Episode 5. The Great General of the Empire
‘Haneke? This old man is the famous Haneke Brion?’
I recalled his name and the tales of his bravery that filled the history of the Empire’s wars.
The Emperor’s right hand man.
A living legend of the empire.
An unparalleled war hero.
His family was a military family that had led the imperial army for generations, but they were also a renowned swordsman. Haneke, who was in front of us, was also a warrior who had reached the level of 7-star while still alive.
In particular, the ‘Brion Sword’ that has been passed down through the Brion family was famous even among the most famous warriors. I heard that it was completely lost after Haneke died…
by the way.
“Haneke Brion? How come you are here in front of me?”
-I told you, Siren Roinen, your mother killed me.
Haneke chuckled as he watched me flinch at those words.
-I guess you are indeed the son of Siren. Don’t worry, I have no grudge against your mother. It was a fair fight, and my complete defeat.
Defeated by Mother? Doesn’t that mean that Iza is already dead? Then why is she still alive in front of me?
Haneke also seemed to notice my curiosity.
-We fought for half a day. It was a fierce fight. One mistake could have decided the outcome. But Siren was a perfect warrior. Even I, who was using a 7-star Aura, could only see Siren’s weakness just before I died. I mean, her forearm.
“Then the wound on your mother’s arm… … .”
-Yes. That wound. It was the result of my first and last blow. It became my sword soul.
Only then did I understand. The reason why Mirniko couldn’t help but say something was strange. It couldn’t be helped, since it was Haneke’s sword and soul of the 7th level.
When you know your end and do not fear death, the aura contained in the unmanned ring becomes ‘Sword Soul’. It is a kind of ‘higher aura result’.
The black spirit clings to the wounded and torments them endlessly until they overcome or submit. That is why it is also called the ‘Curse of the Dead’.
But something strange still remained.
Even though I have the Seven Star Sword, it doesn’t mean I can talk to the dead like I do now.
But how?
-Do you wonder how you can talk to the dead? I don’t know. I can only guess.
Haneke came close.
-The soul of one who has surpassed the 7-star level is contained in his sword.
Sssss. I got goosebumps all over my body.
This was a new fact that I had not known until now. I thought that the Seven-Star Sword Soul was just an Auror with a more vicious and aggressive nature.
Then, one by one, things that had not been understood began to become clear.
“… So, did you intentionally come from your mother’s body to my weak body? Because your mother’s dark aura was too strong?”
Then Haneke bursts into laughter.
-No. Just because I have a soul doesn’t mean I can change the direction of the sword at will.
“Then what is it?”
-To be exact, it’s because you accepted me.
Haneke, who had stopped laughing, continued.
-Thanks to you, I was able to avoid extinction. If your decision had been a little later, the Siren’s darkness would have torn me apart. I want to express my sincere gratitude.
“So, you’re saying that it was able to come into my body because I accepted it?”
-You’re smart, I guess, because you’re a regressor.
My guard has eased a little. If Haneke’s words are true, this conversation becomes very meaningful. I want to continue the conversation.
“I didn’t do it knowingly. I just chose the only way to survive.”
-It’s the only way to survive. Yes, the desire to become stronger is also a way to survive. Isn’t that right?
Haneke burst out laughing. Clearly, he was saying something that seemed to be known.
I asked cautiously.
“Haneke. You are in a spirit state now. Then… can you see my realm?”
Two rings inside my body. And darkness.
The question was whether you could see it.
Haneke burst out laughing.
-Of course. It’s temporary, but I’m currently occupying a part of your body and mind. I can roughly tell how far you’ve come, what you’re thinking. Even the fact that you’re hiding two rings inside your body.
It turned out this way, so it’s for the better.
I don’t feel any hostility from Haneke. Rather, I feel like he could be an ally and ask for help.
Maybe this old man knows the secrets I didn’t know in my past life.
As expected.
Haneke, who was observing the inside of my body, showed interest.
-I think I know a little bit about why you weren’t able to grow properly before your return… Aren’t you curious too?
It hit the nail on the head.
Actually, before I returned, I couldn’t get past the 5-star level. I didn’t lack any of the following: talent, effort, and the quality of the dark side. Why couldn’t I get past it?
It was a mystery I couldn’t solve until the moment I died. It felt like an invisible hand was pulling my ankle all my life.
