Chapter 21: Poisoned Dagger and an Uninvited Gues

Time seemed to slow down for a fraction of a second when the deadly threat surged without warning through the quiet midnight stillness. The dim light from the outer corridor caught a lethal, purplish gleam as a poisoned dagger tore swiftly through the air, aiming directly at the center of my chest with merciless intent. Inside my mind, an emergency alarm shrieked at the highest pitch in the entire history of my reincarnation, shouting a chaotic mix of panicked warnings into a massive knot of overwhelming fear.

*Oh, for goodness' sake! Is this a real assassin?! In the original novel, Alicia already had plenty of political enemies due to her arrogant attitude and her family's firm grip on the royal military, but that doesn't mean I should get stabbed to death by some low-level hitman in the very early chapters before I even get to enjoy a peaceful retirement in a quiet countryside village!*

Without a second thought, my muscle memory and raw survival instincts instantly seized full control of my consciousness. My hands moved much faster than the sweeping wave of panic, channeling pure ice mana straight from my palms that condensed in the blink of an eye to form a thin yet extraordinarily dense and sturdy crystal shield.

*Clang!*

The sharp collision between the venomous metal and the ice crystal rang out loudly, shattering the silence of the bedroom. The thick ribbon of ice I had conjured spun rapidly in the air, striking the poisoned dagger right on time and drastically altering its trajectory until it embedded deeply into the wooden window frame, leaving behind a wisp of toxic cold vapor that hissed softly as it corroded the wood.

The man in the gray cloak looked momentarily surprised by my spontaneous defense, but he didn't panic. Instead, he flashed a wide, chilling grin, baring his menacing fangs in the darkness of the night. "Extraordinary reflexes for a noble lady previously known only for riding on her family's coat tails. But the game has only just begun, Lady Alicia. Our master knows very well that you are not the same Alicia as before."

Hearing those words, the blood in my veins suddenly turned to ice. That sentence carried a deeply fatal hidden meaning. They weren't just targeting Alicia's life as part of ordinary noble political conflicts; they realized something was profoundly wrong with me—they knew I had changed drastically, or perhaps they even suspected my soul wasn't the original owner of this body!

Before I could hurl back a cold, piercing insult fitting an experienced villainess to extract more information from him, the masked man leaped backward out of the third-floor window sill with lightweight acrobatic grace. His body melted into the nocturnal darkness at lightning speed, utilizing the shadowed foliage outside the dormitory to slip away completely without leaving any notable magical trace.

I stood frozen in front of the wide-open window, my breath coming in ragged gasps while cold sweat plastered my shirt to my back. Damn it... my night was utterly ruined! Instead of sleeping soundly in a plush bed after an exhausting day, I had just been paid a visit by a psychopath wielding a poisoned dagger who implicitly knew my deepest secret. This incident proved one absolute fact: the world of this novel was far more dangerous than I had ever imagined, and the enemies out there would never stand idly by and let me walk safely through this academy.