The Prince's Nanny, Her Specialty Is Assassination - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Me, a Nanny? A Nanny?! (1)

“Mama!”

I had lived as an assassin for twenty years. Given the nature of my job, I had developed nerves of steel, and I thought there was nothing left in this world that could surprise me. But this time was different—it was very serious.

“Achel, give Lia mama!”

I opened my eyes to a bizarre noise. The first thing I saw was an unfamiliar ceiling, and then a strange golden furball.

“Achel, Lia’s hungry!”

The golden furball, which had climbed on top of me without my permission, kept whining.

…Did that furball just talk?

No, more importantly, didn’t I die in that field of reeds?

“Huuuuh?!”

I gasped for air as if I had been pulled from drowning, and shot up from where I lay.

“Kyaaaa!”

The talking golden furball also let out a strange scream, rolling off to a corner of the bed.

I instinctively touched my face and body. Breathing, pulse, all normal, and my skin was still warm. I was definitely still alive.

“Achel, what’s wrong?”

Meanwhile, the small furball kept tilting its head, seemingly puzzled by my reaction. But I had no time to resolve its curiosity.

“Mirror, where’s the mirror?”

“Mirror? It’s over there.”

The furball helpfully answered my urgent question.

I dashed in the direction it pointed. In the mirror, adorned with crude decorations, stood a stranger.

“What… is this?”

The sight in the mirror was absurd enough to make me doubt even the certainty of my death. I slowly lifted my hair. The stranger in the mirror did the same. Holding my breath, I gently let the hair fall again. I stared into the mirror with vacant eyes for a long while, then slapped both cheeks hard.

Smack!

“Ouch!”

The sharp pain that spread across both cheeks was enough to elicit a groan. At this point, I had no choice but to accept it, even if I didn’t want to.

I died and came back as someone else. An impossible thing had happened to me.

“Achel, why did you hit yourself? No hitting, it hurts!”

The furball came running to tug at my skirt, but I had no time to pay attention to it. The reality before me was too shocking.

I examined the new ‘me’ in the mirror closely. My red hair, cut short to reveal my nape, was gone. Instead, sleek dark brown hair cascaded down past my chest. And my face, which had always been sharp and severe, was now gentle and kind-looking. My body, which had been hardened from rigorous training, was now soft and weak.

“Ha.”

I let out a sigh of disbelief.

In short, I was a completely different person from head to toe. The only part of me that remained unchanged were my green eyes, with their strange golden tint. That small resemblance to my original self brought me some small comfort, but only for a moment. The unresolved questions still left my mind in a daze.

‘I definitely died, so why am I alive?’

Why? For what reason?

Just then, someone knocked on the door.

“Lady Brown, are you inside?”

This was all happening so suddenly that my already sluggish brain froze entirely. A strange appearance, an unfamiliar environment, and an unknown voice. My heart, which had begun to race, refused to calm down. The golden furball suddenly shouted in a small voice.

“The evil hag, it’s the evil hag!”

The evil hag?

I looked down at the furball. On closer inspection, it wasn’t a furball at all but a little girl. She looked about four or five years old. Her messy golden curls, large blue eyes, and golden dress made her look like a golden furball at first glance.

Either way, the furball—no, the girl’s words were of little help.

I pressed my throbbing temple and closed my eyes.

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

Self-hypnosis always worked. I quickly regained my composure and, out of habit, began analyzing everything around me.

‘The voice I heard outside the door just now was speaking the common language of the continent.’

The only country that used the common continental language even in daily life was the Empire of Ventrume. Then this place must be somewhere in the Ventrume Empire. For me, who was born and raised in Ventrume, that was at least hopeful news. I scanned my surroundings with sharp eyes again.

‘Silk wallpaper everywhere. And of quite good quality.’

Although the price of silk had fallen with increased trade with the Eastern Continent, silk was still a luxury item.

‘At the very least, it’s likely the mansion of a noble of the count’s rank or higher.’

Moreover, the furniture in the room was also more like works of art, something commoners would have a hard time acquiring.

