Chapter 8: These Orphans Need Their Director (1)
This is a story from his days serving in the Annihilation Corps.
There were commanders called the Demon King’s Army’s Seven Dragon Generals. Each had gathered staking the fate of one race, and it wouldn’t be wrong to call them, in effect, that race’s own “Hero.”
Until the Hero’s Party appeared, the United Kingdoms were swept aside with pathetic ease.
Demonfolk whose raw physicality was an upgraded version of humanity’s to begin with came swarming in by the race to try conquering the world—there was simply no withstanding it.
The war against the Demon King’s Army could, in other words, be described as a war between humanity and every other race.
The staff officers of the United Kingdoms, driven onto the defensive, put forward a clever scheme to resolve this impasse.
To break the demonfolk’s cohesion, we must go with a decapitation operation rather than all-out war.
Throw the United Kingdoms’ soldiers in and hold the line by the teeth however possible.
And in the meantime, dispatch “assassins” to kill the Seven Dragon Generals and dismantle the enemy’s cohesion.
Since the demonfolk were nothing more than a loose assemblage of survival-of-the-strongest tribal states, if you plucked off the Seven Dragon Generals, the commanders beneath them would each start infighting over the vacant general’s seat.
It was a correct assessment.
Which is to say, from a broad perspective, the Hero’s Party was nothing but an assassination squad.
Thrown into deadly ground, and yet always returning alive. And thus the sort that even the sovereigns of the various kingdoms could not easily touch.
That was why Ivan disliked the Hero’s Party.
Because it was the exact mirror of the reason the Krasilov royal house had resolved to dissolve the Annihilation Corps.
We were blades that cut far too well to be held even in an era of peace.
***
Having received the intelligence on the enrollment schedules of the Hero’s Party’s sons and daughters, Ivan was enjoying pleasant leisure.
The timeline he’d planned was flawless.
First, Esidis, rescued a few days ago.
After that, Isabelle. The daughter of the Hero Maximilien. Belonging to the Kingdom of Tiless, departing in the first week of February.
And then, only days apart, Oscar, the son of the Knight Gilbert. Departing from the Kingdom of Tiless.
These 2 needed no worrying over. Tiless and Krasilov had had decent diplomatic relations even before the war, and the distance was comparatively short, so there was ample time to respond to a train assault.
And as for the Mage Beolgrin’s daughter, Elphera, she wouldn’t be arriving by train in the first place.
Beolgrin’s homeland is an island floating beyond the Black Sea. The Kalion Archipelago. She’d be crossing over by warship from there, which made her safer than all the rest.
Krasilov had no ice-free port, so she’d likely come by way of Tiless, but a girl arriving by warship surely wouldn’t leave her attendants behind.
Lastly, Enrique’s disciple, Lucia.
This one belonged to the Kingdom of Krasilov. Which meant she had already arrived somewhere in this capital.
Not only was there no problem in checking on her briefly at the very end, he didn’t even feel any desire to meet her soon.
Which is to say, if he simply let the 2 new students’ train attacks in February slide, the rest would end as issues that would resolve themselves without him personally stepping in.
The train attacks were part of the tutorial process to begin with.
Having now gained complete certainty through Esidis, there was no reason whatsoever for him to act directly before the term started.
Therefore—
“I want kimchi stew.”
He was currently passing the time scribbling out his “list of things to eat once I get back to Earth” again.
This time spent in the Director’s Office with a cup of coffee, warming himself by a cozy campfire, was to him a precious leisure that could not be traded for anything.
Tteokbokki. Not rosé. Nor the soupy, high-volume tteokbokki of delivery-franchise style.
The tteokbokki he wanted was the reduced-sauce, street-flavored hipster tteokbokki sold at the shop in front of school. He recalled the place that sprinkled curry powder on top had been the most popular.
“I want to go home…….”
“Abandoning us again?”
“…….”
Ivan’s slack eyes opened sharply. The Kim Seon-woo within was crushed beneath Ivan’s sense of self and vanished, leaving Ivan alone and whole as he turned around.
A little kid was plastered to the window.
“Since when have you been there……?”
“Since the director-teacher started muttering about wanting to eat something!”
“This is the 3rd floor.”
“I’m famous for paying close attention in class, you know!”
“……Does our in-house curriculum include wall-climbing……?”
Ivan walked straight to the window and threw it wide open. He lifted up the kid, who was grinning mischievously, and carefully set them down inside the room.
“I won! You know that, right?”
“Don’t settle contests that way. From now on use the corridor. It’s dangerous, isn’t it.”
“Awww, this is the only way I can barely win!”
St. Vasilisa Orphanage has a time-honored game. Approaching the orphanage director without him noticing.
This game enjoyed sensational popularity among the children. Because Ivan was the mysterious man who could snatch a ball flying at his back one-handed without even turning around.
On top of that, no matter how stealthily one moved, it was utterly impossible to hide in Ivan’s vicinity.
