Chapter 86: Nora’s Whisper

As a young man who had long fantasized about something like this with the girl he liked, Orin held Nora tightly, breathing in the fresh fruity scent of her hair.

When Nora tilted her head up, Orin leaned in until their lips met. Nora didn’t resist.

That afternoon, Orin’s long-suppressed desire was finally fulfilled.

Likewise, Nora’s scheme went exactly as planned. She had orchestrated all of this because she knew tears alone were no longer enough to keep Orin under her thumb.

Neither of them attended their afternoon classes, spending the rest of the day fooling around inside Nora’s room instead.

That evening, they skipped the cafeteria entirely, and Orin ordered takeout for the two of them.

Nibbling on her food while wrapped in nothing but a blanket, Nora looked at Orin with an innocent gaze.

"I’m so happy you trust me again," she murmured softly.

Orin moved in to kiss her, but hesitated since he hadn’t finished chewing his food. He settled for an indulgent nod instead.

Seeing that Orin was in a good mood, Nora brought up her true motive. "I’m going to tell you one more secret. It has to do with why I paid someone to cause trouble for Shani..."

"What secret?" Orin looked at her fondly. At this point, he would believe anything she said.

"Shani Rowan, who we all thought was just a nobody orphan from Zephyria, is actually a child of the Ashbourne first branch."

Orin instinctively sat up straight. "Shani is Vivi’s sister? Why does every family head always have romantic drama?"

Nora quickly shook her head.

"No. The current Head Family is actually just the second branch. The first branch belonged to Uncle Samuel, who died seventeen years ago along with his wife on the Zephyria border. Their daughter went missing as well."

Orin hadn’t actually known that Vivi’s father wasn’t from the main branch.

"I might not be able to offer hard evidence right now, but if you look up Shani’s bio, her beast gene isn’t listed anywhere. You don’t even know what her baby beast is, right?" Nora continued.

Orin nodded along as Nora provided further points suggesting Shani was indeed an Ashbourne daughter.

He was reluctant to believe it at first, but if it were true, all the oddities surrounding Shani suddenly made sense.

"And that’s where the problem lies. Vivi knows Shani’s true identity, and she feels threatened by it, especially now that Shani is the Prince’s partner and has a B-Rank baby beast, the exact same rank as Vivi’s."

"Vivi has always bossed me around. Even if I said no, she would beat me until I obeyed. That’s why I targeted Shani. It was on her orders. I never wanted to do it."

Nora’s tears fell right on cue, prompting Orin to pull her into his arms the second he swallowed his food.

"You’ve been through so much. From now on, I’m going to protect you from Vivi and her mother."

Unlike the fabricated sob story about her own mother, the story regarding Shani’s identity was actually true, so Nora didn’t need to tweak much of it.

"Thank you, Orin. I know you’re the only one who truly cares about me."

Nora sobbed against Orin’s chest for a few minutes before whispering, "Do you really think I deserve to be humiliated by everyone while Vivi, the mastermind, gets to sit back with her feet kicked up?"

"Of course not!" Orin replied indignantly. "We need to let everyone know that evil witch Vivienne is involved too!"

"But I don’t have any proof," Nora said, hanging her head gloomily.

Orin lifted Nora’s chin. "If there’s no proof, we’ll make it."

Nora feigned shock. "But that’s..."

"Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll commission a job from a shadow guild to fabricate evidence and post it on the academy forum," Orin said with a smug grin.

"A shadow guild? If we get caught, things could get so much worse." Nora feigned anxiety. In truth, as long as it was not her name on the line, she didn’t care in the slightest.

Smarter this time around, Orin declared, "I’m not using just any random shadow guild. I’m hiring Red Mountain."

Nora was genuinely taken aback. "You have contacts in Red Mountain?"

Shadow guild was the umbrella term for underground criminal syndicates capable of doing anything for a client, from trivial tasks like forging evidence to high-profile assassinations.

Among them, Red Mountain was the most mysterious and bloodthirsty. Wanted posters for Red Mountain operatives were a common sight across the continent.

Yet, as a hidden syndicate, no one truly knew the real identities of its members. Law enforcement and the public only knew the aliases they used when accepting commissions.

Naturally, the most infamous among them was the syndicate’s alleged leader: the Thunder Assassin.

However, not just anyone could directly commission the Thunder Assassin. Clients were tiered based on influence, the deeper a client’s reach, the more formidable the operative they could commission.

With a smug smirk, Orin kept it to himself that he could only reach low-level outer members who took pocket-change bounties.

"It’s better if you don’t know the details, Nora. All you need to know is that their hacker will execute this job flawlessly. You just have to sit back and wait for the results."

Orin played coy, desperate to keep Nora gazing at him with longing eyes.

As an expert at reading people, Nora catered to Orin’s ego without missing a beat. She gazed up at him with profound gratitude before pulling him into a tight embrace.

...

Red Mountain truly lived up to their reputation. By the very next day, Nora saw a thread about Vivienne trending at the top of the academy forum.

She and Orin sat side by side in the back corner of the classroom. A wide smirk spread across her face as Vivienne walked through the door to a room full of whispering students.

"She’ll get a taste of what you went through soon enough, babe," Orin whispered right into Nora’s ear.

Nora felt a wave of revulsion, but forced it down, responding instead with a deeply grateful smile.

...