Regressor, Possessor, Reincarnator

There were three moments that came to everyone—just three chances to change one's life.

Linbelle, on the verge of losing her home to the attacks of chimeras, got into a conflict with the soldiers in charge of the gate. Those soldiers of the city gate had halved her family’s resources, aggressively separated her from her mother, and forced her to face overwhelming hunger and thirst. She had been born in a village, and a village is where she had lived all her life.

For her, the first world she knew was a cold one.

She hadn’t known what to do. All she could do was argue with the soldiers, believing that there was true justice. But that hadn’t worked either.

She lacked strength. The supposedly righteous soldiers were rotten to the core, yet no passerby helped her. She couldn't exert any meaningful force in the face of a real threat, and was, thus, unable to cope with the powerless soldiers’ taunts.

And just as she began to try to defend herself, he appeared.

‘Allen Reinhart.’

With that lofty noble dignity and overwhelmingly strong drive of his, he punished the tongues of the soldiers who’d insulted his family and saved her from her doom in one fell swoop.

"What's your name?"

"…It's Linbelle, sir."

And so, for her, at the young age of fifteen, one of those moments had come.

His appearance marked a turning point in her life.

He was different from the other nobles she had heard about. He listened to the common people. He understood the circumstances of the crime she was forced to commit. Yet, his favor had no ulterior motive.

He granted her a request.

The next day, Inellia, who’d been wandering outside the gate, entered the city on his order.

The gate, which had felt as insurmountable as a tall wall, was opened with ease by a simple exchange that insinuated a command, and the frightened soldiers did not dare to rebel against his authority.

It was why she immediately accepted his request to be a maid.

‘I'll become his maid.’

She knew what strength was because she knew what it meant to be powerless.

It had only been a day, but all that Linbelle had gone through was enough to change her mind.

However, another day passed, and Inellia was taken. No, she was kidnapped.

‘Because of me.’

The demonic monster had made no secret of going after Linbelle, and Inellia had chased after that demon for her.

It wasn’t until then she realized that ‘strength’ amounted to nothing in the face of real power. In the face of real power, intangible authority had no meaning and collapsed like a sand castle. And the same went for their enemy.

‘I'll save you.’

He was strong. He slaughtered dozens of monsters on his own, no trap holding him back.

That was how she came to admire him.

‘Strength. I need strength.’

She wanted to be as strong as him—to not be swept away by any waves, to stand her ground against unreasonable things.

It seemed to her as if there was nothing Allen couldn't do with his strength.

What ensued played out just as she had imagined. Allen successfully and safely rescued Inellia before anything bad could happen. Linbelle saw him deal with the chimera sorcerer, and without hesitation, leave his workshop with her. He exited the cave in such a short time after entering.

'Just like I thought, I need to become stronger. For me, for my mother, and…'

After the death of the chimera sorcerer, she wanted to repay his kindness.

Fortunately, he’d told her that she had talent.

"You’re a genius. You’ll be no match for anybody else—a real genius."

He said she was special.

She was someone who could handle prana, that noble power. She could definitely do it because she was different.

And she was pleased.

So, to be able to become as strong as he said she could be, to fulfill the expectations of the one she admired—that was why she swung her sword.

All day. All night.

To live up to his expectations. To be strong.

No matter how much she wanted to give up during that very first training session, and no matter how hard the work was, she didn't give up.

However—

"Why… why am I not good enough?"

Nothing had changed.

‘Because I didn’t put in enough effort. Because I’m not desperate enough.’

She slept less at night. She doubled her training time. She mixed training into her daily life.

The female knight who was in charge of her training praised her, as if she possessed a tremendous talent.

In that way, a month passed.

"Is the seat uncomfortable?"

She still couldn't handle prana.

She was desperate.

"…Hehe. The carriage is a little uncomfortable."

She had no choice but to laugh like a fool.

Her work—clumsy unlike Inellia’s—and her powers—unable to live up to expectations—sent her spiraling into a panic. She was afraid it would get in the way of her relationship with the one she so admired. She didn’t want to betray his seemingly infinite trust.

So she hid her desperation behind her cute act.

The same was true when the bandits stormed their carriage. 

"I can do it!"

She killed one of their ambushers with the skills she had learned.

