Drip, drip.
A damp chill hung in the basement.
A man was bound in chains, struggling to breathe.
“H-Hah…… Haa…….”
The man’s body was a complete wreck.
There was scarcely a single uninjured spot left on him. What more needed to be said?
‘H-How did this happen?’
The man was an assassin.
His mission had been to assassinate the Lady of Messiah.
Given who his target was, he had approached the task with extreme caution.
He infiltrated the House of Messiah and observed the young lady’s surroundings until he finally reached the point where she no longer regarded him with suspicion.
All that should have remained was to carry out the assassination.
And yet—
“Cough……! K-Kh, urgh…….”
How had things ended up like this?
The man searched through his memories.
‘I worked as usual, then moved at night. The operation was supposed to happen tomorrow, so I intended to set up the trap beforehand…….’
He had gone there, checked the items he had prepared…….
“H-Hrrgh……!”
The man’s eyes trembled violently as the memories that followed resurfaced.
The pain and terror engraved into his mind came rushing back.
The monster he had first encountered after awakening in this place.
His abilities were recognized even within the organization, but none of that had mattered before that ‘monster.’
Not a single technique he had learned from the organization had worked.
As though mocking him for it, the monster had expertly subdued and tortured him.
“U-Uhhhhh…….”
Consumed by fear, the man could do nothing but tremble.
Then a low voice reached his ears.
“Number Eight.”
That voice!
Number Eight instinctively recoiled in terror, but his back soon struck the wall and stopped him.
“D-Don’t come any closer! Don’t! I-I told you everything! I already told you!”
“I wonder. I do not think you have.”
The voice came from beyond the darkness.
It sounded far too young to belong in a place like this.
“Number Eight. A member of , the assassination group the First Young Master formed with the aid of his maternal family, the Ducal House of Ralke. Correct?”
“I-I don’t know! I told you, I don’t know! I just take private commissions and…… Aaaaaagh!”
Number Eight screamed horribly before he could even finish speaking.
“It seems that was not enough.”
“Ah, ah…….”
Step, step.
Footsteps echoed through the basement, and the figure finally emerged from the darkness.
“S-Second Young Master…….”
Number Eight uttered the title in a trembling voice.
Golden hair and jade-green eyes, the colors that symbolized Messiah.
“You know me well.”
Sigmund Messiah, the Second Young Master of Messiah.
Now ten years old, Sigmund nodded with a chilling smile.
***
‘As expected, this is still his immature period.’
I thought that as I watched Number Eight fail to conceal his agitation at my question.
Originally, Number Eight was not someone who lost control of his expression so easily.
No matter how ugly the thoughts inside him were, he had never allowed them to show.
But this was not that time yet.
This Number Eight was around ten years younger than the fully developed version I remembered.
“Y-Yes! I…… I-I’m Number Eight! Number Eight of Shadow!”
“Who is Number One right now?”
“……What?”
“I asked who Number One is. If you are Number Eight, then there should be a Number One as well.”
Number Eight stammered before answering me.
“N-Number One…… does not exist. As far as I know, the position is vacant because no one has yet met the ‘standard’ required of Number One.”
“…….”
There was no Number One.
In my previous life, I had already been operating as Number One at this point.
Then there was only one answer.
‘I don’t exist in this life.’
‘Number One,’ the First Young Master Schubert’s faithful hunting dog, and Sigmund, the Vice Commander, did not exist.
Number Nine had given me the same answer when I captured and interrogated him before, so this was almost certainly true.
Only then did Number Eight seem to realize something, and he spoke haltingly.
“D-Don’t tell me…… Number Nine disappearing before this was also…….”
“He was easier than you.”
“……!”
Number Eight’s eyes flew wide open.
“Was our information…… wrong?! Did you plan all of this from the very beginn……!”
“Well, you do not need to know.”
With those words, I raised my sword.
The moment he saw the blade, Number Eight hurriedly tried to shout something at me.
“W-Wait! You’re already going to eliminate me……?! I still have information I haven’t told you……!”
“I’ve heard enough. Besides.”
SLASH—!
I cut off his head before he could finish.
“You’re more trouble alive.”
There had been no need to tell him, but Number Eight would later develop an abnormal obsession with my sister.
There was no reason to deliberately leave someone like that alive.
I lightly snapped my fingers toward Number Eight’s corpse.
FWOOSH!
Black Flame erupted from my fingertip and swallowed Number Eight’s corpse in an instant.
The Black Flame burned away every trace of Number Eight’s existence.
As though no one had ever been there.
“As expected of Ralke’s Secret Arts.”
The effect really was reliable.
Putting that aside—
‘Nothing has changed from my previous life.’
Number One did not exist, but it seemed Schubert’s plans had not changed because of that.
Once again, Schubert had devised a plan to kill my sister at the exact same time and in the exact same manner.
Eliminating Numbers Eight and Nine would not make that plan disappear.
The key figure behind it was still alive.
‘The black mage, Rasel.’
He was the one who had inflicted a fatal curse on the Commander in my previous life, one she could never recover from.
As long as that bastard remained alive, I could not consider this problem resolved.
“Cough.”
Then the backlash finally hit me.
I coughed and looked down at my palm.
It was covered in bright red blood.
I let out a small sigh and sat down cross-legged.
FWOOSH.
Subduing Number Eight had required me to use more Sacred Flame than I expected.
