From the perspective of the assassin

I've finally found her.

The target of my assassination, Elize Orbus.

She had her long hair done up, removed her round glasses, and wore a dress, which made her unrecognizable at first.

Could it be that attending some magic school changed her, turning her into someone who dresses like a woman?

I was skeptical.

My name is Wagner. I come from a lowly background, so I have no surname.

Elize and I grew up together. She was that annoying girl who would pick fights with boys.

When we were in elementary school, some boys including me were flipping girls' skirts for fun when Elize, dressed in shorts, came along and thoroughly beat us up.

It's a bitter memory from my childhood.

Since that day, I've wanted to become stronger.

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I learned martial arts and sword fighting, but that was never enough.

I knocked on the door of an assassin's school when I was in junior high.

There, I learned a wide range of skills including magic, martial arts, and espionage.

I aimed to be a man respected by women, a strong man.

Even as I developed a more masculine physique during puberty, my mindset remained the same as it was back then.

However, reading the autobiography of a legendary assassin at the school led me to a new philosophy.

Never harm a woman.

A true hard-boiled man takes the lives of men only and remains a gentleman to women.

This idea was contrary to the humiliation I felt as a child, but it gradually took over my heart.

Then one day, through the network of the school, I received a commission to eliminate Elize from a broker.

I wasn't told who the client was, just that I could receive a large reward for killing her by any means necessary.

I hesitated.

Killing a woman was against my aesthetics.

But Elize was the one who had humiliated me.

To me, she was more of a man than many men; her spirit is that of a male.

Killing a woman with the spirit of a man hardly violates my aesthetics.

Time passed, and we both neared adulthood.

If she had developed into a true woman, both in body and spirit...

Then perhaps I couldn't go through with it.

I needed to see for myself whether her spirit was male or female now.

Apparently, Elize had enrolled in a magic academy and was coming home for a long weekend.

I planned to follow her on her way back and seize any opportunity to end her life.

Licking my knife in anticipation, I began to lay out my plan for assassination.

I started following Elize as she left the beauty salon.

But I was taken aback by her girlish fashion sense.

Had she truly embraced being a woman?