The Crown Prince's Most Disrespectful Attendant

Ch1: A Peaceful Life (Denied)

Rain fell in heavy sheets against the windows of the imperial office, relentless and steady. 

Lightning split the sky outside, and for a brief moment the room was lit in stark white: gold-lined walls, cold marble floors, and the massive lion crest looming over the Emperor's desk like it was watching everything that happened beneath it. 

Then the light vanished, and thunder rolled in low and long, the kind that seemed to make the whole room hold its breath.

"Do you understand your mission?"

The Emperor's voice was calm, and that calm made the question feel less like a question and more like a verdict that had already been decided. 

He stood near the window with his back turned, rain streaking down the glass behind him. When the lightning flashed again, it caught the color of his eyes, a deep, unsettling red that didn't look entirely human. His black hair fell loosely over his shoulders, damp from the mist drifting in through the window, and a neatly trimmed beard traced his jaw without softening the sharpness of his expression.

He didn't need to face the room to be felt. The weight of his presence pressed down regardless.

Kneeling on the polished floor with his head bowed was a man with plain brown hair and equally plain brown eyes. Albert kept his gaze fixed on the marble in front of him.

This is a mistake, he thought.

Not fear. Not panic. Just a quiet, exhausted certainty.

"Yes, Your Majesty," he said aloud, his voice steady and respectful. Lifetimes of practice had made it easy to sound like he meant it.

"Repeat it," the Emperor said.

Albert resisted the urge to sigh and recited the words as if they carried weight for him. 

"I am to remain by the Crown Prince's side, observe his actions, and report everything of note to Your Majesty."

Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance.

"And?"

His eye twitched, just slightly. "And I will carry out this duty to the end."

The silence that followed stretched long and heavy, the kind that settled against the back of the neck and seemed to whisper that this was exactly the sort of room people disappeared from.

"Good." The Emperor turned just enough for the next flash of lightning to catch the satisfaction on his face. "You will not fail me."

It wasn't encouragement, and it wasn't quite a threat either. It was simply a fact, one that had already been decided long before Albert entered the room.

"Of course, Your Majesty," Albert said, lowering his head slightly.

How did I get here, he thought. The question wasn't panicked, only tired. Deeply, thoroughly tired. 

He'd had a plan, a good one, a simple one. Stay out of trouble. Avoid anything that mattered. Live quietly and, for once, die peacefully. 

It had seemed like a reasonable thing to ask for. Achievable, even. And yet here he was, kneeling in front of the most dangerous man in the empire, being handed an assignment to spy on someone even more dangerous.

I should have just punched him, Albert thought. 

It would have been simpler. One punch, maybe two, straight at the Crown Prince's face the moment things started to go wrong. 

Worst case, he'd have been executed. Quick. Clean. Almost peaceful, by comparison.

What a missed opportunity.

"You may leave," the Emperor said.

"Thank you, Your Majesty." Albert rose smoothly, every movement measured, and made his way out. The doors closed behind him with a quiet, final sound.

The moment he was alone in the corridor, his posture changed. His shoulders dropped. His expression went flat.

"Unbelievable," he muttered.

A guard standing nearby stiffened at the sound, but Albert paid him no attention. He dragged a hand down his face slowly, as if he could physically wipe the last ten minutes away.

"A spy," he said under his breath. "I've been alive for five minutes and I'm already a spy."

The guard blinked. "...Five minutes?"

"Don't worry about it."

Fifty lives, Albert corrected silently. Fifty lives, and somehow things kept finding new ways to get worse.

He let his gaze drift toward a nearby window, where the rain continued to fall in long silver sheets, and exhaled slowly. 

All he'd wanted was peace. No war. No politics. No powerful people treating his life like a game piece to be moved around. Just a quiet, ordinary existence, one where he could exist without everything around him spiraling into disaster.

"Next time," he murmured, mostly to himself, "I'm picking something safer."

The words left him without much thought, and the moment they did, the scene around him shifted entirely.

Cold wind swept in off the ocean, carrying the sharp bite of salt. Waves crashed against the jagged cliffs below, over and over, relentless in a way that matched the storm from before.

An older version of Albert stood near the edge, his clothes soaked through with blood, the dark ocean stretching out endlessly beneath him. Behind him, voices rose in a chorus of shouting and footsteps, people closing in, calling his name over and over.

It was too late. It was always too late, in the end.

Albert smiled, though there was no anger in it. Just a quiet sense of being done. 

This life had gone on for a long time, complicated in ways that had almost made it worth living, and it had cost him everything he had once tried so hard to avoid: power, responsibility, expectations he never asked for. 

And now, as always, the ending had arrived exactly the way he'd seen it coming from the start.

"I tried," he said quietly. The wind swept the words away before anyone behind him could hear.

"Stop!" someone shouted.

"Don't!" another voice called.

Albert didn't turn around. He'd lived through this scene before, in one form or another. Different faces each time. Different lives. The same ending, without fail.

He took a step forward. The edge of the cliff crumbled slightly beneath his foot, and the ocean waited below, dark and patient.

He smiled one last time. "Next time," he said, closing his eyes as the wind wrapped around him like a final embrace, "I'm done. No more power. No more caring. No more getting dragged into things that never end well. I just want a quiet life."

Then he fell.

The water swallowed him whole, and for a long moment, everything went still.

Silence was all he could hear.

Then, without warning, a bright light flashed across his vision.

Everything felt wrong. The world around him was too loud, too bright, blurred at the edges, and a strange pressure wrapped around his entire body from every direction. 

Before he could make sense of any of it, a sharp, high-pitched cry tore out of his own throat.

No, he thought immediately. No, no, no.

He tried to move, but his body responded poorly, small and weak in a way that made his skin crawl.

"Ah," he managed, though it came out as barely a sound at all.

I see, he thought.

Somewhere above him, voices murmured with relief, entirely unaware of the crisis unfolding just inches below them.

Reincarnated. Again.

That much, at least, was expected. Almost normal, by now. He could work with that.

But this?

He tried to lift his hand and managed only a small, useless twitch.

A baby, he thought flatly.

Of course. Of course he was a baby. After everything he'd been through, after all his careful planning, after one very reasonable request for a little peace, the universe had decided the best response was to start him over completely from the beginning.

Albert lay still, staring at nothing in particular, while the world moved in a quiet chaos around him. Then, as much as a newborn could manage, he sighed. It came out as a small, unimpressive sound, but it was enough.

Fine, he thought.

There was a pause, heavy with the resignation of someone who had lost this exact argument more times than he cared to count.

But this time, I'm staying out of trouble.