There was no shock that came with the murder, just as there shouldn't have been. It was an ordeal to awaken the noble power that she tried so hard to master. Yet the opportunity slipped right through her fingers, trembling from her harsh training. 

She thought it demonstrated some minimal value.

But then—

"Stay with Inellia for a while."

Linbelle was left at the manor.

Alone again.

She realized it again in her desperation.

"…I need to prove my usefulness.”

She took up her sword once more. That feeling of alienation when left alone became jealousy. A desperation for usefulness became an obsession.

What even was a noble power?

"Pledge to the highest chivalry, take the oath, and keep promises until fulfilled."

It was a reference to the basic tenets of prana, a phrase that summarized the core of the noble power.

"What do I put into it?”

Prana consisted of one’s emotions. Of promises, oaths, declarations, and desires.

And yet—

"Why can't I do it? Why? Why? Why…?”

She couldn’t do it.

Her mother could take his orders and carry them out perfectly fine. Linbelle was the only one who was stagnant in this flowing world.

That was why she hung on to something else, so that she could prove to him that she had changed.

Nevertheless—

"Please, take me with you, sir."

Allen didn't take her.

There was no place for her on a witch-hunting journey. She couldn’t prove her value like when she took down the thief, and she wasn’t given a chance to even observe.

But he smiled at her as always.

"I need you to stay with Inellia. There’s something else I need instead."

Linbelle was in despair. She felt like she was going to be eaten by her own helplessness. She felt suffocated by his infinite goodwill.

And—

‘……’

Her mother, once more, worked stealthily at his very command. Just like everyone, everyone else but her.

"I…"

Linbelle's eyes flickered with a tint of darkness.

Her unfulfilled cravings went beyond obsession into madness.

Until finally—

* * *

* * * 

"Ah."

She opened her eyes. As soon as she woke up, she saw the ceiling of a familiar room.

"…Why am I here?"

Looking around, she was in one of the many rooms of the manor.

"I followed Sir Allen to the Heavenly Forest… and…?”

She didn't remember what she’d been doing.

She left the room at once and headed toward Sir Allen’s private study. If she went there, she would figure out everything that happened.

But the attitudes of the servants on her way there were strange.

"Y-you…"

"How are you—?!"

"Oh my god!"

They’d acted as if they’d seen a ghost. As if the dead had returned to life.

She gave up her desire to question them. First, she had to go to him.

The hallways of the manor felt strange.

‘Did something happen?’

Decorations that hadn’t been there a few days ago lined both sides of the hallway. The place she thought she knew well felt somewhat different. There were fewer people there than usual, like they were avoiding the path to her destination.

‘There’s no way.’

What was wrong with Allen?

Why was the Reinhart family avoiding him? 

Linbelle ignored her thoughts and quickly arrived at Allen's private study.

Knock, knock.

"Sir, it’s Linbelle. May I come in?”

No answer came from inside, but what she did hear was the faint sound of paper flipping through the gap of the door.

‘I guess he didn't hear me because he’s working.’

Was her mother carrying out his orders again?

Linbelle fought back the emotions plaguing her and spoke again. "Sir, it’s Linbelle.”

As she opened her mouth once again, the sound inside stopped. Then came a feeble, sharp answer that she never would’ve thought could come from Allen.

"It's not time to eat yet. What do you want? If it's not a big deal, then go away."

It was strange.

Allen wouldn't answer like that.

Linbelle suddenly remembered the foreign feeling within the manor and the way the other servants seemed to almost run away from her. 

She made her move, filled with an eerie foreboding. She would be punished for entering without permission, but she wanted to relieve her strangely shaky anxiety.

"Didn't I tell you to go away! What do you…"

What met her eyes appeared quite suddenly when she’d opened the door.

"…How are you—?! You! You! How can you be alive?! How? Oh my god…”

With an unshaven beard and a senile face full of spots, the man within the private study looked at her, his red eyes plagued with fear.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But not yet! I can't! I-I need to save my brother! Please, please…”

It was Allen Reinhart. He looked a little different, but it was definitely him.

“S— Sir…?”

"Go away. Just for now. Please, please… My brother is waiting for me. Please, please… I’ll pray if prayers are what you want…”

He stepped backward, his back to the wall as Linbelle approached, and immediately fell to the floor.

