In the middle of a town left completely destroyed, two knights sat, fatigued, on the ground. Around them were corpses of monsters. But it wasn’t just the corpses of monsters that surrounded them.

Just like the monsters, rested bodies of what were formerly shining knights of Alyona.

The knights stayed silent. Reminiscing of what were once their friends. Yet they weren’t sad. Rather, they were relieved. Relieved that more weren’t dead. Relieved that two more weren’t there with them.

But at the same time, they were still left confused.

They clearly remembered.

One of the knights had their arms bitten off. The other had a stick pierced through them. Yes. The monsters, too, were damaged — enough that they wouldn’t be able to reach the next town. Yet, the knights still remembered their consciousness slowly fading away while the monsters in front of them stood.

It didn’t make much sense how they were able to survive. But the fact was, they did. Almost unscarred.

Slowly, they walked towards the corpses of monsters.

Amidst the corpses laid a young boy. 10 years or so.

His body was covered with blood. Both of monsters and knights.

The knights wondered. What could a kid be doing here? A traumatic event must it be for a kid to see monsters and knights with their limbs completely destroyed.
What an awful dream it was. Both for the boy and the knights.

They carried the boy on their backs and slowly walked out of the cave — leaving the remains of their friends. The knights took the boy and brought him to the nearest village.

His shirt was still drenched with blood.

Light reflected off of it presenting a bright, almost holy crimson color.

The shirt continued to shine. It was glittering, almost disgustingly, glittering.

***

“You there, with the Alyona Uniform!”

The woman in front of me continued to shout towards my direction. Each step she took away from the blood-filled body was each step she came towards me. Inch by inch, I felt the atmosphere change as if weight was being added to my foot.

My body trembled; the distance that blurred out the ruthless damage on the body was the only thing that kept me from fainting.

My immediate instinct was to run.

My eyes were glued towards the ground, trying to avoid the corpse at all cost. This was nowhere near the level of danger I was expecting while finding a cat. A murderer was standing right infront of me.

But as I attempted to turn, I realized no muscle of my body even twitched. It felt as though my body was detached — uncontrolled by my own desires. I wanted to reach out to my knife, but it wasn’t any different. The blood of the body laying on the ground continued to ring in my mind.

By now, I was able to see the murderer’s face. The long brown hair was elegantly bouncing with each step. Her brown eyes, highlighted by the reflection of the bright sun, directly looked towards me. There was a slight frown hinting discomfort yet she still looked incredibly pretty.

“hm…”

As she approached me, she raised her arms to rest her chin between her thumb and her slightly bent index finger. Once she got within arms reach of me, she started slowly tilting her head side to side, staring right towards me.

She was probably thinking about how she was going to murder me. I wanted to tell her I prefered a quick death but even my mouth was glued shut together.

She wasn’t anything tall. Rather, she had quite the slim figure — half a head shorter than I was. But even at this size, she gave out immense charisma.

After minutes of what seemed forever, the woman tapped me lightly on my shoulder. By now, I was slowly regaining control of my body.

“Hey hey, you look pretty young. Why are you on a mission like this?”
“I… I didn’t see anything.”

I saw the bright red of the blood distance behind the woman. I slowly tilted my head away from both her and the body to avoid looking towards them.

“Huh? See what? You are an Alyona Student right? What grade are you in?”

My head started spinning. It clearly seemed as though the woman wanted to stay quiet about her murder. For me to live, I had to assure that I wouldn’t be of any threat to her — that I wouldn’t go reporting this situation.

I decided.

I kneeled in front of the woman.

“My name is Gray. An incoming second year student of the Academy. I am amazed by both your beauty and your presence. Please let me be your subordinate and learn from you.”

The woman stood still. For a brief moment all you could hear was the sound of wind rushing behind the trees.

“Hah!”

The person who broke the silence was none other than the murderer infront of me. She placed her palm infront of her face, clearly trying to hold in laughter.

Did me saying she was beautiful make her happy? I didn’t really understand the situation but at least she wasn’t looking at me now.

“Um… Excuse…”
“Hahaha– Wait sorr– hahahahaha”

…?

“Why don’t we move somewhere else.”

***
“Here’s your tea. And coffee for the mistress.”
“Thank you!”

The woman thanked the man who gave us the drinks while I nervously nodded on the side.

The place that we moved to was the town hall. Upon arriving, an old man guided us to an isolated room. There, we sat on a large table facing each other where we were each offered a drink.

On our way here, it became clear that this woman wasn’t actually a killer. Everyone on our way here recognized this woman and gave her an enthusiastic wave. It wasn’t really the reaction that I would expect towards a killer. Especially someone who so blatantly stood in front of the dead body. More importantly, everyone in the town hall treated her as though they were serving a noble.

But I still had no clue who she was. And why she was laughing at me. To be honest, I only followed her because of how scary she was.

