No Rest for a Former Assassin
It's a little late to be saying this now, but...
I have to admire my own adaptability, just a bit.
Barely a week ago I was still a man. Past tense, of course. When I check the mirror, not even a speck of my male days remains. If I had to hunt for any leftover trace of the guy I used to be, it would probably be the way I stand around looking all sloppy.
But a sloppy stance alone is nowhere near enough for any of the kids in class to suspect I used to be a guy.
So why am I even bringing up this pointless nonsense at this point?
Because my mental gauge is about to hit rock bottom, that's why.
Think about it. Academy life starts with attendance at eight in the morning and stays packed solid until at least four in the afternoon. That's the absolute minimum. Factor in trips to the dining hall and every other chance encounter with people, and I have to stay hyper-aware of every single gesture and expression for ten hours a day, minimum.
It's too hard to endure!
What? A former assassin being this dramatic?
I don't care. I'm not an assassin anymore. Don't go shoving assassin posture at me now. Let me say it one more time for the people in the back: the continent's finest, elite, secret-society assassin is gone.
Anyway, with all that in mind, I made an ironclad decision for the first weekend after enrollment: hole up in my single room the entire day and heal.
A decision no one on this earth could change!
Knock knock knock.
"Elicia! Let's go out together!"
Ann's voice called from the other side of the door, but I yanked the blanket over my head and played dead. If I followed her, healing would be the last thing I got—I'd just be exhausted all day. That much was painfully obvious.
That wasn't my newly made friend Ann. That was the voice of a demon sent to torment me!
Knock knock.
"Elicia, are you not in there?"
Yes, I'm not! Just leave me alone and go out by yourself!
I kept silent, and eventually she seemed to give up; the hallway went quiet.
Now I can sprawl out as much as I want—
"Miss Elicia?"
I bolted upright!
Ah—that "bolted" is the sitting-up kind, not the other kind. I no longer possess a body capable of the other kind.
While my brain was busy with useless thoughts, my body had already kicked the blanket aside and stood on pure instinct. Of course it had. If I ignored this voice and fell out of Cielian's favor, life would get very complicated very fast. If my true identity ever slipped out, my life itself would be on the line. And to track down the master-servant contract scroll—my one and only weakness—I needed to stay as close to Cielian as possible.
"Yes, I'm inside."
I answered in a bright, cheerful voice and opened the door. Blue eyes met mine. As expected, it was Cielian.
"What? You were here the whole time. You didn't even answer when I called."
And when I glanced a little lower, another pair of eyes—crimson this time—stared back at me.
What, the two of them came together?
"Hmm... I think I heard something while I was half-asleep... Was it Ann's voice that woke me?"
I stretched languidly, as if I'd truly been dead to the world until a second ago. Ann's pouting lips tucked themselves back in.
Okay. Safe.
"Anyway, we're going to look around the city a bit... Want to come with us?"
Refusing was never an option.
And so the three of us slipped out of the academy.
Griffin Academy sits inside a rather unusual city, even by imperial standards. Felches, the city that houses the academy, is deliberately structured so that no noble house can exert direct influence—true to the academy's stated ideal of treating every enrolled student without discrimination, at least on paper.
There is no lord who rules the place. If anyone can be called its owner, it is the imperial family itself. Beyond that, a handful of appointed officials rotate in at regular intervals to keep the city's gears turning. Any corruption or graft here is treated as treason against the throne. So far, no one has been bold enough to try.
As a result, the usual exploitation and rot that come with high-ranking officials simply do not exist. And even though commoners make up part of the student body, at least half the academy is still filled with nobles. That means student money keeps the commercial districts humming with constant activity.
A city free of official corruption, flooded with noble wealth from outside, and buzzing with lively trade. Naturally, its scale rivals that of the imperial capital itself.
And I had already been circling that enormous city for hours—dragged along by Ann and Cielian's hands.
