episode_0121

“Don’t make me laugh!!!”

Despite all my training, my body was dragged helplessly toward Chris, rendered powerless.

“Huh?!”

“What in the world… were we even thinking, coming this far…?!”

Chris seemed too overwhelmed with emotion to speak properly.

“It was for you! To see you happy! To fix what we failed at before—that’s why we went this far!”

“Then let me ask you this—what exactly have you done?”

“What?”

I roughly slapped Chris’ hand away.

“You moved for my sake? Where? From what I’ve seen, you’ve been so desperate to act on your own that you couldn’t even follow my orders.”

“Th-that’s…”

“Don’t get the wrong idea, Chris. I trusted you with that artifact because I needed you to grow stronger—to defeat the Demon King. Not to go back in time and mess around.”

“But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t protect you! We need your prophecies to defeat the Demon King. That’s why we—”

“I told you. Don’t misunderstand. The situation now is completely different from back then. If prophecies were all-powerful enough for me to just sit back quietly, that’d be great. But you know better than anyone that they’re not. My prophecies are fickle, cryptic, and sometimes nothing but riddles unless I see them through myself.”

In truth, it was based on the original story I’d read, but that wasn’t much different from prophecy.

Every choice I made in this world changed someone’s thoughts, altered the groups they belonged to, and even reshaped the world itself.

None of the choices were as simple as the text in the original story, which defined actions in clear terms.

That’s why, unless I stepped forward and confronted every deviation from the original, I couldn’t respond to them.

“Even in the previous loop, you all eventually grew in the direction I wanted, though you took a roundabout way. Even if your strength was still far from enough to face the Demon King.”

The four of them never listened, but that didn’t mean I’d just give up.

I persuaded, coaxed, and sometimes deliberately provoked or mocked them—using every trick in the book to barely guide them toward the opportunities and power they needed.

“And what does that have to do with anything?”

“It’s not enough. I refuse to just sit back and be protected by you like before. This might sound a little arrogant, but now, I have to lead you. Because I don’t want to fail like last time.”

No matter how strong Lucilla and the Hero Party became, they couldn’t handle everything that lay ahead.

Human memory has its limits, especially for things they didn’t pay close attention to—those memories fade even faster.

“Call me selfish, call me arrogant—I don’t care. I already failed once and barely made it this far. I absolutely refuse to fail again.”

“But—”

“You don’t think I’d let the same thing happen again, do you? Let me make this clear—you getting that time-travel artifact and a second chance was nothing short of a miracle.”

The first thing I thought of in this loop was getting my hands on that artifact again. But soon, I had to put that thought aside.

“It’s a finicky artifact, usable only at the right moment. And even if—just if—we got it, what then? Use it again?”

“……”

Chris, perhaps realizing what I meant, quietly loosened her grip.

“At first, sure. There was the grand reason of saving the world, and the belief that we could do better next time. And if it didn’t work, we’d just try again, and again, and again. Until it worked. But in the end, the ones who’d break first would be you.”

Reliving a past I never wanted, adapting to changes each time—that’s not something anyone could do and stay sane.

“You were chosen, but you’re not superhuman. Can you honestly say that after achieving a world where no one dies, where your relationships with me are restored, and where the Demon King is slain—you’d never be tempted to use that power for something trivial?”

Hell, the moment I realized this was a new loop, my first priority was securing that artifact.

Chris spat out her words after hearing me.

“So… so you’re just going to let yourself suffer like this?”

“Suffer?”

“That’s ridiculous! Are you really okay with this?! This is a second chance we barely got! We came back! That means no one has the right to stand in the way of your happiness now!”

Once Chris started talking, it was like her limiter had broken—she poured out everything she’d been holding back.

“Why do you always just take it like some idiot?! It’s about time you realized! You can’t do anything on your own anyway!”

“…!”

“Prophecies? Special training? If that was enough to get strong enough to defeat the Demon King, anyone could’ve done it by now! You’re just some powerless, useless brat—stop acting like you know everything!”

I quietly listened to her. No matter what I said now, it would only sound like an excuse to her.

As expected, the people of this world were “real.” Chris, who had been hurling childish insults like “idiot” and “dumbass,” was now panting heavily.

“Just stay still, okay? We’ll handle it. We’ll train, we’ll lead everyone, we’ll get stronger and take everything down. So just… just stay still, please?”

“……”

“Don’t just stand there—say something—”

“…I’m sorry.”

I bowed my head deeply. Sincerely, rigidly.

“Huh?”

“It’s my fault for pushing you—all of you—this far. Thinking about it now, it’s obvious, but I realized it too late.”

No—I didn’t want to realize it.

“You were just as desperate as I was.”

The constraints of trials that made my teeth grind, the feats and strength I’d seen from them, everything I’d received from them—it all blinded me.

They couldn’t possibly be afraid. They were always ready to face the Demon King.

“Pfft. Now that I’ve admitted it, I’m so embarrassed I could die.”

“Oppa?”

“Sorry, Chris. My head’s flooded with all sorts of shameful memories right now. Give me a second.”

In the previous loop, Chris and the others ignored me, belittled me, mocked me.

But I endured it quietly. Because they were the ones who could defeat the Demon King and send me back to my world.

“Heroes being arrogant is just how it is.”

I muttered quietly.

“I gave up and resigned myself to that. Thinking that way at least gave me some satisfaction. I labeled you as heroes who’d transcended humanity and forced my ideals onto you.”

If you just faced the opportunities, you’d unconditionally make them your own.

You’d carry out my orders without any difficulty.

The Demon King was only a matter of lacking strength—your will was more than enough.

You were heroes.

But this self-serving misunderstanding and labeling wasn’t just their story.

“Why would you think that? You of all people knew how weak we were—how far we were from being heroes.”

“I didn’t want to admit how pathetic I was.”

“Pathetic?”

“If I acknowledged you as ordinary people like me, then all I’ve been until now is just a coward who didn’t even resist. The one with the power of prophecy, leading the Hero Party, bringing peace to the world—how absurd would it be if he was just scared?”

It was undeniable that when I first came to this world, I was lost in my own delusions of heroism.

Because I’d been reincarnated into a novel I knew well.

Since I knew everything about this novel, living in it would be easier than anything.

I was chosen by this world.

“No matter what happened, I firmly believed the world would eventually side with me.”

So even when the Hero Party insulted me, I told myself it was just their nature, and my role was to know the future.

It was no different from declaring myself a piece on a gameboard designed by someone else, insisting I was the protagonist.

I believed that since the protagonists always won, I would too.

“‘Someday, everyone will recognize me,’ I thought. ‘Once you and the others defeat the Demon King, I’ll get my happy ending.’ What a pitiful delusion. All while having no idea what the Demon King even was.”

The moment before death, what I felt facing the Demon King was awe and doubt.

But the Hero Party had to fight, clash, and kill it—so their emotions facing it must have been entirely different from mine.

“Chris.”

“Yeah, Oppa.”

“You’re scared of the Demon King, aren’t you?”

“Yeah. Even if I were several times stronger than my past self, I wouldn’t want to fight it. Never.”