“I swear on my life!”
In a completely blank space stretching endlessly in all directions, a lively young boy stood there, utterly distraught, shouting loudly.
The reason was simple: he had just learned from the girl standing before him that he was dead.
Yes, dead—just like that, without any explanation, in a terribly unjust manner, killed by an assassin who had appeared out of nowhere.
Even now, as his soul arrived in this place, he still felt like he was dreaming.
“Hmm… I understand how you feel. What’s your name again?”
“Krecia! I’m Krecia Yadin, and you’re a Reaper who can’t even remember the name of a dead soul?!”
“Hey hey hey, alright, alright, unlucky sir, although I understand your anger and sorrow, I still have to explain something first.”
The girl waved her sleeve casually, showing she didn’t really care about his name at all.
“Although I don’t know what misunderstanding you have about me, I’m not a Reaper. If it had really been one of those guys coming to collect you, they wouldn’t be wasting time chatting.”
“Besides…”
Supporting her cheek with one hand, a hint of playful mischief gleamed in her dark eyes.
“Someone like you would have to wait in line before a Reaper would even come for you.”
“You…”
Krecia’s trembling fingers betrayed the turbulent emotions raging inside him.
He glanced down at his obviously somewhat translucent body and helplessly lowered his hands.
He was dead, so what else was there to say?
This gentleman was indeed quite unfortunate.
Krecia Yadin, a young noble born in a peripheral district of the Leia Principality, had shown exceptional magical talent since childhood.
Though studying magic was an expensive endeavor for most, his father was a noble officially recognized by the Royal Family.
Combined with Krecia’s considerable talent, given some time to develop, even if he couldn’t become one of the top mages of the era, he could easily become a young Elder in the Mage Guild or apply to be a Senior Instructor at the Royal Mage Academy.
Sure, he was a bit arrogant, but he never used his noble status to bully or oppress others in his hometown.
Thinking back, the worst thing he’d ever done was jump the queue to buy a Limited Edition Pink Magic Wand from the Mage Guild.
That hardly seemed like a crime worthy of death, right?
Huh?
As for sending an assassin?
If someone wanted him dead, why not just tell him?
He’d be willing to negotiate!
If he had known that his death was truly related to this, perhaps he would have thought the same.
Maybe it was because of his agitation or perhaps just the passage of time, but Krecia’s figure became even more transparent.
“So, miss ‘I-don’t-know-what-you-are,’ since I’m already dead, what am I supposed to do next?”
“Am I supposed to follow you to reincarnate or something?”
After calming himself for two minutes, Krecia finally accepted the fact of his death.
Yes, accepting one’s death was no easy thing.
But more than that, Krecia seemed more reluctant to face this strange woman who didn’t even want to remember his name.
Even if she was really pretty.
“I told you, I’m not a Reaper, and following me won’t get you reincarnated.”
The girl spoke quietly.
“Aren’t you curious how you died?”
“Can you show me a playback of my death?”
“No.”
“Well, what kind of crap is that?”
Krecia’s body trembled violently; this woman always seemed to effortlessly stir his already unstable emotions.
“You won’t let me reincarnate, won’t show me my death replay—what the hell do you actually want?”
“Alright, don’t be so agitated.”
The girl waved her sleeve again; a complex rune flashed briefly on her cuff, and then a warm spiritual energy quickly enveloped the poor boy’s body.
The sensation was like the gentle sun of early spring, calming him quickly; his soul stopped shaking and seemed to solidify considerably.
“Your death is indeed related to the Royal Family.”
“The Royal Family? The last time I saw those people was at my naming ceremony.”
“So it’s just a connection.”
“?”
“You get killed just because you have a connection?”
“Yes.”
A moment of silence.
“So the assassin really was sent by the Royal Family?”
“That’s right.”
“Just to kill me, someone who has only met them once since birth?”
“Yes.”
“So what does my childhood encounter with them have to do with anything?”
“Nothing.”
Speechless.
Krecia knelt down, hands on the ground, face down—the whole scene drained of color.
“Sis, I’m tired. Can we just stop going in circles?”
Seeing the collapsing youth, the girl seemed to have had her fun and smiled with satisfaction.
