---
Regret.
A stain that cannot be washed away.
Something that lingers inside you as long as you live—like a malignant disease, slowly spreading through every memory you cherish.
I've had my fair share of regrets.
Enough to last a lifetime.
That's why—even standing at the pinnacle of strength, with the world praising my name—I would trade it all back in a heartbeat.
Just to see their faces again.
My comrades.
These days, almost all the knights around my age are gone.
It's a messy story, but I'll shamelessly admit that I'm responsible for at least half of the people still alive today.
...Well.
Kind of.
---
Around the decade surrounding my birth, something unprecedented happened in human history.
It was called the Golden Generation.
The era of the greatest potential humanity had ever seen.
Of course, ordinary people were still ordinary. Farmers still farmed. Merchants still haggled in crowded markets. Life continued much the same for most of the population.
But among those blessed with the aptitude to become knights...
Their talent was monstrous.
Students entering the academies during that time possessed potential that bordered on the absurd. Even some veteran elite knights—though they would never admit it—would have been completely outclassed had they been born alongside us.
We were told the future was secure.
We were told the next Calamity
wouldn't stand a chance.
And logically...
It shouldn't have.
Yet somehow, humanity barely scraped through.
---
The world has always been dangerous.
There are demonic humans —people who fall to corruption and eventually climb the shadowy ranks of the underworld to become Dark Knights.
There are monsters, born from mana-rich lands.
There are spirits, ancient beings that sometimes view humans as little more than pests.
But none of those are humanity's greatest enemy.
No.
The worst threat is the Calamity.
Legend says it began nearly a thousand years ago.
Every twenty-five years, like clockwork, the world faces an event so catastrophic it threatens total extinction.
For forty cycles, humanity prevailed.
The elite knights crushed the disasters so thoroughly that many began to view them as little more than routine trials.
By the time the Golden Generation
appeared...
The world leaders must have grown complacent.
After all, how could humanity lose with such overwhelming talent?
But nobody understood something simple.
When the world produces stronger heroes...
It often means stronger monsters are coming.
Did you really think humanity somehow overcame those odds on its own?
Hold that thought.
Because while I did say I saved the world—
It wasn't by my own power.
---
When the forty-first Calamity arrived, it was unlike anything humanity had ever faced.
Cities were reduced to smoking craters.
Entire knight orders vanished overnight.
The sky itself burned with crimson storms as if the heavens were bleeding.
And while humanity struggled desperately for survival...
The Board of Gods convened.
Yes.
The gods themselves.
And after a nearly unanimous vote, they decided to abandon Earth and invest their divine resources into a newly discovered dimension.
Scary, right?
Even divine beings act like shitty corporations nowadays.
But there was one exception.
One goddess refused to leave.
A selfless goddess who truly loved this world—
And someone within it.
Her name was Personna.
Bound by divine restrictions that prevented her from directly interfering, she chose the only option left.
She sacrificed herself.
Her divinity, her existence, everything she was—
She poured it all into me.
At that time, I was the last competent knight of the Golden Generation still standing.
It was only for a short period but...
It was enough.
Through me, her power descended like judgment itself.
Lightning split continents.
Tidal waves swallowed armies of monsters.
The remaining forces of the Calamity were erased from existence.
Without her...
Humanity would have been truly hopeless.
But when the dust settled, something strange happened.
Her name was forgotten.
Not erased by magic or some sinister curse.
Simply... forgotten.
Only one name remained in the history books.
Lucien Variell.
The Savior of Humanity.
---
After the war, the surviving population gathered in one massive nation:
Valstalla.
Before the Calamity, Valstalla had already been famous as the capital of knights. It housed the most prestigious academy in the world which was was the first to accept both nobles and commoners.
More importantly, it trained both types of warriors:
* Martial Knights
&
* Magic Knights
This crown jewel was known as the legendary Valstalla Academy.
Fortunately, the region itself had been largely untouched by the devastation.
Even with five hundred million survivors, most of the land remained vast and sparsely populated.
Using advanced magitech construction, the displaced population was relocated and settled within just a few months.
Humanity was battered.
But alive.
---
As for me?
Well...
I shone in the spotlight.
Just like most people would.
Maybe I let the fame get to me a little.
After all the award ceremonies, interviews, and press conferences, I spent most nights drinking heavily with the few veteran knight friends I had left.
From the world's perspective, I had saved everything.
Who could blame me for drinking away the trauma of losing nearly everyone I loved?
Eventually though, the celebrations faded.
Years passed.
I stopped going out.
Most days I stayed inside my mansion, hiding from the strange mix of admiration, fear, and curiosity people directed at me.
Occasionally I'd post vlogs online about my sobriety progress.
Sometimes I'd talk shit about other elite knights.
But that was basically the extent of the great savior's social presence.
People still remembered my name.
But like everything else in the world...
It slowly got buried under trends, scandals, and mundane news.
And honestly?
That was fine.
Because I had a new hobby.
---
Regression novels.
At first I didn't understand why people loved them so much.
Why readers enjoyed stepping into the protagonist's shoes and imagining themselves turning back time.
But eventually...
I got it.
I devoured them.
Bad writing?
Didn't care.
Repetitive plots?
Didn't matter.
Pure wish-fulfillment slop?
Give me more.
Maybe it reflected my own regrets.
Maybe it was the longing to fix the past.
Maybe it was the desperate hope that somewhere, somehow, things could have turned out differently.
But why psychoanalyze myself when I could just read another chapter?
