Ch.133133. Assassin

“What the hell are these guys?”

On the road heading east.

Findenai, who had neatly beaten up the assassins who came after them, mutters indifferently while stretching her shoulders.

“If you come to assassinate someone, shouldn’t you at least show some skill? Bastards with no pride.”

The sight of a maid in uniform lecturing assassins was extremely incongruous.

But these assassins were so useless they deserved such treatment.

I understood she was being irritable because she didn’t even get a chance to try out her newly acquired blood technique, but I pushed her back and stood in front of them.

When they suddenly attacked our carriage, I wondered what was happening. I thought they might be church fanatics who still hated me, but looking at them now, that wasn’t the case.

“Who sent you?”

At my question, the assassins kept their mouths shut and lowered their heads.

Unlike their skills, they seemed to have some loyalty.

“You’re going to stay silent?”

“J-just kill us!”

“Filthy Black Mage!”

“We came here thinking we were already dead!”

“Don’t humiliate us!”

Their bold shouting was quite impressive. If they had the skills to match, they would certainly have been excellent assassins.

“Fine, I’ll kill you.”

I create a sphere of flame in my palm. The four elemental magics didn’t suit me well, so this was my limit, but I had at least mastered the basics.

“However, don’t think death is the end.”

At my words, the assassins trembled.

They seemed to be from the Griffin Kingdom, but apparently didn’t realize how foolish it was to discuss death in front of a Black Mage.

“I am a necromancer. After killing you, I will capture your souls and grant you eternal suffering until the day I die.”

I feel strength entering my body.

I unleash a kind of pressure that even Findenai acknowledged when I was preparing for my lecture last time.

“You won’t escape me even in death. I’ll cut off your limbs and drag you around with ropes around your necks.”

“……”

The assassins began looking up at me with their mouths open. Fear gradually settled in their eyes.

“Does it sound impossible? Because you are dead, you will not be able to die. And because you are already dead, you will learn there is no end.”

“……”

“Even death will not be your salvation.”

Just as I stretched out my hand to shoot the flames, the assassins frantically bowed their heads before me and shouted.

“L-Lord Romerzhan! We’re Lord Romerzhan’s subordinates! He ordered us to assassinate you while working with the Marias tribe!”

“The reason?”

“W-we heard the Marias tribe fears you, Spiritmaster! That’s why he told us to assassinate you before you reached the battlefield!”

“Heroin and Boman are there too, right?”

Romerzhan, Heroin, and Boman.

I’d heard they were notable nobles who had fled to the Great Marias Forest.

The assassin nodded immediately before I even finished speaking.

“That’s right! They’re all there!”

Clean and simple.

“Findenai, restrain them all and hand them over to the city guards. The royal family will arrest them.”

“We need to buy food anyway, so we can stop by briefly.”

At those words, I slightly turned my head.

“Don’t we have enough food?”

“I’m in my growth phase.”

I looked at Owen, who shook his head. When I turned my gaze back to Findenai, she just shrugged.

“Can’t I grow at 27?”

So she’s been eating a lot by herself. Since she can’t smoke, she’s relieving stress in strange ways.

Claiming she’ll make it worth it, Findenai grabbed her axe and unhesitatingly struck the assassins on the head with the flat side, knocking them unconscious.

A crude method, but effective.

Owen began tying up the unconscious assassins with rope.

[You really have a way with words, don’t you?]

The Dark Spiritmaster watched contentedly from the side. Of course, I had no intention of doing what I had threatened with their souls.

That’s not my style.

The Dark Spiritmaster knew this and smiled slyly with her arms crossed.

[Anyone would think you’re a terribly evil Black Mage.]

“Forget that. There’s something that bothers me.”

[What?]

The Dark Spiritmaster didn’t seem to notice, but it was quite an important matter. Especially now that we knew how incompetent these assassins were.

“They knew my exact location.”

[…..]

I glanced around. The area could be called a plain, but there were many rocks that made good hiding places for assassins.

