episode_0007

* * *

‘….Ah, I can feel your gaze. I can feel it.’

A cold sweat naturally runs down my face at the gaze that seems to pierce my back.

The beginning was while following the map of the cave to provide food for the beasts.

As I was walking along looking at the map, I felt a faint presence in an area that wasn’t on the map.

It was too faint a sound to be a human, so I thought it might be a bird or a small animal that had taken the wrong path, so I went to chase it away, and found a small tiger hiding between large rocks, glaring at me.

“Krrrr.”

He had a hungry look on his face, but his eyes were so fierce that you might think he was a beast. But that look didn’t last long.

As I used the skill, the wary gaze began to soften.

The tiger cub began to feel friendly towards me due to the skill’s influence. As if it had been on guard, it wagged its tail and began to slowly approach me from between the rocks.

‘…so cute.’

The tiger cub was born with a strong sense of alertness, and despite being influenced by the skill, it walked towards me while being very wary of its surroundings.

The sight of her trembling and twitching as she approached the distance was cuter than I thought.

I waited quietly in that spot so as not to startle the tiger cub.

I don’t know why it was in this cave, but I planned to catch it and send it out.

These conditions were not good for a tiger cub to survive in.

It seems that it cannot get along with other beasts, and it would be better for this tiger to be released into the wide forest.

“Bam, squeak.”

The tiger cub approached me and rubbed its head against my feet.

‘…Should I just raise it myself?’

All the wild beasts I had seen while wandering around were adult lions, tigers, wolves, and venomous snakes, so seeing this cute tiger cub was healing for my heart.

I reached out and gently stroked the tiger’s back. It purred happily and rubbed its face against my hand.

Maybe because he’s still a baby, he’s very affectionate.

If it weren’t for the stripes, the behavior would have been confusing, but it was clearly that of a cat.

While playing with the tiger, he noticed that it was very skinny, so I gave him some food and he started eating it eagerly.

You must have been really hungry.

As I was looking at the sight with pity, I felt the footsteps of a child approaching me.

I turned my gaze and looked in the direction where I felt the presence of people.

‘…..Who is it?’

The sound of small, cautious and secretive footsteps. Anyone could tell that it was the presence of a trained assassin. And he looked quite skilled.

No way….

My face slowly hardened.

If there was a child in this family who was a skilled assassin, it was obvious who it would be.

I pretended not to notice and played calmly with the tiger cub, but all my attention was focused on the sound.

I prayed earnestly in my heart.

‘…..Please don’t come here. Don’t come here.’

shit.

Contrary to my earnest wishes, the sound stopped right next to me.

Anyone could see the sharp gaze staring at me. I desperately pretended not to notice that gaze and looked back at the original content.

Why on earth did this happen?

What on earth did I miss that caused a future villainess to come knocking on my doorstep during my perfectly peaceful servant life?

‘Oh, no way…!’

Now that I think about it, there was something like that.

Suddenly, a short story that had passed through my mind came to mind.

The childhood of the villainesses was briefly featured in a webtoon as a side story rather than the main story.

At the time, I thought this was boring and just passed it over, but somehow it felt like the situation right now was like that in the webtoon.

The Jack family was a famous family of assassins that had been passed down for generations. There were three sisters living in this family of assassins.

The eldest daughter, Rasia,

The second is Solar, who is the same age as me now.

And the youngest, Remy.

Maybe that little hidden presence is Remy.

By now, Rasia will be on a mission to the Academy with Solar, so Remy will be the only one left in the house.

“Krung, krung.”

When I stroke its head, the tiger cub purrs as if it feels good.

Unlike before, my eyes had darkened and sunk.

‘…This was the tiger cub.’

There was a tiger cub that Remi, the youngest, raised for a while when he was young. I think the tiger’s name was Aru.

Aru’s appearance in the webtoon was not intended to show Remi’s peaceful childhood.

The reason why the young child who never lost his smile even during difficult and arduous training turned into a complete villain was because of that tiger.

I looked at Aru.

