Regression
“You bastard!”
A rough shout. Then a foot filled his vision, and a dull pain exploded in his jaw.
“Gah…!”
Vera let out a groan through eyes widened to the point of tearing, then belatedly exhaled a sticky breath.
“Kuh….”
“Quit whining, you punk! That’s why you should’ve met your quota!”
The bellow hammered into his ears. The pain that induced dry heaves. As Vera registered it, he shook off his dazed mind and lifted his head to stare at the source of the voice.
…Doran?
Doran. Leader of the slum beggar gang. And a ghost whose neck Vera had personally twisted in his past life.
Vera gazed at him with an unsettled expression, his breathing ragged and unrefined, then let out a hollow chuckle.
Ah….
I’ve gone to hell.
My shredded soul has finally fallen into hell to suffer.
As that realization dawned, Vera began to cackle. Doran, watching him, twisted his face in fury and kicked him again.
“Even then, you—!”
Thud!
This time, the blow landed on Vera’s jaw, sending him tumbling backward from the impact. Vera lay sprawled in the muddy water, still cackling, and stared up at the sky.
Dull, murky air. The slum. Despite all his struggles to escape it, he had returned here in the end. Cruelly, his personal hell took the shape of the slum.
With that sinking in, an even louder laugh burst from Vera’s lips.
“Kuh…! Kahaha!”
“Laughing?! You’re !!!”
Doran flew into a rage at the sight of Vera laughing and unleashed a barrage of kicks. Vera took the furious blows across his body and continued his dazed train of thought.
The Saint….
What was the point of saying it aloud? That woman would surely be cradled in the gods’ arms by now. She was never the sort he needed to worry about in the first place. The one who had shaken even this monster to its core—she must have met that fate.
Vera cackled as he relived his life’s final moments. What had he been thinking? To brazenly hope for another life, when he had no shame left—it was laughable, and so he laughed.
God wasn’t an idiot. There was no way such mercy would be granted to a monster who had wielded HisStigmata however he pleased for a lifetime.
…Pathetic.
He was ashamed of himself for weakening at the end, clinging to that fleeting warmth.
This suited him. A monster like him deserved this end.
He had treated God’s grace as a tool, sat upon a throne forged from the despair of the lowly, and indulged in pleasure his whole life. This was the natural conclusion.
The kicks pounding his body. The laughter bursting forth nonetheless. As Vera endured these clashing sensations, he thought of the Saint again, and a tightness gripped his chest.
…If only I’d never met her.
Then he could have welcomed this situation gladly, accepted it humbly, regretted nothing of his past life.
As such thoughts swirled, a sudden notion struck him: What if this is all part of the Almighty God’s design?
To make him regret the sins he had piled up. To torment a sinner who dared defile God’s Stigmata even more. To place her at the very end of his life.
Doesn’t that fit perfectly?
If it were true, then the Almighty God was truly omniscient. He would pay off his remaining sins in profound regret and despair—and if the God who had prepared this wasn’t omniscient, then what was?
Once more, laughter erupted.
“Kuhuhu….”
There was no reason to laugh, it was a moment to shed tears, yet laughter came anyway. After cackling for a good while, Vera noticed Doran had stopped kicking and was staring at him with a paling face.
“Hah, huff….”
“What? Not done beating me yet?”
“You… you crazy bastard…!”
Doran backed away unsteadily, his face pale with fear, then turned and fled into the distance.
Vera watched his retreating figure and thought, Even in hell, that guy’s got no guts. Then, belatedly, a sense of wrongness hit him.
…Hold on.
Does this make sense? This is hell, isn’t it? A place to punish wicked souls.
So why was the guard meant to torment him running away like that?
“Ngh….”
Vera pushed his throbbing body upright and steadied his breath. Something was off.
As he brushed himself off to check his injuries, Vera spotted something impossible through his torn sleeve.
He hastily rolled up the sleeve. Beneath it was an eight-stroke curved circle intertwined.
The Stigmata?
The Oath’s Stigmata.
Why was this embedded here? Why had it remained?
As he pondered, Vera closed his eyes and examined his soul—the power granted to those bestowed the Oath’s Stigmata.
Over his closed eyelids floated a dark soul, flickering like a flame.
…Intact.
It wasn’t shredded.
…No.
It was fully restored. Even the parts torn away when he once broke an oath—they were all healed.
Vera stared blankly at this phenomenon, then suddenly recalled the oath he had sworn before death and peered into his soul again.
The dark soul. Etched upon it in golden letters:
…It’s there.
The final oath of his life.
‘I will live for the Saint.’
It was inscribed.
Vera opened his eyes and surveyed his surroundings. The slum’s back alley, shrouded in the magic tower’s shadow—dull and stuffy. His soul, utterly unmarred. This bizarre situation screamed that everything up to his death had been no dream, yet the oath carved into his soul insisted otherwise.
