Unvoiced apology

'Is he really sleeping?'

Nay cast a long glance at the motionless face of her new master.

Only the years worth of intense training allowed her to stop a sigh from escaping her mouth.

'Today was a mess…' Nay rested her back against the wall after putting a random scrap of wood to make it poke against her back.

Getting too comfortable during a night's watch was a surefire way to fall asleep.

'And judging from what happened…'

Nay's eyes drew towards the young man sleeping in a chair with his iconic saber resting on his knees.

Today was the day when Nay could finally put nearly sixteen years of harsh training to use. Yet, rather than becoming a random noble's prized tool, she was going to kill her master before he could validate the contract and bind her to his will.

She was supposed to enter a grand ceremony, ignore all the lecherous gazes while her new owner would show her off, and then…

And then, unite with her new master to complete the bounds of her will. It was also when she planned to end her relationship with her new master early, putting him to an eternal rest before he could put his hands on her.

Yes, that's how today was supposed to be. But the reality was nothing alike.

Nay's time in the waiting room concluded much sooner as if the noble, that she was to be gifted to, ignored all the ceremony, rushing to get his hands on her instead.

Then, the tense exchange between an unexpected champion of the tournament and the nobles shed some light on why Nay's situation changed.

"Tsk," the girl clicked her tongue. She pulled her chin up, resting the top of her head against the wall behind her. 'Just thinking about how I acted makes me feel all itchy…'

The moment Nay laid her eyes on her new master-to-be, something weird twisted inside of her. Something drew her attention, dragging her eyes across the man's well-built chest and… average face.

He was nothing like those pretty nobles who spent more money on cosmetics to look at their status than they did on the welfare of their serfs.

'Maybe it was this… primal masculinity that drew me in?' Nay allowed herself to endorse a few moments of animalistic fascination with the unknown.

Even though the young man didn't act how Nay expected those wild legionaries to be, he surely boasted a strange aura of both vitality… but also depth.

'What am I even thinking?' Nay scolded herself, gently biting down on her bottom lip as her thoughts clashed. 'It's not like my mission changes, even if the situation did…'

Nay's eyes once again drew towards the sleeping young man.

He didn't even flinch when his younger companion took the trouble of waking her up to change the watch.

And yet…

Nay turned her eyes away, making sure not to let her face move at all.

'It's a pity,' she thought, taking in a deep breath. 'But that's how this world is.'

No one had to spare Nay any explanations.

Her master changed from a high-ranking noble to a young yet experienced mercenary. Such an outcome could only be possible through a massive upset at the imperial tournament.

The unexpected champion and the nobles organizing the tournament clearly didn't see eye to eye, that much Nay observed during her first encounter with both sides.

And now, while sleeping at full alert and with his hand on the handle of his weapon, the young mercenary was splurging massive amounts of money just to buy himself a few hours of safety.

Nay's face tensed up as an uncomfortable feeling filled her soul.

The unexpected champion was in conflict with the nobles and was smart enough to plan his escape in a plausible way. What's more…

'According to his orders, we will be departing at three in the morning, when people's sleep is the deepest…' Nay couldn't help but raise her eyes on the sleeping man again. 'But that also means, the closer we get to that time, the higher the chances of someone attacking us…'

Nay pursed her lips into a thin line.

While there was some autonomy to her orders, the near future was already set in stone. She was to kill her master before he could complete the slave contract and escape to one of the safe houses to start her life anew.

'And here I thought I was ready for it,' the girl thought, gritting her teeth when the frustration started to spill all over her mind.

It was one thing to take the life of an enemy, someone out for her blood or freedom. But to sneak a blade at someone who was unfortunate enough to just stumble into the situation?

Nay closed her eyes and rocked her head to the back, stopping a pained groan from escaping her lips.

After an entire day of keeping her face perfectly still, she was more than happy to use the darkness in the room to make up for the lack of movement of her facial muscles.

Yet, while she closed her eyes to take the reins over her emotions and regain her resolve when cutting off one of her senses, Nay raised the sensitivity of her other senses.

And with the momentarily improved hearing, she could now hear the hushed footsteps.

'They are getting closer,' Nay thought.

In a mere instant, all her doubts and hesitation vanished.

The years of her training were not just for show.

'They are not trying other rooms,' Nay lowered her eyelids before gracefully raising up without making the tiniest sound.

She cast a quick glance across the room.

The younger of the two men would be of no use in the fight. And while Nay felt the curiosity when it came to how the legendary legionaries fought…

'No, it will be better if I keep it simple,' Nay thought, her battle-ready mind brushing off all the irrelevant and extracting the optimal goal from what remained.

'If I leave the bodies…' A sudden, intrusive thought appeared in the girl's mind right as she softly stepped towards the doors with nothing more but a nail-sized blade hanging on an extremely thin yet strangely durable string.

Nay's body froze as her mind recalculated the new variables.

The girl's mouth twisted in an ugly grimace. She then pressed her lips into a thin line before looking with reluctance over her shoulder, at the sleeping mercenary.

'I'm sorry, but I will have to make a proper use of you,' Nay thought, casting aside the ugly feeling that spread from her stomach out.

