Chương 39: Henry’s Memories (2)

Asher had taken three lethal blows from the demon Helmmore in Iris's stead. Henry had sensed the boy's feelings for the party's healer, but he also believed Asher would have done the same for anyone else in the group. Though Henry didn't think the boy truly deserved the title of Hero, he respected Asher's contributions nonetheless. Thus, he was the one to suggest using the Elixir of Resurrection. The first person to voice an objection was Iris, the very woman whose life Asher had just saved.

"It breaks my heart too," she said, tears streaming down her face, "but we are at a critical juncture. What if one of the actual Heroes is gravely wounded later? We've come too far; we can't afford that kind of risk." The rest of the party agreed, and Henry didn't push the matter further. In war, there is sacrifice; he was a soldier, and he was accustomed to this reality. Besides, deep down, he had never truly considered Asher his comrade. However, after Asher died, the others began to fall one by one.

The precious Elixir they had been too stingy to use sat forgotten; they didn't even have the chance to uncork it. Despite its name, the "Elixir of Resurrection" couldn't truly bring back the dead. It only granted a sliver of survival to those on the brink of passing. The subjugation failed just steps away from the final door. Then, time wound backward. At first, Henry felt a wave of relief, knowing he had a chance to fix his mistakes.

What he didn't know was that the previous quest would be the only time the Hero's party would ever set foot in the Demon King's castle. From the second loop onward, Asher Griffin never accidentally appeared at the Investiture ceremony again. Upon inquiring, Henry learned that the boy had died of illness on the very Awakening Day. The third attempt was a total failure. The party was trapped and died within a dungeon. Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

The fourth time, the entire team contracted a bizarre plague and died in agony, one after another. The fifth was yet another disaster. Andrew Matthew was stabbed to death in bed by a mistress; down one member, the party failed to react to an ambush. That time, they hadn't even managed to leave Marbour. The sixth... the seventh... By the fiftieth loop, it was still failure. Even though Henry tried to memorize the exact locations of every monster legion, avoiding one trap only led them into another.

Within the Demon King's domain, nothing followed logic. A single minor change was enough to make the entire sequence of events unpredictable. Henry felt himself slipping into madness. He had tried everything. He had trained with a ferocity bordering on insanity, but the result remained the same. Henry began experimenting with the most extreme measures. He became lazy and decadent. His reputation plummeted, and his physical prowess regressed without restraint. He was no longer chosen as a Hero Candidate.

Yet, even then, the Hero's party - with a replacement member - still failed. Time continued to wind back to the beginning. He even resorted to forbidden arts, only to go mad and be struck down by the other Heroes. He began to investigate the deeper, underlying causes: the filthy secrets the nobility and royalty hid to polish their reputations using the Hero's name; the dark underbelly of the Church as they manipulated the people's faith for profit.

On more than a few occasions, he didn't die at the hands of monsters, but at the hands of the very people he was supposed to protect while bearing the title of "Hero" on his shoulders. But he couldn't change everything. He was only one man. After seventy or eighty loops - he lost count - Henry stopped tallying the resets. He began to believe he might never escape this miserable, eternal cycle. This wasn't a blessing from the Goddess; it was a curse. He no longer believed in the Goddess, either.

What kind of deity would allow those with rotten character to become revered Heroes? If the gods had eyes, why would they let the Church exploit their name for personal gain? Henry wanted to give up. For the last ten loops, he had barely thought at all. He went through the motions, became a Hero, and died under the claws of some monster. No effort, no calculation. If this was an inescapable destiny, then he would simply accept it.

Occasionally, Henry would suddenly remember one person - the one he had once deemed unworthy of being a Hero, a boy who did nothing more than run errands. Yet, that boy's presence had allowed that hopeless party to reach the Demon King's castle, a feat Henry had never managed to replicate. Asher Griffin. But since that first reset, the boy had always died before anything even began. And Henry knew he couldn't do what Asher had done. If he could survive, would things be different? Henry asked himself many times.

So, when he spotted a small, thin teenager trailing behind Jullius at the celebratory banquet following the Debut Ceremony, Henry had to try his absolute hardest to hide his shock. After more than a hundred loops, Asher Griffin had finally "returned."