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Chapter 228

With the assassins having to assassinate two people per night, there had to be two other casualties on the first day as well. The story had already diverged from the original.

Instead of Harriet, Ellen was the first victim on the first night.

“Wh-What the... Vertus...”

Soon after, Louis Ankton from Class B, looking utterly bewildered, also appeared.

The first night’s casualties were Ellen and Louis.

Things were going as expected. They were picking off the smartest ones first. Ellen was undoubtedly smart.

“Won’t this affect our grades negatively?”

Louis was worried about his grades being affected by being eliminated on the first day.

Ms. Mustang reassured Louis that the grading wouldn’t be directly affected by the order of elimination.

“Louis, unless the assassins win, the grades for Class A and B will be integrated, so you don’t need to worry about that.”

“Oh, really? Whew.”

Similarly, Mr. Effenhauser came to see us.

Specifically, he came to see Ellen.

“Number 2, you’ve failed. You know why.”

“Yes.”

Mr. Effenhauser spoke calmly, acknowledged her response, and left.

Failed.

Both Louis and I were taken aback by this declaration.

‘What? Why did she fail? I thought the order of victims didn’t matter?’

But Ellen seemed to have expected it.

“What? Why did you fail?” I asked, as Ellen nonchalantly picked up and ate a cookie from a bowl on the table.

“Well, I kind of asked the assassin to kill me.”

‘Huh?’

Ellen had identified the mafia members on the first day and apparently went up to them and asked them to kill her.

“Why did you do that?”

If she had identified them, she should have just let the mission play out and act accordingly, instead of telling them to kill her. Why would she do such a thing?

Ellen looked at me intently.

“You’re fully recovered now,” she said.

“... What does that have to do with anything?”

“Let’s train.”

‘Seriously?’

This girl had a knack for catching people off guard without seeming like it.

***

Ellen and I sat on one of the mansion’s terraces, enjoying cookies and tea.

Louis, who was feeling tired, had probably found an empty room to sleep in.

Though I wasn’t sure how she did it, Ellen had figured out who the assassins were. She might have gotten a hint from their eagerness to execute me.

In any case, Ellen seemed to be more interested in getting eliminated quickly so she could use the remaining time to train with me, rather than fulfilling the mission’s objective of identifying the assassins.

That’s why Mr. Effenhauser had declared that she had failed the mission, which was deserved.

However, if you thought about it, wouldn’t it have been better to expose the assassins at the meeting the next day and end the mission quickly?

That way, we could all return to the Temple sooner.

Sure, we could stay and enjoy this mansion, but if the mission was completely over, those who wanted to go back could return to the Temple.

“Why did you fail on purpose? You could have ended the mission quickly, and we could have just gone back to the Temple.”

“True.”

Ellen fiddled with her teacup, gazing at the snowflakes beyond the terrace window.

The scenery outside was quite overwhelming, in its own way. The snowy plains glowed white under the moonlight, despite it being night.

Ellen obviously knew that we could have gone back to the Temple sooner, and that the Temple provided a better environment for training.

“You’re busy at the Temple,” she said without looking at me, still staring out at the snow-covered landscape.

“...”

“When you’re busy, there’s no time to train.”

Ellen seemed to think that if we went back to the Temple, I’d be preoccupied with other things instead of training. Although I hadn’t been able to train due to my injury, she probably believed that even after my recovery, I wouldn’t have time for training because of my other commitments.

Therefore, she had chosen to get herself eliminated to make time for training until the mission ended.

There was no reason for Ellen to do this.

She had no obligation to care this much about my training. The gap between our skills was still huge, and she wouldn’t gain anything from training with me. She was holding onto something without reason.

I didn’t have much to say.

“Were you sad because of that?” I asked.

“...”

Still refusing to look at me, Ellen silently fiddled with her teacup and took a sip of tea that she usually didn’t drink.

She continued staring out the window at the pale snowy fields.

“A little.”

Despite understanding why it had been so, Ellen was still sad.

“I’m strange, aren’t I?” she said.

She felt upset over something she had no reason to be upset about.

Ellen seemed to find herself strange for feeling that way.

“Well, people are weird by nature,” I replied.

That was the most I could say. Ellen responded with a faint smile, illuminated by the moonlight.

“True enough.”

Perhaps because she wielded the sword of the moon god, Ellen looked the most beautiful in the moonlight.

So much so, in fact, that it was hard to look at her directly.

“You’re pretty weird too,” she said.

It sounded both like a criticism and not at the same time.

***

Although it seemed pointless to practice in the middle of the night, Ellen and I headed to the indoor training grounds after our brief break.

There wasn’t really a need to, but at the same time, there was no reason not to.

Outside the windows of the training grounds, the snow continued to fall.

Ellen had identified the assassins so swiftly, and I was curious about how she figured it out.

“How did you manage to identify the assassins so quickly?”

