"…meaning."
The word sat alone on a crumpled page, the ink smudged where a trembling hand had pressed too hard, too many times — as if the man had been trying to carve it into the paper rather than simply write it.
It was the last entry in the notebook belonging to one of the men I had just finished un-aliving.
I crouched over the body in the dim, dust-choked office, the smell of scorched carpet and copper hanging thick in the air, and turned the page over between two gloved fingers. The first thought that came to me wasn't grief, or curiosity, or anything so dramatic. It was simpler than that.
Maybe he just heard it somewhere and used it as his emotional driver.
I don't know much about "subjective meaning." I've never had the patience to sit down and interrogate a word like that. But I have thought, more than once, about what meaning actually
does
for a person. It contributes to survival. It makes you feel something while you do the surviving, so the intensity of living doesn't get compromised along the way.
An illusion, in other words. Just one of the useful ones.
There are illusions that work, and illusions that don't. His hadn't.
Let me introduce myself, since I'm apparently obligated to, for some reason or another.
Currently, I kill for an organization that claims to stand on the side of "justice."
Funny, isn't it? They kill in the name of justice, and
for
justice, as though repeating the word enough times might make it true.
Even as a kid, killing and stealing had been almost instinctive whenever someone came at me with something that smelled like intent to kill. Strangely enough, I never felt any guilt over my first kill. As the saying goes, habit develops. And apparently, it can be
any
habit at all.
Now, looking back, I sometimes wonder — did I ever have a choice?
Yeah. In theory, I did.
In practice, it was kill or be killed. And once that door closed behind me, the only two paths left were to hand myself over and be used by them in the name of "kindness," or to keep going the way I'd been going, until eventually I ended up working for this so-called justice anyway.
For the record, I don't hold anything against justice itself. But by now, all I can see it as is a maintenance tool for a group's survival — a phrase people repeat to keep the machine running smoothly.
And if the question is whether I feel guilty for un-aliving others before they get the chance to un-alive me first?
Nah.
Guilt is a sign that you see something as
bad
, and I have never once seen killing-to-live as bad. It's simple. You're born. You survive. You optimize. You die. Either you die, or you struggle to survive a little longer than the last guy.
The universe is indifferent to which one you choose. So is the end.
Do not give me fake hope.
I flicked open my lighter, touched the flame to the corner of the notebook, and let it catch. The little orange light crawled hungrily across the page, devouring the man's last words syllable by syllable, and I dropped it over the railing, watching it fall and scatter sparks against the dark face of the building below.
Then I turned, retrieved what I'd actually come for, made sure the aftermath wouldn't trace back to anyone who mattered, and headed for the lift.
The corridor was silent except for the hum of the building's dying electricity. I pressed the call button and waited, arms loose at my sides, watching the number above the doors climb one floor at a time.
Something sharp shot into my back.
There was no warning. No sound. Just the sudden, cold intrusion of something splitting skin, and then my vision began to fail — the glowing lift number smearing into a soft blur of light — before the darkness took the rest of me.
Under the moonlight spilling through a shattered skylight, a woman's shadow fell over my collapsed body.
"Ah… again, seeing his face up close is irresistible," she murmured, almost fondly, tracing a finger along my jaw as the last of my consciousness slipped away.
It was dark. My brain felt like it was spinning inside my skull, loose and unmoored.
I forced my eyes open, head still reeling.
Tch. This still hurts.
This wasn't the first time someone had tried to kidnap or kill me. It was, however, the first time someone had actually
succeeded
.
I blinked against the haze. Everything was a wash of gray shapes at first, but slowly, painfully, the world sharpened into focus. And as it did, I understood one thing immediately.
This did not look like it was in my favor.
I was strapped down to a medical chair with thick leather belts, and a thin plastic tube was patiently siphoning blood out of the crook of my arm, drop by slow drop. The room around me had the bones of an old, abandoned hospital — peeling paint, rusted fixtures, the particular silence of a place that had been left to rot.
I tested the belts, straining what little strength I had left against them. Nothing. My muscles wouldn't even properly answer the command.
"Good morning, darling," a girl said, her voice soft as falling ash.
Hearing it, I poured every last scrap of effort into turning my head toward the sound.
There was another chair beside mine. A girl lay in it, her posture eerily peaceful, a tube of her own drawing blood from her arm exactly as mine did. Between the two chairs sat a shallow bucket, where a thin red stream from each of us met and mixed together, swirling slowly into one shared color.
But there was something wrong with the picture.
She wasn't tied down.
I had assumed, up until that moment, that this was the organization's doing. Looking at her now — unrestrained, calm, almost content — I realized I'd been wrong.
My thoughts scrambled through every possibility. Who was she. What was this place. Who could have engineered something like this.
"Don't worry. We will die together," she said, breaking cleanly through the tangle of my thinking.
What does she mean by that?
I forced the words out with everything I had left. "Where are we, and who did this?"
I was still deeply suspicious of her — of the calm in her voice, of the fact that she was free while I wasn't.
"Can't u understand?" she replied, a faint smile curling onto her lips, one that seemed to cost her real effort to hold. "This is us mixing together."
Who is she. What does she want. Is she a victim, like me — or an assassin sent by the organization?
And if she was an assassin, why would she bleed herself dry alongside her target?
There was a real possibility she was simply a psychopath. Though even accounting for that, I had never once heard of an assassin who killed herself together with her mark.
Ah. Everything was turning off. I couldn't think anymore. Couldn't move.
The last thing I heard, drifting toward me through the fog, was her voice, warm and certain.
"We will be together for eternity, I… promise."
Something sharp fell across both our throats at once, and everything — including whatever light I had left — was cut off.
What is this warm feeling?
His nose and lips look like you, darling,
a soothing voice said somewhere above me.
His face shape is like you,
a second voice added, harder-edged, though not unkind.
