An Angel

In a dimly lit room, a man was kneeling on the floor. In front of him was someone sitting on a sofa, holding a goblet of wine. The room was furnished simply, except for the luxurious sofa the person drinking vine was sitting in. Both the sofa and the person looked out of place in the room.

"So, you're telling me that the target was saved by a teenage girl?"

The person's tone was as if he was asking something amusing. In contrast to his joking tone, the man kneeling in front of him shuddered and said in a stutter,

"Y-yes."

"That teenage girl was able to hide the target from right under your noses. Ten people, and not one of you could find her."

The person sounded oddly calm. It was as if he was just stating facts. His tone made the man kneeling in front of him shudder even more.

"S-sir, this will not happen again. Please give us another chance."

The person on the sofa sipped his vine and looked at the assistant standing beside him.

"Tell me. What do we do to incompetent people?"

The assistant kept his poker-face and replied in a cold voice,

"We get rid of them, sir."

The person then gave the assistant a glance of "you know what to do." The latter understood and walked to the kneeling man.

"No! Sir, please! That girl wasn't just anybody. She's a rather famous crime fighter and has saved hostages several times. The opponent this time was someone formidable…"

The person sitting on the sofa didn't so much as look at the kneeling man. The assistant just dragged the man out of the room. The kneeling man could see that no amount of begging would save him so he shouted with hatred.

"Y-you! Mountbatten, even a division commander like you can't get rid of ten of your people without any repercussions. If we become ghosts, we'll haunt you forever!"

"Noisy."

Mountbatten said with a frown. The assistant knocked out the noisy man and dragged him out of the room.

Mountbatten replayed the scene captured by the cameras at the train station in which a teenage girl was carrying a boy on her back to a taxi. He then looked at the documents in front of him.

"Jessica, was it? It seems like this isn't the first time she has interfered with our plans."

He said in a quiet voice.

Smile.

He then smiled a smile with a cruel glint in his eyes.

Back to the university Jessica was at, classes were already over. Jessica was walking to the PE department with her friends, Emma and Rosie.

"You do know where the match would be, right?"

Emma asked in a tone filled with doubt.

"Yeah. At the end of the left corridor on the second floor. It's the practice room for all kinds of close combat,"

Jessica replied.

"Treat us to something when you win," Emma said.

"There's a greater chance that she won't win."

Rosie said suddenly.

"Of course it'll be easy for her to… what?! You're telling me that Neo guy is stronger than her?"

Emma asked incredulously.

Rosie and Jessica nodded at the same time. Then the latter said in a serious tone,

"Yeah. He's a tough opponent. This might be my first loss in a sparring match."

"Oh please. We all know your Aunt mops the floor with you all the time."

Emma rolled her eyes as she burst Jessica's bubble.

"Hey! You know that doesn't count. She's my instructor. Losing against her doesn't count!"

Jessica had had countless practice matches with her Aunt. Every single time, her Aunt would defeat her with ease. Her Aunt, Olivia Versteckt, was practically undefeated in close combat.

"Yeah, yeah."

Emma nonchalantly brushed off her words. Then she got rid of her nonchalant attitude and said seriously,

"Don't get hurt."

"I won't."

Then Emma turned to Rosie and asked,

"But hey. When did you meet that Neo guy?"

"I saw him pass through the corridors."

"How did you know it was him?"

Jessica asked.

Rosie glanced at her and said,

"He's the only person who seemed strong enough to pique your interest."

"That's Rosie for you!"

"As expected of your instincts. Man, they put mine to shame."

Emma and Jessica said. Neither of the two were surprised.

They then silently headed for the second floor. As soon as they entered the practice room, they were greeted with a bizarre sight.

Twenty or so people lay on the floor, some knocked out, others gasping for breath. On a chair in a corner sat Neo, drinking water. In sharp contrast to the others, Neo seemed to be in good shape.

"What the…"

Neo glanced at Rosie before looking at Jessica as he said,

"You're finally here. Don't mind the others. I exchanged pointers with them."