Haneke walked leisurely through the black swamp with his pack on his back. I followed him, struggling. I was convinced that I could find the answer from him.
As if he had read my mind, he answered my question.
-It was probably because of me.
“… … ?”
-This isn’t the first time I’ve rushed at you as a swordsman. It’s something you must have experienced before your regression.
“What does that mean?”
-It’s simple. At that time, you would not have accepted my power and would have tried to fight back. My power would have definitely suppressed you.
Because I fought back, it was suppressed.
These were the words of a warrior who had reached the 7th level and a veteran who had led the empire to prosperity.
– It’s a thing of the past now… Anyway, I guess I trampled on your talent. If you were able to reach 5 stars in that state, then that would be quite an achievement.
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Is that really such a great achievement?
A hollow laugh came out of me without me knowing.
I was looked down upon by my brothers my entire life because of my father’s humble origins. So while my brothers were content with the fact that they were of the bloodline of the Assassin’s Blade, I worked my butt off to become the best.
It was a kind of poison.
But my efforts were always met with ridicule.
-Even if you resent me, I have nothing to say.
“I don’t blame the General. It’s fortunate that I know now. And fate will change. I have the power I had before my regression. Besides, I’ve already met the General. If it was my past life, I would never have met him.”
-That’s because you did something you wouldn’t have done before you returned.
It’s something I wouldn’t have done before returning.
These words became a clue. I felt like I had a direction for how I should live this life.
But at that moment.
‘hmm?’
A dull throbbing sensation rose near my heart. It felt like someone was pressing on my heart and making it burst. It was a foreign body sensation and pressure.
‘what?’
The two rings located near my heart began to vibrate, and my whole body began to tremble.
An unpleasant yet familiar sensation.
Obviously this is… … .
– Hehe, do you realize it now? If you accept a sword soul of 7 stars or higher, you will also receive his illusion. Another secret of the world has been revealed.
‘… … !’
The illusion of Haneke Brion.
The ‘third’ ring was taking root in my body.
Although it was an empty ring where the aura of the seven-star realm that Haneke had achieved had evaporated, just by obtaining the ‘third ring’, my growth potential became beyond imagination.
At that moment, a thought that I had forgotten suddenly occurred to me.
‘I am now facing the legendary Imperial General, Haneke Brion.’
I had one question to ask him.
Something only he knows in this world.
And if not now, you’ll never get it again.
“General, please teach me your swordsmanship.”
The Brion family’s swordsmanship was completely lost after the death of General Haneke. If not now, I will never learn it again.
“It would be better if you could help me learn ‘Auror’ after completing the swordsmanship training.”
If there is a dark affinity between the assassins and the swordsmen, there is an aura among the master swordsmen.
I’ve never heard of anyone learning Aura from the Assassin’s Blade, but that doesn’t matter anymore.
Because I have an empty ‘third ring’ that can hold aura.
“Can you feel the General’s aura inside my body? I want to put my ‘aura’ here.”
Is it possible? I don’t know.
Darkness is a unique power.
Aura and mana can be contained in one ring, but not in darkness.
Because darkness rejects all other forces.
It can only be contained in one ring.
Even if the third ring is empty, if an aura is injected into it, it can be broken by another ring containing the dark smoke, because all the rings are close to each other, centered around the heart.
‘This is not the time to worry about danger. The only thing that matters now is getting stronger.’
However, Haneke’s response was lukewarm.
-… You want to be an exceptional being? It sounds interesting to me, but I don’t have much time.
“What are you talking about?”
-This is your inner world. It is the space within your body, or rather, your subconscious. The reason we can talk here is because you held the piece of the blade that contains my soul. Thanks to that, our bond has become even stronger.
“So what you mean is there is no time… … ?”
– The doctor just came into the room to check on you. You are currently suffering from a high fever due to my sword. The piece of the blade the child is holding will soon be found and taken away. Then our conversation will be over.
If you take away the blade fragment, the conversation ends.
But then again, it also meant that if he held the blade fragment again, he could continue the conversation.
If I could do that, I could make Haneke Brion’s swordsmanship, or rather, all of Haneke’s memories and experiences, mine.
The general walked slowly into the darkness and then rose into the air, as if being lifted up by someone.
Clearly, he is sad that the conversation is ending like this. From his perspective, having already faced death once, I am the only way to inherit the Brion family’s swordsmanship.
-That’s too bad. I was looking forward to your growth. I guess we’ll never meet again.