There are several paths heading east, and they wouldn’t have had the resources to place assassins on each one.

This meant they knew my exact location.

[Why don’t you ask the assassins?]

“They won’t know. If they did, they would have told us everything just now.”

They were probably just waiting here on the nobles’ orders.

“The nobles sent them, but they wouldn’t have the ability to track my location while on the run.”

[I agree.]

“Then that means the Marias tribe has something.”

When I glanced at the Dark Spiritmaster, she pouted and shrugged.

[I don’t know everything. Especially since I’ve always hated forests. Would I have gone to a place like the Great Marias Forest?]

“Right, I suppose not.”

The Dark Spiritmaster definitely looked like someone who would hate dense forests.

But I couldn’t let this go easily.

The fact that neither she nor I sensed anything meant it wasn’t magic that manipulated mana.

If the sharp-sensed Findenai didn’t feel anything either, it meant we weren’t being followed or monitored.

‘Did they say they handle something other than mana?’

The tribal people didn’t appear in the game, so it was difficult to accurately understand their powers.

‘The important thing is…’

What worried me was that they might not only be able to track my location but could also approach us in some other way.

* * *

The first practical training site for first-year students was a small forest. There were monsters, but they were low-level and few in number.

It was essentially no different from a camping trip.

Aria was grilling meat.

“……”

A wild boar cleanly caught by Happy, the archer.

It was too much for the six team members to eat, so they exchanged some of it with other students for mushrooms, corn, potatoes, fruit, and other foods.

As a result, Aria’s team had the most well-stocked tent in the area.

Happy and Forensia were enjoying themselves with slightly raised noses, while Leorus and Jin were busy helping other female students who had asked for assistance.

Aria, who was turning the meat skewers, glanced at another team member beside her.

The blonde girl wearing a white beret, sitting with her legs together and a drawing pad on her lap.

Princess Elenoa Luden Griffin, the poster child for “I’ve never done this before.”

“Aren’t you going to help?”

When Aria snapped at her in annoyance, Elenoa answered without much interest, busily moving her pen.

“I need something to do first.”

“What do you mean? Help me grill some of this other stuff.”

When Aria nudged Elenoa with her foot, she frowned and sighed.

Finally, she put aside the drawing she was working on and stood next to Aria, holding skewers of potatoes and mushrooms.

Princess Elenoa seemed uncomfortable being in the same team with other students, so Deus had forcibly placed her with Aria, whom she was relatively comfortable with.

Aria glanced at the drawing Elenoa had been working on—it was herself in a magical girl outfit, cooking.

“Hey.”

“I’m drawing you nicely. And I’m going to use this for bartering.”

What was she talking about now?

“If I give this to the boys in team 7, they’ll take our night watch shifts. We can just sleep.”

“So I don’t get any say in this?”

Elenoa just shrugged her shoulders and spoke confidently. If she weren’t a princess, Aria would have smacked her right away.

Aria sighed but then considered for a moment before making a proposal.

“Draw me one picture of Professor Deus. Then I’ll let it slide.”

“Do you think I’m a street artist?”

“If you don’t want to, fine. But I know you’ve been drawing Professor Deus non-stop anyway.”

“……”

That wasn’t wrong.

If she ranked the people she drew most often, Shinwoo Kim would be first, and Deus would be second.

They were actually the same person.

Drawing it wouldn’t be difficult, but Elenoa didn’t want to give anyone her drawings of Deus.

She brought up something she had heard while talking with Happy earlier.

“I thought you said you don’t like Professor Deus.”

“…Happy.”

Aria immediately identified the culprit and vowed to punish Happy severely that night, but answered calmly.

“I said ‘not yet,’ remember?”

“What do you mean ‘not yet’?”

Elenoa snorted in disbelief as she turned the skewers of potatoes and mushrooms with her palm.

“I thought you’d finally come to your senses after calling him ‘Professor’ all the time. If you’ve given up, you should step back cleanly.”

