The Red Knight Seeks No Reward

Chapter 1

Knight and Rogue

Regrets always arrive too late. As Judith coughed up a mouthful of blood, that adage rang especially true.

“Excellent.” A man was staring down at her. His appearance and demeanor were the same as they always were. Both his hair and eyes were jet black like he was the personification of the Grim Reaper himself. “Clean swordsmanship, as always,” the man said.

“Captain Jeromell…” Judith spat up another mouthful of blood. It dripped onto the golden carpet, but no one would have noticed a difference. The carpet was already soaked with blood, both hers and that of the prince she had just slain.

“You are indeed useful. It’s astounding how easily you broke through the heaviest of guards and killed the empire’s prince,” Jeromell said as he checked the body of the deceased imperial prince.

“Why…” Judith sputtered. She was usually the one to check the death of the target. For this mission, she was tasked with assassinating the third prince, and everything had gone off without a hitch. She had been so close to perfectly finishing the operation, and she would have—if Jeromell, the man who had given her the order, hadn’t stabbed her in the back. “Why… did you… attack me…?”

He left her question unanswered. He was still double-checking that the prince was definitely dead. In the meantime, Judith’s consciousness was starting to fade. Her breathing became more labored and her limp body shook. Her instincts warned her that death was near.

“It’s only right to execute the assassin who killed an imperial prince,” Jeromell said.

Judith stared at him wordlessly for a moment, her mind too full of rage to speak. “You… you gave me that order!” she finally hissed.

“And you made the choice to carry out said order. Did you forget, Dame Judith?”

“What…” she groaned. What bullsh*t, she thought, but her body wouldn’t let her protest. Blood dripped down her arm, slicking her hand.

Just like a bard, Jeromell’s words were gentle, and his expression was calm. There was no trace of sarcasm or pity in either. “You look upset.”

Judith saw a glimpse of white light emanating from his hand as he inspected the corpse. Was that magic? she wondered. She couldn’t tell. She clutched at her wound, trying to regain control of her slipping mind.

“What’s the matter? It’s an honor to die during such a valuable mission. It’s not every day you get to kill an imperial prince.”

“You planned this from the start.” I shouldn’t have agreed to this… She knew it was too late, but her regrets drove her mad.

Assassination of a member of the imperial family was punishable by execution, so she had naturally refused the mission at first. She’d had no intention of sticking her neck out that far, no matter the reward she’d been promised. But her judgment had grown clouded. Jeromell had sounded nonchalant, no different from his usual self, on the day he’d ordered the assassination. It was the same way he spoke when he had ordered her to clean up after the demonic beast hunt, or on countless other occasions. He sounded the same when he had once ordered her to cover up the death of an imperial family member, too.

Jeromell was not the sort of captain to give orders that were impossible to carry out or would be too messy to clean up after. He was precise with handing over the promised rewards and giving credit where it was due. That’s why she had trusted him. She hadn’t worried about the fallout.

History was written by the victors, and for generations, the victors had mostly been the black knights. The imperial palace had the most to gain from the knights’ discretion, so they often entrusted them with secret missions. Judith had never thought that she, a black knight, would have to pay the price for any blood spilled. But this time, she had received a sword to the chest.

I let my guard down… Judith staggered to her feet. As she gripped her sword, her hand trembled like a leaf in a storm.

“You seem quite sprightly for someone who’s been stabbed.”

“Don’t you dare… play with me…!” Hot blood poured from her chest, but she could no longer feel the pain as her outrage took control. She could not accept that this was the end.

“Captain Jeromell!” she roared. A burst of grayish-white light erupted from Judith’s sword. Aether struck like a thunderbolt, ripping through the ground and shaking the palace.

Despite the situation, the captain was in awe. She is a genius indeed. Her sword still rises even in the face of death. “Impressive,” he said.

“I will kill you!”

“You were a useful pawn, worth the hefty price I paid.” The man’s impassive expression finally changed as his lips twisted sinisterly. “As your superior, I will do you the final favor of beheading you myself.”

