God of Assassination, Become the Strongest Healer

Eighty-seven years ago, I was born as the son of a farmer in a small village on the outskirts. My father was an amazing man. Even though he was born as a commoner and couldn’t get a higher education, he had a sharp mind, a strong body, and an unwavering will to resist injustice, along with a strong sense of justice that I deeply admired.

The lord of our village was truly cruel, and my father was the heart of the village, constantly standing up against the lord’s unfair tyranny. Finally, after all my father’s and the villagers’ relentless efforts, we achieved a better tax rate on the land. That night, though, everything changed.

“Eld, hurry and run! Take your brother…” 

cough! 

My father was killed by an assassin which was sent by the lord.

“No! Honey!”

To buy time for my brother and me to escape, my father clung to the assassin and had his throat slit, and my mother, trying to protect him, was stabbed through the heart.

“Nellie, we have to run! Don’t look back!”

With the house burning fiercely behind us because of the assassin, I held onto my brother’s hand and ran for my life. I wanted to fight back against the assassins, but I had to leave my dying parents behind to save my little brother.

As I sprinted up the rough mountain path with him on my back, I promised myself over and over again that as soon as I sent him to a safe place, I would return to the village and take revenge on our parents’ killers. But then…

“Nellie, no! Stay with me! Open your eyes, please!”

My hopes were soon shattered.

“Big brother… I’m sorry… for leaving you… all alone…”

My little brother was badly burned while escaping, couldn’t hang on any longer and passed away two days after we left the village. I held onto Nellie’s charred body, sobbing and gasping for breath.

“Nellie! Mom… Dad!”

It had been a whole day since I’d been sobbing while holding Nellie’s body.

Drip, drip.

Red spots started to spread across my brother’s corpse, and that’s when I realized I was crying blood. Just then, as I was writhing in shock, unable to handle it all, I heard a voice.

[Look at this little kid crying blood; that’s interesting.]

On the day I faced the greatest misfortune of my life, my greatest stroke of luck came to find me.

[Hey, kid. This old man is thinking of hiding away deep in the mountains for a while to rest. Want to come along?]

I had met my master, who was planning to retire from the world of assassins.

[You seem to have some deep grudges. If you can cook, do laundry, and run errands well for me, I’ll teach you how to kill like a pro. What do you say? Sounds good, right?]

It had been a whole day since I’d been sobbing while holding Nellie’s body.

With nothing else to hold onto, I followed my master, and five years later, I inherited everything he had.

[Why am I being so nice to you? Let’s just say I like your eyes.]

[I’m no slouch when it comes to assassination. Throughout my experience in life, I’ve come across plenty of so-called prodigies, but you’re something else. You might just have the greatest talent the continent has ever seen.]

[Go. You have a grudge to settle, so start by resolving that. But remember, don’t let guilt consume you, and don’t grow too numb either. A proper level of guilt can serve as a compass, guiding your path.]

[Lastly, as your master, let me give you one piece of advice: avoid killing for money.]

[There are plenty of people out there who think life means nothing when there’s money involved, but you’re not one of them, right? Most people believe they can buy happiness with money. But I’m telling you, you’re not that type.]

The last piece of advice my master, who taught me everything, gave me was to never kill for money. I guess, despite my talent, he thought I wasn’t suited for that kind of killing.

With my master’s words etched in my mind, I came down the mountain, heading toward the village where I was born and where my parents had been taken from me.

In the five years I had disappeared, the lord’s mansion had grown even grander, and it was clear that the lord had been squeezing the blood of the villagers even more cruelly.

That night, I snuck into the mansion built on pure greed and managed to capture the whole lord’s family.

“W-who are you? You punk! Do you even know who I am?”

“Ahhh! Intruder! An intruder has come! Guards!”

“Honey! What are you doing? Do something!”

“You… you… you’re…” 

The lord’s family reacted in all sorts of ways. Ironically, when I saw that ugly bunch of them screaming like pigs, what I felt wasn’t really anger but a sense of necessity. I had to cut off the breaths of these insects whose lives were utterly worthless.

“…This is a problem. I don’t want to look at your sorry faces for too long…”

Swish.

“Ahhh!”

“P-please don’t kill me! I’ll give you as much money as you want, just spare my life!”

I pushed the half-drawn knife back into its sheath.

“But it wouldn’t be fair to let you go so easily. What should I do about this?”

The one lucky thing, if you can call it that, was that the burden of the crimes they carried was heavy, no matter their age or gender.

“I-I don’t know anything! All the bad stuff was done by my mom and dad, so if you’re looking for revenge…”

“I’m younger than my sister! I’m still innocent!”

The lord’s son and daughter desperately pleaded their innocence. But I knew the truth. These two were just like their evil parents, worms who had caused the deaths of more than a handful of innocent lives with their wretched hands.

“It can’t be helped. Wait here. I’ll make sure you feel the weight of your sins exactly as much as you deserve before I send you off.”

“Ahhh!”

Gag!

