Think Again

The Queen of Assassins. Iselen.

A hundred — no, a hundred and ten years. Seeing her again after all that time, she looked strange to me. Distant somehow.

Silence.

Then Lisera spoke, quietly, out of nowhere.

“What you just said — that was something the third mother said to Father. That there’s no point crying for the dead, and if you must cry, cry for the living.”

“And the Emperor’s answer was simple. Just cry twice.”

Two women exchanging words they both knew well.

I was the only one standing there lost.

Did I really say something like that?

I remember the ones who fought beside me, the ones who risked their lives for me. But small exchanges like that? Those, I can’t account for one by one.

Iselen kept her eyes on my grave marker as she spoke.

“I thought that answer was idiotic. Pathetic. I laughed at it. Cry that much and there’d be nothing left of a person. But he actually did it. I told myself at first it was all performance — told myself that, and told myself that — and then……”

Swoooosh.

She went on, her voice carrying through the rain like a soliloquy.

“It wasn’t. I was the one who wanted to believe he was a liar. That he was a small man. That a person like that couldn’t possibly exist. That a boast about leading every race under the sun and building a new world couldn’t possibly come true.”

A confession.

Iselen shook her head.

“At first, I simply decided it was impossible. But he did it — through everything thrown at him — and then at some point I found myself hoping he would fail.”

“……”

“Because every time he succeeded, I was afraid.”

That was something I had never heard before.

“Yes. Somewhere along the way I started wishing he would fail and stop. That he’d quit while he was ahead. Because the further he went, the more dangerous he became. If he kept succeeding, the Seven Sin God would eventually move against him personally.”

Iselen’s voice was soft but perfectly clear even through the rain.

“I wanted him to fail. To stop at some reasonable point. To just let everything go and stay at my side. If only that — if only that had happened……”

“Mother.”

“So it ended up like this.”

Iselen kept her gaze fixed on the grave marker.

“This is exactly why I didn’t want to come back here.”

“……”

Is this the Queen of Assassins?

Something stirred in me — genuine surprise.

The woman speaking right now, so absorbed in herself she’d forgotten anyone else existed — the woman the world feared as the Queen of Assassins — looked exhausted. Worn down.

Though, honestly, I’d already known.

What she only ever showed when it was just the two of them.

That beneath the cold, the sultry composure, there was something soft. Something careful.

The years she’d spent curled against me, whispering sweetly.

And the years when she had been hurt the most.

Iselen looked at Lisera.

“How are your eyes?”

“Still recovering. I can tell light from dark.”

“Come with me. I need you going forward.”

An abrupt pivot to business.

I came back to myself too.

Right. There was no world in which Iselen — the Queen of Assassins — came all this way just to lay flowers.

She spoke without looking for a response.

“The political situation is wildly unstable. At times like this, more than anything else, we need a unified direction——”

“You’re lying.”

I stepped forward and cut her off.

The Queen of Assassins finally looked at me.

Eyes that could freeze a person where they stood.

But for me, this was actually easier to deal with.

“I know the youngest son of Librata is owed something. You’ll be rewarded before long. Now stand aside.”

“Like hell I will. Like hell.”

“……”

The Queen of Assassins looked genuinely taken aback.

And no wonder. No one in living memory had thrown language like that at a woman the world feared.

Well — when I was Sirik, I did talk to her a bit rough sometimes.

But I had no intention of stopping.

“What do you think I am, a refrigerator magnet? Something to stick on and peel off whenever it’s convenient? Useful — keep. Useless — toss?”

“You’re being foolhardy.”

“That’s because it’s accurate and you don’t want to hear it. You’re going to do the exact same thing you’ve always done — use Orca, use Lisera, use all of them however you see fit. That Lisera lost her sight. That she was used for human experimentation……”

Something boiled up.

“You already knew, didn’t you?”

“……”

“The others might not have. But you knew. You’re the one who controls this empire’s intelligence.”