This shop, then that shop, then back to the first shop we had already visited, then off to some distant district because someone had heard a rumor... I was simply hauled around for hours on end. Of course I bought nothing the entire time. How could I? I had no money to begin with.
My sole expense was the coffee I was currently nursing at this café—and even that was the cheapest Americano on the menu. I was in no position to waste coin on a single drink, yet for the sake of growing closer to Cielian, this much didn't feel like a waste... I think. Probably?
By the way, with my senses sharpened, my sense of taste had grown sharper too. The bitterness hit several times harder than it ever had when I was a man. Ugh...
I was still squinting slightly when something soft tapped against my closed lips.
Poke. Poke.
Before I could even identify it, the something slipped between my lips. Whatever it was melted into the leftover Americano, banished the bitterness, and filled my entire mouth with sweetness.
Looking up, I found Cielian smiling brightly, a few cookies still in her hand. I felt a little embarrassed that I'd only ordered a drink and hadn't touched anything else.
"Hmm~? What's going on with you two? Why do I suddenly feel like the odd one out?"
Ann's eyes flicked back and forth between me and Cielian. Cielian, however, showed zero intention of feeding Ann a cookie the way she had fed me; she simply kept smiling as if the whole situation delighted her.
Giving up on free cookies from Cielian, Ann instead stabbed her fork into the cake in front of her, scooped up a generous bite, and stuffed it straight into my mouth.
When something is bitter, the heightened senses are pure misery. When something is delicious, though, those same senses let me savor every delicate note. Net result: plus-minus zero!
While I was still enjoying the cake's sweetness, Cielian's smiling eyes went round as saucers and her mouth fell open in an ungraceful gape. Her gaze kept darting toward... Ann's fork?
?
Cielian's trembling hand reached for that fork. Ann noticed both the hand and the expression, grinned, and—
Hah!
—scooped another big bite and pushed it into Cielian's mouth. Cielian clamped her lips around the fork as if she had no intention of ever letting it go. Ann had to tug with visible effort, her arm trembling, before the fork finally slipped free—completely clean, not a single speck of cream left. Cielian had thoroughly sucked it dry.
It really was a flavor too good to waste even a bit of cream on.
Still, for the young lady of a marquis house, even this cake apparently only barely scraped a passing grade. She chewed with a complicated, faintly dissatisfied expression, as if she were graciously letting it slide this once.
When the time to return to the academy finally drew near, Ann announced there was one last place she wanted to visit and promptly dragged Cielian and me along.
We arrived at the Temple of Goddess Serena inside the city. The academy has its own temple for theology students, but the main one is here.
Temples dedicated to Serena are common enough that even tiny villages usually have one, yet the temple in Felches is something special.
"Hello, Priest. May we go inside?"
"Lady Serena always welcomes all of you."
With the elderly priest's permission we entered the main hall. Worshippers sat on the benches offering quiet prayers, but prayer was not our purpose.
All three of our gazes settled on the single sword hanging behind the statue of Goddess Serena.
It was the Holy Sword—the legendary blade said to break its own seal when the Demon King revives and then seek out its true master the moment the genuine Hero appears.
The Holy Sword radiated a sanctity so profound it inspired reverence simply by existing. Its pure-white blade looked sharp enough to sever every evil in the world at a glance.
Ann stepped closer for a better look, and the rest of us followed. The instant we did, light began to pour from the Holy Sword. Exactly as the legends claimed when it sought its master, the blade glowed and started to tremble.
Ann and I—and Cielian herself—already knew why. It was almost certainly reacting to Cielian, one of the strongest Hero candidates.
"...It's not time yet... so just wait a little longer."
Cielian whispered the words so softly that only I, standing right beside her, could hear. A quiet declaration of her resolve to one day earn the Holy Sword's choice.
Anyway, thanks to Ann for bringing us here and to Cielian for being a Hero candidate, I got quite the spectacle.
The part where we fled like thieves to escape the priests and nuns who came rushing at the sudden commotion... well, that can stay our little secret.