Chapter 1 - Chapter 1

Translator: Nox

Chapter 1Chapter 1

Whoosh—

The sound of reeds rippling like waves in the wind echoed in my ears.

The poison spreading through my body had long since blurred my vision.

Hot blood surged up from my stomach, making it hard to breathe.

I lay collapsed with my face buried in the filthy mud, barely managing to lift only my eyes.

The man I trusted more than anyone in this world, the man I loved more than anyone, was grinning with a sinister smile.

“How does it feel to have your face shoved in the mud, Kayla?”

To think my one and only lover could speak in a voice so full of malice.

To think I only realized it at the moment of my death.

It was enough to make me let out a hollow laugh.

“Yeah, you probably can’t answer. I coated it with poison, after all. You’d know what kind of poison it is, wouldn’t you?”

Ian Angel.

My one and only lover, and the vice-leader of the continent’s top assassin guild, Angel’s Breath.

‘Did I really not know?’

No, the truth was, I had known what kind of man he was.

Thorough, cold, a man who knew nothing but the targets given to him.

I had only hoped that I would always be the exception for him.

“I thought the Grim Reaper wouldn’t die even if killed. Guess that wasn’t the case.”

Ian stepped on the dagger embedded in my back with his foot, driving it even deeper.

Then he squatted down beside me, grabbed my face, and forced me to meet his eyes.

Flames of rage burned in his ashen, ruined gray eyes.

Eyes that had once been unbearably lovable now filled me with unbearable resentment.

“Why… why……”

I barely managed to get the words out, hoping to at least hear his reason, but he just sneered.

“Who knows. Why, indeed.”

Ian murmured quietly, his face one I’d never seen before.

“…You should know the reason better than I do. Are you really asking because you don’t know?”

Was I going mad, or did the face of the man who’d stabbed me in the back actually look sad?

After staying silent for a long while, he suddenly shot to his feet.

My face sank halfway back into the mud as a result.

“Then use this chance to think it over real good. Why I’m doing this.”

A chill emanated from his back as he turned away without mercy.

“See you in the next world.”

As Ian turned and walked off, black shadows waiting behind him sprang forward.

Their movements were swift, as if they’d been awaiting his command.

“Burn her. Don’t leave even ashes.”

The black-clad assassins approached me with torches in hand.

One of them poured the oil he carried over my body without sparing a drop.

“I, Ian, please……”

I struggled to move my lips in plea, but it fell on deaf ears.

They tossed the torches onto me without hesitation.

The flames, fed by the oil, blazed black with the ferocity to burn me down to the bone.

I felt my entire body crumbling to ash in an instant, before I could even scream.

Whether fortunate or unfortunate, the poison coursing through me dulled all pain.

‘Is this my end?’

For a life of struggling to survive, it was a truly wretched finale.

At last, I slowly closed my eyes.

The day the blade of the one I loved more than anything pierced me.

The day the inferno devoured my still-breathing flesh.

I lost everything.

The organization I’d devoted my life to.

The lover I’d loved more than my own life.

The life that had clung on more tenaciously than anyone’s.

.

.

.

“Mama!”

Twenty years as an assassin.

My line of work had naturally forged me a heart of steel, so I was certain nothing could surprise me anymore.

But this time was different. Very different. Extremely so.

“Nanny, gimme mama!”

I opened my eyes to the bizarre noise.

The moment I did, an unfamiliar ceiling and a bizarre golden fluffball came into view.

“Nanny, Lia’s hungry!”

The golden fluffball had climbed on top of me without permission and kept on whining.

…But since when did fluffballs talk?

No, more importantly, I’d clearly died in that reed field, hadn’t I?

“Huh?!”

I shot up from the bed, gasping raggedly like someone dragged from drowning.

“Kyaang!”

Startled, the talking golden fluffball let out a bizarre shriek as it tumbled to the corner of the bed.

Reflexively, I patted my face and body.

My breathing and pulse were normal; my skin still held warmth.

That was right. I was still alive.

“Nanny, what’s wrong?”

Meanwhile, the little fluffball was tilting its head repeatedly, as if my reaction was strange.

But I had no time to indulge its confusion.

“A mirror—where’s a mirror?”

“Mirror? There’s a mirror over there.”

When I asked urgently, the fluffball kindly pointed it out.

I dashed in that direction.

A stranger stood in the mirror with its crude decorations.

“What… is this…?”

The sight in the mirror was so absurd it made me doubt even the certain moment of my death.

I slowly lifted my hair.

The stranger in the mirror did the same.

I lowered my hair again, forgetting to breathe.

After staring dazedly into the mirror for a while, I slapped both cheeks hard this time.

Smack!

“Ugh!”

The sharp pain that bloomed across both cheeks was intense enough to draw a groan.

At this point, I had no choice but to accept it, no matter how much I didn’t want to.

I’d died and come back to life as someone else.

Something utterly impossible had happened to me.

“Nanny, why hit? Don’t hit! It hurts!”

The fluffball ran over and tugged at my skirt, but I had no attention to spare for it.

The reality before my eyes was too shocking.

I examined the new “me” reflected in the mirror in detail.

The short-cropped red hair that had exposed my nape was gone.

In its place, glossy dark brown hair cascaded down past my chest.

And it wasn’t just my hair that had changed.

My sharp, sensitive features had become utterly gentle and kind.

My rigorously trained, sturdy body had become soft and frail.

“Ha.”

I let out a hollow sigh.

In short, I’d become a completely different person from head to toe.

The only thing unchanged was my green eyes with their subtle golden sheen.

But my relief at finding even that one similarity to my old body was short-lived.

