Pointlessly Cute

"Guh... Wh-what the hell?!"

"My criminal friends, would you mind giving us the full details on that five-million-credit contract you took?"

"C-contract? Don't tell me you bastards are trying to poach our client!"

"Oh, nothing like that. I'm just curious about a lot of things. How about you explain it all again from the very beginning—clearly and in thorough detail? Hmm?"

I stood quietly behind Rin, watching her twirl a dagger around her finger through the ring at its pommel as she issued her threat.

The men who had been holding a meeting in the basement were now completely immobilized, forced onto their knees on the stone floor. We looked down at them.

Even if we were both far shorter than any of them.

"Want another hole carved into your thigh? Huh? Let's hurry this along, shall we?"

Truth be told, Rin had decimated them all by herself before I could even lift a finger. It had happened in the blink of an eye.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

The moment Rin detached from the wall and slipped into the room without a sound, she severed their hamstring tendons. When one collapsed, she seized his hair, slammed his head brutally into the floor, dragged him back up, and drove a vicious knee strike into his chin, knocking him out cold.

They had been sitting scattered across the room, so after neutralizing the first one in seconds, she darted to the next with fluid agility, drove a dagger into his shoulder to rob him of his reach, and crushed his jaw with an elbow smash.

Just like that, four men were neutralized in an instant.

Then she called me over, telling me to tie them up with rope so they couldn't squirm. And this was the result.

"Hurry up. That job. Where did it come from? Who delivered it? Tell me everything."

"W-we don't know the exact details either—aaargh!"

"Faster. Explain. Quick, quick."

"Urgh... w-wait, pull the dagger out first, you f-fucking—!"

"Start talking, and I'll pull it out."

As expected of a senior operative of the Assassin Guild—and an older sister far senior to Hannah. She was giving these mercenary thugs a terrifying demonstration. Watching her casually plunge the spinning dagger into their flesh while torturing them... I couldn't help but feel how ill-suited the sight was to her appearance.

She looked like an adorable cat beastfolk girl, barely taller than me.

Yet here she was, doing monstrous things without batting an eye, speaking in the exact same casual tone she used when chatting with me. Honestly... it was a little chilling.

Ordinarily, she was an easygoing senior colleague who felt like a cute cat beastfolk, but behind that guise stood a veteran assassin who had survived years in the underworld. Regardless of whether the Assassin Guild was framed as a heroic faction in Assassin Project, she was still someone who had ended countless lives.

Of course, having recently killed a few people myself, I might not have had much room to judge... but the chasm in experience between Rin and me remained vast. Though I'd only killed bad guys, to be fair.

"When requests trickle down to small-fry outfits like us, it's usually because major syndicates dumped something too troublesome for them to handle... And those are never clean jobs."

"And?"

"This one was no different! It was commissioned by someone anonymous. The pay was enormous, but the contract explicitly said the mission details would only be revealed after accepting it... It really said that! Over there—check the desk drawer! Open the top drawer... I swear it's the truth!"

"Junior?"

"Yes."

At Rin's prompt, I immediately went over to search the drawer. Inside the top compartment lay a rather luxurious envelope. I pulled out the letter and skimmed it.

Just as they claimed, it promised a four-million-credit bounty with a one-million-credit advance for expenses, stating the mission parameters would be disclosed upon acceptance.

And one more detail.

"It says that if we accept, we are to visit a small café in front of the Academy wall."

"Near the Academy wall?"

"Yes. Outside the barrier, right in front of the main gate—a café with a red sign."

The phrasing carried an aristocratic flavor, but that was the extent of it. Decidedly suspicious.

"Hmm... Nothing else? Any other notes besides that letter?"

"Nothing! We hadn't even accepted yet; we were just mulling it over! It looked way more dangerous than our usual gigs. How could we just blindly dive in?!"

"Fair enough. You are a rather small operation..."

While Rin continued her interrogation, I opened the remaining drawers one by one, sifting through the documents inside. Rin had the primary task handled, and I had my own work to do.

"Nothing particularly useful here."

"...Senior."

"Yes, Junior? What is it?"

"Take a look at this."

Once she finished questioning them, I called Rin over and handed her a document. Unlike the polished stationery from before, this was scrawled on rough, coarse paper, and the contents were utterly appalling.

Naturally, it had nothing to do with Cecilia—it couldn't possibly be connected to her—but it was something Rin definitely needed to see. To be honest, the moment I read it, I felt a violent urge to butcher these bastards on the spot. Still, just in case, I passed the paper to Rin.

"......"

"What should we do?"

"Whew..."

"Shall I dispose of them?"

I asked softly as Rin's brow furrowed over the page. My fingers tightened firmly around the hilt of my dagger.

"Yeah. Kill them."

"Understood."

The moment she spoke, I executed the remaining thugs kneeling before us. So they could never draw another filthy breath, and never commit the abominable acts detailed on that parchment ever again.

