KADOKAWA / Light novel

The World’s Greatest Assassin Becomes an Other-World Aristocrat

Author: Rui Tsukiyo / Illustrations: Reia

Translated by Kevin Gifford

©Rui Tsukiyo, Reia 2019

Confidential

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Prologue: The Assassin Reincarnates

I settled into my airplane seat. My foreign detail was done, and it was

time to head back to Japan.

Assassins only exist in the world of fiction. To most people, that’s just

common sense. But take a moment to think about it. There is no faster,

more efficient way to eliminate one’s enemies—and the more money and

power you have, the more enemies get in your way. You have your

demand, and the “supply” is hitmen like me.

“The last job wrapped up like it always does.”

But today, I’m retiring from the business. They called me the greatest

assassin in the world, the man who made the president of a certain

nation die of an “illness,” but not even I could stop old age. My next gig

is already lined up. I’ll be teaching at the facility where I learned the

skills you need as an assassin. It’s a job that requires a lot of expertise,

the kind you don’t see walking around any old place. I’ll be teaching

children with a proven talent for the work and making them into the

assassins like myself.

Unfortunately, it’s starting to look like that whole story was made up to

put me off my guard.

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“I can understand if you’re throwing away your old tools to keep them

from talking, but do you really have to go this far to kill one man? …I

appreciate the reputation I apparently have, at least.”

Again, I feel like age is catching up with me. I couldn’t have predicted

this situation.

I stood up, picking my way through the panicked crew, and ran toward

the source of the sound. Hacking the lock on the cockpit door, I forced

my way through—someone got in my way along the aisle, but I had him

go to sleep for me.

The captain and co-pilot both had their heads blown off. Which I could

have dealt with, if it was just that. An assassin is called upon to master

a great number of things. I could pilot an airliner well

enough…assuming the explosion didn’t take out the control console

along with their heads.

“I’ve ended the lives of so many people I didn’t know. I thought my turn

might come up sometime, but really, preparing this fancy a grave for

me?”

I closed my eyes. No matter what the situation, if there was even an

0.01% chance of survival, I was ready to take a shot at it. That was my

policy.

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I deployed every piece of experience and knowledge at my disposal,

looking for the best solution possible. …There were things I could do.

It’d be hard to salvage the airplane, but it was possible for me to

survive.

“This came faster than I thought. You must have prepared for this well

in advance. …You sure got me.”

Out the window, a fighter jet equipped with missiles was closing in fast.

We were flying over an urban area. At this rate, the plane would likely

crash into the city, causing untold amounts of damage. Apparently they

wanted to blast us to smithereens before then. By my calculation, we

would hit the ground in about ten minutes, but they weren’t waiting

that long.

The missile fires. Well, I almost had ’em. If we were only crashing, there

were a few things I could’ve tried. But no. This was an AIM-92 air-to-air

missile. There wouldn’t even be any pieces of this aircraft left.

…This sucks.

As a cog in the machine that was my organization, I shut away all

emotion, obediently executing my orders. And they betrayed me anyway.

I was so faithful to them, if they ordered me to die, I’d even carry that

out. Stomping all over my faith like this, for the first time ever, I began

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to have doubts about the organization…and my life.

If I could have used these skills, this knowledge, this experience for my

own gains, then I’m sure…

Such were my thoughts as I continued to carry out what I needed to

survive even one additional second.

◇

I opened my eyes and found myself in a temple. If I had to compare it to

someplace, it’d be the Parthenon, an old-looking white stone temple.

There was no way I could’ve survived that. Was it just a dream?”

“No, it is not. Everyone up until now was reality. You were the greatest

assassin in the world, but you were still stupid enough to get

assassinated yourself. Pfft! Ha ha ha ha!”

A woman with white hair and equally white robes smiled at me.

Actually, not just that. Her skin, her eyes, everything about her was

pure white…and beautiful. She was so perfect, every facet of her made

according to the golden ratio, that she transcended humanity itself. So

why was she being so weirdly hostile?

“…Hmm. You mind explaining all of this to me?”

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“You died, and I invited your soul here. I am a goddess, by the way. Ah-

hem!”