Jeromell drew his sword, its blade matte black. Just like its owner, it seemed to swallow any light around it. He aimed his blade for Judith’s throat.

Each time her aether-clad blade collided with Jeromell’s, it sent out shockwaves. The walls cracked and a gust of wind blew in. At a glance, they might have appeared to be on equal footing, but in reality, it was a one-sided match. Unlike Judith, who was soaked through in a cold sweat, Jeromell was completely relaxed.

Judith drove her sword toward him like a barreling wedge, but she lost her strength and faltered. Jeromell parried her attack easily. In the end, her blade had never even reached him.

“Enough of these childish games.” Jeromell adjusted his grip on his sword, and his hand glowed white.

The next moment, Judith saw something she couldn’t understand. I can’t read the movement of the sword… As his blade cut through the air, ruptures formed, erasing space as quickly as the tides making scribbles on sand disappear.

Wham!

Just as Judith’s eyes caught a glimpse of his spotless blade, her body flew against the wall. She groaned in pain. His attack was merciless.

The impact left her dizzy and threw her into a coughing fit. As she spit out another mouthful of blood, she could hear how each breath she took rattled in her chest. She was at her limit. She collapsed, losing her grip on her sword.

“Do you remember the oath of the Order of Black Knights?”

In the silence, Judith wheezed. “‘I vow to wield my sword for a cause worth more than life itself.’”

Jeromell’s footsteps approached until he was looming over her. He looked down at her like she was nothing more than vermin. “Dame Judith, your cause was wealth.”

That was true. Until this point in her life, Judith had lived only for money. She had become an imperial knight because it would earn her the most. She had chosen the Order of Black Knights because the rewards were as certain as their duties were dangerous.

Money had always been one of her top priorities. She wasn’t scum who would do anything for money—she was more like a cleaner who would take care of most reasonable tasks for payment. She wouldn’t take someone’s life, but cutting a target’s tendons was acceptable.

She had lived like that for twenty-six years. It had not been an easy life. A good sum of money required a tremendous amount of hard work. So she’d swung her sword desperately, and before she knew it, fame had found her. People praised her as a genius.

But how did things come to this? Jeromell was the one who had recognized how reasonable a choice it was to pursue money as a knight. Why? Why is he doing this to me, now?

“I’ve obeyed your every order like a dog,” she said. “You got what you paid for!”

“Indeed, I did. And I’ll also pay to put the dog down.”

“What…?”

Gold coins were scattered across Judith’s prone body, as if thrown to a beggar. “As your captain, I commend you for your work.”

Judith mustered all that was left of her strength to look up at his face, only to see contempt written upon it. Her captain was looking at her like she was trash. Judith knew the look in his eyes would haunt her for eternity.

“Quite a worthy death. Wouldn’t you agree?” he said.

Before Judith could answer, there was a dull thud and the sound of something bursting. The room was suddenly as silent as a desert at dusk.

Ragged locks of Judith’s dirty gray hair and bloodstained coins were scattered at Jeromell’s feet. He examined the blood splatter on his shoe, then his gaze shifted to the blood gushing from the body that had been alive merely a few seconds before. His face was blank.

One of his knights entered and was shocked by what he saw. “Captain Jer— Wh-what on earth happened?!”

“An assassin.” Jeromell’s pitch-black sword was returned to its scabbard. The job was done. “Clean up the corpses first.”

The knight scurried away, looking pale as a ghost.

Jeromell threw out a few more orders and turned on his heel, unaware that a silent miracle had occurred. For a split second, a white light that defied the bounds of time flashed across Judith’s headless corpse.

***

Whenever Judith was asked to tell her life story, she would summarize it as briefly as possible, claiming that she didn’t like telling a sob story. She thought destitution was nothing to boast about. She was not blessed with a father, nor with money. She had only two things in her life—her mother, who worked at the cost of her own health, and a sword.