"Sir, what are you…”

Linbelle was confused. What was going on here? Why was he acting like this all of a sudden? She opened her mouth, trying to say something, anything. "…Sir, what's wrong? What’s going on… Where's my mom?"

"I'm sorry I made your mother die. So please…”

"Inellia? Your maid? What do you mean you made her die?”

"Please, I've never had a maid. I'll pay my debt someday. Just please, stop."

All she could gather was that there was a disconnect between their two separate conversations, so much so that they couldn’t understand each other.

"What about the others? Like Soned and Karik…”

"Did you take Soned, the merchant, too? Who’s Karik…?”

Only then did he realize something was wrong. Raising his thin face, he lifted his hand and snatched the medicine container from the desk, took a handful, and pushed it into his mouth.

Gulp.

In an instant, his pupils relaxed and his glazed gaze turned to stare blankly into the air.

How long did he stay like that?

He murmured at the sight of her, which still hadn’t disappeared after several minutes. "…It’s not a hallucination?" He had thought the hallucination was strange. It felt more vivid than the usual, yet somehow even stranger than that.

"No, more importantly…”

This one had come back to the manor as a corpse.

"…How are you alive?”

"Uh… I don't know?

Rumors spread throughout the manor that the late Linbelle had been revived.

Most who heard didn't believe it, yet they had no choice after witnessing her walking around the manor.

However, no one wanted to see her.

It was partly because they weren’t close to her, seeing as she had usually been busy training. But for those who saw her crushed body, they were in a hurry to avoid her, running from a certain ominous feeling.

The next day, Linbelle met with Allen again.

"…Is that it?"

She told him everything she knew.

"Yes."

How she got there. How he used to look and how he used to act. And even his relationship with Julius.

Allen laughed with a despondent look, inhaling the smoke from his pipe.

Puff. "So it was a failure in the end? Then everything I did…”

He seemed to have noticed something in her story. He was smart, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary for him to have extrapolated something from Linbelle’s stories.

“It was for nothing.”

He took a swig from a bottle of strong wine. The amber liquid burned his throat.

"Pwah! Reconciling with Julius? Killing the chimera sorcerer? Stopping a bandit attack? Ha, haha! That's just like me."

Slam!

The remaining liquid swirled around in the bottle, and Allen again took a deep huff of his pipe. She felt a little awkward seeing this. He didn’t usually touch alcohol, let alone tobacco.

"That really, really is just like me… I won't make that mistake again.”

It was obvious what he was thinking about.

Wasn’t he going to try to dig up something from what was there?

What’s more, he was inferring why the future ‘him’ acted like that.

So—

"I've already failed."

"What—"

The 'him' from the future existed and acted on his own. 

And Linbelle was with the future 'him'.

Which must mean one thing.

"This place is fake."

"What?"

She blinked her eyes in surprise.

"What do you mean this place is fake…? It looks so real."

"But it doesn't change that it's fake."

He smiled cynically, looking both despondent and desperate.

Time could never reverse itself.

But no matter what kind of trickery had been used, 'he' eventually went back to the past, and thus, changed his future.

Which meant that no matter how hard Allen struggled, he could never change the 'present'.

“So this place is either a carefully crafted fake or… Yes, it's just a fantasy. But hearing your story, maybe… .”

It must’ve been…

"The god… You said the last one you saw was the god, right? It must have something to do with him."

Whatever he did here, he wouldn't be able to save his brother.

"I'll figure it out. Since you said you're ‘my’ maid, I'll help you."

It was a death sentence.

He smiled sadly.

“……”

Linbell looked at him silently. This wasn’t the person she knew. Even so...

‘I still don't understand everything yet, but…’

Even if it wasn’t really the Allen whom she admired…

"Then, tell me your story, sir."

"…What?"

For the first time, he looked perplexed—Allen, who always displayed a calm demeanor, never showing a frown on his face.

"It's not fair if I’m the only one talking, right?”

"…What do I even say? Did 'I' tolerate you acting like that?"

"Yes, of course!"

He smirked at her bold answer. "Then… there's nothing I can't tell you."

Maybe about—ah, who could say—15 years ago.

When a younger brother became a rascal while trying to run from his stupid older brother's anger.

When an older brother swore to give everything for his younger brother.

When an idiot resolved to save his foolish brother.

That was how the story began.