In This Life, I'll Assist You (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 4

I focused all my attention on the conversation inside the room.

I didn’t know how much longer this dream—the one I’d entered after death—would last, but this story concerned the Grand Duke of the North.

Grand Duke of the North, Zion Belfast.

His final image flickered before my eyes.

Medea replied in a dignified yet resolute tone.

“I am truly awed by how Your Grace eradicated the southern barbarians of the Empire using the Northern Knights. Ah, so this is what politics truly is. Without shedding a single drop of blood, my father safeguarded his people solely through strategy.”

“Politics demands foresight—the patience to bide one’s time. Belfast had no choice but to comply with my request because Lahert held every advantage.”

“I cannot express how glad I am that His Imperial Majesty stands on our side.”

Medea spoke with an excited voice.

It was said that after losing his son, the Emperor, struck by grief, had fallen into melancholy—and found solace in Lahert’s silver tongue.

By the time Grand Duke Zion Belfast was charged with treason, the Emperor would listen to no noble but Grand Duke Lahert alone.

Though I heard it as an assassin, the rumor claimed that the Grand Duke’s descent all the way to the south wasn’t solely due to Lahert’s scheming—most likely, the Emperor himself had endorsed that plot.

Although the order to suppress the southern barbarians had been given to Lahert, the Duke goaded the Emperor into requesting reinforcements from the North. Naturally, the North refused.

It made far more sense for the central army to aid the south than for troops from the northernmost edge of the Empire—nearly a month’s hard ride away—to march down.

In response, Lahert stood by as countless southern civilians were slaughtered by the barbarians, then pinned the blame squarely on the Grand Duke of the North.

Grand Duke Zion Belfast of the North must have marched this far south solely for the sake of his people. Knowing his character, that had to be it.

But Lahert twisted Belfast into the aggressor—a haughty, wicked youth of the North who refused to aid the pitiful Grand Duke of the South.

Lahert always portrayed the North, with its formidable military might, as the strong oppressor, and himself—the man without even a single proper retainer—as the weak victim. And the Emperor was the only one who believed him.

The Emperor must have seen Zion Belfast as the villain and Cramnel Lahert as the victim.

[Compassion?] [Concern.]

That was the dying Duke’s reply to my question while bound in chains.

Concern.

That single word felt piercingly warm—and heartbreakingly sad.

He never once called me a wretched dog of his sworn enemy or the white butterfly who drove his loyal retainers to their deaths. Not even at the very end.

He felt compassion for me. I couldn’t fathom why, but I could feel it in his eyes.

Rain began to fall.

“This time, we must sever Belfast’s hands and feet entirely.”

The Duke’s daughter Medea agreed—and added,

“Father, His Imperial Majesty has sent me a letter inviting me to the next tea party.”

“Oh ho! Medea, he seems to favor you more and more.”

“Yes, it seems so. I intend to diligently play the role of granddaughter until His Majesty’s heart is filled entirely by me—Medea Lahert.”

“It won’t be easy. He still clings to the hope of finding his missing granddaughter.”

Granddaughter.

A sharp pang struck my chest.

At that moment, a cold, dignified voice filled the room.

“How foolish of His Majesty not to realize that very bloodline now serves as my pawn.”

It was Medea—referring to the Emperor as a fool.

“Every time that girl looks at me with eyes of affection, it sends chills down my spine, Father.”

“Be ready to kill her at any moment.”

“No, I refuse—it’s too entertaining! I am a noble of a different caliber, the sole keeper of the imperial bloodline. Through her, I’ve learned that royal blood doesn’t guarantee intelligence. Those fools must be crushed by strength alone. I shall prove that competence—not lineage—is what qualifies one to rule.”

“Haha, Medea. How wonderful it would’ve been if you were my son and Kahen my daughter.”

Laughing heartily, the Duke departed.

After her father left, Medea pulled the summoning cord for her maid.

“The guest?”

“She awaits as instructed.”

Hearing Medea leave her room, I exhaled a long breath and lifted my gaze to the stormy night sky. Cold raindrops struck my mask and my twisted cheek.

If only I’d known these truths before my death…

An overwhelming regret tore through my heart like claws.

O God…

I’m surely dead—so why am I wandering through this dream?

Is this your final mercy—granting me knowledge of truths I never knew?

After shaking off the rain, I re-entered Medea’s room and retrieved the jewel box containing my mother’s dagger.

Even if this was merely a dream, I couldn’t bear to leave my mother’s possession any longer in Medea’s care.

With trembling hands, I grasped the dagger’s blue hilt—the heirloom I’d never managed to reach in my dying moment.

