Chapter 183 : The Marquis's Private Army (3)
The Veilmaster.
Master of Death Veil, commander of a hundred assassins. He was a legend, a figure of such stature that a mere audience should have been impossible. And yet, here we were.
So, Kai is to inherit the Veilmaster’s seat…
I wasn’t surprised. In my first life, Kai had claimed this title and become the greatest assassin in history.
But that was a story for another time. In this timeline, he was still a boy of the forest, years away from the destiny that now stood before him.
What will he do?
My gaze settled on Kai.
He remained silent, the Veilmaster’s offer hanging in the air between them. His eyes, wide and uncertain, found mine.
He was asking me to decide… just as I thought.
After a long moment, he spoke. “Young Master. What do you believe I should do?”
“…You want me to choose for you?”
“Yes.” His expression was resolute.
A dry laugh escaped me. I had recruited Kai for my revenge, true, but I never intended to own him.
This isn’t right.
Kai had to learn to stand on his own, with or without me. He couldn’t leave every choice in my hands.
“Kai.” I met his gaze, holding it fast. “This choice is yours. From now on, they all are. The important ones. The ones that will decide if we live or die.”
“…Me?”
“Yes. I’m not asking you to decide for everyone. I’m talking about your path—what you must do.”
I gave his head a light tap. He rubbed the spot, looking down.
“…But what if my choice gets you killed?”
“Because of your judgment?”
“Yes.”
“Then that is a fate I will accept. I trusted you. If your best choice leads to my death… then that was how my story was meant to end.”
This was the truth.
From the moment I returned to the past, I had been driven by a single, all-consuming thirst for vengeance: the ruin of the Duchy of Artezia. I saw that as my sole purpose, and others as pawns to achieve it.
But something had changed.
My heart still burned with the need for retribution—I was, after all, waging a war against Demonkin for the sole purpose of annihilating House Artezia—but that was no longer all there was.
I turned quietly to look at my company. I had gathered them for my own ends. For loyalty, for skill, for the sheer numbers needed to form a unit. Each for a different reason.
But now… were they not my irreplaceable comrades?
I never imagined it would be like this.
I shook my head with a wry smile. It was time to admit it. They had become precious to me.
And…
I am in love with Lea.
My eyes flickered to her before I quickly looked away. This was not the time for a confession. I still planned to distance myself from her once my revenge was complete.
But for now, in this moment, I could at least be honest with myself.
Life is fleeting. I could die tomorrow.
A faint smile touched my lips as I stroked Kai’s hair. “So choose, and live without regret. I will never resent you for it.”
Kai seemed to weigh my words, his expression shifting from uncertainty to resolve. He nodded. “Yes.”
He turned to face the Veilmaster. “I’ll do it.”
“…You say that as if you’re being marched to the gallows, but an acceptance is an acceptance.” The Veilmaster nodded, his expression unreadable.
And just like that, Kai’s succession was decided.
* * *
Kai watched them go, his small figure motionless long after the others had disappeared from view. He stood alone, staring at the empty air where his friends had been.
He didn’t want this.
He wanted to follow his young master. He wanted to march to the battlefield with that oaf, Lancelot.
But he couldn’t. He was too weak.
In the Demonic Realm, in the Holy Kingdom—every time Young Master’s life was on the line, he had been able to do nothing. He’d fought a few lesser Demonkin, but what was that compared to protecting the man who had saved him?
Powerless.
Kai looked down at his own hands. Delicate, soft hands. Not callused and scarred like Roxen’s or Lancelot’s. Clean and white.
The Veilmaster called it a sign of talent.
Kai knew it for what it was: the mark of complacency. The result of coasting on talent without ever truly fighting for strength.
No more.
He would not spend his life as baggage. He would not stand by and watch the Young Lord bleed for him again.
His knuckles cracked and whitened as he clenched his fists.
The Veilmaster. The title meant nothing to him. King of a guild of shadows? A hollow prize. The assassins themselves were weak, useless for protecting the young master.
He hadn’t accepted the position. He had accepted the power it promised.
“Can you really make me stronger?” Kai asked, his voice low and sharp.
He had to be stronger. At least as strong as Roxen. That meant transcending the rank of Thief Master and becoming a Grand Master—a feat unheard of in history. He didn’t care.
A glint of steel entered his eyes as he stared at the Veilmaster. “Answer me. You can make me stronger, can’t you?”
“Of course,” the old man said. “If you have the constitution for it, you will become the greatest assassin in the history of the Thief class.”
