I Become a Secret Police Officer of The Imperial Academy

Chapter 44

Since that day, Ethel hadn’t spoken to me.

It had been about two weeks, maybe.

Isabel and Theo had come by to talk about something, I think… but I don’t really remember.

I hope they’ll take this as a sign to leave me alone for good.

What good has ever come of Ethel being involved with me?

I’m nothing but a useless, cruel person who brings harm instead of help.

Someone like me shouldn’t be anywhere near someone as kind as Ethel.

I have only one task.

What else could I possibly do besides disposing of demons?

“What did I do to deserve getting caught? I only handled garbage in the dumps, my lady.”

This one must’ve been a junkie.

Considering Marco didn’t tie him up, he probably wasn’t very dangerous. His horns were small, too.

“My lady?”

I decided to mimic the common mannerisms of a guard, leaning into the disguise the mask provided.

I lowered my voice as much as possible—it shouldn’t sound like a girl at all.

It’s quite convenient, being this ambiguous. Perhaps that’s why magic so easily molds to its users.

“Someone reported a dealer peddling drugs recently.”

“What? No way! The streets have been too dangerous lately for anyone to try that!”

“If there weren’t, you wouldn’t be here.”

“Well, this place is…”

Did I say something off?

The look in his eyes suggested he’d realized something strange.

I opened the drawer to grab a pair of pliers to rip out his fingernails but forgot that I hadn’t tied him up.

He lunged at me, wrapping his hands around my neck.

As I struggled to free myself, my mask slipped off.

“…What’s a kid like you doing here?”

His grip slackened.

Taking advantage of the moment, I reached for the dagger strapped to my thigh and stabbed him in the side.

The problem was, the blade wouldn’t come out when I tried to pull it back.

“Wait, hold on. Spare me! I don’t hurt kids!”

I pushed him off me, grabbed a hammer from the drawer, and smashed it against his head.

Don’t speak.

Don’t beg for your life.

Don’t look for your mom or dad.

Don’t apologize to me.

Don’t act human.

It’s because you thought I was just some naive girl that you let your guard down like this.

You were going to kill me.

But now, doing this… who’s the demon and who’s the human?

The wet sound of a blood-soaked shard falling from the hammer to the floor echoed in the room.

“Ugh, uh, hah.”

I tried to stifle my nausea with laughter.

After thoroughly scrubbing myself clean in the shower, I got dressed.

Then, a loud noise startled me.

Two gunshots rang out in rapid succession.

It was likely the old butler’s rifle—his favorite.

Marco burst out of the conversation room, startled by the sound.

“Miss, were those your shots just now?”

I shook my head.

With blood covering him from head to toe, Marco—unbothered by the mess—adjusted his coat, weighted down by hanging daggers, and headed toward the sound.

“You might want to hide in the secret passage, just in case.”

“We’ll see.”

“Not that there’s time for jokes, but if the old man is shooting inside, it must be serious.

If I die, I’ll guide him in hell as his senior.”

So much for no jokes.

I watched Marco’s retreating figure.

Unlike with other kids, no complicated thoughts came to mind—just the faint impression of blood.

I sat in the break room, brewed myself a cup of coffee, and took a sip.

The haze in my mind seemed to clear with each drink.

Leaving the break room, I found familiar faces waiting.

A now-familiar pattern.

“Got caught again.”

The floor was splattered with blood as if it had erupted like a fountain. In the middle of it, a severed head dangled, barely attached.

Wait, that’s Marco.

So he wasn’t joking after all.

Ethel looked as if she was about to cry but was oddly relieved.

Isabel gazed at me with pity.

Diana covered her mouth, clearly nauseated.

And Theo.

That damn bastard.

Ah, I must look like a prostitute finally freed from her pimp’s grip.

Well, if that’s the case, a hug wouldn’t be out of place, would it?

I cried.

Was it because Marco was dead? Or because I’d been caught yet again?

Maybe it was because I understood Julian, somehow.

I approached a confused Theo and hugged him.

Clinging to him, I muttered through my sobs about being strangled, mistreated, and even struck.

Of course, it was all done by demons. I just didn’t specify the subject.