---
One afternoon, my magitech phone rang.
The caller ID made me blink.
Eren Walker.
The closest thing I had to a best friend.
Ironically, he survived the Calamity for one simple reason.
He was painfully average.
While the Golden Generation was deployed to the most brutal battlefields, Eren barely got assigned to missions.
So he lived.
Life's funny like that.
I picked up the call.
"Yo! The man himself, Lucien!" he greeted cheerfully. "Been a while."
"Yeah," I replied. "It has."
I tried not to sound disappointed.
He hadn't contacted me in over a month.
"So," Eren continued, "a new B-Rank dungeon popped up last weekend. I was wondering if you wanted to raid it with me."
He chuckled.
"You know... for old times' sake. I'm a C-Rank knight now. Maybe I'll become the next great savior."
Normally, I avoided dungeons entirely.
After my desperate hunt for time-related artifacts years ago, I hadn't entered one in over a year.
But with Eren?
Things were never boring.
"You know what," I said. "I could use some exercise. Let's do it."
"Hell yeah!"
He sounded genuinely excited.
"Raid starts today at four. Just us two. I trust you more than those so-called elite knights who barely did jack during the Calamity."
I laughed.
"Commander Morgan would kill you if he heard that."
"Worth it," Eren replied. "Alright, I'm gonna get ready. Peace!"
Click.
The line went dead.
I leaned back in my chair.
When was the last time I'd searched a dungeon for time artifacts?
Years ago.
All failures.
Maybe this time...
I should just enjoy myself.
After all, even if I was technically a fraud as the world's savior—
I was still one of the strongest people alive.
An S-Class Martial Knight.
For me, a B-Rank dungeon was basically a playground.
---
Five minutes before the raid, I arrived at the dungeon site.
Eren was already there.
"Wow," he said. "You're actually on time."
"Aren't you the one with terrible time management?" I replied.
"Shhh. Don't expose me."
After his knight card was checked, the attendant glanced at me with wide eyes and waved us through without even asking for identification.
We stepped into the dungeon.
To put it simply—
It was a complete cakewalk.
Eren had improved a lot. As a Bishop-class magic knight, he specialized in incantations and long-range spells.
His physical abilities were weak, but his spellcasting was versatile enough to compensate.
In the decade since the Calamity, he had climbed from F-Rank to C-Rank.
Pretty average growth.
But still respectable.
Soon we reached the final boss.
A Rank B High-Grade Scorpitaur.
A monstrous creature with the body of a massive scorpion and a demonic humanoid torso rising where its head should be.
It died quickly.
Too quickly.
Normally, a dungeon completion chest would appear afterward.
But instead—
The ground split open.
Cracks raced across the chamber like lightning.
"AHHH! WHAT THE HELL?!" Eren screamed as the floor collapsed beneath us.
Honestly?
I had the same question.
As we fell into darkness, Eren yelled,
"You'll catch me, right bro?!"
Even with superhuman abilities, his physical durability wasn't great.
I landed first with an ear-splitting crash.
The moment I hit the ground, I dashed forward at blinding speed.
I intercepted his fall, slowing his descent and catching him safely.
"Holy shit," he gasped. "My life flashed before my eyes."
I chuckled.
"Relax. Not letting you become a pancake on a Tuesday afternoon."
But he didn't respond.
Because we were both staring at the same thing.
---
The room.
It was massive.
A perfect cube.
The walls were pure white, etched with silver geometric patterns that stretched like glowing veins across the surface.
At the center of the chamber...
An artifact floated in the air.
And engraved upon it—
Was a rune.
A rune I recognized instantly.
The symbol of Time.
The mark carved by that bastard himself.
Chronos.
The God of Time.
My breath caught in my throat.
After years of emptiness...
My heart started pounding wildly.
I ran toward it like a madman before Eren could even warn me.
The moment I touched the artifact—
A green barrier erupted around the room.
Chronomancy runes blazed across its surface.
Pulsating gray magical circuits spread through the chamber like living veins.
Then a voice echoed.
Deep.
Ancient.
Divine.
"Lucien the fraud."
"...What?"
"It seems you have finally grasped the thing you desired most... and discovered my legacy in this world."
Eren looked at me.
"Lucien... you're a fraud?"
"Shut up and listen," I muttered.
The voice continued.
"However—"
Its tone sharpened.
"You have made a grave miscalculation."
"The gears of this world will not turn at your mercy."
"Mistakes will always be made."
"You cannot save everyone."
The world began turning gray.
Space itself started fracturing like shattered glass.
The voice flickered in and out.
"Remember what she—"
"The restrictions will—"
"The others will—"
"True annihilation—"
Then silence.
Total silence.
My body felt frozen—
Yet somehow moving faster than anything I'd ever experienced.
Then suddenly—
Everything snapped back.
---
I opened my eyes groggily.
"...Ugh."
The room around me looked familiar.
Too familiar.
It was the hotel room I stayed in before taking the entrance exam for Valstalla Academy.
Then blue windows appeared in front of me like a game interface.
---
[Hello Lucien! Welcome back to Year 991 AC!]
I blinked.
"Huh."
What a user-friendly regression experience.
Another message appeared.
[As a welcome bonus, your innate talent: "Golden Generation" has been kindly removed as a travel expense :) ]
"...What?"
Then a final alert appeared.
---
[Alert!]
[Past discrepancy detected.]
[The Goddess Personna is dead.]
---
I stared at the message for a long moment.
Then sighed.
"Well..."
"Shit."
---