“So goddesses invite the dead over to roast them? With everyone who’s

died, either there are a billion goddesses or you have some serious free

time on your hands. Or did you call on me for some special reason?”

“The third thing. Normally, I’d just bleach all the dirty stains on your

soul and recycle it. I’m not made of time, you know.”

I had spent the past few moments examining the goddess—her facial

movements, her voice intonation, the way she sweated, that kind of

thing—to see how much of it was the truth. But she was almost

unnaturally natural. It was like she knew every factor I was trying to

read off her and executing it perfectly. It was gross. I could do something

similar, but not as perfectly as this. This was beyond the capability of a

human being, and it proved to me that I was not in the presence of a

person, at least.

“Then tell me why you brought me here.”

“Smart of you. I am giving you a choice. I could bleach your soul and

have you be reborn as someone else, wah wah. Or you could do me a

favor, and exchange, I’ll reincarnate you in another world with your

knowledge and experiences intact.

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The former wouldn’t be me any longer. It’d be another person. The latter

was, in a way, continuing to live. I was attracted to it. Living as a killing

machine, only to be betrayed in the end by my owner, I really was

frustrated right at the end. I could make up for that now.

Of course, when you think about why I was picked, it had to be for just

one thing. Something I didn’t appreciate too much.

“So does this ‘favor’ involve killing someone?”

“I am so glad we’re on the same wavelength. I knew I made the right

choice with this soul. You will need to kill a hero in a world of swords

and sorcery for me. You have eighteen years from the moment you’re

born.”

“Swords and sorcery? A hero? Is this a bunch of fantasy stuff?”

As I spoke, data from this world began to flow into my mind. The

planet’s structure, the definition of magic, the culture and technology

level of the era, and the biography of this hero. …All right, yeah, this

isn’t my world.

“So is this hero some kind of celebrity? Why do I have to kill him?”

“In sixteen years. the hero will defeat a villainous tyrant, save the

world, and then abuse his subsequent power to throw the world into

chaos. He will grow worse than the tyrant, more cruel and precise in his

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moves, and eighteen years from now, the world will be destroyed. The

sooner you can get all stabby with him, the better.”

“The world doesn’t need heroes after the bad guy’s dead, huh?”

Something about that resonated with me.

“I’d be perfectly happy to leave him alone if he didn’t get into any

mischief, but his exploits are simply too much to bear. Like, grrr and

everything!”

So it was a world where magic existed, where certain people boasted

powers far beyond the norm. The technology level was somewhere

between medieval and modern-day, with magic weirdly advanced beyond

most everything else. So I’d be reincarnated there to kill a hero?

“Okay. So once the tyrant’s dead and the hero’s no longer useful, I kill

him. Wouldn’t that make me no longer useful?”

“I told you. Don’t get into any mischief, and I won’t bother you, either.

You don’t have the power to anyway, and if you did, I wouldn’t have

chosen you in the first place.”

The goddess brought a hand to my chin, smiling a bewitching smile.

“I chose an assassin because only an assassin can kill a hero in the

framework of humanity. Not a fighter, not a knight, not a mage, but an

assassin.”

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“So I have to kill this human while he’s just a normal guy? Before he

morphs into this untenable monster?”

The reason or whatever for this had been etched into my mind a

moment ago. The abilities of the people born into this world were

inherently limited. In this environment, heroes were extraordinary

presences, exhibiting overwhelming strength and power since birth. The

goddess never created exceptions to this, apparently, and only one her

could exist in the world at the same time. If the hero went crazy, nothing

could stop him. In “battle,” he was undefeatable. That’s where

assassination came in.

“All right. I get what a despot this hero is. But lemme get one thing

clear. If you want him dead, I can do that. But I’m gonna need as much

skill as you can give me, within the framework of human beings.”

“Sure. I can help with that. Your specs will be the strongest possible

within that framework… And I will let you choose your skills, abilities

which are normally selected at random for you.”

An exhaustive list of skills ran across my head. In this swords-and-

sorcery world, people are awarded up to five random skills upon birth.

