Chapter 138

Chapter 138: In the Rain (2)

“What happened to the Breath of the Angel?”

The man called Greg stared at me with eyes that wavered with unease. It was like he was trying to figure out what I was thinking.

“Why would a woman like you be curious about that….”

“Only answer what I ask.”

I pressed down lightly on Greg’s injured arm.

A painful groan spilled from his mouth.

“Ghk, you, you really are our kind!”

He couldn’t even open his eyes properly because of the heavy rain, yet his voice was loud.

Greg shouted at me like he was spitting venom, “Then you know too! No matter how much you ask, you won’t get the answer you want….”

I crouched in front of Greg and grabbed his jaw. “You know too. That interrogating someone until you get the answer you want is what ‘our’ kind does.”

I heard his breathing, ragged with fury.

“I know you’ve got poison in your mouth. And I know you’ve got a confession drug in your left back pocket.”

At my words, Greg’s eyes widened like they were going to split.

It was common knowledge, even outside the trade, that assassins kept poison in their mouths.

But you couldn’t know about the existence of a confession drug unless you were part of the organization.

“Y-you, who the hell are you….”

“If you don’t want to use the drug on yourself, you’d better talk willingly.”

The confession drug used by the Breath of the Angel muddles a person’s consciousness and makes them far too honest.

But if you take it even once, you live the rest of your life insane.

And the bastard in front of me knew that better than anyone.

“Ha, hahahaha!”

In that moment, Greg burst into laughter like a madman.

It was loud enough to cut through the sound of the rain.

After laughing for a long time, he finally opened his mouth.

“You. Did the First Prince send you?”

But an answer completely different from what I expected came out.

I frowned and glared at him.

“Either way, we’ll be the ones to get our hands on the prophet first. No matter how formidable House Crowner is….”

Why is he suddenly bringing up the First Prince and House Crowner?

But more than that, there was a word that stuck in my mind.

It was definitely one of the words they’d been throwing around at the inn.

“Prophet? What is that?”

When I asked without thinking, Greg looked slightly startled, then started chuckling again.

“What, you really don’t know? Nothing. Then you’re not from the First Prince’s side?”

This filthy bastard dares test me?

I drove my fist into Greg’s muttering face.

“Ghk.”

He collapsed onto the muddy ground and panted.

“Enough with the nonsense. I’m asking what happened to the Breath of the Angel!”

When I raised my voice, Greg smiled nastily with bloodshot eyes. “Hahahaha! The Empire will end up in the angel’s hands!”

He’s just a raving lunatic.

Gritting my teeth, I hauled him up by the collar.

“Talk. Talk!”

Was it because the rain was coming down too hard?

Or because the bastard kept laughing like he was mocking me?

Or because I was facing the possibility that I might find out where the one who killed me is?

“Ian, where the hell is that bastard!” I shouted in a voice unusually heated.

“…What?”

Greg looked just as startled by my words.

“How do you know his name….”

In that instant, his breathing stopped.

It happened so quickly, like someone blowing out a candle.

I stared blankly at Greg’s lifeless eyes, then snapped back to my senses.

And I hurriedly yanked open his clothes.

“…Fuck.”

Just as I suspected, a magic circle was carved near Greg’s collarbone.

“To pull something like this.”

This magic circle, devised by the organization, was a kind of self-destruction device that steals a member’s life the moment they try to leak information about the organization, or even just recall something important.

‘I’m sure I got rid of this when I was captain.’

The former leader of the assassin organization, my master, abolished the practice of carving this magic circle into members’ bodies.

Not because he valued their lives, but because killing someone just for thinking wasn’t efficient. It wasn’t easy to recruit and train new members, either.

‘Then this….’

Did Ian revive the old practice?

To prevent information about himself from leaking?

‘Back then, I wouldn’t have believed it.’

Ian was a man who liked flowers, and liked animals and children.

But he stabbed me in the back without a second thought.

So it wouldn’t be strange at all if he brought back a horrid practice like this.

Shhhaaa.

I couldn’t even think to wipe the rain running down my face.

I just stood there, dazed, among the dead assassins.

Unlike my face, which had gone cold, my thoughts were in turmoil.

‘Somnia’s information can’t be wrong.’

Then maybe the Breath of the Angel I knew disappeared, but the people using that name are still alive.