Beyond the unconscious, I felt my hand, holding the piece of the blade, being forcibly opened. I intuitively realized that the last moment of the conversation had arrived.
I smiled brightly and left my last words to Haneke.
“No. I’m sure we’ll meet again when I’m nine. Then, I’ll find the General.”
* * *
It’s been 8 years since I returned.
I’m already eight years old.
Today is an especially sunny day. But that only applies to the mansion and its surroundings.
From inside the Roinen family’s mansion, one cannot see beyond the garden, as a huge, thick fog surrounds the mansion like a castle wall.
To the child of the Assassin’s Blade, who was not yet eleven years old, the fog was the same as the wall itself to an outsider.
Just as it is impossible for an outsider to penetrate the fog of the Roinen family, a child of the Assassin’s Blade who is under the age of eleven cannot go beyond the fog.
‘It won’t be long before we can gaze upon the Wall of Fog.’
In the next three years, when I turn eleven, I will leave the mansion and live under an assumed identity.
The life of the Assassin Sword Master was real from then on. A life of growing up under the education and protection of Roinenser with a disguised identity to become the Emperor’s Assassin Sword Master. No, it would be more correct to say refined.
I sat still on the bed and observed my body.
After a while, I could clearly feel three rings spinning around my heart.
First, I still can’t handle ‘The Illusion of Past Life’. To handle it completely, I’d probably need to be at least level 5 of the Second Darkness Realm.
Second, ‘Hwan of the Present Life’ had already blossomed into Darkness a long time ago. It blossomed at the age of five, a year earlier than his mother. Darkness had already reached the level of the second star. This was the result of practicing secretly every morning.
Lastly, the third ring I received from Haneke. It was an empty ring that did not yet contain any shadow, aura, or mana, but it definitely existed within my body.
If I ever meet Haneke again and fully inherit the Brion swordsmanship, it will be filled with high-quality auras.
“Master Rubin?”
Oh, that’s right. Puree was explaining it diligently.
When I turn my head, the nanny glares at me with a sour expression.
“I’m sorry, Puree. I was just thinking about something else for a moment.”
Puree sighed deeply and straightened her posture.
“I told you, my lord, you are truly special!”
What that means is that I don’t look like I’m eight years old.
Puree, who was by my side all day, said that she sensed something in my actions and speech that she could not sense in an eight-year-old child.
But, if you look at it from the perspective of a child of the Assassin’s Sword, my appearance was not that unusual.
In this cold and distant family atmosphere, no one can live as an ordinary eight-year-old child.
“Please continue with the story we were talking about.”
“Now, focus, my lord! What I’m going to talk about today is the two gates that must be passed by anyone of the Assassin’s Bloodline.”
“Are you trying to tell me about ‘first choice’ and ‘second choice’?”
A look of confusion appears on Puree’s face at my words. It’s a face that asks how she knows that.
“I think I’ve heard it somewhere.”
“Anyway, you have a good memory, right! But I don’t think you know exactly, so I’ll explain it to you properly. Children of the Assassin Sword Family must undergo a selection ceremony once in the winter when they are nine years old, and once again in the summer when they are eleven. These are called the ‘First Selection’ and ‘Second Selection’ respectively.”
1st choice and 2nd choice.
It is a hurdle that everyone must pass before becoming a monk.
This was a ritual that not only the main branch of the Assassin’s Blade, the Roinen branch, but also all other branches participated in.
It is a formal test in which nine-year-old children from each family gather together and take the test.
After the first selection, when they turn eleven, the children gather again to take a second test.
“Pure. How many collateral branches does the Assassin’s Blade have?”
Puree pouted her lips at my sudden question.
“That… only you would know, my lord?”
The collateral branches, the countless branches of the Assassin Sword Family created over hundreds of years of history. As Puree said, only the head of the Roinen family knew the exact number.
One thing is certain, the number of collateral branches increases as time goes by. This is due to the unique method of succession that the Assassin Swordsman family adheres to.
The head of the Roinen family is the most outstanding of the brothers, regardless of gender.
At this time, the brothers who failed to become the head of the Roinen family gave up the surname Roinen and took a new surname. They became the heads of the collateral family.
With a history spanning hundreds of years, it was only natural that numerous branch lines would emerge.
