Chapter 2 | The Assassin Learns the Family Creed
I felt someone wipe my body and wrap me in a soft blanket.
Oh yeah. The goddess said I should be careful with my vernacular to avoid making people uncomfortable. I’ll keep that in mind.
I tried to move, but I was even weaker than I’d expected.
When I opened my eyes, I found my vision extremely blurry. The world steadily came into focus.
I was in the arms of a beautiful silver-haired woman. She’d been thumping me on the back for the last few minutes in order to make me cry. I felt something welling up inside me. Abandoning myself to the impulse, I began to cry violently.
The woman held me tight.
“My precious little Lugh.”
Evidently that was to be my name.
My neck movement was still fairly restricted, so I couldn’t get a good look at my surroundings, but given the health of my mother, the quality of the blanket, and the furnishings within my field of vision, I could guess that I’d been born into a wealthy family.
Come to think of it, the language of this world should be entirely different, right? How am I able to understand it? I wondered.
With superb timing, words from the goddess echoed in my mind, saying, “This is a special gift just for today so you can get your bearings. Make sure you study hard and learn the language!”
I heard footsteps approaching, and a number of people entered the room.
“How’s the child, Esri?” one voice asked.
“He’s a healthy boy… Cian, are we going to bring this child into the clan, too?”
“This country needs House Tuatha Dé. With our skill as assassins, we are the only ones who can remove the malignant tumors that plague our land.”
“… I don’t like it. I’m terrified of losing him like we lost Ruff.”
“We’ll raise him to be strong so that doesn’t happen. We won’t repeat the same mistakes. Trust me, Esri, I don’t want to lose a second child, either.”
This man, Cian, spoke sternly in a voice that brooked no argument, but there was a tangible hint of warmth behind his words.
It sounds like Ruff was either my brother or my sister. Apparently, they’d died in the family line of work.
Even so, there were plenty of benefits to being born into a family with such a dangerous profession.
All the tricks and knowledge I gained as an assassin in my previous life were for killing the people of that world, where magic didn’t exist. The Tuatha Dé clan, on the other hand, had been operating in the world of swords and magic for generations. They’d have the know-how I needed to become an assassin here.
Noble status meant I’d enjoy all the things that came with considerable wealth, and I’d have no trouble finding enough time to train.
“Very well. I’ll abide by your decision. But know that if I lose this child, I don’t think I’ll be able to bear the pain again…”
“I swear to you, I will not let Lugh die.”
Still hugging me tight, my mother kissed my father.
Then they both leaned in to kiss me.
When I’d heard I was going to be born into a clan of assassins, I didn’t exactly expect such a wholesome family environment. My parents seemed to genuinely love me.
As far back as I could remember, I’d only ever shown affection as an act. It was merely a simple bargaining tool to help with my work.
I wondered why my parents’ affection made me feel so strange… Perhaps this was what true love felt like?
Living here may give me a chance to study the concept of love.
Assassins didn’t need love, but I knew it’d be essential if I was to live as a person and not a tool.
Before I knew it, five years had passed since my reincarnation.
Learning how to read and write took a long time because of my youth. Two of those years were spent waiting for my brain to develop enough for me to be able to study at all. Still, my rate of learning was extraordinarily quick for a child my age.
As a result, my parents and the family’s servants were all beside themselves in shock at my progress. To them, I must have seemed like a prodigy. At first, I tried to slow my development so that others wouldn’t grow suspicious of me, but acting mature for my age seemed to delight those around me, so after a while, I stopped holding back.
I did make sure my speech and mannerisms matched those appropriate for a child.
I played the part of a perfect son for my parents to ensure an ideal training environment. Surprisingly, I came to truly love them over time, and I genuinely wanted to make them happy.
Around the time I turned five, the number of things I could do greatly increased.
Rapid Recovery was a boon.
My young body tired easily, but because I quickly recovered from fatigue, I could stay active for long periods of time. As my muscles continued to develop, my strength far surpassed that of others my age.