There were as many of these as stars in the sky, and being able to select

freely from them was huge. Not only could I pick from the strongest of

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the strong—the right combinations could unlock even more power.

“You can’t choose these for me?”

“I do not enjoy micromanaging like that. The thought of getting by with

such piddling force makes my skin crawl. I will give you three days, so

study up. Assuming you are accepting my offer, that is.”

“Before then, I want to ask a few questions. The information gave me

said the goddess can’t interact with the world too excessively, but

sending someone from my world into this one doesn’t count as that?”

“That’s perfectly fine. It just so happened that I brought in a soul from

your world to make up for a shortage here, it just so happened that I

was sloppy with the bleach job and left your memories and knowledge

behind, you just so happened to get a powerful body, and it just so

happened that you drew some strong skills. As long as you’re in that

framework, though, you’d still never defeat him. Not normally, that is.”

So I’d have to play by the rules, even though she gave me the chance to

stretch them a decent amount.

“Okay. Next. You said I had to kill him within eighteen years. I can do

that anytime I’m ready?”

“Ah, no. At least wait until the hero defeats the tyrant. He can’t do that

unless he’s in full hero form, so if you do that, it’ll destroy the world.”

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“Right. So, next question. Did you bait any other souls into taking this

job?”

It was hard to imagine the goddess picking only me for a hit job like

this. If I was her, I’d send a decently-sized army over, boosting my

chances as much as I could.

“You are a notorious assassin, aren’t you? Being able to see that… Well,

the answer is no. For now, at least, it is only you. Not even I can get

away with that many coincidences at once.”

For now, huh…?

“Last one. Do you want me to save the world, or do you want me to just

kill the hero? Because if it’s the former, it’d be better for everyone if I

found a way to save the world without killing him, right?”

“I want you to save the world, of course. If you can do that without

killing him, then be my guest……if you can.”

The goddess gave me a meaningful smile.

“Okay. I’ll take the job. I’ll go to this fantasy world of yours. But I have

one request. Reincarnate me as someone from an affluent family. I’ll

need an environment to build up my strength and skills in.”

“Oh, no need to worry about that. You’ll be born into the greatest

family of assassins in this world, the scion of the Towahade family. Feel

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free to pursue the limits of your human body all you want. I’m ready

once you pick your skills.”

The goddess disappeared. I laughed. Imagine, killing even in the

afterlife. If there’s anything after this for me, I’d like to live for myself

for a change, but now I’m just being a tool yet again. How ironic.

But I had no complaints. I had eighteen years to work with, and a single

murder was all it took to gain back the remainder of my life. Then I

could have it. My own free will. The ability to seek my own happiness.

Episode 1: The Assassin Picks His Skills

I spent the first day running through all the skills in my mind. I needed

to know about them, of course, but I also needed a deeper understanding

of this world I was going into.

There were, um, a lot of skills. One hundred twenty-three thousand,

eight hundred fifty-one of them. In this fantasy realm, people were

granted them at birth, even though quite a few of them weren’t so

useful—Imitate Animal Sounds, Wash Off Blood, Fast Wardrobe

Change, Cross-Dressing, and the like.

These were divided into five ranks, starting at S and going down to A, B,

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C, and D. Your chances obtaining one depended on the rank.

S: 1 in 100,000,000

A: 1 in 1,000,000

B: 1 in 10,000

C: 1 in 100

D: 1 in 1

The figurative dice were rolled once per rank, so it was theoretically

possible to obtain a skill in every available rank. But given that your

chance of an S was already one in a hundred million, simple math states

that getting a full array of skills was a one

in…um…100,000,000,000,000,000,000 chance. A hundred quintillion. So

being able to pick and choose my skills was a huge asset. The majority of

humankind had to make do with a single D skill, after all.

My basic strategy for this was to lock in my choice a super-strong S skill,

then pick the rest as support to make that S really shine.

“Given the odds involved, these S skills are a friggin’ powerhouse…”

Simply having one of them could qualify you as a hero. For example:

Summon Magic Sword

Summons a personal magical sword based on the user’s physical ability

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to do their bidding.

…This sounds kind of lame at first, but the sword that gets summoned

is incredibly overpowered. One swing can slice through a mountain.

