Origami

The white-haired girl was safely transported into the Clovis Memorial Hall.

Even though he had instructed General Bartley to arrange a "secret transport," the man clearly had his own ideas and played a clever card of hiding in plain sight.

He blinded everyone with a flawless past: an orphan picked up by Ask was raised in the EU as a maid or toy. Now that her training was complete, she was returning openly to her master-a half-truthful background.

Because of this, she would not attract anyone's attention.

Coupled with the fact that Ask already had the habit of "raising maids," keeping one more girl with an angelic appearance was an ordinary, mundane matter for him and indeed the entire imperial family.

No one would dig deeply into the girl's identity, nor would anyone connect her with Geass.

The girl looked around the hall, casually admiring the portraits hanging on the walls as if pondering matters completely unrelated to them.

Until Ask walked in, whereupon the girl immediately hurried up to him.

"Lord Ask, I have finally returned to your side."

She leaned in close to Ask's body, completely disregarding whether anyone else was around, like a well-behaved little cat.

Though her face still bore no obvious expression, the joy in her words was hard to conceal.

Ask stroked the girl's soft, smooth white hair and offered a word of praise.

"I heard from General Bartley that after I left, you still performed very well over there, maintaining first place in all your subjects and cooperating fully with the experiments. I am very satisfied."

"Yes, Lord Ask. As long as it is a task you assign, no matter what the cost, I will always deliver a satisfactory answer."

After replying, the girl immediately dropped to her knees right in front of Ask, her thin lips parting slightly.

"Then, Lord Ask, in what way will you reward me this time? Will you let me become a little repair-doggy? Or shall I enter the heavy-firearms stance directly?"

The girl spoke words that completely mismatched her expression. Judged purely by the words themselves, it was impossible to connect them to the girl standing before him.

Even before Ask could react, the girl's hands launched a proactive assault, releasing a locked-up giant dragon and plunging into a solo battle with it.

The battle was extremely fierce, leaving not even a moment to spare for talking.

Ask looked at the girl fiercely fighting the giant dragon; aside from her somewhat deviant personality, she was excessively outstanding in every other aspect.

This was the girl he had picked up in the EU.

The girl's family had been among the first batch of Island Nation Leadership elements to defect to Britannia after the war broke out.

They betrayed the Island Nation's intelligence in exchange for permanent residency rights in Britannia.

However, before they could even move to Pendragon, the capital of Britannia, they were murdered by a group of radical terrorists from the Island Nation using the most cruel methods.

At the time, she was only seven years old and witnessed the whole thing happen.

Afterward, she was treated as "cargo" and sold to the EU, where she lived an inhuman life and was driven as a laborer doing hard labor.

Later, when she was ten, a local lord took a fancy to her and intended to buy her when she turned twelve.

This lord had a terrible local reputation, liking to torture girls of her kind until they died.

She had heard about these things, so she fled in terror, only to be caught by the lord's subordinates and forcibly dragged into his estate for "cultivation."

They had agreed that in two years' time, they would enjoy this unopened "delicacy."

It was right then, in her despair, that the Britannian army launched a full-scale offensive against the EU.

And this man before her, Ask, rescued her from the abyss of despair and granted her a second life.

First, he sent her to an institution called the White House, where she underwent comprehensive training, and where all the children were instilled with the concept that "receiving a reward from Lord Ask is the supreme honor."

At the same time, she was sent to a Geass laboratory to assist the general there in completing various human experiments.

Though it was hard work and sometimes painful, compared to her past life, this place was simply paradise.

She vowed to repay Lord Ask's kindness with her life.

This was genuine kindness, having nothing to do with brainwashing.

For this reason, during her rest times, she diligently learned all of Ask's preferences, molding herself into the exact image that would satisfy him most.

Just like now.

Until she reached the age of fifteen, which was last year, she finally graduated from that White House and received a name personally bestowed upon her by Ask-Origami.

She needed no surname; a mere name was regarded by all the White House children as the greatest honor.

Because everyone else had only a number.

And she was the most outstanding graduate there.

Swish-

After a bout of combat with the giant dragon, Origami drank the giant dragon's blood.

Yet she knew Ask would not fall in a battle of this level.

Just as she prepared to fight with all her might, Ask stopped her.

"All right, Origami, let's get down to business first."

"I understand, Lord Ask."

Origami stood up with reluctant reluctance, put away the Dragon-Subduing Treasure, straightened her clothes, and returned to her usual cold demeanor.

Next, Ask pulled out a photograph and handed it to her.

"This is the target for this time, and your first real combat assignment in the true sense."

Origami glanced at the man in the photo; he did not seem like anything special.

However, she had long since formed the habit of never bringing subjective emotions into a mission and never underestimating anyone.

"He is a Geass user, and his ability is to hear the inner thoughts of other people within five hundred meters."

Ask sat down on a chair prepared by Monica, propping up his feet as he spoke:

"You must ensure you kill him without anyone noticing, and then dispose of the body properly. Can you do it?"

"Please rest assured, Lord Ask."

Origami replied without the slightest hesitation.

From just a brief sentence, she had deduced the man's general habits.

The normal processing capacity of the human brain is limited. If too many voices flood in while using a Geass, it would instead disrupt the nerves; over time, the nerves would suffer exhaustion.

Yet the person in the photo looked spirited, which meant that he either was accustomed to ignoring surrounding voices or was used to staying in places with very few people.

At the same time, whether distance affected the clarity of inner thoughts was something that still needed separate judgment.

Naturally, her analysis of these things was not to find a way to deal with the Geass, but rather to figure out the other party's habits and then find a "favorable geomantic location" for his final resting place along his travel route.

There, she would handle both the killing and the burial, providing direct, all-in-one service that saved time, effort, and remained safe.

Ask nodded and said:

"Then, eliminate him before tomorrow afternoon. If you do a good job, I will grant you the reward you've always wanted."