to be a hint there.
The sheer volume of strips had prevented her from memorizing everything, but if there was any place that held the secrets hidden across campus, it was that room. The clock inched closer to 2:22 AM. While waiting for the hour to arrive, Zhuang had taken to tossing her concealed weapons at makeshift targets carved into tree trunks out on the grounds, when—
Patter, patter, patter!
"Halt right there!"
"Curfew violator! Return to the dorms quietly, or your penalty points will be tenfold!"
A lone student was sprinting frantically across the lawn, pursued by the night watch. Someone caught red-handed trying to sneak out after hours.
Amateur.
If you were going to sneak out, at least conceal yourself properly. And if you got spotted, at least know how to lose a tail. He was clumsy at every turn, which was why the guards were right on his heels. Zhuang scoffed, intending to ignore the pitiful spectacle, but when the streetlamp cast a sharp gleam over the runner's face, her mind shifted.
Dropping lightly from the branch, she slipped into the thicket beside the path. As the boy bolted past, she shot an arm out and yanked him clean into the shrubs.
"Oof—!"
"Shh. Shut it. You want them to catch you?"
Zhuang clamped a hand over his mouth. The patrol thundered past along the stone path, their heavy footsteps fading into the distance.
"Mob. Right?"
The fugitive was indeed Mob—the student who had sprinted alongside Orknodi during the obstacle run in Ranged Weapon Mastery and accumulated an astronomical mountain of penalty deductions.
"Who... who are you?"
"Orknodi's friend."
"Thanks for the save. My homework's urgent, but the instructors flat out refused to let me out, so I had to make a break for it. Next thing I know, I'm dodging guards left and right. Absolute hardheads, the lot of them."
Zhuang scrutinized Mob from head to toe.
"Hmph."
"What's with that look?"
"It's weird. Orknodi usually prefers strong people."
"Ugh. Look, I know I'm weak, alright?"
"Are you good at cooking?"
"I can fry an egg."
"Do you buy her expensive meals?"
"My points are wiped out. I'm down to one meal a day."
"Bizarre. What on earth did Orknodi see in you to hold you in such high regard?"
Titocoga might be a crybaby, but she was loaded with cash. One look at the absurd enchanted treasure she lugged around—that blinding light stand—proved that much. As for Zhuang herself, she was undeniably lethal. That was why Orknodi had no hesitation mingling with her.
Yet Zhuang had observed enough to know: toward students who were neither wealthy nor powerful, Orknodi displayed an indifference that verged on the unnatural. She might respond if addressed, but she never went out of her way to associate with them.
She must evaluate their worth instinctively.
That was how assassins were trained from childhood: to determine on pure reflex whether a target could be slain at whim, whether elaborate preparations were required, or whether the mark was practically insurmountable. They were conditioned to gauge a foe's threat level and vulnerability instantly.
Culinary skill or immense wealth. Among those she could kill at any moment, those were the only two exceptions Orknodi ever made.
Mob fit neither criteria. He was an anomaly among anomalies. Which made it profoundly strange. What could Orknodi possibly see in this boy? His appearance was thoroughly unremarkable, and his combat baseline was entirely pedestrian.
"Oh! I remember now. You're in Ranged Weapon Mastery too, aren't you? You throw concealed daggers instead of using a bow."
"Took you long enough."
"Sorry. You spoke to me at the finish line during the last sprint, right? I was so exhausted back then my head was spinning."
"Average memory, too."
"Yeah, yeah, sorry for being average. Anyway, you really saved my neck. I need to get this homework done, so I'll be on my way."
If there was a single redeemable trait about him, it was that sheer, stubborn earnestness.
"It's a waste of breath," Zhuang drawled, prodding at his resolve. "Unless you're a standout talent like Orknodi or me, an ordinary guy like you won't clear a thousand points across every bracket, no matter how many sleepless nights you pour into it."
"Maybe not. But I still have to do it."
"Why? Even if you fail, you'll just take a minor penalty deduction. You finished dead last in the sprint, remember? Haven't you eaten enough penalties already?"
Mob's academic score was already past the point of resuscitation. It was scraping the lowest subterranean depths.
"If I quit now, then that's all I'll ever be—a guy who gave up."
"What?"
"I'm not blind. I know the instructors, my classmates, and the higher-ranked groups all look at me like dirt." Mob wasn't being stubbornly foolish out of ignorance. It was precisely because he understood his standing that he was so desperate. "Even so... someone believed in me."
"Oh?"
"And that person happens to be the most incredible person I've ever met."
"You mean Orknodi."
"Don't go telling her that! It's embarrassing."
"What, do you have a crush on her?"
"No! That's not it at all! I just... I refuse to let people mock her or drag her name through the mud because of me."
Mob vividly remembered that afternoon.
"During the sprint, the upperclassmen watching us sneered. They said the top student of Class A wasn't all that after all, that someone from the outskirts is still just an outskirt scrub."
"Obnoxious pests."
