“I was a slave.

When I was born, before I even turned three, my parents sold me to a slave trader.

I don’t hold a grudge.

…No, to be precise, I don’t even remember their faces.

I was sold around the time I had just begun to speak. How could I possibly recall their faces?

The only vivid memory I have is of sucking on my fingers while toddling after the slave trader.

Young slaves sold exceptionally well.

They were popular among spellcasters—was it because they were often used for human experiments?

Or perhaps it was because the greedy pigs in the temple preferred children for their twisted tastes?

Either way, young slaves were always in high demand.

I was sold to a spellcaster.

I remember the slave trader muttering something about my “bad luck,” but if you ask me, I’d argue it was better to be sold to a wizard than to fall into the hands of those lecherous old men.

Ten years passed as a slave to the spellcaster.

Out of the hundred slaves sold to him, only three of us survived—or rather, three experimental subjects.

The wizard’s experiments involved extracting cells from monsters and grafting them onto human bodies, aiming to enhance human capabilities.

Those who couldn’t adapt to or withstand the grafted cells would either explode or transform into something neither human nor monster, destined to be discarded in the incinerator.

At the time, I was physically frail, but I had something else: an unrelenting will to survive.

Even at an age where I barely understood death, I clung desperately to life, enduring the experiments and eventually achieving results the wizard had sought.

I adapted to the genes of two monsters: the Human Hound and the Cannibal Ghoul. My compatibility thrilled the wizard.

…Until the wizard decided to dissect me.

Thunk!

“…Huh?”

Crack! Could a person’s head really burst that easily?

That was my first kill.

Slaves aren’t supposed to kill their masters, but I realized then that the slave mark wouldn’t activate if there was no intent to attack.

It was purely reflex—a desperate flailing of my arms—and the wizard died by sheer chance.

A miracle born of coincidence and luck.

…Though, I suppose, also partly due to the wizard’s misjudgment.

After all, I now carried the genes of a troll—a monster. I wasn’t a child wielding a child’s strength anymore.

What kind of fool tries to dissect a creature with monster genes by simply pulling out a scalpel? Wizards truly deserve the scorn they receive—every last one of them is mad.

In any case, with the wizard dead, I was automatically freed and tried to escape the laboratory.

“Well, what’s this? Something interesting?”

“…Ah.”

Unfortunately, I didn’t make it out in time.

I should’ve moved faster, but by some cruel twist of fate, the wizard’s benefactors—members of an organization—arrived just as I killed him, and they caught me in the act.

“Well, kid, you’ve got two choices. Come with us, or die right here.”

“…I’ll come with you.”

“Smart kid.”

That organization was none other than Black Moon, an infamous assassin’s guild.

And that’s how my life as an assassin began at the age of thirteen.”

“I became an assassin.

---

The assassin organization wanted powerful soldiers.

Soldiers with monstrous abilities and exceptional assassination skills.

I heard it was all to overthrow some kingdom.

The idea that mere assassins could topple a kingdom now feels absurd, a sign of how chaotic the world has become.

Still, because I was useful, I survived. I was trained as an assassin and, for the first time, lived a life resembling that of a human being.

Granted, that life involved eating poison daily to build immunity and enduring torture to develop resistance to pain—far from humane treatment.

Yet, simply having proper meals and a decent place to sleep taught me what it meant to live “like a human.”

For that reason, I held no resentment toward the assassin organization.

Five years. That’s how long they spent turning me into a professional assassin.

“Prepare for your mission.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Nine and Ten will move with you. Eight, make sure you look after them.”

“…Understood.”

At the time, my name was Eight.

This meant there were seven others above me, which wasn’t surprising.

It’s not as though the organization was foolish enough to rely solely on one wizard to topple a kingdom.

There were quite a few benefactor wizards, and as a result, the organization had several individuals with peculiar physical or magical abilities, much like myself.

For the record, Nine and Ten were the other survivors from the same experiments I endured.

We didn’t get along.

Partly because the organization wasn’t structured for camaraderie, but mainly because they didn’t like that someone younger than them ranked higher.

…Childish fools.

And perhaps because they were so childish—

“Die, Eight!”

“If only you were gone…!”

Nine and Ten attacked me, driven by overwhelming inferiority complexes. I fought back, desperate to survive.

It was a brutal fight, but I gained the upper hand.

They should’ve known better.

“If you wanted a higher rank, you should’ve worked harder than me.”

Slash!

“Gah!”

“H-how…?”

“Why do you think I outrank you? Try being smarter in your next life.”

The reason I had a higher number was simple: I was stronger than them.

They were fools for not understanding that.

Sigh “Now what am I supposed to do?”

I had succeeded in killing them, but I wasn’t particularly happy about it.

Killing felt so empty and bitter. If I had felt any joy, that would’ve been proof I’d already gone insane.

Yet, what followed the bitterness was worry.

The organization had invested so much in training these assets, and now I’d killed them.

Would they come after me next? That thought worried me the most.”

