TSSAH 02

Chapter 02

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My breath was caught in my throat, and my lungs felt like they were about to burst at any moment.

“Haah, haah!”

My ragged breaths froze white in the frigid northern air, leaving traces of my presence in the dark forest.

“Hah, huff. Damn it.”

My vision was spinning, and I eventually had to stop walking.

I had no choice but to lean my back against a large tree, and the sweat soaking my entire body began to cool down rapidly.

I was unlucky.

On my way out of the mansion, I had run into a few elite units.

They were the ones who had gone on the external inspection with Edward.

Shaking them off had cost me time, and as a result, the wound on my shoulder had torn open further, worsening the bleeding.

“Hoo.”

As I sighed and lowered my head, I saw my jet-black hair, mangled and chopped off, in my vision.

“It’s… all over now.”

Exactly one month after the day my entire family died.

I had cast aside my noble identity as Helena Morton and infiltrated the very bottom of Wickers for revenge.

It took a full 13 years to climb the ladder of power, starting as a street pickpocket.

And finally, I had completed my revenge.

*KABOOM!* *BANG!*

A loud explosion echoed in the distance.

The Wickers mansion, now just a tiny speck in the distance, was once again engulfed in a massive blaze.

It seemed the fire started by the mana bomb had successfully spread to the gunpowder traps I had set up in advance.

“Hah.”

Where should I go?

Once a Wickers assassin and captain of the intelligence unit, I was now a fugitive on the run from them.

“For the immediate future, it’ll be fine, but…”

Edward would be busy for a while, succeeding to the boss’s position and reorganizing the Wickers family, which I had painstakingly split apart over a long period.

Chasing after a traitor would come after that.

Just then, Edward’s words right before the mana bomb exploded came to mind.

“I will find you, Helena. You will eventually return to Wickers. And then…”

The rest was drowned out by the explosion, but I could read his lips clearly enough.

‘I’ll break your ankles first.’

Edward was more than capable of doing just that.

He’d make me wish I were dead.

“I need to run far away.”

Just like 13 years ago, by changing my appearance once more.

So that no one could find me.

But places safe from Wickers’s influence, which stretched across the entire continent, were extremely rare.

A place where I could hide from Wickers, and a place I knew inside out.

“That place…”

A name crossed my mind. More precisely, the name of an organization.

*Gulp.*

I couldn’t help but swallow hard involuntarily.

Just thinking about it sent a chill down my spine, so it couldn’t be helped.

“Hmm.”

A low groan escaped through my tightly sealed lips.

The stab wound on my shoulder suddenly seemed to ache more.

Running away to ‘that organization’.

If you had asked me a few days ago, or even a few hours ago, I would have scoffed.

I would have said, ‘If you want to die that badly, find some other way to die nicely.’

To earn Benedict Wickers’s trust, I had created the intelligence unit and acted as an executive, and in doing so, I had earned a lot of grudges from that organization.

In short, it meant it would be very troublesome if my identity were exposed.

“But there’s truly no better place to hide than there.”

After all, no one would think I’d hide with Wickers’s hostile forces.

Especially not with that notoriously infamous group.

The more I weighed my options, the better it seemed.

“Anyway, as long as I don’t get caught by that man, it should be fine, right?”

My deliberation didn’t last long.

Nox is stronger than Wickers.

Even Edward wouldn’t dare recklessly invade Nox.

Now that I was being hunted by Wickers, there was no safer place than Nox.

For the last time, I took in the sight of the Wickers mansion.

“It’s burning well.”

The mana bomb from that obscure workshop I’d gone to such lengths to obtain was doing its job admirably.

The only pity was that I couldn’t get a closer look at the special flames, which couldn’t be easily extinguished by water, devouring the centuries-old mansion like dry kindling.

Without a second glance, I turned my back and started walking again through the forest path.

First, I had to cross the border.

**One Year Later.**

Lauteurn, the capital of the Bernheim Empire, which occupies half of the vast Eastern Continent.

The Nox family is the only ducal house in the entire Bernheim Empire.

The ducal estate located on the outskirts of Lauteurn was as grand as the family’s prestige.

It looked less like a noble’s mansion and more like an independent village or fortress.

A massive castle that could only be seen after riding a carriage along the main road for a long time.

Surrounding it were over a dozen detached mansions belonging to the Nox family’s retainers, and various other large and small buildings for different purposes.

First-time visitors to the ducal estate would always marvel at the sight.

Which is why someone had to guard the sole main gate of that magnificent Nox ducal estate.

“There will be a brief inspection.”

A man said, in a voice that was mechanical and clearly bored, yet somehow still youthful.

The employee of the Kelita Merchant Guild, one of the dozens of guilds delivering daily necessities to the Nox ducal estate, glanced at the approaching Nox guard.

He was a pretty boy with straw-colored blonde hair and hazy sky-blue eyes.

He looked like he had just barely come of age, and he wore the mark of the action squad, Nox’s lowest-ranking organization.

“Rookie, make sure to inspect thoroughly.”

“Yes.”

The boy, who answered his senior’s nagging without enthusiasm, was considerably shorter than the other action squad members with their sturdy builds.

However, perhaps because of his slightly upturned eyes or his indifferent expression, he didn’t seem like someone to be easily trifled with.

“Please show me your identification.”

“Ah, yes. Here you go.”

The Kelita Guild employee, who normally liked small animals or cute dolls, stared blankly at the boy before belatedly handing over her ID.

The boy compared her ID with some list and nodded.

“Ms. Ilise of the Kelita Merchant Guild. Confirmed. Have a good day.”

“Um…”

“Yes?”

“May I ask for your name, perhaps?”

“My name?”

Flustered by her sudden question about his name, the boy’s already large eyes widened.

“It’s Runelc Eins. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no. I just wanted to know… Th-thank you for your work!”

Belatedly embarrassed, the Kelita Guild employee blushed and quickly jumped back onto her wagon.

Sky-blue eyes watched the back of the Kelita wagon as it slowly, yet somewhat hastily, grew distant.

“What, see something suspicious?”

Senior Jake, the action squad member directly above Runelc, tapped his shoulder and asked.

“…No, nothing like that.”

“What? If something’s off, say it. We can stop them. Rookie, your eye is trustworthy.”

Though he was a rookie who hadn’t even been on the job for a year, the newbie, who had distinguished himself several times with his incredible eye for detail, was already famous within the action squad.

“No, it’s nothing.”

Runelc shook his head in reply, then glared at Jake with sharp eyes and added.

“And I’m not a ‘rookie’. I have a perfectly good name, Runelc. Please call me properly, Senior.”

“Pfft. Why? It’s perfect as a nickname. Rookie ‘Rookie’.”

“Hah. Fine, do as you please.”

“But really, was there no problem with that guild earlier? It’ll be a headache later if something comes up.”

“No, there was nothing wrong with the cargo, but the employee was a bit…”

“What about the employee?”

“She suddenly asked for my name. I wondered if she knew me…”

“Ah, I see. Well, Rookie, the reason for that is!”

“The reason?”

“I’m not telling you, kid! If you don’t know, just live your whole life not knowing!”

Jake laughed, shaking his shoulders, and shouted something like “Single’s paradise! Couple’s hell!” before returning to the shaded guard post.

Leaving his junior standing in the scorching sun, while he himself…

A tiny guard post attached to the tall wall of the Nox ducal estate.

This was where the veteran action squad members, like Jake, who had accumulated enough seniority to slack off, were packed in tightly.

The Rookie glared at their annoying backs with narrowed eyes, then let out a deep sigh and muttered.

“Ha, it’s really a pain in the ass to live in hiding.”