“Says the princess who secretly draws lewd pictures of the professor.”

The two glared at each other momentarily. Despite bickering like this, they didn’t drift apart.

For Elenoa, Aria was the only female student who treated her without formality.

For Aria, Elenoa was the only friend she hadn’t been close with in the first timeline.

Both actually needed each other, but neither wanted to admit it and give the other the upper hand in their relationship.

“Sigh, fine. I’ll draw you one.”

“…Is it possible to request specific clothes or poses?”

“Let me hear it.”

“Never mind. Do you have any samples you could show me?”

“Samples?”

Looking at her with a puzzled expression, Aria nodded with somewhat expectant eyes.

“Yeah! If I see what you’ve drawn before, I can ask for something similar that I like.”

“N-no! Are you crazy?!”

Elenoa’s face suddenly turned bright red as she panicked. Aria wondered why at first, but as her thoughts reached their conclusion, her face also reddened.

“Hey, wait… you don’t mean…”

“No, I don’t! Absolutely not! I have no idea what you’re thinking! Whatever it is, it’s definitely not that!”

“……”

Despite her denials, Aria was half-convinced. This Elenoa had drawn pictures of Deus Verdi that couldn’t be shown to others.

She regretted that Elenoa had brought a drawing pad with a board instead of her usual notebook.

If it had been a notebook, she would have immediately opened it to expose whatever this girl had been up to.

“We’re students.”

Elenoa squeezed out the words as if forcing them. It was a feeble attempt at resistance, but to Aria, it was nonsense.

As Aria was considering what to say next, just in case…

Rustle, rustle.

A man emerged from the nearby bushes.

With his glasses and innocent appearance, he looked neither like a student nor a professor.

He scratched his head as he approached and asked:

“Excuse me, I’m looking for Professor Erika. Do you know where she might be?”

“Who are you?”

When Aria snapped back, the man smiled awkwardly.

“Haha, I’m an acquaintance. I live nearby and heard she was here for practical training, so I came to see her briefly.”

“…She’s over there.”

Aria pointed to the tent where Professor Erika was and continued grilling the meat.

He thanked her with a smile and left. Elenoa, who had been listening to the conversation, glanced at the back of the man’s head and asked:

“That man had a dagger hidden on his thigh?”

At those words, Aria responded indifferently.

“I know, but I don’t know. I’m just an ordinary student.”

What on earth was she talking about?

Elenoa made an incredulous face but used her sharp mind to make several deductions, offering the most likely one:

“Judging by the fact that even I, a princess, couldn’t recognize him, and his flimsy excuse, he’s not a professional assassin. But Professor Erika isn’t important enough to warrant assassins.”

“……”

“She’s from the Bright family, but I heard she’s been somewhat estranged. So what remains is that she’s the Spiritmaster’s fiancée.”

Aria was honestly impressed by Elenoa’s deductions that flowed out like unwinding thread. She was capable even at this age.

“Professor Deus’s fiancée is in danger of assassination?”

To that, Aria responded as if to say “what do you expect me to do?”

“I told you, I’m just an ordinary student. I don’t know if that person is an assassin. Even if I did know, I’d pretend not to.”

“You should see a doctor.”

Unable to understand Aria’s words, Elenoa pouted but focused more on grilling the potatoes and mushrooms.

Watching her, Aria asked irritably:

“Then why aren’t you going to help?”

“Hm? If she’s the professor’s fiancée, she should be able to handle that much herself.”

“……”

“If she can’t, she should break off the engagement.”

It was quite an absurd answer, but…

“You’re so wise. The future of the country looks bright.”

“I’m a princess. It’s the power of early education.”

Aria found herself deeply agreeing, so the two began to focus on cooking again.

“Hey, but… how far can you go with the drawings?”

“You tell me first what level you want.”

“Then you have to tell me too.”

After that.

Hieeeek!

Hueeeurgh!

Oh my! Oh my! Oh my!

You’re quite something yourself!

Such exclamations burst continuously from the mouths of the two.