The Saintess's Midnight Heist
Romance, romance. At present, the Academy’s two Transcendents were both absent. The headmaster had left to discipline the professors, and Paern had stepped away for personal reasons. This was indeed the moment when security was at its weakest, yet the Academy remained the Academy. Despite the recent string of unpleasant incidents, the headmaster’s barrier was still rock-solid. In fact, it had just received an upgrade, making any outside intrusion even more difficult than before. But all of that concerned only the exterior… To Arie, who wanted to stir up trouble from within, none of it mattered in the slightest.
“This is actually driving me insane…”
I pressed hard against my throbbing temples, recalling the words Arie had spoken earlier.
……No matter how many times I turned it over in my mind, it still sounded completely unhinged. She wanted to rob the headmaster’s personal quarters? It was true the owner was away, but there was no chance she had left without precautions. At the very least, she would have installed something to detect intruders. If I stepped into that room completely defenseless and got caught… things would not end peacefully.
On top of that, I was just an ordinary student. A single misstep could lead to actual expulsion. Yet Arie had declared it all so breezily.
……
I was rendered utterly speechless. Was it really that simple? I found myself genuinely curious about the source of Arie’s boundless confidence.
In any case, I had intended to refuse her absurd demand. I thought I only needed to humor her evil-organization-boss roleplay until she grew tired of it. Never had I imagined she was harboring such a dangerous idea as raiding the headmaster’s office… I inwardly admitted I had underestimated her and prepared a tactful refusal.
But Arie refused to take no for an answer.
“No, I will genuinely get expelled if I’m caught. Unlike you, Boss, I’m just an ordinary student.”
……Our dear Saintess must have found life far too dull; she was actively marching down the path of becoming the chaos herself. The real problem was that she had dragged me along with her. This was not why I had become her subordinate…
In the end, I couldn’t withstand her firm command and ended up promising on the spot. Tonight, the two of us would break into the headmaster’s office together…
My vision was already darkening with worry. Arie had always been frighteningly perceptive, so I usually refrained from using my powers when I was beside her. It didn’t matter when I was operating in secret, but while maintaining the identity of an ordinary Academy student, I moved with extreme caution. Besides, there were rarely any occasions that required me to use my abilities anyway…
Yet once we entered the headmaster’s office, there was no telling what sudden situations might arise. Honestly, I wasn’t confident I could avoid using my powers until then. The best I could do was to be extremely careful and keep my ability usage hidden from Arie’s sharp eyes.
Sigh. It would be nice if Yulia noticed and put a stop to this… She was the only one who could halt this ridiculous scheme without me having to watch Arie’s mood… It was a day when Yulia’s absence felt heavier than ever.
That evening. After the sun had fully set and the moon had climbed to its zenith…
While I sat alone in the park, Arie approached, wearing clothes far more casual than her usual attire.
“Fufu, you arrived quickly, Assistant…”
“…It’s not that I came early. The boss is the one who’s late.”
“Fufu…”
She avoided my gaze and laughed awkwardly, then began listing her excuses.
“I was a little late because I had to shake off Yulia. She seems to be growing more perceptive by the day.”
“That’s because of you, Boss…”
“What was that?”
“Ah, nothing at all.”
This time I was the one who averted my eyes and laughed awkwardly. I wondered once again whether this sort of relationship—constantly reading each other’s moods—was truly healthy.
“Did you bring what we agreed upon?”
“If you mean the rope, yes, I have it.”
I handed over the rope I had purchased earlier. Arie took it and began tying it securely around her own body.
“Fufu, excellent.”
“……”
I watched her with a faintly pitying gaze. She had insisted it was absolutely necessary for the break-in, so I had reluctantly brought it… but if she was going to use it like this, we might as well not have it at all. The rope was tied in a position that looked uncomfortable to breathe in at first glance… Any normal person who tried to climb a wall tied like that would be crushed by their own weight, gasping and choking before falling. Of course, Arie’s body wasn’t fragile enough to be compressed by mere rope, so that wouldn’t happen.
