I couldn’t kill the previous Rein. I wouldn’t kill this one. My instructions were simply wrong.

“Oi!” shouted the male sidekick, a little closer than I remembered him being. I crouched lower in the grass and carefully peered around the tree trunk, only to find him staring directly at me. I supposed I must have shown up on his version of the map. So much for staying hidden.

I stood and waved back, ambling over to the backdrop of grisly dismemberment.

“Lucas,” the sidekick introduced himself. He had purple hair and a purple outfit that matched his magic. “And you’re Lamutri Chapelsworn, the assassin.”

I froze. Their group must have had an ability capable of discerning my information. “I can explain,” I began, holding up a palm. “I’m not going to kill –”

“Which faction are you from?” Lucas interrupted enthusiastically. He reached for my hand and shook it. “Sounds religious. And high level.”

“You could say that,” I hazarded, searching for a way out of the conversation. By now I had everyone’s attention. “I am actually on my way to be somewhere else,” I added, in the middle of an isolated panorama with no civilisation in sight in any direction. “And have to get back fairly soon.”

“Where?” asked Lucas. “Maybe we could accompany you.”

“I don’t –” I began, then reconsidered. No doors around here. “It should be the nearest building,” I amended. “I became… side-tracked, and now I’m lost.”

“We can definitely help with that,” Lucas said, as his fellow lieutenant finished up with the hacksaw. She held up a handful of strangely clean geometric talismans, and jumped off the corpse as it began to dissolve around her. Seconds later, the entire thing had collapsed into embers of golden light. I'd visited many universes and encountered many deaths, but never witnessed that.

“One of these is yours,” she said, pressing a talisman into my hand before I could protest. “It counted you for being in the vicinity. Name's Talia, by the way.”

I raised my eyebrows, then turned the object over in my fingers. It looked like a cloth talisman, sturdily made, built to loop onto something small and thin. Now that I was paying attention, I could see all three of the hunters had similar accoutrements attached to various pieces of their clothing, from boot tassels to sleeve adornments and decorations along their belts. I wasn’t sure of the significance, but assumed it had something to do with either trophies or currency.

“No need,” I said, handing it back. “You need it more than I do.”

“Really?” Lucas asked. He eyed my comparatively unembellished attire. “Is your religion the unarmed proficiency type? It must be offset by some good bonuses.”

“I’m hoping to find that building,” I said to hide the fact I didn’t understand the question, and studied the Rein. Jayden Loy. He hadn’t said anything to me, only stared like a scientist on the pleasant end of a microscope.

This side of a reincarnation, he still had the usual dark hair, pale skin and general facial features they all had, but appeared younger and arguably more attractive. The blandness common to all Reins was still present, regardless, which might have explained his attempts to offset it with the armour.

I wondered if he suspected my purpose for coming here. After all, it was in my description and name. The system on this world had rendered my subterfuge useless and effortlessly exposed my secrets. No wonder we sent the Reins here. The very universe worked to protect them.

“Alright,” sighed the Rein eventually. “It’s a quest. We might get some XP. I’m Jayden.”

All of them were oddly accepting. Did this group not understand what I did for a living? Or perhaps they did, in a universe that considered murder a respectable profession. It felt jarring; I came from an organisation dedicated to it, and even we considered the work unsavoury. But even then, meeting one’s personal assassin should have warranted a little more concern than my current reception.

I came back round to deciding he didn’t know. In which case I wouldn't enlighten him.

“Map says there’s a hut thirty minutes that way,” Talia pointed, aiming it out with the flat of her hand. “Sound right?”

“Perfect,” I replied, activating my own map to see if it showed up. All I got was the red indicator of my target practically on top of me. I closed it again immediately.

In any other situation, I would have transitioned to vehicle mode to cover ground faster. But triggering Gear Shift so close to a target filled me with unease. I’d never met a post-reincarnation Rein and wasn’t sure of their capabilities. Nor had I heard reassuring things about their personalities. I didn’t fancy him turning on me and giving chase, and I wasn’t sure I could beat him. I shouldn’t have been given this job in the first place. Again.

First being held back from advancement; now receiving broken jobs that shouldn’t be in the schedule – it all spoke to Near Miss's interference. Was it trying to get me expunged from the Chapel completely? If I stopped existing, so did it – there was only one way out, and it was rather permanent. Why was it doing this to me?

The trip did not take thirty minutes. Every few minutes, the trio would detour to the nearest cluster of wildlife, provoke it, and proceed to slaughter the entire flock or herd for more of the mysterious talismans. It seemed unnecessary and wasteful, and the animals seemed to have none of the basic survival instincts I would have expected from prey. Influenced by magic that heightened aggression, possibly, or ambient atmospheric sway. It could have been some strange side effect of the universal system.

If a reincarnated candidate was here, it meant this was a world that needed saving, I reminded myself, which dropped a few of the pieces into place. This was a dangerous sector of the multiverse the Chapel had previously kept me away from.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

My original mission instructions were starting to grow more urgent in the back of my head. I ignored them. Once I made it back and explained, no one would hold the situation against me. Unlike the Black Waste – a genuine failure – the problem here was with the orders. And while I was certain Near Miss had played a role in it somewhere, Alushex also hadn’t been paying attention.

At the third slaughter-themed divergence, I smiled politely and used the distraction to set off the rest of the way on my own. The animal herds weren’t hard to avoid, and I had Gear Shift to fall back on if things got messy.

The hills made navigation tricky, and when I still couldn’t see the hut from the nearest rise, I brought up my system map to check.

This time, a small greyed-out icon of a building was visible at the far edge.

And a second glowing red target had appeared on-screen.