I could only hear voices. My thoughts were nothing but broken links, scattered pieces that refused to connect into anything resembling sense.
Where am I? What is this body?
I… am I a baby?
I couldn't talk. I couldn't understand a single word of what they were saying to each other.
And yet — I felt safe. Warm, in a way I had no memory of ever feeling before.
Is… is she my mother?
Ah. I was feeling sleepy.
"He was finally born. This time, you won't go anywhere."
The voice belonged to a woman dressed in queen-like finery, seated upon a throne that echoed through the empty castle around her. There were no standing houses beyond its walls, nothing above it, nothing below it — only the lonely structure itself, wrapped in a silence so complete it felt deliberate.
"Queen, what is it that you want to tell me?"
A woman spoke from the floor before the throne, her knee pressed to the cold stone in a genuflection, several steps below where her queen sat.
"Make sure this boy does not go out of my hands," the queen said, her eyes closed, an affectionate smile touching her lips as though she could see the child perfectly clearly without needing to look.
"As you ordered."
Behind the kneeling woman, a row of commanders dropped in unison to one knee, their voices merging into a single low chorus that rolled through the empty halls and faded into nothing.
A mountain was cut clean in half in a single instant, the heavy slash leaving nothing behind but a violent gust of displaced wind rolling down through the valley.
Looks like I got a little carried away with practice.
I sheathed my katana back into its saya with a soft, satisfied click. Well — no matter. I doubted anyone would ever trace the damage back to me out here.
I'd been roaming the mountains a fair distance from the kingdom I now called home. And if I laid every piece of the situation out plainly: I had, somehow, been isekai'd into a perfectly ordinary, common-class family.
When I first arrived, the sheer disorientation of it had nearly overwhelmed me. I couldn't speak, of course — I was an infant. But as I grew, month by month, year by year, it had started to feel less like starting a new life and more like
reliving
an old one, as if my entire previous existence had simply been an unusually vivid dream.
This world bore an uncanny resemblance to the historical period of my past life. The architecture, the clothing, the tools — all of it felt familiar, almost nostalgic. The difference was that here, magic and the scientific study of mechanisms coexisted, layered comfortably over one another instead of standing in opposition.
Strangely, I hadn't encountered much religious influence at all. I'd expected that if magic existed, gods and mythical beings would carry some real weight in how society functioned. Instead, it played out much like my old world — belief was left up to the individual, a private matter that held little authority in politics or law.
I'd read through more books on magic, skills, and mechanisms than I could count, and nearly all of them stopped at the same wall: they explained
how
something worked, up to a point, but almost never
why
, and rarely dared to push past that certain point at all.
For reasons I still couldn't explain, I carried far more internal mana than anyone I'd met, and I seemed to manipulate outer mana with an intuitive ease that others clearly lacked.
One of those isekai clichés, I suppose.
Even with that kind of magical reserve at my disposal, I still preferred training my body over relying purely on spellwork — the two supported each other, and either could serve as a backup if the other failed at the worst possible moment.
Thinking it all over again, I supposed I'd have to loosen my grip on my old worldview a little. In my past life, I'd dismissed rebirth as nothing more than a comforting myth. Now, having lived through it myself, I found myself doubting the certainty I used to hold so easily.
Who knows. Maybe a god really does exist.
Just kidding.
My old world had already been absurd enough on its own. Now, apparently, it had decided to throw an isekai twist on top of it, just for good measure.
Ah — a dragon-like bird cut across the sky overhead, its long tail trailing behind it like a ribbon of smoke.
Where was I. Right — if some system like rebirth genuinely existed, I still had no idea
why
, as always, but since life was simply continuing regardless, I'd made the decision early on to settle myself properly into this new world rather than fight it.
And unlike in my previous life, for the first time, I finally understood what it felt like to have a family. To feel
warmth
that wasn't conditional or transactional.
Even as common class — second lowest on the social ladder here — I was happy.
Still. Every so often, a quieter thought surfaced beneath the rest.
I wonder who it was that killed me, in my past life.
Was she—
No. Too early for conclusions like that.
I reached home and pushed the door open.
"Katsuhito, welcome home. What were u doing outside this late?" Mother asked, not looking up from the pot she was stirring at the stove.
"I was doing sword practice, Mom."
"I know you wanted to practice for tomorrow's entrance exam, but today you should rest, or you won't be able to give your full effort tomorrow. Now, dinner's ready. Eat and sleep early," she said, already steering me by the shoulder toward my chair at the dining table.
In this world, one could sit for an entrance exam to a proper academy — a path toward the future, and the certificate that came with graduation was a genuinely valuable asset in society, regardless of one's birth.
"Where's Dad?"
"He's at work," she said, in that particular tone she used whenever she was hiding something.
Though I already knew Dad wasn't at his workshop. I'd walked past it on my way home, and the shutters had been down.
"Then are you going to eat with Dad when he gets back?"
"Ah… yes," she said, a faint crease of worry crossing her brow before she smoothed it away.
I ate in silence, watching her from the corner of my eye as she sat and waited for Father, her expression carefully arranged behind a smile that wasn't fooling anyone — least of all me.
When I finished, I stood, headed to my room, and shut the door quietly behind me.
"Kon Saku."
A rare skill, one that traced a marked target and let its user hear the sound of their voice, no matter the distance between them.
Through it, I found my father standing inside a noble's mansion.
"Please, let my son take the exam," he was saying, his voice cracking with the effort of begging.
"All seats are booked. I can't do anything about it. It's hard enough to pass here in the first place. Give up," the noble replied, clearly irritated at having his evening interrupted.
"How much money?" my father asked quietly.
"You understand the play, don't ya," the noble said, and the two of them slid smoothly into the low, familiar rhythm of a bribe negotiation.
So commoners have to pay bribes, huh.
