In This Life, I'll Assist You (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 2

Lucella turned golden.

Why on earth?

This can’t be happening.

The pain of the sword tearing through my insides made me vomit a torrent of dark red blood. Even so, I kept my eyes fixed on her—Lady Medea.

Why would you do this to me? We were friends.

“Oh….”

The young lady blinked her beautiful eyes sadly.

“It hurts so much, Bella. I’m sorry. I should have just killed you quickly—I’m truly sorry.”

I wanted to ask her why. I wanted to demand an explanation for this sudden betrayal. But with my punctured lung, all I could produce was a feeble wheezing sound.

“I used a bit of poison. After all, you’re technically a Sword Master—it would’ve been too risky to try without it.”

Poison—the very weapon Lady Medea used to kill her sworn enemies.

“Bella, did you really believe I considered you a friend? You’re as foolish as the Emperor.”

She looked down at me calmly, her expression genuinely sorrowful at my naivety.

I couldn’t tell what expression I was making—but the face reflected in her crimson eyes was twisted in agony. It hurt as if my heart were being ripped apart.

Blood poured ceaselessly from me, flowing past my hands and soaking my lower half. The white cloak draped over my shoulders grew crimson. I lifted my unmoving head with great effort to look at her, and she gently furrowed her brow.

“Bella, you’re cruel. How can you look at me like that? After I’ve just told you the truth, surely you’re not ungrateful? You are the Emperor’s only true granddaughter—the one he spent his whole life searching for.”

I was Emperor Demitus’s only blood relative?

The sole daughter of the long-dead Crown Prince?

I was the Emperor’s granddaughter?

Lady Medea brought her face close to my ear and whispered in a fragrant voice,

“This short dagger with the blue hilt—it belonged to your mother. My father entrusted it to me and asked me to keep it safe. Today, I’m giving it to you with my own hands. Remember my final act of friendship.”

The dagger dropped before me. Tears welled up in my eyes.

I came here at the age of five. I had no memories before that. My first memory was of the young lady, aged six, smiling gently at me.

Though we were mistress and servant, she called me her friend. She was the only warmth in my life—or so I believed.

She spat out her words as though chewing something bitter.

“So it’s true. The blade turned golden. As if the bloodline of the Imperial House truly mattered.”

With all my remaining strength, I looked down at the dagger she had thrown.

I could feel my life fading away.

Yet I still wanted to see it—the memento of my mother.

So I really did have a mother…

I heard Medea’s voice again.

“My father found this when he killed your mother. Oh, and your father—the Crown Prince—was also slain by my father, Grand Duke Lahert. All to make me Empress. Ah, tomorrow my dream will finally come true. Die gladly for me, Bella. Your blood won’t be wasted. They’ll believe Lucella turned golden because of my blood, and then I’ll be recognized not as an adopted granddaughter, but the true-blooded one. Thank you, Bella.”

My vision grew darker and darker, until everything finally turned black. It was so cold.

Is this what dying feels like?

The last breath inside me, all that remained after my blood had drained away, quietly vanished.

And so, I died.

[This is the timeline separator]

Yet I opened my eyes again.

—Kuhh!

I couldn’t help but scream. My lungs and heart, which I thought had stopped, jolted in panic and expelled a deep breath.

Something dark loomed before my eyes. After staring blankly for a while, I realized it was the ceiling.

It was low, like being inside a coffin, and something scuttled across it with a scratching sound. Thick, filthy dust filled my nose.

The palms of my hands felt damp.

‘Am I… lying down?’

For a moment, I wondered if I really was inside a coffin. Carefully, I turned my head to look beside me.

A small window—smaller than my palm—was set high up on the wall. What was that faint light coming through? It couldn’t possibly be sunlight.

‘But I was definitely dead… then why?’

Why had I returned to this place from long ago—before I became an assassin? The underground storeroom beneath the Lahert Grand Ducal mansion.

Was this the afterlife?

Did the afterlife take the form of one’s most painful memories?

Ah. So this was where I ended up after death.

Given the deeds of my life, it was only fitting.

Just as I thought that,

Suddenly, tears streamed down my cheeks.

Did the body persist even in the afterlife? Why were all my senses so vivid—as real as when I was alive?

Even the pain in my heart felt unbearably sharp.

Lady Medea had killed me.

I… was the Emperor’s only blood relative.

Not the White Butterfly assassin—but the sole daughter of the Emperor’s only son, the one and only Imperial Princess.

Now, a buried truth, useless in death.

Slowly, I rose from the straw pallet where I lay and walked toward a mirror hanging on the wall. I stared into it.

But then I was startled.

The me in the mirror looked younger than I had just minutes before my death—as if I were looking at my own face from many years past.

I gazed blankly at my reflection.

