I Am Going to Die

I am going to die.

The cool night wind, the moonlight lifting only half its face above the horizon, even the instincts honed through a lifetime as an assassin—all of them whispered the same thing.

That I would die soon.

I looked around. Countless side paths wound through the garden's trees, their foliage looking as soft as wool. But there was no way out. Every path reeked of death.

"Raon."

I lifted my head at a voice that pressed down on my heart like a weight. A middle-aged man stood there, his long silver hair falling as if it had been combed with frost.

This man.

Derus Robert.

Because of this one man—the head of House Robert—the entire vast garden poured out a killing aura as thick as a swamp of death.

"Yes."

I swallowed a dry throat and opened my mouth.

"You've produced results worthy of your place as head of the Shadows. Thanks to the work you've done in the dark, the family's growth has only accelerated."

"I only did what was required of me."

I neither pretended to be pleased nor pretended otherwise. I simply bowed my head like a wooden puppet stripped of all emotion.

"But Raon."

His voice dropped low.

"Do you believe a shadow needs freedom?"

Derus stretched out a hand. The shadow at his feet reached out in perfect imitation.

"A shadow need only follow its master. It has no use for thought, or feeling, or a heart."

"That's correct."

"If you knew that, why did you start moving on your own?"

The sudden ice in Derus's voice clenched around my heart.

"How did you undo the brainwashing?"

A chill crawled down my spine. I bit my tongue so I wouldn't let the shock show on my face.

What?

I hadn't said or done a single thing differently from before. I had no idea how he knew the brainwashing had broken.

"Speak. When did you undo it, and how?"

If he was pushing this hard, it meant he already knew everything.

"How did you find out?"

I bit my lip and raised my head.

Brainwashing.

That was how House Robert ran its assassin order, the Shadows. They kidnapped children or bought them, killed their emotions, laid brainwashing over what remained, and used them as assassins for the rest of their lives.

I had been brainwashed too—until a stroke of fortune let me pry off that vicious shackle.

"Because you were preparing to flee the family."

Derus went on, perfectly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at ease.

"I put two leashes on you and every assassin in the Shadows. The first is the brainwashing. And the second…"

"Ghk—!"

A scream tore from my throat before I could stop it. Pain ripped through my lungs and heart as if a saw were tearing them apart.

"The Rage Worm. The insect I planted in your body is eating through your heart on my command."

"R-Rage Worm…"

The Rage Worm was the most vicious of curses, capable of reading even a slave's emotions. Derus must have used it to catch that I was trying to run.

"Y-You play at being righteous all by yourself, and brainwashing wasn't enough—you fed me a Rage Worm too? You vicious bastard!"

"Not vicious. Thorough. You did undo the brainwashing, after all."

Derus smiled with the same warm eyes he showed the rest of the world.

"Derus Robert…"

I clenched my teeth. Enduring the pain of a heart splitting down the middle, I forced myself to my feet.

I can't die without doing a thing.

I had been kidnapped at an age I could barely remember and raised in the dark of House Robert as a hunting dog and an assassin. I had lived without emotion, without a heart, until a fateful encounter finally let me break the brainwashing.

I had thought I could finally live by my own will. What came back to me wasn't a key to the cage. It was a shackle of death.

I didn't know what sin I had committed to deserve a life this wretched.

Damn it all!

Red water rose in the well of emotion that had long since run dry. This was the first rage I had ever felt.

"You're standing up in that state?"

A faint ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠tremor flickered through Derus's eyes.

"I won't die looking pathetic to the very end."

I gripped the sword at my waist.

The sense of death I'd felt upon entering the garden had not changed. I would die here. If I was going to die anyway, I wouldn't go quietly. I would at least take an arm—no, even a single wound would do.

"Uaaaaaah!"

I detonated the aura packed into my core and thrust my sword.

In that instant, the blade extending toward him snapped in half.

Click.

The necklace around my neck hit the ground.

The world spun. Derus's cold eyes inverted, and the moon stood upside down.

Ah…

Only then did I understand. My head had been severed by Derus's sword.

But an assassin's blade is never only what you see. A vicious surge of aura, hidden behind the broken edge, flew toward Derus's pale face.

"How unsightly."

Derus flicked his hand as if it were a bother. With a gesture as light as shooing a fly, my final strike snuffed out like a candle.

Of course…

Derus was a martial artist hailed as the strongest on the continent. Naturally I couldn't beat him. He was strong, and I was weak. It couldn't be helped. That's right, it couldn't be… like hell it couldn't!

The fury spreading from the bottom of my chest boiled up like magma. I was furious that Derus had toyed with me my entire life, and I was maddeningly frustrated that I couldn't complete the Ring of Fire I'd gained from that fateful encounter.

I can't die like this.

God or devil, I didn't care. The instant that rage filled every inch of me—the vow that I would strip away Derus's mask and take his head, no matter what it took—my world froze in a wash of red.

"Hm…"

Derus Robert raised his right hand, frowning.

I blocked it. I'm certain I did.

Even though he had perfectly intercepted the last strike that piece of trash had thrown, a small wound had opened on the back of his hand. A wound that bled. He couldn't remember the last time—how many years had it been?

Unbelievable.

The man had undone his own brainwashing, endured the agony of the Rage Worm, and even wounded him. He was bewildered. What on earth had happened to a hunting dog he'd raised as a disposable tool?

Still.

Raon was already dead. He had been a man who defied common sense, but there was no longer any need to concern himself with it.

"Clean it up."

As Derus turned his back, martial artists hidden in the garden's shadows sprang out and approached Raon's corpse.

Wooooong.

Raon's necklace, submerged in crimson blood, let out a blue glow—but there was no one there who could see it.

Reincarnation.

