POV - Zero
The night sky is beautiful. The moon lights the ground with its gentle glow, and the stars captivate me. For once, there's no light pollution from Pyralis - just pure, untouched nature.
My eyes stopped bleeding hours ago, but they still burn. Everything hurts - my soul, my head, my body. The pain is constant.
So much suffering. So much death. And for what? War? No... for nothing. We fought for nothing and became nothing.
Why is the world so cruel to me? Always taking everything when I least expect it, never even leaving a goodbye note. Am I cured, or is this just life? Has it always been this way? The world gives and takes, forces you to rebuild just so it can tear everything down again and again and again...
I'm just... tired.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe the world is punishing me for Mr. K. I guess karma finally caught up with me.
"Hehehe..."
"..."
I hate it. All of it. This stupid world. WHY do I have to see all this? I witnessed worse during the apocalypse, but that was their doing, not ours. Not that it matters now.
Nothing matters. This world is dead to me. My friends, the family I built - all gone again. No more knights or elections to worry about. All gone. But I still have one thing left.
"Isn't that right, Shadow?"
To think he injected me with his blessing. I guess we're even now... sort of. Why did it have to be him who gave me a reason to live? There were better, saner candidates among the Knights. But him? Seriously? I feel insulted.
"Asshole."
It's disturbing to smile under this tree with its hanging bodies, but I can't stop. It's too funny!
"Heheheh."
I guess I won't kill myself. I'll live - until someone kills me or I lose the little Shadow inside me.
"Pftt hehehehehe."
God, I'm awful at this.
"...where should I go now? Any ideas, guys?"
The corpses don't reply. Maybe I wasn't polite enough? Let's try again.
"Please sir! Do you have any idea?! Please, I really need guidance!"
Still nothing. Guess they don't like me. Meh, whatever. I'll ignore them too.
"You know what? Screw you guys. I'm leaving this stupid village. Going back to my cave!"
Standing up is difficult, but I manage by leaning on the tree for support.
"Oh, before I forget - thanks for donating your blood to science. I'll make sure to use it to power my cave."
I hold out my hand and let my mana seep into the blood and bodies, gathering it in my palm. After a few seconds, I write the enchantment:
"ᛋ ᛉ ᚠ ᚹ ᚨ"
The blood solidifies into a crystal - a blood crystal. A forbidden technique I learned from a classmate during my enchantment studies. I never thought it would be this easy. Now I know how to get more.
"Thank you all for your donations. I'll never forget this... never."
Pocketing the crystal, I walk back to where it all began - the bunker. On the way, I pass that child's body again. This time... I feel nothing. Maybe because I've seen this before in my old world - hidden behind the facades of glorious soldiers and their victorious smiles after massacres. It's sick. Vile. Disgusting. Through these atrocities, I've realized something I overlooked for years.
Through these atrocities, I've realized something fundamental I'd overlooked for years. Society - this grand illusion we call civilization - it was always the root poison. Not individuals, not even governments, but the very construct of society itself. That invisible hand that molds us into obedient cattle while pretending to 'elevate' us.
Look at how it operates! Layer upon layer of hypocrisy dressed as virtue. We build schools that teach conformity instead of thought. We create economies that reward exploitation over creation. We establish justice systems that protect power, not people. The grand joke is that we call this progress while the machine grinds human souls into fertilizer for its endless growth.
And the most brilliant trick? Making us believe we're flawed for not fitting its mold. When the factory produces broken goods, you don't blame the products - you question the machinery. But society points at the mangled souls it creates and says 'See? This is why we need more control.'
It demands perfection while being fundamentally imperfect. It preaches morality while running on exploitation. It celebrates freedom while building taller cages. The ultimate self-eating snake, consuming its own children to sustain the illusion of purpose.
What's most terrifying isn't its cruelty, but how willingly we participate. How eagerly we police each other, enforce its rules, and sacrifice our humanity at its altar. We crucify our prophets and elevate our jailers, generation after generation, too terrified to imagine alternatives.
But don't you see? That's why I'm here. Why I was reborn into this wretched world. The universe doesn't make mistakes - it sent me here, showed me both worlds, let me suffer through their collapses for a reason. I'm the only one who's seen the full cycle, from your so-called civilization's heights to its bloody collapse. Twice.
What if we burned it all down? Not just the institutions, but the very idea that humans need to be ruled by abstract systems. What if we acknowledged that every civilization in history has been a pyramid of suffering, and stopped rebuilding the same cursed structure with different paint?
From the ashes, we could grow something organic. Not a society, but a community. Not laws, but understanding. Not rulers, but... me. Because someone needs to tend the garden, and who better than the one who was chosen to witness its rot? The one who died in one world's collapse and woke to find another's carcass? This isn't arrogance - it's simple logic. When a patient keeps relapsing, you don't ask the disease to govern the cure.
A virtuous world wouldn't need complexity. Just clear judgment. No more moral gray areas - just light and darkness. No more debates about right and wrong - just my word as law. The simplicity would be beautiful in its brutality. I didn't ask to be reborn with this knowledge, this clarity, but since fate put me here, since I alone remember both what was and what could be... how could I refuse this burden?
After all, every attempt at fairness has failed. Every experiment in equality has collapsed. Maybe what humanity really needs isn't another chance, but a prophet-king who's lived through the consequences. And if that makes me a bad person... well, the last virtuous man died with my old world
---
The bunker is as dark as ever, but my enhanced vision pierces the blackness. I step over the bone pile and descend deeper, reaching the dead park.
Standing at its center, I make the crystal float.
"Shater."
It explodes in a small burst, releasing mana that I channel into the base's systems. Lights flicker on throughout the facility.
[System online. Identifying individual... Hello Master Overseer—]
"Call me... Archon."
[Hello Master Archon. How may I assist you today?]
"Where is the quantum computer?"
A door to the left slides open.
[This way please, Master Archon.]
As I approach, I notice all the ceiling turrets remain intact despite the bunker's decay - unusual for a place this rundown.
"What happened here?"
[Unknown. This unit's data has been corrupted since... unknown.]
"Figures."
The computer room contains only chairs and monitors. I take a seat.
[Booting QC.]
The screen displays a map, but it's wrong. The continents are... different. Unrecognizable.
"What the hell is this?!"
[Master Archon, this is the current continental map from our satellite feeds.]
"What?!"
I knew technology had regressed during my sleep. I realized that when I saw no battleships or skyscrapers in the village. But for geography itself to change? That implies an unimaginable timespan.
"How long was I asleep?"
[Master Archon has been in stasis for...]