Hearing it, something hot flared in my chest, even though this particular flavor of corruption was nothing new to me. I knew perfectly well I could do nothing and still be fine. But picturing my father standing there, begging, handing over money he clearly didn't have to spare — I couldn't shake the anger, or the sudden, sharp desire for revenge that came riding in behind it.
I sat with that feeling for a long while.
Before I finally let myself sleep, I made a decision.
I'm not letting them get away with this. Either for my own pride, or as insurance for the future.
They will pay for it,
I thought, and blew out the candle.
I barely slept that night. My mind kept circling the same loop, turning over one plan after another for how to make them pay.
I could simply kill the noble. But that would only breed more complications — I didn't want my admission disrupted, and I certainly didn't want to bring shame or danger down on my family's head.
Turning the possibilities over and over, I finally gave up on sleep entirely and left my room.
The house was quiet, despite everyone being awake and home. I sat down for breakfast, and the silence followed me to the table.
Then Mom gave a small laugh, breaking it. "Today's your exam, so eat well."
I nodded, and just as I opened my mouth to say something, Dad beat me to it.
"Don't worry, son. We've got your back," he said, with a smile that was clearly more effort than it looked.
"Hmm…" I managed.
"I'm off. See you later."
"Take care," Mom called after me.
With that, I stepped out and started toward the examination center, still turning the noble problem over in my head with every step, until the answer finally settled into place.
Let's play justice… but not really.
As I walked the long entrance road toward the examination center, I spotted a white fox — most likely from the Ice Fox race — standing near the treeline.
She wore a white kimono with the faintest hint of blue running through it, like snow tinted by moonlight. Her hair fell straight and long, a pale bluish-white that seemed to catch every stray beam of morning light. Her eyes held the same soft glow as the moon itself. A single large, fluffy tail swayed lazily behind her, marked with delicate rings of blue, and her overall bearing carried an unmistakable maturity that seemed at odds with how casually she stood there in plain view.
Well. Let's not linger on that.
The real question was simpler: how was an endangered species like her just
walking around
in the open, and why did no one else seem to find that even slightly strange?
As I studied her, she vanished from where she'd been standing and reappeared directly behind me.
"Ara… stalking?" she asked, amusement threaded through her voice.
Her speed was far beyond what an untrained eye could follow — close enough to teleportation that I doubted anyone else on this road had even registered her moving at all. I, of course, had tracked every inch of it clearly. But since I had no reason to reveal exactly how sharp my senses were, I let my shoulders jump in a passable imitation of surprise.
"Ahh… where?"
"Behind you, stalker," she said, a confident little smile curling at the corner of her mouth.
"What did you… when?" I asked, arranging my expression into something appropriately startled.
"That was my skill, 'Junkousoku,'" she said, leaning in close enough that her breath ghosted against my ear. "Anyway — why were you staring at me with that bloodlust?"
"Nah, I was just thinking white foxes are rare," I said, glancing back at her from the corner of my eye as I kept walking forward, unbothered.
She carried herself like nobility. If I got on her bad side, it wouldn't just complicate my current plan — it could drag in a whole new set of problems I had no interest in dealing with today. Still, I couldn't deny a certain curiosity about her race, endangered as it was.
"Ara — are you planning something?" she asked, suddenly appearing directly in front of me, tilting her head to peer up into my face from far too close a distance.
Did she just read me?
Also — did she not know the concept of personal space?
No, never mind. I wasn't entirely sure I'd ever properly respected it myself.
"Just kidding," she said, smile widening, already falling into step beside me as though we'd been friends for years, apparently unbothered by the fact that she'd been stalking me moments earlier. "By the way, are you here for the entrance exam too?"
"Yeah," I said.
She hadn't asked which class I belonged to. Maybe, for now, I shouldn't ask about hers either.
"Although you're good at acting, I'm looking forward to seeing your skill in the exam," she said, as though reading straight through me. Then, brightly: "By the way, which card do you have?"
Acting? Does she actually know something?
Either way, I decided, I'd need to keep my guard up around her.
"I have a white card. And you?" I asked.
"Oh, what a coincidence. I have white too," she said, smiling pleasantly.
We reached the academy grounds shortly after.
"Well — we'll have different classes for the written exam, so let's meet again at the skill test," she said, that same suspicious smile lingering on her lips as she turned and walked into the academy building without waiting for a reply.
I watched her go, filing the exchange away carefully.
I need to keep an eye on her too.
For now, though, there was something I needed to do before the exam started.
Ha. I'd nearly gotten caught.
Good thing I activated Conceal Skill in time.
Still, I now had the information and the plan I needed, gathered from the academy's records and the files on my targets. I'd slipped out of the exam hall earlier and made my way to the archive room where the records of every student sitting this year's exam were kept, locked but not nearly locked enough.
Had my target been a higher-ranking noble, this would have been a genuine headache. Fortunately, that hadn't been the case.
Once I had everything I needed, I ducked into an empty washroom and activated Clone Skill.
I didn't need to explain the assignment to either of them. They already knew.
The first clone would wait near the house of the noble who had taken money from my father, poised and ready to move the instant I gave the signal.
The second would inspect the knights stationed nearby and confirm the cleanest ways to move them into position when the time came.
If everything went according to plan, the whole operation would be finished by tonight.
I made it back to my exam hall just in time, doing my best impression of someone lost and flustered.
That seat looks good.
"Hey — don't sit beside a noble. It affects my image," a boy said, chin lifted, clearly pleased with himself.
"Sorry, but I don't have anywhere else to sit, so please, show mercy," I said, pitching my voice into something appropriately pathetic.
He still didn't look satisfied with the performance.
I leaned in close to his ear. "I can guarantee your passing, if you don't mind."
"A commoner, helping
me
? Don't joke with me," he said, doubt and arrogance tangled together in his tone.
Good. Doubt means possibility. And possibility means room to negotiate.
