Chapter 1: Let's live for now

“…huu..huu..”

I can’t breathe, I’m suffocating.

It felt as if someone was pressing down on my neck, cutting off my oxygen. Struggling, I opened my eyes.

“…huu…huk..”

It was getting harder to breathe even more, and my head felt like it was being split open…

‘Damn, how long did I run yesterday?’ I can’t go to work in this condition.

This won’t do, I need to call and ask for the day off.

Knock. Knock.

I turned my head reflexively to the door. My eyes widened at the sight before me.

A wall with a strange portrait, a fine wooden door displayed with natural grain, and a bed adorned with curtains.

This… Wasn’t my room.

Confused, I tried to get up from bed. I needed to find out where I was, but this blanket was weighing me down.

‘What?’

“What’s going on? Is this my arm? Why the heck does it look like a dried branch.”

‘Ehh?’

I pulled the blanket off me with all my might, the very act had my heart bursting in exertion, it’s frantic beating could be heard in my ear. I was out of breath even though I had only rolled out of the blanket.

‘Mirror–.’

Thud!

My body tilted even before my legs touched the ground.

“Ruel-nim!”

The door opened and a man in a black suit hurriedly approached.

“Are you all right?”

“… Ruel?”

The stranger looked at me in askance.

‘Why did the name sound so familiar?’

The man who appeared to be a butler easily lifted me off the floor and placed me back onto the bed.

“You almost got in trouble. The fever just dropped this morning. Are you hurt anywhere?”

The butler asked me, but I was absorbed in my own thoughts.

‘Ruel… Setiria?’

That was the name that came to my mind after a bit of thought. The man standing before me became nervous.

“Do you still have a fever, Ruel-nim?”

The butler carefully put his hand on my forehead with his white gloves on.

“The fever went up again. I’ll get your meds ready right away.”

Seeing the butler leave, I grabbed him with my withered, twig-like arms.

If the name I said was wrong, the man would have questioned me. Since he didn’t, that could only mean…

The butler chuckled.

“Mirror.”

“Pardon?”

“The mirror.”

Even the very act of talking seemed to sap my breath away.

“Would you like me to bring it?’’ asked the butler.

I stared into the butler’s eyes as a response.

The butler bowed his head after much consideration.

“I’ll be right back.”

When the butler left, I felt the exhaustion sink into my body as if I had been running a marathon.

‘It couldn’t be.’

‘There was no way.’

‘The owner of this body, Ruel? That Ruel Setiria?’

Ruel Setiria.

A character in the first volume of the web novel ‘SSS-class Knight’. A sickly aristocrat from a very prominent and powerful family. Since birth, Ruel had an unknown disease that plagued him throughout his life, but it was never revealed in the novel what the cause was.

How could it have been known? After all, he died in the middle of the first book.

Knock. Knock.

“I’m coming in.”

Cassion, the butler came into the room carrying the mirror with a faint smile. He brought the mirror and angled it to the man on the bed, judging that he wouldn’t have the strength to hold it himself.

Only after seeing the reflection looking back at himself in the mirror, did the sense of reality set in.

What was staring back at him was a sickly face, showing the effect of a long bout of illness, the skin was pallid and the sunken-eyes were made prominent by the dark circles. Unmanaged gray hair grew wildly like weed, and blurred green eyes were distorted.

What a fucking joke.

Ruel Setiria. I become a weak and useless nobleman.

“Cassion.”

The butler looked at me anxiously at this breaking voice of mine.

‘You’re so pretentious.’

If anyone saw it, they could have mistaken the butler for someone loyal, who was worried about his master, and was heartbroken after checking his master’s condition.

“Yes, Ruel-nim.”

I waved my hand lightly.

My body was dead tired, out of breath just by speaking one word. How weak was it?

“Ruel-nim, are you out of breath?”

Cassion handed me something that was on the table. It was a tubular object similar to a flute.

“It may be hard for you sir, but please breathe through this Breath slowly.”

After hesitating for a while, I placed the Breath in my mouth.

No matter how much Cassion wanted to kill me, it was not time yet.

As I slowly inhaled the Breath, the feeling of strangulation in my chest started to loosen.

“Don’t hold your breath and continue using this magic tool.”

‘So it’s a magic tool.’

The unfamiliar words felt strangely familiar.

I looked at the magic tool with a lightened breathing.

This was my life-saver from now on. I will keep it close to me.

“Ruel-nim, today’s meal?”

Cassion’s worried eyes did not change as I calmly looked at him.

“I have an appetite today. Bring it.”

“That’s great sir. Since you’re ill, you should eat a lot.”

Cassion smiled broadly.

“Please wait, I’ll get it right away.”

“The medicine is after eating.”

“Yes, Ruel-nim.”

As soon as Cassion went outside, I rubbed my arm which was covered in goosebumps.

‘Crazy guy.’

In the novel, Cassion pretended to be a butler, but in fact he was actually an assassin. To be exact, he was an assassin hired by Ruel’s cousin who was aiming for the throne of the Setiria family.

Due to various reasons, Ruel was ostracized from society. He was pushed to the outskirts of the territory and lost Setiria to his cousin.

“Cough, cough.”

I gripped my throbbing chest as I spasmed in pain at the sudden cough.

Damn this body.

How I wish I could be the main character of this novel. I thought about everything that I knew about the novel again.

‘SSS-class Knight’ was an unfinished novel. In other words, no one knew the ending.

‘What a fucking joke.’

I patiently closed my eyes and considered my current predicament, and when I reopened them there was light in my hazy eyes.

‘Let’s live for now. Let’s live on.’