A fantastical idea most people didn't believe in, even if they granted that it might exist. Raon hadn't believed in it either. He had spent his whole life under brainwashing, and once it broke he had been too busy preparing to escape House ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Robert to spare a thought for anything so absurd. He had assumed that death was simply the end.

And yet…

"Sunshine. Look over here!"

A red-eyed beauty with soft golden hair spilling over her shoulders shook a blue rattle.

"There's a red one too!"

She thrust the red rattle in her other hand forward as well.

Clack-clack-clack!

He frowned at the two rattles knocking together, but the golden-haired woman didn't stop.

"Hah."

Raon let out a tiny sigh and reached toward the rattles.

"That's it! Come this way!"

The golden-haired woman beamed and whirled the rattles even more cheerfully.

Only two things occupied his field of view: a pair of sausage-plump little arms, and the woman cheerfully shaking the rattles.

I still can't get used to this. That those arms are mine, and that woman is my mother…

Her name was Sylvia. It was still hard to believe, but he had been reincarnated as that woman's child, carrying every memory of his previous life as an assassin.

At first, of course, he had taken it for a dream. He'd thought it would all be over after a single sleep. But no matter how much he slept, this bizarre dream refused to end. Those suspicious days stacked up until a hundred days had passed, and only then did Raon accept that he had truly been reincarnated.

"Sunshine! Over here!"

"Auu!"

He crawled slowly toward the rattles, and Sylvia eased backward a little at a time.

"That's it! Just a little more!"

Raon toddled after her on all fours and stretched a hand toward the rattles.

"Abu…"

He couldn't win against the weight of his own heavy head. His body tipped to the right.

"Ah!"

Sylvia flung the rattles aside and threw herself forward, scooping up his falling body.

Fast.

Her body was quick. He couldn't sense any aura, but she seemed to have trained in a decent martial art.

"Did that startle you? It's all right. You're all right."

Sylvia patted Raon on the back.

"Auu."

Raon waved a hand. He hadn't been startled in the slightest and was trying to say he was fine, but her patting didn't stop.

"My little Sunshine. Want to look at the flowers with Mommy?"

Still carrying him, Sylvia went to the window and drew the curtains. Warm sunlight settled over them, as soft as a cotton blanket.

Still being called Sunshine…

The "Sunshine" Sylvia used wasn't his name, of course. It was a baby name. Apparently the family head had to come and give him a proper one, but the man was so damn busy he hadn't shown his face even once. So even after a hundred days, he was still being called Sunshine.

Hah…

Nestled in Sylvia's arms, Raon looked around. The room was wide enough to run in. The walls were covered in luxurious sea-blue paper, and a magic lamp hung from the ceiling so the light stayed on even at night.

In an infant's body that slept more than twenty hours a day, there was only so much he could figure out. But one thing was certain.

This was a wealthy household. A rather renowned family, at that.

Not bad.

If he had to be reincarnated anyway, a family with money or power was better than an ordinary home.

Because I have a revenge to carry out.

The horror of having his head cut off by Derus was still vivid. He had thought every emotion had been worn away by a life raised as an assassin, but the memory of his death had been so intense that the rage and the hunger for revenge toward that man, at least, had survived intact.

Even so, I can't afford to be impatient.

Raon breathed slowly and settled his heart. He had lived only in this room so far, so he knew nothing about where he was or what his own position might be. Once he grasped the situation, it wouldn't be too late to prepare his revenge. Patience was the most vital virtue of an assassin, and he had been called the best. Feelings and vengeance were things he could endure as long as he needed to.

And besides.

Through a fateful encounter in his previous life, he had obtained the Ring of Fire—the martial art of a swordsman hailed as the continent's strongest a thousand years ago. If he cultivated it from this moment on, he might be able to kill Derus Robert not by assassination, but in a head-on fight.

For that day, whenever it came, he would endure, and endure again.

That said, I'm getting sleepy again…

Held in Sylvia's arms with the warm sun on him, drowsiness came on in a gentle tide. He hadn't even thought that long, and already he was sleepy. An infant's body was inconvenient in all sorts of ways.

"Is Sunshine sleepy? Then let's take a little nap."

Sylvia smiled brightly and slowed the hand patting his back. His head was nodding, just about to tip over, when—

"Lady Sylvia!"

The door opened without a knock, and Sylvia's personal maid rushed in.

"T-The family head is coming!"

"Father?"

Sylvia's eyes flew wide at the maid's words.

Father?

The way she said it, the head of this house wasn't her father. He was the grandfather.

"E-Even now, if we prepare…"

"It's already too late. He's right outside!"

"Oh no!"

Sylvia and the maids alike stamped their feet in a panic.

Thud.

From beyond the half-open door came footsteps so hard they made the body want to flinch.

Who is this family head supposed to be?

Raon cracked his eyes open and turned his head toward the door.

An old man approached, brilliant golden hair swept back from his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠forehead, his eyes red. At that oppressive gait, Sylvia and the maids alike trembled.

Ah…

The moment he met the old man's eyes, the flow of time slowed. The presence was so overwhelming that the surroundings seemed to blur.

"F-Father."

"So this is the child?"

The golden-haired old man stopped in front of Sylvia and jerked his chin, his gaze holding nothing but ice.

"Y-Yes."

Sylvia nodded heavily and held Raon out to the family head.

Ah…

Raon's round eyes went wide. Looking at the family head's face head-on, he had the feeling he had seen it somewhere before.

Golden hair, red eyes. And an old man with a cold, ice-bound face… Ah!

Lightning struck through his small head.

The Northern Annihilation King, Glenn Zieghart.

The master of a house called the pinnacle of the continent was looking down at him. A gasp escaped his tiny mouth of its own accord.

It seemed he had been reincarnated into the strongest family on the continent.