As the person following me stepped into the shadow-wrapped corridor, I got my first clear look at him.

  White hair pulled back in a neat tail, dressed in formal butler attire that's somehow both unremarkable and perfectly tailored. He's old, maybe sixty, but moves with the fluid precision that probably comes from decades of practice. His eyes scan the place with confusion that's carefully controlled but still visible.

  "Interesting trick," he says, his voice calm and cultured. "Environmental magic of this caliber is unusual for a student."

  "Thanks. I practice." I stay where I am, letting him come to me. "Any particular reason you've been following me for the last five minutes?"

  "Direct. How refreshing." He adjusts his gloves with ease. "Most young ladies would scream or run when confronted by a stranger in isolated corridors."

  "I'm not most young ladies."

  "Clearly." He's still scanning the shadows, trying to understand what he's seeing. "This darkness… it's not natural. Illusion magic?"

  "Something like that. You didn't answer my question."

  "Because the answer should be obvious to someone of your intelligence, Miss Shadowmere." He takes three measured steps closer. "You've made enemies. Powerful enemies who don't appreciate half-demon students disrupting established social orders."

  "So Penelope sent you, huh."

  "I didn't say that."

  "You didn't have to. Who else has the resources to hire professional assassins and the motivation to want me dead?"

  He smiles, thin and professional. "You're very confident for someone in a rather precarious situation."

  "Am I in a precarious situation? Because from where I'm standing, you're the one trapped in my spell without knowing what it does or how to escape it."

  “True.” He grinned. From his posture, I could tell he was cautious, but still somewhat underestimating me.

  “You know that an attack on the Academy would have serious consequences, right?”

  “Well, you just don't know who I am.”

  “Hm, who are you though?”

  “And why should I tell you?”

  “Why shouldn't you? I'm going to be dead anyway.”

  The assassin laughed heartily. “Hahahaha. You're funny for a disgusting half-demon. Well, as a note to you... Even the Hero would be careful fighting me.”

  “Huh, interesting. You must be very strong, huh?”

  “Okay, enough with the small talk. Let me get my payment.” His hand moved in a blur and something metallic flashed through the air.

  I don't move.

  CLINK-!!!

  The dagger hits my throat and bounces off with a sound like metal striking stone, clattering to the ground between us.

  Silence.

  The assassin's professional calm cracks slightly, his eyes widening as he processes what just happened. "Hardening skill, huh? Quite advanced for a fourth-year student."

  "I told you, I practice."

  He's recalculating now, reassessing threat levels, trying to figure out what he's actually dealing with.

  I can see the moment he decides to commit: his body tenses, his weight shifts forward, and his hands move to his concealed weapons.

  The metal catches the light.

  He is fast.

  In a single stride, he closes the gap and pushes the dagger toward my chest. I shift my weight and slide to the left. The dagger misses by an inch.

  He does not lose his balance. Instead, he plants his foot and turns his wrist, bringing the edge back toward me.

  I keep my hands in my pockets while he adjusts. He stays in close and forces a high pace, but I just keep stepping out of the way. Desipite that, he still looks for a gap in my guard, and I just move my body based on patterns learned through game mechanics. My feet find the right angles without me needing to think about it. I duck under a swing.

  "Stop the trick. Now it's time to be serious."

  The air grows heavy. He stops hiding his aura now. It's a sharp, cold feeling that comes from a killer. I believe the girls would stop moving under this pressure. But well… this is nothing for me.

  He lowers his center of gravity and prepares for the final move. He puts his entire weight into a lunging stab, and then the point of the blade moves toward my throat at maximum speed.

  I stay calm as the dagger approaches. His form is perfect, but he's pretty predictable. My heart rate stays steady because I know this is nothing to worry about. I track the movement of his elbow to see where he is aiming. Oh he is fully committed to killing me with this attack, as he going to put it in my neck, while I am mostly wondering how much longer this will go on.

  Then…

  …the dagger reaches my neck…

  …and stops.

  It does not pierce my skin at all. Instead, the dagger stops right at the surface of my skin as if my skin were iron and refuses to move an inch forward despite the force behind it.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  I smile.

  "Still think this is a precarious situation for me?"

  My smile widened, and I let out my mana.

  …

  [Assassin POV]

  Fuck

  Fuck fuck fuck.

  I pull back and run, abandoning all pretense of composure because that girl—that thing—is not what I was hired to eliminate.

  I have killed forty-two targets in my career. I know exactly how a blade should feel when it meets resistance. When I lunged at that girl’s throat, there was no resistance. That was no hardening skill at all! My dagger simply stopped. It felt like the neck itself had become a solid wall that refused to let my weapon pass.

  I came here expecting to deal with an annoying half-demon student who'd upset the social order.

  Quick job, clean kill, and collect the payment.

  Not this.

  Never this.

  She's a demon. An actual demon. No, not demon. She's the devil herself!

  The aura, the impossible defense, the way she smiled when my dagger failed to pierce her throat… that's not just half-demon. That's a demonic figure in a child's body.

  I run as fast as I can. I have spent many years learning how to kill people for a living. Now I am using all of that training to try to escape because if I stay here, I will die.

