"Congratulations, Hero. You have defeated the Demon King."
Before my eyes.
A winged woman with long, pure-white hair fluttering around her, clad in a golden dress that left her bare skin plainly visible, clapped her hands for me.
"Of the more than one hundred thousand humans I summoned to this world, only you were able to defeat the Demon King."
"......."
The Demon King was dead.
Before me, the enormous demon who had died with a greatsword lodged in his chest, blood gushing from the wound, was dead at last.
I wondered if perhaps, as he died, he might unleash some Death Echo—but of course, that would not happen.
If such a curse existed, this so-called goddess would never have appeared before the living Demon King.
"Now, say anything you wish. As the Hero, you have the right to demand anything. You may live in this world, praised as its Hero, or you may be reborn in your original world. Anything at all."
"...Anything?"
"Yes, anything. Anything whatsoever."
Splurch.
The goddess reached toward the Demon King's heart.
She mercilessly tore out the Demon King's heart, crushed it in her hand, and, letting out a cry of admiration, held out the blood-red jewel within as if to show it to me.
"Behold. This is the 'Miracle.' The divine authority stolen from a god by the Demon King. I shall grant you one single chance to use this divine right."
"...Yeah. That was the promise."
The heroes had been forcibly summoned to another world.
But unlike many otherworld hero stories, the goddess had collected heroes from Earth for reasons that were, in their own way, rational.
"If I use this Miracle, can I come back to life? On Earth?"
The dead from Earth had been summoned to another world.
And as the goddess summoned them as heroes, she had proposed a deal to all the dead and made contracts with them.
If they succeeded in defeating the Demon King, she would grant one wish.
The divine right to grant wishes was with the Demon King, so whoever killed the Demon King would have any wish granted.
All the heroes were dead.
Those who held hope had two choices.
Kill the Demon King and be revived on Earth, or, with the Demon King gone, live on in this medieval fantasy world as heroes possessing overwhelming power.
"Is it possible to come back to life on Earth?"
"...Given your great feat, it is possible. Because you defeated the Demon King alone. Even if your original body is already gone, it should be possible for you to cross over to Earth in your current body."
"Is that because the power contained in the Miracle is only enough for about one person?"
"Yes."
"What were you going to do if hundreds or thousands of people had defeated the Demon King?"
"......."
The goddess fell silent.
Refusing to answer a question that was disadvantageous to her, the goddess clutched the Miracle tightly in both hands and approached me.
"Please do not concern yourself with those who died without ever gaining the opportunity."
With the hand that held the Miracle, the goddess stroked my cheek.
In the gaze she turned upon me were mingled various emotions: toward a benefactor, toward a hero, and toward a knight who had offered his life and fought for her sake.
"Only you have the right to enjoy this Miracle. Only you, who did not yield to the demons until the very last moment, who swung your sword at the Demon King even on the brink of the end, and who ultimately brought him down."
"...What about the others who remain?"
"Do not concern yourself with them. I offered them an opportunity, and they are the ones who broke their own swords and gave up on being heroes. They should be grateful enough that I revived them in this world."
Strictly speaking, she wasn't wrong.
The dead had become heroes and been granted a second life.
There had been those who left the battle against the Demon King behind and enjoyed their life in another world instead.
Those who gave up returning to the modern world and being reincarnated, who even turned away from the wish they had desperately wanted to fulfill by reclaiming the Miracle from the Demon King.
From the moment a hero gave up on being a hero, the goddess had no intention of taking care of them.
"Last Hero. This Miracle shall be exercised for you alone. If you wish to become the god of this world, then so it shall gladly be. You are qualified. Anything—"
"If you say it'll grant anything, is this possible too?"
I took several objects out from inside my clothes.
They were crude scraps of iron that looked like junk.
On them, the names of various people were written in Korean or English, but some pieces of iron were scratched or rusted so badly they could no longer be read properly.
"Can you bring these people back to life?"
"......."
"I don't know about some of the others, but these people here died fighting demons until the very last moment."
"...You know the answer, Hero."
With a sorrowful expression, the goddess shook her head.
"For those who came from another world, a single death meant the death of the soul itself. Once the soul has been destroyed, there exists no method anywhere to resurrect it."
"......."
"If they were souls of those not heroes, perhaps there might be some way. But the souls of those who crossed over from Earth cannot be restored, nor can they be returned."
"I see."
Crrrk.
When I clenched the iron scraps in my hand, the strength of my grip and the heat of my mana made them begin melting at once.
The things that had once borne someone's name melted down into molten metal, flowing beneath my palm and dripping onto the Demon King's heart.
"Hero. Their noble sacrifices will be recorded in history for all time. If you wish it, statues of them will be erected in every cathedral of the Goddess Church to commemorate them. Forever."