So what if I don’t know how the novel ended, I will survive in this world.

***

“Do you like it?”

I put the spoon down at Cassion’s question.

Cassion stood by the bed looking at me with his arm gently folded. There was a faint trace of an eerie smile on his lips.

‘Asshole.’

I was disgusted by him acting like that in front of the sickly.

“It tastes bad.”

It may be because of the medicine that Ruel takes or because of the disease, but I can’t tell what the food tasted like.

“I’m sorry.”

Cassion clenched his folded hand hard.

I grabbed the spoon again.

“But I’m still going to eat.”

“That’s right, you need to nourish your body.”

“Do you really want me to live?”

I smiled at Cassion.

It was a smile that revealed my craftiness.

No matter what, I have to find a way to live first.

“Cassion.”

The young man’s weak voice called out to the butler.

However, under the gaze that differed from usual, Cassion felt uncomfortable as if the collars of his shirt were too tight. Bearable but definitely not cozy.

“Yes.”

Cassion looked at Ruel in response. Nothing had changed. He looked as if everything was normal.

I drank the soup gracefully with my trembling hands. The noble attitude contrasted with my pale face.

“Let’s not beat around the bush anymore.”

“Pardon?”

“Stop pretending, no need to be nervous.”

I paused and took a deep breath.

“This is annoying.”

Cassion didn’t know what was annoying, but he was clearly uncomfortable with the look in Ruel’s eyes.

“I can’t speak much.”

“…….”

“But when do you plan to kill me?”

One corner of my dry lips tilted up.

Cassion’s hand, which had been folded, loosened. Laughter leaked from his lips.

“Oh, so you knew?”

He dropped his act and immediately turned into a hunter who had seen his prey instead of being anxious for having been caught.

“Of course.”

I looked at the hunter and answered leisurely.

Cassion drew a chair while looking around and sat next to Ruel. He then unbuttoned his suit and crossed his legs in an imposing manner.

“I guess the plan was for you to die in two weeks from now and the cause of death will be blamed on being unable to overcome the illness.”

“My cousin, Mineta Setiria has prepared well for it all to happen, hasn’t he?”

“That’s right.”

“Well, you just can tell just by looking at their eyes that they’re full of greed.”

Cassion’s confidence was amusing, and Ruel, who had firmly believed in him without knowing that he was an assassin that was sent to kill him. The thought itself was ridiculous.

Cassion messed up his neatly arranged hair.

“This is very strange.”

“What?”

“I’m sure you didn’t know anything until yesterday, how did you know today? Isn’t that strange?”

“What do you know after only half a year?”

After coughing a couple of times, I finished drinking the soup.

This fucking body. I can’t even eat comfortably.

Cassion took out the dagger he had hidden on his sleeves and toyed it lightly.

“It’s also a time to know a lot in half a year. Anyway, I’d like to hear what made my master speak out.”

“Lord.”

“……?”

“Call me Lord.”

No matter what anyone said, Setiria’s lord was Ruel.

Cassion stopped toying the dagger and looked greatly surprised. It was the most honest thing he had ever shown.

“You?”

At the derisive remark, l returned it as it was.

“Because I am the Lord.”

“Hahahaha!”

Cassion dropped his dagger and held his stomach laughing.

I continued to eat silently while watching him. The laughter paused after a moment.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going to die. Not in 2 weeks, but today. Do you know how hard my head was spinning because of that?”

“I won’t die.”

Cassion suddenly got out of his seat and placed the finely folded paper packet down, next to the tray.

“This is the medicine you should take today. You know, without this medicine, you wouldn’t last a day.”

“I won’t die.”

At his determined answer, Cassion smiled and looked at Ruel.

“I’m often told that I’m quite easygoing. But it seems like you’re more so than I am.”

Like a child watching a circus, Cassion was filled with expectations of finishing his task of killing Ruel. As he said, Ruel, a character in the ‘SSS-class Knight,’ was so weak that he could not even survive a day without medicine.

But I was different.

Though my body was weak, I wasn’t sick to the extent that I couldn’t think. I raised my finger and pointed at Cassion.

“You’ll protect me.”

“Huh?”

I decided to give Cassion a blow.

“Heirloom, you want the Turbulent Day, don’t you?”

“…….”

Cassion shut his mouth.

“My cousin promised to give it to you, right?”

Although his expression didn’t change, it was fully understandable how embarrassed Cassion was now. Cassion’s motivation for assassinating Ruel was for a sword called Turbulent Day.

A sword known to have cut down an evil hero, there was no special force in it anymore.

But Cassion was a sword collector. It was not hard to guess what he would do, if he had the opportunity to hold the legendary family treasure of Setiria that everyone yearned for but couldn’t have?

But he was in the wrong about something though.

“Idiotic.”

A word that was not at all noble popped out of Ruel.

Only then did Cassion’s mouth move.

“What do you want to say?”

“Water.”

I looked at the cup. The initiative in the conversation has been handed over to him.

Cassion furrowed his brows and poured the water.

Slowly, I drank the water, the conversation making me tired.

“Ruel-nim!”

This time, Cassion called his name.

“The heirloom passed down through the bloodline.”

“Through the bloodline…?”

“It’s me, Ruel Setiria, that is the current head of Setiria.”

Ruel laughed at Cassion and continued.

“I’m the only one who knows the location of the sword.”

“……!”

“You’re being cheated.”

“No…way.”

“Idiot!”

The fishing rod is bent greatly.

In the novel, my cousin did not know the location of the heirloom. But the person who’d know the location is obvious.

The heirloom would naturally be in a secure place with tight security.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by Aunomay Read