Holy Force

An aura of golden holy force surrounds the user, greatly boosting

offense, defense, and speed.

…The “boost” they’re talking about is crazy. A toddler could destroy a

tank barehanded. Super versatile. If you’re at a loss to decide, you really

can’t go wrong with this.

Create Monster

Conjure up monsters from any type of material to do the user’s bidding.

…So, yeah, take a bunch of corpses and magic stones, and bam, you’ve

got your personal monster army. You could let your imagination run wild

with this thing.

And these are just a couple of examples! There are several dozen S skills

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to choose from! It’s nuts!

In making my picks, the first priority of mine had to be securing ample

firepower. This “hero” guy is so far off the charts power-wise that your

average weapon couldn’t scratch him, even undefended. At the very

least, I needed something that could strike a lethal blow if he was

caught unawares. My second criteria was versatility and adaptability. In

a job like this, there’s really telling what could happen to me. Without

the ability to adjust on the fly, if I screw up, I may never be able to

recover.

With those needs in mind, my eyes turned toward…

“It’s gotta be Ultra Healing.”

Rank S: Ultra Healing

Boosts recovery skills for stamina, magical strength, self-healing, etc.

Multiplier begins at 100x and may be improved with experience.

…This may not look terribly exciting at first glance, but like I always

say, the winner of any battle is the guy who runs away last. The way it

constantly restored MP, my ammo in this world, was another attraction,

and it gave me strong resistance against injuries and illnesses as well.

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Even better, it allowed me to keep my sleeping time to an absolute

minimum. The quicker I recover, the more I can train—and given the

rules this world worked under, quick recovery is the best weapon I could

ask for.

“For A, this is really my only pick…”

Rank A: Spell Weaver

Ability to create magic.

Magic is a divine gift to this world, but so far, there are only a few

hundred spells created by the gods. With this skill, I could make

whatever I wanted to. Infinite potential! No skill I could find let me take

greater advantage of my modern scientific knowledge.

“If I’m going with Ultra Healing, my B pick’s automatically this…”

Rank B: Break Growth Limits

Removes all limitations on personal growth.

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…It sounds powerful, but it still earns a B because it’s useless by itself.

If everything else about you was normal, surpassing your limits didn’t

mean too much. In a world as medieval as this, you could train yourself

across your entire life and still never make it anywhere near your limits.

But with Ultra Healing and the ability to train with essentially infinite

stamina, this skill really started to shine.

For my C pick, I went with Martial Arts for versatility’s sake. That gave

me both a talent for it and boosted results with every strike I landed. Its

effects aren’t as flashy as, say, Sword Skill or Spear Skill, but assassins

are masters of any type of weapon. No matter what kind of bonuses

weapon skills granted me, I didn’t any that leaned too much toward any

particular arm.

Finally, for my D pick, I made kind of an amusing pick.

“If this is a D, did the goddess misjudge this, or what?”

It’s not a strong one, but you never know—in the right situation, it could

be huge. You might think it’s a common one, but I was positive it’d be my

ace in the hole.

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◇

In addition to skills, I also needed to pick a magical element.

This world featured the four base elements of earth, fire, wind, and

water, as well as the two rarer elements of light and dark. People were

born with one (or, very rarely, two) of these elements instilled inside of

them. Magic was a gift from the gods, and repeated use of these

elements made new spells pop into your head and become usable.

I decided to go with all of them. Just the four base ones; the other two

weren’t available this way. This came at a disadvantage, though,

because while I had more elements to work with, they would only

advance at half the speed.

“Well, if the speed’s cut in half, I’ll just train twice as much. If I can

recover a hundred times quicker, that’ll be no problem at all.”

I decided having four elements was an advantage that made the speed

penalty worth it.

So I had my skills and elements picked out on the second day, but I still

had no intention of knocking on the goddess’s door. Let’s spend the last

day thinking it over. I might find a better combination, for all I know.

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◇

I spent that whole day thinking, but in the end, I stuck to my guns.

