“So. What’s the status of the Krost affair?”
The room was so silent that even breathing felt like a transgression. A pale-faced man swallowed dryly and delivered his report to his superior.
“The spy we sent six years ago is still embedded, but security there is ruthless. Getting even a glimpse of the Duke’s face is apparently no easy matter.”
“Then we make them drop their guard.”
“But how on earth would we—”
“We send someone no one would ever suspect of being a spy.”
A voice full of certainty cut him off.
“That one. No one would doubt it.”
A thick, wrinkled finger pointed across the room.
A man with a face unpleasantly reminiscent of a fat toad propped his chin in his hand and aimed that finger at someone.
“Come here, Aisha.”
At his command, a pair of small shoes stepped out from the shadows.
“Your Grace, Duke Foss.”
The figure that emerged from the darkness was none other than a five-year-old girl.
As the child tilted her head back to look up at the Duke who loomed so far above her, the aide barely managed to keep the expression from his face.
“…What could a child like that possibly accomplish?”
“Why? Are you worried?”
“…She’s only five years old. Isn’t it standard practice to assign field missions no earlier than twelve?”
“Ha! Exactly!”
Duke Foss let out a thin smile and stroked his chin with greedy fingers.
“Which is precisely why I’m sending a five-year-old. Even they won’t suspect a child this small of being a spy.”
But the probability of mission failure—and the probability of this child dying—is just as high, isn’t it?
The aide swallowed that thought along with his saliva before it could escape his lips.
The greatest ambition of the Kingdom of Doctia at present was the annexation of the Kingdom of Frozen.
Yet they had never dared to consider an outright invasion.
And that was all because of the Creatures.
The monstrous beings that lurked beyond the north—beyond what men called the Edge of the World.
The reason humanity had not yet crumbled was thanks to House Krost of the Frozen Kingdom, which stood like a pillar between civilization and annihilation. The Krost family had erected a great wall of ice using their hereditary ability, the Ice Affinity, passed down through generations.
But our Duke Foss has finally created something.
Something more powerful than the Ice Affinity.
Which meant they no longer needed to tread carefully around the Frozen Kingdom.
The first step is to dismantle House Krost—slowly, from the inside.
Greed shimmered in the Duke’s eyes as he traced through his plans.
While House Krost poured its strength into holding back the Creatures, Duke Foss had spent that time cultivating a network of spies. This was his harvest.
“Aisha. Listen carefully.”
Aisha was the top-ranked agent among the five-year-olds who had undergone spy training.
The reason was simple: she was the most obedient.
If she were caught infiltrating House Krost? There was no fear of being traced back to him. The child would end her own life without a moment’s hesitation. That was all the Duke required.
“Aisha. This is your first mission. You are to become the lost daughter of the Duke of Krost.”
His hungry gaze looked as though it might consume her whole.
“The fact that a Duke who protects an entire kingdom could not protect his own children—that is Calypse Krost’s weakness. You will exploit that weakness and become the daughter he would keep close enough to press against his eye. And then…”
Crash.
The whiskey glass in his hand shattered.
“When the time comes, I will tell you what to do. Bring Duke Krost to that place. Do you understand?”
Shards of glass fell like blades toward the child’s small shoes, yet Aisha did not flinch.
“Yes, I understand.”
“Good.”
For a final confirmation, the Duke issued one last command.
“Then show me a smile that anyone would find irresistible.”
At his words, the child—who had been expressionless throughout—began to smile.
A wide, harmless, radiant smile.
Her cheeks, soft as flour and round as a dumpling’s, grew even fuller with it. Between her gently crinkled lids, eyes the deep blue of the sea sparkled. Her twin pigtails, tied up on either side and designed to sway endearingly at the slightest movement, caught the light.
“Yes, Your Grace!”
“Perfect. Make sure you smile exactly like that in front of Duke Krost. Like an innocent little child!”
“Yes!”
In an instant, the girl who had seemed a portrait in grey became an ordinary five-year-old. As Aisha beamed with a smile that could melt stone, a satisfied laugh rang out through Duke Foss’s study—low, and deeply unsettling.
“This is exactly why raising them as spies from infancy is so worthwhile!”
“Thank you, Your Grace.”
And so the five-year-old girl dispatched by House Foss soon became the spy who would shake House Krost to its very foundations.
