# Enhanced Translation
Confirmation bias is a term that refers to the tendency to select information based on one's own views.
In other words, once you start doubting, you can't stop. That was exactly Enrique's situation right now.
"That crazy bastard looks dangerous."
Four days. For four days, this guy has been staking out while chewing on dried rations.
When Enrique first joined the assassination unit, she taught her disciples "patience." Stay still in one place and observe your target, whether it's raining or bugs are landing on you.
That wasn't meant to be applied like this.
Unlike herself, a vampire, this guy is human. Unlike her, who only needs to avoid sunlight and blessings with no inherent weaknesses (Enrique was even an Elder with resistance to sunlight), he has essential needs for survival.
Basic things like sleep, food, and rest.
Enrique narrowed her eyes as she glared at Ivan, then let out a deep sigh.
At my age, having to take care of someone his age. This joke is downright malicious.
"Hey, disciple."
"..."
Ivan stood like a statue without answering. He was so focused that he couldn't even detect her voice from this distance.
Judging by his moving eyeballs, was he reading lips? He's been doing that exhausting task for quite a while.
Enrique shrugged her shoulders and slipped her hand into her sleeve.
-Click. Bang—!
She fired her pistol with perfect technique, without any momentum in her movement. A steady line of fire aimed precisely at the back of his head.
Ivan dodged by tilting his head slightly, then jumped down from the tree with an axe in hand.
"Enrique...?"
"Yeah, kid. Let's get out of here first. Who knows what trouble might come after that gunshot. Let's go to your place."
"That's a bit difficult right now."
"I'm more than a bit troubled. Elizabeta will cry again if she finds out about this. I want to see your orphanage anyway."
Enrique grabbed Ivan firmly by the nape of his neck and dragged him along. Ivan glanced at her face and put away his axe.
The Great Teacher might be a frivolous woman and slightly crazy, but she's not one to speak nonsense.
So let's hear what the urgent matter is. Ivan naturally slipped out of Enrique's arm and walked ahead.
"The place might be a bit messy."
"Yeah, yeah. Let's just go."
Shortly after, Enrique set foot in Ivan's orphanage for the first time.
Her first impression was bewilderment.
"You're not really raising an assassination squad here, are you?"
"That's a misunderstanding."
"Really...?"
Enrique looked around blankly. From tiny tots to nearly-graduated older kids. Young ones were scurrying about, but their footsteps made absolutely no sound.
This level of discipline would be hard to find even in her organization. What the hell has this guy been doing? Enrique gave a hollow laugh.
"Share your curriculum with me if you have one. I can't even raise my kids like this."
"Provide a regular lifestyle and a diet that considers nutritional balance."
"What nonsense are you spouting, you bastard."
Enrique chuckled and continued walking, then stopped again.
"What's that? Is that a demon?"
"Yes."
"Of all things...! Do you realize that if this gets discovered, you, that thing, and this place will all be dead?"
"I know."
Ivan shrugged his shoulders. In the distance, Aipelos was teaching something to the children.
One of the children ran over and planted a fist into Aipelos's side. It was quite an achievement—successfully landing a surprise close-quarters attack on a centurion who had spent about 30 years on battlefields.
The child shouted "Hooray!" and ran off again. Disappeared from sight in an instant.
"Everyone needs a chance to live like a human being."
Hearing Ivan's words, Enrique narrowed her eyes. Despite embracing demons, his students were apparently preparing for ambushes.
"We're here."
Ivan silently opened the director's office door. The office with its curtains drawn was dim.
As Enrique was about to take a step forward, she stopped. A thin booby trap extended just in front of her foot.
Dozens of such traps. They were revealed like spider webs in the single ray of sunlight peeking through the curtains.
"What is all this...?"
Even without light, vampires have night vision. This means no blackout curtain can hide an indoor space.
The booby traps, well, could be dismissed as paranoid security measures.
But this.
"What have you really been doing with your life?"
Ivan silently disarmed the booby traps. One by one, he undid the traps attached to the lines and touched the light in the corner of the director's office.
With a pop, the magic lamp lit up with a blue light.
The interior was a mess.
Dozens of stacks of documents. Someone's profile written in neat handwriting. Notes with names and red threads connecting those notes.
Where these were intertwined like spider webs, there were invariably memos. Reading them one by one, they were ordinary dialogues.
Things that shouldn't ordinarily exist. The circumstances of someone's conversation, expected tone, meaning between the lines, and intonation inferred by observing hyoid bone changes. A list of expected regions of origin based on intonation....
Even when tracking an international criminal with a red alert from the counterintelligence command, this much effort wouldn't be expended.
And all this for a student.
Alone, without sleep, for days on end.
Enrique's face grew increasingly rigid. This situation, this appearance, this behavior—all were familiar to her.
This is a trace of some mental illness. Something close to a panic attack. Perhaps even older.
