The Puppet Prince

Blue light spilled from the necklace and wove itself into the shape of a human figure.

"And there it is. The real Dryad."

At my words, the Doom Knight and the black mage were hurled backward, both of them slamming into a tree with a thunderous crash.

"Whew. That thing is no joke."

I muttered it under my breath as I studied the Dryad. Its sharp eyes were locked on the pair, and it spared me no glance at all, as if I weren't even there. The Dryad stared at them, and them alone.

Right on cue, the quest cleared as well.

With every reward claimed, I took a moment to survey my surroundings. The black mage had already been beaten into a bloody pulp, and the Doom Knight was one blow from coming apart entirely.

Who in their right mind provokes a High Dryad?

The black mage's state was pitiful enough to stir something like sympathy. A High Dryad was a higher species of Dryad. I didn't know how that evolution worked, but provoke one carelessly and nothing short of a World Tree could hope to rein it in.

My condolences.

I paid them in silence to the black mage, then moved on to the next floor.

The quest was simple. For someone with my footwork, almost trivially so.

Just then, someone pushed open the door of the cramped room and stepped inside.

"Nameless. A commission."

The man held out a sheet of paper as he spoke. It held the target's name and particulars, along with the reason the client wanted him dead.

"Clean work again, if you would."

With that, the man was gone.

For the record, I was working this floor as a professional assassin under the name Nameless. A known name made things easier—the more people who knew it, the more I had to work with.

First, I checked my armament.

So the only thing that changed was the outfit?

Nothing else seemed different. To be precise, I simply hadn't noticed yet. My weapons had changed.

Might as well read the commission first.

The target's name was Marco—a corrupt noble from a city some distance away.

So the era runs medieval, then?

The existence of nobles mattered here; it let me roughly gauge the technological level of the age. If this really was medieval, the job would be almost too easy. Then again, the Tower of Trials was never in the habit of being this generous.

The reason for the commission was written out plainly: the client's daughter had been beaten to death by that noble.

"Okay. Let's handle this one right away."

According to the commission, Marco would arrive in this village in two days.

But why wait?

The client's city lay three days from here by carriage, which meant Marco had already left and was on the road.

"I'll finish this fast and keep climbing."

I left the room and made for the village outskirts. Once I'd put a little distance past the gate, I engaged my footwork. Basic footwork: Speed. The city lay to the village's north, and if I kept running north, I would meet my target head-on.

After roughly five hours of running, my mana was beginning to run dry—and right about then, a carriage came into view.

Too ornate to be anything but a noble's carriage.

A noble carriage, traveling in this direction at this very moment. Given the circumstances, the odds that Marco was riding in it were high.

First, mana.

I fished out a mana potion from my inventory and drank it down, and once my mana had recovered enough, I started moving. Basic footwork: Shadow. With my presence smothered, I closed in on the carriage slowly.

Carefulness was mandatory here; blunder into the wrong carriage and my identity could be blown.

It's Marco's carriage, all right.

The crest carved into its door matched the one from the briefing. Close enough now, I peered through the window into the carriage's interior.

Huh?

Marco wasn't alone. Two young girls were riding with him. That hadn't been in the information my client gave me—not a word about companions.

Then Marco reached out toward the girls beside him.

"Ha."

Now I understood exactly why the client's daughter was dead. In a medieval age, a noble was a god, and a commoner could not defy a god.

I had clenched my fist too hard, and blood welled up from my palm. Then or now, anyone who laid hands on a child was trash.

I drew the weapon at my waist.

This is...

What sat in my hand wasn't the black dirk but a broken sword hilt.

I'd forgotten all about it.

Ever since the fight with Hati, it had slipped my mind completely. Not that a weapon like this made killing him any harder.

Just keep the girls out of it...

Suppressing my mana, I swung at the carriage. Bang! Everything the dagger passed through was sheared away clean, and Marco's head parted from his body.

The moment I confirmed he was dead, I left the scene at once.

Once I was clear, I checked the messages. The seventh floor's quest hadn't cleared. Instead, a strange counter had ticked upward.