Ultra Healing and Break Growth Limits boosted my core abilities, while

Martial Arts sharpened my moves. I could use all elemental magic, even

making my own with Spell Weaver to expand my repertoire, and then

use my final skills as my trump card. For someone with my assassin

experience, I was positive that no better hand existed.

The goddess appeared.

“You seem to have found a satisfactory set?”

“Mm-hmm. I didn’t find a better one than this.”

“Oh? Ultra Healing for your S pick isn’t too exciting. Neither is the A

one. And I forgot that D one existed at all… You humans are so

fascinating.”

“Is that sarcasm?”

“It’s a compliment. Simply picking a slate of flashy-sounding power

moves would give you no chance against a hero—someone with thirty or

so skills, and no limits placed upon them.”

That was what the hero got to enjoy since birth. It went without saying,

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too, that the hero got to pick those thirty skills from the S and A ranks—

no more than five S’s, but still. I knew just how strong those S jobbies

were. If we simply battled it out, I’d never have any chance—but an

assassin with the right training and thorough preparation? It was

doable. I chose these skills, after all, picturing a foe who’d have thirty S

and A skills working in maximum synergy with each other.

“The time has come to reincarnate. You will begin as an infant with

your current knowledge and personality. The going might be a tad rough

at first, but, well, be patient. Life will certainly never be dull in the

Towahade family! Your mother’s quite the beauty, too. No making any

weird faces when she’s breastfeeding you, all right? You’ll scare the wits

out of her. Also, a word of warning: A kid talking like that is going to

turn off a lot of people, so I’d advise you to fix that sooner than later.”

Without awaiting my reply, the goddess snapped her fingers. I

transformed into a swarm of white particles. My new life was waiting for

me. I’d just have to pray the Towahade family gave me the minimum

amount of nutrition and training time I needed.

Episode 2: The Assassin Learns the Ways and Traditions of an Assassin

Family

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I could feel someone wiping my body, covering it in a soft cloth. I tried to

move, but I wasn’t as strong as I thought.

Opening my eyes, everything seemed blurry to me. It took a few

moments for it to get in focus. I was looking at a beautiful woman with

silvery hair. She was holding me—I suppose she had been slapping my

back for a little bit, trying to make me cry before they had an emergency

on their hands. It stung, so I let my emotions take me and started

bawling for her.

The woman held me right.

“Ah, my dear Lugue…”

Hmm. So my name’ s Lugue? I couldn’t really hold my head up, so I

couldn’t look around me, but between the state of my mother’s health

and the quality of my swaddling cloth and the things in my sightline, I

guessed I was born into a pretty rich family. Did I understand them

because of the knowledge the goddess gave me?

Just then, I heard that goddess’s voice in my head.

“I spotted you that knowledge just for today so you could gauge your

situation. Learn it fast!”

I heard footsteps. Several people entered the room.

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“Is it over, Eslie?”

“Yes, Keyen. It’s a beautiful baby boy. …Are you going to make this

child a Towahade as well?”

“The nation needs them. There are cancers in this land that only an

assassin can remove.”

“…I cannot abide by it. I’m afraid. Afraid of losing this boy like I lost

Luph.”

“Then he must grow strong to avoid that. We will not repeat the same

mistakes. Not even I seek to lose two of my children.”

It was a stern voice, offering no mercy, but there was a faint kind of

warmth lurking behind his words. I assumed that Luph was an older

brother or sister of mine who died in the line of Towahade duty.

Being born into a family doing work as dirty as this wasn’t all bad. The

skills and knowledge I gained in the previous world were only really

good for killing humans, with human strength, armed with no magic.

The Towahade family must have known how to deal with magical

targets, though, and that’s what I wanted the most. Plus, being in

nobility, it’d be easy to procure the training time and facilities I needed.

“Thus it shall be, Keyen. But if I were to lose this one as well, I fear I

could no longer stay here…”

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“Lugue shall not die. This, I promise you.”

My mother, still holding me, kissed my father. Then they both kissed me

on the cheek.

…When I heard about being born into an aristocratic assassin family, I

wasn’t expecting much in the way of familial love. Who know they’d be

so normal like this? For someone like me, raised by the Organization for

as far as I remembered, love was just an act you used as a bargaining

tool. But the love my parents had for me, and each other, stimulated

something inside of me. It like real, honorable love.

