I Become a Secret Police Officer of The Imperial Academy – Chapter 57

Chapter 57

At this point, even seeing a status window didn’t surprise me.

A bad ending? What kind of bad ending?

Not only did she massacre demons, but she also drugged Afren—who used to slack off with me at the library—and abducted and killed countless ordinary people. She was a villain through and through.

“Status window! Status! Status window!! Argh!!”

Even if killing demons wasn’t a crime, as Ellen had claimed, how was she going to justify murdering ordinary people?

She killed people for hiding demons. She killed them for marrying demons and having children. She killed them for simply falling in love with one.

She dragged in people who had nothing to do with any of it, tortured them into revealing the whereabouts of demons they considered family—or who were, in fact, their family—then killed them anyway.

Why?

A heroine? If that was a heroine, then that game would’ve flopped instantly.

“Heroines are people too! Please be mindful not to stress them out.” What kind of bullshit was that?

What now? Should I turn around and run straight to Ellen and kiss her?

Or should I do to her what she did to Afren—get her addicted to potions and keep her happy with a constant dose?

That’d just be returning the favor, wouldn’t it?

“…Theo, what’s wrong all of a sudden…?”

Heroine or villain, she must have been someone from a normal world like me.

She wasn’t born into this twisted world—where the surface seemed bright, but filth seeped through every crack.

She liked games, anime, movies—especially John Wick.

Yeah, she was probably just a regular person.

If I had grown up in the same environment as Ellen, maybe I would have become just as twisted.

…Even so.

Even so, could a person really hate and kill others to such an extent?

If she had only killed demons, I could have at least understood on some level.

But I couldn’t comprehend Ellen at all.

She said that hating someone was much easier and more convenient than trying to understand them, but that was just her opinion.

I could never slaughter people as effortlessly as she did.

I would break down before I even got that far.

“Theo!?”

Isabel shook my shoulders, snapping me back to reality.

“…Where are we?”

“We’re almost at the count’s mansion. Are you feeling uneasy?”

Isabel looked at me with concern.

If we were this close, even if we turned back immediately, we wouldn’t reach the capital until morning.

Still, the thought that I needed to get back as soon as possible kept flooding my mind.

The count wasn’t much of a problem.

Just another lunatic who kidnapped children and boiled them alive in an attempt to bring his daughter back to life.

“…Yeah.”

The unease came from Ellen.

I kicked off and rushed into the count’s mansion.

“Hey, wait, Theo! We need to check from the outside first and make sure it’s safe!?”

“There’s no need for that. Just follow me, Isabel.”

I ignored the few servants I saw and headed straight for the basement.

I stomped on the floor repeatedly until the wooden hatch shattered, revealing a staircase leading downward.

Walking through the dark corridor for what felt like an eternity, I finally approached a middle-aged man slumped in a chair.

“Did they find us?”

“Yeah.”

“Who was it? The Security Bureau? The National Police? The Capital Task Force? The Defense Corps?

The army wouldn’t send the military police for something like this… Or was it the puppet emperor? That wouldn’t make sense.”

Annoyed, he scratched his head furiously—before I blew it off.

I stared for a long time at the bubbling pot in the center of the room, its rancid stench filling the space, then shut my eyes tightly.

Did I come too soon?

Isabel and Diana finally caught up and entered the basement.

“What if something had happened? Why did you run in alone!?”

This wasn’t the time for an argument.

For a moment, I could swear I heard Ethel and Isabel bickering in the distance, and the bitterness in my throat rose.

I bit down lightly on my lip and forced myself to speak.

“…We need to get back to the capital. Fast.”

“Even if we left right now without resting, we wouldn’t arrive until morning.

We’ve already booked an inn nearby—are you really going to leave immediately?”

Inn or not, I had to go.

Ellen had said it.

She did all those things because her younger sister died.

That as long as her sister was alive, nothing else mattered.

“You guys stay here. I have to go.

No—don’t come back for a while. It’s going to be dangerous.”

“All of a sudden?”

I wasn’t good with words.

I wasn’t persuasive, nor could I explain things logically.

