First Lesson

"Hold on," I stopped the girl from continuing on. "The man with the cleft chin and the small body is Assassin Torno. The big one with thick lips is Assassin Igor. The woman with the owlish eyes and red hair is Assassin Telly... and uh..."

"Vincentus with the ghostly demeanor," Zepherin drawled out.

"Oh, right!" I shouted. "I distinctly remember him from the ceremony. He was quite... rude."

My white-haired companion huffed in anger. "That's an understatement."

"Okay..." I mumbled, counting down the names I had finished calling out. "That leaves Eleina and someone else. Hmm... I keep forgetting!"

A gentle yet precise set of knocks came from my bedroom's door. "Come in," I called out softly, knowing how thin the walls were in these wing of trainees' quarters.

A light brown head peeked inside, gentle waves showing off its beauty even when hidden in a low ponytail. I smiled. "Assassin Eleina, good evening."

"Good evening, Eleftherion, Zepherin," she entered through the door. With three people inside, it suddenly seemed quite crowded in my modest bedroom. "Eva sent me to give you your new schedule."

"What? You're already on your second phase?" Zepherin exclaimed from my bed.

I grinned at her. "Yep, and at only two months too!"

Zepherin smirked a little. "Well, it will do you good to know that I finished my whole training at three."

"Oh, I know, I know." I started to smile as well. "I still have a good part of a month left to beat your record."

"Cheeky," she sneered at my pillow.

I sighed inwardly. I did well in inviting her to my rooms right after my lessons ended. It seems like she has already forgotten about our petty fight earlier in the morning. Smilingly, I received the roll of parchment from Eleina and quickly opened it up.

Looking through its contents, I tried not to laugh as I felt a pair of curious eyes stealing glances at the paper from time to time. Finally giving up from teasing her, I opened the parchment fully and offered that the girl take a look of it. I found her looking almost completely uninterested in it.

"Humph!" she crossed her arms and lifted her nose up. "Like I'd want to know a mere trainee's schedule."

"Oh, come on," I pleaded at her outwardly, but I was laughing on the inside. "Just take a look at it. I barely know my new teachers, and I really need your help."

The white-haired child's facade started to crack and I saw how her lavender eyes would flick towards the paper and away.

"Pleaseee help me," I murmured. "... Won't you, apprentice assassin?"

That completely won her over, and a smile twitched on her otherwise serious face. "Oh, alright then. I guess it can't be helped."

I chose to not tell her that I could've easily asked Eleina for the information, instead. But, oh well. Anything to appease my young friend.

She took the parchment from me and read through it, mumbling from under her breath, "Extensive combat training with Ren. That's good... General studies with Portman, of course... Sir Lancer for Basic Organizational History..."

Then, I saw her eyes grow wide, and she shouted quite loudly, "Sir Lancer?! For basic history? Who was the idiot who made this schedule?"

I flinched, wondering why she was so suddenly aggravated. "Umm... Is something wrong?"

"B-But... And, what is this? Dark magic lessons? Why do you have dark magic lessons?" Zepherin mumbled rapidly and almost incoherently. "You have Madame Telly, as well. Wait... what? Then, does this mean we'll both be in the same lessons? What-"

"Please calm down, apprentice assassin." Eleina elaborately pried off the parchment from the young assassin's grasp. "Eleftherion has always been a special case, and I'm sure the head assassin has her reasons when she made that schedule."

"Oh," Zepherin muttered monotonously. "So my mentor personally arranged this schedule... Ah..."

I almost laughed out loud when I saw her absolutely blanked out expression. Thankfully, Eleina took the initiative to save the girl's dignity. The woman said, "Anyway, Zepherin, I believe Eva is asking for you about your training."

"Ah, yes! Oh, I mean, right... Okay!" Zepherin uttered out in surprise. "Then, I-I'll be going then! Can't let the head- No, she's no longer the head, but still kind of is... I mean, my mentor! Yes, I can't leave her waiting!"

Just like before, she dashed out in a blink of an eye, the door opening and closing with a bang. Sighing, I said, "And... she's gone."

Eleina laughed. "Well, isn't she just a sweet child?"

"Quite so," I murmured. "But I'm thankful to have her as an ally. I wouldn't need to hide my real sex with her as well."

"I would think so," she muttered, yet I could see an amused glint on her eyes. "Anyway, do you have other questions about your schedule?"

I breathed out a long breath as I read through my schedule again. Scanning through the names of the teachers, I pointed at one particular area. "Assassin Lancer. He is one of the Council of Six, right?"

Eleina nodded, a small smile on her face. "He was the only one you couldn't name earlier."

"Y-Yeah," I affirmed, but still glared at her slightly. "But, Eleina, it's rude to eavesdrop, you know?"

"I apologize," she said innocently. "It's just that your voices were loud and the walls too thin."

"... Nothing can really escape the ears of assassins," I whispered under my breath.

"Quite right," she answered easily, to which I can only groan at. "So, I do advice you proceed with caution whenever you have sensitive topics to discuss with others."

I readily agreed to her advice and took it well into heart.

~~

"So, what can all of you say about the Order?" the stiffly standing man asked from his podium, his icy blue eyes covered by thin, rectangular glasses, and his dark hair framed his thinly long face. He languidly stepped down from his perch and started to walk around the aisles, moving with the grace of a regal jaguar. The room filled with silence, the nervous breathing of ten children and teens heavily drowning the room. "Nothing? No one can share even the slightest bit of their inputs?"

Slowly, a shaking hand appeared from above one of the student's heads, and a voice called out, "I-It's an undercover organization for assassination, but no one actually knows when and how it came to be."

