Chapter 2
Chapter 2
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: Melee Battle (1)
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Gasping out pained breaths, I woke up. My face was a mess of tears and snot.
My first reaction was denial. It had to be—after all, this was the first pain I'd ever felt in my life.
"N-No way!! I'm done! I'm quitting this trash game!!"
Virtual reality games could never simulate even the slightest bit of pain.
>
They could leave deep trauma otherwise.
But the pain I'd just endured was beyond imagination. Like my throat was actually being slit.
In the face of such overwhelming agony, pride meant nothing.
A bug? Or had I cranked the intensity too high?
But denying reality changed nothing.
I was just buying a tiny bit more time before the Empire hurled another fireball.
What followed was nothing but ravaging.
And without fail, my head ended up impaled on a spear shaft, a symbol proclaiming their victory.
Defending the castle? As if that were possible.
These pathetic walls. A hundred conscripted peasants was all we could muster.
Of course, their quality was the worst imaginable.
What could an ordinary person like me do with soldiers who didn't even know how to hold a weapon properly, let alone defend?
"Spare me! Please, just let me live!!!"
"Begging for your life like a coward. Pathetic."
"Fuck!!"
I even knelt before their commander. But all I got back was scornful disdain.
Once again, my severed head was hoisted on a spear like a flag.
And when I opened my eyes again, I was right back on these shabby walls, staring at their perfectly aligned ranks and files.
In the end, my resolve broke.
"Prepare the white flag."
A minor lord like me had no choices.
I threw open the gates myself. They marched in without a hint of suspicion.
Even if I'd dug traps, they'd just smash through with brute force.
The army halted before me—flawless as statues carved from rock, without a single ripple in their formation.
At the vanguard stood a knight in gleaming white armor that caught the sunlight.
"Are you this territory's lord?"
"Yes. My name is... "
"No need for explanations."
Slash.
'...Huh?'
Cold metal bit into my throat.
Even then, I had no idea what had happened to me.
The last thing I saw was my headless body slowly collapsing.
And the knight looking down at it with utter contempt.
"No loyalty to your sovereign, no honor as a noble. There's no place in the Empire for traitors like you."
What bullshit.
They were the ones who demanded surrender first.
But with my head already severed, I had no tongue or voice to argue.
Even if I did, my lips wouldn't have moved anyway.
What a utterly pathetic death.
Not even a token resistance. A cowardly fool who flung open the gates in terror.
And yet, I couldn't even save my own neck.
I raised my foolishly bowed head again.
Beyond the walls stretched the Empire's army—flawless ranks and files.
I faced once more the force that had utterly crushed my will to fight.
Yes.
Now it was clear. I came back to life after dying.
Definitely not a dream.
No mere hallucination born of fear.
If only it were a dream or illusion.
But I still remembered the chill of that metal slicing cleanly into my throat.
And no matter how much of a fool I was, after five identical deaths, I had to realize it wasn't a dream.
Death regression.
Or defeat regression, perhaps.
Whenever defeat's conditions were met, I returned to the past without fail. There's probably only one way out of this hell.
Victory.
That's right.
I had to defeat the continent's hegemon, the Empire.
With just these hundred guards we'd scraped together somehow.
How the hell did I end up in this nightmare?
Did I live that sinful a life?
A torrent of thoughts flooded my mind, but to survive, I had to do something—anything—right now.
For starters, no surrendering.
Thirty times already.
I'd surrendered thirty different ways.
And every time, the end was the same as the first death.
No matter how I surrendered, I died. Hanged or beheaded, that was it.
But choosing to fight didn't change the outcome either.
To punish the sinner who spat on His Majesty's mercy.
The Empire's soldiers began their advance. Demons trampling all in their path.
Whoosh.
Boom!
"Ah."
The fireball engulfed the walls again. At least I knew it was magic.
And its power was far beyond imagination.
Surrender and die.
Fight and die.
A perfect checkmate—death no matter what I chose.
But after each death, I opened my eyes again without fail.
And the hell repeated.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Where there's an effect, there's always a cause.
Know your enemy and know yourself, and you'll win every battle. To escape this hell, I needed to understand this regression first.
The regression's conditions came quickly.