On one particular day, I found myself in the library. This great study was truly impressive, even by the standards of nobles. Collected on its shelves were innumerable records gathered by the family as well as many more volumes amassed from every corner of the world. Just about anything I could have wanted to learn was written in one of the books in that library.
“My new family has a lot more red in their ledger than I’d expected,” I muttered.
House Tuatha Dé was a noble house of the kingdom of Alvan—itself one of the four major kingdoms on the continent—and the head of the house claimed the rank of baron.
Baron was one of the lowest ranks among nobles, and as such, they didn’t hold much land. But despite that, Tuatha Dé was extremely wealthy.
On the surface, House Tuatha Dé was a respected family that possessed the best medical knowledge in the kingdom. It was well known that they’d used their superior curative methods to earn themselves great rewards and the favor of the royal family as well as many other lauded houses.
It was hidden from the public eye, however, that the Tuatha Dé clan headed a group of assassins that carried out requests for the royal family and a certain dukedom. They used murder as a tool to remove those who had become a liability for the country.
Life and death. With control over both, House Tuatha Dé had come to possess great wealth and political influence, despite their outward appearance being rather humble.
“… I have an impressive heritage. Successfully operating as a family of killers for seven generations is no small feat.”
What’s more, they had done so while holding on to a secret that would flip the country on its head if it were to ever come to light.
The kingdom would probably jump at the chance to dispose of House Tuatha Dé if it meant the public would never learn of the arrangement it shared with the royal family. It was likely that the Tuatha Dé lineage held secrets that prevented such a thing from happening.
“All right, that seems like enough for today.” Right as I closed the book, there was a knock at the door.
“Master Lugh, my lord wishes to see you,” someone called.
That time already, is it? I thought.
From early childhood, members of the Tuatha Dé clan were given training comprised of magical drills as well as regular physical exercise adjusted for one’s current strength. It was a very efficient training regimen.
However, once you turned five, the real training began, and the difficulty was upped significantly. I did my best to learn what I could from my father. As the head of the clan, he was as good a teacher as I could’ve asked for.
On that day, it seemed we were using an underground facility for training. Entry into that place was normally forbidden.
“Lugh, from this day forth, I am going to begin sharing with you the secrets of our unrivaled medical and assassination knowledge. But first, repeat to me the family creed.”
“The Tuatha Dé clan’s skills are only to be used to ensure the prosperity of the kingdom,” I parroted.
“How does our medical technology benefit the country?”
“By saving the lives of major figures.”
“That’s exactly right. Our family has little political power. However, if we can save the lives of those above us, they will be able to make our country a better place. Next question. For what purpose does the Tuatha Dé clan carry out assassinations?”
“To eliminate those who have become an unhealthy presence in our lands. We remove people who are of foul mind in order to prevent them from causing excess damage.”
Without falter, I recited the Tuatha Dé family principles that my father had repeated to me countless times.
We existed to keep those who were beneficial to our country alive, and we killed those who would cause harm. Our family brought prosperity to the country through our control over life and death.
“Right again,” said Father. “If, for example, a noble was to go mad with ambition and start a rebellion, even if such an uprising fell, the toll it would take would be felt throughout the kingdom. Our fellow countrymen would be made to fight and kill each other. However, we have the ability to prevent such a situation from occurring before a single commoner dies. No matter how cunning a person is, no matter how above the law they may seem, they die at our hand just as sure as any other.”
The blade of the Tuatha Dé clan was most commonly turned toward the nobles of this country.
In the Alvanian Kingdom, the nobility had significant sway in matters of the court. With that power, they were often able to escape punishment. They’d built such a safety net for themselves that even the royal family had trouble going after them. However, all the political power in the world couldn’t save a man with a dagger in his throat. Such was their fate when the Tuatha Dé clan was called upon to dispose of them.
As my more intense training was finally about to begin, it was from then on that I would gain the strength needed to fulfill my family’s long-standing duty.
“Lugh, in what way are martial artists similar to doctors?” asked my father.
“Hmm. In order to efficiently best a person in combat, you need to understand the human body.”
Martial artists had a good understanding of anatomy. Such knowledge allowed them precise control over their movements and gave them the information necessary to aim for an opponent’s weak points to quickly subdue them.
