Chapter 2
I’d lived my entire life without any connection to children.
My chaotic thoughts were now giving me such vertigo that I felt on the verge of fainting.
‘At any rate, if she was recommended for this position, she must be a noble lady from some aristocratic family.’
I formed my first hypothesis about Rachel Brown, then immediately dismissed it.
At least as far as I knew, there wasn’t a single noble in the empire with the surname ‘Brown.’
To begin with, ‘Brown’ was the kind of surname only commoners would bear.
Noble surnames were supposed to have beautiful pronunciations and grand meanings.
‘Or else she’s a young lady from some worthless family fallen on hard times.’
This woman probably belonged to the latter category.
Even as a maidservant, the daughter of a prestigious house wouldn’t wear such threadbare clothes.
At that moment, a sharp headache crashed over me as if it had been lying in wait.
A chillingly familiar voice reverberated in my ear.
- Then, use this opportunity to think it over carefully. Why I’m doing this.
The presence of ‘him,’ whom I had forgotten, sprang back to vivid life.
- From the afterlife.
The center of my chest began to burn as if I’d swallowed a lump of charcoal.
Like that accursed flame that had gluttonously devoured my body was now scorching my heart.
“…Ian.”
I hadn’t meant to say it.
I hadn’t meant to let the name of the bastard who killed me pass my lips.
The blaze that had ignited in my chest spread to my eyes.
Tears streamed from my heated eyelids.
“Neyche, crying? Does it hurt?”
Just then, the furball—no, the child called Her Highness Emilia—clung to my knee.
“Neyche, don’t be hurt! Waaaaaah—!”
“No, wait…….”
The princess promptly burst into a flood of tears.
Watching her wail right along with me left me utterly flustered.
With no other choice, I cautiously placed my hand on Emilia’s tangled furball of hair.
I had no memory of ever soothing a child this young; it left me thoroughly disconcerted.
“…Please stop crying.”
I gently stroked the soft, downy texture of her hair.
I wondered if this would even work, but thankfully, it did.
Emilia’s tears ceased almost immediately under my touch.
“Mm-hmm, then Neyche won’t cry anymore either?”
“Yes. I won’t cry anymore.”
“Then Lia won’t cry either!”
The princess wiped her tears with surprising pluck, then pursed her lips determinedly.
Somehow, watching her cleared the fog from my mind.
Right. Now that I had died and come back to life, trivial emotions weren’t what mattered.
I clenched my fists and recalled his words.
- Burn her. Don’t leave even ashes behind.
Ian had wanted no trace of me left behind.
But in defiance of his wish, my soul had brazenly revived in someone else’s body.
‘Wait for me, Ian.’
I gritted my teeth, picturing the face of the lover who had plunged a dagger into my back.
‘Whatever the reason.’
A betrayer deserved only death.
I gritted my teeth, recalling the organization’s iron rule.
‘I will never forgive you.’
The day I opened my eyes not as the leader of the continent’s greatest assassin guild, but in the body of an imperial nanny.
I resolved to live this second life given to me solely for revenge.
“Neyche, Neyche.”
It was then, as I silently nursed my thirst for vengeance.
Emilia tugged at my skirt hem and whimpered.
“Oppa ran away. Let’s go find him.”
Oppa? Oh, right—the head maid had told me to find ‘His Highness Edwin.’
“Are you talking about His Highness Edwin?”
Realizing the child’s status as princess, I shifted to deferential speech.
“Yeah! Oppa’s name is Edwin!”
I nodded at Emilia’s words, then promptly furrowed my brow.
‘Wait a minute—is there any reason I should be hanging around here?’
Escaping the imperial palace would be no trouble for me.
I knew over half a dozen secret passages right now.
‘But even if I bolt out immediately, I can’t be sure I’d find Ian.’
I had no idea how much time had passed since my death, and I didn’t have a single coin to my name.
Charging out blindly in this situation would be sheer stupidity.
‘My body isn’t the honed machine it used to be, and rushing off without a plan could easily get me killed twice over.’
Gazing at the young princess Emilia before me, I made up my mind.
For the time being, I’d have to stick it out in this laughable ‘nanny’ role.
With the gravest expression imaginable, I flung open the door.
At last, my new life was beginning.
Finding the prince turned out to be easier than expected.
Emilia knew right where he was.
“Are you really sure it’s there?”
“Yeah! Ed oppa always plays in the stable!”
Impatient with Emilia’s toddling steps, I scooped her up in one arm and strode ahead briskly.
‘Why is she so light?’
