Chapter 1
I liked cigarettes.
No, it wasn't cigarettes—or nicotine—that I liked so much as the smoke.
The whole process of inhaling a cigarette, holding the smoke, and breathing it out again.
The way my grandfather did it had seemed fascinating and fun to me as a child.
It felt almost like taking in a soul and then letting it escape.
But I didn't touch cigarettes right away.
Even as a child, I understood well enough that smoking was harmful to the body.
As time passed, I even held back from smoking during the rebellious phase nearly every kid goes through in high school. Then, once I became an adult, I finally smoked my first cigarette.
I swallowed and inhaled the smoke, then breathed it out again.
It was amazing how much fun it was to do something so simple.
And that's how I began smoking.
Of course, cigarettes weren't the only thing I started smoking.
There were all kinds of tobacco products in the world.
Trying all sorts of them had my parents quite worried.
Well, honestly, I couldn't blame them.
If I'd had a son who, after becoming an adult, smoked not only cigarettes but also e-cigarettes, cigars, pipes, and all kinds of other tobacco products, I'd have been worried too.
Nicotine addiction?
Strangely enough, it wasn't that.
When my parents became so worried that I made a bet with them and quit smoking for about two years, I didn't experience a single symptom of nicotine withdrawal.
When I got tested at a hospital once, they said my body had an unusually strong tolerance to nicotine and simply couldn't become addicted. Or something like that.
I didn't smoke because I was addicted to nicotine. I smoked because I liked exhaling something like cigarette smoke from my mouth.
It was such a ridiculous reason that dedicated smokers would probably hear it and ask, "What kind of reason is that for smoking?"
And that tendency remained exactly the same even after I was reincarnated.
***
"Oops, sorry, Master. I made a mess on the floor."
The corpse of the man who had been bound by smoke and ultimately crushed to death beneath tremendous pressure.
Even if you put it nicely, it wasn't a pleasant sight.
Crunch.
"It's fine. I expected this much commotion from the start."
"Ah, as expected of you, Master. You're so cool—I love it."
With that, I finished the remaining cocktail and handed the master a money pouch.
"That's for dirtying the bar floor and the drinks. The rest is a tip."
With a cigar between my lips, I left the bar, dumped the man's corpse in a suitable back alley, and leaned my back against the outer wall of a nearby building.
In back alleys like this, people dying was surprisingly common, so there was no need to hide it.
"Well, even if they did know, they couldn't catch me anyway."
I had already grown quite strong as an individual.
If the Empire tried to capture me, they'd probably have to accept considerable losses.
The reason was very simple. I was merely more trouble than the effort required to catch me; that was all.
Besides, my crimes were hardly severe. I didn't touch ordinary civilians—I only killed people who came after me—so that made it even less likely they'd bother.
...
I calmly inhaled my cigar, savoring its aroma as I looked around.
A street filled with splendid Victorian-style decorations and countless different styles.
That didn't mean this was the Victorian era.
The people walking the streets weren't all human, either.
"Do you have any good tea leaves today?"
An elven noblewoman with pointed ears and lush green hair was lingering in front of a tea shop.
"Damn it, I won't make my quota again today."
A wolf beastkin with wolf ears and shabby clothes passed by her side.
A sight that would have been absolutely impossible to see on Earth was unfolding before me.
This was not Earth.
It was a fantasy world with an atmosphere reminiscent of the modern era, yet one where other races and mana unmistakably existed.
Yes, I was a reincarnator who had been reborn in this chaotic world.
"Honestly, no matter how often I see it, I never get used to it."
I still didn't know what kind of world this was.
A steampunk-based fantasy?
Or perhaps a fantasy world that had developed over time?
Or maybe it was an era before modern fantasy began.
The question that had followed me from the moment I realized I had been reincarnated here still had no clear answer.
Fwoooo.
All I could do was spend my time smoking cigars, just as I had in my previous life.
A citrusy scent filled my mouth.
A refreshing fragrance, almost like an orange, spread throughout my mouth—the unique aroma of the cigar I was smoking now.
