Chapter 190. An Unexpected Relationship. (1/7)

It was Friday. I was at the museum today. I’d been coming here quite frequently, but it had only been to avoid the threat of a potential transfer student at high school. Now that I’d already encountered that threat yesterday, I could return to high school if I really wanted to.

As such, I decided I’d start attending high school again next week.

As for why I didn’t go today, that was naturally because I had to deliver that stupid autograph. I sent a text to the idiot yesterday who’d sold his soul to me yesterday without even knowing it to meet me here today.

Although I’d contacted him and I should have met only him today, someone unexpected made an appearance.

The assassin from the day before. Rosa’s Master.

“How did you know I was here?” I had to ask, because I had no idea. Rosa shouldn’t have known this was where I went to either when skipping classes. If that was the case, how did she?

“Simple, I followed your girlfriend home in secret afterward and staked out the house. I saw you leave this morning and followed you here.”

“Haaaaah. And why did you do that exactly?”

“Well, since I lost, I can only be obedient to you from now on.”

“Are you a dog chasing its master?”

“Yes. I’ve found someone I want to obediently serve once I finish my time in the academy. The thing is though… since I found you, I’ll be returning to the academy. I don’t know what the clear condition for that mission is, and if I keep spending time away from the academy and not racking up any points, my ranking will drop. I had quite a sizable lead when I left the academy on this little trip of mine, but the competition is catching up. I need to return to complete some missions to increase the size of my lead again.”

“I see. Did you come here just to say that?”

“No. I came here to contract myself as a personal assassin to you.”

“Contract as a personal assassin? What do you mean?”

“It’s a system the academy has set up once we graduate. If by the time we’ve finished our time in the academy and haven’t contracted ourselves with someone we wish to serve, we become freelance assassins. But the thing with assassins fresh out of the academy is, if you don’t find such a person to contract yourself to in that time frame, most people who make long-term contracts with assassins will think there is something wrong with you. They must be defective goods, they’ll think something is wrong with you for no one to enter a long-term contract with you. Then the longer an assassin goes without being contracted long-term with someone, the harder it becomes for them to contract with those sorts of people.”

“I see… but… why contract with me? I don’t really get it.”

“Well… the thing is… I’m sort of on the broke end of assassins. I don’t have parents like Rosa who make a lot of money despite being freelance assassins. Do you remember how I mentioned I was genetically modified, born from the result of illegal human experimentation?”

“Oh, yeah. You did say that.”

“Well, that institution was destroyed by a group of assassins and I was… saved? I guess.”

“But I didn’t have any parents or anything since I was a test tube baby from that institute. I was created solely to satisfy sexual needs and that was the only thing I was ever raised to do.”

“The assassins who rescued me allowed me to enter the academy to try and make a name for myself there. But… nobody would want to ever enter a long-term contract with an assassin who was a test tube baby born through illegal human experimentation and brought up without a proper education.”

“I didn’t have any sort of other skills that I could use in the real world to land a normal job. Nowhere would hire me since I didn’t have a home country or citizenship. I didn’t have any documents like a birth certificate. I was a child unwanted by the world.”

When she said that, it struck a chord with me. I knew that sort of feeling all too well. The only difference between us was I’d been recorded as a citizen and had been provided a birth certificate in the country I’d been born in. I didn’t expect I’d be able to relate to such a strange assassin.

“It was either I resorted to prostitution with the skills I’d been created with, or I became an assassin that could take advantage of those skills to kill for a living. Well, at least as an assassin I could avoid life as a full-blown sex worker and I could also avoid the risk of catching any sexually transmitted diseases so long as I was careful with the contracts involving any sexual acts I accepted. If I got involved with a pimp, who knows what sort of things I’d have gotten involved with. Thus, I decided to become an assassin, at least I could pick up skills to defend myself that way.”

“Hah… I see. But what makes you think I’d sign such a contract with you though?”

“You… won’t?”

“Well, why me? I’m just a normal civilian you know. I don’t have much I can provide in terms of financial support. Don't you think being a freelance assassin where you have all the freedom in the world is a much better option than becoming someone’s loyal dog who can order you around whenever they want?”

“I’d like to settle down and… find a home… a place to belong in this world. Being free is nice, but it’s an unstable lifestyle where I could... die at any moment if I mess up. I already don’t have long to live as a genetically modified tool born only to satisfy the sexual appetite of others.”

“You don’t have long to live?”

“Yeah… I can only live until I’m thirty. The telomere caps on my DNA aren’t fully stable like a normal human’s. My expected shelf life was estimated to be thirty years. I have eight years left at best. The telomere caps on my DNA will rapidly decay as they destabilize and my end of life date approaches.”

She talked about herself like she was a product. It was unpleasant. Very unpleasant.

“Haaaaaah. I see. That is quite unfortunate.”

“I don’t think it’s that unfortunate. I was at least given the chance to live and experience things I never would have when I was trapped in that institution. I would have only ever known how to perform sexual acts my entire life. That was the only thing that had been ingrained into me from early on. How to please men.”

“But should you really be telling someone you want to enter into a long-term contract about how little time you have left? Do you think when someone hears about it they’d want to enter a long-term contract with you?”

“Ah. You’re… right. I messed up. I was trying so hard to get your pity that I went and said too much.”

“So you are trying to guilt trip me into it by making me pity you?”

“Sorry… it’s a skill we learn in the academy… I’m always messing up the basics.”

“You are truly clumsy to an extreme for an assassin. Being an assassin doesn’t suit you at all.”

“Hahah… I get told it doesn’t suit me a lot despite my top spot ranking among the third years in the academy.”

“Truly, how does such a clumsy assassin take the top spot?”

“A lot of hard work.”

“You mean using that tongue of yours?”

“Ah… haha…” She scratched her head awkwardly.

“Haaaah. I’m just sighing endlessly today.”

“Sorry.”

“No need to apologize. You’ve done well to survive with the cards you’ve been dealt in life. I respect you.”

When I said that she had a strange look in her eyes like she couldn’t believe my words. Like I was lying, simple lip service.

“How can you so blatantly lie and say you respect me when I’m someone who sells sexual acts for some money? I even use those sexual acts to make men impotent or kill them in the worst case.”

“There’s nothing wrong with doing what you have to do to survive. Even if it means killing others to ensure your own survival. Even if you sell sexual services, if that’s what you have to do to make it from one day to the next, I won’t judge you for that.”

“The world isn’t kind or forgiving, it isn’t a very welcoming place to those who are abnormal and don’t fit in. Through the process of natural selection, only the fittest will survive. Only those with the most diversified skill set who can adapt to the constantly changing environment around them make it in this world.”

“Man Killer, if I said there was a possible way for you to extend your lifespan, would that be something you'd be interested in?”