NOVEL NEXT Ch. 1
Chapter 1
A bitter wind swept the heart of the battlefield.
A man knelt, a spear lodged in his gut.
He wiped his blurred eyes with a blood-soaked sleeve, and the carnage came into focus.
Total annihilation.
Humanity’s last legion lay in shattered pieces.
The one they had called Hero.
The famed knight-captain.
The arch-mage.
All of them were cold corpses now.
He tried to rise. A body caught his eye-eyes still wide, as if protesting death.
Beyond that gaze, footsteps crunched.
Crunch.
Someone approached from behind.
His body shook on its own.
“I salute you. Among humans, you alone have beaten my Seven Sovereigns.”
The owner of that voice-he knew the name, could never forget it.
“...Baal.”
Gehenna, the demon realm known as the world of the dead.
Its king, the demon who ruled there.
Demon King Baal.
Humanity had been wiped out by his armies.
Now only the man still breathed.
Baal looked down at him, arrogant, and touched the tip of his sword beneath the man’s chin.
“I myself ask your name. What is it?”
Silence.
The man said nothing.
Apparently displeased, Baal slammed the flat of his blade across the man’s knees.
“Ghk-!”
He toppled forward.
Baal stepped on his head and asked again.
“Fool, do you not grasp what it means when a king of worlds asks your name? What is it?”
The weight crushed down; with his last strength gone, the man yielded.
“Henrik... Henrik Dusk.”
Henrik Dusk-last survivor of mankind, the Hunter once hailed as the strongest.
The hero who had felled Baal’s seven demon sovereigns.
“Henrik Dusk,” Baal murmured, resetting his grip on the sword.
“You were threat enough to warrant my personal attention. Count it an honor.”
Honor? Ridiculous.
Henrik barked a hollow laugh.
A ten-thousand-strong host had fallen.
The final suicide squad-toughest of the tough, each nursing a grudge deep as Gehenna itself-hadn’t laid a finger on Baal’s body.
And he called it honor? A liar’s word, comfort only the victor could afford.
“You have earned my recognition,” Baal went on. “I offer you a chance. Become a demon. The vessel is already prepared.”
So that was why he’d asked the name-just for this nonsense.
Henrik spat, as if to mock the demon’s pride.
“Go to hell.”
“Humans truly are fools.”
Without hesitation Baal brought the sword down.
A snap like severed wires, and consciousness faded.
I failed.
The final target of every Hunter-Demon King Baal.
He had poured in everything, yet couldn’t even scratch the demon. The injustice burned.
Death approached, and forgotten memories flickered past:
A family’s revenge.
A promise to his master.
His comrades’ dying wish.
None of it fulfilled.
If only-
The regret leaked out as a sigh.
If he had another chance, could he kill Baal?
“Ghk-cough!”
Death was here.
His heartbeat slowed; emptiness rushed in.
The world blurred.
Tears of regret trickled free.
He had given up so much to reach Baal.
Should’ve treated them better...
Countless bonds, brushed aside.
He’d been careless with every one.
Henrik’s head hit the ground and rolled.
In the flickers that remained, a small voice reached him.
[Henrik.]
Someone called his name.
A hallucination...?
Something blinding pushed through his darkening mind.
It looked like a beautiful woman.
Slender arms and wings folded around Henrik.
Her voice reached him like a soft lullaby.
[Henrik Dusk, I have heard your name.]
When she spread her four wings, Henrik was sucked into unconsciousness.
The wings unfolded gorgeous and black as night.
She tore free one pinion and sent it drifting toward him.
The black feather sank into his body.
[If the Demon King has acknowledged a human... it can be done.]
An unknown power began carving itself into his soul.
Burning runes, one by one-branded like hot iron, impossible to erase.
Henrik’s awareness snapped, and everything went dark.
* * *
A cramped tavern in a gloomy back alley.
“Henrik...! Hey, wake up!”
A handsome man in a robe shook the slumped figure.
He rattled him hard, but the man called Henrik showed no sign of rising.
Still, mumbling as if dreaming, he muttered,
“...Reinforcements? No, impossible.”
“Reinforcements? What are you on about?”
Henrik’s body listed to the right, dangerously limp.
Giving up, the robed man lifted both hands-
Thud!
Henrik’s drowsing head cracked against the table; he blinked awake, hair sticking up.
“What the-”
“Told you so.”
Henrik rubbed his eyes, gathered his wits, then yelped when he saw who stood there.
“Ted...?”
He stared, disbelieving.
The man who had died fighting demons was right in front of him.
When Henrik reached to touch Ted’s face and chest, Ted flinched away.
“Hey, personal space! You’re acting weird.”
“......”
Not a dream, then?
Henrik looked around the room, stunned.