Maybe I could learn about love here. I didn’t need that to carry out hits,

but I’d need it once I started living as a person.

◇

Five years had already passed since I was reborn.

In my childish body, I had difficulty learning the language and writing

system. It wound up being a good two years before I had both down,

even though that was still shockingly fast by local standards. My

parents and servants hailed me as a prodigy. I tried to slow down my

advancement so I didn’t start to unnerve them, but no matter how

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quickly I went along, they were still all full of smiles and joy, so I gave it

up. I still remained in “kid” mode with my speech and mannerisms,

though. Playing the ideal child for my parents was the key to

maintaining a comfortable environment…and, amazingly enough, I

started to like my parents.

By the time I reached five, I started being able to do more things. I

really owed Ultra Healing a lot. I tired easily in my young body, but I

could go for a long time since I had no problem jumping right up from an

exhausted state, and since my muscles healed up so quickly, every

training session gave me huge results. I had strength incomparable to

other kids my age.

Right now, I was in the family library. Even among the noble families,

the Towahades kept particularly careful records, as well as books

collected from the four corners of the world. There was a lot to learn.

“The Towahades are darker than I thought…”

As an assassin family, the Towahades had been awarded the title of

baron by the kingdom of Alvan, one of the world’s four superpowers.

Being a baron meant you were closer to the bottom of nobility’s totem

pole than the top; it didn’t reward us with enormous swaths of land. But

the Towahades were rich. On the surface, we were Alvan’s most

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prestigious family of doctors, setting off across the nation on the behest

of other nobility and royalty, and our superior healing techniques earned

us both a vast personal fortune and an extensive network of personal

favors we could call upon.

Below the surface, we were a band of assassins, working under the

personal command of a certain prince’s family. Anything that was a

disadvantage to the nation was rubbed out chiefly with this tactic. Thus,

we ruled over both life and death at the same time, giving us a powerful

say and untold riches—both well beyond what a normal baron family

could enjoy.

“…Our family has been blessed with nothing but the very best in our

people. We have been assassins for seven unbroken generations, after

all.”

If the Towahades’ secrets were ever made public, it’d overturn the entire

kingdom. They could expect the nation to cut them off at any time to

keep those secrets safe. The family needed some countermeasures.

“That should do for today.”

I closed the book, just as I heard a knock on the door.

“Lugue, your father is calling you.”

It’s already that time?

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The Towahade family offered a robust education to its children from a

young age, keeping their brains active as they kept tabs on their growth

and strength and modified their training regimen to match. Add magical

training to the mix, and it couldn’t have been more ideal for me. But

when I reached five, the real training begin, and the hurdles got a lot

higher.

Time to go steal my father’s techniques again. I had a lot to learn from

him.

◇

Today we’d be heading to a basement facility. It had been off limits

before now.

“Lugue, it is time to reveal to you the secrets behind the Towahades’

superior medical, and…assassination skills. First, though, I want you to

recite for me the Towahade family motto.”

“The Towahades’ arts, only for Alvan’s prosperity!”

“Good. Now, why do the Towahades use their medical techniques for

the sake of the nation?”

“To extend the lives of the superior ones!”

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“Exactly. We, ourselves, do not create anything. But, by saving the lives

of our superior leaders, we can make sure they can live on and improve

our land. So what do we use our assassin’s strikes for?”

“To heal the nation of its sickness, we minimize the damage by excising

it at the source!”

I could recite it by heart now. My father had told it to me countless

times. That was how we toed the line between life and death, preserving

what’s good for the country and eliminating what wasn’t, and made our

country prosper.”

“Excellent. If a greedy nobleman decided to revolt, it would result in

countryman killing countryman. It would leave scars on the land long

after it was quelled. With us, we can put an end to it before it happens.

As sly a den of foxes as they may be, living above the law, none of them

can escape the assassin’s blade.”

That blade was, for the most part, aimed at Alvan’s own nobility.

