It was quite surprising that despite being so small and slender, her chest was a different story.
'Does everything she eats go straight there?'
Anyway, that's goo— no, never mind.
I shook my head, having momentarily let my thoughts drift elsewhere.
"We'll start running now, so don't talk. You might bite your tongue."
"Ah, um. Yes."
From then on, Rose kept her mouth shut and focused solely on clinging to my body. A pleasant warmth radiated from her body pressed snugly against mine.
The wind hitting the front of me was freezing cold, but my back was quite warm. So I didn't feel cold in the slightest.
'I'd like to fold her up small and carry her around.'
Should I bring her along when I inspect the mines? Then I'd never have to worry about the cold.
Without even realizing I was having such thoughts.
Dageudak.
The horse carrying Rose and me began to gallop forward smoothly. Toward Arsil Orphanage, where Helena would be waiting.
**
The sun was gradually setting and shadows began to lengthen. A chill spread wherever twilight settled.
"It's sooo cold."
Helena pulled her robe tightly around herself and stared ahead.
Arsil Orphanage.
The nameplate on the building was clearly visible even from a distance. What a thoroughly sickening and dreadful name it was.
'It does look a bit different seeing it like this, though.'
She never expected to return here of her own free will. And to replace the orphanage director, no less.
That fact exhilarated Helena. It was an excitement she had never felt when taking on any commission.
'I spent ten years here, yet I don't feel any wistfulness at all.'
Helena's parents had abandoned her here when she was very young.
To her, Arsil Orphanage was the only home she had ever known, and Kevin, who ran the place, was a master she could not defy.
Age ten.
That was when Helena caught Kevin's eye and was raised as an assassin.
No one protected her. She learned the hard way that she alone could defend herself.
Age fifteen.
The day she received her first commission and returned after assassinating her target. Kevin called her to his room, saying he would reward her.
And then he violated Helena's body and soul.
"......"
Whenever she thought back to that time, Helena found herself disgusting and hated who she was.
Even when she became capable of killing a person with a single strike, even when she could escape any disadvantageous situation and slit her opponent's throat.
She couldn't defy Kevin.
His face, which contorted ferociously at the slightest offense, and the sticky hands that pulled at her thighs—she feared them viscerally.
Age seventeen.
Killing targets on Kevin's orders, seducing whoever he designated, luring them out, and ultimately murdering them.
She had thought such a life was the only future left for her. A life outside this place—both orphanage and assassination guild—was hard to even imagine.
Dane Schmaichel.
Until she received the commission to assassinate him.
'The fate of our orphanage hinges on this commission. We must kill him.'
'Who is he?'
'Dane Schmaichel. The Silver Tiger who's established himself at Mount Kalmar in the north.'
Kevin's eyes gleamed viciously as he spoke the name.
'No guild has ever succeeded at this commission before. We'll be the first.'
'Can we really kill a target like that?'
'We've already received an enormous sum in backing. We proceed regardless of success or failure.'
Kevin particularly preferred assassination commissions targeting nobles.
He was the kind of man who found ecstasy in dragging people from a world he could never reach down into his own gutter.
In the end, the assassination failed. She attempted it alongside the most skilled comrades from the orphanage, but it was no use.
Whether tempered by countless assassination attempts, Dane Schmaichel wasn't even fazed. Had he at least shown some irritation, her pride wouldn't have been so wounded.
'Monster of a man.'
What infuriated her even more was how he dispatched the assassins with an utterly indifferent face, as though shooing away flies.
Helena was, in her own right, a recognized talent in this industry. Not that she could brag about it anywhere, but the title 'Golden Anemone' carried considerable weight in the field.
'If I went at him again, could I win?'
Spending day after day in prison, teasing the guards when she was bored, Helena often entertained such fantasies.
That fantasy never came true. Instead, it materialized in a different form.
'Why is it contemptible to use any means necessary to survive?'
Dane had appeared out of nowhere in the prison and declared he would hire her.
Putting aside the interesting conditions, what she couldn't believe was that he felt no desire toward her whatsoever.
Wondering just how far he could suppress desire, Helena tested him multiple times.
'What's your answer?'
But Dane's gaze toward her was as sterile as if he were looking at an object.
He spoke as though his only interest was in Helena's abilities, and that was indeed how things unfolded thereafter.
He spoke in a commanding tone but wasn't particularly coercive; he wore a cold expression, but at the edge of his gaze lurked a faint compassion.
'What are you so afraid of?'
