Chapter 23: Completely Penniless

After Anderson had finished helping Eleanor put on her clothes, the group of Temple Knights finally arrived belatedly.

Then, seeing the current scene, they silently retreated.

Lewis, unaware of the truth, casually tossed a few plastic wrappers toward Anderson before leaving the area.

At that moment, Anderson and Eleanor were plunged into complete silence.

Anderson wordlessly picked up the protective wrappers.

Meanwhile, Eleanor shrank back, pretending to be very frightened as she said.

“Wait! What are you going to do?”

Eleanor knew that if she was going to act, she had to commit fully.

Right now, she was supposed to be unaware that Anderson lacked that kind of ability, so she had to feign a scared demeanor.

Anderson didn’t respond to Eleanor’s words. He directly threw the wrappers into a trash bin and said.

“Anyway… just listen to my explanation first.”

“I won’t listen.”

Eleanor looked at Anderson with disdain.

She had seen it, she had felt it (the chest padding), what more was there to listen to?

“You beast.”

Faced with this, Anderson helplessly held his head, sounding a bit defeated as he said.

“No, who could have guessed you’d be wearing three layers of padding? Judging by the depth of that wound, normally you definitely would have been injured…”

Before Anderson could finish, he sensed a dangerous, chilling aura. He turned his head to find that the nun before him, the fear in her eyes had transformed into a terrifying smile.

“You mean to say, I should be grateful my chest is so small?”

“Uh… That’s not quite what I meant…”

Anderson still wanted to argue, but Eleanor delivered a high kick, her foot smacking right onto Anderson’s face.

“Die! You pervert!”

After kicking Anderson to the ground, Eleanor stomped away angrily.

***

“That pervert Prince!”

Back home, Ainola took off her disguise. She sat on the sofa, puffing up angrily like a blowfish.

Beside her, the Contact heard her words and asked.

“Has Anderson tracked you here?”

The Contact thought Anderson had discovered Ainola’s whereabouts, so she spoke with some caution.

“It seems we’ll have to speed things up.”

But regarding the Contact’s suspicion, Ainola just shook her head and said.

“No, I just had contact with him. It doesn’t seem like he came here looking for me.”

In Ainola’s view, Anderson was clearly dealing with other matters, and these matters might be related to what she herself was searching for.

“But even if he’s not here for me, he’s probably here to protect that key.”

“In the end, it’s still troublesome.”

The Contact furrowed her brows. She stood up, and as magic surged, a black robe enveloped her body. The unknown material within made her entire frame instantly grow by twenty centimeters.

Transforming directly from a 165-centimeter-tall girl into a 185-centimeter-tall, burly man.

According to her, this disguise was apparently a type of armor called Living Remains.

“Tsk tsk… I’m really envious.”

Ainola had wanted a set of this armor like the Contact had before, so she wouldn’t have to go through the hassle of disguising herself.

“But where are you going?”

“To check on the movements of the other assassins.”

After saying this, the Contact left the room, leaving Ainola alone to look at the tattered nun’s habit, feeling a pang of sorrow.

“Wah… my gold coins…”

For the impoverished assassin lady, this nun’s habit worth two hundred gold coins was truly a painful loss.

“How can an assassin be this poor?”

Spark appeared beside Ainola again, speaking with puzzlement.

“Logically, one mission for you could net hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of gold coins, right?”

“You think too optimistically,” Ainola looked at Spark with disdain and explained.

“The assassin you imagine kills without a trace, tens of thousands per job. The actual assassin investigates mistresses, investigates affairs, finds lost cats and dogs, a few dozen gold coins per job. Do you think it’s easy for me?”

Although Ainola was very capable, she was a solo assassin, not part of any organization, so naturally, no big jobs would flow her way.

Even if there were some, they’d be hard to snag.

So generally, only those commissions that were so difficult no one else dared take them would end up with Ainola.

Like the previous assassinations of those nobles in Hail City, and the commission to assassinate the Prince. Only such high-risk commissions would come to Ainola.

And aside from the Prince job, Ainola had completed all these commissions.

This was why, even though Ainola was just a solo assassin, her reputation was far-reaching.

But looking at a small place like Wording City, there generally weren’t such big jobs for Ainola to take.

So what could she do?

Starve, of course~

Ainola rummaged in the fridge and pulled out a cup of instant noodles, saying quite optimistically.

“Look on the bright side. Before, I could only eat bagged instant noodles. Now I can eat cup noodles, right? People are always making progress, after all.”

But these words, combined with the instant noodles in her hand, seemed genuinely a bit pitiful to an observer.

So much so that Spark couldn’t help but hold her forehead and say.

“I get the feeling these past five months haven’t been as comfortable as that previous year.”

You know, when she lived with Anderson before, Anderson would occasionally bring over lots of delicious food for Ainola.

He’d also usually give Ainola some money to buy groceries and cook.

In contrast now, Ainola’s daily budget was basically one gold coin.

Breakfast was buns and milk, lunch and dinner were mostly store-bought nutrient meals and instant noodles.

The more she thought about it, the more pitiful it seemed.

“No wonder your development is so flat. I understand now.”

With nutrition like this, it’d be a miracle if she developed at all.

“Maybe you should consider asking Anderson to send you money?”

“Wouldn’t that be like being a kept woman?!”

“Sounds a lot like that year you spent was basically being kept.”

Faced with Spark’s sharp retort, Ainola was momentarily left speechless.

***

On the other side, after Anderson finished explaining what had happened earlier to his large group of subordinates, he said.

“Don’t go spreading nonsense. A girl’s reputation is important to her.”

“We know, we know. Of course we know.”

Lewis and the group of Temple Knights nodded repeatedly, but their expressions clearly showed they didn’t believe Anderson’s explanation.

After all, given the scene at the time, who could believe nothing happened?

But they certainly wouldn’t say much about the Prince’s private affairs. They’d just have to take extra care of that nun named Eleanor from now on.

“By the way, the Eye of Wite wasn’t stolen, was it?”

The Eye of Wite wasn’t someone’s eyeball, but a strangely shaped key.

Its purpose was unknown. It was said to be a key to open a ruin’s gate, but Anderson had tried it long ago to no avail.

So he’d treated it as a luxurious collectible, stored in the Temple Knights’ shrine.