Chapter 2

Lucella had turned gold.

Why?

This makes no sense.

As the sword tore through my insides, I vomited blood. Even then, I looked at her, Medea Young Lady.

Why are you doing this to me? We were friends.

"Oh dear..."

The young lady blinked her beautiful eyes mournfully.

"It hurts a lot, doesn't it, Bella? I'm sorry. I should have killed you instantly. I'm sorry."

I wanted to ask why, what was happening all of a sudden. But with my punctured lung, all I could produce was wheezing.

"I used some poison. After all, you're a Sword Master; I couldn't just attempt it without precaution."

Poison. The main weapon the young lady used to kill her adversaries.

"Bella, did you really think I considered you a friend? You're as naive as the Emperor."

She looked down at me, genuinely sorrowful about my foolishness.

I didn't know what expression I was making, but my face reflected in her red eyes was twisted in agony. My heart felt like it was being ripped apart.

Blood continuously flowed, soaking my lower body. The white cloak I wore turned red. I managed to lift my motionless head to look at her, and she slightly furrowed her brow.

"Bella, how cruel. How can you look at me like that? After I've told you the truth, aren't you grateful? You're the only granddaughter the Emperor has been searching for his whole life."

I'm the sole kin of Emperor Dimithus?

The only daughter of the long-dead Crown Prince?

The Emperor's granddaughter?

Medea Young Lady leaned her face close to my ear, whispering in a fragrant voice.

"This blue-handled dagger, it belonged to your mother. My father kept it and told me to take care of it, but I'm giving it to you as my last gesture of friendship."

The dagger fell in front of me. Tears welled up.

I came here at five, with no memory of anything before. My first memory was the young lady's kind face smiling at me.

Though it was a relationship of master and servant, she called me a friend. She was the only warmth in my life, or so I believed.

She bitingly said,

"It was true. The sword turned gold. The direct lineage of the royal blood, what does that even matter?"

With all my strength, I looked at the dagger she had thrown at me.

I could feel my life fading.

Yet, I wanted to see it. My mother's belonging.

"I had a mother..."

Medea's voice reached me.

"My father found this when he killed your mother. Oh, and your father, the Crown Prince, was also killed by my father, Duke Rahert, to make me an empress. Ah, that dream will come true tomorrow. Bella, die happily for me. Your blood won't be in vain. Lucella will be known to have turned gold due to my blood, and then I'll be recognized not as an adopted granddaughter but a blood granddaughter. Thank you, Bella."

Darkness increasingly enveloped my vision, and finally, it turned black. It was so cold.

Is this what dying feels like?

The last bit of breath in my drained body faded away.

And so, I died.

But then, I opened my eyes again.

"Kheuk!"

I screamed involuntarily. My lungs and heart, which I thought had stopped, panicked, expelling a great breath.

Something dark loomed overhead. It took me a while to realize it was the ceiling, as if I were in a coffin. Something scuttled across it with a squeaking noise. Stale, filthy dust filled my nostrils.

Beneath my palm was damp.

'Am I... lying down?'

For a moment, I wondered if I was actually in a coffin. I cautiously turned my head to look around.

A small window, smaller than a palm, was installed at the highest part of the wall. What was the faint light coming in from there? It couldn't be the sun.

'I'm sure I died... then why?'

Why am I back in the place I lived before becoming an assassin, long ago? The underground storage of the Rahert Duke's main castle.

Is this the afterlife?

Is the afterlife a place created from the most difficult memories of life?

I see. This is where I came after death.

Considering what I did in life, it seems fitting.

It was then that suddenly, two tears streamed down my cheeks.

Do bodies still function in the afterlife? Why are all senses as vivid as when I was alive, even the pain in my heart?

Medea Young Lady killed me.

I... was the sole kin of the Emperor.

The only princess born to the Emperor's only son, an assassin known as the White Butterfly.

A truth now useless and buried with my death.

Slowly, I rose from the straw bed I was lying on and went to a mirror hanging on one wall. I stared into it.

But then, I was startled. The reflection in the mirror showed me younger than just a few minutes before my death. It was like looking at myself from several years ago.

Staring blankly at my reflection, the left side of my face was grotesquely twisted like melted wax. The drooping eye socket exposed the bottom of the eyeball, which harbored a sinister red iris.

In stark contrast, the right side of my face was different.

