Chapter 2: Something is Wrong with the Regression

Bern Ajae gritted his teeth quietly and said,

“There is, but accepting knights is handled by someone higher than me.”

I already knew.

At this point, Bern Ajae was under the control of the First Order of Knights.

The Second Knight Order was basically a reserve force that filled in for the vacancies of the First Order of Knights and was treated as a subordinate group, so even accepting knights was restricted.

I knew very well who was responsible for that mess.

‘The Captain Cockroach of the First Order.’

That bastard who, during the final battle with the Demon King, picked off heroes like me one by one.

But even if I told that, it would only raise their suspicion, so I decided to play dumb.

“What should I do?”

“You just need to prove your strength.”

“How?”

“Anything goes.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“…Alright. When do I prove it?”

“You’ll have to wait about a week.”

The waiting period was longer than I expected.

But it didn’t matter.

I had more patience now than before—there was no way I couldn’t endure this.

“Got it. I guess I’ll just have to rough it nearby.”

“…Don’t you have any money?”

“I do, but not enough to rent an inn room. I can barely manage to buy a week’s worth of food.”

Bern Ajae frowned and sighed.

“I’ll lend you money. Get yourself a room at the inn.”

“…Are you sure? Lending money to a beggar like me?”

“You’re not supposed to worry about that kind of thing already.”

Bern Ajae nodded as if it were obvious.

“Honestly, if I let a ticking bomb like you sleep rough, the street thugs would probably mess with you and end up destroying a few buildings. If you end up under me later, I have to take responsibility for that.”

“Hmm, that’s true.”

I couldn’t deny it.

Even before the regression, I had done so many reckless things, and I had heard many times that Ryuk and Bern Ajae had shared the burden of cleaning up the mess afterward.

As I nodded, suddenly a faint metallic scent of blood entered my nose.

For a brief moment, I saw a hallucination of Bern Ajae’s head being chopped off.

[Leave your back to me, Owen.]

Great. Now I was hearing voices too?

‘Damn it.’

It was a vision born from the guilt of not protecting him.

I hadn’t forgotten the responsibilities before the regression, so I hoped this would just leave my mind soon.

At that moment, the sane Bern Ajae pulled a pouch out from his chest and tossed it to me.

I caught it, hearing the clinking of coins.

Money.

“There’s an inn called the Inn by the Wind in town. Go there and give them my name. You should be able to stay for about a week.”

“…Alright.”

“Suddenly your mood dropped. Are you tired?”

“Nothing much. I came running here eager to join the Order of Knights, but it feels like it fell through, so it’s a bit discouraging.”

“Think of it as punishment for breaking down the outer wall of the Order. That should make you feel better.”

“Just with that?”

“Then you can pay for the wall repairs yourself.”

“How much?”

“Roughly thirty gold coins.”

One silver coin covers a commoner’s living expenses for a month.

And one gold coin is worth at least a hundred silver coins.

“…Did they cast some magic on the wall? Why is it so expensive?”

“High-grade Barrier, High-grade Shock Absorption, High-grade Iron Wall, High-grade…”

“My mind just became very at ease.”

Even on the armor I wore as a hero, I never piled on magic like that.

Some of it was useless, but mostly it was because I couldn’t afford it.

Even though I had the title of Hero and received money from the palace, aside from weapon maintenance and repairs, I spent most of it on alcohol.

That was how I survived the war without losing my mind.

Thankfully, I didn’t get drunk easily, so even when I drank, I was quite tame.

The Great Sage was a pain, though—he turned into a complete jerk every time he drank with me.

“Alright then. I’ll stay put quietly until it’s time. Call me when it’s ready.”

“Sure. Don’t suddenly get scared and run off. After all this fuss, everyone here remembers your face. If they see you trying to escape while patrolling the village, they’ll just drag you back.”

“They can drag me back?”

“That depends on your conscience.”

“…What if I don’t have any conscience?”

“There’s no need for a reason to kill Demon King’s soldiers.”

Bern Ajae’s voice deepened suddenly. I glanced over and met his gaze.

His eyes were sharp as if piercing through me.

“If a kid who already says that has no conscience, then the world is already over, isn’t it?”

“…”

I understood.

This was probably what it was like when two beasts, both having lost much, exchanged glances.

“See you again, rookie.”

Bern Ajae turned his back, and I saluted in the knightly fashion.

“Enter! Captain!”

“…Crazy bastard.”

The surrounding knights all nodded in agreement.

Carrying my food, I headed out of the Order of Knights…

“Wait. Leave that behind.”

Bern Ajae’s voice stopped me again as I tried to enter his office.

“Why? That’s my food.”

“You’ve got money now, so just buy something to eat with it, you idiot!”

In the end, the ogre was sent directly to the butcher by the Order.

I should have eaten more before joining the Order.

For a moment, I thought so, but as soon as I arrived at the inn and ordered food, I realized all the meals I had eaten until now had been garbage.

As I rested at the inn, the day gradually darkened.

It was the night of the second day after regression.

Since on the first day I had eaten the ogre as food while roughing it out, then immediately came to the Order, I felt unsettled.

