After a pleasant time at the resort, night had fallen. When they returned to the mansion near the royal palace in the capital, someone was tailing Dante Hiakapo.
Dante Hiakapo walked for quite a while, then stopped at some point.
Because Dame Layme blocked his path.
“Not even bothering to look back?”
“......”
“Hm. So. What’s your reason for dragging your protection target off on your own without informing the Shadow Guard?”
“There was nothing for you to worry about.”
“What did you do?”
“A resort trip.”
“......”
Layme stared at Dante, then stepped closer. Then she tilted her head for a moment.
Once upon a time, someone told her she was the most emotionless woman in the world. Like a poorly baked, parched potato, they said. That was her ex-husband, too. But Layme was sure of it: this man was worse than she was.
“Why.”
There was nothing for it but to ask bluntly. Just the way she preferred to be asked.
“Because I think the princess should be happy.”
The answer that came back was astonishingly simple, and because it was simple it left no room for misunderstanding, and because it left no room for misunderstanding, she couldn’t understand it.
“...Since when? That wasn’t your—character—before.”
“Dame.”
“Huh?”
“I have something I wish to ask. Why do you devote yourself so to the princess?”
“......”
Layme knit her brows, then answered.
“Because she feels like a daughter.”
“That doesn’t mean you need to act like a mother-in-law toward me.”
“Quiet, professor. I asked when it started.”
“If you change your question from the start to the end, I’ll answer.”
“...Until when?”
At Dante’s ensuing answer, Layme’s eyes widened.
“Are you serious?”
Maybe because he was embarrassed or whatever it was, the professor moved off a ways, and Layme felt all her worries melt away like snow.
That stiff, blockheaded log of a professor Dante Hiakapo said something like that?
It’s absurd that happiness could hang on a single word from someone, and yet the corners of her mouth couldn’t help but curl.
But Layme decided not to trust carelessly. Hadn’t her ex-husband said the exact same kinds of things? Luhyem, nyarell nyengwenhye shaejhejhya~ Just go drop dead, why don’t you.
Men’s honey-coated words are the very definition of flimsy; you have to keep them under constant watch.
“......”
Even so, at least right now, she undeniably liked it.
***
Dante is, for all intents and purposes, invincible.
If he used to be monstrously strong already, now there would be no one on this continent who could assassinate him.
That was a self-evident fact. Joaquin knew it too. Even if a hundred, a thousand of himself charged in, killing him would be impossible.
‘...And you think I’m going to give up because of that?’
After his last failed assassination, Joaquin finally ended up under a mountain of debt and found himself a part-time job.
Cleaning teaching aids!
Then, realizing one job like that wouldn’t cover Black Abyss’s high interest, he also worked nights at a tavern.
As it turned out, working suited him, and later he started using his free hours on weekends to do small dog-walking gigs too!
Thus, three jobs plus coursework, for like three years.
‘...Huh?’
What the hell.
Why does it fit me so well.
‘No, no. No it doesn’t. This is fucking insane.’
Who is Joaquin Hilavan?
‘An assassin.’
An honorable Black Abyss assassin at that.
He lifted a dagger and thought,
‘Someday I will absolutely, Professor Dante Hiakapo...’
“Joaquin?”
“What. Which bastard—”
Joaquin turned and froze. It was Professor Ludenbach. For a Black Abyss professor he had oddly many soft connections (cover identities for assassination), and he was the one who’d arranged Joaquin’s part-time gigs cleaning teaching aids, at the tavern, and walking dogs.
“Bastard?”
“Got any new part-time jobs?”
“Yes. A commission.”
A commission!
After getting humiliated on the Dante assassination, commissions had dried up completely—finally!
In that case, with his honed assassination skills, it was a chance to make big money in one go.
With that money he would attempt the assassination of Professor Dante again.
“......”
And the next day Joaquin cleaned a house full of trash.
“A special cleanup, seriously. Fuck.”
