Chapter 30
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 30
Chapter Title: Scene 030: Memory
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Blanche's first memory contained that boy.
When she opened her eyes, the village was burning.
'Hot...'
She couldn't tell if it was the embers making it hot, or her tears.
In that searing heat, the girl pushed herself up.
Her head hurt.
The girl barely managed to recall it.
The soldiers with torches who had come to the village.
They had set her house ablaze.
They had burned her pleading family alive.
They had burned everything she owned.
Ashes were flying everywhere like snow.
That was when the girl spotted a figure standing amid the swirling ashes.
It was a boy.
A single boy standing atop the pile of soot, watching the village burn.
She tried to call out, but her voice wouldn't come.
Her throat felt parched.
"Ple...ase... sa...ve me..."
At the sound of her voice, the boy turned his head.
He was a boy with long hair neatly tied back.
His features were sharply defined, giving him an oddly weary impression.
He approached her slowly.
"...A survivor, huh."
The boy looked at the girl.
"That must hurt."
It wasn't a gaze filled with sympathy.
"And it must torment you."
Nor one laced with pity.
...
"Death might be the better option."
His eyes, clear as glass beads and utterly empty, gazed at her.
"But... do you still want to live?"
The girl squeezed out her remaining strength and nodded.
Atop the pile of ashes, she wished for life.
"What's your name?"
Name?
The girl tried to think.
But she couldn't remember.
As if it had burned away with her village.
In the end, all she could do was shake her head.
Then the boy extended his hand to her.
"Come with me."
In her faded memory, the boy's voice rang crystal clear.
"I'm Tristan, eldest son of the Ruelverta family."
The young girl took Tristan's hand.
It was cold.
She felt the flames that had engulfed her home subside, just a little.
I leaped back swiftly.
The spot where I'd just been standing froze over.
Blanche shouted in fury.
"Don't dodge!"
As if I could just take that hit.
I quickly aimed my revolver.
But targeting her was no easy task.
Blanche's speed was already beyond what my eyes could track.
'Damn it...'
You are 'Wrath'!
My heart blazed hot.
An emotion surged from deep within, as if it would scorch me from the inside out.
Seething wrath clashed against bitter hatred.
"Urgh!"
Blanche's movements slowed.
There was no time to aim.
In that brief instant, I pulled the trigger swiftly.
Bang!
"Urk?!"
A bullet pierced Blanche's leg.
Shock overrode the intense pain on her face.
She hadn't even needed her superhuman reflexes.
She could have dodged it standing stillthe bullet's trajectory had already veered away from her.
I pulled the trigger again.
Without aiming this time, either.
Dry gunshots rang out in succession.
"Urgh?!"
Blood sprayed from her body where the bullets struck.
"Playing dirty...!"
If I could see it with the naked eye, that was enough.
To hit the target with this gun.
I'd been gathering ambient mana in spare moments, channeling it into the bullets.
The mana that passed through my body carried clear intent.
At my will, the bullets altered their paths toward her.
Thanks to that, I could land effective hits on her.
But they weren't fatal.
"You think I'll just keep taking this?!"
The wounded Blanche roared.
As if responding to her rage, icy fangs lunged at me.
I didn't bother dodging them.
You are 'Wrath'!
Wrath flared again.
My 'Patience' wavered.
My heart raced like an accelerator floored.
If I slammed on the brakes now, my heart would burst.
It was that dangerous.
But there was no other way.
I had to release the brake.
To overwhelm Blanche.
"...Come on."
"Tristaaanaan!"
All-consuming wrath collided with all-freezing hatred.
In that instant, the air exploded.
A burst like fireworks went off, unleashing a shockwave.
Blanche and I were hurled back by the impact.
"...!"
Before I could even hit the ground, Blanche was closing the distance.
She kicked off the air, reversing direction mid-flight.
What kind of movement was that?
It was utterly absurd.
It was the pinnacle of assassination arts in the world.
You are 'Pride'!
Blanche growled.
"In this situation... are you mocking me?"
Huh?
I must have been smirking without realizing it.
Probably the effect of 'Pride'.
'Pride' was turning even this brush with death into mere amusement.
Like a drug.
"Enjoy that smirk while it lasts...!"
The icy tiger roared.
The air around us froze solid.
The moment my feet touched the ground, I twisted my body away.
Screeech!!
A horrific scraping sound echoed as the earth was sliced.
Agony shot through my right arm, which failed to evade her claws.
No blood flowed.
The wound froze solid the instant it opened.
"Impressive... Now I see why they call you the 'Beast of Severe Cold.'" Blanche, the ice-blue tiger, exhaled frost.
One of the Ruelverta family's secret experiments.
It was an attempt to implant a mana beast's power into a human body.
Blanche was the sole survivorand successof that experiment.
The power of a severe cold spirit beast flowed through her veins.
An ordinary person would have had their blood freeze solid from that mana.
Yet Blanche had endured the power that froze all it touched.
Character Profile.
Name: Blanche.
Age: 20.
Occupation: Izarkhel family guard.
Traits: Diligent, Loyal, Hatred.
She was a named character, too.
...You have every right to kill me.
"Still bluffing in a situation like this?"
It was a bluff, truthfully.
My back was soaked with cold sweat.
The wound hurt.
Dodging her attacks with this body was no simple feat.
"I never imagined you'd hold out this long without even using magic."
Blanche wiped the pooled blood from where the bullet had struck earlier.
The wound had already healed.
"But that's at an end. You know that too, don't you, Count?"
Winter began to rage behind her back.
"No target has ever survived me."
Blanche remembers that day.
"You are 'Blanche' from now on."
The day she became a Ruelverta family servant, Tristan had said that.
That was when she knew her life as Blanche had begun.
Blanche did not live as an ordinary servant.
There, she was raised as an assassin.
Grueling training continued day after day.
It was training too harsh for a young Blanche to endure.
But she wanted to live.
Just as she had said the day she first met Tristan.
Because she wanted to live, she endured every trial.
She learned methods of killing humans, step by step.
She mastered countless poisons and hidden weapons.
Fortunately, she had talent.
And she was diligent.
That allowed her to grow faster than the other assassins.
Blanche killed her first person at the age of thirteen.
Her debut mission was to assassinate a journalist who had posted slander against the Ruelverta family.
She stabbed him from behind as he walked.
He died on the spot from the vital strike.
It was ridiculously simple.
But in that moment, she felt alive.
Not joy from taking a life.
It was the thrill of fulfilling an order.
There, Blanche found her reason to live.
"Kill."
Blanche obeyed the command faithfully.
"Kill..."
She succeeded on the mission.
"Kill again."
Her blade was dyed red with blood.
Her presence grew ever sharper.
Blanche remembers that day.
The day Count Millium, the family head, gathered the assassins.
He said this:
"I'll make you all stronger."
Without understanding, Blanche was laid on the operating table.
A surgery room filled with scrolls inscribed with spells and magical tools.
She was afraid.
But she tried not to be.
It was an order.
She felt something burrow into her body.
It was cold.
Just like Tristan's hand offered to her that day.
When Blanche opened her eyes again, she felt a chilling energy flowing through her.
Much later, she learned she was the only assassin to survive.
Blanche remembers that day.
Shortly after Millium's death, the day Tristan summoned her to a secluded cliff in the territory.
The revolver aimed at her.
And Tristan's final words.
"You don't need to forgive me, Blanche."
The dry gunshot.
Pain exploded in her shoulder, and her vision flipped.
By the time she realized, Blanche was plummeting into the sea.
Splash!
Water sprayed up.
Her memory sank into her chest along with the spray.