Chapter Ten: Occasionally, Some Days Are “Elegant”
AS I was a noble, it was important to live life like a noble. It wasn’t like I could always be killing or torturing people.
Today was one of those days I lived elegantly as a noble. There was no class at the Academy, meaning I didn’t need to be annoyed by irritating people or feel the urge to kill.
Or so I thought.
“Selena, how’s school? Are you having fun?”
I’d forgotten my own home had someone who was a pain to deal with.
“Did you make any friends?”
Why am I drinking tea with this person? I gulped back the sigh that was about to come out, along with my tea.
“I’ve been so worried you might be lonely now that Rosemary isn’t here anymore.”
And this refined, prattling woman is my mother, Amaryllis. It might sound nice when I say she’s a saint among saints, but she’s just a flower-brained fool who knows nothing of the world.
I had to maintain a friendly relationship with my mother since I was living as Selena Violette, meaning I had no choice but to have tea with her like this.
“You never invite friends to the house. I was worried your classmates might be excluding you. You’re not being bullied or anything, are you?”
Of course not. I’d kill anyone who bullied me. “I’m not having any problems with class,” I said.
“Really? Well, that’s good. Oh, yes! There are those students from abroad. I heard you’ve been asked to help them out. Do you think they could become your friends?”
Nope. “We have a fairly amicable relationship.”
“Why don’t you invite them over? Since they came all the way to Astra.”
I would rather kill them. “They have so much to do already. They always seem busy.”
They do seem busy with all their flirting and sucking up. It must be hard doing so much work to sell themselves when they’re not even merchants.
“Oh, that’s a shame. And it’s so rare for you to make friends like that.”
I never once called them friends. I didn’t introduce them as my friends. Does Amaryllis think every person existing in the same space gets along? In my past life, I had people with me who ate from the same pot and experienced the same joys and sorrows.
I killed them all.
“It is what it is,” I said. “They have their own things they want to accomplish while studying here. They can’t spend all their time having fun.”
They know the cruelty of the world more than you do. Right now, they’re scrambling to survive. Particularly Ismail with his shattered pride after the tournament. What will you do, Ismail? Aisha’s next up once I’m finished with him.
“What are they like?” asked Amaryllis.
What are they like?
I can’t say they’re so annoying that I want to kill them, can I? What do I say then?
“They’re…pretty.”
That should be fine. They aren’t hard on the eyes, after all, and I have no other way of answering that question.
“Oh, really?” Amaryllis smiled happily at even that mess of an answer. What made her that happy?
I was certain that, before, Amaryllis put distance between us because she found me difficult to deal with. Perhaps she reconsidered things when my adopted sister Rosemary was sent to the convent and decided she should become closer to her real child, so she started inviting me to have tea with her. Personally, though, I didn’t see anything wrong with our relationship until now. I’d actually recommend it.
How could she ever think I was lonely because Rosemary was gone? Are there maggots eating her brain?
“Selena, I know you have today off from the Academy. Do you have any plans for later?” she asked.
“Nothing in particular.”
“Oh. Well, then, would you like to go shopping?”
“With you?”
“Yes. Rosemary and I used to go together often, but you and I don’t as much. You don’t shop much, do you? What if we go every once in a while?”
I don’t add more to my belongings because I think I’m perfectly fine as long as I have what I need and nothing more. And if you think about what will happen after you die, it’s better to have less. Sorting through the belongings of the deceased is a pain.
I know that is because I was sometimes ordered by those above me in my past life to take care of the things left behind by my fellow assassins when they died. Generally, it wasn’t so bad because they usually had few things, like me, but occasionally, I’d get some person with a hoarding habit. They would collect all sorts of things like they wanted something to fixate on. Handling what they left behind when they died was a pain.
“Let’s do it, Selena, please?”
As tedious as it was, I needed to put on a show of having a positive relationship with my mother.
“All right, Mother.”
My lady-in-waiting Marin would select and buy anything I needed, which meant I’d probably never chosen something to buy for myself other than my weapons.
“Oh, this is cute. I wonder if it would look good on you, Selena.”
