My Status as an Assassin Obviously Exceeds the Hero's

When I woke up in the morning, Akira was sleeping on the sofa.

Princess Amelia sat beside him, gently stroking Akira's head.

It had been a long time since I'd seen Akira's sleeping face.

"...It's rare to see Akira this defenseless while asleep."

Saying that, princess amelia gave a small shrug and looked at me.

There was something sad in her eyes.

Had something happened?

"Huh? Amelia-chan, you're up early! I thought I'd be the first one here!"

"...Yeah, I couldn't sleep well."

I was about to ask when Ms. Ueno, who had woken up, cut me off.

Still stroking Akira's head, she answered the noisy Ms. Ueno early in the morning.

Her expression was different from before—filled with an almost tender affection.

"Wow! Oda-kun looking this defenseless is a first... no, it's been ages since I last saw him like this!"

At Ueno's rephrasing, I nodded in understanding.

Akira was famous in class as the sleeping princess.

Teachers would come to wake him up every time, and he'd only stay awake during the scary teachers' classes; otherwise he slept through most lessons.

I'd always wondered how he managed to avoid failing tests.

Well, I was the only one who knew the reason. If the other classmates found out, they'd accuse him of cheating.

I had suspected it myself until I learned that Akira studied in the little pockets of time he had between shifts.

"Akira I don't know... I'm curious."

princess amelia's eager response was turning into a girls' conversation, so I decided to make a quick exit.

"I'm in the other room. Call me when you're heading out."

"Whoa!? Asahina-kun was here?"

I thought she'd been ignoring me on purpose, but it turned out Ms. Ueno hadn't noticed I was there.

"I've been here from the start."

I answered briefly and stepped outside.

We'd be handing over the prizes around noon.

The recipients were princess amelia, Lord Lattice Nail, and, for some reason, Sato—who oddly took first place in the men's division.

Apparently most of the men who entered the contest were muscle-bound, bodybuilding types, so the votes all clustered around Sato.

We had factored that into our plans, but none of us expected Sato to actually place. When I heard he'd won, I had to double-check my ears.

Over the past few days, we'd been following up on Tsuda's information in our own way.

The more we investigated, the more it pointed toward Gram, the guild master of Uruk, being involved.

That Gram had something to do with the disappearance of past contest winners was by now undeniable.

And they weren't even bothering to hide it.

We were able to gather information without using an informant; even ordinary adventurers like us could pull it together.

It seemed they were more focused on feeding information through the informants, so Crow and the others, who had been collecting intel from that direction, probably still didn't fully suspect Gram's involvement.

We debated whether to tell Akira and the others or not.

"Did you make up your mind?"

I nodded at Sato, who was leaning against the wall just outside the room.

I couldn't ignore the dark circles under Akira's eyes, getting darker by the day. Sato and the others kept urging that we tell him, but I'd been against it.

Of course, informing Akira so princess amelia and Sato could beef up security would be best.

But after seeing Akira this morning, I made up my mind.

"We won't tell Akira... well, he's not a fool—he must be doing something about it himself."

"Doing something?"

Sato tilted his head at my words.

I nodded and put a finger to my lips.

"Have you noticed? He hasn't been seen at night since yesterday. I don't know if he's guarding princess amelia somewhere or out gathering intel, but it's certain he's acting on his own wishes."

Either way, I had to come up with an excuse for keeping quiet.

Sato seemed satisfied and nodded.

"You understand Akira better than anyone among us. If you think that's best, then so be it."

I gave a wry smile.

Sato had spent almost as much time with Akira as I had.

"Leave princess amelia to Ms. Ueno. We'll do the final checks. Everyone's waiting in the room."