This gruff, sharp-edged man was, contrary to appearances, remarkably harmless, so to children who gauge people by conduct rather than looks, he was among the finest playmates.
“I’ll make you a cup of cocoa; drink it and then out you go.” “Yes!!”
Nor did Ivan try to stop the game. In any case, the children needed some means of making a living after graduating from the orphanage, didn’t they?
If they could deceive his own senses, then wherever you dropped them they wouldn’t starve.
Ivan sent out the brightly laughing kid and reclaimed his peaceful leisure.
The time remaining until Isabelle boarded her train was roughly 2 weeks.
Until then, he was free.
Which is to say, there was a time when he thought so. Until one of the orphanage children was abruptly abducted.
***
“Hey, I asked what outfit you belong to.”
“No, mister, I don’t think you’re understanding. If our director finds out about this, you’re all in for it, seriously!”
“Wow, get a load of this kid! Anyone watching would think we were the ones who got grabbed!”
Krasilov’s capital, Prichenkaya, is one of the foremost great cities on the continent. Naturally, every city has a shadowed space collectively known as the “back alleys,” and Prichenkaya likewise has several “slum districts.”
Even among the back-alley gangs and outlaws there are those who stand apart—namely, the dead-end collectives classified as “assassination organizations.”
Stab someone with a knife and you naturally face the judgment of the law. The more highly placed that someone is, the more severe the law tends to become, but the compensation likewise soars to astronomical heights.
Which is to say, an assassination organization consists of fellows who figure that so long as they get paid, it’s fine if they lay their lives on the line, swing a blade once, and then vanish as dew on the execution ground.
Because assassins like the ones in films—who emerge stylishly from the darkness, cleanly cut down only the target, and disappear—don’t exist in reality.
“So who the hell is this director of yours!”
“I-Ivan Petrovich! Y-you’ve heard the name, right? Right?”
“What? Ahahahaha!!”
These fellows had of course heard the name Ivan.
They’d heard the surname Petrovich too.
Ivan is the most common given name in Krasilov, and Petrovich the most common surname, isn’t it?
Even the late king, renowned as a sage ruler, was named Ivan.
With roughly the feeling of laughing first when someone says Oi, ye know ma big brother Kim Cheol-su?—the low-ranking members of the Prichenkaya back-alley assassination organization snickered.
Just then, a low voice rang out from the darkness of the alley.
“Hold.”
When the members flinched in shock, set down their weapons, and edged backward, one person came walking out along the path they’d cleared. Plod, plod.
“Who did you say?”
“I-Ivan Petro, Petrovich…… the orphanage director…… sir……!”
That person looked the captive over from head to toe for a moment, then smiled slowly.
“So that impudent boy said he was retiring, and all the while he’s been assembling an assassination squad behind my back?”
The children of St. Vasilisa Orphanage, for whom killing one’s presence and creeping up to startle Ivan was treated as roughly a traditional pastime, could indeed look that way in someone else’s eyes.
And in the eyes of an expert among experts—the human most versed in this particular field, “Shadow Blade” Enrique—they could look no other way.
Spreading the false rumor of his own death and cleanly retiring to live a new life, was he.
Ha. Right. A dog will change its habits before the Annihilation Corps changes theirs.
Enrique grinned and nodded.
Ivan Petrovich designated as the head of an evil organization collecting orphans and training them in assassination!
***
“You’re saying one of the children seems to have been kidnapped?”
“Yes, Director! That…… do you remember a girl named Priscilla?”
“Of course I do.”
Ivan had memorized the full personal particulars of all 300-odd of his children, graduates included.
Priscilla. No surname. Age 17. War orphan.
Parents unknown. He recalled taking her in when she’d been abandoned during the war and was begging near a military encampment.
She had a bit of a mischievous streak, but was fundamentally a spirited and highly talented child, so even with graduation age approaching Ivan hadn’t been greatly worried.
Lately she’d apparently been going all over looking into places of employment……
“Who, where, when?”
“I don’t know the specifics, but only the overcoat Priscilla was wearing came back……. This is a threat, isn’t it?”
“Probably.”
Ivan took the overcoat the teacher handed him and examined it meticulously.
Marks where the threads had pulled at the sleeve, a badly worn collar. One button hanging loose, on the verge of falling off.
He was flipping it over, finding nothing of note, when his hand suddenly stopped.
An ordinary handprint, pressed into the fabric. Soiled with dirt, of a shape that wouldn’t even have been visible without close attention.
A scar subtly carved into the heel of the hand, at the palm’s position, remained faintly beneath the dirt mark.
Fellows who drive cross-shaped scars into their palms.
“Enrique.”
That’s the mark of that foul-tempered creature’s organization members.
There was no way any idiot would kidnap an orphan for money, so this was a provocation or a warning.
Or else…… a summons.
Ivan felt the need to adjust the schedule item he’d pushed to the very back because he least wanted to face it.
Shadow Blade Enrique. Put another way—
It was a summons from the Grand Master.
Because the Annihilation Corps had been Enrique’s creation.
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