Theo wiped the blood off his sword, sheathed it, and gently patted my back.

He must’ve thought I needed comforting.

While he stroked my head with one hand and patted my back with the other, I drew a blade from my waistband and stabbed it under his armpit.

His resistance was weaker than expected.

Marco must’ve put up a good fight.

After the armpit, I slashed his side, then dragged the blade down to the back of his thigh.

If I couldn’t even make a clean cut at this range, I didn’t deserve to carry a blade.

He wouldn’t die. Probably.

“No, Theo, stop!!”

Isabel quickly assessed the situation and prepared a spell against me.

Diana was slower than her, so I threw my dagger at her first.

The distance made the throw land in her chest—unfortunately fatal.

But at least she wouldn’t be able to cast anything.

I fired a shot at Isabel next but missed as she dodged dramatically, stumbling in the process.

There were five bullets left.

I aimed carefully, avoiding anything lethal, and shot her in the shoulder and thigh.

One bullet left.

No need to worry about Ethel. She wouldn’t be able to do anything in this situation.

I aimed for her shin and pulled the trigger.

Ethel collapsed, shocked beyond words, not even screaming.

“E-Ellen, why…?”

“Yeah, I suppose so.”

Even as blood gushed from Theo like a fountain, he kept moving toward me.

“I came to save you….”

“Who asked you to?”

Since none of the injuries seemed fatal, I figured we could have a little chat.

Maybe Julian felt the same way back then.

I loaded my gun slowly, one bullet at a time, and continued the conversation.

“Judging by the blood still streaming in the halls, I suppose the old butler, Marco, and all the others who worked so hard are dead too.”

At that moment, a bloodied demon, its skin entirely peeled off, staggered out from the conversation room Marco had left open.

The sight of it made me feel a bit queasy. It must have been painful.

I aimed at its head and ended it with a single shot.

“How did you even find this place this time? Oh well, what does it matter?”

At least they hadn’t managed to save a living demon—that was a small mercy.

Here, we killed them the moment they were brought in and drained their blood right away.

“Find it? That demon just now, it was…”

Theo seemed to have pieced together the situation.

“Yes, it’s dull, isn’t it?

Repeating the same thing twice—it’s tedious and makes you feel disillusioned.

Anyway, that’s how it is.”

For good measure, I stabbed him in the knee a couple of times.

Isabel tried to pick up her staff to heal Theo’s wounds, but I quickly shot a hole through her hand to stop her.

Honestly, how lightly do they take me?

“…You should’ve died back then, too.”

Isabel’s voice trembled as she cried.

It was as if she hated herself for ever looking at me with any affection, even briefly.

“Isabel, we had a conversation at dawn, remember?

We shared our honest thoughts, and you convinced yourself I had already fallen apart. That’s why you left me to my fate.”

Even if she spat at me now, it wouldn’t reach.

“Yes, yes, I know.

These demons, they’re people too.

Even that kid who helped me back then—he was a demon, wasn’t he?

And that woman who risked her life to protect the children? She was a demon too.”

I kept my tone flat, stripping my words of any emotional weight.

I didn’t want to imbue them with feelings.

“Think of it as a brat throwing a tantrum. That’s all.

They killed Alicia. They killed my life.

So, this is a kind of revenge.

Although, calling it that feels far too pathetic.”

A faint sense of despair mixed with longing surfaced.

“Not that it matters. Listen to my story for a moment. You won’t get another chance to hear it.”

They didn’t have a choice in the matter.

“It might sound random, but this world? It’s awful.

At least, it was until I got close to Alicia and opened up to her.”

These tasteless herbal cigarettes…

Ah, Marco probably had some decent ones in his pocket.

Though they were likely soaked in blood by now.

“What’s fun about this place?

I loved games, anime, movies… especially John Wick.

I even got a special poster.

That scene with the shotgun spitting fire from the ceiling—it’s unforgettable.

Not that you’d understand what I’m saying.”

For some reason, Theo’s lips moved silently.

Was he too weak to speak?

“You’ll never understand me.”

I put the blade I was holding down.

“Just being born was hell.”

I slumped to the cold floor.