“Hahaha, I never said your death was connected to your meeting them.”
“Alright, alright, I won’t tease you anymore.”
“Do you remember the Pink Magic Wand you bought from the Mage Guild a month before you died?”
Seeing that the girl was serious about talking to him, Krecia got up and sat cross-legged on the spot.
“Of course I remember. It’s in the compartment on my bookshelf.”
“Did you notice anything unusual when you bought it?”
The girl asked this, and Krecia thought for a moment before replying.
“Yes. It looked a bit different from the Guild’s promotional pictures—more exquisite, with a strange scent.”
“The old man who sold it to me said I was lucky to get one of the few hidden editions. I was happy about that for a whole week, even though the bastard charged me two gold coins extra.”
“That’s right,” the girl snapped her fingers.
“The Magic Wand’s design prototype was based on a wand the Third Princess once concealed in her clothing at a Duke’s banquet. Because of its unique shape and complete lack of magical properties, but the ability to easily wield magic, a wand designer present that day remembered it.”
“Hmm… and then?”
Krecia sat on the ground, listening attentively since it concerned his death.
“That wand designer once approached the Third Princess, hoping to borrow the wand to study it closely and then design a ‘Royal Princess replica wand’ for sale as a marketing gimmick.”
“But not only did he fail to borrow it, he got beaten up by the Third Princess and thrown out.”
“That’s normal, right? How would a mage easily lend out their wand? That guy deserved that beating,” Krecia agreed.
“Exactly. But you can tell he really liked that wand. After failing repeatedly to borrow it, he hatched a devious plan—about a month before the princess went hunting, he set up a massive magic array at the hunting ground, successfully ambushed everyone there including the princess, and stole her wand.”
After hearing this, Krecia’s eyes widened as if he had just learned some explosive news.
“No way, bro?”
He had heard of this incident.
It happened about two months ago and was a big deal at the time. The Royal City was under martial law for a long time after the princess was attacked, and the lockdown hadn’t lifted even when he died.
But he never imagined the mastermind behind it had such a trivial motive.
“That brave designer got the wand he wanted and spent three days designing the sparkling, bulinbulin pink Magic Wand you saw in the promotional pictures later.”
“Probably knowing the risk, he didn’t dare put ‘Royal Princess Replica’ on the promotional materials.”
“After manufacturing and selling it for a while, he tried to return the wand at a ball the princess attended, but the first batch of wands looked so much like the princess’s real wand—and because her real wand and those toys both lacked magical properties—he got confused. The real wand had already been mixed into the fake batch and sold.”
“So, the wand quietly delivered to the ball was a fake, and the princess didn’t know what was going on. She panicked when she saw her wand again and ran off clutching it without checking.”
“When she realized the wand was a fake, the real wand was already in your hands.”
The atmosphere returned to silence.
Krecia buried his face in his hands, dazed for three full minutes.
“Right, if I remember correctly, you said the wand had a strange smell?”
“Wanna guess what else that wand was used for besides casting magic?”
She smiled sweetly at Krecia.
Krecia was already fourteen or fifteen years old—not inexperienced in life, but definitely not clueless.
After her hint, and recalling some raised bumps on the wand, he found it hard not to imagine some strange things.
He stiffly turned his head to look at her scheming face.
“You mean…”
The girl smiled brightly.
“Exactly.”
***
“You mean, a designer dared to ambush the Royal Hunting Party just to make knockoff wands?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“And because his product was so convincing, he fooled all the big shots there including the princess and himself?”
“Mm… not the Court Mages. The princess was also late to find out.”
“That thing even acted as the princess’s boyfriend?”
“Phew… you’re not wrong there.”
“And in the end, I bought it for just four gold coins?”
“So they sent assassins after me because of that?”
The girl smiled silently. Though she didn’t answer, her expression conveyed the absurd but true answer.
Everything connected; everything made sense.
Why the Royal Family kept quiet, why they were willing to silence anyone to get the wand back—even if he was just a poor soul who accidentally bought a mass-produced toy.
But for Krecia, he really just bought an expensive, girlish toy wand out of personal interest.
“I swear on my life!”
The miserable boy let out a helpless wail here.
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