0. The Oath
That person was my teacher who taught me everything.
That person was my lord to whom I dedicated my everything.
That person was my father who made my everything.
That person was… my everything.
If only I could kill that person…
I pray that if I could have just one more chance for revenge, I would gladly sell my soul to the devil with a smile.
1. An Opportunity That Comes Once in 999 Years
“I sincerely respected you, sincerely followed you, and sincerely believed in you.”
The dazzlingly beautiful grand hall of the massive imperial palace.
Instead of courtiers big and small, only the corpses of knights and soldiers occupied that formal and dignified place.
In the midst of it, a lone knight stood, staring straight at an old man.
The knight’s body was already a mess of blood and human entrails, without a single unscathed spot to be found.
His body was full of wounds and he seemed to have difficulty even standing, but the gaze with which he glared at the old man was hotter than an active volcano and colder than a glacier.
On the other hand, the emperor, whose physique was so robust that it was hard to believe he was an old man, was wearing platinum armor without a speck of dust and a crown decorated with countless jewels on his head.
Even though so many people had lost their lives to protect him, not a shred of emotion could be felt in the emperor’s eyes as he looked at their corpses.
The knight’s eyes, staring at such an emperor, were filled with a complex mix of emotions that were difficult to describe.
“For someone like that, you thoroughly investigated my background. Meticulously over a long period of time so as not to leave any traces. I didn’t teach you those skills to use them for such things. Well, now that you know the truth, do you feel a bit refreshed?”
“You! It’s because I wanted to believe that at least you were not like that! Why on earth did it have to be you who killed my subordinates… my family… my friends… and even her? Why!”
“What I desire from you is demon-like strength and an indomitable body tempered on endless battlefields. Subordinates bonded by camaraderie? A loving family? Chummy friends? Not to mention a beloved fiancée, how absurd! Those things are all just poisons that make you weak! Shouldn’t poison be quickly removed before you die?”
At the emperor’s excessively cold tone, the knight felt a pain as if his heart was freezing.
In the end, unable to contain his rage and resentment, the knight uttered words that should never be spoken.
“Did you never think of me as your son even for a moment!”
“Don’t get cheeky. You are merely a new set of clothes I made. How dare a measly object like you suggest that I should be your father even for a moment? Keep your delusions in check. Tsk tsk…”
Only now did I realize it as though I were a fool.
Why mother had so concealed father’s existence, why we had to live in hiding like criminals even though we weren’t.
And yet why I had to become strong…
Even though our home was penniless, swordsmanship instructors who were former imperial knights or magic scholars who were former imperial mages secretly visited every day to teach me.
At the time, I didn’t know how such a thing was possible.
I simply learned what they taught me, became as strong as they taught me, and lived the life they taught me without any doubts.
I was happy, at least in those moments.
But the time it took for that short-lived happiness to turn into hell was truly just a moment.
“My apologies, Your Majesty. If you would, please enlighten this lowly one on just one thing. Why did you kill my mother as well? She was the one who gave birth to me and lived her whole life in hiding. Even amidst those hellish days, she lived each day longing for you. So why…”
“That’s why I took her life. The only woman who can occupy my heart, and the only woman allowed to hold me in her heart, is solely my wife the empress. How dare a mere seamstress who made my new clothes commit the impiety of harboring feelings for me – what else but her life could atone for it?”
‘So that’s how it was? No matter how hard we tried, it seems we were fated from the start to never be happy, Mother…’
Rohan used his sword as a cane to lift his body, which had become as heavy as water-soaked cotton, from where he was.
The only difference from water-soaked cotton was that the liquid absorbed by his body and armor was not water, but blood.
The corpses of numerous elite imperial soldiers, imperial knights with immense skills, and handpicked elite imperial mages attested to the path he had walked.
Although he alone had broken through the imperial capital and the imperial palace to stand before the emperor he had so longed for…
No matter how hard he tried, the tip of his blade could not reach the emperor’s neck.
The emperor, called the strongest in the continent and the greatest of all time, stood as an insurmountable wall before Rohan.
“The armor you wear, the sword you hold, the magic you use, the swordsmanship your body has mastered, the countless battles and wars ingrained in your very bones… Who do you think put them all in your hands?”
It was only natural.
The author would have given him only what was necessary.
For someone like Rohan to do anything to the emperor before him was an impossible feat from the start.
Perhaps even being able to come this far was part of that man’s planned scenario…
“One last question. Have you, Jebius, ever felt a shred of remorse towards me and my mother even for a moment? Have you ever thought you were sorry even once!”
