The Returned Heroes and What Was Lost
When I regained consciousness, Kadros, Glazalus, and Mervin were staring down at me with worried eyes. They were all half-battered themselves, yet my body—which had been tumbling through the snowfield—was now swaddled warmly in several of the blankets we had used for camping.
The moment I came to, I sat up and looked around. Still cocooned in the blankets like some kind of oversized larva, I searched for Azalea. The instant I turned my head, I saw the Saint lying peacefully on her back, her chest rising and falling slowly with each breath. She looked as if she were simply sleeping. And of course, her head was perfectly intact, reattached to her body.
“Glazalus witnessed everything,” the ogre rumbled.
The other two nodded silently in agreement. My comrades were sturdy enough that a single blow from a mace wouldn’t knock them out for long; they must have watched the entire battle between the Demon King, Azalea, and me while lying exactly where they had fallen.
Mervin, whose injuries had been the lightest, had even knelt comfortably to observe it all—the Saint’s death, the Demon King’s annihilation, and her subsequent resurrection.
Kadros grumbled as well. “That time-rewinding ability of yours could pull off a miracle like that? Felt like my ancestors’ beards were standing on end.”
“Big one, short one, and human. Just in case, let me be clear,” Mervin said. The fact that the elf was speaking at length surprised everyone; all eyes, including mine, turned to his lips.
“The story of the Saint’s death and resurrection… No. Nothing that happened here today can ever leave this place. Not even if the Emperor himself asks.”
Kadros would normally have barked something like, “We don’t take orders from pointy-eared bastards!” but this time he stayed quiet. We all understood. This power broke the laws of the world. The fewer people who knew, the better.
“Kaira. You defeated the Demon King alone, but that truth must stay between us. I know it stings to share the credit with useless companions like us, but it can’t be helped.”
“Useless? Without all of you, I couldn’t have—”
“What kind of nonsense is that, pointy-ears? You could at least praise the little one once.”
The elf shook his head.
“The Demon King let his guard down, true, but in the end Kaira’s power was enough to erase him single-handedly. No leader of any race—not the human Empire, not any other—would be naïve enough to believe they could control someone with that kind of strength. They would consider themselves lucky if they only purged her.”
Glazalus tilted his massive head several times. “Is this ingratitude? Throw away those who helped?”
Mervin continued his unusually long speech, his expression deadly serious.
“To a ruler, the stability of the realm matters more than any fleeting merit. I have seen and heard of countless heroes—human, dwarf, and ogre—who built nations and tribes only to be killed once peace returned.”
After spitting out a ten-second string of dwarven curses, Kadros gave a heavy nod of agreement.
“Aye, that’s true enough. If our little one were some famous merchant or high noble, they might hesitate to touch her. But she’s just a commoner girl fresh out of the academy. If the Emperor decides to get rid of her, he’ll have a thousand ways to do it. Though… it wouldn’t stop with her.”
I smiled bitterly. “I see. So no one can ever know how the Demon King was truly defeated. Saying that Sir Kadros cut off his head, or that Glazalus beat him to death—those words themselves are forbidden.”
I looked around at my comrades with a pained smile.
“Because whoever is known as the one who took the Demon King’s life would have to bear all the danger. The best we can say is that we somehow managed to defeat him together…”
Mervin, as if he had already spoken more than enough for a lifetime, simply nodded twice.
“Smart. The pretty mage.”
While the ogre was praising me, a clear, innocent voice cut through the conversation.
“Mmm… Good morning—wait, what? Why is it so cold? Where… where are we?”
The four of us turned to Azalea in perfect unison. The Saint was looking around with a slightly dazed expression, blinking at the barren snowfield as if seeing it for the first time.
Azalea had been resurrected with her time rewound to a night one month earlier. Her entire timeline must have been reset to that point. I had managed to bring her back, but I had failed at the delicate control the ability required.
She refused to believe our explanation at first, but the moment the information I had stored in Kaira’s Secret Diary during her revival melted into her mind, she understood. The shell of altered time had dissolved, flooding her with every memory.
Then, without caring about the dignity of a Saint, she immediately knelt before me and bowed her head. Thanking me for saving her. It was exactly like her—honest and direct.