The left side of my face was hideously distorted, like melted candle wax. My eye socket sagged so deeply that the lower half of my eyeball was exposed, containing a menacing red iris.

And as if cleanly split down the middle, the right side of my face was completely different.

Skin as white and clear as snow, elegant arched eyebrows, round eyes tapering to a point like teardrops, sky-blue irises within them, and vivid crimson lips—unlike the grayish ones on the other side.

This was my right face—and my half-mask had always covered precisely this side.

A small half-mask—probably sized for a teenager—lay on the old table before the mirror.

Grand Duke Lahert had once told me:

[“The left side is your true face. The right was altered with a mage’s help. The left is real; the right is false. Only because he was an Archmage could he restore even half of it. Be grateful, and serve my daughter.”]

Back then, I had replied:

[“I shall engrave your kindness into my bones. Thank you, Your Grace.”]

That very Grand Duke had killed my mother and father?

My trembling hand reached out to touch the face in the mirror.

“Fake.”

Which side was my real face?

“Fake.”

The sound of my own voice reached my ears.

My whole life was a lie.

A groan slipped through my clenched teeth, ground together until they nearly shattered.

Every pain felt horrifyingly real. Could this truly be the world after death?

Just then—

Clunk.

The wooden door beside the straw bed flung open. A young, unfamiliar maid stood at the entrance.

What is this? A hell so real it feels like life?

I stared at her blankly, and she grimaced in shock at the sight of me. Instinctively, I picked up my mask and covered my beautiful side—a reflex so deeply ingrained it felt natural.

She spoke.

“Black Worm summons you. Go to the training ground now.”

She slammed the door shut and left.

I stood there, stunned.

Why did this situation feel so eerily familiar?

Was this my lingering resentment, one that not even death could erase?

Black Worm?

My swordsmanship master—the man I killed long ago?

I stood dazed for a long while, until someone else suddenly burst through my door.

‘You…’

It was a boy with curly, hay-colored hair and freckles covering his face.

He was the assassin trainee I’d seen die at age twenty by Black Worm’s hand—a boy who’d struggled to survive but ultimately lost to me and another boy, then discarded.

For over ten years, we trained together as assassins, yet even after his death, I never knew his name. We were raised without ever learning each other’s names.

“Hey, monster! Hurry up! If I get night drills because of you, you’re gonna pay for it!”

At the boy’s shout, I mindlessly followed him out.

Outside, it was winter. The wind scraping my cheeks was cold enough to slice through flesh.

When I arrived at the training ground, I immediately saw Black Worm glaring at me from afar with piercing eyes. My blood ran cold.

A man with long black hair tied back tightly, a smooth face that looked younger than his age, and a heart of ice.

An assassin, trainer of assassins—the very man secretly raised by the Grand Ducal House to teach, and kill when deemed useless, prospective assassins. Both master and enemy.

He approached, his black eyes gleaming, then thrust his fingers into my silver hair and grabbed a fistful.

“White Caterpillar. If you don’t give your all today, it’ll be your last.”

I stared back at him expressionlessly. A spark flared in his eyes.

Black Worm pressed his unusually long sword against my throat. I quickly stepped back, and his eyes gleamed again—then he began launching increasingly refined attacks.

I maintained my blank expression, dodging his strikes by the slimmest of margins.

Whether this was hell or a lingering grudge of the dead, I had no desire to be killed again. And above all, his once-blindingly fast movements were now completely visible to me.

‘Too slow.’

I had become a Sword Master at twenty-two. Of course, as a hidden assassin, that honor could never be made public.

And Black Worm never reached Master-level before his death.

At one point, he suddenly stopped attacking and spoke.

“How are you so different from yesterday? Your skill is impressive. Perhaps I can entrust you with your first mission on the day the Grand Duke of the North arrives.”

“!”

His words froze me instantly.

“Is this inside my memory? What year is it right now?”

He tilted his head at my question.

“You’re speaking informally again. Ha! By Delphast reckoning, it’s the year 1,110—thirtieth year of Emperor Demitus’s reign.”

I was nineteen.

“The Grand Duke of the North is coming?”

At my repeated question, he frowned—then swung his longsword toward me at point-blank range. Instinctively, I dodged, but his blade grazed my distorted cheek.

The flowing blood felt scalding hot. The sensation was too vivid—almost like reality.

“Focus. His Grace invited the Grand Duke of the North as thanks for crushing the southern barbarians of the Empire.”

My hand holding the sword trembled.

The winter of my nineteenth year—the unforgettable winter.

Six years ago, I assassinated Sir Arcadia Nugent, right hand of Grand Duke Zion Belfast, making it look like suicide.

That had been my first kill—the spark that ignited the North’s downfall.

Why had I returned to this moment?