I Became an Outcast in the Academy

9. Branch (6)

In her opinion, Ellie herself was not a good person at all.

Because she had very rarely done something nice for someone else in her life.

Ellie picked up a sword from a very young age, and she would cut others and eventually kill them.

At first she picked up the sword just to survive. Because the only way to protect herself in her harsh afterlife was through her own force.

But when she got used to her sword, she wielded it only for herself, not for her own survival.

Like her own brother, in order to support her family, she had no choice but to take up her job as a mercenary and end up with unwanted blood on her hands.

Ellie would harm people without any reason just to make a few pennies or to fill her mouth with food.

Ellie didn’t even know about her sword skills. In the first place, there was no crazy person in the world who taught swordsmanship to a miserable orphan girl wandering around the back alleys.

She just knew. If she plunges her sword into a person from what angle, from what direction, and with what force, she can easily face death.

Holding a dagger, she just relies on her instincts and intuition to ambush people like rats and kill them without a care in the end. Ellie can be said to be a very useful dagger to the people of the underworld. There was.

She found it quite fascinating, especially the fact that she could kill someone for a few cents of her own money without getting her own hands dirty, so she secretly became quite popular with her little assassin named Ellie. Enjoyed it

As she harmed others so carelessly, she also often thought about Ellie like this.

Just as she thoughtlessly killed people for a few pennies, she thought it wouldn’t be strange at all if she too ended up like this someday.

And some time after that.

When she lay down on the cold street, stabbed in the back like the man she had been killing all this time, she thought to herself that her time had finally come. .

I was not afraid of death. Because she took other people’s lives so carelessly, she couldn’t have wasted it if it were her own.

She was an animal that only knew how to live this way anyway.

But… It was a little disappointing.

She was not born because she wanted to be born as her beast.

If she had lived her life in a different way in a completely different environment than now, would her ending have been different?

So Ellie closed her eyes on the pavement.

‘… This seems to have become a soldier who keeps picking up the kids on the street recently. ‘

When she came to her senses, Ellie was lying on a bed in an unfamiliar house.

Raising her head and looking around, she saw that right next to the bed where Ellie was lying, there was a boy with a sullen expression and three girls of similar age to her.

‘I will tell you in advance in case there is any misunderstanding, but when I saw you, you were already lying on the street. She was stabbed in the back, and if you had left her like that, you would have probably died.’

Ellie quietly nods her head at the boy’s words.

She knew it too. At least the fact that this boy in front of her didn’t bring her here with the intention of harming her.

Moreover, considering the fact that the three girls next to the boy were making disapproving looks towards Ellie, it was clear that her coming to this house was absolutely unplanned.

‘The reason she was stabbed and lying down in the middle of the street… Well, I don’t need to ask. You probably don’t want to talk about it, and anyway, getting stabbed in an alley like this is just a common occurrence.’

The boy shrugged his shoulders like that and eventually spoke to Ellie.

‘Once your wounds are fully healed, you can leave this house at any time. You don’t have to worry about things like treatment costs. ‘I don’t want to take that from a kid like you.’

Looking blankly at the boy who mumbled and came to his own conclusion, Ellie quietly opened her mouth.

‘… Why?’

‘Huh?’

‘Why… ? To me, why… ?’

Why on earth is this boy showing this much favor and kindness to Ellie?

They didn’t know each other on a regular basis, and they didn’t pay anything to the boy.

But the boy saved Ellie as if it was only natural.

This kind of kindness was something that had never happened before in Ellie’s life.

‘Well… ‘Can’t I just say that my hobby is collecting orphans?’

The boy chuckled and then gently stroked her head.

The boy’s hand stroking his head was very soft and delicate. Also, it was accompanied by a certain emotion that Ellie had never felt before.

‘… It’s warm.’

It was warm. The boy’s touch contained something that truly cared for Ellie.

Something that was difficult to find in her life, where she only harmed and killed others like an animal.