My head still throbbed with unresolved questions.

‘I clearly died, so why am I alive?’

Why? For what reason?

Just then, someone knocked on the door.

“Lady Brown, are you inside?”

It was all so sudden.

My already sluggish mind went completely blank.

Unfamiliar appearance, unfamiliar surroundings, unfamiliar voice.

My heart began racing and wouldn’t calm down.

That was when the fluffball cried out softly.

“Witch hag! It’s the witch hag!”

Witch hag?

I looked down at the fluffball.

Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t a fluffball but a little girl.

Around four or five years old, perhaps.

Tousled golden curls, large blue eyes, golden dress.

The girl, dyed all in gold, really did look like a golden fluffball at a glance.

In any case, the child’s words were no help.

I pressed my throbbing temples and closed my eyes.

‘Calm down, Kayla Angel. Remember who you are.’

Self-suggestion always worked.

I quickly regained my composure and began analyzing my surroundings out of habit.

‘The voice I heard outside the door earlier was the continental common tongue.’

The only nation that used the continental common tongue in everyday life was the Ventrum Empire.

Which meant this place was undoubtedly somewhere in the Ventrum Empire.

For me, born and raised in the Ventrum Empire, it was at least hopeful news.

I swept my sharp gaze around once more.

‘Silk wallpaper everywhere. High-quality stuff, too.’

Even with trade booming with the eastern continent and silk prices dropping, silk was still fundamentally a luxury good.

‘High chance this is a noble household of at least earl rank or above.’

Moreover, the furniture filling the room was closer to artwork than anything commoners could acquire.

‘But……’

There was one thing that bothered me.

The clothes I was wearing.

‘It’s a dress made of pretty good fabric. But too plain.’

No matter how I looked at it, it seemed unsuitable for a noble lady or princess.

‘Calluses on the hands, and the shoe heels are too low.’

The cuffs of the sleeves and hem of the skirt were even slightly worn.

Compared to the clothes on the child before me, the difference was stark.

I examined the child’s outfit closely.

It was fine silk clothing such as high nobles might wear.

‘Was the original owner of this body something like the child’s maid?’

Just then, another knock came from outside.

“Rachel Brown, I know you’re in there! Open this door right now!”

Irritation laced the voice of the person outside.

“One moment, please.”

I chose words that wouldn’t arouse suspicion no matter who heard.

Then I slowly approached the door, one step at a time.

The moment I grasped the handle and turned it to open the door.

The owner of the voice revealed herself.

Before the door was fully open, a middle-aged woman pushed her way in.

Judging by her attire, she was a maid, and one of fairly high rank.

‘Head Maid.’

In that instant, a storm of scolding fiercer than a hail of arrows assailed me.

“If you got in here with a letter of recommendation, at least do your job properly!”

I couldn’t help frowning at the high-pitched tone piercing my eardrums.

“How can a nanny serve Their Highnesses if she’s this lazy!”

I felt sorry for the woman venting her tirade, but I had no idea what she was talking about.

‘Nanny? Their Highnesses?’

A thin crease formed between my brows at the troublesome words spilling from her mouth.

‘Wait, Their Highnesses?’

Only then did I notice the emblem engraved on the door handle.

A silver stag encircled by laurel leaves.

It was unmistakably the imperial crest of the empire.

‘Damn it.’

No doubt about it.

The place where I’d opened my eyes was none other than the Imperial Palace of the Ventrum Empire.

* * *

It felt exactly like a dream.

If not for the cheeks still stinging, I might have believed it was one.

I couldn’t believe I’d died and come back to life. And the place I’d revived in was the imperial palace, of all places.

‘This is going to be a hassle.’

The Imperial Palace.

A place I’d frequented more than my own home due to my profession, but one I avoided most.

The reason was simple.

The Imperial Palace was the dirtiest, most sordid place in the entire empire.

Meanwhile, noticing me standing there blankly without responding, the woman frowned.

“Rachel? Are you listening to me?”

“Ah, my head’s hurting a little……”

I averted my gaze and trailed off intentionally.

She used polite speech with me, so her status wasn’t that high, but one could never be too sure.

Using honorifics ambiguously might make me seem even more suspicious.

That was when the golden-fluffball-like child hiding behind me popped out.

“Imperial Princess Emilia. So here you were. You startled us, disappearing without a word.”

“Uh, y-yeah.”

The child mumbled a vague reply to the head maid and hid behind me again.

No wonder her clothes were of such fine quality—she was someone of high standing.

‘But I didn’t expect her to be the Imperial Princess.’

The head maid gave the child a displeased look before turning her arrows back on me.

“While you were away, His Highness Edwin disappeared. Do you know how much of a commotion the annex maids made flocking to me? And you, recommended by Lady Conrad, can’t even handle your own duties……”

She jerked her head irritably toward the door.

“Go find him and bring him back at once. Always causing trouble over the pettiest things……”

She shook her head as if it gave her a headache and left the room.

Without even listening for my response, as if it wasn’t needed.

‘She just came to nag? She’s diligent, I’ll give her that.’

I stared blankly at the closed door, then dashed back to the mirror.

The unfamiliar woman was still gazing back at me from within.

No, this was ‘me’ now.

“…Rachel Brown?”

The head maid had called me ‘Rachel Brown.’

And she’d said Rachel Brown had entered this place on Lady Conrad’s recommendation.

And that I…

“Nanny? Wrong?”

The child was still staring at me with her bright, innocent eyes.

Looking at the little girl who didn’t even reach my waist, a sigh escaped me naturally.

“…Me, a nanny.”