Taming the Protagonist

Chapter 11: Absurd as She

From the corridor behind Anselm, the ceiling shattered and four leather-armored assassins wielding short curved blades descended, their glinting steel aiming for Anselm’s head amidst dust and splinters!

Facing the meeting hall, Hitana somehow foresaw their move, turning without surprise or hesitation, grabbing the stunned assassin she’d knocked out, and hurling him like a projectile at the airborne attackers!

But the four assassins dodged her human missile with coordinated kicks, landing on the corridor walls, springing off again to slash at Anselm from four angles.

Hitana roughly grabbed Anselm again, trying to shove the young noble, half a head taller, beneath her to shield him from decapitation.

But as she pulled, Anselm used her force, spinning with ghostly grace, slipping past her and striding into the meeting hall.

Hitana was so furious she felt her brain might burst.

Parrying the first incoming blade with her dagger for Anselm, she roared in rage, “Have you lost your mind, Hydra?! There's an ambush in there, and there are archers outside! Don’t make this harder for me!”

In her fury, Hitana twisted her waist, delivering a high whip kick to an assassin mid-air with no room to dodge.

The dull boom, like a cannon, and the sharp, rapid cracks of breaking bones showcased the unnatural strength hidden in her frail frame.

The struck assassin’s body nearly folded in half!

Blasted through the air, he was embedded into the wall.

The other three assassins were stunned by the blow.

Hurling a human like a cannonball, smashing them into a wall—what kind of warrior, or beast, were they facing?

This was clearly just a delicate little girl!

“Gawking in mid-air? Got time to space out, huh?”

As her mocking sneer rang out, Hitana’s fists and feet descended like a storm.

Had the three assassins struck immediately, she might’ve been injured despite dodging, but that was a mere hypothetical.

When armed foes lost the “distance” to wield their weapons, when the battlefield shrank to the reach of fists and feet, and the opponent was a monster like Hitana with unnatural combat instincts and strength…

There was no chance for a second strike.

“Hahahahaha—”

The girl’s snow-white short hair danced wildly amid her mad laughter and violent onslaught.

The relentless sound of flesh colliding mingled with her laughs, striking a… chilling note.

The four assassins were beaten unconscious by Hitana’s fists and feet.

She stretched her lithe, boneless waist, her body crackling.

“That felt good… so damn good!”

The guard, her pent-up rage vented, sighed in ecstasy, then stomped heavily on an assassin’s head, sneering down at him with disdain, “This is your level? Pathetic. Assassins? Go back home and slaughter pigs!”

She wasn’t trying to insult her foes—just genuinely looked down on those weaker than her.

Such humiliation of the weak was commonplace for Hitana.

“Hey, Hydra, you didn’t mess—Hydra!”

Anselm, strolling into the meeting hall, seemed oblivious to the maid drawing a short blade from under her skirt.

Hitana, witnessing this, shouted in alarm, hurling a dagger toward him.

Shattered glass from the wine cabinet sprayed onto Anselm’s wolf-fur cloak.

He brushed the shards from the fur around his collar with mild displeasure, retrieving an ornate bottle of blood-red wine from the cabinet.

Turning to the maid, whose hand was pinned to the cabinet’s wooden frame by the dagger, he smiled gently, “Where are the wine glasses?”

“I ought to break your legs!”

Hitana stormed to Anselm’s side, fuming, “If you want to die, don’t drag me down with you! It’ll look like I got you killed!”

“Oh, Hitana, perfect timing. Help me find the wine glasses.”

Anselm examined the blood-red wine bottle closely, as if the chaos around him didn’t exist.

“…”

Hitana’s freshly vented anger surged back, filled by Anselm.

Breathing deeply, she gritted her teeth, “Can you act normal and stop causing trouble?”

“Causing trouble?”

Anselm raised a brow, tilting his head toward her. “Me?”

“If not you, then—” Hitana punched out another attacking maid-assassin, “who?”

“…Now no one’s telling me where the glasses are,” Anselm sighed. “Don’t cause trouble, Hitana.”

“You—!”

“Oh, right, Count Ironstone should know—Lord Ironstone, where’d you put the glasses?”

Ironstone, standing with other nobles in the corridor outside, froze for two seconds before replying dryly, “In… the lower-left cabinet.”

“Got that, Hitana?” Anselm walked toward the head of the meeting hall’s long table, wine in hand. “Grab a glass and come here.”

“Why’s a guard fetching your wine glass?!” Hitana snarled, kicking the cabinet, shattering several bottles with a crash.

“Oh? Now you remember you’re a guard?” The young Hydra glanced back. “Since you knocked out the maid, you do her job.”

Hitana’s eyes widened. “Maid? Are you insane? She’s an assassin!”

Anselm, seated leisurely at the head as if still at the banquet, crossed his legs and leaned back. “If I told her to get a glass, she would. Assassin or maid, makes no difference to me.”

“And, Hitana, you’re too far from me.”

The languid noble flicked his cane, its solemn black form transforming into a hand cannon with the melodic clank of machinery.

Without looking, he fired upward to his side.

In the deafening roar that made even Hitana flinch, two legs fell from a blasted hole in the ceiling.

After the blast, a long silence followed.

In that silence, Anselm stared at Hitana until she averted her gaze uncomfortably.

