Chapter 2
A Strange Regression
"The glorious Eldarion Empire's Black Knights! We greet our Commander!"
"...!"
As soon as she opened the door, she was startled by the loud shout.
What unfolded before her eyes were men lined up with mechanical precision.
They were standing at attention in the familiar Black Knights uniforms, tightly fitted to show off their rippling muscles without an inch of error.
-Flap, flap, flap.
The sound of mountain birds belatedly startled and fleeing due to the angry, loud shout echoed in the silence.
Clearly, the scene she had expected was Berl fighting off the fearless Monsters that had crossed the barrier, or someone skilled he had brought with him.
Lucia froze like a stone statue at the unexpected turn of events.
After a long silence, Berl, kneeling before the commander, raised his head.
"Commander Lucia. It's been a while."
Lucia lowered her gaze from the many men to look at him, drawn by his firm voice.
And she was surprised twice upon confirming his face.
'He looks exactly like him.'
Human genetics were truly fascinating.
Even the straight gaze that looked up at her was exactly like the Berl she knew.
"In the end... he left first, huh."
The reason his son, who looked exactly like him, had brought so many people here was one.
Lucia, who was unfazed by the fact that he, who was older but of a similar age, had passed away first, continued.
"You don't need to call me Commander like your father did."
"......Pardon?"
"I mean, there's no need to be formal. If it was for a funeral, there was no need to come all the way here. You've gone to unnecessary trouble."
Berl, startled by his commander's unexpected words, straightened his bent legs.
Then, as if a fire had broken out, he fidgeted and bowed his head deeply with a flustered gesture.
"I-I'm sorry! I didn't realize the atmosphere and did such a thing...!"
'Those nasty guys...! They should have given me a hint. No wonder they didn't show their faces today. If the Commander hadn't brought them herself, I would have kicked out these sly bastards a hundred times over!'
As Berl's frustrated thoughts revealed, the key figures who were supposed to participate in the Sword Master's surprise welcome ceremony, which he had carefully prepared, were nowhere to be seen.
Lucia sighed with pity as she looked at the man in front of her, who was utterly dejected.
Even his loyal habit of not letting a single unpleasant word pass by, despite it being his father's funeral, was exactly like his.
"Then prepare again and come out."
"Yes. Commander. Ah, Co, Commander. Ah, no. Captain? Boss...?"
Berl had broken down after his commander told him not to call her Commander.
Lucia went inside to change into formal attire, heading to the dressing room.
She wasn't thrilled at the thought of finding and putting on the Empire's uniform after so long, but she decided to be as formal as possible since it was the death of someone she had spent a long time with in the royal guard.
As she rolled her eyes to find the uniform, she saw a large mirror that wasn't originally in the dressing room.
It wasn't unfamiliar, as she had used it quite a bit during her days as a knight of the Imperial family to get the angles of her uniform right, but she had no memory of bringing it here.
With a strange feeling, she slowly approached the mirror and examined it.
But the figure reflected there was...
"...!"
What... the...
Lucia's whole body stiffened at the sight she couldn't possibly believe.
Instead of white hair and wrinkled skin, there was long, abundant black hair that reached down to her waist even when tied up, and lively skin with light cherry-colored cheeks.
And instead of faint pupils, there were bright blue eyes that looked like they had stars embedded in them.
There was no mistake.
It was her appearance in her twenties.
Lucia carefully stroked her face with a trembling hand, as if to confirm it.
And the conclusion she reached was,
"...In the end... have I lost my mind?"
The detachment of living over ninety years crumbled.
Was a natural death such a difficult thing?
Dying without being in her right mind was one of the most miserable deaths for Lucia herself, so she had hoped that her end would not be like this.
She despaired at the misery pressing down on her.
That's when it happened.
-Knock, knock.
"B-Boss. It's Berl."
Berl, who had timidly chosen to call her Boss after being told not to call her Commander.
He wasn't a narcissistic person who would name his son after himself.
She felt bitter once again at the foolish misunderstanding towards him.
Lucia barely held onto the mirror and didn't answer his voice, not knowing if it was a hallucination or a deranged recollection.
"I'm sorry to bother you while you're busy. Someone from the Imperial Palace is here now. It seems they've brought His Majesty's decree for you to enter the Imperial Palace tomorrow."
Enter the Imperial Palace?
That couldn't be.
She regretted listening to such nonsense.
Lucia had been holed up here for 40 years to escape from that place.
Besides, the current young Emperor wouldn't even know her face.
Then it was even stranger.
Even if she had dementia, there was no way she would long for and recall such meaningless times.
'...Could it be.'
Lucia looked at herself in the mirror again with suspicious eyes.
Still, her youthful appearance.
But that wasn't what she was curious about.
She roughly pulled aside the blouse she was wearing.
Then, she examined the scars that were tattooed all over her body.
'This is from the Heberni Valley War in the frontier, this is from the Monsters of the Palaille Mountains... this is...'
What Lucia was examining was the unforgettable history and evidence of memories engraved on her body about the past.
But, as expected.
'It's not there.'
The scar she was looking for was the last scar she had received from the most ferocious and terrifying Monster known to inhabit these mountains.
The scar on her shoulder, which she had gotten while killing that Monster, had disappeared without a trace.
Her suspicion, which she had only half-expected, grew even stronger.
She hurriedly opened the door and examined the house.
"Co, Commander!? Ah, no, Bo, Boss! No matter how much I respect you, I wouldn't do such a thing...!"
