My name is Eden.
Of course, that is the name I gave myself after my reincarnation.
What was my original name?
No matter how hard I try, I cannot recall it, as if a thick, damp fog has settled inside my skull.
The memories of my past life—how I lived, the memories I made with my family—are vivid, yet the specific shard of memory containing my name is gone.
It feels as though a part of my existence was taken as the price for the miracle of reincarnation.
Well, what can I do about it now?
I decided to just accept it.
I actually quite like the name Eden.
When I fell into this world, the Sacred Gear that coiled around my soul was none other than the Sephiroth Graal—the Holy Grail of the World.
The Grail and Paradise (Eden).
It's quite a fateful and plausible combination, isn't it?
Of course, that was just me being pretentious back when I still had hope.
The fact that I harbored one of the thirteen Longinus—artifacts capable of slaying God—was undoubtedly a stroke of luck akin to winning a lottery.
But why, out of everything, did it have to be the Sephiroth Graal?
Even if the rank were a bit lower, how wonderful would it have been to have a combat-type Sacred Gear? Like Regulus Nemea, which boasts overwhelming destructive power, or Canis Lykaon, the avatar of the black blade that can slice through anything.
You think this is good enough?
Don't talk nonsense.
I muttered to myself as I barely managed to lift my body from a pool of blood.
"I was reincarnated right in the middle of the Great War, so what the hell am I supposed to do with a support-type Sacred Gear? Fuck...!"
Ah, come to think of it, since Ddraig and Albion are still alive and kicking in this era, do Regulus Nemea or Canis Lykaon even exist yet as Sacred Gears? Or are those monsters still roaming around in the flesh?
Is that why I got the Grail instead?!
No, wait. If that's the logic, then where the hell is the True Longinus? That spear should definitely exist in this era!
"Haa... What's the point of getting angry? Nothing will change."
The rage that scattered with my sigh felt hollow.
Nothing would change.
There was only the reality that I had to survive in this hellish world with a frail human body.
At first, I just wanted to keep my head down.
I planned to hide the power of my Sacred Gear completely, mingle with ordinary neighbors in a remote village untouched by the fires of war, and quietly die of old age.
I had dreamed of such a humble and sweet life.
But there was no way that was possible.
'Those who possess a Sacred Gear, especially a Longinus, can never live a peaceful life.'
I was forced to learn with my entire being just how cruel and truthful that sentence from the original story really was.
The elderly couple next door who smiled warmly at me just a few days ago.
Lily, the little child who linked her pinky finger with mine, promising that she would marry me when she grew up.
And... Elara, the most beautiful girl in the village, whom I had secretly loved.
Everything—everyone—turned to ash and dust in a single day.
The reason was simple.
A scouting party from another race detected the faint wave of the Longinus sleeping within me and decided to "cleanse" the village.
To them, the villagers were nothing more than troublesome insects.
I was the only one who survived.
It was only because the Grail activated on its own, forcibly resurrecting my torn and burning flesh.
In the middle of that village turned to cinders, I howled and wept for days and nights.
I felt like absolute shit.
No, saying I felt like shit wasn't enough.
Everyone died because of me.
Because I existed here.
At first, I tried to follow them in death.
But when I held a knife to my throat with hands still wet with blood, I was too much of a coward to make the cut.
The fear of death was more persistent than my guilt.
If that was the case, there was only one path left.
To survive in this hell by any means necessary, for the sake of the villagers.
And... if possible, to exact bloody vengeance on the bastards who took everything away.
And so, I threw myself into the world.
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"Kuh... To think that I...! A Mid-Class Devil... lost to a mere human...!"
"Shut up. Just die quietly."
Squelch—!
A chilling sound echoed as a spear, long since broken and ruined, pierced the Devil's heart.
"Gah...!"
Only after confirming that the Devil's body had stopped moving did the tension leave me, and I collapsed onto the ground.
"Hah, hah... Fuck... Even with a Longinus, I end up in this state against a single Mid-Class Devil..."
My whole body was a wreck.
In this battle alone, my left arm was torn off twice, my legs three times, and a fatal hole had been blown through my abdomen.
Those wounds had already vanished without a trace under the rusty-gold light of the Grail, but the phantom pain of my bones and flesh regenerating still seemed to claw at my entire body.
After the hundredth time, I stopped counting the number of regenerations.
It's supposed to be a tool that can kill God, but the reality is that I have to risk my life just to handle a mid-ranked demon.
The Sephiroth Graal. Its performance is honestly trash. Too trash.
What? Why don't I revive the Evil Dragons?
In this time period, most of those Evil Dragons are still alive, and even if they weren't, I'd need to be able to reach the place where they died to revive them. Dammit.
Come to think of it, a specific setting from the original story suddenly came to mind.
Didn't it say that the wielder of the Grail suffers from mental corruption?
That the more they use its power, the more they glimpse the structure of life and souls, eventually going mad from the overwhelming amount of information and a blasphemous understanding of life itself.
I, too, after undergoing thousands of forced regenerations, have come to understand the structure of life and souls vaguely—no, actually, quite clearly.
To my eyes, all living things now looked like intricately woven spools of thread.
But is that really enough to drive someone crazy?
"Hmm..."
I thought to myself as I numbly absorbed the fragments of information flowing from the fading soul of the Devil.
"Mental corruption? Maybe the previous Grail users just lacked guts if they collapsed from this little bit of information?"
Under the ashen sky, smelling the scent of blood, I laughed cynically.
Completely unaware of the fact that my mind was already broken.