The more the Sacred Flame was used, the stronger it became.
And mine grew far too quickly.
“Hoo.”
Enough that I had to immediately stabilize it through breathing like this.
Still, it was not more than I could endure.
My body had steadily grown stronger as well.
Only after the Sacred Flame showed signs of settling down did I rise.
“I’m going to be late.”
Of course, it was not a serious problem.
Even this was within my expectations.
Time to head back.
To my room.
***
“……What did you just say?”
Schubert asked with a frown.
Shadow Number Two, who stood before him with his head bowed, answered.
“We have lost contact with Number Eight.”
“Number Eight as well, after Number Nine?”
“Yes.”
Schubert gripped the armrest of his chair tightly.
It was a plan he had spent a long time painstakingly preparing.
And already, two troublesome variables had appeared.
“The cause?”
“We have not yet determined it.”
“You call that an answer?!”
Schubert shot to his feet, murderous intent pouring from him.
Number Two involuntarily flinched and lowered his head.
“Then you have not found even the slightest trace?”
The implication was clear.
If Number Two could not answer even this, he would die.
Number Two hurriedly shouted,
“F-For someone to erase their traces this thoroughly, the only conclusion is that they must also belong to ‘Shadow’!”
“So you are saying there is a Shadow who has betrayed me.”
“…….”
At those words, Number Two quietly lowered his gaze.
Schubert frowned and sank into thought.
Then one person suddenly came to mind.
“Come to think of it, what is Sigmund’s condition now?”
“Unchanged. He still does not leave his room and remains bedridden.”
“…….”
The report was always the same.
Even a year ago, Sigmund had rarely left his room.
There were a few things that bothered him, but Schubert soon dismissed the thought.
It was merely a matter of time.
In the end, that bastard could only be reduced to his puppet.
That was the power of Ralke’s Secret Arts.
What mattered now was the mysterious individual interfering with his plans.
‘Who are you?’
Schubert’s eyes turned cold.
***
As soon as I returned to my room, I erased every trace with the Black Flame.
‘Having the Black Flame really does make moving around convenient.’
The Black Flame erased the very traces that posed the greatest problem whenever I moved in secret.
Without it, I would never have been able to move around as freely and conveniently as I did now.
I changed clothes and was about to resume playing the role of the sickly young master when—
-……■■
“You never get tired of this, do you?”
A humanoid flame sat quietly in a chair.
It was the unidentified being I had seen beside the Grand Duke when I was around a month old.
By now, I could hear its voice as well.
Though not clearly enough to understand it.
‘What exactly are you?’
For the past ten years, this unidentified being had continued hovering around me.
I still did not know what it was, but there was one thing I knew for certain.
It was not hostile toward me.
After spending ten years around it, I felt I should at least give it a name, so I had taken to calling the unidentified being Noise.
“What exactly do you want from me that makes you keep hanging around?”
-■■
“I can’t understand you even when you talk. I can barely hear you properly.”
I could tell that it was speaking, but the interference was so severe that I could not make out the exact sounds.
It had bewildered me at first, but at some point, I simply stopped caring.
Even though it hovered around me, it rarely showed itself directly within my field of vision like this.
“Are you perhaps related to the Sacred Flame? Now that I look at you, you seem like nothing more than a mass of fire.”
-■■
“Well, if not, forget I asked.”
It was not as though I had expected an answer in the first place.
‘Judging by the way Father speaks to it, it seems to be something extraordinary.’
Perhaps it was something like an incarnation of the Sacred Flame.
A higher being visible only to certain people.
Of course, I had no proof.
Just as I sat down on the edge of the bed, Noise, who had been silently watching me, approached.
“What is it?”
-■■
“You want me to sit again? Cross-legged?”
Noise gave no answer.
But instinctively understanding that I was right, I immediately sat cross-legged.
At that moment, Noise approached and thrust its hand directly into my chest.
I was not particularly surprised.
There was no pain, and I was already accustomed to this.
Then a sense of release flooded my entire body.
The Sacred Flame that had still lingered without being fully settled calmed down.
‘Much better.’
With my body feeling considerably better, I stood and moved around a little.
“Thank you. I already felt like something was stuck inside me, so that cleared me right out.”
-■■…… ■
At my words, Noise’s flames flickered downward, then upward.
‘……Is it laughing?’
The thought made me chuckle.
Did I really need to know exactly what it meant?
What mattered was that Noise helped me.
“I noticed before that some of the things you told Father were true, while others were not.”
-■…… ■!
“Ah, forget it. Like I keep telling you, I can’t understand you even when you talk.”
I shrugged and continued.
“It doesn’t matter. Father would have seen through that much about me from the beginning even without you.”
-■■
“I’m just saying thank you. You calm down the Sacred Flame like this whenever I need it.”
At that, Noise’s flames flickered again.
‘Is it embarrassed this time?’
I had no idea.
The higher the stage of my Sacred Flame Physique became, the more clearly Noise’s form seemed to come into view.
That was when—
Knock, knock.
The sound of someone knocking on the door put me on alert.
The stride and sound I sensed beyond the door—
Once I identified who it was, I relaxed.
There was no reason to be wary of this person.
-I’m coming in.
With those words, the door swung open and a beautiful girl appeared.
Arwin Messiah.
The eldest daughter of Messiah and my seventeen-year-old sister.