Seeing her bow before someone far younger and weaker than herself, I had no idea how to respond. I ended up kneeling as well, facing her.
We briefly discussed whether to continue the journey and hunt down the remaining five “heads,” but the conclusion was unanimous. Our only mission had been to defeat the Demon King. Now that it was done, we would return home.
It was because of me. My comrades had noticed how I trembled uncontrollably, how I kept glancing behind and beside me, unable to sit still. They understood that my mind was too exhausted to continue.
The power that twisted the laws of the world, the brief but brutal clash with the Demon King, the contact with that bottomless demonic energy blessed by every evil god, even the resurrection of Azalea whose body had completely collapsed—everyone realized these burdens were too heavy for a fledgling mage who had grown up as a baker’s daughter to bear and still remain sane.
Clinging desperately to my fracturing reason, I used the last of my strength to rewind the time on the dwarf’s, ogre’s, and elf’s armor and weapons. Only the equipment. I could not use the ability directly on my comrades. I had already exhausted every page of Kaira’s Secret Diary I could create that day.
Instead, I cast the most powerful healing magic I knew. Given the limits of my skill, Kadros still grumbled that he didn’t feel any better at all.
Before we left, we briefly debated what to do with the enormous horse the Demon King had ridden. It too was a corrupted monster steeped in demonic energy.
The others wanted to kill it, but I—who had personally experienced what it felt like to be overtaken by the Demon King’s will—opposed them to the end. That horse had surely once been an ordinary creature. It must have been invaded and controlled against its own desires.
When I refused to yield, the other four eventually changed their minds.
I gently stroked the horse’s face and whispered that it was free now, that it should live its own life. I could not know whether the Demon King’s disappearance had truly returned the horse’s will to it, but the great beast soon turned and galloped away.
Just before we left the battlefield, leaving only the Demon King’s shattered armor behind, Mervin placed his hand on the ground, concentrating some kind of power, and spoke.
“No plant or animal nearby can sense the Demon King’s energy anymore. It is certain that he has vanished in some manner. For now. But… it may be nothing more than pessimistic speculation, yet I fear we cannot be sure he is truly dead.”
I placed a hand on the elf’s shoulder and gave him a small smile.
“I think it’s more likely that the Demon King wasn’t destroyed, but simply rewound to before he was born. I don’t know what kind of person he was before becoming the Demon King, but he certainly wasn’t a newborn. Even if he does return, we have bought ourselves decades to prepare…”
Kadros clapped a hand on the elf’s other shoulder. “Then in a few decades we’ll just gather again and send that mad bastard back before he’s born. No need to overthink it, pointy-ears.”
“Wait a moment. You and Kaira might be fine, but I’m a human who can’t rewind time. I’d be an old woman by then. I’d rather be remembered as the beautiful young Hero of Light than as the grandmother Saint who defeated the Demon King three times. So I’d prefer he never comes back.”
Even Azalea joined in to lighten the mood, and at last we saw a rare smile on the elf’s face. His gaze rested on our simple-hearted ogre comrade, who was scratching the back of his head, clearly wanting to add something clever but unable to think of anything.
Our journey ended there. We left the Demon King’s armor in the frozen wasteland, taking only his helmet and mace as proof, and retraced our steps. The mountains and forests were just as harsh as before, but we encountered far fewer rampaging monsters, demons, or humans corrupted by demonic energy. The Demon King’s disappearance must have been the reason.
Even so, the return trip was no easier than the journey there.
Every night I was tormented by nightmares of the Demon King, of Azalea with her head severed, and of myself—brainwashed into the Demon King’s puppet with ashen skin and black eyes. I could barely sleep, and I couldn’t even cast a proper fire-lighting spell anymore.
I had truly become dead weight.
The other heroes took care of me without complaint until the journey’s end. They knew that without me, they would have become crow food or the Demon King’s slaves on that battlefield.
We—the hero party—returned to the Imperial Capital after three months and reported the Demon King’s annihilation to the Emperor, offering his helmet and mace. Both the Emperor and his advisors seemed to have already guessed. From the moment the Demon King vanished three months ago, the Demon King Army’s offensives had visibly weakened.
