"Assassin, Erase My Past" V5 - Epilogue
Wind was blowing through the city of Taphrem—
And standing in the strong winds, atop the roof, were two bulky figures that looked down on the city.
"Hmm..."
Raising his sword, one of them groaned as if he felt something while his fur cloak billowed in the breeze.
"It's so peaceful."
"Yeah..."
The answer came from the other figure — who was curled up like a cat behind him. He seemed to be in a daze, his answers muttled.
The figure holding the sword continued, seemingly unconcerned.
"This is a nice city. There was a bit of commotion when I first showed up, but somehow, before I even knew it, the situattion had already been solved."
"Yeah..."
"That loan shark's going to be healing for two weeks, too. Serves him right."
"Yeah..."
"And it'll be even more peaceful because that little avalanche girl's going to have her hands full taking care of him."
"Yeah..."
"The wind is nice, too... As I sit here, I realize, its been a long time since I dreamed of finding that loan shark on the first star and murdering him..."
"Yeah..."
Then—
"I don't really mind, but—"
Leticia shouted in a sly tone as she looked up at the roof, a broom in hand—
"Why are you guys living in my house?"
"— I fed them once, but I guess that was a bad idea..."
Tifis mumbled as he diligently placed bottles of water to repel cats and dogs from the garden.
"Pat speculates that it'll be hard to cut ties unless decisive measures are taken — like, we could use a trowel."
Pat said while clinging to Tifis' back. She was holding a stuffed bear.
But, heedless of their conversation, the laughter continued to echo over the roof.
"Haaaaahahahaaaa! Just heavenly~!"
"Yeah..."
Summer in Taphrem was reaching its peak.
"... I think these injuries are something that your body can heal by itself."
(I agree with you.)
"So I think you need nourishment ❤"
(Well... I admit that's true, too.)
"So, I've come up with a semi-compulsory health recovery menu ♪"
(No way!)
He screamed, only, he had no voice—
Orphen sat up in his hospital bed, flailing his hands. He was covered in bandages and plaster underneath of his stiff pajamas, making it hard for him to move. His neck cast and the poultice on his cheek were the absolute worst.
(Worse yet... Damn, with this temporary shock I can't even use my vocal cords, can I?)
He thought irritably. Well, this was probably normal since he'd been caught up in the middle of the spatial explosion along with that Killing Doll — in fact, he was lucky that he hadn't suffered the same fate as the doll.
Thanks to the inability to use his voice, however, he couldn't heal his wounds with sorcery. If it was just typical trauma it might've been different, but wounds that serious were difficult for others to heal with sorcery as well, so Orphen had been forced to live a boring life in the hospital.
Though, that wasn't so bad, depending on the environment...
The hospital room wasn't too bad, either, and (probably thanks to Leticia's recommendations) he'd been allocated a private room and all that. Cleao was sitting on the bedside, where all sorts of sympathetic gifts were piled up, though he wasn't sure what any of them were. Across the room, Majic was sitting alone in a chair, reading a book or something. It was old, with a pitch-black cover and no title.
If this was all there was, it wasn't such a bad environment.
As Orphen looked at Cleao, who was wiggling with glowing positivity, and putting a succession of suspicious-looking meals on the side table, he wished that he'd asked Leticia to take care of him.
"This is the one I'm most proud of this time — I named it the One Hit Kill Stew."
(Does that even have anything to do with recovery...)
As if seeing the words written in his eyes, Cleao hurriedly waved her hand. For whatever reason, Leki was also waving his front legs in a similar fashion from atop her head.
"D-don't worry, that just means it's taking out the bad disease in a single blow!"
(I'm injured, not sick...)
"Nora didn't look so well, so I had her try it, and she was up and about in no time, jumping around and even dashed a whole two hundred meters. So it has excellent effects!"
(I think she probably ran away...)
"Later, Nora even brought me a mouse that she'd caught. I'm sure she was trying to thank me."
(Or it was a weakly sign of surrender...)
"... I won't leave until you've eaten it all."
(Ugh...)
As Orphen bitterly sobbed, she stirred the bright red stew, then lifted the spoon, which for some reason, had shells on it. Of course, it was only at a time like this that the nurses, who typically nitpicked visitors and asked them not to give the patients any extra food, weren't showing up.
"I'm so glad that you like it. You're so happy that you're crying tears of joy ❤ Eat the shells, too."
(She's doing this on purpose, isn't she...?)
He gave Cleao a sideways glance. She was smiling with no evil intent whatsoever. Orphen then placed the spoon in his mouth, eating the stew with the same state of mind as when he'd cast that terrible spell on himself and the Killing Doll.
