Commuting to the Imperial Palace Knights was not particularly difficult. When I was Tiel, I practically lived in the Imperial Palace. Except for spaces only the royal family could enter, there was no place in the palace I didn’t know, so getting confused would have been harder. What I wasn’t used to, however, was the atmosphere in the training room.
‘Is the Omega Knights’ atmosphere always like this?’
When I first arrived for work, nothing seemed amiss. Compared to the Royal Guard’s training grounds, it was narrow and modest, but it was well-maintained in its own way. Like the Royal Guard, they used practice swords instead of their own during training.
The problem was that my body swayed the moment I picked up Aila’s practice sword.
“Ugh. What is this……”
The practice sword was the most common type of sword, not a particularly heavy greatsword. It meant that any ordinary knight should be able to wield it as easily as their own limbs. Yet this pathetically weak body struggled just to hold the sword.
‘Don’t tell me it was secretly modified?’
Unless they were a complete idiot, no one would modify a practice sword to be unbearably heavy. However, as a knight being unable to comfortably hold even a practice sword was even harder for me to believe. So with a truly slim hope, a very slim hope, I picked up an ownerless sword, and the result was disastrous.
‘This one’s even heavier!’
Aila’s sword hadn’t been modified to be heavier—it had been modified to be lighter. The fact that there was a knight doing such things, and that they hadn’t been dismissed despite this, was absolutely unbelievable. I even forgot that I was currently inside Aila’s body. I wanted to immediately report Aila to the Captain and have him kicked out.
“You, you! What are you doing? Who said you could take out someone else’s sword?”
While I was wavering between despair and absurdity, a knight who had just entered the training grounds pointed at me and shouted. Touching another’s sword without permission was serious enough to warrant a duel challenge in extreme cases, so I immediately set the sword down obediently.
“My sword seemed abnormal, so I was comparing it with an ownerless sword. If it had an owner, I absolutely wouldn’t have done so. I apologize.”
“What?”
Rather than calming down, he became more flustered and rushed over to check the sword I had touched. After confirming it was truly an ownerless sword, he narrowed his eyes and looked me up and down.
“What are you scheming? Don’t tell me you’re trying to switch swords to make an excuse to talk to Sian, Jana, Ein, or Shilo? No. Are you planning to hit on someone else besides those four?”
I held back the urge to drag my hand down my face. I’d heard he threw himself at everyone regardless of their secondary gender or sex, but it seemed he was even someone who flirted with fellow knights in the same order. At first, I just thought it was pathetic beyond measure, but now that it had reached this level, I was almost impressed by the diligence with which he could so persistently throw himself at people.
“No. I just want to have some awareness as a knight now and focus on training.”
The knight before me still looked at me from head to toe with disbelieving eyes. I couldn’t say I didn’t understand that feeling—if someone who had been such a philanderer suddenly declared they’d changed overnight, I wouldn’t believe it either.
‘But what can I do when I’ve actually become a different person?’
The situations I faced were so busy, and I didn’t want to dig deeply into the bizarre phenomenon of dying and entering someone else’s body, so I’d tried to deliberately ignore the body’s owner. But if someday I had to return this body and leave, I genuinely wanted to at least train the body’s physical strength as payment.
‘And while I’m at it, I hope Aila changes his mind and becomes a true knight.’
I had no confidence in perfectly convincing someone who couldn’t possibly know such circumstances.
“Forget it. What would I gain talking to a bastard like you? I’m making this crystal clear—if you try to pull any more tricks, just watch. I’ll publicly reveal everything about how you weren’t satisfied with juggling three people in the knights and even threw yourself at someone who was married.”
Hearing the knight’s explanation, I felt my head spin. It was insane enough to touch someone who was married, but I had no idea what to do with this deranged body’s owner who even tried to seduce that person’s spouse. With such a pretty face, he could have enjoyed dating moderately, yet I couldn’t understand at all why he went around being such a philanderer.
“I apologize. I’ll make sure nothing like that happens again.”
Though it wasn’t my fault, I offered an apology for the crime of using this body. The knight’s eyes widened as he muttered, “What……” Since continuing to talk would only give me a headache, I fled toward a corner of the training grounds with my sword.