If you want to earn money, you gotta do whatever, right?
Soon Joaquin’s hands got moving. In the middle of a room where toilet paper, rotten food waste, and unknown stickiness were all smeared together, he knew what he had to do.
He sorted the garbage, scrubbed the filth off the floor, and scoured the moldy walls. He gripped the rag like he would a dagger. He chased stains the way he would track a target.
And suddenly, a cleared corner of floor caught his eye. Tiles that must have been white to begin with showed through. Sunlight reflected on them and glittered.
‘Oh.’
Something in Joaquin’s chest tickled.
He shook his head quickly. Even so, his hands didn’t stop and moved on to the next zone. He sprayed detergent, brushed, and wiped. Every time the grime vanished, a strange pleasure surged up.
Three hours later—
the house was completely different. The floor shone, the walls were clean, the air was fresh.
‘......’
After that, special-cleanup commissions kept coming.
Lonely-death scenes, trash houses, abandoned homes. Places nobody wanted to touch. Joaquin didn’t refuse. No, he couldn’t.
Each time he made a filthy place clean, each time he witnessed the change, something felt fulfilled.
He tried to convince himself. It’s to save up funds to assassinate Professor Dante. But it was no use.
One day, after a special cleanup. The middle-aged woman who’d commissioned him offered her thanks.
“Thank you, young man. For making my son’s room this clean.”
“No. I’m just doing it to make money. I suppose your son is very young?”
He said it while looking at the dolls in the room.
The middle-aged woman’s drooping smile returned.
“He wasn’t that young. But to me he always felt like he was ten. I can’t see him now, though.”
“...Pardon?”
At the crumpling corners of her eyes, Joaquin instinctively felt, ah, damn.
“My son was an assassin. He had good hands since he was little, made a lot of stuffed dolls. Then, I don’t know what got into him, but at some point he said he’d become an assassin....”
“Ah...”
“I told him not to, told him and told him. He went and bragged that he’d finally gotten a really hard commission. Said nobody had ever pulled it off. But during the job, he...”
With Joaquin’s heart plunging and his mouth clamped shut, the woman smiled sadly.
“...sprained his ankle and got hospitalized.”
“Eh?”
Then the woman scrunched up her whole face.
“He fell. On an icy road. That idiot!”
“......”
“Ugh! I get mad all over again just thinking about it. Useless brat! What kind of assassin? Assassin, my foot! He couldn’t even keep his own room clean! Isn’t that right?”
“...Y-yes...”
“Is being an assassin something any old dog or cow can do? How nice would it be to be like you, steadily doing your own work? You’re about my son’s age, so listen to me: people have to do the work that suits their own hands. Got it!?”
Delinquent cadet Joaquin let out a long sigh.
Got scared for nothing, fuck....
But on the way out of that house, the woman’s voice kept ringing in his ears.
People have to do the work that suits their own hands.
‘No? No way! Even so, I’m going to—Professor Dante—!!’
⋮
Three years later, “Joaquin Cleaning” was selected as Hiaka’s top cleaning startup and received a royal commendation.
***
If you go to the flower shop, there’s a pink-haired young lady.
She smiles brightly. She’s kind. Big. Pretty. Everyone in the neighborhood who comes to buy flowers visits and leaves feeling good.
Sometimes someone peeks in through the window, and when that calm gaze turns and meets theirs, they bow their head.
‘Curious.’
The young lady checks a person’s identity by scent. Whether that person is an assassin come to harm a small child.
There have been a few so far. A few became fertilizer. So what about today?
‘Nope.’
Elize smiled broadly.
Even after the Hero Party finals ended, Elize did not go back to the Count Xikos household.
Instead, she headed to the Baron Lemontree household. Because Elize had a mission of her own.
“Mmm-mm~♪”
When she finished work and headed to the Baron Lemontree Academy, the place that had been a closed school until last year was now full of small children.
Kids from all across Hiaka who’d come to learn [Illusion]. To be precise, 『Glass Butterfly』.