  I glance back to check distance—

  Huh? Where is she?

  Suddenly…

  BLUP

  Something coils around my ankles.

  The world inverts as I'm yanked upward, the momentum reversed so fast my brain struggles to process the change.

  I'm hanging upside down now, blood rushing to my head, and I can see what's holding me.

  Black hands.

  Not human hands. It was gnarled like tree branches, formed from something like a living shadow, and it is gripping my ankles with strength that makes my bone creak.

  And then I see her.

  She's walking toward me down the shadow-wrapped corridor, and she's changed… something about her presence has shifted.

  She moves like she's on a runway, like an elegant noble but at the same time predatory, she's walking while grinning at me with an expression that makes my every survival instinct scream.

  Behind her, there's a red moon (huh is it night already?). The moon visible somehow through the shadows.

  I tried to speak, but the blood was pooling in my brain, making my words slur. "W-What... are you?"

  She didn't answer. She just kept coming.

  Father. Mother. Goddess, what have I done to deserve the wrath of this creature?

  I'm the second-best assassin in the entire kingdom. I've killed mages, warriors, nobles that protected by the best guards. I've survived situations that would kill lesser practitioners.

  And I'm being toyed with like a child's plaything by something wearing the skin of a twelve-year-old girl.

  What is this thing I'm facing? What curse did I invoke by accepting this contract?

  She's closer to me now.

  I closed my eyes. I couldn't look at her anymore. The sight of her was worse than the thought of dying.

  …die, huh?

  [Nyx POV]

  The assassin is dangling in my [Shadow Bind], completely helpless, and I'm walking toward him while thinking about what to do.

  Should I just kill him?

  Killing him makes sense. He tried to kill me first, and he's working for Penelope, which means letting him go just creates future problems. Dead assassins don't report back to their employers or take second contracts.

  I could chop up the body and send his head to Penelope's doorstep. That would send a very clear message about what happens to people who try to have me killed. Very demon queen energy, too. I like it.

  Wait.

  Why am I thinking about killing someone so casually?

  I stop walking and actually process that thought. A week ago I would have been horrified at the idea of murdering someone in cold blood, and now I'm mentally planning body disposal like it's a routine task, feeling nothing except mild curiosity about the most efficient approach.

  Have I actually become a demon? Not just in power but in mindset?

  I look at the assassin hanging in my shadows. He tried to kill me, yeah. Self-defense is justified. And logically, letting him go creates security risks I can't afford.

  But that's rationalization. The real reason I'm considering killing him is that it's easy and removes a problem and I don't feel bad about it.

  That should concern me more than it does.

  But…

  "P-ple-please..." the assassin gasps, face red from hanging upside down. "Don't kill me... I'll do anything..."

  "You'll do anything?"

  He nods frantically.

  "Like, actually, anything?"

  "Yweshhh p-please…."

  Hmmm.

  "Then..."

  I raise one finger.

  The [Shadow Bind] tightens around his neck and pulls in opposite directions with precision.

  SLING

  His head separates from his body so cleanly there's barely any blood, the shadows catching everything before it can spill.

  "...die and be useful to me."

  His body goes limp and I dismiss the shadows, letting the corpse drop into the darkness where it dissolves into my [Shadow Inventory] that apparently works for storing bodies just as well as it worked for storing equipment.

  Useful.

  I deactivate [Shadow Expansion] and reality snaps back to normal. The corridor returns to regular daylight, looking exactly as it did before I wrapped it in shadows. There was no blood, no body, and no evidence that anything had happened.

  And now it is just me standing in an empty hallway, alone.

  I check my hands for bloodstains even though I know there won't be any. The shadows already took care of everything.

  Then I realized… I just killed someone.

  Intentionally. Consciously. With full awareness of what I was doing.

  And I feel... nothing. No guilt, nor horror. I don't feel any emotional response at all beyond satisfaction that a problem has been eliminated.

  That should terrify me…

  Except it doesn't.

  I turn and continue toward the library like nothing happened, my footsteps echoing in the empty corridor, and somewhere in the back of my mind a small voice is asking if I'm still the same person I was back on Earth.

  I don't have an answer.

  But I do have a meeting with Mika to get to, and standing here having an existential crisis about murder won't solve any of my immediate problems.

  ***

  The library is quiet when I arrive, afternoon sun streaming through tall windows and illuminating dust motes in the air. Students scattered among the tables, reading or studying or quietly socializing. Normal Academy life continuing without any awareness that one of their classmates just committed murder in a side corridor.

  I find Mika at her usual desk in the reference section, surrounded by books, and looking exactly as I expect. She's got her glasses on, her hair is tied back in a bun. She really has perfected the librarian look.

  "My Lord," she says quietly, looking up as I approach. "I was wondering when you would come find me."

  "We need to talk."

  "About what I told Enid, yes." She gestures to the chair across from her. "Please sit down. We should discuss this properly."

  I sit with my hands flat on the table to keep them from shaking, even though they're perfectly steady.

  Because, you know, I just killed someone.

  And I'm about to have a conversation about demon conspiracy like it's a normal day.