In this nation, the nobles wielded most of the power. That allowed them

to escape prosecution and keep themselves ensconced well enough that

not even the royal family could really touch them. But a sharpened

blade didn’t care about power. It could killed no matter what anyone

thought. And now I would learn the skills needed to do that.

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“Lugue, you will find that the more you pursue your fighting skills, the

more it will start to look like medical treatment.”

“I suppose so. You need to know the human body well in order to

efficiently destroy it.”

Martial arts were simply about taking fullest advantage of the human

body’s structure, exploiting its weaknesses to efficiently defeat them.

“To me, the skills of a martial artist are mere child’s play. They know

far too little about the human body. But the Towahades do. It is with a

full understanding of the anatomical arts that we are able to kill so

much better than anyone else. The most efficient killer in the world,

after all, is a doctor.”

As we proceeded downward, we passed by an enormous dungeon. It was

populated with prisoners.

“These are condemned prisoners, gathered from our domain and

others. They serve as the Towahades’ teaching materials.”

“I see,” I said. “People who nobody would mind dead. Nothing could be

more useful to learn from! We can use them as medical samples and

murder training.”

It was a win-win for the Towahades—they’d help advance medicine and

make the family stronger killers. There was no quicker method of

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learning how to heal, and destroy, than by dismembering them, fixing

them up, destroying them, and killing them. I’m sure the doctors in my

original world would be envious if they ever heard. All the new

medicines and surgical procedures they’d like to try, and they have to

make do with lab mice! If they could use human bodies any way they

wanted to, I’m sure it’d advance our knowledge of medicine by centuries.

“…You seem unsurprised, Lugue. When I was brought down here at

the age of five, I shook with fear. I lashed out at my father, on moral

grounds.”

“I am…reluctant. But logically, I can understand.”

“You truly are talented. Such advanced knowledge and logical skills, at

the age of five. Your future is bright indeed. So! Your first of many

classes down here in the basement will be taught on the subject of

killing. I will have you kill around five people. You will be given a knife,

and you are free to use the method of your choice. Your targets have

been given muscle relaxants and will not put up a resistance. Now…one

final question. What meaning do these murders have? Think about it.”

Killing a non-moving target. With a knife, even a five-year-old could pull

it off. I’m sure I could learn how to kill efficiently in actual combat, but

that alone would leave me weak.

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“Are they meant to get me used to killing? I kill in training so I don’t

hesitate in my actual work?”

“Correct. People have an primordial resistance to killing others.

Enough of a resistance that a soldier on the battlefield will resist

striking the final blow on his foe, even after a life-and-death duel. My

friends in military circles say that only one in three soldiers are ready to

kill without hesitation from the first campaign. …That hesitation costs

many of them their lives.”

“I understand. I’ll get used to it…so I don’t hesitate.”

My father brought me into a room. I approached the unresponsive

prisoner inside.

“Before I do it,” I said, “may I ask a question?”

“You may.”

“Why do people get raised to hesitate to kill? The books my mother

read to me talked about how precious life is, and you taught me to love

my neighbor. …That just gets in the way of killing.”

In my previous life, the Organization taught me that human life was

worthless. That was why I never hesitated to kill before. I never felt a

single pang of guilt. But the Towahades tried to instill me with a

healthy, well-adjusted heart—something I never had there, but now I

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did. I felt that it simply dulled the metaphorical blade.

“If you did not possess the values of a normal person,” he replied, “you

wouldn’t be able to read deeply into a person’s mind. Humanity like that

is a vital weapon like that in assassination. We are not tools—we are

people. We do not kill simply as we are ordered—we kill only when

convinced we must, for the sake of our nation. You must never forget

that. It is the one thing I must teach you, as an assassin with the heart

needed to do what must be done.”

“I feel I only half understand that… I will continue thinking about it.”

Growing stronger, while still carrying that dull warmth in my heart. I’m

sure this is something I should welcome. Unlike the first time around, I

was living as a person, not a tool.

So let’s do what we can.

I had never felt guilt or hesitation at killing before. But I wasn’t running

away. This ceremony was a required step, if I wanted to live my life as

Lugue Towahade.

(To be continued.)

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