He Who Returned from Death
While the Septimoa Council was convening, Cassian was alone in the training yard, devoted to conditioning his body.
He yearned for his sword with every fiber of his being, but he had decided to hold off for now. Leonid had warned him that swinging his blade however he pleased would only ingrain bad habits into his form.
"Whew..."
Finishing his last set of pull-ups, Cassian dropped to the ground and wiped the sweat from his brow.
Following Leonid's advice, he had gone to plead with Saintess Beatrice to teach him the sword, only to receive a crushing refusal. It had stung, but he supposed that, too, was a burden he deserved to bear. He had committed his sins, after all — it couldn't be helped.
If he showed her how he was changing through his efforts, perhaps someday the Saintess would forgive him. That was the vague hope he clung to.
"Well, well, big bro. Training again?"
He was taking a short break to cool down when Leonid wandered over with a greeting. Cassian wasn't the most sociable sort, but Leonid was so unfailingly friendly that the two of them had grown quite close by now.
"You must never skip a single day of conditioning, Leonid."
"You're not wrong, but how many people actually stick to that?"
At some point, the two of them had dropped formalities with each other. (Not that Leonid had ever used them to begin with.)
Truthfully, Cassian was older than Leonid, and the rank of Hero Candidate was by no means beneath that of a Vice-Commander of the Holy Knights — if anything, it was Leonid who should have been showing deference. But it was Leonid, unprompted, who had pushed for them to speak casually.
Perhaps something bothered him about it, because without anyone asking, he'd tried to justify himself with a preposterous line of logic: "If you become the Hero someday, I'll have to use honorifics with you for the rest of my life. So I might as well get all my casual talk out of my system now, don't you think?"
Hearing that, Cassian finally understood a little of why Leonid kept getting smacked around by the Saintess. Knowing her temperament, there was no way she'd let that kind of cheekiness slide.
"Judging by the fact that you're here, the Council's wrapped up?"
"Yep, just got back after escorting His Eminence. He had business to attend to, so he headed back out with Griffith."
Sister Beatrice had said she needed to speak with the Chancellor in private, so the two of them had returned to Frost Palace alone.
No — strictly speaking, not alone. One unfamiliar knight from the Order of Justitia had been trailing behind them like a burr stuck to their heels.
Leonid looked at Cassian as he recalled the presence of that golden-haired knight, which he had briefly forgotten.
"Oh, right. Big bro, do you know any holy knights from the Order of Justitia?"
"Justitia? Hmm. I don't believe I know anyone there."
Cassian searched his memory, but he had no ties to Justitia. What connection could a mere mercenary nobody possibly have with one of the Seven Great Orders? And after crossing into the Demon Realm's midlands, he had drifted through years in a hazy, dreamlike daze. Whatever few connections he'd once had would surely have withered away entirely.
"Ah, speak of the devil — there he is now. I told him to wait outside and I'd call for him, but the man's got no patience. Walking straight into another Order's residence like he owns the place. What's gotten into those stiff-necked Justitia lot?"
Leonid clicked his tongue and grumbled. When Cassian turned to follow his gaze, he saw a golden-haired, blue-eyed knight walking slowly toward them.
Those hollow blue eyes locked onto Cassian.
And in that instant, Cassian's breath caught in his throat.
"Hey there, Blondie. You got some grudge against our Hero Candidate or something?"
Gagging and wheezing, unable to draw a proper breath, Cassian only managed to breathe again once Leonid wedged himself between the two of them. His lungs still burned and his legs trembled so violently he felt he might collapse at any moment — but somehow, he held himself upright.
What was that? What just happened to me?
Cassian forced his breathing back under control, ragged gasps tearing out of him.
"Uh, Cassian, big bro? Did you maybe commit some mortal sin against that guy or something?"
"I've never seen him before, so there's no way I could have... no, actually, I can't be certain."
Cassian had been about to deny Leonid's murmured suspicion, but then he remembered that for several years, he had undergone something disturbingly close to brainwashing — and he changed his tune. Those years came back to him only in vague fragments, never in detail. There was no telling what terrible things he might have done in that time.
"Hey, Blondie. I don't know what history you two have, but how about you put the killing intent away and we talk this out like civil..."
"Move."
The golden-haired knight cut Leonid off, drawing his blade slowly from its scabbard.
