Ch.1Suicide Failure

The idea of an immortal human is quite an attractive story.

From the past until now, countless people have struggled to live just a little longer, and have tried their best not to die.

Wealthy people with considerable money and nobles with significant power have also made continuous efforts to protect their assets and strength, and living a long life was both the grandest and most desperate goal among those efforts.

It’s only natural, since they would be able to enjoy their current lifestyle forever. And if, in the process, they could reach the realm of not just longevity but true immortality, that would be all the better.

But I had only one thing to say to those fools who aimed for immortality.

Go eat shit.

The first thing needed to achieve immortality is, obviously, super-regenerative ability. Immortality without super-regeneration is meaningless.

What’s the point of just being alive when your body is torn in half by a monster’s claws, and what meaning is there if you’re still alive while your body is shredded to pieces?

No matter how severe the injury to your body, only when you have super-regenerative abilities that can restore it in a short time does immortality gain any meaning.

Then, the question we should ask is this:

What does super-regeneration define as ‘damage’ before activating?

For example, human muscles tear during intense exercise and grow stronger as they recover, allowing them to exert greater force.

But what if super-regeneration defines muscle tears as damage and restores them to their original state?

There’s one more thing.

The mana circuits circulating inside the human body tear and recover during mana release, growing to allow more mana to be released at once.

But what if super-regeneration defines torn mana circuits as damage and restores them to their original state?

The answer was obvious.

Nothing grows. Not muscles. Not mana circuits.

Every damn part of this body.

I can’t surround weapons with mana to increase their power, can’t protect my body by surrounding it with mana, and can’t use mana to strengthen my body.

Things that even low-rank adventurers can manage to do, only I cannot.

The difference was enormous.

No matter how excellent your swordsmanship is, if your weapon can’t penetrate the mana surrounding someone’s body, it’s useless. And that was me.

I realized this fact after a considerable amount of time had passed. And as soon as I realized it, I fled the magic tower where I had been for hundreds of years for research.

To eliminate this immortality, this eternal life, this curse.

“Damn lizard.”

After raising my regenerative power to shake off the shiny dirt fragments embedded in my palm, I looked down at the pit I had just climbed out of.

The surrounding ground had melted into something that would be more appropriately called a canyon rather than a pit. Looking at this state, I wondered how I had even thought to climb up here, despite having done so.

Considering it simply breathed fire to burn the forest and melt the ground, it certainly deserved to be called the breath that burns all creation.

It’s just that I, who should have died, somehow survived after taking a direct hit.

The dragon, which had launched itself into the air by exploding the mountainside where it had been sleeping, spent nearly an entire day raging and breathing fire at me.

My entire body melted and regenerated repeatedly all day long, and in this miserable battle, it was the dragon that ran out of patience first.

As the evening sun that had set with the twilight changed its name to the morning sun and showed itself again from the opposite side, the dragon seemed to realize the futility of its actions and let out one final, massive roar.

And then it spewed blue flames at me instead of red ones.

This enormous pit, so deep that the bottom wasn’t even visible, was the masterpiece created by that final blue flame.

I was buried deep underground along with the melting ground, and after impaling me into the earth, the dragon simply flew away somewhere.

It was just now that I had climbed up from that unfathomable depth, breaking through the pottery-smooth dirt walls with my bare hands.

Honestly, if the slope had been any steeper, I wouldn’t have been able to climb up.

“Now what?”

I muttered, looking around at the blackened forest where nothing remained. The bag and weapons I had brought here shared the same fate as the trees when the forest burned.

In other words, all I had now were my clothes and my body.

‘I took an herb gathering request as an excuse to come here.’

And I had put the gathered herbs in my bag.

Since the bag had burned away, the herbs inside would have met the same fate. If even an iron sword couldn’t withstand the heat and melted, how could a leather bag and plants survive?

I rummaged through my inner pocket, but it was empty. Of course, the request document wasn’t part of my body, so it couldn’t regenerate with me.

As long as there was a record of my request at the Adventurers’ Guild, the document itself wasn’t a problem. Other adventurers frequently lost their request papers anyway.

The problem was the herbs, the requested items.

‘I never thought the dragon would destroy its temporary lair just to kill one person.’

I grumbled inwardly. It certainly wasn’t its actual lair, but a dragon, as a spiritual being, changes the environment around it just by existing.

The interior of the volcano where the dragon had been peacefully sleeping was practically a half-formed lair. But I never expected it would destroy that with its own hands just to kill me.

That’s why all my luggage, including the bag and iron sword I had left nearby to retrieve if I survived my suicide attempt, had all evaporated.

