I Become a Secret Police Officer of The Imperial Academy

Chapter 26

I was living as Theo had said.

It had been about a week since he came to the mansion, and we had rolled around in bed together.

During that time, we acted as if nothing had happened.

The things Alicia told me before she died—Theo must have seen them as nothing more than a manual crafted by a crazy woman trying to look sane.

Not that it mattered what others thought. But when even the protagonist thought like that, it felt as though I was someone abandoned by the entire world.

First, I woke up early in the morning and got dressed.

My clothes carried a damp, musty smell, mingled with the stench of decay.

I had tried washing them myself with soap in the bathroom, but I must not have had any talent for it.

Now that I thought about it, I had never done laundry with my own hands before.

In my previous life, machines did it for me. After I was born into this world, it was the servants who always handled the laundry.

At some point, even that stopped. Instead, the mages began using spells to wash the clothes roughly.

That change came after the maid who used to impeccably clean the clothes had died.

She could return a blood-soaked uniform to pristine whiteness within a day, but apparently, her skills didn’t extend to putting entrails back inside bodies.

After putting on my foul-smelling clothes, I concealed a small pistol I had gotten from the back alleys at my waist.

With my disheveled appearance, I looked like a back-alley assassin—enough that even I might believe it when looking in the mirror.

Taking out a notebook, I checked off an empty box with a red pen.

– Wake up early in the morning ✓

I had finished preparing for the Academy.

Picking a passable pair of shoes, I stepped into the corridor.

The windows were so caked with dust that, even though the morning sun had risen, the sunlight barely entered.

As I passed Julian’s office, where the door had fallen off its hinges, the sharp smell of chemicals wafted out.

Instead of blocking my nose, I pressed my palm against my eyes, feeling as though I might cry.

For a moment, I wondered if my eyeballs might pop out from the pressure.

Later, when I heard the full story from Ethel, I learned that Theo hadn’t killed Julian.

On the contrary, he had tried to stop Julian from dying.

Though it was hard to believe that Theo, of all people, would do such a thing.

Apparently, Julian had begged Theo to let him live, saying he would hand everything over. Then he exploded and died.

It must have been quite the dramatic sound.

Like a bang! straight out of a movie.

After all, it had been a blast strong enough to make a person explode.

Truly, there was no better word for that bastard.

Thanks to Julian’s explosive death, bits of what had once been Julian were splattered all over the room.

And no one had bothered to clean it up.

Not the Academy officials who came to the mansion, nor the inspectors, nor even the distinguished lords and ladies.

Not Theo, who had killed Julian, nor Isabel, Diana, or Ethel.

Theo was the one who killed him.

Otherwise, Julian wouldn’t have died.

Even if it left the place a little emptier, in a few days, we might have been satisfied, having wiped out the demons entirely.

Even when Theo had his way with me, bits of what had been Julian were still stuck to the walls of that room.

So, one by one, I scraped them off.

I brought a bucket, splashed water onto the hardened stains, scraped at the crusted spots with a knife, and gathered the shattered bone fragments and flesh into a wooden coffin.

Julian would have wanted to be buried beside his parents or Alicia.

My brother—the head of the Speyer Family—had loved his family dearly.

Not equally, of course, but still.

It was fortunate there were still chemical supplies left in the basement, designed to clean up bloodstains and corpse remnants.

Without them, the mansion would have reeked of decay far worse than the chemicals themselves.

Seeing such a mess made me resolve something.

If I were to die, I’d choose a cleaner way to go.

Theo had smashed every door in the mansion, leaving it nearly impossible to find an intact one. 

After a month of no cleaning, every corner was covered in thick layers of dust.

Even so, I didn’t sell the mansion.

After all, the family graves were within the mansion’s grounds.

If I sold the mansion, the graves—including Julian’s—might be dug up, coffins and all.

As much as I had royal blood mixed in my veins, I was still a Speyer duke.

But with no money, power, or abilities, what good did that title do me?

No one thought of me as a duke—not even myself.

Now, all I had left was a dreadful curse.

The horrifying words Alicia and Julian had left behind.

Anyway, after walking a long way in my foul-smelling uniform, I finally arrived at the Academy.

Once again, I opened my notebook and checked off an empty box.

– Attend school ✓

I had attended school, but school life wasn’t enjoyable.

What had been merely unpleasant had now become torment.

