Chapter 193. An Unexpected Relationship. (4/7)

My mother eventually got married in this country, but unfortunately, she’d met a piece of shit who divorced her soon after I was born. He’d not only tried to divorce her, he also simultaneously worked to have her forcefully deported back to her home country all while she was still pregnant with me. It was a shame the lawyer and doctor didn’t consent to my mother signing anything as she wasn’t in a state where she could make sound judgment in the hospital while pregnant with me at that point in time.

He was aware of my mother’s family circumstances long before they got married though. If anything, he probably thought he could use the past precedent as the perfect reason to have her deported to her home country. This was speculation on my part though. I admit, I could be wrong, but it was rather convincing.

He’d done the paperwork to try and have her deported while there was an ongoing lawsuit against him for some other stupid shit he’d done to my mother at the time while she was still pregnant with me. All sorts of awful things like this happened during my mother’s pregnancy.

She’d even effectively been cheated on by my father. I don’t know the specifics, all I know is at some point when she was still pregnant with me, he’d gone to her home country for some other woman. It was some other messy relationship that sprung up that he got entangled with because of some friend of his while my mother was pregnant with me. I couldn’t be bothered to care for it. As far as I was concerned, he’d cheated the moment he ran off to her home country to meet another woman while he had a wife pregnant with his own child.

Anyway, after my mother was inevitably deported back home as a result of that man’s efforts, her mother effectively locked her own daughter up with me. That was where my first memories in my life began, when I first truly became aware of the world around me, it was inside that dark room below where everyone else lived. It could hardly even be called a basement by this country’s standards. I still didn’t have the proper term for that place. A cage was the best way to describe it.

A cage for the family’s unloved daughter and her outcast son.

Haaaah, all of this was in the past though. I really went and remembered a bunch of unpleasant stuff all at once.

My hand abruptly stopped moving. I’d been writing up Wisteria’s contract for what would hopefully be the last time.

“You’re done?”

“Yeah. It’s done. You just need to sign it now with the name I’ve given you. As long as you accept that name as being yours and identify with it… it should… work out. It’s a name I put a good deal of thought into.” A lot more thought than other character names I’ve come up with in the past even if it didn’t take me that long to decide on. Honestly, I just lucked out that I happened across that particular flower and its appearance and name caught my eye.

“Wisteria… I don’t dislike the name. As you said, it does suit me.”

She received the contract I held out to her and put her pen down to the paper. She suddenly looked a bit nervous.

“What’s wrong? Are you suddenly having second thoughts?”

“Uh… how do you spell it?”

“Oh, haha. It slipped my mind. It can technically be spelled differently. Such as with a y instead of an i. Anyway, it’s W-i-s-t-e-r-i-a, last name S-o-z-e-n. Did you get tha-?”

My heart throbbed, cutting my words off. The familiar burning sensation and sourness at the back of my throat appeared.

“Did something happen? Did I mess up somehow?” Wisteria asked me worriedly when she noticed me stop mid-sentence.

“Hah… hah… no, sorry. It was successful this time.”

“Successful? But I didn’t feel anything strange happen.”

“You didn’t, but I did. I can assure you the contract has been successful.”

“Phew.” She let out a relieved sigh with her right hand over her chest.

“I suppose we should begin immediately since you’ll be heading back to the academy soon. When will you be leaving?”

“Uh… probably Sunday. I’ve already submitted my notice to the school.”

“I see. Then it looks like I'll need to sacrifice my weekend to grill the basics into you.”

“Basics? Of what exactly?” She tilted her head to the side a bit confused.

“I promised you a future Wisteria. I will teach you the skills required to become a proofreader/editor.”

“Proofreader/editor? For what?”

“Well, the thing is…”

Do I tell her I’m an author and it’s my work she’ll be working on? Or do I avoid revealing that? I haven’t even told any of the girls I’m involved with. Is it fine to only reveal it to Wisteria when we only just met yesterday?

Haaaah. I don’t think I can reveal it just yet. It’s also still… embarrassing.

“I’m actually a proofreader and editor for an author’s work. They pay me with all the royalties they’re currently receiving from their sales. It isn’t much, only about $50-$100 a month right now as they’re a small no-name author. I intend to allow you to have those funds. It obviously isn’t enough to survive off of so you will naturally need to keep working as an assassin for the time being. But the plan is to develop your skill set in this area further. Wisteria, you said all you are good for is sex and killing, right? But you lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie to you at all. That’s really all I’m good for.”

“Again, that is another major lie. I will not tolerate such lies, Wisteria.”

“But I’m not-”

“Are you not speaking to me fluently in my language right now?”

“Yes, so what?”

“Meaning you were at least taught my language to a degree you are fluent in, no?”

“Yes… I was taught this language to a degree I was fluent to ensure I’d be able to arouse people with my words. But what if it? So what if I’m fluent in a language?”

“What of it? Words have power. The fact that you can communicate with others is a very powerful skill at your disposal yet you are squandering it by not using it to its full potential. You have this skill, so don’t waste it.”

“Just by knowing the language, I can make a living?”

“Well, it can at least allow you to become a proofreader/editor. You can learn to find careless mistakes in a piece of writing and fix them. Authors pay good money for such people. The only problem is you need to build up experience and work samples. I can provide you the opportunity. All you need to do is learn from me and practice. We don’t even need to be face to face for me to teach you. Even if we’re separated by hundreds of miles, we can still remain connected through words, written stories.”

“We can?” She didn’t look fully convinced.

“Of course. It’s quite simple, I will show you the basics and allow you to edit and proofread the work. Once you do so, I can go through a pass of it myself and give you pointers on anything I feel you may have missed out on or improved on. Because the author’s stories will be posted to Amazon, you will be able to build up work samples like this and potentially reach other authors looking for someone to do so for them.”

“There are countless authors out there, but there aren’t enough experienced proofreaders and editors to meet the demand. The keyword here, being experience. This is the most significant thing I’m bestowing you with. The opportunity to gain experience in a field foreign to you and earn money out of it. Without proof of your skills, nobody would want to hire you, just the same as an inexperienced assassin straight out of the academy.”

“You really think I can really become good at it?”

“You’re talking to me right now, are you not good at that? If you’re good at that, you can become good at this too. Simply reading the words out loud as they are written on paper and hearing how it sounds is already a powerful weapon for a proofreader and editor. If you feel winded by the time you’re at the end of a sentence, you better cut it down and trim the fluff filler words out. If it sounds choppy when spoken aloud, you better merge some sentences together and expand on those thoughts.”

“Whenever you have free time from your assassin work, I want you to practice proofreading or editing the stuff I send over to you. If there isn’t anything available from me or you finish what I send you, take the time to read other stories online and familiarize yourself with both the spotless works and the bad ones littered with erroneous errors. While you read the ones riddled with errors, think of how you could fix those errors. By doing simple little things like this, you will become better and improve all on your own without the need for me at all.”

“I just need to read and I’ll get better, that’s it? It’s that simple?” She muttered to herself quietly.

“Yes. That is all. It’s nothing difficult. It should become something as autonomous as breathing to you once you get the hang of it.”