"Well, I understand your doubt. I'd doubt it too, if some random stranger said that to me," I said. "So if even a commoner like me can find room to doubt, then someone as noble and intelligent as yourself must be capable of even sharper judgment. Still — I think a man of your intelligence already understands there's nothing to lose by simply testing me."
"I see… you do have a point." He considered it, still hesitant. "But what if you're wrong?"
"Then I'll withdraw from this exam myself," I said quietly.
"Ohhh — well then, since you're so eager to prove yourself useful to me, I'll allow you this seat," he said, looking at me the way one might look at a particularly promising tool.
I sat beside him without another word.
The exam began.
I helped him through every question I could, feeding him answers he already half-knew, just to build the trust I needed brick by brick.
When the exam ended and the room loosened into idle chatter while everyone waited for the next announcement, he leaned closer.
"You're quite a genius. Would you like to serve as my personal aide?" he asked, watching me with something almost like appraisal.
I'd already accounted for the possibility he might
not
offer, and had a backup plan ready in case he didn't. According to what I'd gathered, he genuinely needed an aide — his previous one had died as a direct result of his own carelessness.
"May I ask your wonderful name, my lord?" I asked, bowing low.
"It's Alaric von Draeven," he said, pride threaded through every syllable.
"Then would it be alright if I called you Draeven-sama?"
"Heh — I didn't expect a commoner to know proper manners," Draeven said, visibly pleased.
I gave a polite laugh in return. "Not that much, my lord. But it's my pleasure to be praised by you."
As we spoke, the hall around us gradually scattered into loose clusters of students, voices rising and falling. Then a man stepped through the door, and the entire room fell silent without him needing to say a single word. A heavy pressure of mana rolled off him, settling over the hall like a weight.
"Okay, since everyone's thankfully gone quiet on their own, I'll introduce myself," he said, his voice heavy and faintly lazy, like a man who'd rather be sleeping than standing in front of a room full of teenagers. "My name is Valerian Ashrune, and I could be your permanent instructor. Okay, that's it. Now we're moving to the practice area. Everyone, line up according to your number."
At his word, everyone — myself included — fell into line.
The instructor began calling numbers.
"Okay, number 76. First, dodge that dummy's attack, then march forward without getting hit by that axe, and then — with magic, sword, or your own physical strength — try to defeat that knight. It's fine if you can't. This is just to gauge your baseline strength," he said, still in that tired, half-asleep voice.
"Here I go!" Number 76 called out, bright and confident.
He barely dodged the dummy, nearly caught the axe across his shoulder, and put up an admirably strong fight against the knight before finally losing. He passed anyway.
So if I do roughly the same, I can pass without giving away my real strength.
If my information was correct, Draeven could clear this too — he had the raw physical ability for it, at least by my estimation.
"Okay, number 99…" the instructor called, and repeated the same set of instructions, his voice carrying the flat cadence of a skill that recited the same script every single time it activated.
I handled the dummy and the axe exactly as I'd planned. But the knight came at me with noticeably more killing intent than it had shown the others.
I had to respond in kind — and in the split second of that unexpected pressure, I forgot to hold back. The knight's sword shattered in my hands.
Look at that.
The reactions around me ranged from amused, to visibly impressed, to openly suspicious.
I need to do something about this, or everyone's going to start watching me too closely.
"Sir, why did you use a damaged sword?" I asked, voice sharpened with irritation, expression carefully arranged into serious offense.
Now he either admits his intentions, or agrees with me to save face.
"Because I can't use a real one in front of students. Though you did well, for your level," he replied.
So he came at me harder because of my class.
If that was true, then his praise rang hollow — more likely, he'd simply been irritated that someone from a lower class had outperformed his expectations. There were five others from my same class scattered through the exam.
I thought it over for a moment.
Maybe I should help them too, later.
As the practical exam wound down, I drifted sideways, using the movement as cover to survey my surroundings.
She tried her usual trick again, appearing without warning at my side. And once again, I obliged with a convincing flinch.
She really does have a talent for catching me off balance at the strangest possible moments.
"Why were you holding back?" Shirohana asked, her voice pitched low and faintly flirtatious, her face closer to mine than strictly necessary.
My guard rose instantly. Was I being too transparent? Or — worse — was this simply the second time she'd noticed, out of who knew how many?
How is she reading me like this.
Should I deal with her first, before this went any further? But I couldn't read her either — not her intentions, not her power. Silencing her outright felt premature; I still had no idea what level she operated at. Forcing her to reveal her cards would only expose mine in return.
I caught myself spiraling and reeled the thought back in with a quiet sigh.
For now — just observe.
Before I could settle on anything more, she vanished, and this time I didn't even register how she'd done it.
Draeven approached a moment later.
"You're more skilled than I thought," he said, resting a hand on my shoulder.
"I'm honored to be praised by you, Draeven-sama. May I ask you for a request?" I said.
"Don't get ahead of yourself. Still — since you've impressed me, you have a chance."
"If you don't mind, may I apply for the position of your official servant?"
He fell silent for a moment, weighing it.
"Well. You've got a good head on your shoulders, and useful skills to go with it. I think you'll do, for now. Meet me at the school entrance once all this is over."
So far, so good.
Now came the part that actually mattered.
After finishing the attendance and registration procedures, I finally made my way to where Draeven had told me to wait.
"Ah, you came. I was waiting," he said.
"I'm honored, Draeven-sama," I said, bowing.
He glanced around at the crowd still milling through the courtyard.
"Well. This place has too much noise, too many people. Let's go to my place. As my aide, you'll need to learn the way regardless."
Heh. Just as I expected.
He intended to finalize the contract somewhere private — likely using a fake seal on his end as well, since ordinary citizens had no way to verify a noble's true stamp without direct authorization.
Still, he really should have considered that someone
might
find out anyway. But since that only made my job easier, I supposed I owed him a small, silent thanks.