Just the day before yesterday, I had been ready to take on the Demon King and even die for it, and now I had suddenly regressed back to when I was sixteen.

Is this what it feels like when someone gains a new life?

But I wasn’t very pleased with this situation itself.

It was a regression, yes, but a regression with a price.

‘Ryuk.’

My longtime friend of twenty years.

Right after regressing, hoping for a miracle, I searched the entire village, but there was no trace of him; not a single villager remembered him.

Even his parents, people who gave birth to him, claimed they never had such a child.

What else could I do?

Since there was no meaning in staying in the village any longer, I left before the day was over.

The memories of my old friend would remain only in my own mind.

No one would know or could know about it.

It burned inside me.

Through the window, the dark night sky seemed to be stained red.

At times like this, Ryuk was always there to hold my sanity.

With silly jokes, drinking, trivial bets—we helped each other maintain our humanity.

Though I was the one receiving help, I took pride in myself.

Having grown up under the oppression of surrogate parents for so long, my mind had gone a little mad, but living like a proper person was something I achieved by my own will.

All of it.

All.

“Maybe I should just sleep.”

Perhaps it was because I had spent too long on the battlefield.

The hard bed and shabby blanket at the inn seemed to gently wrap my body and mind.

Sunlight filtered through my closed eyes, and I opened them.

Feeling the fatigue lift, I stretched and looked around.

I saw familiar shapes.

Coming to my senses, I got up and looked around carefully, and then I realized exactly where I was.

“…This is my room?”

What was this, a dream?

But it was too vivid for that.

I quietly got up and searched every corner of the house for emergency money.

Since I had done this before, I finished faster than the first time.

Then I focused on the sounds coming from the village.

The villagers’ chatter mixed chaotically flowed into my ears.

And I became certain of one thing.

‘…Wow. This is crossing the line.’

I was back to the moment I first regressed.

“What the hell is going on?”

Let me think calmly for a moment.

I definitely accepted Bern Ajae’s goodwill and fell asleep at the inn.

Then I woke up to find myself back at the time I first regressed.

‘Does regression happen multiple times?’

If that’s the case, what are the conditions?

The only thing that came to mind was when my body felt strange.

No, it was hard to imagine regression happening for any other reason.

There was no particularly notable event, after all.

‘Hmm, I guess I’ll just have to try and see.’

I immediately stabbed my arm with a hoe kept at the house.

Blood poured out, soaking the floor with heat.

“Hmm, not yet?”

This time I stabbed deeply into my left thigh.

One of my legs was completely crippled.

But with the hero’s recovery ability, it was just a wound that would disappear overnight, so it didn’t matter.

Still, there was no sign of regression.

Next, I stabbed my abdomen.

The floor turned into a pool of blood.

Losing so much blood, my vision began to blur, but then I heard a pounding sound from my left chest.

It was too loud to be a simple heartbeat, so I pulled my clothes aside to check my chest.

“…Ah ha.”

The white Curse Brand of the Demon King, which had been white when I first regressed, was now glowing with a grayish hue.

Looking closely through a broken shard of glass at home, I saw part of it had turned black.

“Could you be the cause of regression?”

Thump.

As if answering my question, the brand throbbed again.

“Huh, have I been this lucky?”

To guess the right answer on the first try was something I had never done in my life.

Just in case, I tried a bit more.

The bleeding was severe, but a hero wouldn’t die from this.

I lifted the hoe and stabbed my chest.

I avoided the heart, so even though my vision blurred, my mind remained clear.

At that moment, the white brand on my chest gradually turned black.

It was like a black clock hand rotating and staining the mark.

I looked up at the sky through the window and prayed silently.

‘God of the Sun, please save me.’

At that instant, a flash of light streaked down from the sky, and my body began to emit a faint glow.

In an instant, my wounds healed, and the blackened brand on my chest returned to its original form.

The aftereffect left a slight weakness pressing down on my body.

‘So it’s true that you regress when you die.’

It seemed this regression had some kind of limit on the number of times.

That was a bit disappointing.

It meant infinite regression was impossible.

But at the same time, I sighed deeply.

“Who the hell killed me?”

What mattered now was that someone tried to kill me while I was sleeping at the inn.

Not just anyone, but the hero who had defeated the Demon King.

If my old comrades heard this, they’d definitely tell me to stop joking around.

Who dares to hide their presence and approach me?

Even if I were in a deep sleep, a hero’s tracking ability was not something a mere assassin could evade.

If I was going to be taken out by a mere assassin, I might as well give up the title of hero.

Yet, I didn’t sense the assassin at all?

‘Bullshit.’

Whoever killed me wasn’t an ordinary assassin.

No, even the legendary assassins known to be able to kill heroes wouldn’t be able to hide in front of me.

“How do I check this?”

The simplest way: replay all my actions and the timeline exactly as before, and return to the inn to face whoever killed me.

But…

‘That won’t work.’

I wasn’t very smart.

It was impossible to repeat every single action exactly the same to reach the inn again.

“…Ah. Screw it.”

Action was more my style than planning.

To defeat the Demon King, I had to storm his castle.

I set a jar trap, embezzled some funds, and headed straight for the capital.

Whoever it was, I’d catch the bastard who tried to kill me first.