Full recovery and training

"Are you sure about it, Zero? You must be aware of how secretive our unit is and just how dangerous it is to join us, not to mention the rest of Oarburgh will come after us. Once you join us, you can't just quit on a whim" Gozuki asked once again with a serious expression but Zero could imagine that he was smiling inside.

"What does it matter on which post I will be serving the Empire?" Zero replied nonchalantly with one eye closed while shrugging his shoulders.

'I have no idea whether he might influence the others but it looks like he doesn't care much about the Empire's true face. He must have seen a lot in the Capital and considering his background, he must have a lot of dirt on his hands. I even left him with the others for a day yet none of them asked me any strange questions yet.' Gozuki decided that it would be safe to leave Zero with the group for an extended period.

"Good. I want you all to focus on recovering. I will take Cornelia's weapon to repair it so keep yourself hidden here in the mountains. Also, if you can, take a look at Zero's skills and teach him a bit from each area." Gozuki said and Cornelia handed her weapon to him. The others just nodded their heads before Gozuki took his leave.

"Looks like you finally revealed your strength. I was always suspicious you are hiding something. The question is, what for?" Najasho said and obviously, everyone expressed the same curiosity.

"...Do you know why Taeko died?" Zero asked which made Najasho frown but he didn't reply so Zero continued.

"She thought that I don't pose any threat so she paid a great deal of her attention to Cornelia. After seeing that I am more dangerous than she initially thought, she completely forgot about Cornelia because she was wary of my next moves. And bam! Cornelia finished her job. It's worse when you don't know who are you standing against instead of knowing that your opponent is strong. At least that's how it worked in the slums, playing a lamb, cutting throats of greedy wolves." Zero said with a wink.

"Does that mean the slums in the Capital are the same as anywhere else? Is it that bad?" Tsukushi asked and Zero knew he should be careful with his words from now on.

"I don't know how they compare to the other towns. There were also nice people, though it was hard to recognize them from bad ones." 'It's not possible to completely get rid of slums. You can at most control the crime rate.'

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Zero spent a few days to completely recover before Akame offered to spar with him. They didn't use their weapons since according to Akame's words, if he were to get cut, no matter how small, it wouldn't heal.

Cornelia also recovered quite fast which slightly surprised Zero. While the others were training or scouting the area, Zero remained at their camp, eating meat from some unfortunate Danger Beast that has met Akame.

"Looks like you have completely recovered" Cornelia sat down next to him with her own meal in her hands.

"I should be saying that to you, I only had a fever" Zero glanced at her faint smile and was suspicious that she said those words just to somehow start the conversation.

"...I- I just wanted to thank you for interfering and also to apologize for shouting at you at the beginning." Cornelia said while looking down.

"Don't sweat it, I also didn't tell you that I knew Akame was searching for me. Still, your genuine disappointed reaction helped Taeko to underestimate me. I expected Akame to come faster but everything turned out well" Zero replied nonchalantly while eating.

"Wait...Did you plan all of that? Including my reaction and everything else? Is that why you didn't reveal anything about your combat skills?" Cornelia raised her head and asked with a shocked face.

"Now you are overestimating my abilities. I didn't reveal anything about my combat skills because I was never required to do so. Still...maybe I took your reaction into account." Zero replied with a faint smile as he knew she would no longer believe in any of his excuses.

'I wonder what happened to that lollipop girl though. Did she escape?'

After that, Zero spent some days with the group and grew closer to them. He ended up sparring with everyone by now and the ones he was always confident against were Green and Tsukushi who weren't exactly the type of assassins who favor head-to-head combat.

He also finally discovered what their strange weapons are. He already heard the name Teigu back at the Capital but he never heard of Shingu which was practically a weaker version of Teigu.

A few weeks passed since their confrontation with the assassins and Gozuki finally returned with Cornelia's Shingu.

"So how is he, Najasho?" Gozuki asked Najasho but everyone looked like they wanted to say their piece.

"He has talent. From what I have seen, he has that "shrewdness" father told us we don't have yet. In general, he seems to have more experience than the others but in return lacks in training and strength. A complete opposite to us." Najasho said with folded arms.

"He is pretty good in grappling competitions but sometimes lacks the strength to perform some moves. Guy and Zero have the same amount of wins and losses against each other." Poney added, happy to see that Guy finally has competition in the male's group since Najasho rarely participated in such competitions.

"Finally a worthy opponent but I won't lose, I have been training a lot since our last competition" Guy said while flexing his muscles and Zero just rolled his eyes.

"Good! Since it seems like you lot are satisfied with him, it's enough. I doubt there is any need for a test considering what he has been through, plus we have no time for that since a new mission just arrived."