He climbed into his wagon first, then gestured me in after him.
"Ah, thank you," I said, offering a pleasant smile as I stepped up.
For the entire ride, he watched me from across the seat, chin propped against one arm, his eyes narrowed in mild, appraising curiosity.
"You know, the price of this wagon alone could buy four commoner houses," he said suddenly, breaking the silence.
"Oh — then it's my pleasure to be able to sit in something so expensive," I replied, keeping my tone properly deferential.
With his pride sufficiently fed, we finally arrived at his estate.
The moment I stepped down from the wagon, I spotted my father standing a short distance away, near the corner of the grounds, speaking quietly with one of the guards.
For a single, dangerous second, I nearly let my expression slip.
I forced it back down before it could show.
This never happened to me in my past life.
Even now, I could have simply looked away, pretended not to notice. But I couldn't. Not this time.
Price tags follow you everywhere, I suppose.
This, apparently, was the cost of having something to lose.
As we walked closer, I let my eyes drift across the grounds. Draeven's mansion rose tall at the center of a yard so vast that calling it a "yard" felt almost like an insult — it was closer to a private park. Statues lined the path from the gate to the front doors, pale marble figures caught mid-gesture, and lanterns had been placed at even intervals across the entire grounds, waiting for dusk to make them useful.
A guard stepped into my path before I'd gone much farther.
"Wait. Show your rank and citizen card."
Damn. I hadn't planned for this.
If he saw my citizen card, he'd see my father's name attached to it too — and if that connection surfaced now, it could unravel everything I'd built today.
"Wait… you look familiar to someone…" the guard said slowly, studying my face.
I felt the flinch before I could stop it, though years of practice let me keep my composure from cracking outright. Staying calm and knowing exactly
how
to handle a situation, I was quickly reminded, were two very different skills.
What do I do. Think. Think. Think.
Before the thought could finish looping, Draeven spoke up, clearly irritated at the delay.
"He's my guest."
The guard lowered his sword without further argument.
I continued inside, keeping my head slightly bowed. This — precisely this — was why I'd needed to come here in person. My clones' assignments were short and clean, with no real security to navigate. This part required me.
I also still needed one more piece of information: who, exactly, managed the exchange of information and money between House Draeven and House Valemont — the noble who'd taken money from my father.
"Sit here. I'm coming," Draeven said, gesturing to a chair before stepping out of the room — presumably to make preparations of his own.
I sat, glanced around, and once I'd confirmed no one was watching except whatever passive sensors lined the walls, I activated Conceal Skill.
Then I rose and slipped quietly toward the room I suspected, with reasonable confidence, belonged to his father.
I wound my way past maids, butlers, and more than a few patrolling guards, narrowly avoiding a maid polishing the wall lamps who nearly turned at the wrong moment, and finally reached the office.
I began sorting through the documents, searching for anything tied to the dealings I intended to expose. In the process, I noticed a locked drawer tucked into the corner bookshelf — locked, though not against a skill like mine.
As I sifted through the papers inside, I caught the sound of Draeven's footsteps returning to the room where he'd left me.
Tch. Faster than I expected.
A poor showing, for an assassin.
Fortunately, I could still teleport to any location I'd already seen with my own eyes. As his footsteps drew closer, I teleported back into the waiting room and dropped into the chair just in time.
He arrived carrying the contract, already stamped with his fake seal, and told me to sign my side. I did, pressing my own mark beside his. He settled onto the sofa afterward to wait.
He's expecting his father soon,
I guessed.
The front door opened moments later, and a man walked in, dressed with the effortless polish of someone born to it. Every maid and butler in sight paused to greet him properly as he passed.
Hearing the voice, Draeven straightened immediately, the posture of someone who'd been waiting for exactly this.
His father opened the door to the room, and Draeven rose to greet him. The man settled beside his son and launched into a conversation about the new servant, largely ignoring the servant himself, seated quietly nearby.
Fair enough,
I thought.
Makes sense he'd want to introduce his own hire.
Heh. Someone's going to have to clean up Draeven's messes eventually.
I'd expected this particular opportunity to take longer to arrange. This worked out rather nicely.
"Alaric, how did you come across this servant? Is he trustworthy?" his father asked, his tone heavy and deliberate.
"Yes, Father. Don't worry — I've seen his skills myself."
Then his father turned his attention toward me.
"Oi, you. Come here."
"Yes, sir. What is it?" I asked, approaching with a properly bent posture.
He studied me for a moment, a faint smile curling as he leaned forward. "If you had to betray me — how would you do it?"
Oh. Wasn't expecting that one.
Still, I recognized an opportunity when it landed in my lap — a chance to plant a seed that would grow all on its own, given time.
"How could I do such a thing, sir?" I said, letting my expression twist into something appropriately scandalized.
He laughed. "Just say, in case."
"Well then… forgive my impoliteness," I said. "Imagine a scenario in which I am a spy, sent by your trusted business partner."
"That's oddly specific — and rather realistic, coming from you. Shouldn't I start doubting you already?" he said, clearly amused.
A short laugh followed. "Yeah, alright, alright. Continue."
"So, I'll go ahead and say, sir…"
I laid the entire scenario out for him under the guise of fiction — a spy sent by a trusted business partner, methodically working his way in. I let the details drift, without quite naming him, toward his black-market associate: the very noble who had taken money from my father. I gave him plausible reasons that partner might have to betray him.
As I spoke, his expression shifted, surprise slowly folding into something closer to caution.
When I finished, he laughed again. "Oi, oi — you're quite the storyteller. Wouldn't this make it hard for a man to sleep at night?"
Then, abruptly, his face turned serious.
"Is this your story, or someone else's?"
"It's from a book called
Fall of a Mice
, sir. I wouldn't dare think of doing such a thing myself. And in that story, the man was a professional assassin, sir. I'm just a fourteen-year-old who hasn't even become a student yet."
