The Faux Leader and the Flames of Vengeance
Ines stared at the fake, her gray eyes unblinking.
Her age was similar to his. If they had trained and become assassins around the same time, it made sense that she would know Theos, just as she knew him.
Yet pulling those memories to the surface, hearing that voice mimicking the one Theos would have had if he had lived, and using it to mock her… that was unforgivable.
The man shrugged his shoulders. “What are you going to do if you glare like that?” He seemed to say it with his eyes.
“We’re here.”
He opened a hidden door. From the outside, it looked like an ordinary wall, but the moment he turned a hidden mechanism, the wall rotated and a passage leading inside appeared.
Alert to traps, Ines pushed him inside first.
The room was dimly lit. In the center sat a person on a chair styled like a throne.
“That’s the head of the assassin guild!”
Samuel shouted.
The man had skin as pale as a corpse and looked no older than his thirties, yet his hair was completely white.
‘He’s the assassin I was supposed to kill.’
The crimson eyes were the final confirmation. There was no need to dig deeper into memories and compare appearances. Such a face was rare.
“Father!”
The fake Vicente shouted as he saw him.
Jeanne’s lips curled into a smile.
‘So you really didn’t know.’
From the organization known as the Black Wing, it was now clear how Vicente had survived. Or rather, the inference she had made had been proven correct.
When she had captured the assassin sent to kill her in her previous life and tried to extract information, he had remained silent until the end. He had only uttered one word: “Father.”
If he were the leader, he would not have called himself that.
Therefore, the pale man before her was not the real Vicente.
Jeanne stepped forward one pace. Fabian tried to stop her, but she blocked him instead.
“Sun. That was your weakness, Mois.”
The pure-white assassin did not waver. The one who had called her Sun was staring at the fake Vicente who had brought her group here without her noticing.
“Clun. You didn’t perform your role properly. Disappointing.”
“Father! I was just… I was just afraid that they knew Father’s weakness and it would become a threat…”
Mois’s cold gaze silenced Clun immediately.
“Hahaha.”
Jeanne burst into laughter.
“How amusing. Two fakes talking to each other. The play is nothing compared to this.”
Jeanne called out to Chastan.
“Chastan, find what you sense and bring it to me.”
Chastan nodded and vanished in an instant.
She had brought him because she was worried he might die, but she was glad she had.
His strength ranked near the top within the Second Knight Order, and above all, his senses were extraordinarily sharp.
Soon Chastan returned dragging one hidden person with him. Jeanne approached him.
“The real Vicente is exactly as you see.”
A face that did not look like an assassin at all.
No, perhaps that was why he was perfect as one. His indistinct features made him blend into crowds, unseen and easily forgotten.
“I was originally going to make a deal with you. Giving you the money you love so much. The assassin guild is a useful group. But.”
Jeanne glanced at Ines.
“On the way, I saw a training ground. There were many children.”
Remembering that sight, Jeanne frowned.
“So I decided not to make the deal. Instead.”
Jeanne drew her sword. Mois rushed forward to intercept her before she could reach the fake Vicente.
The clash of Mois’s dagger and Jeanne’s sword echoed.
“Loyalty isn’t something only knights have. Is that so?”
Vicente was a competent assassin, but not the best. That was why Mois’s role had been crucial in allowing him to become leader of the Black Wing.
Unable to show his true strength, Vicente had had Mois publicly act as him.
Jeanne signaled Ines with her eyes. While Ines held Mois, she moved.
“I do have guards, but your guards seem quite loyal.”
Mois had shown sun allergy from birth. His skin turned red under sunlight and he suffered from severe itchiness, making life outside impossible.
People rejected anything different from themselves. White skin and red eyes. Those who couldn’t live in sunlight under the sun were called vampires by the locals and tormented. When they were about to execute him as a demonic villain, Vicente had saved him.
Vicente recognized Mois’s talent as an assassin.
His agile body, dense patience, and the complete absence of presence even when standing right beside him.
At the time, the ordinary Vicente had raised Mois to become his double.
“Why don’t you give up already? Your father has already been captured.”
Mois turned his head in surprise.
Ines had pointed her sword at Vicente.
“No!”
Mois desperately tried to protect Vicente.
He ignored the large wound Ines had inflicted while trying to stop him and rushed toward Vicente.
“Brainwashing is truly terrifying.”
Samuel said calmly. Jeanne blocked Mois’s path again. Ines and Vicente’s quarrel had to end here.
“To him, Vicente is his savior.”
Where exactly did brainwashing end and where did it begin? Vicente had saved Mois, but he had also used him to his own advantage. No, he had saved him in order to use him.
“Ines. I can’t believe you’re doing this.”
