| 10 years after reincarnation

AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

A sinister screech of my own making entered my ears and sent chills down my spine, waking me up from the dazed state. Foreign memories surged in waves of migraines in an attempt to merge itself to my consciousness. Past and present recollections entangled themselves, resulting in the loss of my identity. Who am I?

I felt my damp clothes harshly rubbing against my skin. A certain heaviness lay on my arms shivering against the midday breeze.

“Richard, please…run away…don’t let them…catch you…”

I stared at this person laying on my arms and reflect on her strange yet familiar voice. Her soft brown hair rested dormant on my arm. While still drenched in blood and sweat, her elegant features shone brightly past the exterior layer of dirt and bodily fluid. The familiar sense of grief knocked me back to reality. Not this again. I can't lose another person in my life. My grip tightened around her body, sheltering her from the passing wind.

Clang Clang Clang

In the distance, the sound of swords clashing against one another echoed through the dense rows of trees. The woman attempted to push me away, but her multiple wounds prevented her from any major movements. The woman’s eyes showed genuine concern and terror towards my wellbeing, but why can’t I remember who she is?

“Run…run as fast as you can, towards our…mansion. My son…you have to get…out of he…”

Cough

Blood flowed out of her mouth as she uttered her last words. Any fragments of her consciousness faded away, leaving space for a lifeless corpse. Streams of tears ran down my face as I struggled to grasp the situation. Tears? This feeling of grief, I am too familiar with. Have I once again caused death and suffering for the people around me?

“I’ve found you~”

A man clothed in dark garments sounded with glee as he strolled towards me. In his hands, a metal blade doused with blood flickered in the light of day. While I do not recognize his voice nor his characteristics, a distressing sense of danger and hatred overtook my every being and signalled my fight or flight response

“Get away from me!” I screamed, “Stay back!” Still hugging the woman's body, I waved the tree branch towards this sadistic man as my last hope of defending myself.

“Now is not the time for fear, silly~” The man easily dismantled my flimsy stick with his sword and approached closely to my face. I can feel his light breathing touching my skin in an alarming manner.

“That comes later.” His smile widens into a vicious grin. The man dragged my struggling form with ease out of the enclosing forest and onto what seems to be a dirt road.

There, carcasses of medieval knights and horses scattered lifeless onto the blood-soaked ground. A group of 20 or so men, dressed in a similar dark fashion, took turns pillaging and looting from the surrounding corpses. From the busted carriage, a woman dressed in a knee-length black dress burst out of the side door to greet the grinning bastard.

"It seems like you have brought back the young master, Bakin. I assume that lady Aliya is dead. She gave me quite a scare, running off like that with this impudent child. I guess three stab wounds couldn't stop a mother's love for her child after all."

Her cold words suggested that the woman from before was my mother. She died protecting this useless child. I couldn't even remember who my own mother was. What a disgrace of a human being I am. Once again, tears flowed down my cheeks and dripped onto the dirt ground. The woman dressed in black took an interest in my demeanour.

"What is this? A prideful Felmourne is crying amid the brightness of day. What a wonderful time it is."

She swept a drop of my tears up from my cheeks with her finger and licked it.

"Yuck. Nobles' tears are just as salty as us commoners."

I reached towards her neck to choke the life out of her, but the man who captured me, Bakin, jerked me back into place with his overwhelming strength. The woman was taken aback from my action but returned to her natural expression.

"Now, now. We all have our parts to play. Don't be so eager to die just yet, young master Richard."

The snake spewed venom out of aggression and took her focus back to Bakin.

"We've been idle long enough. Tell your men to get ready. We shall move to our meeting point."

"As you command, elder sister," Bakin responded with a polite bow.

There seems to be a particular system of ranking for these cold-blooded killers. At the top of the current hierarchy, the "elder sister" and by her side is Bakin. Everyone else fell below these two's commands.

My assailants jumped onto their horses as Bakin tied and gagged me onto his horse. Their priority target was me or at least, this current world me. Despite how much I rack my brain, I couldn't understand what my importance was in this entire operation. While my memory is still a jumbled mess, I had recovered my identity in this realm of medieval savagery.

My name is Richard Felmourne. The second-born son of the “Right Hand,” Royal Duke Philip Felmourne and Princess Aliya Ellwein, sister to the Ozen Kingdom's Throne. Throughout the past ten years of my existence, I was a spoiled and selfish noble brat that ate, slept and shit with the golden spoon up his ass.

Due to my impulsive desire to visit some sodomized ancient ruin to the East, our carriage and guards were ambushed by these so-called bandits, which resulted in the death of my servants and my beloved mother.

If they desired to capture hostages in exchange for gold, it would have been more beneficial to keep my mother alive. However, their sole objective was for me to be captured without harm, so there's an underlying goal behind their act.

Furthermore, from what I gathered, the "elder sister" infiltrated and posed as one of our servants. When the ambush began, she immediately injured my mother in the hope of killing her. This incident was carefully planned and executed. These aren't regular bandits at all. They must be some sort of assassins. I wonder what they have in plan for me out of fear for my own life.

Before I could finish my thoughts, the group rode away from the solid dirt road and into the grassland. I was left bouncing behind Bakin's horseback to my grief and pain. The scene of the massacre grew smaller as the distance spread further.