He laughed again, louder this time, and clapped a hand onto my shoulder. "I was only joking. Though I did enjoy your storytelling." He turned to his son. "Draeven, he's become my favorite. Don't use him roughly."
"Ah — of course, Father."
The seed is planted, I suppose.
After the conversation, the tea, and the dinner that followed, I remained standing at the edge of the room the entire time, unacknowledged and perfectly patient.
Eventually his father sent Draeven off to bed and ordered a maid to show me to my room. As we walked, I asked her for a handkerchief and quietly wiped my shoulder clean where his father's hand had rested.
The room she showed me to was small, a little dusty from disuse. Not that it mattered — I had no intention of sleeping tonight anyway.
I pretended to be asleep each of the three times she came to check on me.
Midnight arrived.
Once I'd confirmed, through Kon Saku, that the household had genuinely settled into sleep, I let a passive sleep skill radiate outward from where I lay — something I'd been quietly maintaining ever since I first stepped into the room.
I slipped into Draeven's room and bound him without waking him.
As I moved toward the window to make my exit, I noticed a mage stationed at the mansion's edge, quietly maintaining a barrier spread across the entire property — one that would alert the household the instant anyone tried to enter or leave. My sleep skill hadn't reached him. Likely, he had some ward of his own protecting against exactly that kind of interference.
Tch. Teleportation it is, then.
I jumped, location by location, through every spot inside the mansion I'd already laid eyes on, working my way toward the mage's position without tripping a single alarm. Once I found him, I put him under just as cleanly, then cast a mirrored barrier of my own over the mansion — one rigged to dissolve the moment I moved far enough away.
I slipped past the outer guards, carried Draeven's unconscious body out through the grounds, and made my way toward an old ruin roughly ten kilometers from the border. I set him down there, laid a spell over him to keep him unconscious a while longer, then withdrew a short distance and waited for my clones to finish their part.
The stage is set. Now, let the play begin.
I suppose I should explain the shape of the plan, now that it was finally in motion.
Everything up to this point had merely been preparation. The real operation was only just beginning.
The first objective had been simple enough on paper: get close to Draeven, earn his trust, and use that trust to walk straight into the Draeven estate — because his father held the records of their illegal dealings, and Draeven himself was, conveniently, incompetent. A weakness worth exploiting.
Earlier that same day, my first clone had anonymously notified the Royal Knights. The message had been short and clean: a group of corrupt nobles would soon be conducting illegal business.
I never expected justice alone to move anyone. People are inconsistent by nature, and institutions built out of people are worse. So I'd added a second incentive.
Money.
That way, whether the knights came chasing justice or chasing greed, it wouldn't matter in the end. They'd come regardless.
My second clone had a different task entirely. After studying the appearance of one of House Draeven's senior butlers, it had assumed his likeness and slipped into position. Its mission: steal the official seal belonging to the noble who had humiliated my father, then guide his forces — under whatever pretext necessary — straight toward the ruins.
My third clone carried perhaps the simplest job of the three. It would steal a Royal Coin from an entirely different noble, one quietly involved in the exploitation and deaths of commoners elsewhere in the region. I had no intention of striking at
him
today — that particular web of corruption ran far deeper than I could untangle in a single night. For now, I would only strike the ones who had personally crossed my path.
The Royal Coin mattered because only members of the royal family, or those they'd directly authorized, were permitted to carry one. That noble had acquired his illegally. Which meant that even if it were discovered on him, he wouldn't be able to defend himself without exposing an entirely separate crime in the process.
Sometimes, silence is forced on people long before prison ever enters the picture.
I'd also gambled that the knights themselves might be susceptible to bribery, so I'd quietly implied — through the tip — that if they failed to arrest the nobles on the spot, they'd risk being implicated in a crime against the royal family themselves.
Now then. Let's see how my clones are doing.
Elsewhere, along the road cutting east through the hills—
"Chase him! Don't let him escape!"
A noble's furious voice tore across the open road. Nearly fifty mounted guards thundered after a single fleeing figure, hooves churning up clouds of dust in the moonlight.
The clone laughed without bothering to glance back. "Hahaha! Try catching me if you've got the balls!"
Behind him, the pounding of hooves never let up, relentless against the packed dirt. Exactly as planned, the second clone led the noble's entire retinue further and further toward the abandoned ruins waiting to receive them.
Meanwhile, back at House Draeven—
The barrier mage, left unconscious near the mansion's edge, finally stirred and regained his senses. Within moments, the alarm tore through the estate. And yet the mansion's barrier still held firm — no one inside could leave.
I suppose it's time,
I thought, and quietly released my imitation barrier. The instant I put roughly a hundred meters of distance between myself and the mansion, the spell dissolved cleanly, leaving no trace behind.
"I—" Theodric von Draeven swung himself onto his horse, eyes burning with fury. "I can smell his scent now! Follow me! My son has been taken — that kidnapper will pay!" He thrust his sword toward the distant treeline. "All men! After me!
Haaah!!
"
The soldiers roared as one and surged after their lord into the dark.
Not long after, the second clone reached the ruins.
"He went into that building! After him!" one commander shouted, pointing toward the crumbling structure.
The pursuing noble raised a hand sharply. "Wait. Surround the ruins first." His eyes swept the treeline. "Ten of you — come inside with me."
"Understood!"
The order rippled outward through the ranks. What had been a silent, forgotten ruin filled quickly with the clatter of armor and the low murmur of voices, the calm of the place dissolving into rising chaos.
Inside, the third clone waited patiently, hidden beneath layered concealment. The moment the noble stepped into the ruined hall, it slipped the stolen Royal Coin into his coat pocket without a sound, without a trace.
Where is he…?
the noble thought, scanning the shadows.
If that seal gets exposed, this could get troublesome.