'Exchanged pointers? More like, you mopped the floor with them.'

Jessica thought, but she didn't say it out loud. Instead, she asked,

"Your last class was with Lucas, right? Why isn't he here?"

"He said he didn't want to come. No, that's not right. He didn't say anything, but it seemed that he didn't want to come."

Neo explained.

Before coming here, Neo had asked Lucas to come with him, but Lucas hadn't even glanced at him before leaving. Neo could only shrug helplessly as he recalled that.

Jessica only thought that it was to be expected and said,

"Well. You can rest a bit to regain your stamina. Then we'll start."

"No. That won't be necessary. As you can see, I'm not even tired."

Neo refused.

Jessica could see that Neo wasn't tired at all so she said,

"Okay then. Hmm. Who's the referee?"

"She is."

Neo said as he pointed to a girl with braided hair sitting on a chair on the other side of the practice ring.

The girl had a scholarly aura around her. Her spectacles and the fact that she was reading a book without paying any attention to others around her only added to that scholarly feeling. She didn't seem to have anything to do with martial arts or close combat at all.

Jessica went to her to greet her.

"Hello, I'm Jessica. It's…"

Before she could finish her sentence, she had to stop halfway due to shock.

The girl was reading a children's comic book.

'I guess you really can't judge a book by it's cover.'

Jessica's mouth twitched as she thought that.

The girl stopped reading and looked at Jessica as the latter looked at her comic book.

"Do you like this?"

She suddenly asked, making Jessica look away from the comic book. Jessica looked at the girl, then at the comic book, and then at the girl's face again. She still couldn't associate the girl's scholarly aura with reading comic books.

The girl mistook her silence for a yes, and said,

"I can't give this to you before I finish reading it. Why don't you take a different volume of this comic from my bag?"

"No. It's okay. Thank you. Ah, sorry for troubling you to referee our match."

"I've already refereed twenty matches. What's one more? I'll do it."

'Twenty!?'

That was the number of people sprawled on the floor.

"…Thank you."

The girl smiled as Jessica and said,

"Don't mention it. I love watching matches in real time in the first place. By the way, I'm Carolina."

"I'm Jessica."

Once Jessica was done greeting the girl, they got into the ring. Carolina told them the rules of the match. Seeing that neither of the two had any objections, she announced the start of the match.

"Begin!"

Jessica made the first move and rushed towards Neo to attack. Before she could launch first attack, Neo struck her first.

Grunt.

She had blocked it, but it still hurt. She retreated and complimented him,

"You pack quite the punch."

Neo smiled but didn't waste any time to attack again.

'Fast.'

That was all Jessica could think of as she blocked the flurry of punches and kicks coming at her.

"Ugh."

A kick hit her. But instead of a frown, a smile appeared on her face.

'An opening.'

Boom.

"Wow. It would've hurt pretty bad had I not blocked it."

After that, he murmured something.

'Huh?'

Jessica didn't get what Neo had murmured, but ten seconds later, she understood what he had said. It was,

'Time to step things up a notch.'

Thinking about it made Jessica feel a bit aggrieved.

"It was fun, but you still have a long way to go before you can defeat me."

Neo said as he took a towel and wiped off some sweat. Although he sounded like a complete narcissist, his face didn't. His smile was blissful.

"You truly are strong. I couldn't tell at all."

Emma said to Neo as she threw a towel towards Jessica who lay on the floor, gasping for breath.

"Haha, it's nothing. I've been training for quite a long time. I'm not completely confident that I'll be able to beat her the next time we fight."

"You jest."

Jessica said. She didn't take Neo's words seriously and frowned as she recalled the last moments of the match. She had barely blocked Neo's attacks relying on pure instinct. When one punch broke through her defense, it didn't take long for Neo to take her down.

Considering how she hadn't been able to land even a single hit, she really did have a long way to go before she could defeat him.

Neo didn't say anything and smiled as he left the room.