He was so full and relaxed that he started nodding off like a baby.

Aru was Remi’s only friend in this family.

Maybe you found it while training in the forest?

During training, Remy sees a cute baby tiger in danger and saves it.

From then on, Remi fell in love with Aru, who followed him, and hid her in his arms and raised her in a cave.

Fearing that he might be taken away if he was caught, Remy pretended to train him once a day, gave him food, and even sneaked out at night to play with him, raising him with utmost care.

But as the saying goes, a long tail can be caught, and eventually the servant will catch him.

‘….The first time you were caught by a servant, you killed that servant, right?’

But in the end, he gets caught again by the second attendant, and Aru ends up in Luan’s hands.

Luan decided to deal with Aru right away, judging that he would be of no help in arousing warm feelings towards an assassin who was supposed to be cold and ruthless.

After seeing that, Remy starts crying and making a fuss, and the two end up fighting.

That’s where the problem started.

Unfortunately, that scene was caught by the Duke who was returning from his mission.

After the Duke received the situation from Luan, he ordered Remi to kill Aru himself.

In front of Remi, who was shedding tears and saying that he could never do that, the Duke began to torture Aru without any change in his expression and began to make him neither live nor die.

Seeing Aru being tortured, Remi eventually screams and decides to kill her himself.

In this way, Aru eventually meets her death at the hands of Remi, who had cherished her so much.

‘This family is really crazy…’

When I read the webtoon, I read it without thinking much and thought it was too much, but when I thought about it as a future that would actually happen soon, it was incredibly creepy.

So, does that mean that the servant died not because of an attack by wild beasts, but because Remy killed him himself?

I was the second servant to catch this Aru and hand it over to Luan?

Now I think I have a rough idea of what role I’ve been given.

I stared blankly at Aru.

‘To go with the original…’

It’s so pitiful. This cute thing…

As I looked at Aru, I couldn’t help but feel sympathy.

‘I was also a heartless assassin, so how can you feel sympathy…’

I don’t know why, but I felt like my sensitivity had become richer since I entered this body. It was as if the memories of this body, rather than my previous life, were coming back to me more vividly.

It felt like the sensitivity of this age group had been revived.

If it were me in the past, I might have gone along with this family’s policy, but for me now, only thoughts of nonsense filled my head.

‘…..Besides, this tiger cub didn’t do anything wrong, right?’

If you can’t stand seeing Jeong raised like that, why bother getting blood on Remi’s hands when you can just send him out?

‘….No matter how much I think about it, there is a serious problem with the educational policy here.’

I quietly looked at Aru, who was sleeping against me.

‘Wouldn’t it be okay if I just pretended not to know that Aru was here?’

If you keep pretending not to know and let Aru live here…

If I keep the secret, unlike the original, then wouldn’t that terrible original story not come true?

Shouldn’t I be the one raising it, not Remy?

I rolled my head.

If Remi had just left Aru in my care and turned around, then both Aru and Remi would have been happy.

Remy also focuses on his own life again and raises Aru instead of her…

‘….What is this life?’

But unfortunately, Remy seemed to think differently than I did.

I was thinking about something else for a moment, but a tingling sensation on my back made me stop thinking and stand on end.

I wanted her to go back quietly, but it seemed like she had no intention of going back quietly.

‘….Are you trying to kill me?’

I bit my lip as I heard the sound of someone watching me and Aru from afar, then gradually closing the distance.

I could feel the same assassin.

I can tell from Remi’s determination to deal with me from his approaching gait and the murderous aura he exudes.

Even though I hid my true colors because I was still young, I was still a child. No matter how talented I was, I wouldn’t be as talented as you are.

I began to struggle with the intense murderous intent that seemed to stab me in the back.

‘What should I do…. What should I do….’

Before I knew it, Remy had come up behind me.

I was happy because I was given an easy job, but now I see that it wasn’t easy at all.

A life-threatening situation from day one… What is this….

‘….I don’t know anymore.’

It was life or death.

I clenched my teeth and turned around.