A Regressor's Bucket List

Chapter 224 : The North (3)

“Hoo.”

The cigarette I smoked alone for the first time in a while tasted bitter.

Along with the hazy smoke, a colorful and subtle emotion that couldn't be described in a single word scattered.

…Then it soon subsided.

The half-burnt, short cigarette butt seemed to overlap with the current situation.

‘…….’

It was obvious, but there was no such thing as the Saintess's prophecy.

The fact that she was on the cross was something I knew because I had seen it myself, and the other things were not learned through prophecy but through conversation in the outer castle prison when I went to meet her.

That I was the Saintess's spokesperson, and that she had left me a prophecy about future affairs.

Was also not true.

It was just a device to more smoothly convey the facts I knew from my experience pre-regression.

I had simply used the Saintess as a medium to deliver knowledge of a future that shouldn't exist.

In the first place, if the Saintess truly had the ability to leave prophecies, there would have been no reason for her to test the possibility of her own Resurrection through execution.

She would have known her own end in advance.

From the very beginning, 'prophecy' was classified as a unique power of the Messiah, along with the authority of Resurrection.

Again, it was obvious, but there was no Resurrection either.

She died, and after confirming the absence of Resurrection, she was cremated by the Order.

I had told Louis and Ludwig that there would be a Resurrection someday, if not right away, but there was no such thing.

She would never come back to life.

However, that didn't mean the whole story was riddled with lies.

There was no reason for me to go out of my way to call those two here just to spew lies.

While the format might have been mixed with lies in the process of borrowing the Saintess's name, the content itself was all true.

That the Northern Subjugation War was prepared, and that it was entirely Einstein's trap.

Even the fact that all of it was inside my head.

Hoo—

"...Did I do the right thing?"

In fact, if things had gone according to the original plan, the Order's Northern Subjugation plan would have been abolished.

According to the original plan, the Saintess was supposed to escape with me, not be executed at the Guardian Cross Order's execution ground.

Saving the Saintess by helping her escape meant the abolition of the 'Northern Subjugation' plan, which was both a trap Isaac Einstein had painstakingly created and a plan the Order had long desired and planned.

The reason was simple.

One of the reasons the Saintess had wanted to be executed was precisely because of that Northern Subjugation War.

The North was a region the Order had lost to the Demon King.

While the fronts of the War against Demons were somehow being maintained in other regions, the northern front had collapsed after several Constellations belonging to the Order Territory were hunted by the Demon King's hand, pushing them back to their current location.

The number of Constellations the Demon King himself had sortied to hunt reached a staggering twenty, and more than half of them were in the Order Territory, classified as the North.

Of course, it wasn't simply that the Order was pushed back by military might; rather, it was the result of several unfavorable conditions overlapping.

In any case, it was a definite fact that the Order's army had bad memories of the North.

That was also why the Saintess thought her death could work favorably for the 'Northern Subjugation War' that the Order was planning.

The time when the Saintess first performed miracles and began her activities strangely coincided with the time the northern fronts began to collapse one by one.

If the Saintess were executed and failed to resurrect, it would give the Order a justification to boost morale and press on with the Northern Subjugation War when it began again.

Namely, to publicly declare that the 'Saintess' was the cause of the northern defeat.

It wasn't a difficult task.

The dead tell no tales, and the narrative was already perfectly set up.

The time when the perfectly fine North began to collapse coincided with the time the Saintess began her activities.

The result was that the Saintess, in fact, had failed to resurrect, no different from the other 'self-proclaimed Resurrectors'.

Of course, if one were to nitpick, it wasn't impossible to demand more concrete evidence.

But that much could be crushed and ignored with the Order's power.

In the end.

Since the Order had initially set the start of the Northern Subjugation War for right after the Saintess's execution, if she had disappeared without being executed, the Northern Subjugation War would have had no choice but to be abolished.

Even in the first timeline, my past life, Louis had said that the start of the Northern Subjugation War was set for right after the Saintess's punishment.

…Of course, for some reason, a problem occurred in the south, and the actual start was pushed back to about three years after the Saintess's death.

Thinking about it now, I suspected Isaac had deliberately caused an incident to delay the timing.

【It was supposed to take a bit more time… but I wanted to see how you'd react, Junior, so I moved it up a bit. Hope you take it well.】

Considering what he said in the Darkest Dungeon, it seemed he was originally scheduled to take a little more time to complete the installation of his trap.

Anyway.

For those reasons, the original plan was to help the Saintess escape and prevent the Northern Subjugation War from starting at all.

Of course, doing so would draw more of Isaac Einstein's attention, and carelessly attracting his notice could be an extremely dangerous thing.

