Chapter 23: The Foolish Ninja Swears Loyalty

‘Little Nether, how much longer can you keep the beautiful girl form?’

‘If you keep fighting at that low intensity, about an hour.’

She looked up at the sky. It was already bright and clear. The blizzard over the academy and the magic-nullification barrier were long gone.

Morning light crept up from behind the eastern ridge, staining the clouds pale orange. Roosters in town began to crow, and from somewhere far off came the rumbling of early-rising vendors pushing their carts.

Whether she considered mana or time, she had to finish this quickly.

‘All right! We’ll finish this in one push, teach that ninja a lesson, then go back to class!’

‘Third Circle Spell: Warp!’

***

Meanwhile, inside an abandoned warehouse at the edge of town.

No one knew how many years it had been abandoned. Most of the lime plaster on the outer walls had peeled off, revealing blackened brick underneath.

Several holes broke through the roof. Morning light slanted into the dim interior like golden pillars, lighting up the dust drifting in the air.

The purple-haired ninja climbed in through a window. The moment she landed, her legs gave way and she almost fell.

“Hah… hah… that was close… I didn’t expect my first job to run into someone that troublesome.”

She rubbed her sore wrist and sat down on a pile of broken crates with a grimace. She pulled off her mask and gasped for air, revealing a face that looked no older than sixteen or seventeen, delicate and cute.

Then a cold, lovely voice came from above.

“You run fast.”

She jerked her head up.

On a beam on the warehouse’s second floor, long silver-white hair drifted slightly. Aeliana had appeared there at some point, Starry Night resting diagonally against her shoulder. The cold gleam of the scythe blade lit half of her calm, exquisite face.

Morning light came through a hole in the roof and landed right behind her, wrapping her in a hazy halo, like a death god walking out of hell.

“Waaah!” The purple-haired ninja rolled off the crate, hands instinctively reaching for her waist, but she grabbed nothing. She had used up all her kunai earlier. Even her ninja sword was left in the stone chamber.

She rolled twice across the ground and only stopped when her back hit the wall.

“You… how did you catch up with me?” Her eyes went wide, her small face flushed from running.

‘If I had the strength of my seniors, could I have escaped?’

The ninja girl’s thoughts drifted for a moment, but the girl’s lovely voice pulled her back.

“I didn’t say you could ask questions.” Aeliana leaped lightly from the beam, landing as softly as a feather.

She walked toward the young ninja step by step. Starry Night’s scythe blade dragged along the ground, leaving a shallow line and making a grating metallic sound.

“Whimper… don’t kill me. Noah will tell you everything!” Her back was against the wall. There was nowhere left to retreat.

Her hands fumbled behind her. Her nails dug into the cracks between bricks, her knuckles white.

“…”

Her eyes were frightened and uneasy, like a startled rabbit.

“Talk. What are you going to tell me?”

“Yesterday at noon, a mysterious person in a cloak and mask found me. He shoved a big bag of gold coins at me without a word and told me to help him kidnap a girl named Stella. He said he’d double it after it was done.”

She spoke fast, afraid that if she slowed down her head would leave her neck.

She stole a glance at Aeliana, trying to read her expression, then worried she wouldn’t be believed.

She added, “He was also the one who brought me into the academy. After we got her, he told me to stay behind and hold the rear… A silver-haired boy found me then, but I didn’t kill him. In the stone chamber, that mysterious person abandoned me and ran…”

The more she said, the quieter her voice became. Maybe she knew she hadn’t been doing anything good. In the end, she just looked at Aeliana with pleading eyes.

“Did you see his face?”

“No.”

“What about the money?”

“I hid it in the crates… Huh? Why did it turn into stone pieces? Where are my gold coins!?”

She threw herself at the pile of crates and rummaged everywhere. Wood splinters and dust flew up. Several dark gray stone pieces rolled out from between her fingers, their broken edges still fresh.

“…”

“…I really didn’t lie to you… This money was for my little sister’s treatment…”

The ninja girl had clearly been cheated.

‘That client must have disguised stone pieces as gold coins, right? This idiot got scammed hard!’

She looked at the girl again. The huge scythe alone was taller than her head just standing on the ground. The blade shone with a terrifying cold light. If it touched her, it would cut her in half in one stroke, wouldn’t it?

She shrank back and instinctively shifted half an inch away, her spine pressed hard against the rough brick wall.

“Why did that mysterious person want to kidnap Stella?”

“He said something about magic… I don’t have mana affinity, and I never took magic courses. He was muttering all sorts of nonsense. I didn’t understand any of it.”

“Nothing useful, then. So, Miss Noah, how should I punish you?”

Aeliana’s kind smile made the other girl scream.

“Eek!!!”

The scream was thin and sharp. It bounced back and forth several times in the warehouse, startling a few sparrows roosting on the roof into flight.

The ninja girl started thinking hard. She had little money to covet, and since they were both women, the other probably wouldn’t want her body.

So in this situation… maybe she was supposed to swear loyalty?

Her mind raced through all the stories her senior sisters had told her: hands cut off, eyes gouged out, sold to mines, thrown into dungeons… The more she thought, the more afraid she became. Instead, “swearing loyalty” started to sound acceptable.

The more she thought, the more likely it seemed. She blurted out loudly:

“I, Ninja Noah, hereby swear loyalty!! Lord Master, you may command me as you wish from now on!!!”

She sprang up from the ground, dropped to both knees, and slammed her forehead into the dusty floor, prostrating herself in a perfect dogeza.

What a foolish ninja… She had only meant to extort some money, and now she had delivered herself as well.

Even Aeliana couldn’t help but sweat.

“Oh? Swear loyalty?”

The other girl hadn’t actually killed Stella, but punishment was absolutely unavoidable.

What could one foolish ninja do? Maybe she should make her work seven days a week, from five in the morning to midnight?

No, no… It was a shame she was a beautiful girl. That would be too cruel to a beautiful girl.

If it were Karl, there would be no problem at all.

‘Hey, hey… before you train a ninja, you should first make sure you don’t starve to death, you know?’

The voice in her head couldn’t help saying.

Aeliana pursed her lips. Little Nether was right. She could barely feed herself. Where would she get money to feed a ninja?

‘Little Nether, is there contract magic? Something like a master-servant contract…’

‘Of course. Third Circle Spell: Contract. You edit the terms yourself. As long as both sides sign their names, whether true names or false names, the contract is formally established. If the contract is violated, the offender suffers a terrible curse.’

‘The curse can be mana overload, mental chaos, or pain with every heartbeat. Pick whichever you like.’ Little Nether’s tone was casual, as if introducing desserts on a menu.

‘Magic really is useful!’

Aeliana couldn’t help but admire how convenient magic was.

She raised her left hand and traced in the air. Magic lines moved like living things, gradually weaving into a small magic circle that floated in the air.

When the chant ended, a piece of parchment and a quill appeared in the girl’s hands.

The parchment was pale cream, its edges slightly curled. The quill was white, its tip already dipped in ink.

Noah saw this and sighed softly, but she knew at least her life was safe.

According to the senior ninjas of her order, the worst thing for people in their line of work was to be captured.

The lucky ones might keep their lives and linger on. The unlucky ones might be tortured for months before being executed by slow slicing.

The terrible stories of her seniors spun through her mind like a lantern show. The silver-haired woman in front of her looked more and more like a Bodhisattva.

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