The Emperor was genuinely delighted that we had all returned alive. In complete contrast to our departure, he held a grand victory parade that shook the entire capital. It was clearly a political move to ensure the spies planted by the Demon King Army witnessed it, crushing the morale of any remaining forces.
I forced a smile onto my crumbling body and mind and paraded through every corner of the Imperial Capital. I saw my parents weeping and embracing each other in front of my father’s bakery. I saw the injured soldiers and my fellow doctors and mages waving from the Imperial Hospital. I saw the professors smiling proudly in front of the Magic Academy, and the juniors gazing up at me with eyes full of admiration.
Thus we completed our mission, and the hero party quietly disbanded.
Kadros, who had been the guard captain of a mining city in the mountains, declared he would return and continue his duties. Most of the dwarven fortress-cities had not suffered direct invasion, so he would likely resume his old life.
I called his name properly one last time—Sir Kadros, son of White Hammer Andrak.
Glazalus was already dreaming of the grand feast that would be held when he returned to his tribe. The ogre had said, “The bread the cute mage gave was delicious and filling. I will want it again. I will remember the mage’s nice smell too. But Glazalus is tired of it. Glazalus likes meat better. Fresh meat that hasn’t been dried.”
Having accomplished a feat that would be passed down as tribal legend, he might even become the next chieftain… but since he had never cared for power, I could not guess what would happen.
Mervin said nothing. He seemed to have been quietly watching in case any of us carelessly spoke of the miracle I had performed. He looked slightly relieved that the secret had not leaked even after the victory parade ended.
The elf was not without sentiment. Along with a short letter, Mervin left me the shorter of the two elven blades he had carried. It was one of the pair that had been snapped by the Demon King and which I had restored by rewinding their time.
Saint Azalea hugged each of us tightly and sobbed right until the moment of parting, as if we were setting off on a journey from which we would never return. It was not very saintly, but it was exactly like her—her personality burned as hot as a blade fresh from the forge.
The Light Denomination’s direct territory was not far from the Empire. I thought I might visit her someday.
And I… returned to the hospital.
On the first day I resumed work, the hospital director greeted me with an oily smile so wide it looked like his mouth would tear, treating me with utmost respect. “Welcome back, Hero,” he said.
That was the only day I saw him behave that way.
When I rode the first emergency carriage to a critical accident scene after returning to duty, I realized the truth. I could no longer rewind the time of living people.
I cast healing magic belatedly, but my skill was nowhere near enough. The patient died before my eyes. From that day on, every emergency patient I handled grew cold without exception.
It was not that the ability had disappeared. The experiences from the hero party’s journey and the battle with the Demon King had awakened and strengthened it to a level that could even be called a true power. I had, after all, brought a dead person back to life once.
Even now, I could rewind broken branches or shattered objects even after several days—perhaps even after several months.
I could still create Kaira’s Secret Diary with a mere gesture, and combined with the diary, I could manipulate my own time without issue.
It was only when I tried to use the ability on other people—on anyone who was not myself—that something inside my mind slammed on the brakes.
Every time I reached out to rewind a person’s time, the image of Azalea’s body rotting away in an instant and the Demon King vanishing without a trace would flicker before me, so vivid I felt I could touch them.
A few weeks later, no longer able to endure it, I submitted my resignation to the hospital. None of the mages or doctors who had seen me become useless immediately after reinstatement tried to stop me. The director did not try to keep me either. A former hero who was still young and had no real skills would not affect the hospital’s revenue or his own prestige whether she stayed or left.
I returned home at the hour I should have been at the hospital. My parents looked up in surprise at their daughter who had come back so early. I said nothing to them and went straight to my room.
I locked the door, threw my robe carelessly into the closet, sat on the bed in my underclothes, and trembled alone in the darkness all day. The severed heads of Demon King Army soldiers that I had cut off, Azalea’s brains that had burst and scattered under the Demon King’s blow—they floated before my eyes like phantoms.
The darkness in the room seemed to transform into the Demon King himself, ready to devour me at any moment. I pulled the blanket over my head, but the blanket itself felt like dark demonic energy tightening around my throat. I couldn’t breathe.
A little over a year after I had started working at the hospital—six months after leaving the capital with the hero party—
I, at the age of twenty, had become a cripple.