And he asked as if he could see right through her. After effortlessly subduing her when she had tried to grab him by the collar.
How did he know about her past, her fear of Kevin?
It wasn't exactly a pleasant experience. It felt as though her shameful past was being dug up, which was embarrassing.
But... Helena thought she was at least fortunate that it was Dane doing the digging.
"A piece of trash like him, running an assassination guild."
Helena muttered to soothe the strange feelings welling up for no reason.
"...Though actually, he's not trash."
It would have been a lie to say she didn't feel a slight flutter when Dane had grabbed her and pinned her down on the desk.
The flawless grip that bound her wrists, the solid feel of his thigh pressing against her leg, that face so close—the delicate yet razor-sharp features, like a bard's.
How could anyone stay composed when a man like that was gazing at her from inches away?
If she had received a commission to seduce him, Helena would have accepted it with pleasure.
'Well, his face is kind of my type, I guess.'
This was one of the reasons Helena had decided to serve Dane as her master. Though she would never, ever tell him that.
'Not like it would ever happen with me, anyway.'
She had heard plenty that he neglected his previous seven wives, but word was that he acted differently with the new one he'd just taken.
The maids assigned to drudge work in the laundry room collected and shared every sort of rumor to get through their grueling hours. Among them, Dane's eighth wife was by far the hottest topic.
'They say he took her straight to the bedroom as soon as she arrived? They spend every night together! That's never happened before!'
'Do you think she's got honey smeared all over her body? Hahahaha.'
'They say the bedsheets are soaked every day. He even dismisses the attendants and bathes with her, apparently!'
'Oh my, oh my!'
That man, capable of liking someone.
She couldn't believe it.
Would he be so tender to his wife when he had been so heartless to her? Would he show his wife a side he would never show her?
And so, Helena was intensely curious about the wife from the rumors. A tinge of jealousy was mixed in—that notion of 'Let's see just how beautiful she is, surely she's no better than me.'
'Why is he in such a hurry? Is it because his wife is waiting at the door?'
That was also why she had lingered when his wife came to his office. She had endured his firm warning not to cross the line and stayed in the room.
And the eighth wife she finally saw was...
'Hmm, she's just ordinary.'
Large green eyes wavered innocently, and her still-youthful cheeks were rather soft-looking. She looked so naive—seemed fragile enough that she couldn't kill a single bug.
'Is that his type?'
She was a bit different from the various noble ladies Helena had seen before.
Yes, that's right—it was those eyes.
Those clear, unwavering eyes, as though they had never once been tainted. Eyes that looked at one thing and one thing only.
The eighth wife, Rose, had those eyes.
However...
'Does she know me?'
Why she sensed gladness in Rose's gaze toward her, Helena couldn't quite understand.
No matter how far back she racked her memory, she had never seen this woman before. Besides, judging by her new master's attitude, he didn't seem to have told her anything about her either.
At any rate, after meeting the rumored wife in person, Helena rendered her verdict.
'She is cute, I'll give her that.'
And in addition to that—
'Aren't I still better?'
a rather biased judgment, though one she considered perfectly objective.
Her own radiant golden hair looked better than Rose's red, and her own deep blue eyes seemed more beautiful than Rose's green. She felt her features were far superior as well.
She had heard praise about her beauty so often that calluses might as well have formed on her ears. So Helena took considerable pride in her appearance.
But the one staying at Dane's side now was Rose—that woman. Not her.
'If I do a good job on what he's given me... will he look my way, even once?'
Tuk, tuk.
Lost in such thoughts, Helena tapped her fingers against her folded arms. Then she spotted the shape of a horse growing larger in the distance.
"Mas—"
Helena started to call out to Dane out of habit, then stopped. She realized he wasn't riding alone.
Behind Dane's body, red hair was streaming in the wind. Even without seeing the face, she knew exactly who it was.
"......"
For some reason, she felt she shouldn't reveal herself right now.
Helena pressed herself deeper into the shadow of the building. And waited for Dane's horse to draw closer.
But then.
"-!"
Her eyes met Dane's.
It wasn't a trick of the mind. Dane pinpointed exactly where she was and began to gradually slow his horse.
'How did he know?'
Concealing one's presence was an assassin's fundamental skill. Helena's training was such that when she set her mind to hide, no one in the guild could find her.
Yet Dane fixed his gaze on her as if he had known her position from the very start.
"......"
To find even that gaze intoxicating—she must have been losing her mind.