"Ah, I finished one, but I lit another..."
Before I knew it, I had instinctively cut the end off another cigar and started smoking it.
One a day.
That was the number of cigars I had decided to smoke each day.
No matter how much I liked tobacco, I was fairly disciplined about it.
"Ah, but I did get into a fight, so I suppose it doesn't matter?"
I stared blankly at the smoke drifting from my mouth.
After being reincarnated as the worst possible combination of back-alley orphan and beggar, I had obtained an ability—whether through God's mercy or as some sort of joke.
"Fwoooo."
I exhaled the smoke I'd been holding in my mouth in the shape of a donut, then slowly began to play with it.
The round ring of smoke began changing from moment to moment into all sorts of shapes: cars, canes, stars, flames, and more.
I had simply named my ability 'Smoke Manipulation.'
"Ha-ha."
This time, the smoke transformed into the sort of animation gag character I often saw in my previous life, and I couldn't help laughing.
By manipulating smoke, I could shape it however I pleased,
and the smoke I manipulated possessed substance and could affect real people.
That smoke was what had just killed the man who tried to kill me.
Moreover, it was invisible and odorless to ordinary people who hadn't awakened mana, making it an even more threatening ability.
...
I quietly exhaled smoke and looked up at the sky.
Perhaps because magic and steam engines had been invented in this world, the sky was quite hazy.
It was probably because of this city's smog.
As I looked up at that sky, I thought about the man who had tried to kill me today.
Come to think of it, a lot of people had been after me lately, hadn't they?
I didn't know when it had begun, but the assassinations had started about a year ago.
There had been all kinds of them.
Ordinary civilians, gamblers tempted by money into trying to kill me, and even the occasional genuine professional assassin.
"But why?"
Assassinations?
Well, it wasn't something to brag about, but I had made quite a few enemies in the back alleys with this ability.
There were probably plenty of people who would pay to have me killed.
But no matter how much I thought about it, none of the people who held that much of a grudge against me would hire someone for this long.
Assassination was something you could only afford if your circumstances were good. Would anyone really cut into their own livelihood just to kill me?
I hadn't built up a grudge that deep with anyone.
If things had gone that far, I would have killed them first.
That's why it was strange.
It was almost as if
"Some rich noble lord was behind it, don't you think?"
A presence had joined me at some point while I was leaving the bar.
It was the presence of a completely ordinary person, making no attempt to hide.
Click.
If I spread smoke wide and thin across the ground, I could detect people by the way they disturbed it.
One of the few techniques I had.
A woman's silhouette slowly walking through the smoke came into view.
"Hm?"
With my cigar between my lips, I casually took a drag and looked at the woman standing before me, unconsciously furrowing my brow.
Black skin, a cold expression.
But she possessed the sort of beauty that made that expression suit her perfectly, like an ice princess.
"A maid?"
Surely I wasn't frowning because she had black skin.
I wasn't some fucking racist.
It was simply because she was wearing an exceptionally neat maid uniform, the sort of outfit that was utterly out of place in a back alley like this.
Without answering my question, the woman politely bowed her head.
Even to an outsider like me, it was obviously a noble gesture.
"Excuse me. I apologize for interrupting your valuable time, but might you answer one question of mine?"
A woman who clearly looked like a noble's maid.
And a woman like that was being this deferential?
"Go ahead."
I needed to get information first.
Once I gave permission, the maid straightened up, and I cautiously wrapped smoke around her ankle in preparation for anything.
If she tried to kill me or said anything suspicious, I intended to kill her on the spot.
The maid glanced down at her ankle, but even after seeing the smoke, she looked at me with an unruffled expression.
Her reaction confirmed it.
She was skilled.
No—even if she wasn't particularly skilled, she was at least someone who had awakened mana.
I had been born and raised in these back alleys and had never left them, so I didn't know much about the world. But I knew that people who had awakened mana were rare.
They said commoners would never awaken mana in their lifetime unless they were truly exceptional.
Mana was something awakened only by so-called elites or geniuses.
