Chapter 1: Blood Feud
Ezio rose from his computer desk, his eyes numb. His deathly still face was devoid of any expression. He was an orphan, abandoned at a children's home. More than a decade ago, a man named Giovanni Firenze had taken him from the snow-covered steps of that orphanage, raising him as his own son and teaching him everything he knew without reservation.
Giovanni was an Assassin Master, and also an idiot father who always burned the food. He was a strict teacher, yet also a loving parent. In their ten years together, they had relied on each other for warmth, becoming indispensable to one another in the quiet passing of time.
But now, that rare, precious warmth was shattered.
On the computer screen was an email, opened just a few minutes ago. It was Giovanni's final letter, his last farewell to Ezio. He had been preparing it for a long time, updating its contents every year, long ready for the day he would die and be separated from Ezio forever.
Perhaps it was his nature, or perhaps his fate. Or maybe it was something else entirely. Giovanni was not one to live a quiet life; rather, he could no longer escape the mire he was trapped in, could not flee the life of walking a tightrope.
Today, that man had been reduced to a scheduled email, to a single line of crimson text.
[New Mission Activated]
[Blood Feud Mission: Investigate the cause of death of Assassin Master, Giovanni Firenze (Mission Reward +★★)]
[Difficulty: ★★★]
[Mission Hint: He is buried where the twelve moons rise.]
[Mission Reward: Piece of Eden · The Holy Sword · Excalibur]
"You really are a damned fool! Well, you're really dead now."
Ezio flinched slightly, then squeezed his eyes shut, as if by opening them he would only see a blank computer screen and everything he had just witnessed would prove to be a hallucination.
His silence stretched on, lasting until the loud, clear cry of an eagle broke the stillness. Ezio opened his eyes. The redness that had filled them before had calmed. Controlling one's emotions was a required course for any Assassin. He had lost his composure, but he knew this feeling couldn't last. Only by maintaining a clear and rational mind could he handle what was to come.
As an Assassin, Ezio was more than qualified. From the moment he could toddle, Giovanni had put him through basic training, cultivating it first as a hobby, then honing it into a conditioned, reflexive instinct.
In ten years, Ezio had never slacked for a moment. He hadn't been an ignorant infant when Giovanni took him in. As a transmigrator, he had been putting on an act for Giovanni for ten years, pretending to be a precocious and intelligent child, but never so much that he would be seen as a monster.
He didn't need to act anymore. He didn't need to pretend. The person he needed to care about was gone, gone forever.
"I'm much stronger than you think, Giovanni."
Staring at the letter on the screen, which had neither vanished nor turned out to be a hallucination, Ezio spoke softly. "I'm strong. Much stronger than you ever imagined. I may not be grown up yet, but I'm no ordinary child. I have the soul of another world inside me. I came here with a gift. Maybe I should have told you this secret... maybe then you wouldn't have taken such a risk..."
As he spoke, a bitter smile tugged at the corner of Ezio's mouth. "Then again, if I had let you know, you probably would have died even sooner. The moment you knew I could truly protect myself, you would have pursued your so-called dream more aggressively, wouldn't you? Your mission? Or your freedom?"
Ezio couldn't be sure. To this day, he still didn't understand why Giovanni so passionately loved this 'profession' of dancing on the edge of a knife, on a high wire.
"Perhaps this is the fate of an Assassin."
A mission with a ★★★ difficulty was one of the highest-level tasks Ezio had ever received. The reward was also the greatest he had ever been offered. With the "Blood Feud" bonus, the reward for the five-star mission was one of the most powerful artifacts from Assassin's Creed: Valhalla. As a Piece of Eden, Excalibur, also known as the Sword of Promised Victory or the Sword in the Stone, was the legendary blade of King Arthur. In reality, it was forged by the Isu of the First Civilization—an artifact designed to fight against the prophecy of world destruction. Regrettably, they had failed.
And the gift Ezio had received upon transmigrating into this world stemmed from this very source. After he triggered certain conditions, a "System" would generate and issue missions for him.
Before this, the tasks he received were mostly related to completing training exercises, such as stealth, disguise, and assassination techniques. Those missions were typically one or two stars, and the rewards were various items, weapons, and skill upgrades from the Assassin's Creed universe. He could also enter a trial grounds that resembled a training dimension.
Giovanni had always believed Ezio was still in the developmental phase of his training. He never knew that when Ezio went to sleep at night, he would travel to that miraculous training dimension, using swords, axes, daggers, firearms, hidden blades... every tool he could wield to assassinate one trial target after another.
Compared to Giovanni's claim that "my hands are stained with blood," Ezio had long been soaking in a pool of it.
He had lost count of how many people he had personally killed. Death no longer held any special meaning for him, because in the trial grounds, he had met his own death countless times.
Ordinarily, such training would have stripped Ezio of any vibrant appreciation for life. But the one thing an Assassin was supposed to discard—emotion—had become his final restraint. It was the anchor that kept him from losing himself. He cherished every single moment of the past ten years more than anyone. Only when he was with this idiot who always burned the food could Ezio laugh from the bottom of his heart.
But that was all over now. And so was the mission.
[You have completed the long-term mission: Disguise]
[Giovanni never discovered your fundamental difference from other children. You successfully concealed your special identity for ten years.]
[Mission Difficulty: ★★★]
[Time Elapsed: 3855 Days]
[Mission Evaluation: Perfect (Reward +★)]
[You have received the mission reward: The Broken Spear of Leonidas]
[Item Name: The Broken Spear of Leonidas]
[Grade: Piece of Eden · Damaged]
Looking at the spearhead, just over a foot long, that had appeared in his hand, Ezio felt no surprise and not a shred of excitement. If he had perfectly hidden his identity until he had "graduated" from Giovanni's tutelage, the mission reward would have been a full five stars.
Even so, he wouldn't have been happy. If the mission's conclusion required Giovanni's death as the outcome, Ezio would rather have never triggered this damned task in the first place.
"I'll find you, Giovanni. I swear I will."
Even without the crimson Blood Feud mission, Ezio vowed to find Giovanni's body and avenge him. It was the only thing he could do for him now.
"The place where the twelve moons rise?"
If he was truly in the world of Assassin's Creed, Giovanni's death would undoubtedly be tied to one faction—the Templars.
Ezio naturally assumed this was a modern-day version of the Assassin's Creed world. Everything his gift had granted him was from the games, the man who had adopted him on that cold winter's night was an Assassin Master, and the training he had received since childhood was that of an assassin.
He would not underestimate this massive organization lurking behind the scenes, harboring ambitions to control the world. Any underestimation of them would surely transform into a sharp dagger that would one day pierce his heart.
Just as Ezio was packing his belongings to leave this now-unsafe home, he keenly heard a faint gunshot from outside. It was a soft 'pop', a crisp sound that an ordinary person would hardly notice, but to his ears, it rang like a clap of thunder.
Biting the pin of a stun grenade, Ezio closed his eyes. The hawk he had trained became his sight.
Eagle Vision activated.
Target marked.