Prologue — What Memory Loss Means
Memory is a strange thing, isn't it?
No matter how hard you try not to forget, you end up losing it all the same. There's even a disease for it—Alzheimer's. An absolute force that effort alone can never overcome.
It was more than strange. It was almost magnificent.
Maybe we don't live so that we can remember. Maybe we live because we remember. That was how inseparable life and memory felt—how impossible it was to pull them apart. Or maybe not.
Either way, memory mattered to people more than almost anything else. Everyone would agree. At some point, everyone has paid the price for forgetting something.
So is this the price for forgetting something, too?
How many times had it been now?
The world was dead. The roars of beasts rolled out across the ruins, and white dust drifted down from the sky. Pain burned through the air itself. Or maybe those were human screams. Maybe it was only snow. Buildings blazed a searing white.
When people pictured a ruined world, they usually thought of collapsing buildings, corpses, and a darkened sky. Not wrong, exactly—but not right, either. Countless works had tried to portray the end of the world. Unfortunately, most of them had missed the single most important thing about a dead one.
Describing a ruined world was never going to be easy. No one had ever seen one. No one had ever felt one.
It was simple, really. A ruined world lacked something. The thing that mattered most to human beings.
There were no microorganisms at all.
In a dead world, nothing lived. Nothing at all.
"Ah..."
The long sword slipped from my hand.
I had failed again. At the start, I had thought I could do it all. I had thought that if it was me, I could save them.
There had been no such thing.
Everyone was dead again. That feeling of just a little more—just a little more, and maybe it would work this time. Even that was gone now. There was no path left to see. This wasn't something a person was meant to do.
What was I supposed to do now?
"Ha. For real."
A miserable sound escaped me, half sigh and half sob. Tears that only came from inside. Or was that blood? Looking at the amount, it might have been rain. I couldn't tell anymore.
I had always hated this story. From the very beginning.
Wait. Did I even have a beginning?
I didn't know that anymore, either. The memories wouldn't come.
"...First things first. I need to get organized."
I needed to think about what came next. This loop had run long enough that the early parts were hard to recall. I would be dying soon enough—I needed to lock down the important plans ahead of time. Going as far back through the previous loops as I could manage.
Memory is important to people.
And among people, there is one kind for whom memory matters more than anyone else.
The Regressor.
To a regressor, memory was more important than it was to anyone else alive. Without memories, going back to the past would change nothing. Were you supposed to rewrite the future through pure unconscious impulse, coincidence, and luck? More than that—would you even still count as a regressor?
Yes. Memory was essential to a regressor. You needed it to save the world, too. In fact, the ability to remember might be more useful than the ability to regress itself.
No—it definitely was more useful.
So let me give you one piece of advice. Take it from someone who's been around. If you ever gain the power of regression, make damn sure you get perfect memory along with it.
No matter what. Absolutely.
And if you don't?
Certain key individuals have each recalled different past loops.
You'll suffer for all those early loops you've long since forgotten.
...Fuck.
"What the hell is this."
Of course, you could argue it was a good thing—getting more capable companions. Even if variables started cropping up more often. I had thought something similar myself.
But.
"Th-thank god! You're actually alive! You're alive! Th-this time, I swear I'll..."
The problem was, I had no idea why this one was acting like this toward me.
Oh, and for reference: after about loop five hundred, I never died before my companions did. So I genuinely couldn't remember what had killed me before this one.
"Don't worry. I'll erase everything except you... with my own hands."
This one used to be a righteous sort. As far as I remembered, even when they burned to death for humanity's sake, they never once held a grudge. Hell, they used to call me a villain and fight me half the time. So why did they suddenly want to destroy the world for my sake?
"I will save the world this time, even if it costs me my life. For your sake as well."
And this bastard had been a villain who pursued the world's destruction until now. After about loop seven hundred, I had only kept them alive because their abilities were useful for temporary cooperation. Now they were suddenly hell-bent on saving the world?
Truly.
From start to finish.
I didn't understand a single thing.
I don't remember, you assholes.