In the first place, the moment I saved the Saintess, his plan was as good as ruined.

My calculation was that since it was already ruined, standing out more wouldn't make much of a difference.

But contrary to my plans, the Saintess did not escape.

In the end, she decided to go to the execution block by her own will, and the execution proceeded.

As a result, from Isaac Einstein's perspective, his plan had succeeded.

Of course, since the plan to hunt the Saintess was tied in a series with the 'Northern Subjugation War', strictly speaking, it would be more accurate to say it was half-successful rather than a complete success.

In any case, it was certain that Isaac Einstein would be letting his guard down to some extent at this point.

【I'll be sending you a gift soon, Junior.】

【I don't know your plan exactly, Junior, but you'll probably have a hard time with it. There aren't many things I've put that much effort into.】

I wasn't sure, but it seemed he had intended to see how I, who had spouted nonsense like a 'Demon King Hunt', would move.

Since there were no incidents during the Saintess's execution, from Isaac Einstein's perspective, I must have planned something and failed.

Or, he would have no choice but to think I hadn't understood him at all, making his prior visit pointless.

That was also why I decided to push for the Northern Subjugation War, even going so far as to borrow the Saintess's name with a lie.

『…Then, as you said, Mr. Seo U-jin, I will not report this to the Order for now. We will proceed with the Northern Subjugation War as originally planned.』

『Yeah. Please do that for me.』

『…Aish. I still can't believe this. I don't know if this is right.』

*Shrug*—

『You don't have to believe me.』

『…….』

『If you don't mind the entire Order going down the drain.』

『…Seriously, I don't know who you take after, but you're one slick bastard.』

If I were to look for a chance to deal a blow to Isaac Einstein, there was no better timing than now.

Now, while he was off guard, was the perfect opportunity.

‘I found out just in case… I didn't think it would be used like this.’

It wasn't in the original plan.

I had learned about the developments of the Northern Subjugation War and the reasons for its defeat before my Regression, just in case.

If things went according to plan, there would be no reason for the Northern Subjugation War to happen again, but I knew all too well that not everything goes as planned.

Louis had mentioned that the point when the Order began to fall apart and the air of defeat started to linger was around the time of the Saintess's execution.

In other words, he said it was during the 'Northern Subjugation War', so I thought that an event this big might be forced to happen by some restraining force, crushing any variables my intervention created.

…And it seemed that was exactly what happened.

Of course, I knew how reckless it was to engage in a battle of wits with Isaac Einstein.

After all, he was the man who commanded the Demon King's Army, a force that occupied half the continent.

He was an exceptional figure in the Demon King's Army who surpassed numerous Demon race dukes to wield the most powerful influence after the Demon King himself.

Since he had earned that title with his intellect rather than pure strength, fighting a battle of wits with him on equal footing was not much different from the word 'impossible'.

That is.

…On equal footing, that is.

‘…This time is different.’

The course of the Northern Subjugation War, Isaac Einstein's tendencies, and the traps he set.

And how to break them.

Besides those, there was so much more information in my head that I couldn't mention it all.

It was difficult to quantify, but considering all the various conditions combined, I just couldn't imagine losing this time.

He may have set the board, but I was someone who had already seen through the entire game, and I even knew how a person like Isaac Einstein would react in this situation.

If I lose here, I'm a fucking idiot.

He was a guy who had likely never experienced a proper 'defeat' before, but I thought I could probably make him feel the sting of it this time.

Aside from that, it was a mountain I had to climb eventually to start implementing the 'Demon King Hunt' plan anyway.

Crumple—

I folded the burnt-out cigarette butt in half and threw it on the ground.

When I stepped on it lightly, a soft sensation was accompanied by a wisp of smoke leaking out from underneath.

Stomp—

Grind, grind—

The Gateway Zone, Kunlun, Murim, the Darkest Dungeon, and now, this Guild House.

If my journey so far has been a process of preparing to change the future using the cheat-like element of 'Regression'.

The Northern Subjugation War.

This was the first turning point where I would gather everything I've prepared and truly begin to twist events.

In other words.

If I had to give it a name, it would be a 'singularity'.

In fact, this was where the important part began.

I had walked a path very different from the original plan, and I suspected that from now on, completely different developments from what I expected would unfold.

Besides that, there were plenty of other things to worry about.

But one thing was certain: despite everything, what I had to achieve remained the same.

'Demon King Hunt.'

And…….

'Victory in the War against Demons.'

From here on, I was going to crush them all.

The first would be Isaac Einstein.

To that arrogant bastard who loves to play games from high above everyone's heads.

"...You eat shit too, Isaac Einstein."

I was going to give him a 'big fuck you'.