Side Story – Regression (1)

*

It’s only natural that a forest in the middle of the night would be so dark you can’t see an inch ahead, but the night in this Vortex Forest was especially dark.

Clearly different from the darkness that simply fills a place where there is no light, a thick, black air with a rough and heavy texture filled the forest as if mocking the faint moonlight shining down from the sky.

The reason this thick curtain of darkness feels even more overwhelming may be because of the suffocating silence that fills every space between the leaves.

The Vortex Forest was a silent land of death where not even the sound of insects could be heard in the middle of the night.

The Demon King’s residence visible in the distance.

The demonic energy flowing from that place must have accumulated and permeated this area for a very long time.

It was as if this thick darkness was swallowing not only light but even sound.

However, a sharp sound that seemed to cut through the silence of this forest, which seemed like it would be eternally silent, suddenly echoed.

It was a scream.

“Euaaaaaaack!”

Robin opened his eyes with a terrible scream.

At the same time, he twisted his whole body as if he had been electrocuted and raised his upper body.

Someone spoke to Robin with a worried voice.

“…Robin? What’s wrong? What happened?”

However, Robin seemed unable to hear the voice and just screamed like crazy.

“No! Ah, aaaa! Stop, please stop!”

“…Robin? What’s wrong with you all of a sudden!”

“Ah… it hurts, stop, stop… I, I was all wrong. Everything. E, everything.”

Robin was trembling and talking nonsense.

It seemed clear that the apologies and pleas coming from his mouth were not directed at the person speaking to him now.

“Robin, I’ll turn on the light.”

The voice that was worried about Robin sighed once and then created a fire at the tip of his finger with a short spell.

Robin’s vision, stimulated by the sudden appearance of a light source, began to shake like crazy.

Robin struggled to lift his constantly convulsing eyelids and slowly looked around.

“…W, where is…?”

“Robin. Get a hold of yourself.”

It seemed like this was inside an old tent.

Only then did Robin slowly turn his eyes toward the owner of the voice that had been speaking to him.

The pupils, having finally witnessed the form, repeated contraction and expansion several times as if they were not calming down.

After a few seconds, a watery voice came out of Robin’s mouth.

“U, Je, Jennifer…?”

“Are you awake? What’s wrong? Were you attacked by mental magic or something?”

Jennifer slowly reached out to cover Robin’s still trembling shoulders.

At that moment, the entrance of the tent was opened roughly.

“Robin! Jennifer! What’s wrong?! I heard a scream!”

“Ah, Ed. I don’t know either. Suddenly Robin…”

“…E, Ed… Ah, no…”

Upon seeing Ed’s face, Robin’s body stiffened once again and began to convulse irregularly.

Soon, Robin’s lips slowly began to let out a scream resembling the cry of an animal.

Neither Ed nor Jennifer understood the current situation.

“Robin, why are you suddenly…”

“Keuaaaack! Euaaaaaaa! Heut, haak, heueup, keut,”

Ed took a step back with an astonished expression at Robin’s appearance, desperately trying to avoid Ed’s face as he approached with a worried expression.

The blood vessels rising in Robin’s eyeballs were so thick that they seemed like they would burst at any moment, and some had already burst, turning the white part of his eyes red.

Blood vessels bulged out on his forehead and neck, and soon his breathing became erratic, and he couldn’t breathe naturally.

Ed looked at the suddenly broken Robin with a bewildered expression and carefully approached him again.

“Robin…?”

However, Robin’s condition was getting worse as Ed approached.

Jennifer reached out to Ed to stop him, then hugged Robin and shouted.

“Robin! Get a hold of yourself!”

“…Jennifer, I’ll wake Mela up and bring her!”

“Yes, hurry, Ed,”

“Mel… eua… uh, heua, no! Please!”

Robin fainted after that last desperate cry.

*

Robin, who woke up from fainting and opened his eyes again, couldn’t get up because his whole body ached.

It seemed that his muscles were sore all over from how much he had convulsed in that short period of time.

Robin, who gave up trying to get up, slowly let out a shallow breath and whispered softly in a hoarse voice.

“What… is going on.”

Am I dreaming?

Those terrible days when his soul, unlike his body, which he could never get used to, was tortured.