________________________________________
Youth aches.
That was what they always said.
I had lived as a quintessential example of the Korean overworked professional—skipping meals, sleeping at my desk, treating midnight as the new five o’clock—until eventually, I worked myself to death.
When I opened my eyes again, I was in the body of a small child.
Tiny hands plump as maple leaves.
Eyes the color of a sapphire set in deep blue—a shade you’d rarely encounter in Korea.
As someone who had read plenty of fantasy romance novels, I understood immediately. I had transmigrated.
And into an absolutely, devastatingly adorable child, no less. At this level of cuteness, I had half expected to find myself in some kind of domestic fluff story. A rich, handsome father. Rich, handsome brothers. And of course, a male lead who starts out pitiable but is secretly rich and handsome as well.
“…So this is my reward for years of sleepless overtime, is it…!”
I widened my round eyes and braced myself to welcome a parade of beautiful men—until I realized the truth of my fate.
Some people are born to work. In every life.
A spy must maintain a poker face even if someone throws garbage at you.
Yes, sir.
Starting now, I will throw garbage at you. Maintain your expression.
…Pardon?
I would have preferred to wake up in an orphanage.
A saint. A knight. A maidservant. An orphan.
With all those options available, why on earth did I have to transmigrate as a spy?
You failed to control your expression. In a real scenario, you would have already been exposed. What should you do in this situation?
I… before I am caught, I must take my own life.
Correct.
Not only did I have to train every single day like a second shift at the office, but I was also expected to maintain a constant readiness for self-termination—as a spy, no less!
Three years had passed since I had been reborn as Aisha.
In a body that should have been rolling around like a baby panda, I had been subjected to high-intensity training instead.
And then came the day of deployment.
Aisha. This is your first mission. Become the lost daughter of the Duke of Krost.
…Krost?
When Duke Foss uttered the name of House Krost, I understood.
My wretched fate was about to repeat itself.
I’d had my suspicions the moment I heard the name Aisha, but I never imagined the worst-case scenario would actually be true.
I had transmigrated into a story with zero romance and a hundred percent action. A growth fantasy novel called—
[The Sword of Judgment].
A world in which the ability-wielding Kingdom of Doctia and the Kingdom of Frozen stood in opposition to one another.
The story followed the illegitimate son of House Foss—a man born on the wrong side of the sheets—who endures persecution and hardship until he grows powerful enough to unite both kingdoms.
But the male lead wasn’t what mattered right now.
Because I was an extra who died before he even appeared on stage.
Specifically: a spy pretending to be the fake daughter of the main villain, Calypse Krost—only to be exposed, cast out, and killed.
If my previous life had ended in death by overwork?
This life was shaping up to end in death at the hands of Duke Calypse Krost, after being unmasked as an impostor.
Why does the difficulty setting keep going up?!
Calypse Krost.
He was the antagonist who stood against the male lead, but—how to put it—he was the kind of villain that drew inexplicable popularity despite not being the protagonist.
The head of House Krost, which bore sole responsibility for the Frozen Kingdom’s security.
The pillar of the Frozen Kingdom. The great wall. The unbreakable shield.
He had carried every superlative ever coined—and all that unshakeable strength had begun to crack when he lost his three children and his wife.
Over the course of a five-year war, his children had disappeared under mysterious circumstances. One by one. Without a trace.
His wife as well. All of them swallowed by silence.
In the end, Calypse had preserved the kingdom—but he had failed to preserve the people who mattered most to him.
He had searched for his missing children with the desperation of a man unraveling, but every search ended in failure. And to conceal the expression that kept threatening to collapse beneath the weight of it all, he had taken to wearing a black mask.
With a heart twisted by grief, he had turned away from the kingdom and begun protecting only House Krost. And so he became the most formidable obstacle standing in the way of the male lead’s dream of unification.
And I was the one who had to walk into that man’s home and pretend to be his daughter.
Which brought me to the present.
“You’re saying you’re Duke Krost’s lost daughter?”
The carriage I had been forced into deposited me at my destination: the gates of Krost Castle.
Duke Foss had tossed me a set of threadbare clothes, a few vials for emergencies, and then departed without ceremony.
Among those emergency vials was the spy’s essential companion.
A suicide poison.
________________________________________
