“I’m still alive...?” Deed the Gravedigger muttered gloomily as he lay collapsed below a cliff halfway down Mount Garank. He had been struck hundreds of times by Caim and rolled down all the way here. His limbs were broken, his ribs were shattered, and his head was twisted backward—and yet he was still alive, his heart stubbornly beating.
“Still... It’s not so bad...”
Deed looked up at the blue sky with his backward head. He didn’t think it would feel bad to die like this. In fact, if he could pass away while he was still basking in the pleasant afterglow of his battle with Caim, that would be wonderful.
“It was a good fight... Yeah, it was really fun...”
Indeed, it had been really, really fun. Pure bliss. A real thrill. If possible, Deed would have loved to fight with Caim forever.
“Then why not make it a reality?” a voice suddenly said, putting a damper on Deed’s reminiscence.
“What...?” Deed’s expression went from one of rapture to one of annoyance as he turned toward the source of the voice—a girl in a red dress. “Who are you?”
“Ah, sorry for not introducing myself. I am Mistress, the leader of the Company,” declared the petite girl with a hand on her small chest.
“You’re lying. I know that whore’s face, and you’re not her.”
“My predecessor was killed in the line of duty. I am the new representative of the organization. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
“I see...” A look of slight sadness crossed Deed’s face at hearing that an acquaintance of his had died. “If you work in the business of killing, you can’t complain when it happens to you.”
“Exactly.”
“Still, as her acquaintance and fellow assassin, I should be allowed to offer a eulogy, even if only in my mind. Yes. Yes, I should.”
“Thank you very much. I am certain my predecessor would be grateful for your words of mourning.” The new Mistress bowed.
“Your business with me should be finished now... So leave.” Deed looked away from Mistress. He was going to depart for the other world and wanted to appreciate his last moments alone.
“Unfortunately, you cannot die,” Mistress said.
“What...?”
“It seems you lack self-awareness... Someone on their deathbed would not be able to talk as much as you are. Your complexion seems good as well, so I think you could move if your head was twisted back to its original position.”
“I see...” Deed partly closed his eyes in regret. He wished he had died by Caim’s hand, but once again he had failed to meet his demise.
“Heave-ho!”
“What are you doing...?”
“I am trying to put your head back into place, but it’s very stiff...” Mistress tried her best to turn Deed’s head back in the right direction, groaning with the effort. Now that she was closer to him, Deed realized how young she was. Her tone and her manner of speaking were mature, but she looked to be only in her early teens.
Or maybe even younger...?
“Why are you trying to help me?” he asked.
“So that you owe me, of course,” Mistress immediately answered. “The Company lost a lot of manpower over this affair, and failing the job cost us a great deal of trust. Many of our business rivals also died, though, so I suppose it comes out even in the end.”
Deed listened silently.
“We will need skilled individuals to rebuild the organization. Ones who will become the pillars of the new Company.”
“And you want me, a lone wolf, to become one of those pillars...?”
“I would not mind if you only stay until the organization is rebuilt. Please, become my knight.”
Deed was as far removed from a knight as one could get—a man born from a grave who stank of dead flesh.
“If you do,” Mistress added, “you might be able to fight him once again.”
Deed gasped in realization. There was only one person she could be referring to—Caim. And if Deed became her knight, she was saying he could fight that powerful warrior again?
“I shall set the stage for your battle. After all, they need to face retribution for what they have done to the Company.”
“I see...” Deed muttered, closing his eyes. He truly was content with dying right now—that wasn’t a lie. But he had survived. So, in a way, his fight with Caim was not yet over. “If I want to confirm the meaning of my life, meeting that man once more couldn’t hurt. No. No, it couldn’t.”
“Then it’s all settled. Now, I just need to put your head back...!” Mistress took Deed’s monologue as acceptance and returned to putting back his neck into place.
Deed opened his eyes and looked at the young girl. “Mistress.”
“Heave-ho, heave-ho... Yes?”
“You’re turning in the wrong direction.”
“Huh...? Ah!”
“Ugh...”
Deed’s head went from a 180-degree rotation to a 360 one. It was technically back in the right direction now, but even Deed couldn’t help but groan at the pain caused by his head being twisted all the way around.
✦ ✦ ✦
〇 〇 〇
In a back alley of a certain town, a young man stood very still, hiding in the shadow of a darkened building.
“So nobody managed to complete the job...” he muttered with a sigh, looking both regretful and resigned to this result.
The young man, with his perfectly arranged hair and clothes, looked like a merchant or even a noble. At the very least, nobody would ever suspect he was a middleman for the assassins of the underworld.
“The assassination of Princess Millicia was a failure. The Headhuntress betrayed us, the Bone-Eating General and the Company’s boss perished, the Gravedigger’s condition is unknown, and the Immortal Butterfly withdrew from the job. Likewise, the assassinations of the two princes, Arthur and Lance, have failed. The former killed the Thousand Blades, and the latter captured the Bitch...”
The mediator shook his head, troubled. While it was true that this was the most difficult mission they’d ever offered, he hadn’t expected so many casualties.
“Prince Arthur is one thing, but I thought Princess Millicia would be easy... I didn’t expect her to actually be the hardest.”
While some assassins had lost to Arthur and Lance, most of the casualties had been against Millicia. Despite appearing to be the easiest target, she had actually turned out to be the most difficult to kill—an unexpected dark horse.
“I don’t think the Gravedigger is dead, and the Company should select a new head soon.”
Still, this job had left quite a big hole in the underworld. The mediator gloomily tapped his temple with his index finger a few times, then shook his head.
“While it’s true that it’s the assassins’ responsibility if they die during a job, it’s not out of the question that I’d end up being blamed for all these casualties. After all, they wouldn’t have died if I hadn’t become the middleman for such an unreasonable request, and not a single target was eliminated.”
Losing so many of its members would risk the integrity of the assassin community. Someone would have to take the blame for this disaster.
“I’m afraid of the elders’ scolding... I don’t want to go back...”
“Be at ease, brat,” a voice said.
“Oh?”
“I have a message from the elders.” The source of the voice was a pretty girl wearing a Gothic Lolita dress—the Immortal Butterfly. “The request has been withdrawn. Also, I must dispose of a certain foolish subordinate.”
“Jeez... That was fast.” The mediator drooped his shoulders. The fact that the Immortal Butterfly had been chosen to deliver this message proved how serious the elders were about it. She was very particular in choosing jobs, but once she had selected a target, she never failed to kill them. “If you’d killed Princess Millicia, maybe they would’ve let me live.”
“Unfortunately for you, I could not care less about that girl. The assassin community and my village have a symbiotic relationship, so while I have nothing against you personally, letting you live would be troublesome,” she declared, ignoring the man’s opinion. The bloodlust she gave off was completely different from when she had faced Lykos.
“I surrender.”
“A wise decision. Then I shall make sure that you do not suffer.”
“This is very generous of you...” And also meant that if he had resisted, she would have made him suffer. While he cursed his fate, the mediator congratulated himself on making the right decision at the very end.
“Well then. Farewell,” the Immortal Butterfly whispered. The next instant, the middleman’s head fell to the ground. “Be at ease. Hell isn’t as bad as you might think. May you rest in peace forever.”
As if that would make me feel any better... Now only a head, the mediator passed away without being able to voice his last words.
With that, the mission to kill the members of the imperial family had concluded. However, having lost most of its main forces, the assassin community was forced to slow down its activities, and the underworld entered a lull.