"...Slavery was abolished, yet scum like this still exists? Kidnapping young beastfolk children before they've even reached adulthood..."

"If we forward this to headquarters, they'll handle it, won't they?"

"Yes, absolutely. The guild takes care of matters like this all the time. Let's focus on that letter from earlier instead."

"Understood, Senior."

With that, Rin crumpled the paper and tucked it into her cloak. An illicit beastfolk slave auction... That wasn't an assignment for us right now, not when our priority was safeguarding Cecilia at the Academy. Besides, it had zero connection to our mission.

"Still, it's baffling that they could pull this off in Ardea, right under the Academy's nose."

"Indeed."

Trading quiet observations, we collected several relevant documents from the hideout and slipped out into the night. A few specks of blood dotted my maid uniform, but rinsing them under cold water would wash them clean. Besides, I had spare uniforms back in my room, so it was hardly an issue.

Gathering intel on suspicious movements near the Academy while taking out absolute human garbage—two birds with one stone, wouldn't you say?

"It's clear now that some faction inside the Academy is plotting something extremely dangerous."

"Agreed. A reward of five million credits isn't something an ordinary commoner could ever dream of offering. There's almost certainly a noble involved. It's concerning on multiple fronts."

We hadn't uncovered game-changing secrets, but between this five-million-credit bounty and the operative previously dispatched by Nameless... we now had definitive proof that someone was preparing a strike at the Academy. Whether the client who hired Nameless and the one courting this mercenary syndicate were the same person remained uncertain.

Yet something was undeniably brewing.

"By the way, Senior, is it fine to leave the bodies like that?"

"Hm? Ah, yeah. It's fine. In a shady alley like this, a few corpses in a basement won't raise eyebrows. We didn't touch their valuables, right? Sooner or later, someone will loot the place, creep past the bodies, and slip away. People will just assume the looters did it."

"Well, if you say so, Senior, then I won't worry."

Truthfully, exhaustion was setting in; I just wanted to wrap things up and collapse into bed. I had planned to change clothes and drift off peacefully after putting Cecilia to sleep, only to end up working sudden overtime. All I wanted now was to hurry back to the dorm and sleep.

I had to wake up early tomorrow to prepare Cecilia's morning routine... and once back in the room, I needed to scrub the bloodstains out of my skirt and apron.

"Keep your guard up while protecting the Imperial Princess. You know what I mean, right?"

"Yes, Senior."

"I'll forward everything we gathered tonight to the guild. Including the five-million-credit contract."

"You're far more experienced with that sort of thing than I am, Senior."

And so, my sudden late-night rendezvous with Rin came to an end. Though calling it a 'rendezvous' felt inappropriate given how grim the work had been, the sudden overtime finally ceased, and I slipped back into my dormitory room.

Cecilia remained sound asleep in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her bedroom. Without making a single ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sound, I slipped off my maid uniform and changed into... for reasons beyond me, a pair of pajamas with fluffy rabbit ears attached to the hood.

It wasn't that I wanted to wear them; Sylvia hadn't packed a single normal set of sleepwear for me. Sylvia and Hannah had packed my luggage, and since we left before I could inspect the contents, I never had the chance to complain, object, or swap anything out.

"...Give me a break."

Rather than the intel extracted from the mercenary den or the looming anxiety about the future... this ridiculous sleepwear troubled me far more. Having changed, I stepped into the bathroom to rinse my apron. As I looked up, the reflection in the mirror was... pointlessly...

It might sound self-absorbed, but I was pointlessly cute. The absurdly adorable rabbit pajamas suited me so well that an existential crisis slammed into me out of nowhere.

I really should have made a tall, handsome male vampire character. Even if I hadn't chosen a half-vampire, I definitely should have customized a male character.

Only the upper half of my torso peeked over the bathroom counter into the mirror. My tiny stature was profoundly inconvenient—and pointlessly cute.

"...Ugh."

It was genuinely depressing. If I had at least set my character's age younger, I might have had a chance to grow taller. Instead, I had locked my age at nineteen, leaving me with no biological development in store—only numerical level-ups.

"At least my progress here is smooth sailing..."

I had gained six levels since arriving at the Golden Pavilion. Considering it had been about three weeks, it was neither blazingly fast nor particularly sluggish. Given that I hadn't engaged in any dedicated grinding or training, it felt like more than ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠enough.

"...Though my vampiric traits haven't leveled up at all."

While other stats were rising steadily, my bloodsucking-related traits and titles remained stagnant, which left me somewhat puzzled. Then again, my vampiric diet consisted entirely of drinking blood packs like juice pouches. I didn't dwell on it too much... but something else on the status screen caught my eye and refused to let go.

"...What the hell is 'Plaything' supposed to mean?"

I couldn't fathom why on earth such an absurd title had been added to my list. Standing in the bathroom clad in fluffy rabbit pajamas, scrubbing blood out of my maid apron, the words slipped past my lips in bewildered disbelief.