“Very good. From my point of view, though, the techniques of martial artists are mere child’s play. They don’t have a thorough enough understanding of the human body. We Tuatha Dé are different. No one knows how to end a person’s life more efficiently than a doctor.”
My father came to stop in front of a massive dungeon full of prisoners.
“These are prisoners both native and foreign. All have been sentenced to death and were therefore offered to the Tuatha Dé clan as human subjects,” he explained.
“I see. No one will care if we kill these people. I can’t imagine a more useful resource than human subjects, both for medical study and for assassination.”
Truly, my family was impressive. They had used the study of medicine to improve the killing arts as well. There was no more efficient way to study both how to save lives and how to end them than by experimenting on actual living people.
Whether they’d admit it or not, I’m sure the doctors in my previous world would feel a pang of jealousy were they to hear about this. I’m sure they would like to test new medicines and surgeries on people, but they have no choice but to use guinea pigs instead. If doctors were able to use living humans for all of their experiments, medicine would be hundreds of years more advanced.
“… You don’t seem fazed by this in the slightest. I was terrified when I was brought here at your age. I even cursed my own father’s name,” said Cian.
“I do feel some reluctance, but it makes sense to me from a logical standpoint,” I replied.
“You truly are a gifted boy. To think you already possess this level of logic and reason at such a young age. As your father, I’m looking forward to seeing the kind of man you become. To commemorate this event, the task for your first lesson will be to commit murder. I would like you to kill five people. Take this knife. I’ll leave the method up to you, so kill them however you like. They’ve all been administered a muscle relaxant, so they won’t be able to put up a fight. But before you begin, I have one more question. Why do you think I’m asking you to do this?”
All I had to do was off a few people who couldn’t even fight back. Even at the age of five, that was fairly easy with a knife in my hand. I wondered if perhaps my father wanted me to memorize efficient killing techniques, but that didn’t seem like the answer.
“To get used to killing? You want me to kill people for practice so I don’t hesitate when it comes to the real thing,” I answered.
“Correct. Humans are extremely reluctant to take the lives of others. This resistance to killing is so great that soldiers sent to war will often hesitate in eliminating their targets. An acquaintance of mine in the army once told me that only one in three people are able to do what needs to be done on their first campaign.”
“Understood. I’ll get used to killing now to avoid hesitating during my first assassination.”
Without delay, I moved toward the many jailed criminals who’d been condemned to death.
“Before I kill them, I have a question,” I said.
“Go ahead,” my father urged.
“Why did you raise me to be hesitant to kill? The picture books that Mother reads to me all speak of the preciousness of life, and you’ve taught me to ‘love thy neighbor.’ These emotions will only distract from my job,” I explained.
In my previous life, my organization taught me that human lives were meaningless. As a result, I’d never once hesitated to take lives, nor had I ever felt guilty about it.
As if in opposition of their very profession, the Tuatha Dé family had raised me to hold virtuous ideals and keep a wholesome heart. These were both new to me, as I’d lacked them in my previous life.
I couldn’t help but worry that such feelings and ideals would only serve to dull my inner blade.
“If you lack a normal human value system, you’ll be incapable of understanding how other people think,” my father replied. “Knowing how to think and behave like a normal person is an essential weapon for an assassin. Also, never forget that we are people first and foremost, not tools. We don’t follow orders blindly. Only accept a job after you are sure it is in our nation’s best interest. I want you to keep that in mind. I’m raising you to become a capable assassin who can do what needs to be done, but above all else, I want you to have a heart,” Cian detailed.
“I half get it and half don’t. I’ll have to think about that,” I said in reply.
The warmth that would dull my mind would also make me stronger somehow. It seemed illogical, and yet, I could already feel changes within myself. Surely my father’s words would help me be happy. After all, I was going to live as a person this time, not a weapon.
All right, time to do what I have to do.
For the first time, I felt hesitation and guilt over killing, but even so, I didn’t run away.
This was an essential step to begin my life as Lugh Tuatha Dé.
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