Because the entire area around the volcano had been obliterated. If the dragon had just rampaged inside the volcano as I had planned, this wouldn’t have happened.

But what could I do now? It had already happened, and I would have to walk for two straight weeks to return to the Adventurers’ Guild and report my failure.

‘If I say I met a dragon and it burned all the herbs, they’ll definitely ask how I encountered a dragon and survived, right?’

I couldn’t honestly answer that I just got hit and regenerated. After all, I’m officially a lowest-rank adventurer. And in reality, except for my regeneration ability, that’s exactly what I am.

The problem is that I’ve been carefully hiding the fact that I possess this regenerative ability.

The reason I deliberately remain in the position of a lowest-rank adventurer, which people hardly pay attention to, is largely because I want them to please not pay attention to me.

So I needed to find a different excuse for why I failed such a simple request.

Moreover, we’re not talking about some random creature, but a dragon. A dragon that spent a full day spewing breath and throwing a tantrum—it’s hard to believe no one saw that.

By now, reports would have reached the lord of the city near this forest, and the lord would be racking their brains trying to figure out how to deal with this unexpected disaster.

“Ah, damn that lizard bastard. How could it fail to kill one person and cause me all this trouble?”

If I had just burned to death here, I wouldn’t have to worry about this.

“I’ll say I was delayed because monsters appeared and I had to take a detour… I went to gather herbs but heard news of a dragon appearing, so I returned because my life is precious…”

I stopped mid-sentence. My life is precious, huh?

Well, I’m probably the person who cares least about their own life in this entire continent. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have spent eight years searching for dragons to commit suicide.

After repeating the phrase “returned because my life was precious” several times, I gave up because it just wouldn’t come naturally. It seemed faster to find a different excuse.

“Heard news of a dragon appearing, so because it might be dangerous… Ah, this isn’t coming out smoothly either… Huh?”

While racking my brain to find a word to replace “life,” I noticed someone in armor approaching from a distance.

The armor covering their entire body gleamed in brilliant silver. It created a stark contrast with the blackened, devastated forest where embers still floated through the air.

Despite the surrounding area being completely burned to the point where it could rightfully be called hell on earth, there was no hesitation in the footsteps approaching me.

The distance grew shorter.

Golden hair, as if melted gold had been poured, was tied back and hung long behind the head.

Two blue eyes that stared straight ahead without the slightest waver, a straight nose, and skin the color of peaches—enough to captivate anyone who saw them.

On the left side of the chest plate, over the heart, was the royal family’s crest. Its meaning was clear.

The Royal Knights.

As I was looking at the approaching armored figure with surprise, I suddenly felt our eyes meet.

“My lord!”

“Sere—”

Before I could finish my thought, in the literal blink of an eye, she rushed toward me.

No, it would be more accurate to say she flew, since she reached a distance close enough to embrace me with just one push off the ground.

The blonde knight threw herself into my arms with an expression like a loyal dog welcoming its long-absent master, and—

—Crack.

“Ugh.”

She shattered my ribs.

There were two major problems. First, this female knight who had jumped into my arms was wearing the Royal Knights’ armor, which could deflect even decent steel swords without being reinforced with mana.

Second, her speed was so swift that the word “quick” hardly did it justice.

As soon as the armor collided with my chest, my ribs made a terrible sound as they shattered against the chest plate.

The fragmented ribs drove into my lungs, piercing through internal organs and turning my insides into a complete mess.

A golden head pressed into the space where my ribs had been crushed, embracing me with a beaming smile.

As my body, with its mangled upper half, was about to be thrown backward from the impact that it couldn’t fully absorb, the female knight’s arms tightly wrapped around my waist.

Simultaneously, the same sound that had come from my ribs now came from my spine. Viscous blood gushed from my mouth as my internal organs shifted upward.

“Ah… my lord, my lord! I’ve missed you so much!”

The culprit who had crushed my ribs, torn my lungs, wrecked my internal organs, and shattered my spine was now hugging me tightly and happily rubbing her face against my chest.

If she had a tail, it would probably have been wagging at an invisible speed.

Blood leaked from my mouth, ran down my chin, and stained her golden hair, but she paid no attention and even eagerly sniffed my scent.

I tried to push her away by her shoulders with my relatively intact arms, but she didn’t budge an inch. It felt like trying to move a massive mountain rather than a person.

Finally giving up, I softly called her name.

“Serena… how did you get here?”

Serena Elizabeth.

That was the name of this armored knight, the First Captain of the Royal Knights, who served me as her lord.