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Chapter 1
“Damn it, even the rain is tormenting me.”
With the heavy armor soaked by rain, a sigh slipped out of Hans without him realizing it.
Of all nights, why did it have to be tonight that they carried out a surprise attack?
He had spent all thirty years of his life cleaning up after his master, but he never imagined he’d be doing it even on a battlefield.
“Count Calista, this way!”
At the voice of a soldier calling his master—or more precisely, calling him, who was pretending to be his master with his face hidden behind a helmet—Hans turned his steps with a stiff expression.
Darkness in the mountains was far more dangerous than he had expected. In this pitch-black night, having to distinguish friend from foe while fighting made cold sweat already run down Hans’s spine.
The one small consolation was that he was currently wearing the mask of a noble. Charging to the front was always the job of common soldiers, never that of nobles. All he had to do was stay safely in the rear, like the other nobles, and play the role of his master.
That didn’t mean he wasn’t angry.
Thinking of his master—who had thrown him into this death trap and was probably satisfying his lust with some woman right about now—another curse rose up in Hans’s throat.
When would that man ever come to his senses?
The country was in turmoil, with the conflict between the two ducal houses known as the true powers of the Empire reaching its peak. It had all begun when a dragon’s lair was discovered in a valley of the Compton Mountains.
Dragons had gone extinct long ago, but their lairs were still occasionally found by people. That had stopped about fifty years ago—until now, when one had been discovered again.
By law, a dragon’s lair belonged jointly to the first person who discovered it and to the owner of the land where it was located. The problem this time was that the location of the lair was ambiguous.
Since ancient times, the Compton Mountains had served as the boundary between the Empire’s two great ducal houses: the House of Townsend and the House of McCarthy. Though no clear line had ever been drawn, the two families had maintained peace for centuries with the mountain range between them.
That peace came to an end with the discovery of what might be the last remaining lair. Both sides began insisting that the lair was on their land.
And what was a dragon’s lair?
It was the dwelling of dragons—the strongest beings on earth, intelligent creatures who lived for thousands of years, amassed vast knowledge, and stood at the pinnacle of magic.
No lengthy explanation was needed.
Most of what could be obtained from a lair was beyond imagination. Neither side was foolish enough to let that go.
Moreover, the two pillars supporting the Rosenbaum Empire—the House of Townsend and the House of McCarthy—were evenly matched in power.
Which meant that whichever side claimed the lair would break the balance and gain the upper hand.
Knowing that once this conflict ended, the Empire would have only one true power instead of two, the other nobles couldn’t remain idle. One by one, they chose sides, and the war grew fiercer and larger in scale.
Hans’s master, Count Calista, also had no choice but to pick a side if he wanted to survive.
But since the only things his master knew how to do were drink and chase women, Hans once again found himself acting as his stand-in.
From childhood, there was nothing Hans hadn’t done in his master’s place. Whenever his master caused trouble, Hans cleaned it up. Everything his master didn’t want to do became Hans’s responsibility.
It wasn’t all bad. Though merely a servant, he had learned to read and write, picked up a little martial training, and even learned the etiquette and bearing of nobles.
But those skills were only useful when he was acting in his master’s stead. For a lowly servant, they were largely meaningless.
Every time he replaced his master, Hans thought the same thing.
If only I were a noble…
As a child, he felt crushing frustration dozens of times a day, realizing that almost everything he wanted to do was impossible unless he was a noble.
It wasn’t until he passed his teens and reached his mid-twenties that Hans finally gave up on everything.
He no longer felt frustrated, nor did he secretly shed tears over his resentment. He simply devoted himself silently to the tasks given to him, spending his remaining years that way.
But tonight, the resentment he had long buried toward the heavens slowly began to resurface. Perhaps it was the fear of a battlefield where he might lose his life, or the terror brought on by the darkness.
He had replaced his master countless times, but this was his first time doing so in war. The emotions of his youth came flooding back, setting his heart ablaze.
“Aaaargh!”
That was when screams suddenly erupted. Starting from the front lines, the cries echoed through the mountains and struck Hans’s eardrums.
Instinctively, he drew the sword at his waist. In that brief moment, the screams multiplied, and Hans’s heart shrank further. Somehow, the enemy had already laid an ambush and were waiting for them.
His mind went blank.
Though he held a sword, he couldn’t think of what to do or how to do it. For the first time in his life, faced with the possibility of death, his body trembled uncontrollably.
“Count Calista, run!”
A soldier’s shout snapped Hans back to his senses. Only then did he look behind him and see the nobles already fleeing far away. Judging the situation unfavorable, they were all running for their lives.
He felt it was cowardly, but Hans didn’t hesitate to run as well. His life was lowly, but it was too unfair to die like this. After all, the one who should have been here was his master, not him.
Hans ran with all his might.
“Huff… huff!”
Perhaps because of the armor’s weight, running felt dozens of times harder than usual. But to live—because he wanted to live—Hans clenched his teeth and kept running.
Yet as time passed, the distance between him and the screams kept shrinking. Too afraid to look back, he ran with his eyes tightly shut, over and over again.
Then, suddenly, he felt a chilling sensation.
Thunk!
At the same time as he felt a sharp sting in the back of his neck, his body pitched forward. Excruciating pain surged up from his neck, and as his face struck the rain-soaked ground, memories of his childhood flashed before his eyes like a lantern reel.
So this is how I die…
It was unfair to die in his master’s place, but more than that, he felt empty. Born the same human as anyone else, he had lived a truly miserable life simply because of his status.
He had never been able to do what he wanted freely, never spoken his mind, never even eaten what he desired to his heart’s content.
And now even his death was like this.
If only he could be reborn, then next time he wouldn’t live such a hollow life.
“In my next life, I swear…”
From the lips of the slowly dying Hans, a voice filled with deep resentment quietly slipped out.
