I Don't Want to Go Back
Felt. 58.
So, I wanted to go back. Always back to the starting point of those happy memories. If I could return, I could live even more steadily and happily than in the days that had already passed. In the days gone by, I had repeated that thought over and over and over again. And as I kept repeating it, the final label that stuck was the one on a bottle of liquor. It was the act of pickling the lingering attachment, the sorrow, and the sheer desperation left in my head with alcohol.
The moment I realized I had survived that catastrophe, there was no one around me. All I could see were soldiers in retreat desperately trying to stop the bleeding from my wrist and ear. The man I loved, the people I loved—they were nowhere to be found. Even if I had searched with my eyes wide open, not a single one of them was by my side. That memory. The memory of a rattling cart under a storm, thunder and lightning striking all around. Even as I crossed the Bridge of Lament once more—the same bridge we had safely passed through before—I could never find my people again. My wretched memory.
At the end of that memory, had I been looking somewhere? At least it wasn't as far away as that uninhabited island of the past I had once believed I could never return to. If someone were to ask me about that day, I would answer firmly: I wanted to survive more. I wanted to survive together with everyone. With the man I loved. With the atmosphere I loved, beneath the shabby roof of that tavern. Beneath the inn attached to the tavern, all of us warm like a free-spirited campfire. But the fact that I could never return—that undeniable truth—was, for the me who had crawled back alive from that tragedy, something so painful I could barely regain my sanity.
And this feeling that no one was by my side—the feeling that everyone I had helped, everyone who had helped me, was gone—was a coldness, a chill, a shivering I hadn't felt in over a decade. When I opened my eyes in the hospital room, there was nothing in my field of vision. Just like that day. Just like when I had been abandoned by the organization I had sworn to join, left to wander the sunless back alleys. Just like those days when I lived on with nothing but the feeling that nothing remained for me. Just like the powerless, cold, colorless days I had passed through before Belberman grabbed my wrist.
When I clawed my way out of the brink of death and opened my eyes once more, the whole world looked like a monochrome panorama. Being praised as a hero's return while alone in an empty hospital room… somehow, it only made me feel more miserable. Our defeat was directly tied to humanity's extinction, yet people no longer cared about that. Had they simply accepted that ruin was our fate? They only congratulated me on my survival and offered every kind of support for my comfort. I found it strange. Standing by the window, clutching my numb left wrist, I looked out at the unchanged scenery of Caspia and could only feel that strangeness as I watched people pass by, celebrating a hero's return. There had been no one by my side. Even now, with people congratulating and comforting me, there was no one who could truly be called a hero beside me. Why did they keep looking for a hero in me? I had only survived that catastrophe alone. I was nothing more than that. I had been even more of a coward than Siphel had looked in my final glimpse of her. I had survived alone, leaving behind the sight of his chest blown open in our last moment together. I was just that kind of fool.
“……”
But that pain of confusion and wretchedness didn't last long. Even though I couldn't hear any news of the other heroes after returning alive alone, the world kept moving forward one step at a time. I stood on the surface of that world, drifting around it in a daze, feeling nothing but disgust at my own situation. I had wondered if someone might still be alive. Maybe Siphel, who had been fine, had survived. Maybe others Siphel had saved, like me, were still out there. But even so, what could I have done? In those moments, I was nothing. In those moments when I was left alone, I was nothing more than a breathing mass of matter. That was why I ended up wandering the streets like a blank stone, unable to do anything. While I remained like that, the world grew cleaner and changed beyond recognition in just a few years. Really. It changed so fast it made me feel alienated. So fast it was dizzying—fast enough that within a few years, the story of the heroes was already being treated as legend. The feeling of being caught in the gap of those years was truly rotten. I had spent years anxiously wondering whether my comrades were alive or dead, unable to do anything, yet the world moved on so quickly, as if calling me an idiot, leaping forward.
