Chapter 1

PROLOGUE They were filthy, foul, and nauseating. The people around me made me sick to my stomach. They smiled as they stabbed me in the back, grinned as they trod on my kindness, and laughed as they filled my glass with poison. To think I fought so hard for them. What an idiot I’d been. I wish I could go back and punch myself in the face, but it’s too late for that now. It’s all over. I guess you could make the argument that it was my fault for not being smart enough to realize this sooner. Maybe this was inevitable. But I’m not convinced. As my lifeblood dripped from the blade sticking out of my chest, I looked around at my former friends—no, at those things I thought were my friends. “…We did it.” “Geez, what a monster.” “Now it’s over. The evil has been vanquished, as God willed.” Why did I ever trust these lying snakes? All I wanted to do was believe in people, and for that, I paid the price. If I get a second chance, I won’t make the same mistake. Next time, I’ll make sure they all die. Kill the princess. Kill the knights. Kill the villagers. Kill the wizard. Kill the fighter. Kill the priestess. Kill the martial artist. Kill the assassin. Kill the dancer. Kill the merchant. Kill the king. Kill the queen. Kill the aristocrat. I would see them all perish. Make them suffer as much as possible. I would take this grudge and etch it deeply onto my heart, so that I would never, ever forget it. System message: “Holy Sword of Retribution” unlocked. As my consciousness faded into nothingness, I heard a voice. My body, however, would not move a centimeter. “Hey, where did we go wrong? …Why couldn’t we stay in those good times forever? Was there nothing we could have done? …If we meet again, could we do things differently…?” I remembered the face of the girl I’d been forced to kill. She lay impaled as I was now, a powerless smile on her face. She was the one they’d called evil. “Heh. Ah-ha— Hack— Kah-ha-ha-ha-ha!” I cackled as I coughed up blood. It really was a laughable affair. They had called her the enemy—my enemy, but in the end, she’d been my only real friend. Even a clown couldn’t have devised a more pathetic outcome. “Ack! You’re still alive?!” “Fret not. He has no strength remaining. The purification, however, will require a little more time.” “I suppose so. All he can do now is glare at us.” I felt their sneering looks. They were right. The blood loss was already causing my thoughts to blur. What I said next was more of an instinctual reaction than anything else.