The kind occasionally seen among those who have spent a long time on battlefields. Not particularly rare.
But as unstable as a time bomb.... Even now, the streets of Pritzenkaya are overrun with drug addicts among veterans who look like this.
Enrique took a deep breath.
"Ivan."
"Hmm."
"Sit down."
Ivan's face remained expressionless. It was as if she could clearly see what face he was making under that insufferable beard.
As if it were natural, he didn't feel anything unusual at all.
"When was the last time you slept?"
"...About six days ago, I think."
The last time he fell asleep, he was having nightmares among the file folders.
It was a truly terrible feeling, and since then, he has deliberately avoided sleep. It could be described as superhuman willpower.
However, Enrique looked at him with bitter eyes.
"Tell me. What is all this? When Dmitri asked me to check on you, I thought you were trying to protect the children."
That seemed natural since he appeared to be only following the children of the Hero Party. And that was appreciated. It meant he was concerned enough about the children to personally take action even after retirement.
But the traces visible here suggest otherwise.
"Who are you trying to catch? The St. Yansk University terrorist?"
"No."
"Tell me. Just be honest. I know by now. You're really terrible with words. Just from the beginning, disciple."
Enrique firmly held Ivan's hand and quietly looked into his eyes.
Indeed, a monster who had lived for over a century had the persuasiveness of the weight of years.
Ivan met her two eyes filled with desperation, then sighed.
Shortly after, Ivan's mouth opened.
It was a grand confession.
What if, just what if. Let's say there's a person like this.
Someone who left behind the place they lived and the people they knew, and fell, plop, into a world they'd never seen before.
So, for instance....
They were so engrossed in a novel they were reading that they stayed up all night and dozed off, and in their dream, it was as if they had fallen into the world of that novel.
No matter how hard they tried, the dream wouldn't end, and the world still felt like the story in the novel.
Not wanting to die, or wanting to return. They tried everything they could. Fortunately, it seems they had talent and were able to adapt and live well.
After experiencing the last page of the novel, that person might think:
-Why doesn't it end?
Perhaps there are other conditions. Considering suicide might be the most viable solution, they observe the situation for a few years.
In the midst of this, a person suddenly appears.
Probably a foreigner from the same hometown.
Now they think:
Is this world really just a world in a novel? Were all the things I experienced just the prologue of a novel? Would my name be on a page of the novel that person read?
If so, if that's the case.
What will my end look like? A tragedy? A comedy? No, before that.
Am I and my life nothing more than a line of prehistory? Am I just a character frozen outside the story that's about to unfold?
Such thoughts.
Increasingly disorganized. But with a confident gaze. Looking straight at his teacher as he continued.
With as much kindness as possible to make even this pre-modern old-fashioned person understand.
"...So, to summarize... you're actually a transmigrator."
"Mm."
"And you recently confirmed there's another one."
"Mm."
"And you think you need to kill him."
"...Mm."
"That's very logical, my disciple."
Enrique let out a deep sigh and rubbed her face. She leaned back on the sofa and stared at the ceiling for a moment.
Damn it, there were memos stuck to the ceiling too. It's amazing how he managed to stick them up there.
"I have so much I want to say to you, but first I should apologize. I thought you had followed us all the way to the Demon King's Tower."
Having spent so much time with this guy, it was only natural to assume he had climbed the tower with them.
It was Enrique's mistake. In fact, it was everyone's mistake. Making excuses like not knowing his condition was meaningless. It was practically the same as abandoning a disciple she had taken in.
"The Demon King's Tower?"
"Yes. Strangely, we all thought you were part of the same party, but thinking about it now, you weren't. We didn't mention it because we thought you already knew."
Enrique paused for a moment, then shook her head.
"Max is not from Tilles."
"You mean he has a different nationality? But...."
"No. Listen to me first. Max... Maximillian. That guy is not from this world."
Enrique looked straight at Ivan's face and spoke each word as if chewing it out. As if trying to engrave it directly into his mind.
"You're not the first. And you won't be the last."
Following his words, I casually called them "transmigrators," but.
To be more precise, they're not transmigrators, but "those who were brought here."
In other words, those who popped up from somewhere when the world's balance tilted.
Not a common occurrence, but invariably appearing once or twice every century.
Popping up as if to add spice to a chaotic world, doing "something" and then disappearing.
Enrique knows about such people. She had actually seen some of them.
Maximillian. That man was also one of them.
Ordinarily missing his homeland, but admirably heading to the battlefield.
That's why even she, a vampire, followed him. He was that kind of person. Standing in front of everyone with a smile, making everyone follow him.
Hero, warrior, Demon King slayer, and an ordinary man. A foreigner who was lonely until the end. Now gone.
That's how Enrique remembered that man.
A brave foreigner who drew his sword to protect a common girl who had taken him in in Tilles.
"That's why we don't say a hero was 'born.' We say they 'appeared.'"