"I know you're here!" he called out, voice bouncing off broken stone. "Come out! You have nowhere to run!"
One of his guards shouted from deeper inside. "My lord! Someone's tied up over here — conscious!"
"Let me see."
The noble strode toward the bound figure, and the instant he recognized the young man's face, his expression froze solid.
…Draeven.
At nearly that same moment, Theodric von Draeven arrived at the ruins, tracking the magical scent left behind on his son. He dismounted immediately, sending his men fanning out through the structure while he pressed alone into the main hall.
There, he found his son — bound, unconscious — and standing nearby, another noble entirely.
"You have nowhere to run," Theodric said, voice gone cold. "Return my son."
The other noble frowned, something tugging uneasily at the edge of his memory.
That voice… why does it sound familiar?
Theodric's eyes widened. "Cassian… Valemont?"
Cassian turned slowly. "…Theodric von Draeven?"
Silence swallowed the hall whole. Neither man moved. Outside, their respective soldiers combed every corner of the ruins, and moments later, the same report reached both sides.
"No one else is inside!"
The silence deepened further still. Theodric stared into Cassian's eyes, doubt and confusion and suspicion tangling together behind his gaze.
"Explain yourself, Cassian," he said at last, restrained fury threading through every word. "Why did you do this?"
"I—" Cassian began.
He never finished.
"Surround the entire area!"
A commanding voice rang out through the ruins. A heavily armored man strode in first, one gauntleted hand glowing with light magic that flooded the dark hall in cold white radiance.
"You all," he said, gaze sweeping the room. "What are you doing here? Show yourselves!"
It was Leopold Viremont, commander of the Royal Knights. His eyes landed on the two nobles, and widened.
"Lord Draeven…" A beat. "…Lord Valemont?"
Shock crossed his face for only an instant before vanishing entirely, replaced by something far more settled.
"So," he said, voice hardening. "You two are the corrupt dealers." Not a question. Not even quite an accusation. A conclusion already reached.
"It's—" Both nobles started to speak at once.
Too late.
Before either could get another word out, hundreds of papers came raining down from the broken ceiling above, drifting like snow — far more dangerous than anything so gentle had any right to be. Every eye in the room followed them instinctively as the documents scattered across the stone floor, landing squarely in front of both Draeven and Valemont.
Leopold crouched, picked one up, and began to read. His expression darkened with every line.
At that exact moment, hidden high above, I severed the stitching on Valemont's coat pocket from a distance. A small metallic object slipped free and dropped.
Clink.
The sound rang out clean and sharp through the ruined hall. Every head turned downward. A Royal Coin rolled across the stone floor and came to rest, glinting faintly in the light.
Silence. Absolute silence.
For every person standing in that hall, the meaning of that single coin was entirely different.
Leopold turned his gaze slowly back to Valemont. "So. Not only this — you were involved in
that
, as well?" His expression no longer held even a shred of doubt. Only certainty.
"This—" Valemont scrambled for words that wouldn't come.
"Arrest them," Leopold said, immediate and final, almost as though he'd been waiting his entire career for exactly this moment.
The knights moved without hesitation.
"Wait. We can talk," Valemont said, forcing calm into his voice, his fingers twitching a subtle signal toward one of his men. A bribe, quietly offered.
Leopold caught it from the corner of his eye. "You think I'd change my judgment over
that
?" His voice went colder still. "Collect every document. Take every piece of evidence. Leave nothing behind."
"Yes, Commander!"
The knights obeyed at once.
As the group began filing out of the ruined building, I quietly dropped a heavy money bag from the rooftop above, letting it land directly behind Valemont.
Thud.
He spun at the sound. A large bag of coins sat in the dirt behind him, and Leopold noticed it too. For several long seconds, the commander simply stared upward, toward the broken roof — though there was no way he could actually see me through my concealment.
He spoke anyway.
"Thanks for the information. I wouldn't have been able to arrest them without it." A pause. "I don't know who you are. But — don't appear before me again. Otherwise, I'll have to arrest you too."
His tone stayed firm all the way through, though something like the faintest trace of regret lingered beneath it. Then he turned away, leading both prisoners and his knights out of the ruins and into the night.
From high above, hidden beneath my concealment, I watched them all disappear into the darkness — knights, prisoners, nobles, gradually swallowed by distance until nothing remained but the wind moving through broken stone.
"So then,"
I murmured to myself, letting a small sigh escape.
"I should go home and get some sleep now. …Now I can finally sleep in peace."
Just as I rose to my feet, something shot toward me like a bolt of lightning.
BOOM!!
Pure instinct took over. I drew my sword and barely managed to block, the sheer force behind the impact shattering the rooftop beneath my feet. Stone gave way all at once, and both of us crashed straight through the roof and down into the ruined hall below, dust billowing up in a thick cloud, broken masonry scattering across the floor around us.
I climbed slowly to my feet. "Who is it?"
A figure stepped forward out of the settling dust, moonlight pouring down through the shattered ceiling and catching silver in her hair as it swayed in the night breeze. A fluffy white tail moved lazily behind her. Those familiar moon-colored eyes met mine, and a faint smile touched her lips.
"Isn't it cold of you, to leave without telling me, Katsu-san?"
"…You again. Kitsune."
She puffed her cheeks out in mock offense. "'Kitsune' is very unfriendly."
"Ah," I said, a beat too late. "I never told you my name, did I. How rude of me."
She lifted the sides of her kimono and dipped into a bow of flawless court etiquette. "My name is… Shirohana Yukimori."
"What are you doing here?"
She was — genuinely, completely — impossible to predict.
Her smile faded. She tilted her head slightly to one side.
"Didn't I tell you to drop your act?" Her expression turned serious.
"Huh?"
"I suppose," she said, "I'll have to bring it out myself."