Even Heinkel had been able to make an educated guess just from spotting a veiled Lisera moving around. The Queen of Assassins, who had spent centuries doing nothing but collecting information, would have known long before I was ever reborn into this world.

“And you left it alone. So tell me — why would I ever hand a child over to someone like that?”

“I’m not human.”

“Lucky you. That makes you garbage.”

“……”

Ah — was that a racial slur?

But I had far too much pent up to care about keeping a civil tongue.

My separation from my wives — I could set that aside for now.

But what they did to the children? That I cannot stomach.

I held the Queen of Assassins’ gaze.

“Drop the games and step back. Whatever you’re after comes down to one thing anyway — the survival of the dark elves. If it came to it, you’d let the whole empire fall and not lose a moment’s sleep over it.”

“Yes.”

“……”

Instant answer.

It was so brazen I was momentarily at a loss — but the Queen of Assassins’ face stayed perfectly composed.

“The Millennial Empire has nothing left ahead of it but fracture.”

“……Do you hear yourself? You’re a head of state.”

A politician — the one most responsible, no less — announcing her own country’s collapse?

This wasn’t some backroom, but it wasn’t something that could ever be said out loud.

But the Queen of Assassins spoke without blinking.

“You’re young, so perhaps you don’t understand. Let me be precise. The reason the Millennial Empire could exist at all — was because the Emperor was too extraordinary.”

“……”

“He made the impossible possible. You already know that? I’m not talking about the war against the Seven Sin God. The Emperor’s single greatest achievement was binding all the races into one.”

She said it without hesitation.

“If it had only been a matter of defeating the Seven Sin God, perhaps someone strong enough would have managed it eventually. But uniting eight different races under a single banner — that was something only the Emperor could ever have done.”

“……”

“They all loved him. They staked their lives on his dream. He was that kind of man. And yes — he wept for the dead, and he wept for the living, and somehow that bound everyone together.”

Iselen said it barely above a whisper.

“……Even I fell in love with him.”

A voice so aching it was almost audible as pain.

The rain. The silence between.

But the Queen of Assassins severed it herself, quickly.

“But he is gone now. There is no Emperor. The Millennial Empire has been holding together on nothing but longing for him — on the absurd fantasy that he might someday return. That’s all that kept the framework standing. Do you understand, young human? To us, the Millennial Empire is the Emperor’s legacy. It is him.”

“……”

“Do you think we speak of the empire’s end with any pleasure? That we couldn’t protect even what the man we loved left behind — do you know what that feels like?”

Emotion, detonating like a thunderbolt.

It struck harder precisely because she so rarely let anything show.

The Queen of Assassins let her shoulders rise and fall, then exhaled.

“……This is exactly why I didn’t want to come here.”

“……”

“Listen to me, human. The Millennial Empire will fall. That is reality. The structure held because the Emperor was being honored — but that time is over. Each race will scatter and find its own way.”

“And the people?”

The question came out of me before I’d decided to ask it.

“I understand your argument. But the people — what about them? The empire doesn’t collapse quietly. There’ll be chaos. People will die.”

“People die anyway.”

“Write your resignation and hand it in.”

Anger.

But this was a different kind of disappointment now.

I understood what the Queen of Assassins was saying. I even understood the logic.

But it was absolute nonsense.

“What kind of politics begins by giving up on the people’s lives? What’s there to be proud of in spelling that out at length?”

“Refusing reality outright accomplishes nothing.”

“I told you to stop making excuses for surrender. Don’t explain why you’re giving up — explain why you shouldn’t. Why would anyone fight the Seven Sin God if human lives were already forfeit?”

The Queen of Assassins’ brow furrowed.

“……You’re from one of the twelve houses, so you must think that makes you special. There are those who hoped a human worthy of succeeding the Emperor would appear — but that hope is gone now.”

“Ah, enough complaining. This is simple, isn’t it? Make sure the empire doesn’t fracture. Hold it together.”

“How?”

The Queen of Assassins asked it as a challenge.

I answered without wavering.

“I’ll do it.”