But fortunately—

“Huh?”

When I returned to the organization, it had been utterly destroyed.

The kingdom had discovered the plan to overthrow it, mobilized its army, and systematically wiped out the assassin organizations.

At first, I couldn’t believe it.

I knew how powerful the organization was.

I went to every safe house and location I knew of, investigating thoroughly, but they had all been burned to the ground. And then, the final confirmation—

“…Wow, they really went out with a bang.”

Seeing the instructors and high-ranking members of the organization beheaded and their heads displayed on stakes left no doubt.

Ah, the organization was gone.

I was 18 at the time. At last, I was truly free.

---

Two years passed.

I moved to a foreign land to start over, determined to make a new life for myself. But if I learned one thing during that time, it was this: the world is unkind.

And much harsher than life within the organization.

Is this what they call the way of the world?

“Damn it.”

The first curse word I ever learned became my constant companion, a reflection of how hard life had become.

From earning money to maintaining relationships, to finding work—it was all a struggle.

I tried various jobs, but in the end, my only real skill was wielding a sword. So, I had no choice but to pick the one thing I was good at.

“You’re too slow, rookie.”

“Yes, I’m on it!”

I became a mercenary.

Specifically, the youngest member of a small-to-mid-sized mercenary company.

“Where’d a kid like you come from?”

“Just wandered around the backstreets.”

“Really? Your footsteps sound like an assassin’s.”

“Do they?”

“…Tch, never mind. My mistake.”

“Oh, come on, no need to apologize for that, haha.”

…These guys were sharp.

I thought mercenaries were just living day-to-day, but they were surprisingly observant and perceptive.

Well, it made sense. That’s probably how they survived in this line of work.

From that point on, I worked hard to shed the habits of an assassin—my gait, mannerisms, and so on.

Of course, I kept the skills and habits that might come in handy. Those were always useful.

And so, I lived the mercenary life, growing out of my rookie phase and surviving battlefields for four years.

Thwack!

“Urgh!”

“You sons of—!”

This damned life, really.

Betrayed by our employer, our mercenary band was wiped out.

A rock hit me squarely on the head, and I collapsed, my vision going blurry.

‘…I should play dead.’

It wasn’t enough to kill me, of course.

This body—my body—couldn’t possibly die from just a few blows to the head.

‘We can’t win this.’

Even if I revealed all the hidden cards I had, it wasn’t possible for a small group like ours to defeat a well-trained army.

So, the best option was to play dead and wait. I trusted my body’s strong regeneration and durability to withstand the rain of stones and soldiers’ kicks.

Don’t tell me I should’ve helped the others while they were dying.

I’d already put up with their weird stares every time I bent down to pick up soap. The fact that I wasn’t the one killing them was already me being kind.

As I justified myself and endured the splitting pain in the back of my head—

‘…Man, I could go for a soda.’

A forgotten memory surfaced.

It wasn’t from this life, but my previous one.

At 24 years old, I realized I was a reincarnator.

‘…No perks for being reincarnated?’

Unfortunately, even after spending five hours trying to summon some kind of status window in every way possible, nothing appeared.

“…Damn it.”

If this was all I’d get, I’d have preferred not to remember at all.

---

After the mercenary group was wiped out, I survived and reported the employer’s betrayal. The Mercenary Guild took swift action.

Mercenaries may be ruthless butchers who’ll do anything for money, but their contracts must be honored. Betrayal by an employer was something they would never tolerate.

Trying to save a few coins by betraying mercenaries? That could only lead to bloody revenge.

The territory ruled by the employer was completely devastated by the Mercenary Guild. Everything was looted, and nothing was spared.

The employer’s relatives were either sold into slavery or took their own lives, likely because they deemed surviving as slaves unbearable.

‘…It’s time to retire.’

Perhaps it was because I had regained my past life’s memories.

The acts of looting and other brutalities that I had once ignored now began to stir a faint sense of resistance within me.

It wasn’t overwhelming, but I instinctively felt that if I ignored this unease, I’d eventually lose what remained of my humanity.

A subtle sensitivity, if you will.

“Let’s become a civil servant.”

I decided to retire and began studying.

As long as I could read, becoming a soldier in some noble’s domain wasn’t hard.

But seeing what happened to the employer’s territory under the Mercenary Guild’s wrath, I aimed higher.

I resolved to become a soldier for the kingdom itself—where betrayal and ruin were less likely.

“Better to aim for the capital than settle for the provinces!”

For the record, I hold no prejudice against the provinces. Don’t get me wrong.

And so, I worked hard and did my best to prepare for the exam. Finally…

“Ho, you’re quite impressive.”

“Pardon?”

“It’s a shame someone like you is just a soldier. Those fools must be blind. From today, you’re reporting to the Knights’ Order.”

“…Huh?”

And just like that, I didn’t become a soldier—I became a late-entry knight.

“Well, this is… something.”

At 27 years old, Sir Ehan the Knight was born.