And an elite like that was a maid?
I couldn't even imagine how high-ranking the noble she served must be.
"May I ask your name?"
"My name? Why do you suddenly want to know that?"
"It is important."
Even though my wariness had deepened, the maid maintained her expressionless face.
For a moment, I considered giving her an alias, but decided against it.
She was a maid serving a noble—more specifically, a high-ranking noble.
It would be troublesome to give someone like that an opening to find fault with me.
And since she hadn't harmed me, killing her was out of the question too.
"Abel. Abel is my name."
I recited the name I had been given in the back alleys.
I was a reincarnator who remembered my past life, born as the son of a prostitute in the back alleys.
Though my mother died immediately after giving birth to me, leaving me an orphan, I remembered her voice as she held me in her trembling arms. I was a reincarnator, after all.
[Abel, your name is Abel. My baby, I'm sorry, Mommy...]
After that, one of my mother's fellow prostitutes took me in and gave me a strange name.
What was it again? Slave?
True to the name, she worked me like a slave.
Fortunately, I awakened mana at the age of eight, discovered my Smoke Manipulation ability, took spectacular revenge, abandoned that name, and reclaimed the name Abel.
"Abel. Are you certain that is your name?"
How dare she question a name like that.
"Hmph, yes. Is there a problem?"
I said it while exhaling a mouthful of cigar smoke and letting it hide my face.
In a voice that growled like a lion guarding its territory.
How did I look right now?
The Demon of Smoke? Or some utterly lowly creature?
When I made it clear that I was uncomfortable, the maid bowed her head once more.
"I'm sorry. Given the circumstances, I needed to confirm it. I had no intention of offending you at all."
...Yeah.
"I apologize for asking once again, but how old are you?"
My name and my age.
Was she planning to recruit me or something?
But would someone be this deferential just to recruit me?
I really didn't know.
"I'm twenty."
A young, vigorous body—only a year into adulthood.
"So why exactly did you come looking for me?"
I had made quite a name for myself in the back alleys.
I had no organization and was completely alone, yet I had built a reputation infamous enough to stand alongside the major organizations.
What could it be?
Contract killing? Or did she want me to procure drugs?
But would she need my name and age for something like that?
"What, does the noblewoman you serve have a thing for younger men?"
I had heard of stories like that.
Stories about nobles unable to control their lust, placing a contract mark on male prostitutes in the back alleys and keeping them as playthings.
The area around us had long since been under my smoke's control.
By now, it had fully encircled the maid's ankle and was slowly creeping up her thigh.
I could kill her instantly if I so much as decided to.
...
But that didn't mean I let my guard down.
If I dropped my guard just because my opponent looked defenseless, how would I be any different from the man who had just tried to kill me?
If anything, I raised my vigilance even higher.
I watched everything about the maid: her breathing, her hands, the movement of her muscles, and even her mana.
The fact that she remained calm despite being so close to death meant she was that confident in her abilities.
Her lips slowly parted.
"I am Mist, a servant of the Nebla Ducal House."
The Nebla Ducal House.
That ducal house in the south?
It was a fairly famous ducal house, even I had heard of it.
Though not for good reasons—the family was the ruler of the underworld, having amassed power and wealth through all sorts of illegal channels in the south.
A servant of that ducal house. Only then did I understand why the maid was so calm.
Crrk.
She probably thought I would hesitate after hearing the family's name.
The thought only soured my mood further, so I increased the pressure of the smoke restraining her.
Her blood was on the verge of being cut off.
If she said anything foolish, I intended to kill her.
"The reason I came here is—"
With a subdued gaze, I focused on every aspect of her.
All the while, I consciously kept the smoke ready to become a razor-sharp blade at any moment.
"To have you become the head of the Nebla Ducal House."
"What?"
The unexpected words made me relax before I knew it.
At the same time, the smoke began to slowly scatter.
Mist looked at her ankle and thigh, reddened from how tightly I had held them, then bowed her head in reverence to her master.
"Lord Abel, you are the sole bloodline of the Nebla Ducal House."