I Became a Murderer in the Academy. - Chapter 4

I had a dream.

Perhaps it might have been reality.

That day, I killed and ate an innocent person again.

The reason for killing? There was none.

I was just hungry.

Just as they didn’t want to die, I wanted to live.

In truth, I didn’t really want to kill either.

It was my true feelings that I couldn’t confess to anyone.

In my dream, I walked through an alley stained with blood.

It was what the people who died by my hands had spilled while screaming.

In a crimson puddle, my reflection was faintly visible.

A white monster with blood on its mouth.

Yesterday, whose voice did I imitate to enchant humans?

Exhausted from extreme hunger, I again sang their sorrows.

A voice that couldn’t be ignored, an appearance that couldn’t be resisted.

I would show the people coming near the back alley only their most painful memories.

My appearance reflected in the dream was like that too.

The white monster lured humans from deep in the back alley, and the humans entranced by it stepped deeper into the darkness.

I grabbed a person walking into the depths of the back alley.

Telling them they would die if they went that way, that what was ahead wasn’t the person they knew.

But they shook off my hand and walked beyond.

They probably knew this deep inside.

It seems they wanted to deny it desperately.

Maybe they wanted to meet that person from their memories one last time, even if it meant dying.

And what happened next was as expected.

The white monster brutally murdered the man who approached it.

That’s where the memory of my dream ended.

**

I opened my eyes, feeling the cold floor.

Wait, cold floor?

“……”

An unfamiliar ceiling.

The place where I opened my eyes wasn’t somewhere with a warm ceiling or a cozy blanket.

Rather, it was a much darker and damper space.

The cold stone floor was chilling against my bare skin.

Judging by the lack of outside noise, could it be underground?

I decided to look around first.

“Uh… Boss. Is this really okay? If we get chased by the Knight Order…”

“It’s fine, you idiot. Originally, anything’s legal as long as you don’t get caught. What are you gonna do if we get caught? We’re leaving the central city before dawn tomorrow.”

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. We need to make a big score before we leave. Anyway, the Knight Order is distracted from investigating the disappearances in the back alley. It’s the perfect timing to make our move.”

It was a damp and somewhat unpleasant prison.

The stone walls were slightly covered in moss and the iron bars confining me were prominent.

Since there didn’t seem to be anything I could do immediately, I listened to the voices coming from outside.

“So, what did you feed that woman to bring her here unconscious? The one with white hair.”

“Huh? We didn’t feed her anything. She was just sleeping. On the bed.”

“Sleeping on the bed? Haha! What a crazy bitch!”

Hmm.

That can’t be about me.

Anyway, I think I understand the situation now.

It seems I was kidnapped while sleeping in the room I had taken last night.

Looking beyond the iron bars, I could see many other people tied up, some of them with slave tattoos.

‘Slave traders?’

A fairly reasonable deduction.

If they kidnapped me for financial gain, there was no other possibility I could think of.

Feeling the restraints on my hands and feet, I sat up from my lying position.

In the prison where I was confined, there were other people tied up and collapsed beside me.

I was the only one conscious, which suggested they might have used some kind of drug.

As I turned my head a bit more, I made eye contact with a man.

He wasn’t bald.

Just an unfamiliar man I’d never seen before.

“What? You’re awake? It would have been better if you’d stayed asleep.”

“……”

“You know you’ve been kidnapped, right?”

I nodded.

If you wake up in an unfamiliar place with your hands and feet tied, wouldn’t anyone know?

“Geez, how can you be so calm when you’ve been kidnapped?”

“……?”

“Hey. Are you ignoring me?”

I really don’t know what kind of reaction he wants from me.

Should I pretend to be scared?

I’m not good at acting, so I didn’t bother.

I raised my head and looked at his face.

His face was all scrunched up as if something was really bothering him.

“Looks like you still don’t understand the situation. You’re going to be sold at a slave auction now. You know that?”

He drew a dagger from his waist and brought it to my face.

He probably doesn’t really intend to stab me.

It would decrease the value of the merchandise.