Not that it had ever been pleasant to begin with.

These days, thoughts of wanting to die entirely consumed me.

I had no backers, no particular talent, and no chance of fitting in with the brilliant people around me. I was just a pretty little thing wandering alone.

In other words, I was the perfect target for bullying—someone others could torment without consequence, someone who was easy to envy.

Jealousy and envy usually require some parity. Once, I might have qualified, but as someone entirely fallen from grace, I was merely a convenient emotional trash bin.

The reason these thoughts occupied my mind was simple:

After class ended, instead of going to lunch, I was getting beaten up.

Though they were just students, they had no finesse.

They kicked me with all their might, slapped my face, and punched my sides, fracturing my ribs.

“When else would we get to beat up someone so high and mighty?”

This one’s father was a baron. Even if I killed him right now, it wouldn’t matter much. He was a nobody who had earned his title in some war decades ago.

“To think you strutted around with Theo like you were something special. How laughable.”

This one’s father was a gigolo, and his mother, a high-end courtesan.

“I’ve never seen a loser who couldn’t even talk back while getting beaten.”

This one was the daughter of an Imperial scholar.

“You reek. Why don’t you clean yourself up a bit?”

And as for this filthy beast with cat ears and a tail—I didn’t care.

Whoever her parents were, they were probably just as disgusting, some hairy animal couple.

“You must take after your brother who exploded like a firework. So, Ellen, when are you planning to blow yourself up? You should die and apologize, shouldn’t you?”

And just like that, Julian had become a complete disgrace—a man so pathetically incompetent and unmanly that he ruined the family by preying on the weak.

The children stomped on me for quite a while before splashing a potion over my head and leaving for lunch.

Using potions like that wasn’t efficient and didn’t even make the subject easier to interrogate.

Injecting it directly into the veins was best.

Anyway, I took out the notebook hidden in my chest and checked an empty box.

– Chatting with friends ✓

I had just been beaten up while exchanging a few words, and since classmates technically counted as friends, I figured it was fair to check it off.

Alicia might pity me and let it slide.

If not, well, there wasn’t much I could do about it.

I stood up and brushed off the dust clinging to my body.

The clothes already reeked, so I didn’t particularly mind them getting dirtier.

The only real issue was the bruises covering my body—not just blue marks but deep blood bruises.

I headed to the bathroom to wash my face and looked into the mirror.

Even without forcing my fingers into my mouth, I could craft a cheerful smile that made me look genuinely happy.

Perfect. Anyone would think I was a joyful girl.

After finishing up in the bathroom, I stepped out, took out my notebook again, and checked off another box.

– Don’t get sad and cry for no reason ✓

– Smile cheerfully ✓

People addicted to drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes wouldn’t be able to make such natural expressions.

Their senses gradually numb, and they become indifferent to stimulation.

– Don’t drink or smoke ✓

– Don’t touch drugs ✓

So, I checked those off too, as a sort of promise to myself. No one was going to scold me for it anyway.

That said, the box for Talking with Theo was still empty.

I was supposed to grow closer by talking to my closest male friend every day. But instead of getting closer, we had reached a point where reconciliation seemed impossible.

So, for today, I just put an “X” in that box.

Not that I hated or resented Theo.

He had his own thoughts, convictions, and sense of justice firmly in place.

It wouldn’t make sense for me to try to dictate his actions according to my preferences.

After all, people are inherently worthy of respect, just as they are.

Even if I sometimes find myself questioning that respect when our opinions clash.

Still, I couldn’t help but let out a faint voice of resentment.

A silly daydream, really—thinking about how nice it would have been if he had saved me the way he saved the demons, the suffering humans, and the women who fell in love with him because of his devotion.

He’d probably find it burdensome.

Back then, I used to trail after him, watching his every move, observing what he was up to, and trying to piece together the game story I could barely remember. But now, I had no reason to do that.

It wasn’t as though my fallen family would rise again just because I kept watching.

Even having someone like Marco by my side would make things more bearable.

I wondered what Marco was up to these days.

He used to joke about taking a pile of money, buying ten high-class courtesans at a brothel, and spending an entire week buried among them. Maybe he was actually doing it now.

In the distance, I saw Ethel dragging Isabel around while looking for me.

I slipped away from the area, struggling to breathe as I felt the strain on what might be a fractured rib.

It left me feeling a little down.