As I warmed up with relief—not quite relief—that Aila was flexible, other knights began entering the training grounds one by one. When everyone arrived with ten minutes left before training time, I felt something was strange. And for good reason—everyone had perfectly lined up, yet they left two spaces empty around me.
‘Is there some kind of barrier around me?’ I wondered. Since Aila had done such things, I thought they might avoid me, but it was quite remarkable how they kept this much distance and treated me like I didn’t exist. Even the Captain, who checked each person’s form one by one, just shook his head from afar when he saw me and passed by, which said it all.
I was curious enough to wonder why Aila stubbornly remained in the knights despite all this. Just when I was developing deep curiosity about this body’s owner, it happened. Though all physical abilities were inferior, my hearing must have been good, because during break time I could clearly hear the conversation the knights were having in the distance.
When they talked about their respective families, I just let it pass, but then a topic came up that I absolutely couldn’t ignore.
“The Sayus Family is formally entering the palace to lodge a complaint today.”
“What? They’re not going to complain over one dead knight, are they?”
“His Highness was so adamant that he absolutely couldn’t return the corpse. It is written that knights directly under the Imperial Family offer even their corpses to the Imperial Family.”
“What? That’s just a procedure made in case the family doesn’t want to take the corpse!”
The one currently whispering and spreading rumors was from a provincial viscount family, and that family was recognized for having considerably good intelligence relative to their power. In other words, it wasn’t just a baseless rumor. Combining Kevin’s information with the knights’ rumors, it was clear that everything I heard yesterday was true.
“Exactly. That’s why everyone’s puzzled.”
“I acknowledge that person was a good knight, but something’s strange……”
They couldn’t bring themselves to speak about what happened at the funeral, but it was obvious everyone was recalling the same scene. There would be no one entering the palace who didn’t know about His Highness’s eccentric behavior, and His Highness must have known that when he acted that way.
I forgot about worrying over Aila and concentrated on their conversation.
“Moreover, there’s no officially released information about where that corpse is right now.”
“Wasn’t it buried during the funeral? It wasn’t shown, but I thought that was the unofficial understanding.”
“If that were the case, would the Sayus Family have asked for the grave to be moved, or would they have asked for the corpse to be returned?”
My hair stood on end. My stomach churned at the fact that my corpse might not be buried in the ground but still somewhere in the Imperial Palace.
“But I heard that corpse is inside the Crown Prince’s palace!”
I couldn’t hold back any longer and approached the whisperer. As I strode over, the man who had been whispering was startled and unconsciously pulled back.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Huh? Wh-what do you mean? Th-that, Sir Aila. If I have a conversation with you……”
“Just now, where did you say the corpse is?”
As if he hadn’t imagined I would have heard their conversation, his face turned pale. He seemed unwilling to talk with Aila, but I wasn’t in a state of mind to consider such things.
“I-it’s just a rumor. I don’t think it’s something you need to concern yourself with, Sir.”
“I’ll decide that. Please say it once more.”
When I came out firmly, he seemed troubled as if his head hurt, but eventually opened his mouth.
“There’s a rumor going around that Sir Tienas’s corpse is inside the Crown Prince’s palace. It’s not accurate information, you should see it as more like something said because his corpse’s whereabouts are unknown.”
But His Highness would surely know about that rumor too. I was clueless about rumors and always used information brokers, but he was always someone who knew everything one step ahead of me.
‘Why on earth……’
At that moment, my vision blurred and a flash of light flickered. After a sensation like dizziness passed, a familiar space unfolded before my eyes. It was the Crown Prince’s palace, specifically His Highness’s bedchamber. What was unusual was that His Highness wasn’t lying in bed but sitting before it as if nursing someone. Before I could lose myself in that beautiful face, I quickly turned my head to look at the other person.
‘Who is it? Could it be His Highness’s fiancé?’
The clouds covering the moonlight were pushed away by the wind, and light fell on the face that had been dark. He was a man with dull silver hair and closed eyes. No, to be precise, it was Tienas’s corpse.
“Huh!”
When I closed and opened my eyes again, the training grounds appeared. I, who had just been interrogating about the rumor, was kneeling on one knee on the floor. I was certain of what I had just seen. That was a prophecy. In other words, my corpse was either currently in His Highness’s bedchamber or would be there soon.
Goosebumps ran from my toes to my head.