A sweet, powdery scent wafted from the crown of the princess’s head, light enough to float away in a breeze.
‘Good grief, not a furball after all, but cotton candy.’
The cotton candy-like little princess wrapped her arms around my neck and giggled merrily.
“Neyche, so high!”
What could possibly be so amusing?
Leaving Emilia to fiddle with my hair, I pressed on at a good clip.
‘Come to think of it, what sort of fellow was Edwin?’
I’d slipped in and out of the palace countless times before my death, but the Third Prince’s Palace was a first.
‘For a prince’s residence, though…….’
The sprawling structure ringed by arched colonnades was, well…
Imposingly large, yet somehow empty inside.
‘Stark.’
Desolate in the truest sense.
‘Ah, now it’s coming back to me.’
Gazing at the barren palace stirred up a few scraps of information on the Third Prince.
Edwin Anaxinian Ventrum, third prince of the Ventrum Empire.
‘A child truly cast aside.’
Third Prince Edwin was the sole son of the current emperor, Kabelius III, and the third imperial consort, Edith Lionel.
Yet Consort Edith had departed this world three years prior.
Excessive bleeding during childbirth, they said—so likely right after birthing Emilia.
Leaving nothing behind for her children.
‘It couldn’t have been helped.’
As a foreigner to begin with, she had no real power base in the empire.
Practically sold off as a hostage, there was no way she’d have supporters.
‘The Lionel Kingdom was too wrapped up solving their own messes to pay any mind here.’
Third Prince Edwin and Imperial Princess Emilia had nothing whatsoever to recommend them.
In that way, their presence slowly faded from the palace.
As if they had never existed at all.
That was the extent of what I knew about Third Prince Edwin.
‘No wonder my memories were so fuzzy. He’s just that insignificant.’
Servants of masters without power always suffer the most.
Sticking around promised nothing but hardship ahead.
‘Best to make my escape sooner rather than later.’
Lost in such thoughts, I found myself in the rear garden of the annex.
‘Hmm, something feels off.’
No matter where I looked, there was no sign of the prince.
Frowning, I scanned the area before finally closing my eyes.
I poured all my focus into my senses, determined not to miss the slightest presence.
Then, I sensed quite a ruckus beyond the garden wall.
I hurried in that direction.
“This is…….”
The wall in the corner of the annex’s rear garden.
Bushes had been clumsily heaped over it, but my eyes weren’t so easily fooled.
Brushing them aside revealed a small hole in the wall.
The grass around it lay flattened.
The clear trace of a small animal—or a child—passing through.
With the prince nowhere to be seen in the garden, he must have slipped out this way.
‘No helping it.’
I set Emilia down on the ground.
“Neyche?”
“Your Highness, you must stay right here. Do you understand?”
“Stay still?”
Emilia fidgeted with her fingers, looking put out.
“Lia’s hungry.”
Come to think of it, she’d been complaining of hunger since we met.
I felt bad for her, but there was no choice.
I couldn’t just drag the young princess outside willy-nilly.
And if word got out that the prince had slipped out of his palace without escorts, all hell would break loose.
I had to track down that prince boy in a hurry.
“I’ll be right back. Just wait a moment, please.”
“Mmm, okay. Hurry back, ‘kay?”
Instead of replying, I gave the princess a quick nod, then drew a deep breath.
In one fluid motion, I kicked off the ground and vaulted over the wall.
“Neyche! Come baaack!”
Emilia’s delighted shout rang out from beyond the wall.
Thank goodness—this new body had pretty decent reflexes.
As I shook the dust from my hands and turned leisurely,
I felt eyes on me.
A gaze both covert and tenaciously clinging.
No malice to it, but hardly a friendly one either.
I whipped my head around.
But the gaze had vanished without a trace.
‘My imagination?’
Narrowing my eyes, I started toward the direction it had come from.
“Give it back!”
A shriek rang out from the opposite side.
A child’s voice.
The commotion stemmed from the imperial stables near the Third Prince’s Palace.
“Give it back! Give it baaack!”
Under the wooden roof of a stable about twenty paces off.
A gang of hulking boys had one little kid cornered.
“Hand it over, I said!”
“Giiiive it baaaack~”
The boys were clearly having the time of their lives tormenting the child.
Their clothes marked them as no lowborn rabble.
‘Big for their age, but baby-faced. Nobles? Attendant boys, maybe?’
As I puzzled over the group’s identity,
I glimpsed a particularly out-of-place little figure among them.
‘Found you.’
Third Prince Edwin.
It was him—the very one I’d been looking for.