“I can tolerate some of your willfulness, Hitana.”

Anselm spoke slowly, his face shedding its usual smile, replaced by a pure, bone-chilling indifference, as if it had taken form, looming over her.

“But disobeying orders is an unforgivable error.”

He declared this expressionlessly.

Hitana instinctively felt a pang of guilt under his gaze, but it quickly fueled her anger.

Everything tonight had already made her unwilling to follow Anselm, so she threw caution to the wind, sneering, “Without me, you’d have died ten times over. Unforgivable… and I should beg for your forgiveness?”

“…Hitana.”

Anselm sighed. “You’re truly disappointing. I was prepared for disappointment, but not to this degree.”

“Don’t you wonder why the archer stopped attacking, or where the remaining assassins went?”

Hitana froze, her exhilaration from pummeling assassins and irritation from Anselm fading.

She realized… the vivid hostility she’d sensed in the snowy night had vanished.

“Saville didn’t want your hands on my safety,” Anselm said, standing and walking toward Hitana—or rather, the wine cabinet. “Though I insisted you be my guard, he’s had enough of your absurdity and eliminated the remaining assassins.”

The blond youth in a silver-gray wolf-fur cloak brushed past the snow-haired girl in her plain hunter’s outfit, crouching to open the cabinet door, retrieving a wine glass calmly. “I feel the same—because you can’t even handle something as trivial as fetching a wine glass.”

Standing, Anselm poured the fine wine into the glass, swirling it without glancing at the girl beside him.

“You can leave, Hitana,” he said calmly.

“You can leave my mansion and return to your village.”

Hitana stood stunned for several seconds, then her face lit up with unmasked joy.

“For real? You mean it? No tricks?”

“Hydras don’t lie,” Anselm replied, sipping his wine with a faint smile.

“Geez, why didn’t you say so earlier?”

Hitana laughed heartily, hands on hips. “I take back some of what I said, Hydra. Compared to those nobles, you’re pretty decent at letting people go.”

“Though your performance was disappointing, objectively, you did handle a few assassins for me.”

Anselm half-closed his eyes, savoring the wine’s aftertaste, then said, “Tomorrow, Merry will give you two hundred imperial gold coins. You can pick out some things you like in the city, and someone will escort you home.”

This time, Hitana was dumbfounded for nearly ten seconds.

“How many coins?” She stared at Anselm in disbelief after the long silence.

“Two hundred.”

The snow-haired girl bounced in place. “You’re not joking?! That scholarship for whatever-tower was only a thousand coins! A few punches tonight gets me two hundred?!”

“Hydra—”

“I know, Hydras don’t lie!”

Hitana slapped Anselm’s shoulder excitedly, pacing and rubbing her hands. “Hydra, uh… Lord Hydra! You’ve got plenty of flaws, but when it comes to generosity, you’re top-notch!”

She spun around for a while, then stopped, glancing at the stunned nobles at the door, then at Anselm, her tone finally carrying a hint of “respect.”

“Uh, Lord Hydra, can I… leave now?”

Gauging his expression, she added quickly, “Not that I hate you nobles or anything, just wanna share the good news with Lina.”

Anselm shrugged. “As you wish.”

“Haha! Lord Hydra, you can be a decent guy!”

The snow-haired girl dashed out gleefully, her joyful whoops echoing far, leaving the nobles in the corridor exchanging glances.

They didn’t know what the odd master-servant pair discussed, only that the snow-haired girl suddenly became elated, her attitude shifting to praise Lord Hydra.

The elegant butler in a tailcoat appeared beside Anselm like a specter.

“Young master,” Saville said gravely, “I don’t approve—”

Anselm raised a hand, silencing Saville.

After finishing his wine, Anselm exhaled slowly. “Is the soundproofing barrier set?”

“Don’t compare me to that rude, incompetent girl, young master,” Saville said, visibly displeased, a rare show of emotion before Anselm.

“Seems you hold quite a grudge against her.”

“No, it’s your excessive leniency toward her that’s abnormal.”

The old man said earnestly, “The world lacks no geniuses. If you need one who can track my movements, I can find them.”

“First, Saville, the world may not lack geniuses, but it has inescapable destinies.”

Anselm smiled faintly, narrowing his eyes. “Second… I’m not that lenient.”

“But you let her leave, even rewarded her, and erased her punishment.”

“…Saville.” The young Hydra sighed with mock concern. “How’ve you gotten so dull?”

The loyal butler panicked, racking his brain for what he’d missed, but couldn’t grasp it.

“Ah, but it’s not your fault. You don’t know Hitana.”

“…” Saville relaxed. “But… Do you know her well?”

“Of course.”

Anselm gazed out the window into the deep, dark snowy night, his sea-blue eyes seeming to encompass the darkness cloaking the earth.

“No one knows her better than I do,” whispered the one who sought to devour fate.

Saville said nothing, sensing the anomaly in Anselm’s words, knowing what to ask and what to leave alone, understanding how not to betray the trust Anselm unwittingly showed.

“To prove it, Saville, contact my father.”

“…You want to reach the master?” Saville’s face lit with faint joy.

“Yes, I need him to make something for me…”

Anselm’s familiar smile—the one all facing Hydra’s judgment saw—spread across his face.

The young Hydra, smiling gleefully, said, “For training a dog.”