Could it be that his soul, which had suffered for so long that he couldn’t even estimate how much time had passed, was finally unable to withstand the burden and was hallucinating?

Such doubts arose in Robin’s mind.

“But…”

Robin felt a tingling pain from his shoulder and upper arm to his elbow and slowly raised his hand in front of his eyes.

Hand.

The rough hand of a swordsman that had been used to holding a sword, training, being cut and broken, and healing again.

The shape of his hand felt somewhat unfamiliar.

Was it because he hadn’t seen it in so long?

But it was definitely Robin’s hand.

“…”

He couldn’t be sure without a mirror, but at least the fact that he could see his hand meant he also had eyes.

Head, neck, arms, legs, torso.

Robin keenly realized that his body existed from the muscle pain he felt all over his body.

“Oh my god… Oh… Oh…”

At that moment, his vision blurred for a moment.

Robin, startled that he was about to return to the days of being tortured forever in a soul state as his body disappeared again, hurriedly strained his eyes and opened them wide.

Fortunately, that didn’t happen.

A transparent liquid, the cause of the blurred vision, rolled down from Robin’s eyes.

“…Ah, ah… euek,”

He’s back.

He’s back.

He didn’t know how it happened, but he’s back.

Did Ed forgive him?

Did the Demon King change his mind and betray Ed?

If not that…

Oh, Goddess-nim,

Robin wept and called out to the Goddess.

He, who had wielded the Goddess’s sword as a hero but had no faith at all, didn’t know any formalities or prayers, but Robin offered a heartfelt prayer of gratitude to the Goddess.

A prayer of apology and gratitude, carefully repeating each word with sincerity.

It was then.

“Robin. Are you awake?”

“…!”

“I heard something like a groan. Is your body okay? Can I come in?”

“…Heo, heoeok…”

Ed.

Ed’s voice was heard from outside the tent.

*

“Nightmare? What kind of nightmare do you have to have to be so flashy? Thanks to you, I’ve been up all night since dawn.”

“…Haha, I, I must have been tired.”

Robin realized.

The fact that he had not simply regained his body.

“Well… you must have been tired, since you were attacked by a horde of over a hundred monsters.”

“…That’s… right.”

He had returned to the past.

To the Vortex Forest,

Before catching the Demon King, before betraying Ed.

Robin regressed to that time when he could fix everything.

Whether it was God’s grace, Ed’s forgiveness, or someone’s mistake or prank, he didn’t know, but whatever it was, he had no intention of missing this miracle.

“Geez, you were strong, though. I mean, what other advantages do you have besides that.”

“…Yeah,”

“…What, you’re supposed to say ‘my face,’ like you always do.”

What Robin regained was an opportunity.

An opportunity to undo all the mistakes he had made.

“Did something really happen to you,”

“…Ed,”

“…Huh?”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what? For being terrified of my face? You son of a bitch, yeah, that’s a bit of a wound.”

“No…”

Robin tried to honestly tell Ed everything.

He had clearly done something terrible to him, but if it was Ed now, he would surely think it was just a dream and brush it off.

Even though he wouldn’t know the seriousness of it, once he formally apologized to him, he would have the opportunity to live looking forward as his friend and as a true hero.

Robin looked at Ed’s face and slowly opened his mouth.

“Hey, Ed”

“What?”

The moment he met Ed’s amber eyes,

Something flashed through Robin’s mind.

Ed looking down at himself rolling on the floor.

Ed’s chilling face and red eyes, which had been etched into his soul and never forgotten, even after suffering for so long that his own hands felt unfamiliar.

Robin immediately closed his mouth.

Forgiveness?

That Ed, who was so mad with rage that he gave his body to the Demon King?

Could all of this be a trap?

If it’s just a new way to torture him?

No, even if it’s not a trap, what the hell is going on?

Is it possible that I’m the only one who regressed?

Or… is it Ed too?

“Robin?”

Ed looked at Robin, who wasn’t saying anything, with a puzzled expression.

Robin avoided Ed’s eyes and muttered.

“Sorry… I’m a little tired.”

“…Geez. You have this side to you too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this in the past few years of traveling. Even the hero-nim gets nervous when he gets close to the Demon King’s castle?”