Berl, who had been waiting in front of the door, turned away in a hurry with a reddened face, perhaps because the half-open blouse was revealing her cleavage.
Regardless of what reaction the flustered man showed, Lucia walked around the house with a serious face to confirm her suspicion.
It was a familiar place.
Was that why she hadn't noticed even though she felt a sense of incongruity?
As she had expected, this was the Imperial Palace training camp dormitory where she had lived for nearly 20 years while working as a knight of the Imperial family.
'...So that's it.'
A strange word and story that had been passed down in songs by old bards who wandered the world for generations.
Regression.
"Berl, what's the year?"
Berl, who had been turned away in the corner, answered the commander's question immediately.
"Ye, yes! Th-That's... the 5th year of the New Empire!"
The 5th year of the New Empire.
That was the year Lucia had been training right after the war and had risen to the rank of Sword Master.
Lucia sent Berl out and stared at herself with a dazed mind, like a stopped clock, overwhelmed by thoughts.
She stood frozen in front of the mirror for so long.
As time passed, a ray of sunlight that streamed in through the window illuminated the white, dried marks on her smooth eyes.
That unfamiliar thing in her memory was a tear stain.
The only regret in last night's fleeting memories.
Just small and white.
A child who was still too young to even be called a girl.
'...Mom...?'
The faint words heard from that child's mouth at that time and the small, golden, clear eyes of the child were compared to the descending sunlight, making her feel dizzy.
If her memory was correct, she would be given a Sword Master-level mission by the Emperor tomorrow.
That was the first button of the Saintess's sacrifice, which she had regretted so much.
Had she finally realized the destiny of the opportunity given by heaven?
Only then did everything that had been wandering in Lucia's mind begin to come together.
She roughly wiped away the dryness at the corners of her eyes with her rough hands and sparkled her eyes with a strong will.
*
Late at night,
The Third Training Center on the hill directly behind the Imperial Palace.
Lucia was looking out the window there.
To be exact, she was looking at the brightly lit Imperial Palace below the training center window.
"......"
If she remembered correctly, she had to report the results of her training to the Emperor early tomorrow morning.
And the mission she would receive.
'...To think that a special-grade mission was something like that.'
Before the regression, there was no mention of the Saintess in the special-grade order she would receive from the Emperor.
That's why she had thought it was just a mission to take some noble from a certain kingdom who had secretly run away to the temple.
But it turned out to be the Saintess's escort...
No, the word escort felt sickening to attach to it.
That path was the first step to sealing the Saintess in a miserable way.
'To think that I would do that child with my own hands...'
"......"
She swept away her darkened face in the silence and shook her head as if to come to her senses.
'I must not repeat the sins of that day.'
Lucia immediately looked at the paper in her hand.
That paper was a document she had secretly infiltrated the temple and brought back as soon as she came to her senses.
Lucia, who had learned the location of confidential documents after becoming the Commander-in-Chief.
Remembering that location, she went there again and examined the Saintess's sealing plan that had been in progress so far.
As expected, there were quite a few documents containing information about the child, more than 50 in total.
But according to her memory, there were 7 Saintess candidates.
Perhaps they hadn't yet narrowed down the 7 children who would produce Divine Power from among these many children.
It wouldn't be difficult for her, who had gone to pick up the child, to pick out the information of the real Saintess from among them.
The content of the temple's prophecy was simple, like a heroic tale.
A prophecy that the Saintess would appear and solve everything.
The reason why everyone believed it, despite its simplicity, was because the black contamination in the prophecy had actually appeared as soon as the New Empire was established.
That black contamination rotted the land, creating a great famine, and spread to herald the end of the continent.
And the Saintess appeared as prophesied, as much as that belief.
The sacred tree that appeared with her quickly restored nature, and it created the foundation for a prosperous and peaceful empire.
It was truly resolved as prophesied.
But.
The truth wasn't all that.
In the confidential documents that she saw after becoming the Commander-in-Chief, there was the original text of the prophecy that she didn't know about, and accurate information interpreting the Saintess.
The day the Saintess was born, black hair, until the day of awakening.
She understood why the temple had hidden that information.
Because it would be difficult to protect the Saintess if it was revealed to the general public.
But after checking the records that followed, Lucia despaired.
It was recorded that the Saintess, who had awakened in the Tree of Life, was sealed in the Tree of Life in order to extract the Saintess's life force.
...Alive.
It was a terrible truth.
Before she could even come out of the shock, Lucia had a question.
Clearly, according to the interpreted prophecy, there was only the Saintess, and no sacred tree anywhere.
So no matter how she looked at it, it was clear that someone had planned this with the intention of taking the Saintess's power and profiting from it.
But at the time, the imperial family, who would have benefited the most, had short lives, and almost everyone in the temple had changed.
And no specific names were written anywhere in the document.
In the midst of that bleak truth, the only fact that remained for her was that Lucia herself had led that pitiful Saintess to a dog's death.
Even if she didn't know, she couldn't forgive herself for protecting the people who were fattened by the Saintess's death, along with her guilt.
That was the real reason why she had lived a solitary life for the rest of her life.
Lucia threw the paper with the real Saintess's information in her hand into the fireplace.
The beginning of the work that had tormented her for half her life quickly caught fire and turned to ashes, fluttering carelessly.
She put her hand on the sword at her waist and gave it strength.
Whether it was will, destiny.
Even if it wasn't even that, but a boring god's prank, it didn't matter.
If she could save that child at this moment, and thus create an opportunity to wash away her sins.
Lucia strengthened her resolve and took a step towards the place where the young Saintess was.
