You’d think her first strategy would be to avoid angering high-ranking nobles rather than trying to marry Evan as quickly as she could just so she could have his protection.
“Jealousy is so ugly,” she said. “Prince Evan, Lady Violette is scary.”
The other noble girls around grew even more hostile as Aisha said that and clung to Evan. For better or worse, she had a knack for getting others worked up.
“Jealousy?” I said, laughing so hard I had to hold my sides. It was probably the first time I’d laughed so hard. I laughed so much tears spilled from my eyes.
“It’s rude to laugh,” said Aisha.
What an annoying girl. It’s all right to kill her if she insists on throwing cold water on people when they’re enjoying themselves, right?
Oh, yes, I got this ready just for situations like this.
I took out my metal fan, lightly tapped her on the shoulder with it, then gently ran it along her neck over her carotid artery.
A stanza from a poem floated in my mind as I did:
And as she passed me by
She became bloodied before my eye
In this daylight illusion
What was that? Oh, yes, it was in a book my teacher loved to read. He read books from all different countries written in all different languages. That one was from a collection of poems from a country east of where I lived in my previous world. He really did love that book.
“Wh-What?” said Aisha.
I don’t know what emotions the author felt when they wrote that, but I’m certain they weren’t entirely right in the head. Or at least, the average person around them wouldn’t have thought so.
The same could be said about my teacher since he loved reading such a book.
And perhaps, right now, my eyes looked just as wild as theirs did. Aisha looked frightened even though I wasn’t putting out a killer’s aura.
“I am not jealous of a weakling as frightened as a rabbit kit. The only thing I feel for someone soft in the head who doesn’t know their own lack of power and yaps at every single person they see like some tiny dog is the pity I feel for fools,” I said.
Not that I felt something as kind as pity. What I actually felt was a desire to eliminate all these annoying people.
“Be careful, Aisha Alaban. You may have gotten away with your barbaric ways in Rienbul. People may not have called you out or sneered at you even though you acted like an idiot, but this is not Rienbul. And the person in front of you is not the daughter of a baron. He is the crown prince of Astra.”
Oh, those eyes, like she wanted to cry, “And so what?”
Even after I said that, she obviously still believed she was in a stronger position just because she was the daughter of a prince. She was here simply because there was nothing you could say to her to make her see.
“It is very easy to erase one girl from a viscount’s family,” I said. “So, watch your tongue.”
I smiled, and, for some reason, the gawkers around us blushed and broke into a buzz. I didn’t understand why since they couldn’t hear what we were talking about.
I took my eyes off Aisha to see what was going on, but Evan cleared his throat as if to stop me. “Sometimes, I think you might be some sort of enchantress,” he said.
Why did he feel the need to say that? All I did was smile.
But Evan didn’t seem inclined to explain. He instead urged me into the academy building, leaving behind Aisha, who stood there with fists trembling with rage.
Now, what will her next move be?
“Do you think you may have goaded her a bit too much?” asked Evan as he glanced backward towards Aisha. He wasn’t looking just at her, though, but also at the other noble girls.
He knew what effect his status and appearance had on the people around him and had likely predicted the noble girls nearby would do something to Aisha after how much she tried to cozy up to him.
He also knew Aisha wasn’t the sort of person to listen to warnings from others. He didn’t stop me from goading her because he anticipated how it would make her feel and what it would make her do. In fact, by acting so familiar with me, he was showing Aisha that the only person special to him was me.
Which was a real pain for me.
“I don’t see any problem with it,” I said. “If she does anything, she’ll reap what she sowed.”
I laughed at her for being a weak fool, unaware of her own weakness, brandishing her nonexistent might as she pretended she was strong, but I didn’t pity her.
There’s no such thing as a kind world, after all.
“The weak are fated to be culled by the strong,” I said. The fault was on the weak for not having enough strength to survive. The only thing they should resent was their own incompetence.
“You think so?” said Evan, looking straight into my eyes. His eyes said he knew of people’s foolishness, greed, and ugliness, and he still wanted to—felt obligated to—save as many as he could.
Those eyes were arrogant and made me uncomfortable.
“Noblesse oblige,” he said.
Oh, there are no words I hate more in this world.
“What of it?” I asked, looking right back into his eyes. “Are you saying the weak should be saved?”
The obligation of the nobility? That was something the nobility imposed on themselves. You could call it a symbol of their arrogance.
“I believe if you have the power to save them, you should. Royals and nobles have that power,” he said.
“But we can’t possibly save them all. Then, who decides who gets saved and who doesn’t? Are the nobles and royals meant to select those they happen to like and save them? How arrogant.”
If that’s the case, I must have slipped through the cracks of that selection process in my last life, leaving me with no other path but one of gloom. There were no other options.
“I will go down with you, if need be, to protect him.”
Well then, what about him? That knight that killed me in my previous life. In some ways, you resemble him, Evan. Does that mean he was one of the chosen ones? Was that why he threw his life away for someone else?
Is that why people help others? So the ones they helped will do things like that for them?
What actually was the difference between me and that knight? I don’t think we were all that different.
Though he and I lived in different worlds, we walked different paths. The only thing we had in common was where we ended. And if that’s the case, then I’m fine if I wasn’t one of those chosen ones. I’m not going to use my life for someone else.
Even now, I am an assassin, through and through.
“You’re right, Selena. We can’t save them all. There will come a time when we’re forced to choose. Actually, we’re always choosing, just like you say. I don’t believe I can save everyone. But that can’t mean abandoning them all is fine, either. I don’t want to create a country that cruel.”
“Of course, because you’re so kind.”
“Selena… I even want to save you.”
I wonder what my expression was when he said that. I think I might have smiled, nearly laughed. I mean, Evan says such funny things.
I have no regrets about the path I chose, even if it was the only option. I was the one who chose. It didn’t matter how many times I was reborn or how many times I was forced to choose; I’m sure I’d make the same choice.
“You saved me,” said Tiegel, standing silently behind me as my attendant. I’d killed the person who kept him as a slave, took him home to my mansion, and made him become an assassin like me.
“I didn’t save you,” I said.
“I know. I know that’s not what you intended.”
It was a whim. I just did for him what my teacher in my previous life did for me. If that’s saving someone, both my teacher and I are very arrogant.
“But still,” continued Tiegel, “I can be by your side now because you chose me then. I’m glad you chose me, my lady.”
He smiled gently, and there were squeals from the female students watching us from a distance, even though they couldn’t hear our conversation.
That sound seemed to jolt Evan back to the present because he smiled awkwardly and said, “Perhaps we shouldn’t have this discussion at the Academy,” ending the conversation there.