“Hmm...” Ellen seemed to ponder for a moment. “You have the most influence among our classmates.”

Ellen might usually be quiet, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t articulate her thoughts well, as she had displayed in the Dark Land.

‘Having the most influence...’

As embarrassing as it was to admit, it was true. Although I wasn’t close with everyone in Class A and B, I did have several strong connections, and thanks to the Magic Research Club, three of them from Class B were practically under my influence.

“If I were an assassin, you would be my first target, and I’d get rid of you as soon as I could.”

“... Even though I know you’re talking about the mission, hearing it like that is really unnerving, you know.”

Getting rid of me... If Ellen really meant to do it, I’d be helpless to counter her.

“But what does me being the primary target have to do with identifying the assassins?”

“If you hadn’t been executed during the meeting, you would have definitely been assassinated at night. Provided the assassin was someone with a brain.”

“...That makes sense.”

In reality, unless I paired up with someone 24/7, they would eventually find a chance to assassinate me.

Since there were sub-missions to carry out during this main mission, there would inevitably be a moment when I’d be alone.

“Since you were executed during the discussion, they would move on to target the next one in line.”

“Ah... that makes sense.”

“There were four candidates I considered as potential first-night victims: Vertus, Charlotte, Louis Ankton, and Harriet.”

All four were unmatched in their intellectual capacity, and two out of those four would eventually become victims.

“Considering that one of them might be an assassin, the assassin would eventually reveal themselves by being near someone who definitely wasn’t an assassin,” she continued.

As it turned out, Vertus and Charlotte were the chosen assassins. “Harriet can’t be an assassin,” Ellen declared.

“... Why?”

“... An assassin would have enjoyed the earlier situation, but she clearly didn’t.”

‘Is that so?’

In the end, everyone had unanimously gone along with the decision to execute me, but everything had happened so quickly that I hadn’t been able to see everyone’s reactions.

Why didn’t Harriet even try to defend me, though?

Then again, knowing her personality, she would have gladly chosen to strangle herself rather than cry out “Don’t kill Reinhart!” in front of everyone.

“So, I hid myself near Harriet’s private room and ran into Charlotte. That’s all there is to it.”

Though the assassins had changed, the method of assassination was the same as in the original plot.

The victims on the first night were supposed to be Harriet and Louis Ankton. Unlike in the original, though, Ellen had wanted to abandon the mission, so she had waited near a likely victim, found the assassin, and suggested they kill her instead.

Ellen hadn’t figured out that Charlotte was one of the assassins; she simply thought about what she would do if she were the assassin.

Of course, she could have thought a few steps ahead and targeted idiots (like Ludwig) first.

“I think the other assassin is probably Vertus,” Ellen said.

I confirmed that earlier on by asking the teachers, but Ellen seemed to have figured out that Vertus was the other assassin as soon as she identified Charlotte as one of them.

She didn’t even need to ask; she just knew.

“Why?”

“A reverse deduction. Charlotte was one of the assassins. She was the first to suggest executing you, and Vertus was the most enthusiastic about it.”

Knowledge of one culprit revealed the reasoning behind past events.

From the assassin’s point of view, I was the primary target.

Charlotte had jokingly suggested getting rid of me first, and Vertus had agreed.

In the original story, Ellen went along unnoticed and was assassinated later on.

This time, she wasn’t trying to win, but had genuinely engaged in the mission to find a way to give up quickly, and that had led her to the truth.

Ellen was trying hard to be eliminated...

‘She’s a funny one.’

***

Ellen and I trained together for the first time in ages in the indoor training grounds of the mansion near Epiacs.

Though it wasn’t as good as the Temple’s, training was possible with just a practice sword and some space. Majoring in combat was very cost-efficient.

I mean, was there even a major that was less cost-efficient than magic?

Kaang! Karak!

“Ugh!”

“Are you okay? Does it still hurt?” Ellen asked worriedly, helping me up as I lay sprawled on the ground. “... Should we stop?”

Ellen seemed a bit downcast. She did not seem to want me to push myself if I wasn’t yet fully recovered.

“It’s not the pain. My body just feels stiff from not having moved around much.”

Two things became clear while we sparred.

The first realization was that my injury wasn’t hampering me. My body had just stiffened up from a lack of use. I needed to focus on regaining flexibility first.

“And, I don’t think I should be the one to say this... But you’ve improved a lot.”

“... Improved?”

“Yeah, you’ve gotten a lot better.”

The second realization: even though Ellen was holding back, I could feel how much her skills had advanced while my own training had been put on hold. She was pushing further ahead not just because she sparred with me, but in terms of raw ability itself, beyond just Mana Reinforcement.

Even if I lived twice as long as her, I wouldn’t be able to catch up.

The gap had grown wider. Knowing that it was a wall I would never be able to climb in my lifetime changed nothing.