Vera looked at his gaunt wrist.
The scavenger days.
In his life, only his time as a slum scavenger had left him this emaciated. After his hunger was sated, he had always maintained a sturdy build. No doubt about it.
Only then did Vera realize what all this meant.
…Regression.
He had returned. Time had rewound.
Back to when he was a wretched slum brat who had accomplished nothing.
His thoughts grew numb. The pain receded with them. Vera stared blankly at the sky, unable to comprehend this phenomenon.
Why? That should have been the question, but absurdly, one thought flooded his mind first.
The Saint is alive.
That fact alone filled his head. An inexplicable relief swelled within him, one he couldn’t even explain to himself.
She was alive. And not just alive—her skin hadn’t melted from burns. She hadn’t starved on gruel worse than livestock feed.
…She hadn’t slipped into this slum.
As he clenched his fist at the thought, Vera savored the surging relief for a long moment before another idea surfaced.
Why had he regressed? What was the reason?
He tried to speculate, but no answers came. Only one being capable of such a feat came to mind.
…The Almighty God.
The one seated on the highest throne. The shaper of worlds, weaver of fates. No one else could do this.
*
Vera wandered the slum in a mud-caked daze, his mind a mess.
If the Almighty God had orchestrated this, what did He want from him?
As questions piled up, Vera finally recalled the oath he had sworn.
‘I will live for the Saint.’
If God sought something through him, it must be fulfilling that oath.
Right? Why else would He focus on someone like him?
He was a heretic who abused divine power. A monster who plunged the world into chaos. This second life couldn’t be for his sake.
Suddenly, a conversation with the Saint flashed in his mind.
—“If the Almighty God truly weighs love so heavily, He wouldn’t have abandoned His Saint to a place like this.”
Words he had spoken to the Saint living a wretched life in the slum. Her reply: It was her own choice.
Remembering that, Vera chuckled.
His gaze turned skyward again.
Even the Almighty God couldn’t break that woman’s stubbornness, it seems.
So He borrowed another’s hand to save her.
His thoughts stretched long. If that was God’s will…
I’ll gladly play along.
He exhaled deeply. The stuffy air filling his lungs wheezed out.
But first….
Vera’s head turned toward a corner of the slum. One of its deepest alleys—the scavengers’ den.
He recalled Rene’s corpse sprawled in the mud. The memory of that indescribable despair clenched his fist tight.
…Gotta clean up the trash.
It hadn’t happened yet, but to Vera, they were still sinners who absolutely had to be torn apart.
*
A dingy tavern reeking of mold. Amid the wreckage of shattered furniture, Vera—drenched in blood—looked down at the corpses.
Scavengers whose necks he had snapped with his own hands.
It was absurd that his first act with a second chance was murder, but he felt no regret. If anything, letting them live would have been the true regret.
Logically speaking, wasn’t it obvious? The deepest darkness of the slum. Mold that spread endlessly if left alone. Better to clean it now before it crawled out into the world.
…Or so he could claim.
…Excuses.
A chuckle escaped Vera’s lips. He didn’t bother justifying it. He had hunted them down purely to vent his rage.
Her final moments, still etched in his mind—they fueled his fury, and he had taken it out on them.
The metallic stench of blood filled the tavern, stirring nausea in his gut. Vera exhaled long to shake off the foulness.
“Huuu….”
He had won with the power of his Stigmata, but fatigue still seeped into his body. Naturally so. His current flesh was too frail.
Vera’s gaze fell on a shard of mirror on the floor. It reflected a gaunt face, dark hair veiling ominous eyes—a boy.
Yes, a boy. His body was that of a mere fourteen-year-old. Emaciated from malnutrition, covered in bruises. Facing scavengers in this state naturally left him exhausted.
At least the cleaning’s done….
Vera slumped into the least damaged chair and continued planning.
He needed to chart his future. The oath etched in his soul—what must he do to uphold it?
He couldn’t live the same life. …No, he already regretted that life; he had no desire to repeat it.
For the Saint, for that bizarre woman—he had vowed to live for her, so he had to become someone worthy of guarding her side.
…Fortunately, he had the perfect tool.
Vera’s eyes drifted to the Stigmata on his right forearm.
…Holy Knight.
A Holy Knight of the Holy Kingdom Elia. A path he had ignored in his previous life.
But if he chose it now, nothing would be easier. And it was the perfect position to stand by the Saint’s side.
Events to unfold across the continent flashed through his mind.
The Stigmata descends on the Saint in four years.
The year she turned fourteen, when he would be eighteen. He remembered clearly, as it coincided with gathering rumors for deals with imperial nobles.
Four years….
A lifetime ago for him now—or just two weeks in his felt time. He recalled collapsing at the slum entrance, only for her to find him.
In the last life, you found me….
So.
This time, I’ll come find you.
A smile tugged at Vera’s lips.