The first time I recognized death and regressed, it popped into my head automatically.
[Undefeated in a Hundred Battles]
[Regress upon defeat.]
The key here was the defeat condition.
In other words, what counted as defeat?
Did I regress just from dying? Or from any failure?
Honestly, failure was familiar enough.
Even without this life, who goes through existence without a single loss?
But regressing on petty failures? My head would split just thinking about it. Sadly, I had no time to worry about the future.
"Gah!!!"
An arrow pierced the throat of a soldier right beside me.
He collapsed, vomiting blood. His bloodshot eyes last caught sight of me—cowering pathetically inside the walls, trembling.
The enemy host closing in.
Shoddy walls and barely-equipped troops.
And a ten-to-one numerical disadvantage at that. No chance for anyone watching.
Not child versus adult—giant versus child.
And the giant crushed the child effortlessly.
I died again and opened my eyes. A terrified voice soon rang out.
"Lord! Surrender is our only option!"
"We'll all die otherwise!!"
"......"
My subordinates, well aware of the Empire's infamy, boldly demanded surrender.
I understood.
Who wants to die?
But that's why I couldn't yield. I wanted to live too.
Who knew something as natural as breathing could become such a desperate wish?
But what was I supposed to do?
Surrender and die, fight and die. Over a hundred deaths already.
Regrettably, to survive even a little longer, I had no choice but to fight.
Defense is easier than siege, sure.
But not with this gap in forces.
How long could a rural stockade hold against the Empire's elite—complete with siege engines and mages?
Most soldiers had already fled.
Even those who fought back eventually died.
We couldn't last half a day.
And I died without fail.
Death repeated.
An ordinary human meets death once in a lifetime at most. I'd already faced it over thirty times.
If I were a legendary general like Sun Tzu or Hannibal, maybe I'd have an answer.
Or overwhelming might like Xiang Yu.
But I'm a thorough ordinary person.
I'd picked up some strategy from the internet, but I lacked the skill to apply it.
How do you use tactics against mages melting the walls like cheese?
Speak of the tiger and it appears. Another fireball incoming.
Hissing with eerie heat, it hurtled straight at us, crumbling the walls in seconds and incinerating everything alive.
Including me.
The silver lining? Its sheer power meant no pain.
"Gaaaaah!!"
At least until now.
Colliding with the fireball, I'd open my eyes right back on the walls.
But not this time.
Searing agony.
Pain like infinite spears piercing my skin—I couldn't hold back the scream.
It didn't last long, though.
The sensation of my vocal cords and tongue melting and dripping was beyond horrific.
Skin and bones incinerated to ash.
No time to feel pain in the process.
But this time, for some reason, I felt every torment imaginable before dying.
And when I opened my eyes again, I was once more on the walls.
"Fuck, for real."
Cursing amid the brutal march, I racked my brain.
Definitely no pain at first.
I remembered that clearly.
The one painless death was the fireball—so I'd thrown myself into it on purpose.
But this time, full pain. And it lingered longer than expected.
What the hell?
Habituation from repetition?
'Even if there's a difference, this is too extreme. Never felt pain from fireballs before... Unless?'
A sense of wrongness.
An unshakable unease, like deep-rooted moss, dominated my mind.
An absurd hypothesis surfaced.
I'd heard human bodies adapt somewhat even in extreme conditions.
Of course, limits exist.
You can't turn into steel from hammer blows.
For ordinary humans, anyway.
But I'm not ordinary now. I regress upon defeat.
'What if my body adapts or grows even slightly each time?'
Like stats ticking up a bit per death in a game.
Not certain, though.
Just speculation—too few examples for confidence.
So only one option: test it with my body.
Head hurts, body suffers. Old sayings never fail.
I opened my eyes again.
Still on the walls. Turning, I saw soldiers eyeing me anxiously.
"Open the gates."
"Wise choice, Lord!"
"If we surrender meekly, even the Empire will spare our lives."
"Who said anything about surrendering?"
My cold words froze their faces again.
Sadly, no other choice.
Surrender means death for me—and all of you.
Surrender, die. Siege, die. Die either way?
Only one path left: find a breakthrough.
"Arm yourselves."
Fight until my last breath.