Still, it made me feel a little sad.

“Is that so?” Ellen asked with a tilt of her head, looking unsure.

However, hearing that it wasn’t my injury hindering me but my stiffness from a lack of movement seemed to lift her mood.

That was actually kind of amusing.

Most people thought that Ellen always had a blank and somewhat stern expression, but between her seemingly identical but subtly different reactions, you could tell what she was feeling.

It wasn’t that she lacked reactions. They were just very subtle.

When she ate something delicious, she didn’t show exaggerated enthusiasm like Harriet did, but would blink a few times while staring at what she’s eating.

When she was annoyed, she would pout ever so slightly.

When she was sad, she would look down a bit and stare into space.

When she was really angry, she could burst out shouting.

I’d learned a lot about Ellen Artorius.

“Let’s go again then.”

“Sure, come at me.”

Kaang!

Maybe I’d learned too much.

***

“Let’s stop here for today.”

“Whew... Yeah...”

After tussling about in the middle of the night, I wound up exhausted, even more than usual.

Though it hadn’t felt like a long break, my body felt significantly more tense, and I couldn’t last as long as I normally did.

Ellen sat quietly beside me on a bench in the training grounds. While I was getting tired more quickly than usual, she hadn’t even broken a sweat.

While she wasn’t as over-the-top as Ludwig, her stamina was still immense.

Given how tired I was and how late it had gotten, a bath and sleep sounded good.

It was not yet winter, but the mansion we were in was in the polar region and had a hot spring, so there was no reason not to take advantage of it.

The mansion had both an outdoor open-air bath and an indoor hot spring.

The baths were naturally separated by gender, and despite the snow outside, I headed for the outdoor open-air bath.

Whoooooosh...

Though it was an open-air bath, it was not entirely exposed, and was encircled by wooden walls. The water in the hot spring was steaming, and there was snow piled up around it.

After the Mafia game, a cliché event or two would happen here. They were more like random incidents rather than something that had a major impact on the main story.

Anyway, since I was the first to be eliminated, I was the first to use the hot springs.

Wooden walls separated the male and female baths.

‘Wow, that wall is pretty low... With a bit of a jump, I could probably grab it and pull myself over. Not that I have any intention of doing so.’

“Damn, it’s freezing.”

I considered going to the indoor hot spring, but how often did one get to bathe in an open-air hot spring while it was snowing? So I stepped into the hot spring.

I didn’t normally enjoy soaking in hot water that much.

“Ahh. That feels nice.”

However, the hot water felt incredibly relaxing, perhaps because of the beating my body had taken. My face felt like it was freezing, but honestly, I was too used to pain to complain about something like that.

I simply sat there in the hot spring, gazing at the snowy night sky.

Clack.

I heard the sound of a door opening on the other side of the wall to the right.

Crunch, Crunch.

The sound of bare feet stepping on snow followed. Since it was an outdoor bath, snow had accumulated around it.

Ellen must have come to the hot spring to wash up as well.

“Reinhart, are you there?”

‘Seriously? Why call out in such an awkward situation? I was holding my breath!

Although, I’m not sure why I was holding my breath either.’

“Yeah.”

“Aren’t you cold?”

“I’m freezing.”

“Then why are you bathing outside? There’s an indoor one too.”

“Why are you?”

“Just because.”

“Me too. Just because.”

There was a soft bubbling as Ellen immersed herself in the hot spring.

‘Damn it. I didn’t want to think about anything, but now my mind is racing with all sorts of thoughts. Forget it. I’ll just sit here for a bit and then leave.’

“Reinhart.”

‘Why do you keep calling me? Talking like this with just a wall between us feels so weird!

‘Do you know how you’re driving me crazy while acting like nothing’s wrong? If you don’t, there’s definitely something wrong with you!’

Despite my chaotic thoughts, I naturally responded, “What?”

“Do you like the snow?”

“I’m not sure.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I had feelings about liking or disliking snow. I thought I didn’t particularly like it or dislike it.

Yet here I was, sitting outside in the open-air bath under the snowy sky.

“I think I do,” I said.

Enduring the discomfort to come to the open-air bath probably meant I wanted to see the snowy scenery.

Didn’t that mean that I liked snow, in the end? That seemed to be the right way to think about it.

What about Ellen? Ellen once said she hated the rain because it reminded her of the day her brother left.

“I like it too,” Ellen said.

Just as I had braved the cold to come to the open-air bath, Ellen had come for the same reason.

“I like it too.”

Honestly... It was tough to hear her say that.

“Let’s build a snowman together tomorrow.”

‘A snowman, suddenly?’

Ellen’s occasional out-of-the-blue comments really made me feel odd. After all that talk about training, now, out of nowhere, she wanted to build a snowman.

It felt even more strange coming from Ellen. I never imagined she’d suggest something like that.

Yet, my response came naturally.

“Sure.”