Skin as clear as snow, beautifully curved eyebrows, long and round droplet-shaped eyes with sky-blue irises. The lips on this side were rosy, unlike the grey ones on the other.

This was my right face, always hidden by my half-mask.

A small half-mask, likely from my teenage years, lay on an old table in front of the mirror.

Duke Rahert had said,

"The left is your real face, and the right was altered with the help of a sorcerer. The left is real, the right is fake. Only because he was a great magician could he fix half of your face. Be grateful and serve my daughter."

To that, I had replied,

"I engrave this kindness into my bones. Thank you, Your Grace."

That Duke killed my mother and father?

Shaking, I reached out to touch my face in the mirror.

"Fake."

Which side is the real me?

"Fake."

The voice I uttered echoed in my ears.

My life was a fake.

A groan escaped through my tightly clenched teeth.

All the pain felt so vivid. Is this really the world after death?

Then,

Thud.

The wooden door beside the straw bed flung open. A young maid with an unfamiliar face stood at the door.

What is this reality-like hell?

As I stared blankly at her, she grimaced at my appearance. Instinctively, I picked up the mask and covered the beautiful side of my face. It was a reflex too familiar.

She said,

"Lord Black Beetle is looking for you. Come to the training ground right away."

She slammed the door and left.

I was stunned.

Why does this situation feel so familiar?

Is this the grudge I couldn't let go of even in death?

Black Beetle.

The fencing master I killed long ago.

As I stood there dazed, someone else burst through my door.

'You are...'

A boy with yellow, curly hair and freckles all over his face.

A trainee assassin who died at the hands of Black Beetle when I was twenty. He survived with difficulty but was eventually defeated and discarded by me and another boy.

For over a decade, we were trained together as assassins, but even after his death, I never knew his name. We were raised without ever knowing each other's names.

"Hey, monster. Are you coming quickly? If we have to train all night because of you, are you going to take responsibility?"

Startled by the boy's shout, I mindlessly followed him.

Outside, it was winter. The wind that brushed against my cheeks was so cold it felt like it was biting my skin.

Arriving at the training ground, I saw Black Beetle from a distance, glaring at me with his sharp eyes. Instantly, I felt the blood in my body turn cold.

A man with long black hair tied back, looking younger than his age, with a cold heart and a smooth face.

An assassin, a trainer of assassins, secretly raised by the Duke's family, teaching potential assassins and killing them if deemed useless - a teacher and an enemy.

He approached me with his black eyes shimmering and grabbed my silver hair, clenching my scalp.

"White larva, if you don't give your best, today will be your last day."

I looked at him expressionlessly. Sparks seemed to fly from his eyes.

Black Beetle pointed his exceptionally long sword at my neck. I quickly stepped back, and his eyes lit up. He then began a series of more sophisticated attacks.

Maintaining my expressionless face, I narrowly dodged his attacks.

I didn't want to die again, whether this was hell or a realm of the dead's lingering spirits. More importantly, his quick movements that I couldn't see when I was young were now all visible to me.

'Slow.'

I became a Sword Master at 22. An honor that, as an assassin, I couldn't reveal.

And Black Beetle never reached the level of a Master until his death.

Suddenly, he stopped attacking and said, "How are you so different from yesterday? Your skills are quite impressive. On the day the Northern Duke comes, I'll give you your first mission."

"!"

At his words, I froze momentarily.

"Is this in my memory? What year is it now?"

He tilted his head at my question.

"Talking back, huh. Ha-ha. It's the year 1,110 in the Delpast calendar, the 30th year of Emperor Dimitus's reign."

I was nineteen at that time.

"The Northern Duke is coming?"

At my question, he frowned. Then he swung his long sword at me, close up. Reflexively dodging, I wasn't quick enough as his sword grazed my twisted cheek.

The dripping blood was warm. Such vivid sensations, almost like reality.

"Snap out of it. The Duke has invited the Northern Duke in return for defeating the barbarians in the south of the Empire."

My hand holding the sword started to shake.

That winter when I was nineteen, an unforgettable winter.

Six years ago, I staged the suicide of the right-hand man of Northern Duke Sion Belpast, Arcadia Nugent. It was my first assassination and the event that led to the downfall of the North.

Why have I returned to that time?

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This novel has been translated up to chapter 66.

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