That wasn’t enough, but it was a start.
Kai nodded. “Then let’s begin immediately.”
A satisfied smile spread across the Veilmaster’s face. “Good. We start at once. A prodigy like you? Give it three years, and you’ll be the greatest to ever wear the title.”
He chuckled, turning to prepare the training grounds.
Kai watched his back, his eyes burning with cold fire.
Three years? I’ll surpass him in three months.
With unwavering resolve, Kai followed, ready to seize the strength he so desperately needed.
* * *
Meanwhile, in the high command of the Demonkin army, a hollow laugh echoed through the chamber.
“…You’re telling me Pepia has been defeated?”
It was the first report of a loss they had received. In war, defeats were inevitable.
But this was different. This was the loss of one of the Twelve Nobles.
Pepia, the Count of Madness. A Demonkin feared for his raw combat prowess, not just the power of his Aspect. And he had vanished without a trace. Which meant he had unleashed his Abyssal Realm—his final, desperate gambit.
And he still lost?
Worse, he had failed to annihilate the Holy Kingdom’s forces in the process?
It was incomprehensible. To defeat a demonized Pepia would require at least five Grand Masters, and they would need to be titans on the level of those from the First Great War.
“…Did the Battle Fiend invoke her Mindscape?” one commander muttered.
The Battle Fiend. Their name for Enoxia Brahms. The monster who had slaughtered their kind by the thousands in the last war. If she had unleashed her Mindscape, Pepia’s defeat was plausible.
But the next piece of intelligence shattered that theory.
“…You’re saying the Battle Fiend never left the port city?”
“Th-that is correct.”
“How is that even possible?!”
With a loud crack, Myu, the Countess of Slaughter, slammed her fist on the command table, the stone splintering under the force.
“A Count of the Twelve Nobles! A being of immense power, made stronger still! And he simply vanishes in the Holy Kingdom? Did they suddenly conjure a hundred saints? A few thousand popes?”
“W-well…”
“Then what!” Myu roared, seizing the messenger by the throat. The man’s eyes rolled back, his body convulsing, but Myu’s grip only tightened. With a sickening crunch, she snapped the messenger’s neck.
Beside him, Crio, the Duke of Benevolence, smiled placidly. “My, my, Myu. What good is a dead messenger? We still have much to learn.”
Crio extended a hand. A whisper of black energy flowed into the corpse, and the messenger’s neck snapped back into place.
The man gasped, his eyes flying open as he dragged in a ragged breath.
Crio looked down at him, his smile never wavering. “Now, would you please tell us exactly what happened?”
“Y-yes!” the messenger stammered, realizing he had just been returned from the dead. “When we investigated, we found the remains of the Mirror of the Dimension-Walker. Lord Pepia was being… collected by the Inquisitors.”
“Hmm. And?”
“There were others present besides the Holy Kingdom’s Templars.”
Every eye in the room fixed on the messenger.
“Who were they?”
“A black-haired archer… and three Grand Masters, including the Divine Archer.”
“The archer would have been a Grand Master as well, I presume,” Crio mused.
Hmm.
Four Grand Masters made it plausible, yet it still felt… insufficient. Not for Pepia. He was one of the strongest of the Twelve. There had to be another factor.
“Was there anything… unusual about the landscape?”
“Y-yes! The entire area was frozen solid. A wasteland of ice.”
“I see…” Crio nodded slowly.
Just as he suspected. A Mindscape had been invoked.
But not by the Battle Fiend. To think another human capable of such a feat still existed.
If it was ice, then it must have been the head of House Praha.
He recalled Maria mentioning the man’s body was failing. It seemed he had recovered. Perhaps that was the true purpose of his journey to the Holy Kingdom.
Crio clicked his tongue and extended a hand toward the messenger. Smoke began to curl from the man’s clothes, and in an instant, he was engulfed in a silent, terrifying inferno.
“W-wait—! Aaaarrrggghhh!” His shrieks were cut short as he collapsed, leaving behind only a pile of fine black ash.
The ash scattered on a draft, the only sign he had ever existed.
No one spared it a glance. Their minds were already grappling with this new variable in the war.
After a long silence, Crio rose. “It cannot be helped. With Pepia gone, we must fill his seat.”
“With whom?”
“As it happens, I have a human in mind.” A chilling smile touched Crio’s lips, his eyes glinting with cold amusement.
“I hear there is a man in the Empire who has been crafting red jewels. The Duke of Artezia, or so he’s called.”