Without another word, a katana appeared in her hand as though pulled straight out of empty air, and she dropped into a lowered stance. Before I could so much as respond, she vanished — and the next instant, she was already in front of me, her blade descending toward my throat.
Clang!!
I barely caught it in time. The shockwave from the collision rippled outward, cracking the stone underfoot.
"What is your purpose?"
"You," she answered, immediate, without a trace of hesitation or embarrassment. She spun her sword effortlessly, flipping over my head to land behind me, and struck again. I twisted my blade back just in time to block, spinning to face her once more.
She smiled. "Isn't this fun, Katsu? Just you and me… under the moonlight."
Her voice carried an oddly playful, faintly flirtatious lilt. Then she raised her sword toward the heavens.
"Yuki no Tamari."
The temperature around us plummeted instantly. An enormous sphere of ice began forming high above the ruins, swelling larger and larger with every passing second, until it blotted out the sky entirely, its sheer size rivaling the battlefield itself.
Without hesitation, I swung my sword.
"Honoo."
The massive sphere split cleanly in two, both halves dissolving instantly into thick clouds of steam that crashed harmlessly down beyond the edges of the ruins.
The next instant, we vanished from each other's sight entirely — to any ordinary eye, neither of us existed anymore at all. Only explosions remained, shockwaves and flying debris and countless sparks scattering across the battlefield as steel met steel again, and again, and again, each collision splitting the earth beneath us a little further.
"It's fun! It's fun!" Shirohana laughed, bright and unrestrained, her smile only growing brighter with every exchange.
I vanished from her sight and reappeared directly behind her.
"Zangeki. Ichi no Kata. Yamagiri."
Flames engulfed my blade as I brought it down — a slash powerful enough to cleave a mountain in half. She only smiled, tilting her head back ever so slightly.
"Yuki no Kagami."
The slash vanished, reflected somewhere far beyond the battlefield entirely. Several distant mountains split cleanly down their centers; others were left carved with enormous scars stretching across their slopes. No one watching from the villages below would ever know why.
"Yukitora."
An enormous dragon made entirely of ice roared toward me across the ruined hall.
"Zettai Honoo."
Absolute flames erupted from my sword, and the two forces collided violently, throwing off waves of heat and cold that warred against each other in the air. As I focused on holding the block, she appeared behind me, sword already raised.
I kicked off my own flaming shield, redirecting the impact straight into the ice dragon, and used the resulting momentum to spin around instantly. My sword cut clean through her.
Mist. Only an illusion.
When the smoke finally cleared, she was everywhere — dozens of her, hundreds, thousands, filling every direction at once, each one wearing the exact same smile.
"What exactly is your goal, Yukimori?"
"If you don't call me by my first name," she said, still attacking without slowing for even a moment, "I won't answer."
"…I see." I let out a slow breath.
"Honoo yo. Waga Katachi to Nare."
The night sky ignited. Behind me, fifty thousand clones appeared all at once, each one carrying a sword identical to my own.
Well. I could always make more.
"Then," she said, smiling sweetly, "I should too."
The sky behind her twisted and distorted, and fifty thousand Shirohanas bloomed across the heavens in answer — an endless sea of white tails and gleaming blades stretching from horizon to horizon.
We raised our swords toward each other in silence. Our armies moved first.
The sky erupted. Clone clashed against clone in every direction, fire and ice detonating against each other in bursts of light that turned the night into something closer to a field of newborn, dying stars. Before the collision could spread any further, I extended a barrier outward, stretching it all the way to the borders of the region, containing every shockwave, every explosion inside it.
Without that barrier, the impact alone would have devastated everything within a thousand kilometers. Countries. Villages. Mountains. All of it.
Inside the barrier, a silent apocalypse unfolded in complete secrecy. Outside it, the world slept on, utterly undisturbed.
Eventually, the smoke settled. Both of us landed back on the ruined ground below, and for the first time all night, neither of us raised a blade.
I cleared my throat. "Ahem. Shirohana-san. What's your goal?"
…I actually caved to her demand.
That was, admittedly, a little embarrassing.
She giggled, clasping her hands behind her back and leaning slightly forward. "Didn't I already tell you? It's you."
A teasing smile spread across her face.
"Then why are you attacking me?"
She looked genuinely, almost comically confused by the question. "Isn't it romantic — to have a secret that's only between the two of us?" She pointed toward me. "Only I know that you're this strong."
Ro—
Ro—
Wait. What?
My thoughts ground to a complete halt.
She chuckled at whatever expression I was wearing. "Though — I know this isn't even half of your true strength. Nor mine." With a smooth, practiced motion, she sheathed her katana. "But this much is enough. For now."
She turned to leave.
"Call me by my first name from now on," she said, waving a hand casually over her shoulder. "Oh — one more thing. Check your status."
The moment she finished speaking, she vanished without a trace, leaving nothing behind but drifting dust and the fading warmth of moonlight.
…Status? What did she do?
I opened my status window.
…
…
There. A new entry.
Soul Link
A one-time phenomenon. Your soul has become linked with another.
…
…
When?
…My permission?
I stared at the screen in complete silence, question after question surfacing with no answers waiting behind any of them.
By the time I made it home, the sky had already begun to lighten at the edges. I quietly pushed the front door open.
"Welcome home."
Mother and Father greeted me together, their voices instantly pulling me back from everything that had happened over the course of the night — the blood, the ruins, the fire and ice under a bleeding moon.
Before I could even answer, the questions started pouring in.
"Why did you suddenly tell us you're going to become a noble's servant?"
"Are you alright?"
"How was your examination?"
Their worried expressions made it painfully clear neither of them had slept much at all.
Ah.
A small, genuine smile found its way onto my face without my permission.
I can finally relax.
"I'm fine, Mom. I'm fine, Dad." I looked between them both. "I'm just… a little tired."
A pause.
"…Also. I'm home."
…Ah.
I was smiling.