"Thank you, Miss-?"

"N-Nerys," the girl replied, still shaking on her seat. "I go by Nerys, Sir Lancer."

"Alright, Miss Nerys," the teacher said. "You just announced to the class a set of information they already seem to know."

I stared as the girl curled up on her seat, probably extremely embarrassed.

"Well?" the man drawled on as he continued walking down the aisles. "Absolutely nothing? I'm a very busy man and this is the type of students I will have to teach? I knew I shouldn't have agreed to this... caretaking job, at all."

'Well, it's not our fault if we don't know anything on the first day of our lessons,' I thought, but then, his sights landed on me; his light blue eyes trained on me like Asmodeus, the serpent.

"And a little child even dares attend my class," he sneered. "First, the former head assassin has gone and apprenticed a six-year-old, and now even trainees as young as this can start learning under me... I take it you are Eleftherion, the special case?"

"... I wouldn't exactly pride in the word, 'special', but," I murmured, trying to keep my nervousness at bay. "I am indeed called Eleftherion, sir."

"Yes, yes," he continued to look down at me, and he flicked up his glasses with a steady finger. "Well, prophecy boy, won't you share your thoughts? I feel you have many ideas writhing inside that tiny brain of yours."

I took in a deep breath, and forced myself to think of an answer, but...

"Well?" the man asked, looking almost patient, yet I fully sensed he wasn't.

Left with little time, I chose to say whatever went inside my mind. "... The creature with a sleeping woman's face."

"What?" the teacher asked impatiently, so I stood up and cleared my throat to speak a little bit louder.

"The Order has always been an organization that has been veiled in mystery. For years on end, cryptic messages have been the only mode of communication between the 'Master' and the organization's head assassins," I said, choosing to stare at a corner on the wall. "But, what clues do we have on the formation of the Order itself? Do we look back on the far stretching list of ancestral families the Order has housed for years? What are the guarantees that written and recorded information could even reach the scope of what we are searching for?"

I took a deep breath, and continued, "No. I do not think this is the answer to the unending mystery of the Order's early days. Because if it is, then it should have already been public knowledge by now, especially with the competence of our many researchers. However, as far as my tiny brain knows, it is still shrouded in mystery, and there are still far more questions than answers themselves. But... I think there is more that can be done with what little clues we have."

I looked around the room, and soon found the one object I specifically wanted to see. I sighed in relief and headed steadily towards the ornament. Too many of these such objects were littered around the halls and walls of the Order, yet no books showed any information on it aside from it being the "Emblem of the Order".

"This," I held my hand over the emblem, and then looked towards the Assassin Lancer. "I believe this is the largest clue we can ever have to uncovering the mysteries of the Order."

"... The emblem?" he asked, a bewildered look on his eyes. "Years of research has shown nothing of it. It is simply the symbol of our group."

"Yes, but I beg to differ," I said after I bowed in apology. "I believe the answers do lie inside this goddess."

"Goddess?" he asked, now suddenly angry. "It is a mere symbol, and I would remind you that we follow the rules set by our Master, and not by some goddess you Aerim people love to worship."

I couldn't help but glare at the stern man. "It is not religion, Sir Lancer, but a fact. There have always been far more powerful beings than mortals in our realm. I believe there are still so much more we have yet to know about our world. And this... The Order, too, is one of those great mysteries, and the goddess embedded on this emblem must have a relation to this organization's long history."

Silence filled the room but I remained steady in my belief, while the stern assassin simply stared back at me before looking towards the emblem beside me. "That's... an interesting theory, and I have indeed read a few ancient journals that welcomed that thought."

I began to smile, but then he continued on, "However, a theory will only be a theory until proven true, and frankly, after years of researching each and every one of these emblems, the Order's members could not even glean a single realization from them. Alas, your answer to my question, dear boy, cannot be considered a correct one."

My eyes grew wide and my cheeks started to heat up. I felt the gazes of much older children trained on me as I headed slowly back towards my seat, and on my way, I saw the pitying gaze on the girl that had first answered the question herself.

'Will I really back down from this?'

Just as I was about to sit down, a sultry voice resounded inside the room. "I beg pardon, Sir Lancer, but I do believe there was nothing wrong with any of the two students' answers."

I snapped my head to look for the speaker and found myself staring at Leila's sweetly smiling face. She soon turned back to the teacher, and reasoned, "The esteemed assassin only asked for our thoughts about the organization called, the Order. In the first case, Apprentice Nerys had given some facts about the Order. And yes, they were very basic, yet still quite correct."

Sir Lancer kept quiet and seemed to be waiting for more, so the dark skinned girl continued with a confident look, "And as for the second case, Trainee Eleftherion gave a theory about the origins of the Order itself, to which the esteemed assassin himself claimed was a valid theory that has once been presented on ancient books of the organization. So, unless the question has changed and I wasn't aware of it, I would believe both their answers were enough to be satisfactory."

"Hum..." Sir Lancer looked at Leila with interest. "I suppose this class isn't hopeless, after all. What is your name, girl?"

"I go by Leila, sir." She curtsied slightly, the action both modest and graceful.

"Well, I'll be sure to remember it," he muttered. "And do you, yourself, have any more inputs to add to answer my question?"

She smiled, her wide, gray eyes forming adorable crescents. "None, sir. Unlike Apprentice Nerys and Therion, I have no knowledge to share."

The teacher nodded slightly, his greasy, long black hair draping over his sharp chin. "Understood. Now, everyone settle down, and the lesson will formally begin."

I openly stared at his stiffly straight back in exasperation as he started to go back up on the podium. 'Wait... the lesson hasn't even started yet?!'