Chapter 69
The way he stood in my path almost made me want to applaud.
If nothing else, he had persistence.
Or maybe it was just inertia, not persistence.
"Who’s deliberately trying to die? I just happened to mess up and die a few times."
A little—no, that was just an excuse.
It felt strange, hearing someone so openly declare they would keep me alive.
Not out of rage, but exhaustion.
"Accidentally blowing your head off more than ten times is quite a feat."
"Already double digits? What were you doing while my head was flying off?"
"Nothing. Just watching."
"How cold."
"Trying to stop you wouldn’t have meant anything."
"Then doesn’t blocking my way now mean nothing too?"
"Probably."
"Then move."
"No."
I pulled out a dagger and swung it carelessly.
I didn’t put much effort into it, assuming he’d dodge—but it left a long cut across Theo’s face.
A clean, handsome face could look rather pitiful with a big enough wound.
"Not dodging?"
Theo simply touched the wound, then let out a small laugh.
Yeah, something was definitely broken in his head.
Or maybe he was just pretending it didn’t hurt at all, like those people with inflated egos who acted tough even with broken bones.
"How long are you going to keep this up?"
"Until my anger fades so much that I feel nothing at all."
"Then go ahead. But listen to one thing."
"Oh? When I tried to say something like that ages ago, you ignored me completely and even slapped me."
Calling it a slap was putting it lightly.
I still remembered getting slammed into a wall.
But I wasn’t feeling particularly emotional about it now.
It just felt like another event from the past.
Bargains could only happen when both parties were equal.
And I was definitely not in a position to bargain with Theo.
I had spent years knowing he could blow my head off at any moment.
Then why was he reacting like this?
Maybe he had realized that killing me wouldn’t change anything.
I’d just come back.
I had never once managed to save Alicia, but maybe I could.
Time solved everything, after all.
Whether the solution was good or bad was irrelevant—at least it erased the problem.
Or let it fester until it exploded.
"...What’s your point?"
How miserable must he have been to fall so far from the composed, righteous Theo I once knew?
But I thought this suited him better.
This wasn’t the perfect protagonist he was designed to be.
This was just Theo.
People show their true nature in difficult situations—that sort of cliché.
"I like your shamelessness. Fine, let’s hear it."
"Leave people alone. No matter what. Even if they sheltered demons, loved demons, or protected demons."
I was a little surprised.
So it was fine to kill every demon as long as humans were left untouched?
I wasn’t particularly interested in harming humans anyway.
I already knew plenty of places packed with demons.
"What about the demons?"
"Not my problem."
"It was your problem not long ago."
"Not anymore."
"What changed—no, wait."
I needed to use sharper words.
Right now, Theo felt like some dull, mechanical thing that just followed a programmed response.
"Did you fall that far?"
"More happened than you realize.
But you wouldn’t remember properly."
That wistful gaze made me sick.
Theo pulled a small vial from his pocket and splashed it on his face.
It didn’t seem like a potion.
He probably wasn’t overflowing with money.
He must have just been lucky enough to get his hands on some medicine somewhere.
Watching the wound sizzle and heal, I didn’t feel like mocking him for using such a drug.
Maybe—just maybe—Theo was also trying to save Alicia in his own way.
Mocking someone trying to save my family would make me a lunatic.
At the very least, I wasn’t that kind of person.
"What do you think the others would say if they saw us like this?"
Theo murmured, staring blankly into space.
By "others," he probably meant Ethel, Isabel, or people like them.
"They’d probably just assume we’ve lost our minds because of the demons and try to be considerate. They’re needlessly kind like that."
Theo let out a hollow laugh at the word "kind."
"Don’t you ever feel like crying when you say things like that?
Or does guilt creep up on you?"
Had my ego inflated after turning back time so many times?
Maybe I had become like a middle schooler who, after finally forming an identity of their own, started losing their sense of judgment.
Not that it mattered. Turning back time wasn’t exactly a common ability.
The problem was that nothing ever changed.
But at least I knew what was coming.
An ego, huh? Maybe it would be better if I didn’t have one at all.
"Not at all."
"I want to cry."
Or maybe he had developed bipolar disorder.
This was all because of a weak mind.
If life got too hard, the right thing to do was to numb it with alcohol and cigarettes—not fall apart.
And if that didn’t work, there were always drugs.
Eventually, the craving would be too strong to resist.
That strange discomfort would make it easier to forget unpleasant memories.
Still, I wouldn’t recommend drugs.
Even in a world with magic, the best they had were opium and the occasional cannabis.
Nothing too useful.
When you’re in pain, sure, but if you’re healthy, it barely does anything.
Just smells terrible.
Potions were expensive.
I didn’t know why I used them so recklessly in the past, but I didn’t see the point anymore.
Everything I needed was neatly stored in my head.
"Then just sit here and lament your unchanging future.
I won’t comfort you, though. Ahaha."
"I was going to do that anyway."
His reaction was so predictable that it was boring.
"How dull."
I meant it.
That youthful energy he once had was completely gone.
Just as he said, Theo sat against the wall, burying his face in his knees and clutching his head.
Watching him, I felt nothing but complicated emotions.
Was I the strange one, or was he?
Or had we both been strange from the start?
"Hey, senior."
"What."
"You’re really not going to stop me?"
"...Yeah."
I had a feeling this man had lost his purpose.
Before, he had a goal—saving someone, stopping me from slaughtering demons.
That goal had kept him moving.
Just like how I kept going because I had a purpose—to wipe out every last demon.
A man who had lost his purpose was simply pitiful.
***
If left alone, Ellen would kill demons by the dozens.
She had once accidentally shot Ethel, then spent an entire day hugging the corpse and crying, only to forget about it and continue her massacre.
She remembered where the demons hid, but not the people she killed.
And I would stand by, watching.
Isabel, Diana, and even Ethel would come to me, begging me to stop Ellen.
But stopping her meant killing her.
Her deaths varied.
She was the only person I knew who could die in such creative ways.
Although, technically, you can only die once.
It was as if she had contracted some disease where she had to kill demons or die herself.
I still remembered something she had once told me.
"You don’t need to understand the other person—just force your own view on them."
In a repeating timeline, forcing things was useless.
If it didn’t work, you just tried again.
I recalled a distant past when I had run with all my might to reach the capital in time.
I had made it when the moon was at its peak.
Now, I wondered if I had made a mistake.
For the first time, I had started to understand Ellen.
Until then, I had only seen the aftermath—the ruins, the bloodstains, the empty husks of people left behind.
But when I finally arrived in time, I saw it with my own eyes.
Demons were impossible to see as equals.
What I had heard and imagined paled in comparison to reality.
There were too many of them. I couldn’t stop them alone.
And they didn’t care how many of their own I killed—they just kept burning the city down.
Like it was their fate, just as Ellen saw killing demons as hers.
That was probably when I gave up trying to protect them.
Exhausting.
This world moved according to a set path.
The only variables were Ellen and me.
Maybe we were ghosts of a past that shouldn’t exist.
And yet, Ellen moved as if she had a clear purpose.
Like a puppet possessed by something.
And the funniest part?
She truly believed she was moving by her own will.