“I’m tired of listening to any more of your foolish nonsense. Now go and fulfill your original role.”
For Rohan, that answer alone was enough.
‘I’ll kill you! No matter what happens, I will kill you with my own hands for making my and my mother’s lives so miserable!’
The fact that the emperor was the greatest grand sword master of all time, the fact that the empress by his side was one of only three 8th circle archmages in human history… Those facts were of no importance to Rohan now.
He simply had such deep resentment towards that man that he could not die even if he wanted to until he killed him with his own hands.
“Aaaaaah!”
Rohan let out a scream-like shout and drew out every last bit of energy remaining in his body.
“Ooh…!”
However, even faced with the storm-like spirit hostile to him, an exclamation burst from the emperor’s mouth.
A young and fresh body.
A mighty vessel not lacking to contain his soul.
This was the entirety of how the emperor saw Rohan.
“Is it to your liking, Your Majesty?”
The empress, who had approached the emperor’s side at some point, clung tightly to his body as she acted coquettishly.
Despite being hundreds of years old, her beauty was second to none.
“Of course! You did very well, Empress! That boy will become the greatest gift you have ever given me!”
“I am so pleased you say so that this maiden hardly knows what to do with herself. Your Majesty, please happily receive your ‘new clothes’.”
“Indeed I shall! Yes, indeed!”
I don’t know how many “Rohans” they created and discarded in this wrong way.
However, for an emperor who desired “immortality” above all else, this was not a sin.
Rather, it was the greatest honor bestowed upon those lowly beings.
They should be endlessly grateful to him.
Bang!
Rohan’s body, which struck the floor, rushed at the emperor like a storm.
But it was impossible.
Even for him, who had achieved victory on countless battlefields and reversed countless impossible fights, the wall of the greatest of all time was too high and mighty.
“Begone from my clothes, lowly soul.”
Hearing the emperor’s cold voice tickling his ears, Rohan slowly closed his eyes.
‘No! I can’t end it like this! Not so absurdly… I can’t die like this leaving that bastard…’
At that moment, the person who entered Rohan’s fading vision was, ironically, not the emperor but the empress.
More precisely, it was something huge, ominous, and sinister that looked like the empress’s shadow.
However, Rohan passed away like that without even having a chance to know its identity.
* * *
“Welcome, friend. First time dying?”
‘Who…? And where…’
“Ugh!”
Rohan groaned and grimaced at the frivolous voice ringing in his head.
His head felt so dizzy and painful, as if someone had stuck a ladle in and stirred it around, that he felt nauseous.
“I know. I know it must be very painful and difficult. Normally, the memory of the deceased would be completely erased and divine reward or punishment would be determined according to the karma accumulated in life, but the situation is very special right now, so I brought you here as is.”
“Who are you? And again, where is…”
“Think carefully. If you organize your thoughts, you’ll understand.”
As the man said, Rohan tried to organize his jumbled mind while suppressing the pain as much as possible.
Then, amazingly, just as the man said, he naturally came to understand where this place was and what the man’s identity was.
“Grim Reaper? Are you really saying that you’re the Grim Reaper who presides over death? Why would someone like you, to a human like me…”
“Well… The situation here has gotten a bit complicated, so we suddenly need a lot of manpower.”
According to the Grim Reaper’s explanation, the souls of those who committed heinous crimes in life, unlike other souls, suffer in hell while retaining their memories and sense of self.
They suffer for anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand years, but with heinous souls pouring into hell every day, the number of souls suffering in hell could be called astronomical.
The problem was…
“Due to an administrator’s mistake, an error occurred in hell’s system. In the meantime, damn it, all the souls escaped. We’re short on manpower with just us, so we were in the middle of offering conditions to skilled souls like you to request your help.”
“By conditions, you mean…”
“I’ll grant you a wish. Since you remember your past life, I’m sure you roughly know. The weight of the karma you’ve accumulated.”
The price of the sins Rohan had accumulated living immersed in death in war was certainly not light.
However, the hell confinement sentence the Grim Reaper revealed exceeded Rohan’s imagination.
“3,000 years. That’s the weight of the sins you must wash away by suffering in hell.”
“…”
Rohan couldn’t refute it at all.
Even if he were to suffer in hell for 3,000 years, he had massacred so many soldiers and knights on the battlefield that he couldn’t make excuses.
He couldn’t even count their total number.
However, Rohan’s interest was not in the punishment he would receive in hell.
“If I fulfill the request you mentioned, can I make a wish in addition to absolution? Perhaps…”
“Well, that’s possible too, but I wouldn’t recommend it. No matter what wish you make other than absolution, the karma you’ve accumulated won’t decrease. But if that’s really what you want…”
“I don’t care. Then what should I do first?”