Vicente spoke to Ines.
Even if Vicente himself had little talent as an assassin, his eye for spotting talent was excellent.
Among tens or hundreds of ordinary children, one jewel-like girl had caught his eye. A girl of equal or perhaps superior talent to Mois—Ines.
Vicente had decided to adopt her. He had pointed her out as the one who would follow in Mois’s footsteps, protect him, and take his place as the superficial leader of the Black Wing.
“Ines, it was me who gave you that name. Do you remember?”
Ines clenched her teeth in refusal and raised her sword high.
“I tried to make you my successor. I wanted to be a true father to you, not just in words.”
“Shut up.”
“Ines. My proud daughter.”
Ines’s hand holding the sword trembled.
I had decided to kill her the moment I met her. Why was I hesitating? While Ines paused, Vicente drew the dagger he had hidden.
Clang!
But his aim failed.
Fabian had cleanly blocked the ambush, and at that moment Jeanne stabbed him in the neck.
“Cough.”
With the sound of blood bubbling, Vicente fell.
Ines, her legs losing strength, sat down.
Mois reached out toward the fallen Vicente while on the ground.
Clun watched the situation with hollow eyes.
Ines, staring blankly into empty space, suddenly stood and pulled a torch from her bag.
“I have to eliminate them.”
She muttered the same words as if possessed.
Ines lit the torch and scanned the surroundings with eyes full of bloodlust.
She had planned to set this place on fire and purify it completely.
Jeanne blocked her.
“Don’t act emotionally, Ines. I want this place under my control.”
Ines shouted in a sharp voice.
“You plan to leave it behind? The Black Wing?”
“Yes.”
“It’s an ugly and dirty criminal group. Why would you leave something that has no value on this land!”
“I know how much you hate it. The reason too. But these are a group useful enough. It’s not that I intend to cover their crimes, I simply want to take what I need.”
The Black Wing’s intelligence network and the assassins’ strength were exactly what Jeanne needed. It would help in the current war and, in the future, become essential.
That was why she had come all the way to Gironde. The corruption had to be thoroughly crushed, but the assassin guild itself had to be left behind.
“Instead, the Black Wing will move with different goals and methods from before. And I want you, Ines, to handle that.”
Ines bit her lower lip.
“Do you order me… to become the leader of the rats?”
Jeanne nodded.
“You think I would do that…”
“You said you wanted to prevent such things from happening again.”
Jeanne cut her off.
“Rats keep coming out no matter how many you catch. The same goes for groups like this that operate in the shadows. Even if you exterminate them repeatedly, they will rise again. So it’s better to integrate them all and perfectly subjugate them to prevent such things from happening.”
Ines lowered her gaze.
She understood how rational Jeanne’s words were. It was far better to manage them from below than let them grow wild on their own.
But, but, even though her head knew it was right, her heart did not easily accept it.
“I won’t force you. Knight Ines. If it’s hard for you, don’t assign it to someone else. Take your time to think about it.”
Ines stared at the torch in her hand as if she hadn’t heard Jeanne’s voice.
The cleanup of the Black Wing was left to its second-in-command, the person right below Vicente.
Mois had taken his own life without hesitation as soon as Vicente died. Even if Vicente had been a scoundrel and the worst criminal, he had been the savior who took care of him.
The second-in-command of the Black Wing was calm and quick to handle affairs. While watching him work properly, Fabian quietly approached Ines.
“May I ask you one thing, Ines?”
“Please do, Knight Fabian.”
“You once said you often saw people praying to the Hordes in the place you lived. Do you know why?”
Fabian’s words drew a reaction from Samuel.
“To the Hordes?”
The fact that a vicious criminal prayed to a god was shocking. Ines answered flatly.
“The Hordes are the gods of darkness. It’s not strange for thieves and assassins to pray for the protection of the dark.”
Samuel smiled gently.
“But the Hordes are also gods of atonement. Just praying doesn’t erase sins, though.”
True atonement, Samuel had learned, required constantly remembering one’s own sins and striving to live for others.
“Wouldn’t it be better for Knight Ines to try believing in the Hordes?”
Samuel suggested to Ines. Chastan, who had been quietly watching until now, finally spoke up.
“That guy looks like he’s spreading fake religion right now.”
“Knight Chastan. That’s too much. The Hordes are a good god.”
Samuel grumbled at Chastan, and Chastan replied honestly that he still seemed like a fake. Fabian left the two bickering as if watching his own children.
In the meantime, Ines said quietly.
“I suppose it’s not a bad idea. I have committed too many sins and know I won’t be forgiven, but even so, I must continue atoning until the day I die.”
Watching them, Jeanne smiled.