“Yaaawn... You back.”
“Mm-mm. You worked hard.”
“Mm. I’m gonna nap.”
Switching off with Balmung on guard, Elize saw in the distance a child giving a lecture to cadets gathered in an open lot.
It was Professor Cain, currently lecturing in that corner.
“ I-if... if you c-can’t h-hide the moment the i-illusion ch-changes... th-then... m-make the b-butterflies o-obstruct their line of sight while... ”
At first, the young cadets looked down on it—what, we’re supposed to be taught by a child? But after taking a few classes, their thoughts changed.
“How do you do that?”
“U-um... l-like this...”
When Cain spread his hand, the place was somehow a seaside already. With Elize at the center.
But the scenery was so real the cadets hesitated for a moment.
Had we been at the seaside and then experienced the lot?
Or had we been in the lot and then experienced the seaside?
“...Th-then, today’s class, over...”
Cain scurried and fled into Elize’s arms, and Elize laughed and took the child outside.
Once, the Hiaka Academy’s Chief Professor Wilhelm had asked:
— Yaaawn... But hey. Aren’t you dissatisfied just doing assassination guard work and running a flower shop like this? With your talent, Challenger is as good as in the bag. Maybe that’s a loss for humanity.
After that, she thought it over.
Was she really dissatisfied?
Was it really any kind of waste?
Elize dislikes food being thrown ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) out when it’s on the table, so she tends to keep eating until she’s stuffed. She hated the word “waste.”
“What? Me?”
“Mm.”
After putting the baby down somewhere safe,
Elize went straight over and asked.
To Balmung, who was polishing glasses at the bar.
“How about you?”
At that, Balmung, who was shaking a metal shaker, paused.
“......Hm. Dunno.”
“You’re not dissatisfied? Your sniping. You’re amazing. You trained a lot.”
“That’s true.”
“Mm-mm. They say we deserve to have big dreams.”
Creak—one leg made a sound every time he walked. An implant, like many assassins wore.
“...Here.”
Balmung handed over a mysterious whiskey piled high with whipped cream.
“Ah, thanks.”
After a moment licking the whipped cream—
Elize bit her lower lip and squinted one eye.
Her jaw trembled.
Ah...
How is this this good...?
Her mind felt like it was melting, all soft and smooth.
“...I gave it some thought.”
“Mm? Thought about what?”
“What else? What you asked.”
“What did I ask again?”
“C’mon...”
When Balmung nagged, Elize realized and nodded.
“I’m not dissatisfied.”
“Yeah?”
She wasn’t.
They didn’t have big dreams.
They didn’t have fluttering hearts before some big dream.
It was enough just to spend pleasant time with the people they liked.
“So I thought hard about why that is. Maybe because of our parents.”
“......”
“Our parents were greedy, so we didn’t grow up very well.”
“...Mm.”
“So I figure maybe we came to dislike greed.”
Elize stared off blankly, then nodded too.
It’s just that they lived as the owners of a flower shop and a bar because they loved flowers and alcohol.
It’s just that they’d been asked to “protect Cain and Lemontree.” So now they would protect those, and in between, eat this delicious cream whiskey.
Right now.
These two are complete.
Here, inside this world where everything is perfect.
“...I miss him.”
It’s just that it’s been quite a while since they saw “him.”
Elize was resting her chin on the table with a gloomy look—
“ ??? ”
Just then. At some scent brushing the air, Elize stood. Half a beat later, Balmung also stopped the hand polishing a glass.
The two rushed out of the bar.
***
In the darkness, the pulse of a man trapped inside a giant glass pillar was dropping.
“Ran unni! Ran unni! The professor’s vitals...!”
“This is dangerous...”
“What do we do? At this rate—at this rate the professor will...”
It was a struggle.
A fight one human was carrying on in a very narrow place against the enemy of the world, a struggle.
“...We need to find the cause.”