It was difficult to escape Kana’s awareness.

  But not impossible.

  Past midnight, long after the academy had quieted and the halls fell still, Suri moved.

  She left a [Doppelganger] curled beneath her blanket, rising and falling with the rhythm of sleep. She cloaked herself in illusion—one that adjusted to its surroundings in real time, bending light. A trick she’d developed in her spare time, perfect for this kind of mission. Then she slipped from the dormitory, her bare footsteps were careful yet someone with good awareness could still hear it.

  Outside the dorm, she summoned the illusion of a carriage. A flying one—impractical, but beautiful. It wasn’t real, not fully, but it carried her with speed and silence above the rooftops of the capital. Toward the Slum district.

  She had a list.

  Not names—most of them didn’t deserve names—but faces. The aka Guardians of children. Drunks who claimed orphans like prizes, used them as beggars, then took their coin at the end of each day. Some hit the children. Others starved them when they couldn’t contribute.

  All of them were part of the organization, some maybe not.

  She might have hesitated, once. But hesitation was for people who hadn’t seen what she had.

  None of them had changed from the past few weeks. She made sure.

  They were consistently cruel.

  The carriage faded as she dropped onto a rooftop. Her target was in a squat brick building with a warped door. Two of them. Same room. Snoring and reeking of liquor.

  She entered through the window, an illusion hiding the creak of the sill.

  Her dagger was already in hand.

  She didn’t speak. Didn’t flinch. She pressed the blade to the first man’s throat and cut deep, then turned and struck the second in the neck before he could rise.

  Blood soaked her cloak. One of them twitched. She stabbed again—clean, fast.

  It wasn’t personal.

  This was the kind of help Kana didn’t need to know about.

  Suri stepped back.

  She slipped through the window, back into the shadows.

  One more crossed off her list.

  The next house was a crumbling three-story shack, wedged between two moldy inns like a swollen blister. Suri moved across its roof like a shadow given form, illusion bending around her.

  This one most mattered.

  The man inside had over a dozen children under him. None his own, all claimed, all used.

  She found him in the second-floor bedroom. A fat man, snoring like a dying animal. His arm was draped over a woman in smeared makeup and perfumed sweat. Likely a prostitute. Suri didn’t care.

  He didn’t even wake when she entered.

  The knife slid across his neck. A quick, wet breath—the only sound he managed before going still. Blood seeped into the mattress like ink into cloth.

  The woman stirred a few minutes later. Her scream tore through the house.

  Suri was already gone.

  She didn’t need to look back.

  Three down. Five to go.

  She paused on a rooftop two blocks away, breathing steady despite the slight tremble in her fingers. Not from fear. From focus. She checked the time by the position of the moon behind the spire towers.

  Over two hours had passed.

  Her mana reserve was already fraying, threads of her illusion tugging loose at the edges. Three hours was her limit. Past that, the risk of exposure rose sharply.

  She didn’t deal in risks.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  So she turned back.

  The return was quieter. Slower. She passed three guards on patrol, slipping through shadows and gaps between sight. A shimmer of illusion bent her form like bubbly water.

  By the time she reached the academy, the sky had paled at the edges.

  Her [Doppelg?nger] still slept in her bed.

  No one stirred.

  No one knew.

  Tomorrow, she would return for the rest.

  ..

  It was another grueling morning for the copper class students.

  The kind of morning that shouldn’t exist—not after surviving the first day of the week. And yet, there they stood, half-awake and stiff-limbed on the academy's open training field, the horizon still brushing the sky with faint streaks of gold.

  Wor-en, as usual, looked like he’d been up for hours. “We’ll repeat the same drills for the rest of the week,” he said, his voice carrying cleanly across the field. “Next week, we put it to the test.”

  Murmurs passed through the gathered students like a ripple through tall grass.

  “We’re heading out,” he added, in an almost casual tone. “A field mission. Nothing too serious—low-level monsters, scattered threats.”

