The Final Mission (1)
Today was a day of celebration for the Feltios Kingdom. It marked the victory parade commemorating their triumph in the war against the Empire.
The two protagonists of this parade were both Swordmasters. One was a hot-blooded young swordsman in his early twenties with striking red hair. The other was a seasoned general in his late fifties, his brown hair tied back in a neat ponytail. The pair rode atop a magnificent, oversized chariot pulled by warhorses, waving to the cheering citizens as they made a stately entrance into the royal palace.
Once they dismounted, their next destination was the audience chamber. The young swordsman strode forward with bold confidence, while the older general moved with relaxed ease. Strangely enough, they advanced at exactly the same pace before kneeling together before the throne.
“Sir Filtein Weinster. And Sir Jacktein.”
“Yes!”
“Here.”
The blond king who called their names looked remarkably young—barely into his forties. As he spoke in a solemn voice, the two men responded in their own distinct ways.
“I am well aware that you two have rendered the greatest service in this war against the Empire.”
The king descended from his throne. A waiting attendant approached from the side, carefully carrying two swords resting on a golden cloth.
“Therefore, I bestow upon you these two treasured blades that have been passed down through the royal family.”
“We humbly accept Your Majesty’s gracious favor!”
Once the two had received the swords, the king swept his gaze across the assembled vassals on either side and declared,
“And here I proclaim! For as long as this kingdom stands, every citizen shall remember and sing the heroic tales of these two men!”
“Praise to the two heroes who protected the kingdom! Loyalty to the royal family that shall endure forever!”
The audience chamber erupted in a unified chorus from everyone except the king and the two heroes. With that, the victory parade came to a close.
“Hoo…”
Late that night, after the lengthy schedule had finally ended, the king returned to his bedchamber. He tossed his jacket carelessly onto the bed and sank heavily into a chair at the tea table, still wearing only his shirt.
“…Kainel, are you there?”
“No.”
“Haha. Your sense of humor hasn’t changed a bit.”
He rose from his seat, rummaged through the wardrobe beside the bed, and pulled out a bottle of wine along with two glasses.
“Come out. Let’s have a drink together.”
“…”
Only then did I release my concealment and reveal myself before the king.
“…Why is the wine set in there?”
“I hid it from the maids. All that nagging about ‘You must think of your health’ and ‘Please preserve your august person.’ Wine is the cure for all ailments, I tell you.”
“…”
“Come on, stop glaring at me like that. You’ve been guarding me all day and must be exhausted. Consider this my way of saying thanks. I’ll pour you a glass.”
“Good grief…”
As I dropped into the chair across from him, Altenor Shabellos grinned and filled the glass in front of me with wine.
“Sorry it’s not exactly top-shelf. I had to swipe it in a hurry from the cellar.”
“What happened to your royal dignity?”
“I wish someone would just buy it off me. Think I could get even one gold coin for it?”
He then poured wine into his own glass, lifted it, and held it out toward me.
“Here.”
I reluctantly picked up the remaining glass and clinked it against his. Clink.
While I took a light sip, Altenor downed the contents in one go and let out a satisfied “Ahhh.”
“Watching you drink, I can’t tell if you’re a king or a drunkard.”
“When you think about it, there’s not much difference, is there? Both ruin their lives—drunkards by liquor, kings by power.”
“Indeed. You’re quite the poet, Your Majesty.”
The banter was far too casual for a conversation between a king and his escort. Under normal circumstances, such insolent behavior would have landed anyone in prison for lèse-majesté. Yet this was a special privilege granted only to me in this entire kingdom.
“You worked hard today, Kainel.”
“It was nothing.”
“I’m not just talking about today’s escort duty. I mean all the contributions you made during the war.”
“…That was nothing either.”
“Honestly. There’s no fun in praising you. If we’re being precise, today’s parade should have featured three heroes—including you.”
Since I couldn’t think of a proper response, I simply took another sip of wine.
“Let’s see… This year marks about fifteen years since we first met, doesn’t it?”
“Sixteen years, to be exact.”
“Sixteen years. Right. That’s how long it’s been. Do you remember? What happened at the back door of that tavern?”
“…How could I possibly forget?”
When I opened my eyes again after thinking I had died, I immediately realized this was an entirely different world from the one I had lived in. The newspaper lying on the street had the words “Arkesia Empire” printed on it.
The Arkesia Empire was the main setting of the romance fantasy novel How the Saintess Lives.
How the Saintess Lives. It was a rofan novel that my ex-girlfriend had enthusiastically recommended to me, saying it was interesting. Naturally, it wasn’t my taste. I had read a few chapters, dropped it, then picked it up again whenever she pestered me, only to drop it once more. That was how I had somehow managed to reach the middle of the story.
It was the kind of novel where I only vaguely remembered the general plot and the main characters. So why had I woken up inside its world?