Don't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tell me I have to kill more than one.

The quest had never said to assassinate a single target. Which meant it was still running.

So it's measuring how many I can put down within some window?

Whether that window was a week, a month, or a year, I couldn't say—but I could guess that every kill ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠would push the reward higher.

"Whatever I can manage, then..."

With my footwork, assassination itself was easy. The real problem was that I had no idea how long I'd be stuck on this floor. Lodging I could manage one way or another; food was another matter. The supplies I'd packed would last five days at most.

Might as well start taking commissions.

In the end, I spent a full week on the seventh floor, and in that time I assassinated ten people.

After the ranking message, another followed.

After reading the messages, I pulled up the quest reward.

Stealth was a skill I'd leaned on heavily even before regressing. The grade had been higher back then, but A-rank was plenty for now.

"Moving on."

I headed straight for the eighth floor.

What awaited me there was a battlefield. Clang!Krang!Boom! Polearms crashed against one another in a din of steel, and screams of every description tore through the air—"Aaargh!" "Aaaah!" "Gwaack!"

Before my regression, battlefields like this one must have been everywhere. Unfortunately, by the time I made it outside, the war had already ended in the demons' victory.

Win the war, and I would gain the trait known as Command. Traits were the sort of thing you had to puzzle out through trial and error—unlike skills, they came with no description.

Still, an acquired trait is a rare prize.

More than worth the effort.

I compared my outfit against the garb of the soldiers fighting across the field, and that told me which faction I belonged to.

The losing side, of course.

Very much in the Tower of Trials' spirit, the faction I'd been assigned to was the one being driven back.

With a war cry, someone came charging at me, sword flashing, and I drew the daggers at my waist. I parried the swinging blade with the broken hilt and drove the black dirk into the soldier.

No contest.

Keep fighting like this, and my side would lose. What victory demanded right now was neither overwhelming force nor a relief army.

The enemy's line of retreat.

If the enemy withdrew from this field and their army dissolved, the victory belonged to my faction.

The fundamentals of war.

The single most important thing in a war was annihilating the high command. An army without its head scattered on its own. Which meant that from this moment on, I would kill every commander the enemy had.

Basic footwork: Speed. I engaged it and sprinted for the enemy lines.

I hadn't run far before barracks began to dot the landscape, and I dove straight into the most ornate of them.

"Who goes there!"

Inside were a man who looked every inch a prince and two knights. Anyone could see that the prince was the head of this enemy camp.

"You're the one in charge, I take it?"

"In charge?"

The prince seemed not to follow.

"I'm asking whether you're the one who started this war."

"An assassin from the enemy lines!"

The knights drew their swords in an instant and leveled them at me.

"Order a retreat from this field, and I won't touch a single one of you."

My goal was victory in the war, not indiscriminate slaughter. If killing wasn't necessary, I didn't kill. That was my standard.

"Your Highness! Grant us this scoundrel's head!"

"Please, Your Highness—permission!"

The knights didn't so much as pretend to have heard me, and the prince offered no clear answer either.

I waited a moment for a reply—and then the barracks door swung open and a fat man strode in.

"What in the world do you think you're doing!"

He was barking at the knights before he'd even finished crossing the threshold.

"Lord Maektong!"

"Forgive the delay, Your Highness. Wait but a moment longer, and the suppression of the charlatan will be complete."

Hearing that much told me everything: the war's instigator wasn't the prince at all. It was Maektong. The prince was nothing more than a puppet for legitimacy's sake.

So killing him outright won't end this.

Even if I cut down the fat man—the true ringleader—it would mean nothing so long as the prince kept the army in the field.

I drew a dagger, slowly.

"And who is this one supposed to be!"

"Lord Maektong! That man tried to kill His Highness!"

A knight ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠answered Maektong's question in a rush, and at the report Maektong grinned wide.

"Dispose of that scoundrel!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Yes, sir!"

At his shout, the knights came rushing at me, and I swung immediately, catching both their blades on my dagger.

If it's come to this, then the three of them die—everyone but the prince.