  That earned more than a few skeptical glances. Safety concerns. Whispers about injury and preparedness.

  “There’s no better way to improve,” Wor-en said, folding his arms. “You want to grow? Then experience it for yourself.”

  The murmurs died.

  “Scouts, you’re with me. Fourth years, you’re dismissed.” He glanced toward a cluster of students. “You’ll be learning how to read maps. Topography. Field markers. Routes.”

  Suri sighed. She’d been in the middle of something with Rin—probably something more useful than cartography. Not that she needed maps. She had illusions. She could simply conjure a bird with a flick of her fingers. Besides, Kana had already drilled her on basic orientation and terrain paths.

  She rubbed her eyes. Another job. Another weight.

  And she was still tired—from last night, from the shadows of what she’d done.

  But she moved to follow anyway, joining the others.

  ..

  There were seven of them—scout-class students ranging from third years down to the newest first years. They stood in a loose circle, boots crunching against the dew-slick grass. In the center, Wor-en unfurled a large, weathered map across a makeshift table fashioned from crates and a slab of stone.

  “We are here,” he said, tapping a spot on the parchment. “Tomorrow, we’re moving to this location.”

  His finger slid across the terrain, pointing out trail markers, elevation notations, and the directions of sun and river flow. A practical lecture. Useful—if you were especially interested in it.

  He caught movement in the corner of his eye.

  “Suri,” he said, narrowing his gaze. “Are you listening?”

  Suri blinked back the tail-end of a yawn, unbothered. “I know how to read maps already.”

  Wor-en raised a brow. “Then explain.”

  She exhaled—clearly not thrilled—but stepped into the circle anyway. “Fine.”

  She didn’t just recite the basics. She outlined cardinal markers, elevation shifts, and even practical adjustments during extreme weather. Then, as if bored with the fundamentals, she transitioned smoothly into advanced techniques.

  “At night,” she said, pointing to a constellation marked faintly on the upper edge of the map, “you can align your position using star coordinates—especially this belt here. If you’ve memorized it, you’ll never be disoriented, even without a compass. That helps if you’re moving without light.”

  Wor-en stared.

  That level of detail? That particular method? He’d only ever heard it discussed in fourth-year strategic orientation. And Suri... was in her first year.

  She wasn’t reciting from a book. No. Her delivery was too precise.

  She’d done it before. He was sure. Applied it. Out there in the wild.

  For the first time, Wor-en reassessed her—not as a student—but as someone with real field instincts. Maybe even dangerous ones.

  The rest of the scouts glanced at each other, silent.

  And Suri, unaware or uncaring of the impression she left behind, returned to her spot beside Rin, arms crossed and eyes half-lidded.

  She was still tired. But she’d said what she needed to say.

  Of course, she wasn’t aware that her common knowledge was advanced.

  …..

  The lunch bell had barely finished ringing when the copper class poured into the academy cafeteria. The place smelled of hot bread, spiced meats, and yesterday’s stew reheated into something just barely respectable. Most students crammed the benches in the long hall, though the richer ones had already vanished toward the popular inns in town, chasing a better meal.

  Kana sat among her classmates, halfway through a spoonful of thin soup, when the table went silent.

  Suri had arrived with a tray stacked like a siege tower—enough food to feed half a dozen people. And then she started eating.

  Not picking. Not sampling. Eating.

  Within minutes, she’d reduced half her plates to battlefield wreckage—bones, crumbs, and the faint scent of surrender.

  “I thought I was a big eater…” Adam muttered. He glanced at his own plate—already generous enough for three men—and suddenly it looked pitiful beside Suri’s mountain of food..

  Boris sighed and shook his head. “Ah. It’s that time again.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” Kana said, smirking. “There are times that she likes to eat the whole continent’s food and ignore everything while she’s at it.”

  The table burst into laughter, loud enough to draw curious glances from nearby students. Suri didn’t notice. She was still locked in her private war with the food.