So I just said what I needed to and forced my will onto others instead of trying to make them understand.

And this was no different.

I had decided to live as someone from this world, forgetting about past lives and reincarnation.

But after witnessing Ellen’s suicide with my own eyes, I suddenly found myself back in this timeline.

Like I had hit a save point.

A strange sense of dissonance settled in.

As if this world wasn’t real.

The horse I had ridden was exhausted.

I spent all the money I had to buy a fresh one from a stable on the outskirts and rode straight to the capital.

The journey itself had no issues, but I must have been too late.

The capital was still burning when I arrived in the morning.

The demons had passed by our house, but there wasn’t much worth looting, so only a few came and left.

One of the rocks they threw hit my mother, fracturing her arm slightly, but that was the extent of the damage.

Last time, I had cut down the ones who tried to enter the house—so what had changed?

Or maybe those demons were just random thugs, and it didn’t matter anyway.

Even if I hadn’t been there, my father would have taken care of it.

I climbed onto the rooftop and sat down, staring at the distant screams and the burning buildings.

What could I even do if I went there?

I’d just get caught between the raging crowd and the demons.

I didn’t even know where Ellen was.

What kind of confidence had brought me back to the capital?

Did I think I could save Ellen if I came here?

No.

No.

Something had changed.

Since the demons loitering in front of my house were gone, maybe something had changed for Ellen, too.

I wanted to believe that.

I didn’t want to see another basement filled with corpses—humans and demons alike.

I didn’t want to see people explode and die right in front of me as if it were nothing.

I didn’t want to have to pick bone fragments out of my cheek again.

I didn’t want to fight with someone from the same world as me—someone I was once close to.

I didn’t want to see that lunatic glare at me with bloodshot eyes, swearing to kill every last demon, even after being slapped and slammed into a wall.

I didn’t want to get stabbed when I had only gone to rescue her, thinking she was trapped by some brothel owner.

She had been sobbing, so I tried to comfort her—but in hindsight, the fact that she was walking around that house so casually should have made me suspicious from the start.

I should have realized that every word she murmured in my arms was a lie.

When a blade suddenly slides under your arm, all you feel is shock—your body won’t even move.

The pain only hits later, and by the time you register it, another blade is already buried in your side.

And then there’s that sickening sensation of flesh tearing, the blade cutting downward through muscle and skin until it reaches your thigh.

I never wanted to remember that feeling again.

Getting stabbed hurts.

I had broken bones before, had my fair share of injuries, but I had never actually been on the verge of death.

If I hadn’t been stabbed in the side, I probably would’ve just broken down crying, whining about the pain like an idiot.

But when your body is sliced from underarm to knee, you can’t even move.

And even then, Ellen had been right there, shooting at Isabel, Diana, and Ethel.

Maybe that was why.

Two days later, when I saw Ellen again, I found myself instinctively afraid.

Come to think of it, it was never me who approached her—it was always Ellen.

If we fought, I wouldn’t just win—I’d easily overpower her.

And yet, I was terrified.

To the point where I thought I should just kill her right then and there.

But if Ellen died, wouldn’t everything just reset again?

What if things kept twisting further every time I came back, until my family ended up dead, too?

That thought made me hesitate, so I tried talking to her first.

She said she did all of that because her younger sister had died.

Fortunately, though my parents had been injured, my family was still alive.

Just like how things had changed slightly when I returned to the city, maybe something had changed for Ellen, too.

Even if that wasn’t the case, I was going to believe it.

I mean, why would she lie about her family being dead if they weren’t?

Everything would be fine.

No matter what happens from now on.

I’d just stay holed up in the academy, dealing with whatever evil villains popped up now and then.

Like that count.

The one who kidnapped village children to boil them alive, all because he wanted to resurrect his already-dead daughter.

If only everything could go the way I wanted, like in a shonen manga.

Receiving a fateful encounter at the right moment, having sudden realizations that made me stronger—things like that.

But in the end, those were just excuses.

I just didn’t want to die.

I was scared.

Because it hurts.

I wasn’t some great person like people said.

I was just a coward. A normal person.