Chapter 2

Chapter 2. The Damned Regression (1)

“What is this......?”

The Sword Radiance, after brushing at the corners of her eyes, laid her hand over my right hand.

“What? Have you fallen for me?”

She glared at me with open contempt for a moment, then let out a long sigh.

“You asked me before, did you not? You asked what exactly this sacred mark engraved on my hand was, that it could draw forth such overwhelming divine power.”

“And I did say a few times that I wanted to cut your arm off and study it.”

“Ha....... I should never have said anything.”

A dry laugh escaped her before she continued.

“The world believed it was something granted by the choice of a god...... but that is not true. A sacred mark that passes the owner’s power on to another bearer. That is the true nature of my power.”

“What?”

The sacred mark engraved on the back of her hand began to glow softly.

“You said you had nothing left to lose, did you not? The same is true for me.”

At what happened next, I had no choice but to widen my eyes.

The moment her hand lifted away, the back of my own hand was already rippling with the same golden light as the sacred mark on hers.

And that was not all.

Sssss....

Even the sacred mark on the back of her hand was beginning to fade.

“That expression of yours is quite a sight.”

“You......”

“If you truly manage to return, that sacred mark will help you.”

“Hey, I can’t use divine power. And is there any guarantee that sacred mark will still be engraved on my body after I go back?”

“Let us gamble once, like someone else is doing. Everything is already ruined anyway.”

“Pfft! Ngh! Cough......! Ah, fuck.”

I barely swallowed the laugh that nearly burst out of me.

My lungs hurt like hell, seriously.

I almost laughed myself to death just now.

“That is the one thing you’ve said so far that I like the most.”

Rumbleeeee-

The black flames that had been swallowing the continent were now only a stone’s throw away.

Accounting for the casting time...... this was the greatest amount of mana I could gather.

Crunch!

Spreading the mana I had gathered in my heart throughout my entire body, I cast what might well be my final black magic.

The violet aura circling my body gradually transformed into a spell formula.

Vrrrrrr-

The surrounding scenery slowly began to distort.

Whether this black magic succeeded or failed, this would be the last time I ever saw this woman who, like me, had crossed the threshold of death again and again.

Perhaps realizing that as well, the Sword Radiance spoke in a quiet voice.

“Aron... if you do return, what will you do first?”

“I was thinking I might try bringing down the Holy Empire. What do you think?”

“......”

“Heh, because of the war between the two empires, both sides took quite a loss in military strength. So if one side were to be completely wiped out......”

Shhk.

She started to pull her holy sword as if to cut my throat, so I hurriedly added, “Hey, you crazy bitch! Do you think I’d really do that?”

“Oh my, my apologies. You were saying something so absurd that I reacted without thinking.”

This woman really could not take a joke.

“Sigh....... First, I should probably stop the war between the Dark Empire and the Holy Empire.”

“Do you think that will be possible?”

“I have thought about it far more than what you said earlier. I kept thinking about what I should do if I went back.”

I looked down at the sacred mark flickering on the back of my hand.

“If the sacred mark remains engraved on you even after you return... then come find me. I will teach you how to handle it.”

“I’m a black mage. Do you really think the Holy Empire will welcome me with open arms? And you won’t even remember anything that happened between us.”

“Th-then you will just have to figure that out yourself!”

“How irresponsible.”

“What else am I supposed to do? We do not even know when you are returning to.”

“Yeah, if the sacred mark can’t come with me, then it’s all over.”

“You speak confidently enough for someone who has no guarantee he can return at all.”

“If I’m going to change the past, I need at least this much shamelessness, don’t I?”

“If only you talked less......”

After that brief bickering, the Sword Radiance and I both found ourselves quietly laughing.

“But still......”

Her low whisper brushed against my ear.

“Thank you.”

What was she thanking me for?

For telling her I might be able to return? 

For fighting beside her? 

For accepting the sacred mark from her?