I was jealous. He became this boy who could give to someone else what he didn’t have.

The appearance is similar to the sun floating in the sky, making Ellie simply dazzling.

‘…..’

That’s why I didn’t like it. He is this boy who can casually give something to someone else that he could not have in his entire life.

The first emotion that Ellie felt as she looked at her eyes was her admiration and jealousy for him.

****

Open your eyes.

Ellie, with her mind awakened, now understands the situation she is in.

She was about to have a duel with Xian some time later.

And she was doing her meditation for a while to check her own condition one last time.

“… “I ended up thinking about something trivial.”

However, because she was so immersed in meditation, she unconsciously remembered things that had happened in her past.

Things like that have no value to Ellie anymore.

Ellie tied her sword that was lying next to her to her waist, got up and headed to her today’s meeting place.

Resolution… It has already been done. And no matter what the outcome of this duel is, I am also fully aware of the fact that everything will end as of today.

So Ellie no longer hesitates. She might as well have never started from scratch. Since she is determined to draw her sword, it is courteous to the other person to do her best.

“Has it finally arrived? “It’s a duel you proposed, but it arrived quite late, Ellie.”

A cold voice echoes from the other side.

The training ground designated by Ellie as the location for today’s duel. Right there was Xian, who had an unusually cold expression on his face.

No, if I were to say that it was a different facial expression than usual, it would be a bit strange.

Xian usually had that kind of expression when he looked at Ellie. So, ever since Ellie betrayed Xian, they became enemies.

But without showing these thoughts outwardly, Ellie looks around her with a nonchalant expression.

“Aren’t you sticking to mysticism too much? “I thought you would at least bring her, even if it’s not to the extent of inviting an audience to today’s duel.”

No matter how much Ellie looked around her, she could not sense any sign of Cartesia here.

In today’s duel, there was only one person who would watch the duel between Xian and Eli, Duke Orphega, who would be an observer of the duel.

And Duke Orphega, who was standing in the middle of the dance hall, was looking at Xian and Ellie without expressing any emotion.

As if he was saying that his mission was to just quietly watch this duel.

“Before the duel, there is one thing I want to ask you.”

In response to Ellie’s question, Sian nods her head. It’s as if they are giving you permission to ask as many questions as you want.

“Just as I threatened you… “Your brother had the ability to interfere with other people’s talents, right?”

“Oh, right.”

Is there no need to hide it now? Sian nods her head without thinking for a moment about Ellie’s question.

“And it must have been my brother’s fault that I unlocked that ability after I betrayed him.”

“Yes, that’s what I did too.”

“Then why…?” “Now you’ve restored my past talents, right?”

Some time after the duel with Xian was confirmed, Ellie had an instinctive feeling.

The fact that in her past prime, the unexalted talent that made Ellie considered the best talent in the empire has returned once again.

But now Ellie also knew what the truth was.

This phenomenon happened not because her own talent, which had been diminished, was revived, but because her brother applied his ability to her Ellie again.

“Of course. “I already have a duel with an opponent who is weaker than me. Wouldn’t it be nice to have that much of a handicap to swing a sword?”

“… What?”

“And I was also afraid that you would act ugly after the duel was over. If I had the same talent I had half a year ago, if I had been in good physical condition, I might have been able to beat me… “I started to get annoyed when I thought about making lame excuses like this.”

There was not even a trace of her previous intimacy in Sian’s tone, as she interrupted Ellie’s words in the middle.

Only then did Eli realize.

This, she said, was what her original relationship must have been like between herself and her brother.

From the moment she first met, Ellie secretly hated and was jealous of Sian. And she ended up betraying him, her only family, and hurting him.

So this result is inevitable.

Xian points his sword at Eli, and thinks that it is fate that Eli hates him.

Because Ellie, from the beginning, was a beastly woman who knew nothing except how to live this way.

“So attack her with all her might. “I will make it clear to you that everything you have accumulated so far and what you have achieved at the end all came from me.”