Then, she moved her eyes toward the doors.

The footsteps ceased to appear, indicating the enemy was already on the other side of the thin panel of wood.

'I better get this over with quick,' Nay thought, touching the doors with just the tips of her fingers and closing her eyes. At the same time, she pushed her right arm to the side before jerking her wrist, causing the metallic string to start swinging itself out of her finger.

With every revolution of the tiny blade, the length of the string grew a tiny bit, all the way to the point where the blade moved roughly four inches away from the finger that handled it.

'Now.'

Nay's mind exploded when everything suddenly just felt right.

The slight tremble of the doors when someone on the other side attempted to just push them open. The exact distribution of force on the door revealed where exactly the other party pushed.

Nay swung her right hand forward, allowing the momentum of her quirky blade to carry it forward. At the same time, released the simple knot on her thumb, suddenly quadrupling the length of the blade's string.

With no force acting to keep it swinging in circles, the blade cut through the air. It was so thin it hardly made any sound when digging into the wood of the door, the armor of whoever stood on the other side, his skin, flesh, innards, flesh, skin, and the second layer of armor.

'One down,' Nay counted, jerking her hand to the back as she twisted her wrist in circles to roll the blade's string back to its former position.

There were no signs of commotion yet. The blade was tiny and so the wound would be small. There were times when adrenaline-pumped enemies would even fail to notice a mark that small…

But once marked by her blade, Nay's victims could no longer count themselves amongst the living. Their status simply changed to dead-to-be.

'Damn amateurs,' Nay rolled her eyes as she turned around, reversing the direction her blade was swinging.

Before the other party could even notice something was wrong, Nay sent her blade flying two more times, marking two further opponents.

Then, she simply rolled her weapon back before once again pressing her fingers against the door. After a few moments, the pressure disappeared.

'Now,' Nay's senses fired up again.

After dealing with her opponents through the barrier of the doors, Nay suddenly pushed them towards her, swinging her blade forth the second a gap appeared.

"Ugh…"

'Tsk, I missed,' Nay cursed in her thoughts. She then twisted her hand before shooting her arm to the back, forcing the blade to return and properly cut the airway of the last of her victims.

A man raised his hands to his throat, desperate to plug the cut that prevented him from breathing. As for the three others that Nay already marked, they simply stared at their dying companion, overwhelmed by how quickly the odds turned against them.

And as they raised their eyes… A petite beauty stood before them with a piece of silver flashing to her side.

'They are going to scream in three, two…' Nay counted as she took a deeper breath and judged her timing based on the rapidly diluting eyes of the three invaders.

"Go," Nay whispered softly.

The small pocket hidden on the inner side of her suit suddenly turned warm when the mana dust rushed to fulfill its obligation.

This time, Nay didn't move her hand at all. She even let go of the string, allowing it to freely hang down towards the ground.

With the one caveat, that it didn't.

The mana dust flew out of Nay's costume and reached her tiny blade in a mere instant. And then, guided by the marks she already placed, her blade rushed forward, shooting right through the last three enemies standing.

'I shouldn't execute them here,' Nay thought, her face darkening a little. 'That would be too obvious of a set up,' she decided, before lazily tugging on the end of her string.

Now that her technique was completed, the fight was over. With the string connecting her will to the insides of the invaders, it was a direct clash of willpower… or in more direct terms, of status.

And as a thirteenth-level imperial slave, Nay boasted higher status than most of the nobles in the entire city!

All three of the attackers shut their mouths, daring not to utter a sound.

Under Nay's perfect control, they walked towards the dead-end of the corridor before spreading around the place a bit.

"Now, cut," Nay whispered.

Nay's heart heated up a little. And then, a barrier of energy appeared between the folds of Nay's string, severing everything that stood in its path.

Or, in simpler terms, the lifeless bodies of the three invaders that Nay put down with ease.

The girl took a deep breath before tugging at the string and taking a moment to roll it back on her fingers. Then and only then did she bother to look down at the scene of the carnage she made.

The floor of the Inn's corridor was already filling with blood. The random way in which Nay's string folded brought quite heavy wounds to her victims, severing both of the legs of one noble, cutting the other in half a bit above his waist, and then splitting the last one from his left shoulder to his right hip.

A gruesome scene that one would be hard-pressed to find even on a damn battlefield.

'A deed worthy of a mercenary champion who bested a high-ranking noble,' Nay thought as she looked one last time at the scene of carnage with a strange sense of satisfaction.

Then, the guilt of her actions once again resurfaced, putting the girl's mood severely down.

Still, the sixteen years of hell of training filled Nay's soul with more determination than necessary. And before long, her face returned to its usual, emotionless state as she turned around and headed back to the room.

'And with this, there is no way they will ever let him go,' Nay thought, breathing a heavy sigh as she struggled to fully mute the distasteful sense of wrongness that filled her mouth.

'Once again, I'm sorry,' Nay thought as she stepped into the chamber and confirmed that just as she hoped, the young mercenary was sleeping just as he was before the entire encounter. 'But it would really save me a lot of trouble if you could go and die in an ambush or something.'