"We only wanted to help Big Brother Ras get rid of a rival..." Alexander Frederick was a curly-haired wizard who looked fifteen or sixteen, still very young and completely unable to resist Murphy's Commanding Enchanting Voice.
"Why me?" Murphy asked again.
He was hardly the only marriage envoy to enter the city these past few days, yet these two did not seem to have made a move against that Frenchman.
"Because of your name. The Empress personally ordered it added to the list," George Frederick said.
"Selecting the Empress's fiancé was originally the responsibility of the master of ceremonies, and the Empress had not interfered before. But Madame Yaga personally added a name to the list not long ago. Everyone knows Madame Yaga only listens to the Empress, so it could only have been the Empress's order."
"So you think I'm a threat?"
Murphy frowned. How could Sophia have left such an obvious flaw? Couldn't she have told Madame Yaga to add seventy or eighty people to the list?
That would have made me stand out.
But on further thought, it did not seem to matter much. The mission he had come to carry out did not really count as an "assassination." Even if his identity were exposed, it would not be too much of a problem.
He had indeed come to assassinate Ivan, but the Empress needed him not because his identity was concealed and unknown, but because he was strong enough to defeat the Great Shaman.
The greatest obstacle to killing Ivan was not whether Ivan was on guard, but the two expert wizards at his side.
The Empress had never intended for him to secretly kill Ivan anyway—Vitaly Pizhegud, whom he had encountered before, had things like substitute dolls. There was no reason Ivan would not have