The genealogy of this family, which even the heads of the families themselves do not know how far it extends, is known precisely only to the Roinen family, the main branch of the Assassin’s Blade family.
‘Croquis, Reincroquis, Galliotrick, Stone, Krieger, Kalkrid, Kunitli, Bonedog… In my previous life, the assassin swordsmen I’ve met were only these.’
Moreover, all of these families were merely collateral branches that had participated in the first and second selections before the return.
Dozens, hundreds? Maybe even more assassins are living scattered across the continent.
Believing that living as the Emperor’s faithful hunting dog is a sacred destiny.
‘In order to know who will be my enemy and who will be my ally, I must first become the head of the household.’
Understand the lineage of the Assassin Sword Family and build up its power. That was the first goal. If there were no major problems, becoming the head of the family would not be difficult.
I had to focus on my nanny’s explanation again as Puree watched me lose myself in thought and put strength into her voice.
“… Our Roinen family presides over the first and second selection ceremonies only when there are nine or eleven-year-old children in our family. When there are no children of that age in the main family, only the collateral branches gather together to hold the selection ceremony.”
“Then, next year’s ceremony will be hosted by my family for the first time in a while.”
“That’s right! Because it’s the year that Master Rubin turns nine.”
“Isn’t the reason you insist on repeating those words to avoid tarnishing the authority of your family?”
Puree answered with a consistent smile. So I asked a question that made that smile disappear in an instant.
“How were you, brothers?”
In fact, I already know the results of Dorian and Maffy. They failed their mother in both tests.
Far from being satisfying, it was a total disappointment.
In the first and second rounds, Dorian came in 4th and 3rd respectively.
Maphis were 5th and 6th.
Although there were an unusually large number of children of the same age during the Mafia era, that could not justify the weakness of the main family.
If you are the heir of the assassin swordsman Roinen, you should always be at the top.
“I can’t tell you about the other masters’ grades, Master Rubin.”
“Hmm, I wonder.”
Just because the Roinen family did not produce outstanding children, it did not mean that the main family lost its status.
In any case, since the succession of the Assassin’s Blade family takes priority over Roinen’s bloodline, regardless of the test results, one of me, Dorian, or Maphis will take over. That is, unless there are any variables.
There may be some dissatisfied with this bloodline rule that values bloodline over ability. But it is quiet for now because of the mother who is the most outstanding head of the family in the history of the Assassin Swordsmanship.
“Master Rubin! Look over there!”
Puree stood up and pointed towards the window.
There was a carriage coming across the garden.
If I remember correctly, those are the Croquisons, a collateral branch of the family.
Exactly one year before the first selection, the Croquis family and their son visited their home.
A planned visit.
The reason I remember this day so clearly is because of the son of the Croquis family, who would have to compete against me the next year.
‘Kun Crokison. I get to see that bastard again.’
Before his regression, Kun was an assassin with overwhelming power. Since the day I first met Kun, Kun has become a comparison target that follows me for the rest of my life.
The Croquison family, which has produced skilled assassins for generations, is dissatisfied with the tradition that only children with the surname Roinen can succeed to the position of head of the family representing all assassin families.
They resented their ancestors for not becoming the heads of their own families, and believed that if it weren’t for the missteps at that time, they would have continued to inherit their own families.
It was during this period that such dissatisfaction was most expressed.
Kun, the darling of the Crokison family, was jealous of me and my brothers, who had only modest talents. There were several reasons for this.
‘A guy with no talent but damn lucky.’
‘The idiot who will sink the Assassination Swordsman.’
‘The height of weakness.’
These were Kuhn’s thoughts about me.
“Oh my, Master! The Master over there is looking here. How did he know?”
Even though Puree hadn’t said anything, I had been making eye contact with the boy ever since Kun got out of the carriage.
Kun’s jealous eyes and bitter smile.
It was an unusually strong feeling for an eight-year-old to have, but I knew that Kun’s feelings were genuine.
As I was completely defeated by Kun in the first and second selections, his contempt for me grew even bigger.
But this life will be different.
“I should go down and take a look.”
“Oh, your highness! Don’t you know that you can’t finish your theoretical education without your permission?”
Puree shook her head, but I stood up from my desk.
“The master will call me.”
Not long after I said that, someone knocked on the door.
“Master Rubin. The master is calling.”
“Oh my, is that true?”
He smiled at the round-eyed puree.
“Let’s go quickly. We have to meet our friend.”