Looking at it now, the woman was a lot more pretty than I previously imagined her to be. Her nonchalant atmosphere slowly sipping her coffee emphasized her elegance.

As I stared at the woman, she slowly placed her coffee down on the table and opened her lips.

“Hey you don’t have to be all tense you know?”

I slightly nodded as I placed my tea down on the table. Seeing my still clearly uncomfortable response, the woman scratched her head and gave out a slight sigh.

“Okay, I guess I should introduce myself.”

The woman smiled towards me.

“People here call me Ren! Oh oh, I have a surprise! I’m actually a Royal Guard! I’m actually here to investigate the murders so unfortunately I’m not the murderer. Alyona Students want to be a Royal Guard right? You know I was in the war —”

Ren — who started to talk about her experience as a royal guard — was apparently allocated here to investigate some murder. It made sense why she was standing so blatantly near the body.

While it was cool that she was a Royal Guard, it scared me more than anything. After all, if some murder was serious enough that a Royal Guard is getting sent here, it would mean that this place was incredibly dangerous. It wasn’t a place a mere student like me should be staying at.

“Um… Ren? I have a question.”
“Hm? Yeah! What is it? Anything for a subordinate of mine.”

… she needs to stop with that.

As I spoke, Ren stopped talking to herself and looked at me with sparkling eyes. It seems that I have already been allocated as her student? Whatever that means.

“I came here cause I saw a poster that was asking students to help find a lost cat… If a Royal knight like you is here, doesn’t that mean this place is too dangerous for me to do something like that?”
“Huh? A poster for a job in Chester town?”
“Yeah it was on the bulletin board on east Alyona. It was just on the corner so I took it.”

As I told Ren where I found the job, I took out the poster folded up in my pocket and placed it down on the table.

“Hm, you weren’t supposed to have found this. I guess that’s my fault. Sorry!”

Ren threw both of her hands in the air to give me a shrug.

Huh? Did I almost die because the royal guards made a mistake? There’s something clearly wrong with this country. This rumored Gray that insulted the Royal Kingdom might have been right after all.

“Well, it’s kind of complicated.”

Ren took another sip of her coffee while chuckling at my devastated look.

“Basically, this is kind of like my independent investigation. I know normally knights go removing requests for dangerous areas but this time I went around doing it myself just in case. But it seems I forgot to remove some of them. My bad!”

Ren placed her coffee back on the table as she leaned back with a slight smile.

“I see. But does that mean I should go back now? Murders are pretty dangerous… no?”
“Oh, that’s not the case here; I don't think it's actually that dangerous. From my investigations, it’s most likely a powerless commoner that committed these murders. I just removed the posters so no one panics like you are right now.”

As she said this, Ren placed her hand on her chin. Few minutes of silence arose. All I could do was nervously sip my tea. Soon after, she leaned towards me, placing her elbows on the table.

“Hm… Why’d you take this mission to find some cat? You said you are a second year right? From what I know, second years don’t even go on missions very often.”
“Uh… I needed a bit of money.”

That answer seemed like it was asking for pity, but under this much pressure I couldn’t think of an answer outside of the truth.

“Well then! Do you wanna accompany me on the mission? I don’t think it’s going to be too dangerous. And even if it is, you can just stand behind me safely. After all, you have a royal guard like me! Oh I’ll also give you all the reward that we get. How does that sound?”

I didn’t understand why she was doing this but it definitely seemed like a good offer. A Royal Guard accompanying me meant there’d be no danger, and I’m sure rewards would be high for something like this.

Maybe she bought into my pity?

But as good as this offer was, I didn’t plan on accepting it. Now that I knew the murders aren’t actually all that dangerous, I was already set with a mission sent from heaven. Sure, a murder investigation with Ren sounds nice. Seems like I didn’t have to do much either. But is it “finding a cat” nice? I don’t think so.

Yep. I’m gonna find that cat and be rich.

“Ren? I’m sorry but I already have a request that I…”
“Oh, and by the way, I already found the cat. It was on top of a tree four blocks down the entrance. The little thing just wouldn’t come down!”

..?
I was so excited to find that cat. Isn’t this a bit too anticlimactic? Wh-What about my reward??

“Until you showed me the poster, I didn’t know it was a request worth so much; I just found it while I was investigating.”
“Wha-”
“You can keep the reward. Only if you decide to join!”

Ren gave off a smirk as she exclaimed excitedly towards me.

I decided. There wasn’t any reason for me to say no. I’d accomplish my first goal of getting rich. I guess there was a chance of danger, but working with someone as pretty as Ren completely tips the scale over.

I faced Ren to give her my answer.

“Alrig-”
“Hey, you did all that kneeling and said you wanted to be my subordinate and learn from me didn’t you?”

Ah. Right. That.

“...I did.”

I put my head down. I couldn’t see myself but my face was probably burnt up red from the embarrassment.
“Then I look forward to working with you, subordinate!"