73 – I Told You So, Oknodie
Hestia entered her empty room, Room 112, and said,
“I’m back.”
She hung her massive double-headed axe on the wall and took off her coat, hanging it on the rack.
Unbuckling her belt from her waist, she tossed it onto the chair and swiftly took off her training gear, throwing it into the laundry basket.
To prevent forgetting the weight of her armor, she placed heavy weights tucked inside her clothing with a thud.
Crack
The sound from her shoulder blades bothered her.
To avoid the weight vest rubbing against her skin, she tossed even her undergarments into the laundry basket.
“Ugh, my chest feels tight.”
In her underwear, she began stretching to check her joint mobility, thoroughly loosening shoulder muscles one by one.
She didn’t forget to gently massage her chest muscles as well.
While diligently checking her body and wrapping up her routine, a knock-knock echoed from the wall.
It was the sound Oknodie often made when she was ready to chat.
“Sorry, I’m a bit late today, huh?”
Hestia eagerly sat down on the floor next to her bed, leaning against the wall.
“I waited.”
A motherly smile crept onto her face.
Like a pet that had been waiting for its owner to come home.
“Today, I practiced weapon destruction with a double-headed axe at the training ground. I smashed 12 wooden weapons and 3 metal ones, and the last one was an Iron Great Sword.”
As if relieving stress, she recounted her day’s events, and Oknodie, as always, listened without a hint of annoyance.
“Impressive, huh?”
“Right? No one among the mercenaries can destroy weapons as well as I do. I worried that I might be rusty after entering the Academy, but I’m glad I remembered the techniques.”
Once you learn how to ride a horse, your body remembers; the same goes for the knack of weapon destruction.
“But sometimes, if I forget the techniques, I fumble around, so I need to train like this every now and then.”
She talked about what classes she attended, which professors were teaching, and how the students were all a bit underwhelming.
While deep in her storytelling, she suddenly glanced at the magic watch on her wrist.
[9 PM]
“Oh wow, time flies. Oknodie, being shorter, you need to sleep soon. Let’s continue this chat tomorrow.”
“No way! I want to play more.”
“I’m going to wash up and sleep first. Muscles need to heal to grow. You should sleep early too, Oknodie.”
After tossing her underwear into the laundry basket, she entered her private shower and was hit by cascading water.
Finding just the right temperature—not too hot, not too cold—made her body relax luxuriously as she adjusted the temperature controls.
Ahh.
The mirror became foggy.
As she wiped it with her hand, a pleasing squish felt satisfying.
Her muscular and sturdy body was covered in muscle.
Her legs were the width of an adult male’s waist, and her arms could rival any man’s head in size.
At nearly 190cm tall, her battle-hardened physique left little sign of femininity.
Still, she claimed to be a woman, embarrassed only by her private parts.
“What weak thoughts am I having?”
Hestia splashed water on her face with both hands.
Her childhood self, who once lived a feminine life, lost her hometown, family, and friends through that weakness.
She had sworn not to live weakly again.
Despite undergoing grueling training that stripped her of feminine traits, she never forgot that vow.
“If only I had learned the Mana Refinement Technique…”
Then she could have grasped beauty and strength at the same time, right?
A futile dream.
The Mana Refinement Technique was exclusive to noble families or the warrior clans.
It’s a privilege denied to mere mercenaries like her, never to be granted freely.
Snap.
Desiring the Mana Refinement Technique, she recalled the many noble families and warrior clans she approached.
The nobles would promise her instruction, using her for work, ultimately dismissing her with a few coins or sending her on impossible missions.
As for the so-called secrets of the warrior clans, they were mostly scams masquerading as true techniques.
“Gift Academy is different. Here, it’s clear they’re teaching the skills students desire and imparting valuable visions.”
Even at the early stages of her education, it was easily noticeable.
Most training was practical, allowing students to naturally acquire necessary theory, knowledge, and techniques.
While the theoretical education might seem overwhelming and complex, the education itself was undoubtedly being delivered.
There were no pompous private tutors looking down on paying students, nor were there fraudsters offering shoddy instruction.
“Still, I’m getting anxious.”
Unlike the outside world, where it was hard to find someone better than her, Gift Academy was full of exceptional talents from both border regions and the empire.
Someone she’d have no problem facing head-on back home could easily appear as a rival just one hallway away.
The upper-class lectures featured dangerous and competent individuals like the ones from Dragon Lake and Tiger Cave.