For a week, I gave them a chance to atone for their sins in a remote cabin where no one would find them.

Gurgle…

On the morning of the seventh sunrise, they spit blood from every possible orifice. Yeah, I’ll admit I felt a little thrill when, on the third night, they all begged in unison, “Just kill us already.”

But to be honest, now that my revenge was over, what filled my heart wasn’t relief or freedom but rather a sense of urgency. My master had warned me to be careful of falling into the abyss of emptiness after revenge, but I didn’t feel any emptiness swallowing me up. Instead, I was overwhelmed with restless anxiety.

There are still scum like them scattered all over this world. What should I do? Should I just leave them be? Why?

There is worthless trash breathing in my sight, and I’ve got a knife in my hand that can cut their leashes, so why should I hold back?

‘Master, you were right. Money isn’t what drives me. I want more immediate results.’

I didn’t think about it for long, and I soon found my new direction in life.

“Lord Vishanu of Radecton, isn’t your favorite hobby to break into the newlywed home of a commoner on their wedding night and humiliate the bride in front of the groom?”

“I-I don’t know who you are, but please, let me live! If you spare my life, I’ll give you everything I have…”

Decades have passed since then, but my knife has never run dry of blood. There were just too many pieces of trash spread across the continent for that to happen.

I had occasionally taken out the trash that bullied weaker people, but my main targets were the nobles who squeezed the lifeblood out of powerless citizens. 

Believing that I was purifying this dirty world, I continued my assassinations, and the more blood I spilled, the more titles followed me.

“Baden’s Mad Dog,” “Demon of the Dawn,” “The Black Blade of Judgment,” “The Protector of the Night,” and so on.

As the years passed, and I could no longer even remember all the titles people had given me, they all disappeared, leaving only one:

“The God of Assassination.”

And when the entire continent began calling me by that name, I prepared for my final assassination.

The target was the tyrant of the Tashard Empire, Galbraid III.

The notorious madman, driven by a burning ambition to unify the continent, had already declared war across the land, and it felt like the continent was on the brink of being consumed by the flames of chaos he was about to unleash.

And on the day Galbraid finally declared the start of the war…

“Who goes there?!”

“Your Majesty! You need to get to safety!”

I caught the emperor’s guard as it went through the trap I had carefully prepared.

“Urgh… I, who would unify… the continent…”

In the end, I severed the head of the madman who was ready to plunge the continent into misery.

“Cough… Well… This isn’t such a bad way to end…”

Of course, that cost me my own life since I wouldn’t see another day either. My left arm was cut off, my right leg was smashed, and my right eye was taken out, but I didn’t have any regrets.

‘The mastermind behind this crazy plan is gone… so the war should either be called off or at least delayed for a long time. Yeah… that’s good enough for me.’

The whole reason I was alive was to clean up the scum that was running rampant, and I felt lucky to have taken down the biggest and most vicious piece of trash in the world.

“Ugh… what a brutal guy…”

Even in my broken state, A royal guard let out a groan as he stared at me, all messed up but still having managed to take the emperor’s head.

“Please… let my death mean something…”

That was the end for me.

****

— This is pretty ambiguous. Looking at the amount of blood on my hands, I should be in hell, but since my reasons were so noble, it felt wrong to just throw it all away. Guess there’s no other choice, huh?

I thought I’d never hear anything again, but then a strange, trembling voice came vividly into my ears.

— Hey! If you’re awake, open your eyes. I’m about to have a very serious and important talk with you.

Part of me wanted to stay in the dark forever, but for some reason, I opened my eyes anyway.

That voice, which sounded casual and a bit flippant at first, had a powerful energy that shook my entire being.

— Listen up. You’re going to be reborn soon. Exactly 100 years after you beheaded that crazy emperor or whatever his name was.

I opened my eyes, but I couldn’t see anything clearly. The light was so bright that I couldn’t even make out the shape of whatever was beyond it.

But the light that enveloped over me felt so warm, like my mom’s embrace from long ago.

— Normally, your soul would be tossed down there with those guys. Once you go down there, there’s hot sulfur and some enthusiastic folks who would be more than happy to feast on a soul like yours. But this time, I’ve decided against that.

Was I so lost in the comfort of the light that I was missing something important?

I’m going to be reborn? And in 100 years in the future?

What the hell does that mean?

— Because you’ve shed blood, many suffering souls were able to find solace. And considering that you never pursued any selfish gain while committing those countless murders, I’m giving you another chance.

I felt a stronger energy from the light, almost like it was moving closer to me, followed by a sound from behind, like a door opening.

— No matter how you look at it, the harsh situation you put yourself in was largely due to your unfortunate circumstances. So, this time, I’m giving you a chance in

 a very different environment, quite a bit different from before.

Was it just my imagination, or did I sense a chuckle in the voice of the light?

— If your goal in this life was to save the weak through your death, then in your next life, it’ll have to be the opposite. You’ll help the suffering not with ‘blood’ but with ‘healing’ and save yourself in the process.