Back inside the room, Carolina was looking at Jessica with awe. The latter only felt uncomfortable under her gaze.

"Stop looking at me like that when I was the one that lost the match."

She said as she tried to mask her depression, but with little success. Who would be in a good mood right after they lost? It wasn't that Jessica was a sore loser, it was just that losing so thoroughly made her feel a bit disheartened. And before she could get rid of that feeling, being looked at by such an admiring gaze made her feel uncomfortable.

"You're amazing."

Carolina said as if she hadn't heard what Jessica had said to her at all. She continued,

"You were improving at such a fast pace. It was awesome! I bet you'd beat him the next time you fight."

"Really?"

Jessica's mood improved a lot.

'It's definitely not because I was praised. It's only because she can see how great I am.'

"Yes! I can tell that you'd definitely become a great fighter in the future. The, I can brag to my friends that I refereed your match when you were in college. Can I have your autograph? Oh, and can we be friends?"

Carolina was practically jumping as she said that. Her face flushed with excitement as she thought about how she was going to befriend a person who would become an extraordinarily strong fighter in the near future.

Jessica's smile got even brighter.

To her side, Emma looked at her with a gaze that seemed to be saying,'there she goes again.'

Right about that time, Jessica said while suppressing her excitement and trying to act humble,

"Oh, it's nothing. I'll make sure that you can brag to others in the future that you are friends with the strongest fighter in all of Britannia, no, the strongest fighter of all time!"

Emma facepalmed as she felt second-hand embarrassment while Rosie only shook her head. They silently left the room as Carolina continued to praise Jessica to the heavens and Jessica kept replying in a narcissistic way.

"Maybe in a few years, you could even surpass my uncle!"

"Your uncle? Is he very strong?"

"Very. He's the strongest person I've ever seen!"

Carolina then compared Jessica with all the famous martial artists, boxers, wrestlers and the like, giving her analysis of how long she thought Jessica would take to beat those people.

"You know Sima Jackson, the one that won this year's wrestling championship in the continent? If you train ten hours a day following the same training regimen my uncle used to follow, you'll be able to beat him in under three years! And that's just a conservative estimate!"

"And that Choi Yoohan, this year's taekwondo champion…"

After talking for a full hour, Jessica got tired of being narcissistic and even started to feel a bit embarrassed, but Carolina didn't look like she wanted to stop at all. After saying that she had to visit her sister, Jessica hurriedly left the chatterbox.

Carolina still looked like she wanted to talk more, but seeing that Jessica had to leave, she could only regretfully bid her farewell.

"Sigh. If only I was in the same year as you, I would've changed classes so that we could spend more time together. Maybe I could even instruct you in person. That's it! Would you mind if I became your training instructor?"

Jessica's mouth twitched as she imagined what it would be like to deal with such a chatterbox every single day. She suppressed the horror rising in her heart, put on a smile and said,

"While I'd be honored if you did that, I already have my Aunt to take care of my training. You don't need to worry about it."

After politely refusing, Jessica rushed out of the room into the corridor, and from the corridor to outside the building. She continued to rush all the way to the train station and only sighed in relief once she got on the train.

'It's such a pity. She seemed to be quite a capable training instructor too.'

Carolina might be a chatterbox and might've looked like she was praising Jessica to the moon, but a lot of what she had said was similar to what Olivia Versteckt had told Jessica not too long ago. Carolina hadn't just kept praising her all the time, she had also analyzed the other fighters' moves, specialties, improvements and whatnot while comparing Jessica's way of fighting with theirs. Her extensive analysis had put Jessica in awe. In Jessica's eyes, the only downside Carolina had was her ability to keep talking on and on about something.

This time, it was Jessica's ability to improve. The next time…

Jessica shuddered as she imagined Carolina talking continuously about one single topic. She immediately replaced that image with Olivia instructing her and immediately felt much better. She used to think of her Aunt as a training instructor from hell, but now she started to think that the latter was an angel sent from heaven.