"Wow, scary. If I step aside, what exactly are you planning to do with that sword? 'Cause from where I'm standing, this doesn't look like a friendly sparring invitation."
"That man must die here."
"Well, I'll be. You clearly can't stand our bro — you and our Saintess would get along great. But sorry, no can do. I can't just stand by and let our Order's Hero Candidate die."
Leonid drew his blade.
He wore an easy, confident stance, but a cold sweat ran down his spine. One look was enough to tell this man was stronger than him — and those eyes. Those were absolutely not the eyes of a man who could be reasoned with.
"...I see. Then there's nothing more to say."
The instant the words left his mouth, the golden-haired knight vanished from view.
Leonid instinctively angled his blade upward in a diagonal guard.
CLANG—!
Two swords collided with a screech of grinding metal.
One exchange. A single exchange was all it took for Leonid to know.
I'm out of my depth.
He clenched his teeth. Every holy knight was away on deployment. His Eminence had slipped back out to deliberate with the other archpriests. And Sister was nowhere to be found.
Worse, of all places, this was Frost Palace — the most remote corner of Septimoa Castle.
We are royally fucked...!
The guy looks about my age — how is he radiating killing intent this monstrous? One look and you can tell he's one of those zealot-crazy Justitia fanatics... but even for them, this is way beyond the pale!
One wrong move, and two corpses might well be found in Frost Palace tonight.
Praying that someone — anyone — would notice what was happening and come running, Leonid gritted his teeth and began absorbing the ferocious, relentless onslaught of blade strikes.
Kael.
The Hero of the Order of Justitia.
And a prodigy of legendary proportions who had claimed the title of Hero at the impossibly young age of twenty.
'No. I am no such prodigy.'
Kael coldly rejected the flattering words in his own head.
To all appearances, he might be nothing more than a green boy of barely twenty years. But within him sat the soul of a worn-down, defeated soldier — a man who had led humanity's final resistance, fighting the demons to his very last breath before dying.
There was exactly one reason such an impossible thing had come to pass.
'Regression.'
A miracle activated at the moment of death — or perhaps a divine authority.
When his throat had been severed by the Great Demon of Pride and he opened his eyes again, Kael was nineteen years old, back in the spring of the year he first took the Hero's Trial.
At first, he assumed it was his life flashing before his eyes. As the moments stretched on, he began to suspect some demon's illusion. But it was all far too vivid for that. By the time he understood that this was neither dream nor phantom, he had even descended to absurd speculation — could I have dreamed one of those Precognitive Dreams granted only to Saintesses?
It didn't matter what it was. What mattered was the simple fact that he had returned.
'It's a blessing that I can start over — but I can't afford to simply rejoice.'
If I fail again, I'll just regress to the past once more, won't I? He had decided not to entertain such complacent thoughts. He had no way to be certain that this miracle of regression could happen twice — and above all, he didn't even know what conditions triggered it.
The only condition he could even guess at was that the regression required his own death. And risking his life just to confirm that was far too dangerous.
...Because if he was wrong, he would end his story as a irresponsible, defeated coward — a man who fled carrying humanity's last hope, only to throw his life away on a baseless gamble.
So yes. He was right to assume he would get only one chance.
But the demons had been terrifyingly strong. Even going head-to-head with them now, forget the Seven Great Demons — he couldn't have guaranteed victory over even one of their subordinate Legion Commanders.
And yet Kael possessed a hidden weapon.
'I know the future. A future far more accurate than any Saintess's Precognitive Dream.'
But he could never face those demons alone.
Why had the once-mighty Empire collapsed so helplessly?
He had to find the starting point of it all.
And at that starting point stood the name of one man.
'Cassian.'
That name — circled again and again in his records, written with such obsessive fury that the quill nearly tore through the parchment.
The betrayer of humanity: a man who, despite bearing the title of Hero, became the demons' puppet, turned the Order of Eris into a forward operating base for the Demon Realm, and ran four of the Seven Great Orders through the heart.
'I can't let it happen that way this time. Cassian — you die first.'
Kael drew a long, deliberate line through Cassian's name as he thought.
'But how?'
He knew nothing about what Cassian had done before becoming a Hero. Should he make inquiries? Or should he storm the Order of Eris, hunt Cassian down, and cut his throat on the spot? Both options were wildly beyond the reach of a mere Hero Candidate.
So Kael resolved, above all else, to shed the title of candidate and become a true Hero first.
