The Hero System Glitched And Now It Pays Me to Love My Assassin Wives

"Explain it to me again," Lunara said. "Slowly and without the part where you sound demented."

"Then it’s going to be a short explanation."

Dawn had arrived and I was still alive, which according to her ultimatum meant my reason was sufficient.

The reason was the three sealed testimonies: she read them standing up, without sitting down, without dropping her sword, twice each.

Now she paced my study with the papers in her hand.

"These testimonies exonerate my knights," she said. "They were here for five years, forty paces from your throne."

"Yes."

"And the man who sealed them now wants to reopen the case?" She planted herself in front of my desk. "Give me the trap, Vaelion. Show me the hook, because I’m not biting without seeing it."

There it was again: no one in this palace accepted anything for free.

Five wives, five variations of the same instinct.

I was beginning to understand that the tyrant’s currency had poisoned every pocket.

So I did what I do best. I put the rules on the table.

"There is no hook, and I’m going to show you the whole thing because lying to you is more expensive."

I told her about my system.

Not the System with a capital S, the blue window and the Integrity, I kept that to myself... but the version she could digest.

That every genuine act toward the five of them gave me back more than it cost, that faking didn’t work, that I had decided to invest in the five most dangerous women in the empire.

"Invest?" she repeated in disgust. "We’re an investment?"

"Everyone is an investment, the difference is I say it out loud and your late husband executed it in silence."

"He’s not dead, I’m talking to him."

"You’re talking to someone wearing his face. Believe it or not, the practical part is identical."

"The practical part." She let out a short laugh devoid of humor.

"Do you know what I hated about you, Vaelion? More than the executions, more than the throne. That everything had a price for you, every favor, every pardon, every gesture, but now you come with the same scale in hand, just from the other side of the counter."

"It’s the only scale I know how to use. But I can change what I weigh with it."

"You’re still my husband."

"Legally, but since yesterday, only if you want to be."

Lunara left the testimonies on the desk with more gentleness than her face suggested.

"Reopen the case," she said. "Publicly. Before the court, before the army, before the chancellor. If it’s a trick, you’ll die knowing I fell for it. If it’s real..."

"If it’s real?"

"Then I’ll start wondering who you really are."

"One more thing," Lunara said before leaving, hand already on the door.

"Last night, in the parlor, Zelina swears you smelled the poison in the glass which is undetectable, according to her, and she doesn’t exaggerate about her craft."

"I got lucky."

"Nobody gets that lucky." She studied me for a long moment. "Keep your secrets, Vaelion. But note that I’m counting them."

That same afternoon I summoned the court and announced the reopening of the Marr Order case.

The throne room was packed to the pillars.

Nobles from thirty houses, generals from four fronts, the entire bureaucracy of the empire holding their breath while the herald repeated my decree for the second time, because the first time no one believed it.

Reopening the Marr case meant accusing the military tribunal of negligence.

It meant insinuating that the General Staff condemned over two hundred innocent people.

It meant, in the wordless language of the court, spitting right in the army’s face.

I knew that.

I signed it anyway, with the whole room watching, and the inherited tremor in my right hand chose exactly that moment to behave.

At the back of the hall, on the consorts’ balcony, five women watched.

Four with expressions I couldn’t read from that distance.

The fifth was taking notes.

They should have seen their faces.

The nobles paled in rows, the generals stared at their gloves, and the Chancellor, seated to my right, aged twelve years in two seconds before recomposing his smile.

"Your Majesty," he murmured while the court roared, "reopening that case implicates the General Staff. The army that holds your borders. Do you understand the price?"

"I understand it better than anyone, Chancellor."

"One more question," Decimus said before leaving the throne room, the smile gone. "Do you know how much an empire at peace costs, Your Majesty?"

"Surprise me."

"A single man, well placed, well hated." He gave a perfect bow. "I pray you never have to learn the price of moving him from his spot."

He left without waiting for an answer, which was his way of nailing the final word to the wall.

The price arrived before midnight.

I was awake when it came.

I was reviewing the guard shifts for the third time when the candle on my desk did something odd: the flame tilted toward the window, just barely, a breath of air where there shouldn’t be any draft.

In the hallway, the water clock struck the hour. No guard answered with the routine chime.

None.

I counted to five waiting for the delayed chime, and on number four I stopped waiting, because my bedroom window was no longer closed.

The price didn’t arrive in the form of a protest or a resignation.

It arrived dressed in black, one man, then two, then I counted four and stopped counting because the count no longer changed the diagnosis.

Professional assassins.

"Good evening," I said, backing toward the wall. "Are you here about the trial? That was hours ago, what efficiency..."

The first one attacked without answering.

The tyrant’s body reacted on its own: it spun, dodged, threw a punch with a muscle memory I didn’t control and which was completely useless, because the second assassin was already inside my guard with steel seeking my ribs.

And then, with the worst timing in the universe, my System decided to pay its debts.

[DING]

[Delayed reward dispensed: Chess Emperor ×1000]

[Origin: Investment in the parlor (freeing the five)]

[Installing...]

[Installing...]

[A bad time? Installing anyway.]