"They're already dead and completely gone. What meaning is there in erecting statues and commemorating them?"
"Hero."
"What they wanted was to return home to their families. You gave us hope. The hope of resurrection."
"I did not lie. It is just that, if over there they had already been buried in the ground or cremated, then crossing over in the bodies of this world and being socially reincarnated would be...."
"Yeah. You didn't lie."
I reached out my hand to the goddess.
"Hand over the Miracle."
"I shall give it to you."
The goddess respectfully placed the Miracle atop my hand with both of hers.
"All you need do is speak. Your desire. The one wish you long for most. That Miracle will manifest differently based on your achievement, and according to the karma—the deeds—you have accumulated until now."
"In that case, I'll make my wish."
I clenched the Miracle and raised it toward the sky.
"New Game, Start."
"......Pardon?"
At my words, the goddess's expression stiffened as if she had misheard.
"What did you just...? Hero, what exactly did I just hear...?"
"Exactly what I said."
"H-hahaha.... You said New Game, didn't you? I know what that means. Of course, life is a game! You wish to live a new life while retaining your memories! Or perhaps with your power intact as well? Or perhaps a full reincarnation on Earth...!"
"It isn't reincarnation."
Clenching the Miracle, I slowly turned my hand counterclockwise right before the goddess's eyes.
"I'm turning it back. To the moment I—no, we—were first summoned."
"N-no way...!"
"We're starting again from the beginning. Yes. I declare it."
A red aura began to burst forth from the Miracle.
"As my Miracle, I choose regression."
The Miracle absorbed my mana, absorbed the blood flowing from my hand, and began absorbing everything I had built up as the Hero until now.
"Why?! If you do such a thing...!"
"The Demon King will be revived too, I suppose. Along with every demon I've killed until now. But...."
The molten metal that had melted into the Demon King's heart began to return to my hand in reverse.
As though time were rewinding.
"N-no...! If this continues, the Demon King will...! S-stop!!"
"Impossible."
The goddess lunged to seize the Miracle in my hand, but she could not take the Miracle from me.
"This is your karma. The karma born from the countless declarations you have made until now in the name of the goddess. A god does not speak two different truths with one mouth. Half of the foundation that made it possible to rewind all of time lies with you, Goddess."
"N-no!! Please!!"
The goddess sank to her knees and clutched at the hem of my pants.
"Why, why...! You defeated the Demon King, did you not? What remains is the future! A dazzling future granted to you! You will lose everything you have built up until now and return to that moment when nothing existed!"
"Probably. According to that incredibly unfriendly system you left for us heroes, all my stats and skills will be wiped away, and I'll return to level 1."
Resources, wealth, money, mana—everything would disappear, and my soul would be revived in another world and given a body, a blank slate.
But.
"I lost too much getting here."
The goddess was a god, and she did not understand humans.
"The future I want is in the past. The person I loved—no, the person I love—isn't here."
"J-just for love...! Have you gone mad?! Do you know how many women there are in this world whom you could embrace if you wished...! Even I...!"
"Hey."
Twisting the hand that clutched the Miracle, I raised my middle finger at the goddess.
"Fuck off, you fucking bitch."
Though I guess she didn't have a dick.
"She's not in this future."
Crack.
The Miracle exploded, and the world was dyed red.
* * *
"Kyaaaaaaah!!"
A familiar scream.
In my hazy mind, I clutched my dizzy head and opened my terribly blurred eyes.
A white space with nothing in it.
On a circular structure floating in midair, 108 humans including myself lay sprawled about, each wearing only a single set of white clothes.
If there was one thing we had in common, it was probably that most of us had black hair and brown eyes—though there were others as well—and were men and women in our early to mid-twenties.
"W-what happened? Where on earth are we...?"
While the others panicked and tried to grasp the situation, I calmly checked the state of my body.
A body in which I could feel no strength at all.
The muscles and scars I had built up over twenty years as the Hero had all vanished, and all that remained was a reasonably built body that had just been discharged from the military.
No skills, no mana, no armaments.
Pure white itself.
"...Heh."
I was back.
By my own will.
"Whoo."
Taking a deep breath, I called out so that those lost in confusion could hear.
I—
I've played this game before—!
Or so I said inwardly.
'As if.'
Though everything had vanished through regression, the memories were clearly still in my head.
'Sorry, but I'm the kind of trash who'll do anything to get what I want.'
If I were righteous or good, I would never have turned back time.
Anything that could be used, I would use.
Whether murder, fraud, or rape—even if I had to abandon morality, I would use every method and means possible.
Because that was the way to survive in the other world we would fall into after passing this tutorial—
In a dark fantasy.