What did fate want from me?
I didn’t know. There was no way to find out, and no time to even try.
My new body belonged to an eight-year-old orphan living in the slums of the Feltios Kingdom, a neighboring country to the Arkesia Empire.
The first things I needed to worry about weren’t some grand, abstract concerns like destiny. They were the immediate crises right in front of me—starvation, cold, infectious diseases, and the merciless beatings from thugs.
Fortunately, I survived. The techniques of violence I had mastered in my previous life worked just as well in the back alleys. Those who came after the coins and bread I had begged or stolen had their arms broken as a warning. If they came at me again without learning their lesson, I gouged out their eyes. If they still persisted, I slit their carotid arteries.
Rumors began to spread that a little demon in the form of a child lived in the back alleys. Once the thugs started avoiding me, a group of mafia members came looking for me.
They were on a completely different level from the small-time punks I had dealt with before—men who moved as an “organization.”
“Want to work under me?”
Their boss made the offer. For someone like me who needed backing, it was a decent proposal. At the same time, it was one I couldn’t refuse. No matter how accustomed I was to killing, a nine-year-old boy’s body had no chance against dozens of adults.
And so I began working as a mafia hitman.
It was a cruel twist of fate. Even after dying and being reborn, I had to live the exact same kind of life as before.
In my previous life, I had eliminated the nation’s enemies on the government’s orders. In this life, I eliminated the organization’s enemies on the mafia’s orders.
Of course, I felt no particular emotion about it. If I had to choose between a new life and a familiar one, I—like anyone else—would choose the latter.
The boss was satisfied with my results. An unidentified killer who had severed the lives of countless big shots in the underworld. The leaders of rival organizations, living in constant fear that their necks might be next, willingly handed over their power.
That was how my daily routine of killing people for a living continued under the mafia’s protection.
I met King Altenor Shabellos in the backyard of a tavern that the mafia used as a base.
It was just another day like any other. I had returned after completing a “request.” Avoiding the organization members who had taken over the tavern and were causing a drunken ruckus, I slipped out the back door, sat on the steps, and cleaned the blood off my knife.
Suddenly, I sensed a presence beyond the wall.
I tensed and stayed on guard. A man barely managed to climb over the wall and tumbled into the backyard.
I examined his appearance. His clothes were even shabbier than a commoner’s. His entire body was covered in blood. Yet instinctively, I knew—he was no ordinary person.
“…Is this… a tavern?”
“…”
“Damn it… I have one favor to ask. Could you get some things from the owner that might be useful for emergency treatment? I’ll pay you back generously later…”
He pressed a hand over the large stab wound on his chest and spoke to me in a voice that sounded on the verge of death.
Then, once again, I sensed another presence beyond the wall.
“! Damn it. The pursuers are already here! Kid, get out of—”
Swish. Thud.
“Ugh…”
Before he could even finish his sentence, the knife I had thrown embedded itself in the assailant’s forehead.
“…”
The pursuer who had died with a blade in his forehead while climbing the wall slid down and fell headfirst beside the man. The man stared blankly at the bizarrely positioned corpse for a long time.
“…Who the hell are you?”
“An assassin. From the Palentino Family.”
I pulled the knife from the corpse’s forehead and pointed it at him.
“Now it’s my turn to ask questions. Who are you?”
“…”
We stared at each other for a while before he finally spoke.
“…I am Altenor. Altenor Shabellos.”
The moment I heard his name, two sets of memories surfaced at once.
One was from this life. Shabellos was the surname of the royal family that ruled the Feltios Kingdom. Altenor Shabellos was the second prince of the current king.
The other was from my previous life. Shabellos. The name of the female protagonist in the rofan novel How the Saintess Lives was also Elysia Shabellos.
The hazy memories of the original story became crystal clear.
The original story began with a rebellion in the Feltios Kingdom. The princess, the female lead, lost her parents in the uprising and fled to the neighboring Empire, where she fell in love with the trashy crown prince. That was the story.
I was standing at a turning point.
Should I ignore him and let the story flow as it did in the original? Or should I intervene and change the direction of the tale?
Was the reason I had woken up in this world precisely for this moment?
If so, what choice should I make?
While I was lost in those thoughts, Altenor grinned and spoke to me.
“From the looks of it, you seem quite skilled… I have a proposal for you.”
“How about working as my escort? The pay… will be more than generous. After we suppress the rebellion, of course.”
“…After many twists and turns, the rebellion was successfully suppressed, and Your Majesty reclaimed the throne.”
“And after that, you continued to devote yourself to the kingdom as the Royal Family’s Shadow. Even during this war.”
He poured more wine into his empty glass.
“If you hadn’t assassinated the Empire’s commander, the outcome would have been uncertain.”