As it happened, he was in the middle of the Hero's Trial, so the path was not a difficult one. What the nineteen-year-old him couldn't manage was trivial for the man he was now — a veteran who had crossed countless lines between life and death.
And perhaps heaven itself was lending a hand. Through discreet inquiries, he had learned that not long ago, the Hero Candidate Cassian had visited the Order of Eris.
Which meant the Order of Eris had not yet fallen. He would have the chance to set things right from the very beginning.
Of course, judging by what Clarice had told him, the news he'd received might have been wrong. She'd said Saintess Beatrice's body was covered in wounds, and that she screamed at the mere sight of a man.
But she was attending the Council. That meant things hadn't deteriorated past the point of no return — she could still walk about outside. Her mind was still holding.
Even after arriving at the holy capital of Septimoa, Kael paid no attention to outside affairs, reviewing his plans — until the day of the Council itself, when he came face to face with the people of the Order of Eris.
As the delegations of Eris and Justitia exchanged greetings, he stood a step apart, watching them.
His gaze was fixed on Beatrice, standing across the way.
'...Contrary to what Clarice said, she seems perfectly fine.'
Who knew what state she was in internally, but to the naked eye, Beatrice looked whole and unbroken.
'...Was she always like this?'
What Kael remembered was a Beatrice who had shattered completely.
'It's not too late yet.'
The sight of her standing there so unharmed only hardened Kael's resolve. Someone who could laugh that boldly, that brightly — he could not allow her to be dragged down into such wretched ruin.
Whether by fortune or misfortune, Cassian — the man who had once shadowed her side like a second silhouette — was nowhere to be seen either.
In his place stood a knight with red hair and green eyes.
'His name was... Leonid, wasn't it?'
The knight who, after breaking free of demonic enchantment, had crawled along the very lowest rungs to atone — endlessly taking demonic blood onto his own hands.
'...This one looks normal too.'
His chance.
He had already planned to kill Cassian here, but seeing the people of the Order of Eris before his eyes hardened that resolve all the more.
After the Saintess and the archpriest entered the Council chamber, Kael approached Leonid and spoke.
"I heard that when you came to the capital this time, the Hero Candidate of the Order of Eris came along. Is that correct?"
"...It is, but who are you, exactly?"
"An old friend of Cassian's. If it wouldn't be a bother, I'd like to see him."
Merely calling Cassian a friend made his stomach twist — but he swallowed the revulsion and said it flatly, without expression.
"Oh? So our bro even had a friend like you?"
"He did."
"...Hm. Well. You two do suit each other — gloomy as all hell, both of you."
Leonid picked at his ear and added, "Then just come back to Frost Palace with me after the meeting wraps up. Easy, right?"
And so, back to the present—
"Whew... I'm sorry. I couldn't subdue someone of your caliber without hurting you."
Kael spoke as he steadied his breathing over Leonid's bloodied, fallen body.
"Not running?"
Kael turned his head from Leonid toward Cassian.
Subduing Leonid had taken considerable time, yet Cassian had not fled. Instead, he was drawing his sword with trembling hands.
"I can't abandon a comrade and run."
"...To hear those words come out of your mouth. It disgusts me."
Kael growled the words out, then immediately charged, swinging his blade.
With a bright clang, the sword flew from Cassian's grip, spun through the air, and sank into the ground with a muffled thud.
Pathetic. Utterly pathetic.
And it was this pathetic creature before me who brought half the Holy Empire to its knees?
Kael raised his sword.
The man before him had eyes so unbendingly upright that it was hard to believe he was a demon's puppet.
Perhaps he truly hasn't committed any crimes yet. Am I about to kill an innocent man? The thought made bile rise in his throat.
'I will not apologize. I am simply washing away the sins your future self will commit, with the blood of your present self.'
But there was no hesitation. Whatever price his own sins demanded, he would pay with his life once everything was over.
He swung his blade toward the man's neck.
Cassian seemed to understand there was no escaping it — with an expression of resigned acceptance, he squeezed his eyes shut.
And then—
CLANG—!
What reached Kael's fingertips was not the cold sensation of cleaving through flesh. It was metal — solid, frigid metal, enough to numb his wrist to the bone.
"...!"
Kael stared at the silver spear that had turned aside his blade.
"The hell do you think you're doing, you bastard?"
A voice cold as a slab of ice.
There she stood — the Silver Holy Spear.