‘…Which means Ian is definitely alive too.’

I never truly thought he’d be dead, but hearing that he’s alive and well made one side of my chest go cold.

‘Hesitating here is pointless.’

I wiped my wet face with one hand and turned.

Then, without hesitation, I rummaged through the dead assassins’ belongings.

‘Are these the only useful things?’

After taking what I could use, I dumped them into the creek one by one.

Their bodies vanished in an instant, as if being swallowed into the muddy water.

With the current like this, no matter how skilled the pursuer or assassin is, they won’t be able to retrieve the corpses.

Kwaaaah.

Watching the swirling torrent, nightmare-like memories and a sense of betrayal surged up.

With a blank face, I swung up onto my horse.

“Hah!”

With a short shout, I left without looking back.

I wanted to chase the organization’s traces immediately, but I couldn’t.

Now was the time to return.

For the people waiting for Rachel Brown, not Kyla Angel.

For my client, and my master.

For the Third Prince, Edwin.

***

“This rain is really pouring down.”

“It’ll stop soon.”

“Good. Let’s use this chance to rest.”

The Gloria Knights’ Third Unit stopped training because of the sudden downpour and hurried into their tents.

Normally, they would’ve been rolling down the mountain around now, but thanks to this, they could catch their breath for a moment.

“Your Highness, how is it?”

Just then, one knight asked Edwin, who was staring blankly outside.

“Now that you’ve tried our camp training.”

“Hm?”

Edwin seemed to think for a moment, then broke into a bright smile.

“It’s fun!”

A silence fell in the tent at the prince’s sincere answer.

They stared at Edwin with eyes full of disbelief.

“…You mean that?”

Camping in the mountains and facing all kinds of monsters is fun?

Rubbing shoulders with stinky, big-built bastards, barely able to sleep properly, unable to wash, and being deliberately given meager food, how could this training possibly be fun?

The knights stared at Edwin with their mouths hanging open.

“Yeah, I mean it.”

The Third Prince, Edwin, answered, folding his big eyes into crescents.

“I’d always trained separately, alone. But this time, training together with everyone made me feel like I’m part of the Third Knights too, and I liked that.”

Was that too honest?

Mid-sentence, Edwin covered his mouth.

“Ah, sorry. I haven’t even been formally knighted, but I said I’m part of the knights….”

If he said something like that without going through the proper process of becoming a knight, it might sound arrogant.

Edwin looked at the knights with worried eyes.

But they didn’t react at all.

“….”

The knights gathered inside the tent stared at the floor in silence, then suddenly shouted.

“His Highness said he’s part of our Third Knights!”

“Shut up, bastard! I heard it too!”

“Damn it, my eyes are sweating!”

The Third Knights was a knight order made up entirely of common-born knights.

It was an elite group of sorts, gathered from those Duke Crowner selected purely on skill.

But even now, they were often ignored by the First Knights and Second Knights, who were nobles, and even by most of the imperial family they served.

So they couldn’t help but be moved by what Edwin just said.

“Waaaah, Your Highness Edwin!”

“Of course Your Highness Edwin is a proud member of the Third Knights too!”

“That’s right! Exactly!”

The Third Knights’ knights all rushed at Edwin.

Edwin flailed as he got trapped in the arms of the knights who suddenly surrounded him and hugged him.

“W-why are you doing this all of a sudden? What’s wrong with you all?”

Only after being vigorously patted by knights far bigger than I was did the Third Prince finally manage to free himself.

He let out a long sigh with an even more exhausted expression than before.

“Your Highness Edwin.”

Just then, Vice Commander Philip entered the tent and called out to him.

“Could you spare a moment?”

“Huh? Now?”

“Yes.”

Philip held onto the tent entrance and gestured with his head.

He looked oddly uneasy.

“It’ll only take a moment.”

“Ah, okay. I understand.”

It was pouring like this, so why call him outside?

I didn’t know what it was about, but it seemed like he had something important to say.

Edwin, without suspicion, followed Philip out of the tent.

“Huh?”

And then he came face-to-face with someone he never expected.

“It’s been a while, Your Highness Edwin.”

The person who appeared before the prince was none other than Young Lady Brigitte of House Crowner.

She smiled brightly with her hood pulled down low.

“B-Brigitte? How are you here?”