The swordsmaster Sing, who always emitted a killing intent whenever looking her way, or the girl Jiang, who smiled as if craving blood, were distracting too, but…
The one who caught her attention the most was, of course, Oknodie.
“I want to protect her, but that’s not all there is, right? Is she really the one I should be protecting?”
When she had thwarted the attack on Lotto, Oknodie had definitely used the Mana Flow Technique.
The tremendous power she displayed didn’t fit her slim arms; she knew the muscle compression was extraordinary even before she experienced the impact directly.
“Oknodie, can I ask you something?”
“It’s past 9 PM.”
When she answered curtly, Hestia couldn’t help but chuckle.
Sitting on the bed with a towel-dried body, a question popped into her head.
“About the Mana Refinement Technique that you’ve learned, if it’s okay…”
“…Nope. Just pretend you didn’t hear that.”
That was a request she couldn’t have expected.
To casually make such a request knowing the rumors of her being trained as an assassin in a noble family?
Frustrated, she decided to take a breather and put on her clothes, heading outside when she spotted the small girl stumbling back to the dormitory.
“Oknodie?”
“Not Oknodie.”
“Jiang, then?”
Jiang was just as tiny as Oknodie.
She looked completely drained.
“Did you attend the lecture?”
“5th period. Oknodie attended with me, right?”
Hestia halted.
“That can’t be true. Oknodie just spoke with me a moment ago.”
“She already went back to her room? No way. I clearly came back first.”
Jiang was puzzled.
Her claims that her conversation partner wasn’t Oknodie made Hestia chuckle in disbelief.
“Oknodie just talked with me until recently.”
“I said we attended the 5th period together!”
“Not buying it.”
“Why would I lie to you?”
Hestia and Jiang exchanged uneasy glances.
What’s going on here?
Why does she insist she was with Oknodie?
While it seemed like a prank, their expressions told a different story—she genuinely believed her claim.
Hestia’s instincts as a mercenary half-figured out the truth, while Jiang, trained as an assassin, gleaned it from her trained expression reading.
“Let’s just ask Oknodie to confirm.”
“This side has something to say too.”
Hestia and Jiang knocked on Oknodie’s door.
Knock knock.
A moment later, Oknodie appeared in the hallway.
Jiang’s face screamed “see!” while Hestia looked like someone possessed by a ghost.
How did this happen?
*
Gasp! We’re in trouble!
“Oknodie. We just attended the lecture together, right?”
“Nope, did we? We just talked in our room.”
Hestia and Jiang were adamant, each claiming they were the ones with her.
They quickly pieced together the situation.
Jiang insisted she attended the 5th period alongside Oknodie, while Hestia had been talking with Oknodie during that time.
If Hestia confirmed Jiang’s claim, it could severely impact her mental state.
“I was talking with Hestia.”
“See!”
A sigh of relief washed over Hestia.
However, Jiang’s expression turned strange this time.
“Why are you lying weirdly? We just came from the lecture, from the ‘Night-time Activities for Adventurers’ lecture.”
They had just come from there.
Yet, admitting it was out of the question.
Hestia might break down!
“Is there even such a lecture during the 5th period?”
“What?”
“On Mondays and Wednesdays, I only attend lectures until the 4th period.”
And so, she lied.
Jiang’s face grew ghostly pale as she muttered,
“Then who was with me in that lecture?”
“Dunno.”
“You’re kidding, right? That was casual wear!”
Like a broken robot, Jiang insisted impatiently for her to confess if this was just a prank.
“Seriously?”
Hestia seemed to sense some uncertainty.
She fixed her gaze on me, asking,
“Where are you coming back from? It’s almost 10 PM, curfew time.”
“I really didn’t attend any lecture! I was prepping and came back.”
“What kind of prep?”
Suddenly, the words of The Answering Door came to mind.
“At 2:22 AM, if you head up the central stairs to the second floor of the main building, you’ll reach the hidden room.”
That lonely door, yearning for communication, had voluntarily tempted her with that hidden piece of knowledge.
If that door, lonely and seeking company, spoke to her, surely it had told Hestia at least once too.
“I was getting ready to go to the second floor of the main building.”
Her prediction was spot-on.
As soon as she said it, Hestia’s face turned remorseful.
“Have you been going there every night?”
“Yup!”
This would enable her to avoid blaming Jiang for attending the lecture on Monday’s 5th period!
I’m a genius!
While celebrating her cleverness, Hestia sunk into self-loathing, saying, “I’m such trash. I left Oknodie all alone,” while Jiang trembled like a malfunctioning robot, mumbling, “A ghost? Really? A ghost?”