Still, I worried she would suffer a nasty lesson one day if she kept relying solely on her physical prowess. No—why was she climbing the wall with a rope in the first place? She could simply fly up… The headmaster’s office might be on a high floor, but there was no way the Saintess on the verge of transcendence couldn’t handle that height.
I wanted to ask why she was wasting effort on something so pointless, but I kept my mouth shut. Somehow, I already knew what her answer would be…
Once she had bound the rope tightly around herself, Arie handed me the end.
“Assistant, please secure this to the rooftop.”
“…I can’t fly. To reach the rooftop of the building with the headmaster’s office, I’d have to go up via other buildings.”
“Ah, um…”
She appeared to think for a moment.
“It can’t be helped. I’ll send the rope up without your assistance, Assistant.”
“How?”
“…By moving it with holy power, of course?”
“……”
Then why not just fly up yourself? You could have sent the rope ahead and lowered it later.
While I was still feeling frustrated inside, Arie had already fixed the rope somewhere on the rooftop—without lifting a finger, simply by manipulating her holy power.
“Your tastes really are something else…”
“Fufu, I heard that, Assistant…”
“S-sorry.”
Because of that entirely unnecessary wall-climbing process, we wasted a great deal of time… but eventually Arie and I reached the height of the headmaster’s office window.
Perception.
[My vision will soon become the vision of transcendence.]
Cognition.
[My eyes can now see what was previously invisible.]
“Hmm…”
A quick glance told me the security wasn’t nearly as formidable as I had feared. Considering the headmaster was a Transcendent, it actually looked rather light. It didn’t seem as though she kept anything truly important here. After all, from a Transcendent’s perspective, the safest place was none other than beside them; most carried their most valuable possessions with them at all times. Thanks to that, I was spared the trouble of searching for treasures myself…
I leaned more toward snatching than stealing, so the more Transcendents carried their treasures on their persons, the more convenient it was for me. Unfortunately, heightened vigilance lately meant they often hid their valuables instead…
As I peered through the window into the headmaster’s office, Arie asked me quietly.
“How many traps can you see?”
“I don’t see any. There’s no way I could detect traps created by a Transcendent, is there?”
“……Fufu, then it can’t be helped. I’ll go in first.”
Arie gestured at me and ordered me to hold the window open so it wouldn’t close. I had no idea what she was planning, but I obeyed. She sat on the windowsill and began drawing out holy power recklessly.
Whoooong…!
The pure white light of her holy power tried to illuminate the surroundings, but a slight wave of her hand dimmed its brightness. I couldn’t help but be astonished. It can be controlled…?
Holy power continued to gather and gather in her hand, swelling into a perfectly spherical shape. Unable to contain my curiosity any longer, I finally asked.
“Boss, what exactly are you making right now?”
“A sphere created from holy power. Hmm, doesn’t the assistant already know more about it than I do?”
“Pardon?”
Just before I could demand what kind of nonsense that was, I sensed something strangely familiar from the holy power sphere resting in her palm.
“Could this be…”
“Correct. It’s similar to the mana sphere you told me and Yulia to create before vacation ended, isn’t it?”
“Yes. The circulation and flow are perfectly stable.”
“I practiced with mana but couldn’t get it right, so I tried holy power instead—and it worked on the first try.”
Arie smiled softly and held the orb closer to me, as if showing off. I stared at it with genuine surprise. The methods for handling mana and holy power were completely different… Yet after seeing the mana sphere only once, she had recreated its exact form using holy power. Not merely imitating the shape, but perfectly replicating the circulation and flow as well—her comprehension truly was on another level.
But why make it so suddenly? The question made me tilt my head. Surely she hadn’t created it just to be praised in a moment like this…
Before I could speak, Arie opened her mouth first.
“After spending nearly a month alternating between mana orbs and holy power orbs, I realized one interesting truth.”
“And what is that?”
She grinned.
“……?”
For a moment my mind couldn’t keep up and I simply stared, dazed…!
“Allow me to demonstrate.”
Arie abruptly hurled the holy power sphere into the headmaster’s office.
“Arie…!”
I whipped my head around in shock, but she remained perfectly composed. The orb struck the floor, and—
The entire headmaster’s office began to glow with brilliant light.