But then—

Images unknown flashed before my eyes, as if I’d been sucked into some real event from the past.

A woman with long green hair and sky-blue eyes fled, clutching a child around four or five years old. Behind her pursued a group of armed men.

Deep within a coniferous forest.

The fleeing woman finally stumbled and fell. The child, jolted awake, began to cry. From her bosom, she drew a short blade with a blue hilt.

And gripped its edge. Blood from her palm began to soak the blade.

Closing her eyes, she whispered something—uttered like a sacred prayer.

Moments later, a translucent aurora enveloped both the blade and the child, as though binding them together.

“Sacred Light, Merciful Mother… I offer my life in exchange. Please watch over this child. And if ever she meets death, let my life be the price that grants her ‘one more’ return to life. Grant her a second life, Hela.”

The translucent light spread wide, wrapping around both the blade and the child.

“You wretched woman!”

“Aye—the traitorous Saintess.”

One of the soldiers kicked the Saintess in the back. Then, a young Cramnel Lahert stepped forward. His blade pierced through the Saintess—through my mother.

Mother gently reached out and stroked my cheek. Her face—pale as snow, eyes as blue as the sky—was utterly unmarred.

“My baby, Estelle… Mother will always be with you…”

Her hand fell limply from my cheek. The vision granted by the blade ended.

Slowly, I removed the mask covering half my face—the side I’d been forced to hide since age five, the unmarred half. This was my true face.

Tears streamed down without end.

Ah—this wasn’t a dream. Nor was it the lingering grudge of a dead soul.

I had been sent back to the moment right after Grand Duke Zion Belfast crushed the southern barbarians. I had regressed to the winter of my nineteenth year.

“This is real. Truly real.”

This was reality.

My second life—granted by my mother’s sacrifice.

I sank helplessly to the ground.

[This is the timeline separator]

It didn’t take long to accept the truth.

Staring blankly, I carefully retraced every event from the day of my death until now.

Then, a sudden thought struck me.

Why now?

Why did the god my mother called send me back to this very moment?

What is your will?

I returned my mother’s dagger to its jewel box. I decided there was no need to deliberately alter anything from my previous life—not until I understood why I’d returned.

Leaving Medea’s chamber, I wandered again and again through the empty Rachel Forest.

What could I possibly do in this life?

Revenge against Medea and the House of the Grand Duke of the South. Revealing my true identity to the Emperor as his blood granddaughter—and reclaiming my rightful status as Imperial Princess.

Would that be enough to sever Lahert from the Emperor before he drags the Empire into ruin?

Thoughts chased one another endlessly.

Yet each train of thought kept breaking apart into fragmented musings about someone else.

What I could do in this life—save Grand Duke Zion Belfast.

My frantic steps halted.

Why? Why must I save Zion Belfast?

There was only one answer.

He was right.

When the Grand Duke of the South committed atrocities, when the Emperor made flawed judgments—Belfast acted according to what he believed was right, not what served his own interests.

And his judgment had been correct.

Compared to Grand Duke Zion Belfast of the North, I was—

An assassin who had slain countless innocents solely because they belonged to my master’s enemy.

A mere nineteen-year-old trainee assassin from a ducal house—a monster with half a twisted face.

Could someone like me ever reach the Emperor? Who would listen to my words? Or—could I even escape Medea’s watchful eyes in the first place?

It wouldn’t be easy. Perhaps even impossible.

But if I could save Duke Zion Belfast—if our first meeting could begin not as enemies but as true fates intertwined—

Might the future change?

Why had I returned to “now”?

Tomorrow, the Grand Duke of the North would arrive at the Southern Ducal residence.

At last, I understood why I’d been sent back to this moment.

To prevent the death of Belfast’s right hand—Arcadia Nugent—and thereby stop all the tragedies of my past life before they even began.

That was it.

Perhaps it wasn’t an epiphany—but my choice.

“In this life, I shall make this my first destiny.”

I spoke these words to the god who revived me—and to my mother—gazing up at the sky.

I wanted to live a life different from my last.

Not as a filthy assassin, not as the white butterfly—but as my true self, before I ever met Lahert.

“But what does my true self even look like?”

[This is the timeline separator]

The next day, I went to the training ground. There, two assassin trainees were sparring.

One was the freckled boy with straw-yellow hair who’d fetched me from the manor’s underground chamber yesterday. The other was the boy who’d finished second to me throughout my past life—the Red Caterpillar.

They had no idea that of the dozen or so of us, only I would survive.

Even the second-place boy had been killed by the Black Worm, precisely because he’d always been second.