‘But…’

There was one thing that bothered me: the clothes I was wearing.

‘The dress is made of fairly good fabric, but it’s too plain.’

No matter how I looked at it, it wasn’t suitable for a noble lady or princess. There were calluses on my hands, and the shoes had very low heels. Even the cuffs of the sleeves and the hem of the skirt were slightly worn. Compared to the clothes the child in front of me was wearing, there was a stark difference. I examined the child’s clothing closely. It was fine silk, something only high-ranking nobles would wear.

‘Was the original owner of this body perhaps that child’s nanny?’

Then, there was another knock on the door.

“Rachel Brown, I know you’re in there! Open the door immediately!”

The voice on the other side sounded annoyed.

“Just a moment.”

I chose words that wouldn’t arouse suspicion no matter who heard them, then slowly took a step towards the door. Just as I turned the handle to open it, the owner of the voice appeared. A middle-aged woman, dressed as a maid, squeezed in even before the door was fully open. Judging by her attire, she appeared to be a maid, and seemed to be of a fairly high rank.

‘Head maid, perhaps.’

Immediately, I was met with a barrage of nagging, fiercer than a rain of arrows.

“If you were accepted here through a recommendation, then you should at least do your job properly!”

The high-pitched tone that pierced my eardrums made me frown.

“How could someone so lazy look after Their Highnesses!”

I felt a little sorry for the woman, but I honestly had no idea what she was talking about.

‘A nanny? Their Highnesses?’

The troublesome words coming from her lips made my brow crease.

‘Wait, did she say Their Highnesses?’

It was only then that I noticed the emblem carved into the doorknob. A silver deer surrounded by a laurel wreath. It was the emblem of the Imperial family.

‘Damn.’

There was no doubt. I had awoken in the Imperial Palace of the Ventrume Empire.

***

It felt like a dream.

If it weren’t for the lingering pain in my still-tingling cheeks, I might have believed it was all just a dream.

Coming back to life after dying was unbelievable enough, but to wake up in the Imperial Palace?

‘What a nuisance.’

The Imperial Palace. Because of my job, I had frequented the palace more than I had my own home, but it was also one of the places I hated most. The reason was simple. The palace was the dirtiest, most corrupt place in the entire Empire.

Meanwhile, as I stood dazed without answering, the woman frowned, seemingly noticing something was off.

“Rachel? Are you listening to me?”

“Ah, I have a bit of a headache…”

I averted my gaze and deliberately trailed off. Judging by the fact that she was speaking to me in honorifics, her status wasn’t that high, but I couldn’t be sure. Using honorifics vaguely could make me seem even more suspicious.

Just then, the golden furball, which had been hiding behind me, suddenly spoke up.

“Your Highness Emilia, there you are. I was worried when you disappeared without saying anything.”

“Uh, uhm.”

The child vaguely responded to the head maid and then hid behind me again.

I had thought the clothes were too fine, but it turned out she really was someone important.

‘I didn’t expect her to be a princess, though.’

The head maid looked at the child with disapproval and then turned her criticism back to me.

“While you were away, Prince Edwin disappeared. Do you know how much commotion the maids in the annex caused, all coming to me? You claim to have been recommended by Madam Conrad, but if you can’t even do your own job properly…”

She jerked her head towards the door in annoyance.

“Go find him immediately. Honestly, bothering people over every little thing…”

Shaking her head in irritation, she left the room, not waiting for my answer. She must have only come to scold me.

‘Quite diligent, isn’t she.’

I stared blankly at the closed door before rushing back to the mirror. The stranger still looked back at me from the mirror. Or rather, that stranger was now ‘me.’

“…Rachel Brown?”

The head maid had called me ‘Rachel Brown.’ She also mentioned that Rachel Brown had come here on Madam Conrad’s recommendation. And that I was…

“Achel? What are you doing?”

The child was still looking at me with those big eyes.

Seeing such a small child, barely tall enough to reach my waist, made me sigh involuntarily.

“…Me, a nanny.”