I stared at it for a solid few seconds as my stomach proceeded to drop out from under me, then slowly turned back towards Jayden’s group. Past the nearby rise, the noises and flurry of battle continued.

On the map, the second target converged in a direct line towards the first. Dismissing the interface, I shifted into vehicle form and found myself soaring skywards as a beautiful airship. One with no battle capabilities or landing gear. My speed wasn’t great, either, but it carried me across the hill faster than on foot, and I dropped the otherwise injurious distance by rapidly switching between forms on the descent until the worst I was likely to receive was a sprained ankle.

I managed to avoid that, and ran the rest of the way to the crest where a fourth combatant had entered the fray.

It was an older man; black-haired, pale-skinned and battle-scarred, and I recognised him from the comms link in the Black Waste. Jadal Cai had shaved his beard and changed his outfit from military rags to a crimson suit of embellished leather armour. He strode past the fight, ducked past the grasping claws of an incensed large avian, and manifested a silver sword in his hand. Without so much as looking, he thrust its tip into the shrieking creature, tearing it out of the trees in an effortless downwards sweep behind.

Talia looked over, gave a nod of impressed approval, and went back to shooting arrows at the stragglers.

How could Jadal Cai be here, of all places? Now? Had he somehow followed me here? Or had the Machine, against all standard procedure, sent me to correct my previous mistake?

When I got back for the debrief, I decided while the air burnt pain into my chest, I planned on having a few words with Alushex.

I didn’t stop sprinting, though my body heavily complained. If I’d been at second-tier, this would have been easier. As it was, I wasn’t going to make it. The tracer in my head screamed at me that time was critical. The countdown couldn’t be a coincidence. Somehow, it knew.

“Jadal Cai!” I shouted at the impossible second Rein, putting my lungs behind it. “You!”

I might as well have yelled at the wind.

Helplessly, I watched as he sprinted the last few metres, slashed at his counterpart and in a single stroke split him into two twitching halves on the ground. Jayden’s face, still momentarily alive, wore an expression of utter shock until a second slash wiped it off with his head.

The tracer in my head dissipated alongside a familiar ping of success.

“Oh, shit,” I muttered, skidding to the most abrupt halt I could manage. Something terrible had just happened, and I didn’t have the anywhere near the resources to comprehend it.

Jayden’s companions similarly appeared to be in shock.

“What the –” said the huntress. She fired a final arrow into one of the birds and swung her weapon at the intruder. “Not cool.”

A volley of arrows sprung from her bow, but Jadal Cai met it with the sword hand. The weapon changed to a shield in his grip, easily deflecting the missiles. Another bird swooped on him from behind and he materialised the sword in the opposing hand, again taking the creature out without so much as a glance. A moment later, he dismissed it again to plunge his hand into the mess of gore that moments ago had been this universe's destined saviour.

“I can’t see his level!” Lucas called over, firing purple magic anyway.

“Run!” I yelled at them both from the trees. “He’s too strong for you!”

He was insane. Saviour-turned-villain, traumatised by whatever had gone down in the Black Waste. Who had thought it was a good idea to recruit from post-apocalypses?

“I can see that!” called Talia. “And I don’t care. He’s an asshole.”

“His name’s Jadai Cai!” I shouted back. “He doesn’t belong –”

This time, Jadal Cai’s head whipped towards me at the sound of his name. He rose from his crouch, still shielding against the missiles, and began sprinting in my direction. I took off, retreating back through the foliage, and called back over my shoulder. “Get out of here if you value your lives!”

If it wasn’t for the aggressive warlord between us, I might have been able to pick the dead Rein’s companions up as passengers, but not at the cost of my own life. My pursuer didn’t appear to be up for negotiating. “Hurry!”

Jadal Cai was rapidly closing the distance between us fast enough to make my full-blown sprint resemble a toddler’s clumsy meanderings.

I put everything I had into clearing the trees and triggered Gear Shift, sailing skywards out of the range of his weapon. Thankfully, without his space artillery, it didn’t look like he had any means of bridging the altitude gap. I wasted no time in making it bigger.

The rogue Rein stared at me from the hillside, sword in hand and expression neutral. He summoned the shield a moment later to deflect a new wave of arrows and magic from Jayden’s companions, who hadn’t listened to my advice. I watched as he turned, ran, brutally slaughtered them one after the other, and checked back up at me in the sky.

I had no plans on coming back down.

Jadal Cai plodded back to the original severed corpse and plunged his arm in it again up to the elbow. He seemed to find what he was looking for and made an abrupt twisting motion. Motes of golden light flowed up his arm, and he withdrew the bloody appendage with no change to his expression whatsoever. Slowly, he lifted his head and stared at me again.

I drifted away in the picture of graceful serenity, no longer concerned with the cabin on the map. Far too close to my adversary for comfort. My mind was awash with competing emotions. If I’d been in human form, I’d have been struggling physically.

The violence wasn’t the issue, although no one had needed to die. I knew through the grapevine it was how post-death Reins tended to resolve most of their conflicts. What was the problem was that Jadal Cai was here, somehow able to travel the multiverse on his own initiative, and slaughtering people who should have been his allies.

For that matter, I shouldn’t have been here, and a faulty mission I should have failed had been completed. Dooming an entire universe with it.

I was in so, so much trouble. This wasn’t a black mark on my name, oh no. I’d be lucky if the Chapel didn’t kill me.

I kept an eye on the system-generated map for further buildings, but picked them out by sight long before they appeared on the interface. Spotting a quiet road, I followed it to a pretty farmhouse in architecture matching my own ornate design and re-performed the drop manoeuvre to make it the rest of the way.

The owner came out of the house to meet me, but I wasn’t in the mood for small talk. Weaving past, I made it to the door and slid back to the Chapel where, surprisingly, no one waited to meet me.