It was true. But I had no particular thoughts about it. I hadn’t done it to receive praise. Once again at a loss for words, I simply drank the wine. This time, quite a bit more.
“Is there anything you want as a reward? Since you live while hiding your identity, I can’t praise you publicly… but if it’s something I can grant, I’ll do anything for you.”
“Anything, you say?”
“Yes, anything. Haha, just what kind of extravagant demand are you setting up with all this groundwork?”
“In that case, may I retire?”
Altenor’s hand, which had been reaching for the wine bottle, froze.
“Retire?”
“Yes.”
“…Tell me more. Did something happen to you?”
“Did something happen… It might have. It might not have.”
“Damn it. Stop playing word games.”
“It’s exactly as I said. I just… suddenly felt empty, I suppose.”
For me, assassination had been both daily life and my profession. It had been that way in my previous life and in this one as well. Rather than naturally stepping into the light, I had chosen to remain hidden in the shadows—doing what someone had to do, yet a job that could never be honorable.
It wasn’t that I had any complaints. It was just that… lately, I kept thinking about it. Was this really the life I had wanted?
And whenever that thought crossed my mind, a cold chill I had never felt before would creep into a corner of my chest.
“…This isn’t a simple tantrum. In this state, I won’t be able to carry out missions properly.”
For an assassin, emotional turmoil was a disease. It dulled the fingertips and, in the end, caused the blade held in one’s hand to pierce one’s own heart instead of the target. Unfortunately, there was no cure for this disease.
At least, not any that I knew of.
Countless colleagues I had worked with across both my previous and current lives had either retired or lost their lives after contracting this illness. Counseling, medicine—none of it could heal them.
And in the end, I too had caught this incurable disease.
“…”
Altenor set down his wine glass and furrowed his brow in thought.
“…”
I fully understood his dilemma. I was the leader of the royal family’s direct intelligence organization, commonly known as the Royal Family’s Shadow. The responsibilities I carried were immense, and the information I possessed was more extensive than anyone else’s in the kingdom. From the king’s perspective, I was not someone who could be easily let go.
If I were to betray the kingdom and side with another nation—or even without going that far, if I aimed for the king’s throat—those worst-case scenarios were probably flashing through his mind right now.
I’m sorry. It was a slip of the tongue, so please forget what I just said.
The moment I was about to speak—
“…I see. Understood.”
“Pardon?”
Surprisingly, the king nodded.
“Well, what can I do? Considering all the devotion you’ve shown me over the years, it would be shameless of me to hold onto you any longer.”
“…”
“…Isn’t it a bit much to stare at me with such suspicious eyes when I’ve just agreed to your request?”
“If I were in Your Majesty’s position, I would have used any means necessary to lock me up in the palace.”
“True. As a ruler, that would be the perfectly reasonable course of action. Therefore, you should be praising my merciful decision.”
Though his tone was playful, it didn’t seem like he was lying. Having watched over him as his shadow for more than ten years, I could tell. His expression was sincere.
“…Thank you.”
“Enough, enough. Stop being so stiff and just take your glass.”
The wine glasses were filled once more. We clinked them together and drank. This time, I emptied mine in one gulp just like him.
“I wish you the best in your future endeavors, Kainel.”
“I pray for the prosperity of the royal family, Your Majesty.”
We looked at each other and grinned at the same time.
“…Then I’ll take my leave now. I’ll hand over the security of the bedchamber to the royal guards.”
“Go ahead. Ah, wait. That’s right.”
He went to the drawer once more and returned with something in his hand. It was a dagger about twenty centimeters long, with a silver line engraved along the sheath.
“Take it. It’s a gift. It may not be one of the royal treasured swords, but it should be quite useful. I commissioned it from a craftsman I know well.”
I accepted the dagger. While I was momentarily flustered, trying to find the right words of gratitude, King Altenor Shabellos gave my shoulder a light pat.
“By the way, have you thought about your retirement plans?”
“Retirement plans, you say.”
“Yes. Isn’t there anything you want to do?”
Come to think of it, I hadn’t given any thought at all to what I would do after retiring.
…To be more accurate, it might be better to say that nothing came to mind.
What did I want to do?
Had the inside of me become so empty that I couldn’t even answer such a simple question?
“Well, take your time thinking about it. In any case, rest well for the time being. I’ll take care of the retirement procedures and the handover myself, so you won’t have to lift a single finger.”
“…Didn’t you just solemnly swear that I wouldn’t have to lift a single finger?”
When I met Altenor again in his office, he looked embarrassed and could only scratch the back of his head awkwardly.
“Ah, well, you see… the situation is…”
After spouting all sorts of flowery excuses in a troubled tone, he finally got to the main point.
“…Just this once, I’m asking you a favor. Please take on the escort duty for the princess—Elysia, my daughter.”
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