Thus, the contract between Rohan and the Grim Reaper was established.
After that, Rohan relentlessly pursued the escaped souls.
No matter how much of a soul they were, as long as they had a sense of self, they were bound to feel mental fatigue.
It was unknown whether Rohan didn’t feel that, or if he felt it but endured it, but he pursued the souls without rest and shoved them back into hell as he encountered them.
“Wow, that tenacious bastard…”
That’s how much even the Grim Reaper who entrusted him with the request and his fellow Grim Reapers stuck their tongues out at Rohan.
Among the souls, some were weaker than Rohan, but there were more who were stronger than him.
Rohan challenged them endlessly while suffering pain worse than death, and eventually achieved results.
After all, once dead, there was no second death.
After achieving greater results than any Grim Reaper in this way, the soul Rohan succeeded in returning all the souls to hell as promised.
“To finish in 999 years a task expected to take at least 3,000 years… You’re really the one I chose, but you exceed my imagination.”
“The request is finished. Keep your promise.”
During the past 999 years, ironically, the face that never left his mind for a moment was not his mother’s, but the emperor’s.
His mother’s face had faded so much that if he neglected the effort to recall it, he felt he would forget it…
But damn it, the more he tried not to recall the emperor’s face, the more vividly he remembered it as if he had just seen it.
Thanks to that, he was able to endure the past 999 years.
Solely to behead that bastard with his own hands.
“Of course I’ll keep my promise. But I think just reincarnation won’t be enough.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“As you know, thanks to you, we finished in 999 years a task everyone thought would take at least 3,000 years. Thanks to that, I can end this damned millennium-long grim reaper job and get promoted. Do you know what that means?”
“It means something good for me too?”
The Grim Reaper raised his thumb and curled the corners of his mouth upward.
His teeth seemed unusually bright that day.
“Of course! Plus, your goal is to kill Jebius von Tristan, right? Actually, that guy was a troublesome long-term resident even in our industry. His accumulated karma is already so much that our ledgers are running out of space, but he has no intention of dying, so we’ve been having our own headaches over him. If you take care of him for us, we’d only be grateful. So I was thinking of making a proposal…”
“Please speak.”
“It’s nothing else, but it seems the higher-ups also judged that there’s no one more suitable than you to handle that troublesome long-term resident. So they specially promised you alone one privilege and one reward.”
The Grim Reaper unfolded the index finger of his left hand and the index finger of his right hand one by one, grinning.
“A privilege and a reward, you say?”
“The reward is, literally, that if you succeed in killing Jebius, we’ll grant your wish to the extent our abilities allow. Well, other things are possible too in this case, but absolution would be best if you’re going to wish for something anyway. The privilege is nothing else than giving you the opportunity to become even stronger than you are now. That way, you’ll be able to kill Jebius.”
“What does that privilege specifically mean?”
“Even if you return as you are now, there’s no particularly good way to kill Jebius, right? Isn’t that so? In that case, it might not be bad to go to another world, gain strength, and then come back and kill him. Fortunately, we’ve already found a world that’s perfect for that goal. Actually, the god there owed us a bit of a debt, so he readily accepted.”
It was as the Grim Reaper said.
For Rohan, who had lived only on the path the emperor had laid out for him from birth to death, there was no particularly good way even if he were to reincarnate now.
It was just that if he didn’t do at least that much, his resentment towards that man was so deep that he couldn’t die even if he wanted to.
“If that will help me take revenge on him, I will gladly accept it.”
“Good thinking. Although it’s not the world you lived in, depending on your efforts, you can become incomparably stronger than you are now. The god there is a bit of an oddball.”
“Huh? What does that…”
“You’ll know when you go. Good luck. And if possible, don’t accumulate any more unnecessary karma. The 3,000 years already assigned to you is plenty long enough. And I’ll leave a mark on your body so you can return to your original world, so use it when you’re done with what you need to do there.”
At the same time, Rohan felt the sensation of his consciousness being sucked somewhere and his consciousness fading away.
As Rohan disappeared, the Grim Reaper took a cigarette out of his pocket, put it to his mouth, and lit it.
As he looked up at the cigarette smoke trailing upward, the Grim Reaper muttered to himself.
“This feels really iffy, like I unintentionally deceived an earnest friend. Should I have just told him the truth? That the enemy he really needs to worry about isn’t some emperor… Eh, well, he’ll figure it out. Knowing in advance would only make him more despairing anyway.”