“Grand Duke of the North is shameless! After all the damage the south suffered, he dares ask for a victory parade? So the blood of commoners means nothing?”

The perennial runner-up grumbled. The freckled boy flared up in reply,

“If you don’t know, stay quiet! Do you even realize how far it is from the North to the southern border?”

That freckled boy—wasn’t his hometown in the North?

They fought fiercely even with live blades. Having been confined to quarters for yesterday’s incident, I watched their duel from the sidelines.

Yet, surprisingly, the freckled boy summoned an unexpected burst of fighting spirit—and defeated the second-place trainee. He’d always been stuck in third place behind us two…

As soon as the match ended, the Black Worm took the freckled boy—now dubbed the Yellow Caterpillar—somewhere.

I knew instantly why.

The Yellow Caterpillar would receive orders to assassinate Arcadia. In my past life, I’d won that day’s match—and so the Black Worm had given that order to me.

[This is the timeline separator]

I waited for the Yellow Caterpillar to receive his mission. When he saw me standing alone on the forest path, he flinched.

“What are you so startled about?”

“S-startled? I thought no one was here—but then I heard a voice!”

“Heh. That’s because I moved.”

His cheeks reddened slightly—probably because he’d been told to keep his orders secret.

Tomorrow, the Grand Duke of the North—who’d just won a great victory on the southern frontier—would visit this place.

He would stay here three days before departing. During that time, I had to protect Arcadia and forge a new bond with Zion Belfast.

Slowly, I removed the half-mask covering my face—and stared directly at the Yellow Caterpillar. His eyes widened, fixed upon me.

More precisely—upon my unmarred half-face.

“Yellow Caterpillar, I don’t know what orders you’ve been given—but think carefully. Unless you want to end up like me.”

He looked flustered. My revealed face—meant to intimidate and warn—seemed to have worked.

“W-what orders?”

“Whatever they are.”

I turned away. Then he called out to me.

“Will you go to the Grand Duke’s victory parade tomorrow too?”

“We’re not allowed beyond the manor walls. Don’t you know that?”

“I know. But…”

His voice trailed off. Then, gathering courage, he spoke again.

“They say it’ll be the sorriest victory parade anyone’s ever seen. I overheard a kitchen maid—she said they won’t even serve decent food. I don’t like that.”

Before I could answer, the Yellow Caterpillar hurried off.

He disliked a shabby victory parade?

Now that I thought about it, even during his fight with the perennial second-place boy, he’d defended the North.

I already knew what would happen during tomorrow’s procession.

In my past life, Lahert had orchestrated a “Silent Victory Parade”—intimidating the local populace beforehand so no one dared cheer or welcome the Grand Duke. And then…

Lahert had tied massive sacks of lily-of-the-valley—the flower symbolizing the North—to celebratory fireworks, detonating them midair.

The crushed blossoms rained down as powder, forcing the Northern Knights to trample the very emblem of their homeland.

Dubbed the “Humiliation Homecoming,” it became gossip among courtiers for years.

I didn’t want to greet the Grand Duke—whom I’d now met again in life—with such disgrace.

Where had Lahert obtained so many lilies of the valley?

I vaguely recalled hearing they grew somewhere within the Rachel Forest.

Though uncertain, I’d heard rumors of a hidden lily grove deep in these woods.

I wandered aimlessly through the forest.

What was I trying to confirm?

Eventually, I reached its farthest edge—and discovered an immense field of lilies before a towering wall. But nearly all the blooms were gone.

“So it’s happening again…”

That night,

I climbed the highest tower of the manor, where the fireworks were stored. Following the long fuse line, I found enormous quantities of gunpowder—and sacks of lilies attached to them.

Just as I’d suspected.

Lahert’s pettiness drew an involuntary smirk from me. Unlike in my past life, this time the Grand Duke had formally requested the victory parade.

No matter how powerful Lahert was—with the Emperor’s backing—this went too far. The Belfast line, though less ancient than Lahert’s, was no less noble in blood and history.

[Bella. May your soul emerge from the darkness.]

Hearing your words echo in my heart, I closed my eyes.

What did you see when you looked at my soul, Your Grace Grand Duke Belfast?

Can you find my true self?

I climbed the tower repeatedly, removing every sack of lilies—and replaced them with jasmine sacks I’d gathered all day.

Red jasmine—the flower Medea adored.

The blossom symbolizing Lahert, blooming everywhere in Rachel Forest. I’d gathered enough to carpet several renas before the manor in flowers.

Zion Belfast—this is my first gift of atonement to you.

May I, in this life, reach you as my true self.