“Hoold… me close and hold me… ugh… What was the lyric?”

Slushes merged with the off-key singing as a janitor carried a mop and a bucket in the dead of the night.

Cleaning had always been done when the kids were asleep. Even when they weren’t around, the traditions persisted. There wasn’t a better time anyway.

The janitor with a balding head dragged his feet to the students’ dorms.

“I drank… hic… too much…”

The janitor was just about to go up to the dorm when a person suddenly appeared in his path.

“Hic… who are you…?”

“Why, hello! Mr. Janitor, you seem too tired tonight.”

“Hic… You’re… the new professor? I apologize, but please understand… today is the day my wife left me all those years ago.”

“Terrible. You deserve the drink. Why don’t you give me the mop and the bucket and I’ll handle the cleaning for today?”

The janitor tilted his head to the side.

“It’s my job—”

Right then, the professor reached into his coat and pulled out a pint of whiskey.

“Well… if you so insist… Take this spray too…”

***

“Damn it. This is going on for way too long…”

Four voices merged outside the room assigned to the princess.

Two maids and two knights, assigned to protect the students, huddled together and whispered.

“I am scared. I didn’t think it would go on for so long,” said one maid.

“Shush. Don’t be a wimp now. We just have to kill that beast and then we’ll have enough money to quit this stupid job.” Another snapped back.

“I shouldn’t have missed the chance. I injured her hand and her stomach, but she left with her life…”

“She was strong, but where can she go with those injuries? And it is impossible to escape the academy anyway. It is far more dangerous for her out there”

“That’s thanks to our cover…” The knight sighed. If they hadn’t been lying about the princess’ whereabouts every day to the civil servants they would have been in trouble.

Everyone was far too busy to worry about that one student anyway. She would be safe in the academy, that was the consensus.

And she would have been, if only the recent hires were not brought in a hurry. The previous staff were extremely competent, but the same couldn’t be said about the increased manpower brought over way ahead of time.

No one expected a student to appear a whole month earlier, and a civil servant had no choice but to pick these four up in an emergency.

“We’ll look for her again today.”

The four weren’t too incompetent, just inexperienced.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

They knew no one could enter or escape the academy easily, but… what if one had the promise of the Aegean Empire? It became an assurance enough to tempt the four.

It was then, that footsteps reached their ears.

The two maids and two knights turned toward the stairs at the end of the passageway and narrowed their eyes.

Tap, tap the footsteps went.

“W-who…”

A silhouette slowly formed in front of them. A man, in his hands a bucket and a mop.

“Is it that janitor? The drunkard?”

The knight let out an annoyed sigh.

“Hey! Janitor! Go back where you came from. How many times do we have to tell you that the princess is sleeping? There is no need for cleaning here!”

The drunkard’s steps continued.

“HEY! Go back—”

“As much as I adore skimping on my duties…” A playful voice answered them. A voice they had never heard before. “I can’t just leave giant stains of shit sitting around in the academy.”

“What the hell did you just say!?”

One of the knights screamed at the silhouette.

“I mean… I am here to clean you four up.”

The silhouette turned its gaze up.

Its eyes gleamed white and a bright smile adorned its face. That was all they could see through the darkness.

[https://i.imgur.com/OPsZbbI.jpg]

As the figure took a step, a sense of deep fear took over the bodies of the four.

It was a primal sense, an instinct present in all animals.

A fight or flight reaction that bordered on sixth sense.

That reaction had completely surfaced in all four of them. And just like a sixth sense, all of their bodies instinctively figured.

Escape was impossible.

“W-who the hell… Die here, you bastard!”

Fighting was all they could do, it was the last of their hopes. The two knights charged ahead with great synergy. Foolish as they were, they were still knights hired to protect royalty.

There was no doubt about their strength.

The first knight slid right in front of the figure. He brandished a sword and brought it down.

At the same time, the back of the mop slammed straight into his jaw.

“Ack!”

A speed beyond what the knight could see. He bit through the pain and swung the blade with all his might, covering it in aura, but the figure, the ‘janitor,’ dodged it with a single step.

The janitor did not stop there. He slammed the mop to the ground and swept it ahead. The shaft of the mop swooped straight to the gap between the knight’s legs.

“Augh…” A groan left the knight.

The janitor hooked the mop to the back of the knight’s leg and kicked it back. The mop and the knight’s leg flew backward, making him fall face-first straight into the bucket of water.

The janitor raised his leg and stomped the head of the knight.

A splash rang out as the knight’s head was forced deeper into the bucket. He struggled, flailing his arms. He used every bit of his strength to move, but the janitor’s leg did not move.

The knight continued to struggle, and to his aid, the second one jumped in.

“You bastard!”

The second knight dashed from the side, bringing his sword up.

A sigh left the janitor.

“Why are all of you so inefficient? Have you never fought in a war?”

The knight raised his blade, but with inhuman speed, the janitor’s hand appeared in front of his eyes.

Hands, holding a spray.

“Huh—”

—Psh!

The janitor sprayed the cleaning liquid all over the knight’s eyes and mouth. The knight, caught off guard, took a back step.

In that fleeting moment, the Janitor’s hand flashed out and smacked the knight in the jaw, breaking it with a single punch.

The struggles of the drowning knight stopped, and the punched knight fell limp to the ground.

The janitor sighed and wiped off the sweat on his forehead.

“Annoying stains, they took longer than I expected.”

His eyes then shifted to the two maids on the ground.

Their bodies trembled as they inched backward.

Merciless. Twisted.

The man with his smile still wide stepped closer to them.

One step after another.

The two maids crawled backward. Tears and snot dripped from their eyes.

Two knights had just been played with in front of them.

“P-please…. No! Please don’t kill us, please…”

They held each other tight as the man inched closer.

Their backs hit a wall.

Slowly, the man crouched down and smiled in front of them. His red eyes glared straight into theirs.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t kill you…”

“Please… don’t… please…”

“Go and fetch a rope for all four of you, please?”

He pointed at one of them. The maid stood up and rushed toward the room to fetch the ropes, her legs trembling with each step.

She returned and pulled the knights out. The other maid rushed to her as well, ready to be tied up.

Though they had weapons and were strong fighters, a suffocating fear was stopping them from moving.

A fear that their minds could not understand.

A fear that their bodies could not ignore.

Slowly, on their own, all four of them got tied up.

“I will not kill you,” the man repeated. “I will simply hand you over to the civil servants for interrogation.”

A fate much much worse than death awaited them.