“The boy from before is still at it. I’ve tolerated your insolence because this isn’t a place where I want to see blood spilled — and because you helped Orca, Lisera, and Miriel. I’ve been giving you leeway on account of the children’s faces. But——”

Her voice hardened.

“Insult me again and I won’t forgive it. Just what do you think you could possibly do?”

“Same as what I’ve been doing. And in exchange, you give me information.”

“……What?”

“I need information to do my work. You provide it — all of it, no fabrications mixed in. If there’s something you genuinely can’t share, I’ll accept that. Just don’t lie. That’s the deal.”

In the end, the ones actually governing the empire right now are the empresses.

To get anything done going forward, I’d need cooperation. Working with all of them at once would be a mess, so it was better to pick one.

The one I had in mind was the Queen of Assassins.

Because she had the information.

Personally, my feelings about the empresses were — complicated, to put it charitably. But for the empire’s sake. For the children’s safety. That was enough of a reason to compromise.

“Useful intelligence, delivered in full. No false leads. I’ll accept silence when sharing isn’t possible. That’s it. Fair enough?”

“Why would I trust you?”

“Look at what I’ve already done. And watch what I do from here.”

“……”

The Queen of Assassins didn’t answer immediately.

A flicker of something — uncertainty — crossed her face.

Her plan walking in here had been simple: collect Lisera, pursue the dark elves’ survival going forward, nothing more.

I had just pulled out a card she hadn’t accounted for.

She was weighing it. Believe it, or don’t.

After a long silence, the Queen of Assassins shook her head.

“No. Move.”

“Come on——”

“I prefer to handle things quietly. I’ll see you home safely.”

She spoke.

Behind her — dark elves had materialized. Several of them.

Of course she hadn’t come alone. The Queen of Assassins would never travel without an escort.

Her agents had the entire national cemetery surrounded. A net without gaps.

“……”

I glanced back at Lisera for a moment.

Whatever happened next, putting a child in danger wasn’t an option.

I’d been holding it back, but it was time to tell her.

Who I really was.

“Think again. Lagriz.”

“……What?”

A sound escaped Iselen — not quite a word.

Whoooosh.

Her grip went slack — the umbrella caught the wind and spun away into the dark.

The rain came down on her bare.

The silver-haired dark elf stood frozen, staring at me.

Her family name. The name only one person in the world had ever known.

In Iselen’s eyes — longing, desperation, and grief, all at once — she looked at me, and looked at me, and then——

“How dare you——”

Fury.

A killing intent so raw and violent it felt physical.

“……”

Why is she reacting like that.

I said it to let her know who I was. And now the Queen of Assassins had completely snapped.

“Third Mother.”

Even Lisera felt the shift and called out to her — but the Queen of Assassins had eyes only for me.

Oh.

She’s decided to kill me today.

As if reading the Queen’s resolve, the dark elf agents behind her began to close in.

There was no avoiding a fight.

“……Let’s at least move somewhere else.”

Not for my sake. Not because this was my grave.

Because I didn’t want to disturb the rest of the soldiers and heroes who had given their lives for the empire.

But the Queen of Assassins said nothing.

She just stared at me, like she intended to tear me apart with her bare hands.

“Oh, for——”

The situation was a single breath from breaking open.

First priority: get Lisera out.

And then.

Swooooosh.

Through the sound of the rain — something strange.

Whummmm.

A bizarre displacement of air.

My eyes went up without thinking.

The dark elves felt it too — one by one, they tilted their faces toward the sky.

Against the rain-dark clouds above.

Something white was cutting through the night toward us.

KRAAASH!

It struck the earth between me and the dark elves at a sharp diagonal, closing from an unthinkable distance.

Skreeeeeee!

Even after landing, the momentum was too much — it skidded forward, but the figure swept into a smooth arc and came to a stop directly in front of me.

Hair, white threaded through with black, whipped in the downpour.

Heat radiated off her body — enough to make the rain steam before it could touch her.

A woman with her back to me.

“If anyone points a blade at this man, they go through me first. Iselen.”

Tiger Immortal Lang Ei.