Regression
The world was coming to an end.
The faintly burning flames would not stop until everything had been reduced to ash.
"So this is the last of it."
The traces of a horrific battle lay soaked in blood. Even those were vanishing now, everything disappearing. It crumbled in silence, like a ship sinking beneath the sea. All that remained were the clotted remnants of rage and despair.
It was over. Even in the final war, where everything had been staked, they had lost to the Demon King. The Demon King of Justice, once said to be the gentlest and most peaceful of them all, had become the most terrible Demon King the moment she removed her mask. In the end, she had completed her task of destroying the world.
"So this is what it amounted to."
I had once shared the Demon King's cause. Under her, I had ceaselessly taken every sin upon myself and climbed all the way to the rank of executive—only to be stabbed in the back. The Demon King who betrayed everyone and destroyed the world vanished first, as if she had no lingering attachments at all.
I looked ahead. I had survived this long only because I was a special case. Across from me, the last remaining survivor of this world still existed.
Someone approached with staggering steps. Yellow hair matted with dried blood, blue eyes, an ideal appearance so perfect one could believe a god had sculpted it. But now she was only a pitiful girl. The Demon King's adversary. The Hero.
"You're still alive."
One arm was gone. One eye was an empty socket. A gaping hole had been torn through her side. A massive blade had driven through her shoulder and buried itself somewhere inside her body. The only things that still looked whole were her two legs.
Having watched the battle from the beginning, I knew why those wounds remained. Injuries she had offered up under ruthless calculation. Each one was fatal, yet she had accepted the pain so long as she could still grip a sword and swing it. The Hero who had fought such a desperate struggle had lost in the end. And yet, because she was the Hero, she had survived until the last.
When every one of the Hero's companions had died—the Saintess, the Archmage, the Sword Saint, all of them—she alone had remained.
I answered the Hero's question. As I said, it was because of the cursed power that only I possessed. Because I was an Immortal.
"I've got a body that doesn't die."
"I already know that. Immortal Argal."
"So why have you come to me?"
"Because you were the one who fought the Demon King first."
I looked into the Hero's remaining blue eye. Even after losing, even as the world approached annihilation, that eye had not lost its light. Did hope still remain? Was it because she was the Hero, the symbol of hope and justice, that she still refused to let go? And so those eyes hated me.
The Hero had no choice but to hate me. Following the Demon King's orders, I had killed and tortured her companions and committed every manner of crime. I was a sinner who deserved judgment. I had laid my hands on the black magic she regarded as an abomination. I had killed my parents and my siblings. I had contracted with a powerful demon. Even if I had been betrayed by the Demon King, I had still been an accomplice who helped bring about the end of the world.
The moment the Hero approached me, I knew. She had come to judge me, just before she left this world.
Steel whispered as it left the scabbard.
Even now, the Holy Sword radiated a brilliant light. Even as annihilation closed in, it had not lost its power. Could that thing sever my immortality?
Pointing the blade at me, the Hero spoke.
"I shall ask you one last time."
"Ask away."
"..."
It was a question that struck something in my chest. Not the question I had expected. Not repentance. Not forgiveness. Not remorse. She had simply asked if I regretted it.
I had pressed forward, endlessly forward. After committing all those sins and still advancing without end, the question I received was nothing at all. Regret.
"Never. Not in the past, not now, and not ever."
"I shall ask again. Do you not regret the life you have lived?"
"Hero, you ask strange things. I regret nothing. I fought the Demon King because she betrayed everything and tried to destroy the world—not because I felt any regret and threw myself into stopping her."
"Is that so?"
The Hero lowered her sword. When I sent her a puzzled look, the Holy Sword in her grip began to emit a strange light.
"Wait. What are you talking about, Hero? What exactly are you planning to do?"
"The final chance granted to me. It can only be used on someone else. But you are the only one left in this world—because you are an Immortal who can still cling to life even after annihilation."
A tear rolled from the Hero's remaining eye. I turned her words over in a mind that felt half-broken.
"By 'go back,' you mean regression to the past?"
"That is correct."
"Why would you give me a chance like that?"
Whether the Hero even possessed such a power was a secondary concern. She had received her strength from a god and was a being close to invincible, so having one more power like that was plausible enough. What I could not understand was spending that chance on an unforgivable sinner—on her enemy. Even if, without it, this world would simply end as it was.
"It is my last struggle."
"I cannot understand it at all."
We had never been in a relationship where we could understand each other to begin with. The thoughts of a Hero who devoted and sacrificed herself for others, and mine as an executive of the Demon King's army, could never be the same. Her wish must have been to stop the destruction, even if it meant sending her enemy back in time.
"I'll make you one promise."
I could not let this opportunity slip away. I accepted the Hero's decision with utter greed.
"That alone is enough."
The Hero's face, which had been locked rigid from the moment we first met, shifted—faintly.
She smiled.