Maybe that’s why it didn’t look very threatening.

I don’t die from being stabbed with a sword in the first place.

But if I don’t react this time, it might hurt his pride, so I decided to be considerate.

“I’m scared.”

I’ve heard that normal humans get scared when a knife is held to their face.

The man in front of me probably expected such a reaction from me.

To make the act a bit more convincing, I shook my body slightly.

I’ve heard that humans tremble when they’re terrified.

Shake, shake.

Worried that I might arouse unnecessary suspicion, I shook my body earnestly.

But was this not the right way to do it?

The mercenary man’s face turned completely red.

“You bastard! Do you dare joke wit-”

“Hey, that’s enough.”

The man finally lost his temper and tried to swing the knife at me, but someone stopped him.

It seems to be the superior of the man holding the knife.

“You, do you know how much a woman who’s just turned twenty is worth? What would you do if the boss found out?”

“Tch. Fucking bitch.”

The man put away his knife while spitting out curses.

So he’s not going to stab me after all.

If he had stabbed me, I was planning to take the hit and then kill him.

It’s not that it would be difficult to kill everyone here and escape; it’s just that the cleanup would be troublesome.

Fortunately, it didn’t come to that.

Blood is hard to wash out of a white school uniform.

So, I didn’t really want to kill him.

“You, you bastard. We’ll see next time.”

“……”

The scrawny man threatened me even as he turned to leave.

I shook my body again to signify my fear of his threat.

Of course, I wasn’t really scared of him, but the reactions to this were quite interesting.

Since such small movements provoked such big reactions, I couldn’t help but continue.

“That bastard, until the end… Ah, forget it.”

He was about to turn back with the knife in his hand but eventually gave up.

It seems he wants to avoid unnecessary emotional conflicts.

After the scrawny man left, only his superior remained here.

The man with the sharp features has been just watching me without saying anything, so it’s not very interesting.

As a heavy silence settled, I wanted to get out.

‘I think I could break this if I just put some strength into it.’

I was looking down at the restraints binding my hands and feet.

I had to think about how to undo this and get out.

I put a little strength into my bound hands.

Twang!

And the restraints broke.

It breaks more easily than I thought.

Along with the loud sound of the chains breaking, the expression of the man watching me changed.

“You, what are you!”

The man who had been boringly serious until now, his face colored with bewilderment was quite a sight to see.

I immediately broke the restraints on both my feet as well, then stood up.

He was looking into my eyes.

“Adrian.”

I called the man’s name.

Judging by his reaction, he seemed to want to ask how I knew his name.

Of course, I don’t intend to tell him.

He won’t remember anything about today anyway.

“How pitiful, your lover died two years ago. It seems the lingering sorrow hasn’t faded yet.”

“How, how do you know that……”

I bent the iron bars of the underground prison with my hands and slipped out.

Adrian, scared of me doing this, stepped back.

I had business with him, so I approached him, but Adrian was busy running away, matching my steps.

“What, what is this! My body won’t move!”

So I had no choice but to restrain him.

I was trying to make him comfortable quickly, but he was the bad one for running away.

I slowly approached Adrian, whose feet were bound.

With each step I took, his face was dyed with terror.

This might be more fun than I thought.

“Aaargh! Don’t come near me!!”

Adrian, unable to bear his fear of me, trembled.

So this is what it’s supposed to look like.

Indeed, learning from an experienced trainer is much better than I imagined.

Having approached right in front of Adrian like that, I stroked his cheek.

Holding his face, I made him look into my eyes.

“You’re very lucky. I’m not hungry today.”

As he met my eyes at close range, his body started to go limp.

It’s because I showed him a hallucination.

Soon, he’ll forget everything about me too.

I slowly closed his eyes with my hand.

He must be having a happy dream.

Meeting his dead lover in a dream, what kind of conversation are they having?

I was a bit curious, but I had no intention of prying into someone else’s private life.

I turned around without any lingering feelings, and Adrian collapsed powerlessly in that spot.

“Well, have a good dream.”

Though I don’t know when you’ll wake up.