“My parents were psychotic maniacs who wanted to mold me into the same.

I went along with it because, well, dying was scary.”

I hadn’t thought about this in a while.

“They called it training, but I just got the crap beaten out of me.

How old was I then? Four, I think.

They kicked me, punched me, stabbed me until my bones shattered, and then dragged me to a priest for healing magic.

Sometimes, they even tore me apart.”

When my broken body healed perfectly, I’d stop crying out of sheer fascination.

“Sure, it hurt, but it was fascinating, you know?

My fingers were practically diced into cubes, but they reattached like nothing happened!”

How much had I cried back then? I couldn’t remember.

“Why the hell was I born into this shitty world when I was perfectly fine where I was before!?”

Life had been satisfying before.

I never needed to be born into this mess.

“That’s why I hate the church.

They’ll do anything for money.

Isabel, you’d spread your legs for cash too, wouldn’t you?

Well, maybe not. Who knows?”

Now I was just spewing nonsense.

“Thanks to all that, I turned into someone who barely reacts when hit or insulted.

I got used to it.”

Though pain still hurts the same—it just doesn’t make me scream anymore.

“Julian’s balls probably got crushed, you know.

God, just thinking about it is horrible.”

That was the first time I was actually glad to have been born a girl.

“Sometimes, they’d throw us two knives and make us fight.

I won most of the time.”

Julian was terrible at anything involving physical activity.

“For training, they made me gouge out someone’s skull or eyes with a spoon.

If you combined all the severed fingers and toes I cut off for practice, it would fill more than twenty buckets.”

That was when I became desensitized to the pain of others.

“They’d file their teeth down halfway and burn the gums with fire or zap them with electric magic.

It made people squirm and jump—it was effective. My parents even praised me for it.”

It might sound grotesque, but I remember feeling strangely good about it.

“I never imagined they’d say I had talent.

To feel satisfaction after being complimented by such insane people—it was absurd.”

But it was also the first time I’d felt acknowledged in years.

“Ahaha, don’t worry about it. Just venting. That’s all this is.”

I waved it off lightly, then shifted the tone.

“Anyway, there was one normal person in that family!”

My beloved little sister.

“For some reason, Alicia grew up as a normal child, untouched by the family’s training.

I envied her. I was jealous, bitter.

Sometimes, I wanted to twist her neck and kill her.”

Because I was suffering so much while she lived so blissfully.

“But even so, Alicia accepted and loved me.

She trusted me, called me her sister, and relied on me.”

How could I have pushed away someone so precious, who trusted and leaned on me?

I could never hate Alicia—not truly.

“I was ready to just drift through life until I grew old, or maybe down a load of sleeping pills and go out quietly. But Alicia saved me…

And then she died.

Horribly.”

Isabel finally spoke, breaking the silence.

Theo, meanwhile, had been sitting in a daze since earlier.

“…Are you asking for sympathy? What’s the point of telling us this?”

“Why am I telling you this?”

Why, indeed.

“Ah, well, because I’m going to die soon anyway.”

Isabel’s face twisted in visible confusion.

Her expression practically screamed, What is she even saying?

“Don’t you already know?

Theo, Isabel, Diana, Ethel—you won’t let me keep killing demons.”

“How could you even—!”

“You’ll keep trying to make me human again.

Or you’ll kill me.

Between being killed and ending things on my own terms, I’d much rather choose the latter.”

That’s how it was.

“I should’ve died long ago.

I never intended to live after doing all of this.”

I chuckled, but it sounded hollow even to my ears.

“It’s terrifying, isn’t it?

Even as Alicia was torn apart, bitten by that demon, she begged for it to spare me—her sister.

How could she even do that?”

A bitter laugh escaped my lips, but it quickly turned into a sob.

“No. Ha. No. Ah. Ugh. Ugh.”

I glanced at Ethel.

She was still frozen, unable to move.

“Ethel, I’m sorry. I can’t endure anymore.”

The last sensation I felt was the faint taste of gunpowder residue lingering on the barrel.

A moment of pain.

My consciousness began to fade.

It felt as though a transparent window was rising above me, blocking out the world.