I’d assumed we’d take a carriage to wherever we were going, but Amaryllis stepped out of the carriage at a random point and popped into whatever shop took her fancy to look around and see if there was anything good. It was more like how a commoner shopped than a noblewoman. Though, perhaps women of all classes go shopping in the same way.
I guess I still don’t get nobles.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?” she said, holding a gem-studded necklace up to me to see if it would look good on me.
I looked, too, at my reflection in the mirror. I had no idea if it suited me or not because I wasn’t interested. I don’t have a sense of what is “cute.” Thinking something is cute has never kept me alive. But if Amaryllis said it was cute, then it probably was.
“It is. It’s very cute,” I played along.
“I know, right?”
Amaryllis’s smile told me that my reaction was the correct one.
She stepped outside the shop to see what was on display out there and see if anything else was nice, and as she did, a boy darted past her.
“Selena, is something wrong?” she asked me.
“I just remembered there’s something I need to do. I’ll be back soon, Mother. Would you mind waiting for me here in the shop?”
“Of course.”
“Tiegel, could you stay with Mother?” I requested.
“Will you be fine without me?” he asked.
“Yes. It shouldn’t be an issue.”
“Then, yes, my lady. Please be careful.”
“I will.”
I left Tiegel behind to guard Amaryllis and went after the boy.
He was running up the main street. The way he weaved through the crowds made it obvious he was experienced at that sort of thing. Escaping through a bustling street was to disperse whoever may or may not be chasing him.
After continuing down the main street for a while, he turned onto a side street. It was unlike the busy street. One step into the gloom cast by the buildings felt like stepping into another world.
This was the world I had grown so familiar with in my past life, but it was one that most people on the main street never interacted with.
It was only one step away. Just one step. Yet it was so different.
The boy had handed the wallet he stole from Amaryllis to a seedy-looking man. As compensation, the man gave the boy a single copper coin, barely enough to buy a bread roll.
But the boy couldn’t win in a fight against a grown man and so had no option but to accept the injustice. This world was one where the strong consumed the weak. The weak could do nothing but continue letting the strong exploit them.
“Hm, what is it, girl?” said the man.
Oh, yes, here, in this world, the strong consume the weak. This world allows them to.
“You wanna have a play with us?” he sneered. “Nice. I promise I’ll take good care of ya.” He licked his lips and grabbed my arm.
“Play? Don’t make me laugh,” I said. “You wouldn’t even be able to handle playing with me.”
“What was that?”
“You are weak. And the weak are for nothing more than being eaten by the strong.”
First, I kicked his feet out from beneath him, easily throwing him off balance when I caught him off guard. Then I raised my foot and dropped my heel onto the back of his head, smashing his face into the ground and knocking him unconscious.
“Th-The bitch! You think you can take us!” shouted someone, and a throng of shouting men rushed towards me.
This place was far from the main road. There was no one here other than vagrants and orphans. No one here was going to get involved in someone else’s business. That was how that man could continue exploiting that boy without anyone criticizing him.
As the number of people on the ground increased by ones and twos, the men finally realized the person in front of them was not a weakling they could exploit.
“Hm, did I go a little too easy?” I murmured, noticing one of the men I thought I’d knocked out was still conscious, but he remained prone on the ground, too scared to even stand. He inched away like a worm, trying to put as much distance between us as he could.
There was no more of that might he’d had on display. His confidence born from the knowledge that he was strong was shattered, leaving behind nothing more than a worthless weakling prone on the ground.
It was so easy for the tables to turn like this.
The boy just watched, like he couldn’t react to the far too unbelievable events unfolding before his eyes.
So, what should I do about him?
I decided to live this one day with the elegance of a noble lady. What would a noble lady—what would Amaryllis do with him? The answer was obvious.
I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of him struggling, so I knocked him unconscious and then dropped him off at the orphanage Amaryllis funded. After taking back the wallet he’d stolen, I returned to Amaryllis.
“Did you finish your errand?” she asked.
“I did.” I slipped the wallet back into her purse without her noticing.
It was exasperating that my own mother didn’t notice when her wallet was stolen, but it was Amaryllis, after all. There wasn’t much more I could expect.
After that, I accompanied her again as a noble’s daughter while she shopped until she’d had her fill.