"... That was amazing! Master, you must've run around the room twenty times."
"What... the hell... is so... amazing..."
Orphen groaned, cowering in his bed. Apparently, the overwhelming power of the stew — or whatever you wanted to call it — had done both good and bad, but at the very least, he could talk now. Even if it was a raspy, croaking voice.
"C-Cleao... Where the hell did you run off? You little..."
"U ~ mmm"
Majic scratched his head as he sat in the spot Cleao had been until recently.
"When you began to convulse, Master, she went blue in the face and ran off, saying she had a long errand to attend to."
"Damn it... Why is it that everything she makes for me is like this, while the food she makes for normal people is pretty good...?"
"She made me eat soap before—"
"So you've eaten it too..."
Orphen coughed and coughed. Majic continued.
"She said tomorrow's meal is the Meatloaf of the Hundredth Battle of the War."
"I don't want it!"
Orphen sobbed, repositioning himself in the bed. He glanced at his student as he straightened out the crumpled sheets.
Majic was silently looking back at him — his eyes, usually honest, were now clearly hiding his emotions. He was waiting for something...
Sigh — Orphen peeled the poultice off of his face, which got in the way when he tried to speak.
"You look like you want to ask me something."
"No... I want to say something. I don't want to ask you for a favor or anything like that, but I'd like you to listen to what I've decided."
"... Just say it."
Orphen said, already having a good guess of what Majic was about to say. After nodding, and a moment of hesitation more... Majic opened his mouth.
"I... I'm thinking of joining the Tower of Fang. Not just the registration and all that, but also..."
"Weird — I wonder what went wrong..."
On the roof of the hospital, Cleao muttered as she leaned against the railing. She was stroking Leki's back while he sprawled out on her head.
"I wonder if it was a bad idea to use a cat as my test subject. Tish should've had a pet crocodile instead of a cat. Though, if a Crocodile took off running like that, I don't think I'd want to give the food to Orphen, either."
Leki's gaze shifted, his expression reading as if he were wondering 'What's that?' However, since he was on her head, Cleao didn't notice.
Then—
"I wonder what went wrong..."
"............?"
A woman mumbled something along those lines as she leaned against the handrail a short distance from her. It seemed that she was responding to her ramblings.
(How did she just show up on this rooftop...)
Cleao observed the woman with a curious look on her face.
(W-what a beautiful woman...)
She was tall, about 20 years old, with dark hair that extended to the nape of her neck. She gazed at the city from above the railing with a provocative look in her eyes, almost like a cat. She looked somewhat familiar—
And a little reluctantly, Cleao approached her.
She asked her, smiling.
"Did you also fail at something?"
"Huh?"
Startled, the woman turned to look at her — and then smiled.
"I suppose so. Failures are all so trivial, though."
"I tried to make a meal for somebody who's sick, but you know, when I think about nutrition and all that, I can't think about the taste."
"Yeah... I don't know anything about cooking, but it's very common for people to get distracted."
She spun around, leaned against the handrail behind her waist, and reached for her head.
Leki responded by putting his paw on the tips of her fingers.
The woman laughed, teasing Leki, who was just barely out of reach of her fingers.
"Your dog? He seems so used to you."
"This child's not a dog."
"Is that so..."
"Oh, I've got to go—"
Cleao stood up from the railing and bowed her head to the woman.
"Thank you... I was just thinking that I was the only one in the world who keeps making mistakes. Everyone else makes plenty of mistakes too, though, don't they?"
"I suppose so."
The woman chuckled.
"To tell you the truth, I've only been failing. My Master always told me: Successes and failures are the same. The point is that successes become meaningless, and failures become successes, depending on how you react after the fact. I'm going to try to turn my failures into successes..."
"... My father said that when he was alive, too. Well then, good luck with that."
"Yeah..."
Urged on by the woman's reply, Cleao quickly ran down the stairs, her hair fluttering. If by some whim, she'd waited at the bottom of the stairs, Cleao would've been left wondering when the woman never showed up downstairs—
All of this was only the beginning of things to come in Taphrem.
Table of Contents
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| (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (6) (7) |
The Usual Victim The Sudden Assassin The Melancholy Homecomer The Persistent Visitor The Night Walker The Seeker Confronted The Successor of Steel |
- Notes
- Bottles of water are theorized to deter cats and dogs from entering your yard because light reflecting through the bottle sets off some kind of danger instinct in the animal, or perhaps because they won't use the restroom near a water source.