"It was my fault. Orknodi turned around and sprinted backward through the obstacles just to help a lagging failure like me. That's why she took that abuse."
Someone else absorbing insults on his behalf. If asked to name the quickest way to make a man feel utterly worthless, Mob would point to that exact moment. The humiliation of it still burned like acid in his chest.
"They asked if she fell behind just to drag along dead weight like me. I won't let them say that about her. Not ever again. So no matter what happens, I'm not walking away from this assignment."
"How tedious. So hopelessly cliché it makes me yawn."
Sniffling lightly as she brushed away an unbidden tear, Zhuang turned on her heel and strode forward.
Can't blame her for looking down on me, Mob thought with a wry, self-deprecating smile. But before he could step away, Zhuang glanced over her shoulder.
"What are you standing around for? Aren't you coming?"
"Coming... where?"
"A place where a freshman can train in the dead of night without dodging the instructors' eyes. If luck's on our side, I think I know how to find it."
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who treat assignments as a chore, and those who treat them as an imperative to be fulfilled at the risk of their very lives.
An assassin belonged firmly to the latter. If you failed to eliminate the mark, your own head was forfeit. To someone raised on that creed, the lower-class students who approached everything with half-hearted lethargy were nothing short of repulsive.
"This is impossible. I'm dropping it."
"Shall we just grab some food?"
"Hey, I saw playing cards for rent at the commissary. Let's just play cards."
They threw in the towel over a basic archery task. Could they ever execute a contract when their lives hung in the balance? Not a chance. A quitter once was a quitter forever. And yet, this particular failure standing before her was thrashing with everything he had just to belong to the second group.
Maybe I'm starting to get it. Why Orknodi acknowledges this guy as a friend.
At 2:22 AM, Zhuang slipped into the Room of Double-Sided Paper Strips and emerged with precisely the intelligence she required.
"Alright, keep up. There's a secret training ground inside the Magic Department."
"I-Incredible... You can slip in and out of campus buildings without making a single sound?"
"Hmph. Don't gasp at every little thing. You look like a bumpkin."
Though she grumbled under her breath, Zhuang glanced back every ten paces to verify that Mob was keeping pace and hadn't tripped behind. That unspoken consideration stoked the fire burning inside Mob's chest all the higher.
"Wait. You're... from Class C, right?"
"...Midnight date?"
"As if! We just came to train. What are you doing here?"
Perched on a window ledge near the entrance of the Magic Department, wrapped snugly in a thick blanket, Cassia locked eyes with Zhuang. Zhuang felt a jolt of surprise. Very few people could hold eye contact with an assassin whose gaze was laced with latent killing intent. Even instructors reflexively averted their eyes when caught off guard. Yet this girl, Cassia, met her glare without a flicker of hesitation, an unflinching gaze that stirred Zhuang's competitive drive.
"Just because. It's comfortable here."
"What a weirdo."
Comfortable, my foot. The bench was rock hard and the girl's posture was rigid. Zhuang wouldn't sleep in a spot like that if someone paid her. To make matters worse, there was an instructor lurking right behind her, radiating suffocating hostility. If someone told Zhuang to sleep in such conditions, her hand would have flown straight to her daggers.
It was a deeply curious dynamic. If Orknodi were here, she would have poked her nose into it without a second thought.
Whatever. Keep your secrets.
That was as far as Zhuang was willing to indulge. She wasn't Orknodi, and she currently had an ordinary fellow trailing behind her. It wasn't the right time or place to pick a fight.
"You're pretty strong, aren't you?"
"You'd lose."
"Let's test that theory sometime."
"...Hmph."
Leaving the aloof girl and the menacing instructor behind, they headed deeper inside toward the entrance of the hidden facility.
"Poor instructor," Mob whispered sympathetically. "Sleeping uncomfortably beside his student just because she chose to doze by the window."
"Trust me, the girl's far more uncomfortable than the instructor."
"Why?"
"Sigh. Never mind. You wouldn't get it."
The clandestine entrance was none other than the cleaning closet inside the students' restroom.
They really built this cleverly.
Pulling the handle normally revealed ordinary brooms and mop buckets. But if one channeled mana through a student pass following a specific frequency and rhythm? The entire mop closet swung forward on a hidden pivot, revealing a sprawling, illegally remodeled training hall.
"Whoa..."
As Mob let out a breathless gasp, they stepped across the threshold. The male upperclassman guarding the entrance stared at them with complete disbelief written across his face.
"It's only the second week of the semester, and three freshmen have already found this place?"
Just past the flabbergasted sentry, Orknodi lowered her bow and gave an enthusiastic wave from the shooting lane.
"Yay! It's Zhuang and Mob! How did you guys find this place?"
"Read the paper strips, obviously. Isn't that how you found it too, Orknodi?"
"Y-Yeah! Totally! Hehehe."
Liar.
If she hadn't checked the strips, how in the world had she sniffed this place out? There was simply never a dull moment around that girl.
A faint, amused smirk tugged at the corners of Zhuang's lips.