“…”

Robin felt a chill down his spine at the word Demon King.

“Well, if you get a cramp in your sleep, it hurts for a long time.”

Looking at Ed, who was joking around as if nothing was wrong, it seemed that he had no memory of the future.

The other party members were probably the same.

Jennifer, Mela, Lara, none of them seemed to know their future.

But what about the Demon King?

Magic that turns back time, magic that takes you back to the past,

Even though he had the great magician Jennifer as his wife, he had never heard of such magic, which was no different from a goddess’s miracle.

If there was such magic, it would probably only be possible for the Demon King.

Because he even knows how to extract and torture souls.

Robin kept his mouth shut.

If Ed hasn’t regressed like him, there’s no need to reveal the truth.

All he has to do is not betray Ed this time.

There’s no reason to stir up trouble.

Robin decided not to act rashly until he had fully grasped the situation.

“…Heo,”

Ed, who had no way of knowing Robin’s inner thoughts, looked at Robin, who was silent and only looking at the floor, and smiled.

Then, he suddenly slapped him on the back and said.

“Hey, Lara went hunting because of you. She said she’s going to catch a big one to help you recover. You can rest for another day today, so eat that and get some rest. And get your act together starting tomorrow.”

“…”

“The Demon King’s castle is right in front of us… Robin? Hey, hero-nim-“

“…Ah, yeah.”

“Ah, this bastard is really weird today? Until yesterday, he was telling me to trust only the hero-nim, but in the end, is he scared of the Demon King and his balls have shrunk? Get a hold of yourself, you bastard.”

“Ah, no. Sorry for making you worry.”

“Oh? Ugh, damn it, cut off your dick, you idiot.”

“…Haha.”

Robin did a little experiment at that moment.

“Didn’t Mela tell you to stop swearing?”

Robin said that and stared intently at Ed’s face.

If he hadn’t regressed, he wouldn’t react much, but if he had regressed and was deceiving him, he would never be able to stand the fact that Mela’s name was coming out of his mouth.

As soon as those words were finished, Ed looked at Robin with a displeased face.

Robin looked at Ed’s expression with anxious eyes.

“Are you going to tell on me?”

“What?”

“Ugh, never mind.”

Robin was puzzled by Ed’s reaction.

Was he displeased that Mela’s story came out of his mouth, or was he just displeased that he was going to tell Mela, who was trying to correct his bad language?

After staring at Ed’s face for a long time, he raised his right hand, grabbed Robin’s hair, and forcibly pulled Robin’s head, which was turning away, toward him, and said.

“Hey.”

“Keuek, E, Ed? Don’t tell me?”

“Don’t tell me what, what’s really wrong with you, tell me.”

“…What?”

“You know you’re acting really weird today? Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

Although his actions were rough, Robin clearly felt it.

Eyes of concern, a look of worry directed at him.

It couldn’t be acting.

Robin sighed once and said with relief.

“No, nothing’s wrong.”

“…”

“…Really. I just had a disturbing dream. It was a dream where we were all wiped out by the Demon King.”

Robin lied skillfully without even taking a breath.

Ed sighed.

“…When did you become so weak-hearted? Haa- I’ll go to Mela, who went to gather firewood. It seems like you need Jennifer more than me.”

“…Okay,”

Ed gently released Robin’s hair and ruffled it.

Then, he slowly turned away from him.

After walking about ten steps, Ed suddenly turned back to Robin and shouted.

“Don’t tell Mela I swore. I’ll kill you for real.”

Robin smiled awkwardly at Ed’s appearance and said.

“I won’t betray you.”

“Why are you making such a big deal out of it?”

“…Go to Mela quickly.”

“Okay, I got it.”

As Ed left his sight, Robin sat down.

*

The sun set again.

Thanks to the densely packed tall trees, the sun was quickly obscured and the night was rapidly approaching in the forest.

Since he hadn’t taken a single step forward today, it meant that he would be spending another day in that forest.

However, no one expressed any complaints.

With the goal of catching the Demon King, the hero’s condition was the most important issue in this party, and everyone had lacked time to take a proper rest due to the harsh adventure.

Of course, Robin was the only one who really did nothing and rested.