Several possibilities came to mind...... but unfortunately, the scenery before my eyes had become so distorted from the backlash of the spell that I could no longer read her expression.

“...Yeah. Let’s do it all over again.”

With those final words—CRACK!

My vision was swallowed by blackness.

***

Regression.

It was the fantastical realm every mage longed to reach, yet none had ever attained.

Even I had done no more than establish the theory. 

I had never been entirely certain whether it was truly possible.

“From this moment......”

In the pitch-dark void where not a single trace of light could be seen, someone’s voice rang out.

“I will... begin... the sparring... match.”

The darkness clouding my sight receded, and focus slowly returned.

“The two cadets are to take their positions. Once I determine that both are ready, we will begin.”

The voice, which had sounded muffled by static before, was now clear.

It was still an artificial voice amplified through a speaker, but clear all the same.

“...Huh.”

After staring blankly for a moment, I lowered my head and looked down at my body.

I ran a hand over my abdomen.

The stomach that had been torn open to the point of a hole being punched through it was perfectly fine.

Sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch......

All five senses were vivid.

This was no dream.

‘There is no doubt......’

I had come back.

I had really come back.

“Haha......”

A hollow laugh escaped me on its own.

I really did it? 

Without a single side effect?

This black uniform looked familiar.

It was the cadet uniform of Necropia, the educational institution that trained cadets specializing in black magic, and the most prestigious military academy for raising black mages in the Dark Empire.

I had worn this uniform to death until the day I graduated from Necropia, so there was no mistaking it.

The last time I had worn this cadet uniform was roughly ten years ago.

Which meant I had returned to a point ten years in the past.

“So this actually works?”

I forced myself to calm the pounding of my heart, which had begun hammering in my chest from the swell of emotion, and took several deep breaths.

Still dazed, I lowered my gaze to the back of my right hand and let out a bitter smile.

‘...So it didn’t come with me?’

Right before I regressed, the Sword Radiance had engraved her sacred mark onto this hand.

But now there was no trace of her sacred mark left on the back of it.

Had it vanished along with everything else when I returned to the past?

What a shame.

‘If a sacred mark could be inherited, she should have told me sooner......’

Then again, I had kept silent to the very end about the black magic I used, so perhaps I was hardly in a position to complain.

“Do you really have the leisure to be lost in thought with me standing right in front of you, Aron Bayonel?”

A deep male voice snapped me back to my senses.

I lifted my head and looked at the person standing opposite me.

A boy wearing the cadet uniform of Necropia.

If there was anything remarkable about him, it was the long blond hair falling to his shoulders and his blue eyes.

It was a familiar face.

He looked younger, but those features were unmistakable.

‘Lloyd Desmond?’

Lloyd Desmond.

The son of House Desmond, one of the Dark Empire’s four great families, just like mine.

The eldest son of the lord of House Desmond, and at the same time the top student in overall academic standing at Necropia.

Since he and I were the same age and both the children of the heads of two of the four great families, the cadets had spoken our names together often back when we attended Necropia.

‘Wow, I’m really seeing that bastard again.’

I was sinking into strange nostalgia and wondering how I ought to react when Lloyd, standing across from me, spread both hands.

The violet aura unique to black mana flared brightly from his palms.

‘...What is this?’

No matter how I looked at it, that was a combat stance.

Something about this felt...... off.

“Though I say this only now, I think very highly of you, Aron.”

The force he directed toward me was also openly aggressive.

‘...What is going on?’

Rolling my eyes around, I took stock of where I was standing.

A circular platform one hundred meters across, with a flat dirt floor.

I understood at once.

A sparring arena.

Right now, Lloyd and I were standing in a sparring arena together.

Not only that, cadets and instructors lined the edge of the arena, watching our match closely.

Each instructor held a fountain pen and a sheet of paper backed by a writing board.

What the hell was this......?

“Even though I have continued taking first place from you, you still keep striving to catch up to me. If I were you, I could never do that. I will at least acknowledge that persistence of yours.”