Even that sword had initially been denied to her. It was only granted to her because she’d snatched up the opportunity to earn it. She first held a sword when she was eleven years old, when a viscount’s daughter had grown weary of learning swordsmanship and had sent Judith to take her place. At that time, Judith was in training to become a servant. She hadn’t uttered a single word of protest and had gone to take the lesson.

“I’m here in place of the lady.”

“Really? All right… I suppose my job is the same either way. Let’s begin.”

Her swordsmanship teacher was a forty-year-old man. He had continued his lesson even though a random girl had come instead of his niece. He figured that a commoner’s daughter who did as she was told was better than a niece who whined about even a wooden sword being too heavy. His rationalization was so arbitrary that Judith came to believe all knights thought the same way.

Still, she recognized this as the first opportunity that had ever come into her life. She was determined to obey, so she jumped through all manner of hoops for him. Soon, the teacher took on the brash kid as his pupil, even though she declared she wouldn’t pay a penny for her lessons.

“Once you draw your sword, you must kill all emotions. Focus on the opponent in front of you. No distractions.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t answer. Stay in that position for three hours.”

He was a ruthless and fierce teacher. Judith learned to use a sword by gritting her teeth and bearing his methods.

“You’ve got grit, Judith. What is making you go to such lengths?”

“I want to become a knight. That is my dream.”

“A ‘knight?’ Your ‘dream?’ Come on. You’re nothing like a knight!”

“I said it was my dream! You have such a horrible personality!”

“Same goes for you, you cheeky rascal.”

They would snipe at each other all day, but somehow only Judith ended up hurt.

The teacher handed his reprehensible pupil a heavy bucket of water to hold up in the name of muscle training. But Judith was no ordinary kid. Her hands trembled as she held up the bucket, but she refused to give up.

“How can you insult my dreams?”

“Aren’t you a spiteful one? I didn’t insult you!”

“You did!”

Suddenly, both the teacher and his pupil were drenched.

“Ack, that’s cold!”

That period was probably the happiest she had ever been in her life.

Four years later, Judith turned fifteen years old. On the day of her last swordsmanship lesson, the teacher waved a letter of recommendation under her nose.

“Let me ask you one last question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Do you still want to be a knight? Truly?”

Judith retrained herself from giving him a straight answer. It was a topic they’d been relentlessly fighting over for almost four years. He didn’t need to ask her again to know what she would say. He looked serious for once.

“Judith, the world is a foul place. Chivalry has long since fallen by the wayside. The weak are trampled on, and the lords are no better than pimps. The noblewoman you’ll likely serve will be nothing more than an embellishment to your name. When you become a knight, you’re meant to seek virtues like integrity, honor, justice—things along those lines.”

“Yes, that’s the nature of knighthood.”

“I say this because you look like you might go down the wrong path. I see the temperament of a rogue knight in you.”

The teacher grumbled as he said so. She hadn’t been sure if he’d meant to insult her or advise her at that time. But in hindsight, it was guidance.

“If you choose to become a knight, you will live a life of ignorance. You will be oblivious to the virtues you must pursue. So, what will you decide? If you still covet titles, land, or gold even after accepting this letter, then you’re no true knight. You’ll be a rogue knight or even a sword-for-hire. Do you truly wish to lead such a life?”

“Ha. Can beggars be choosers?”

Having lived a deprived life, Judith reached out to snatch up the recommendation letter. She was eager to fill the void in her life, first with the sword, and then with money. But she knew little about what would come next. The teacher smiled slightly bitterly.

“Very well. I can’t give you a title, land, or gold, but I can give you this. Take care, Judith.”

“You take care as well, sir.”

She bid farewell to her teacher. Five years later, a twenty-year-old prodigy swordsman, the youngest aether master in history, was named an imperial knight and took the oath.

“I, Judith, a member of the Order of Black Knights, solemnly swear to protect the weak, guard the empire, and live with integrity. I vow to wield my sword for a cause worth more than life itself.”

That was how her tragic end had begun.