Burly, bearded mercenaries guzzled rotgut and swapped loud stories.
Same dingy back-street bar he knew by heart.
One of the giants noticed his stare, shoved forward a cup, and baited him.
“Kid, you planning to hunt demons with that scrawny frame? Looks like a stiff breeze’d kill ya.”
“Bauer...? You’re supposed to be dead.”
“Dead? Why, you trying to kill me off?”
The other mercs roared with laughter, ribbing Bauer about the time he ‘died below the belt.’
“Means your manhood gave up the ghost!”
“I’m still lively-just ask Jane last night-”
“Ha-ha-ha!”
Familiar bar, familiar faces.
The very scene Henrik had longed for.
The little tavern where mercenary paths once crossed.
“...Is this the afterlife?” he whispered.
He remembered the tale: warriors slain in battle go to a glorious afterworld reserved for soldiers.
Yet the room held plain townsfolk as well as mercenaries.
Henrik wandered outside in a daze.
“Henrik! Where do you think you’re going!?”
Ignoring Ted, he stepped into the street.
Nothing registered; he simply stared.
In the square stood a huge stone dolphin statue.
That sight nailed it-he remembered.
This was the town the Demon King would later burn to ash.
He recalled weeping as he buried the dead, one by one.
His gaze snapped to the tavern sign-still intact.
Henrik started to run.
He sprinted wildly through the streets, no destination in mind.
Ragged breath-proof he was alive.
“...I’ve really come back to the past.”
He gazed at the moon hanging in the night sky and murmured,
He tried to recall the fight with Baal, but the memory was hazy.
All that surfaced was a black wing.
‘Whose voice was that?’
Everything was a question mark.
Henrik climbed a rooftop and looked out over the town.
Peaceful.
Quiet.
Alive.
A sight impossible to witness during the war with the demons.
Ted is alive, and so is Bauer.
“But sooner or later it’ll be a scorched ruin at the demons’ hands.”
Henrik pictured Baal.
“Can we actually win?”
Remembering that overwhelming strength, fear struck first.
He couldn’t imagine ever reaching Baal’s heart.
Yet the fear lasted only a moment.
Henrik exhaled long and gave a short laugh.
“Not like I can run anyway.”
The future he knows holds no peace.
The world will be swallowed by war again, and running only delays death.
Nothing changes.
He’ll still hunt demons, same as ever.
Only the approach will be different.
“I need to prepare.”
He’ll find a way to reach Baal.
And then he’ll ram his sword into the bastard’s face.
“Fine, then.”
Under a sky thick with stars, he drew a long breath.
Cold air filled his lungs, reminding him he was alive.
Thoughts sorted, Henrik stepped back into the tavern.
“Henrik, got your head on straight again?”
“Looks like the booze hit me. I’ve got one question.”
“You never answered my offer, by the way.”
“Offer?”
“The academy professorship!”
“Professor?”
“Come on-!”
“Hold up.”
Henrik cut Ted off and asked the date.
“Didn’t you hear? Today’s Imperial Year 904, December 29. And you promised your answer on the post by the 30th.”
Ted snorted and pointed.
A calendar hung on the wall.
Henrik checked the date and fell silent.
Imperial Year 904.
Ten years before demons devour the world and the Great War erupts.
“I’ve come back ten years.”
He slipped a hand into his pocket and pulled out a notebook.
Even ten years ago, the notebook still rested in the same inside pocket.
A memory flashed through his mind.
“Wait, the 29th?”
Regression.
Turning back time meant he could fix the fatal mistakes of the past.
Chin in hand, Henrik muttered,
“Amazing. Not bad at all.”
“Ah, geez. Barkeep! One beer here!”
Ted ordered the beer while Henrik sank into thought again.
Imperial Year 904, December 29.
The moment he heard the date, the first job crystallized.
Imperial Year 904, December 31. While the continent parties, a hideous crime will unfold.
A crime he hadn’t stopped in his previous life.
‘The Sovereign of Sloth.’
Thinking of her-one of Baal’s seven sovereigns-darkened Henrik’s face.
The demon who burned this town and slaughtered its people.
He had to find the bitch and kill her fast.
“Right now she’ll be busy preparing the living-offering feast.”
Two days from now, the Sloth Sovereign hiding among humans will hit her power spike.
After devouring the living offerings, she’ll leap in strength, far beyond what Henrik can currently handle.
But.
“I can kill her now.”
Knowledge of the future made it possible.
Before the ritual, even a Demon King is only mid-rank demon level.
With the right setup, she can be hunted.
No-she must be hunted.
Henrik shot to his feet.
“Ted, gather what I tell you and meet me in the square.”
“Huh? B-but our job talk-”
“After this is done.”
“H-Henrik, wait!”
Before Ted could finish, Henrik bolted from the tavern.