You slippery bastard, please just shut up for a second. 

Let me get a handle on the situation first.

I just regressed.

The least you could do is give me a moment to figure things out.

Come to think of it, I had heard this from the speaker in the arena just before.

‘The two cadets are to take their positions. Once I determine that both are ready, we will begin.’

Judging from that, I could at least piece together that Lloyd and I were about to spar.

But why?

I had sparred with that bastard so many times in the past that far too many possibilities came to mind.

“That is why it is rather disappointing. If your personality were not so crooked, we might have become good friends.”

“No, you little......”

I was so frustrated I nearly grabbed the back of my neck.

Could I not have regressed at a somewhat better moment?

I could hardly announce that I had returned from the future, so this was driving me insane.

“You are spewing that vulgar drivel again? It is a waste of the Bayonel name.”

This was unbelievable.

“Aron, with your curse-type black magic, you will not even be able to brush the hem of my clothes.”

“Judging by the way you are wasting time on such pointless chatter, I assume you are already prepared for battle.”

The fierce-looking instructor standing between Lloyd and me cut him off, then pulled a coin from his pocket.

A silver Dark Empire coin.

The instant that coin touched the ground would signal the start of the spar.

“Then I will begin the match.”

Ting!

The coin the instructor flicked with his thumb spun through the air, rising first and then falling.

The violet mana gathered in Lloyd’s hands grew denser still.

‘I still haven’t properly checked the condition of this body.’

Clicking my tongue briefly, I lowered myself into stance.

Judging from the atmosphere around me, this did not look like the kind of light spar I could refuse just because I did not feel like it.

‘I’ll have to stick to basic black magic so I don’t put too much strain on this body.’

I opened my right palm and raised my mana.

Fzzz......!

Together with the familiar sensation of some of my strength draining away, a violet mist began rising from my palm, coiling and gathering above it.

Then—

Fwoosh!

A pitch-black dagger, about the size of both my palms put together, appeared in my hand.

Shadow Forging.

Shadow Forging.

A basic black magic spell that shaped mana into the form of a shadow and used it as a weapon.

Ting!

The instant the spinning coin struck the ground, Lloyd lowered his body and planted both hands on the earth.

Rumble......

Mana spread outward from him like a spiderweb, and in the next instant the surrounding dirt floor convulsed.

Arms made of human bone burst up from the ground all at once.

‘Skeletons.’

This was the moment the Desmond family’s specialty—undead summoning magic—showed its worth.

‘They’re coming.’

Blue lights, like ghostly wisps, flared within the eye sockets of the skeletons.

And every last skeleton Lloyd had summoned kicked off the ground and charged me at once.

The number of skeletons rushing toward me was twenty in total.

Once I had judged the situation, my response was swift.

I loosened my grip on the shadow dagger in my right hand, then pinched the end of its hilt between my thumb and forefinger.

Whirl.

Keeping hold of the dagger, I drew my arm back behind me.

Then I snapped that arm forward, throwing toward the leading skeleton.

Ping! 

Thud!

The shadow dagger cut through the air and buried itself squarely in the center of the skeleton’s forehead, but that was all.

Clatter, clack......!

Even with the dagger lodged in its skull, the skeleton’s movements did not stop.

‘So that is as deep as it goes when I throw with this much force.’

My tongue clicked on its own.

It seemed that because my body had become younger, my control over my strength was still somewhat clumsy.

‘I need to adjust properly.’

Shadow Forging.

Shadow Dagger, Two Consecutive Forgings.

Quickly summoning two more shadow daggers into my hands, I thought to myself.

There were four major categories of black magic.

And each of the Dark Empire’s four great families specialized in one of those four categories.

The Desmond family, where Lloyd had been born and raised, specialized in the summoning type.

And House Bayonel, where I had been born and raised, specialized in the curse type.

‘Curse casting.’

Kiiiiii......

A violet light began to ripple along the black blade of the dagger.