Magi-tech, that chilling technology, appeared. New regulations on magic were born. As if trying to fill our empty places, armies were reorganized, and the thirteen knight families of the kingdom alliance were preparing for yet another war. Even in the heroes' war, the knight alliance had provided forces worthy of being called total war and suffered corresponding losses. Had they recovered in just a few years, or had they given up on everything and played their remaining cards as a self-destructive move? Well, either way. As I drifted further and further from that world, I began to feel skeptical about living at all. The world was moving forward at such speed—had heroes ever really been necessary? The world would leave me this far behind anyway. Did I still have to live like a corpse, bound to the past with the heroes? After living like a corpse for the past few years, I finally put an end to that torment. No—I wanted to put an end to it. The endless pain had been something I created from the beginning. All the suffering was boiling up because of my own inability to escape. The reason the bitter past remained was ultimately because I kept clinging to times I could never return to. After trampling through years of an unsolvable hell, leaving bloody footprints on a thorny path, I finally lifted my head and tied the knot. It no longer meant anything. The thorny path of being a hero was something I had created myself, and even if I met the surviving heroes again, I would have nothing to say. So let's stop. The world would move forward in some direction anyway. Let's not cling to the past anymore. After finally putting an end to it like that, I decided—for my own pleasure, to throw away the pain of being bound to the hero's title, and now for my own enjoyment—to throw myself deep into this world. With nothing left for me but my own existence, it was an unavoidable choice. If not this kind of indulgence, there was nothing left to sustain my existence. That was why I had drifted to this place, abandoning all attachment, casting away all pain, letting go of the past, wanting to live drunk on liquor and pleasure. But Chris, who had miraculously returned alive, wouldn't let me do that.
Yeah. I hadn't always treated Chris so coldly from the start. When I first realized Chris had returned as a woman, I was so happy I cried as if the world had turned upside down and clung to her. But after a few days, when I realized she was just as trapped in the past as I was, that hero title began to feel nothing but sinful, and I started vomiting up that disgusting feeling wrapped in mad disillusionment again. I told Chris again and again: Let's stop. Stop, stop. We can't go back to the past, we can't reclaim it. Let's give up on everything and end it. Let's go back to being just people, not heroes. But no matter how many times I begged, Chris remained firmly bound by the shackles of being a hero and showed no sign of wavering. Still… even so, just as I keep begging her now, she too desperately wanted to reclaim those memories of those days, just as terribly and affectionately as I thought of her and she thought of me. I knew that beneath that affection, the disgust I wanted to vomit was writhing, but the reason I still couldn't push Chris away was because I still loved her. Because I still loved those discarded days of the past. And at the end of it, the hero I had pushed away and thrown aside so much—the one who truly deserved to be called a hero—appeared before me again.
“Belberman……”
But. But I had already made my decision long ago. I had already chosen to give up on everything and leave, and the boat carrying me had already begun crossing the river. So, Belberman. We're fated to never return. That's our fate. I slammed the liquor bottle against my mouth like a water flask and poured its contents down, whispering quietly.
“Now, I…… don't want to go back.”
Asking Belberman in return if this wasn't a journey we had started knowing all of this from the beginning.
“You knew it would end up like this, didn't you…… both you…… and me.”
Actually. Actually, I too—
“……Life is always wretched, Belberman.”
I felt the same way as you all. If I could, if it were possible, I would go back to those memories anytime. If I could, I would reclaim everyone and those happy days once more. But I couldn't say that. Because even if Belberman returned, reclaiming the past was impossible. No matter how much of a hero or great person Belberman was, reclaiming the past was absolutely impossible. I shook my head and spoke.
“……Still, I'm glad you're alive, Belberman.”
With a face that had let go of everything. With the wretched appearance of a woman who had given up on everything. Then Belberman, as if he had already expected this—as if he were the master of a journey that had begun knowing this would happen—nodded.
“……”
After quietly sharing a drink with me for a while, he sent Chris, who had completely lost her mind listening to my story, outside first. Then, quietly, under the dim light filtering through the window where sunlight barely reached, he turned those gently glowing eyes toward me and spoke softly.
“Even so, we'll keep moving forward.”
“So if you change your mind, come to Chris's house anytime. It's fine.”
Belberman said we would move forward. Even so. Even after being so miserably broken, ruined, and collapsed. Even so, he said we would move forward. Speaking to me. Speaking to me, who was already a mess and falling apart. He said he could wait up to a week. A week. He was giving me that time—a week.
“……”
At those words, as I pressed my lips together and stared blankly at the table, Belberman quietly emptied his glass, stood up, and left, leaving behind only a small farewell that believed my nonsense about having found my life. Just like that. Just like that, again. He left me alone. For a brief moment, just before he left, I tried to say something. My lips trembled slightly as I tried to move my dazed face. But again. Even if I reclaimed the hero's life, in the end, there would be nothing I could do—just like that day. Was that why I couldn't say anything meaningful until the end, and ended up pushing away those two heroes who had reached out to me until the very last moment?
“……”
But on the other hand, I also felt relieved. Now, truly, all that remained for me was this one bottle of liquor. And the other masses of alcohol that had filled the shabby cabinet. And now, a body truly free from the bonds of being a hero. So while feeling that relief on one hand, I glanced out the window for a moment. Alone in the room, quietly looking up at the stifling sky outside. I emptied the bottle that had been filled with nothing but those lingering, feeble feelings. A monochrome sky. Yet for some reason, there was a warmth left on my wrist.