'The War God's Seven Authorities?'
Something like a phantom voice reached my ears.
It was something about the War God's Authorities, much like the way followers of evil gods claimed to hear their evil god's voice.
'No need to say it out loud.'
I didn't believe in the War God to begin with.
No, I couldn't acknowledge it.
"It seems the afterlife doesn't reproduce even where the piece-of-shit god's necklace is."
Just as Father had adamantly refused to let me call him Father, I in turn adamantly refused to regard the War God as a proper god.
That didn't change even after I became the Mercenary King.
A god that I, someone who'd roamed the entire continent, had never seen nor heard of was unmistakably a piece-of-shit god.
Had I not seen plenty of people ruin their lives serving piece-of-shit gods like that?
Even Father, a supreme swordsman, had wasted most of his life serving the War God.
'He had the skill to eat the Ten Great Knights of the Continent for breakfast, and yet—.'
Father had been a perfectly unknown knight.
His standing as a clergyman was no different.
"Good grief....... To the very end—."
Father squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them.
A father who wouldn't let me call him Father.
A son who would never treat the War God as a god.
This was a matter of a man's pride, plain and simple.
"Consistency is what matters."
"I have no intention of losing either."
Father grinned and held his hand out toward me.
Judging by how he was gesturing near his neck, he wanted the necklace.
Swish—.
I handed over the necklace set with a golden gem.
"G-good heavens—. Just how many battlefields did you......."
Father stared at the gem, unable to contain his shock.
"When you offered your ten-thousandth battlefield, did you not hear the god's voice?"
"That piece-of-shit god said nothing to me until the moment my head was severed."
"Then why did you offer so many battlefields?"
"Because it was Father's dying wish."
Father looked back and forth between the necklace and me, his face a mask of conflicting emotions.
I couldn't see any change whatsoever, but was he sensing something?
As I tilted my head in confusion, Father hit me with something shocking.
"Jack, this is a phenomenon called regression."
"And what's digression?"
"Regression. It means you have returned to the past."
A peculiar term I'd never heard even from my companions.
I lent my ear.
"God is absent for some reason, yet God's power is real, and so—."
According to Father's claim, the countless battlefields I'd offered to that piece-of-shit god had accumulated within this gem.
That power, manifested through divine force, had caused me to regress.
"You have offered enough battlefields that the War God should have awakened long ago, and yet......."
Why has God said nothing?
Father muttered to himself with a hollow expression, then handed the necklace back to me.
"Jack, Lord Tyra, the War God, is a forgotten deity of the ancient age. I never told you because I thought you would dismiss it as a piece-of-shit god, but......."
Father gave a brief and simple explanation of what the War God was.
"The War God bears the symbol of the Ender, the one who will bring the wars of the most chaotic world to an end. You, that mission—."
"I see."
Whenever a religious conversation came up, I'd just nod along and move on.
Nothing good came from dragging it out.
You should never hold long conversations with fanatics.
Even if that fanatic was Father.
After I'd nodded along to his War God spiel for a good while, Father asked.
"How were your twenty years?"
"Long, if you call them long. Short, if you call them short."
"I am asking what happened."
I recounted the path I'd walked in an even tone.
At sixteen, I fought my first battle as a mercenary for the Kingdom of Alton.
At seventeen, the kingdom's civil war intensified and the battlefields grew fiercer. My skill was recognized, and I was scouted by a major mercenary company in the continent's heartland.
"At eighteen, their shitty antics pissed me off, so I ripped their commander apart and got put on a wanted list."
"Why?"
"They treated human trafficking, which Father forbade, like it was just another side hustle."
"What happened after you were wanted?"
I smirked.
"By then, my epithet was Rip-Anything Jack. I was the kind of man whose name alone decided the outcome of a battlefield."
"Then......."
"I was the rising star of the mercenary world, never short on work even while I was wanted."
Even as I picked up contracts, the [Continental Mercenary Guild]'s pursuit never let up.
I killed every tracker they sent while amassing money and Mysteries, aiming to build my own mercenary company.
"Companions, you say......."
"They were like family."
I recounted the stories of my first companions in a steady voice.
"While forcibly collecting payment from a crooked employer who refused to pay the hiring fee, I met a woman."
Our strategist, Mel.
"I refused the Emperor's contract to exterminate a minority people, and then some crazy bastard planted himself at my side, saying he'd serve me as his Big Brother."
Vice-Commander Veil.
"I toppled the Black Tower in the Mage Tower War and ripped the Mage Tower Master apart, and then some lunatic woman showed up saying she'd become my company's Mage Corps Commander."
Mage Corps Commander Yuria.
Starting with those three and myself, the legend of the Monstrous Strength Mercenary Company was born.
"Eventually, it grew to a company of ten thousand, hauling all their families around in a mobile fortress."
They said my roaming mercenary company rivaled an entire nation.
"That's when the world started calling me the Mercenary King."
***
We talked about many things.
Or rather, I did most of the talking while Father listened.
"After I became a public enemy of the Empire, that Emperor bastard's extermination squads followed me around all day long. Then the mobile fortress where my family lived was captured by the Emperor."
Lastly, I recounted the moment I was backstabbed and killed by that Emperor bastard.
"After my head was severed, I experienced something called the death rally firsthand."
"The death rally?"
"A person can still move even after their head is cut off."
"Good heavens......."
I still felt a pang of regret for not biting through that duke bastard's neck with my severed head, but—.
"I saw my companions' faces one last time and even got to meet Father like this, so I'd say it was a rather wise choice."
Come to think of it, it hadn't been all bad.
"You lived a splendid life."
With Father's praise on top of it, this was the icing on the cake.
And then.......
Slump—.
The holy knight before me closed his eyes.
A lifetime spent serving a piece-of-shit god, and in his final years, a noble father who sacrificed himself to raise me.
Warmth lingered in our clasped hands.
He hadn't passed yet, but I knew instinctively.
Soon, within minutes, Father would be gone.
How many deaths had I witnessed while living as a mercenary?
I was uncannily accurate about things like this.
So I spoke.
"—With my Spirituality, I can keep you alive a little longer, Father."
If he was the Father I knew, he'd probably refuse.
Yet I offered anyway.
"Jack, my time to return to the War God's embrace has come."
As expected, Father was resolute.
I nodded and wished for Father to pass peacefully.
I could force him to live longer if I wanted.
But I wouldn't do that.
'Respecting death.'
Letting go of those who had to go was a mercenary's virtue, and one of the duties a human being must uphold.
"Jack, this life of yours will be even more splendid."
The strength left our clasped hands.
This was a true death.
And a realization came to me.
'Regression.'
Perhaps I truly had returned.
The evidence was flimsy and there was no proof, but Father's dying words said so, and I resolved to believe just that.
'So now I have two dying wishes to honor?'
The first: offer my battlefields to the War God.
The second: I've clearly returned to the past, so live more splendidly.
"You're probably the first person on the continent to leave two sets of dying words, Father."
I sorted through Father's belongings with an even face.
I'd done the same in my past life.
Father's death had been as good as predetermined, so I'd long since made my peace.
If anything, I was simply grateful for the longer conversation we'd shared compared to last time.
'Starting life over again.......'
In the days to come, the entire continent would be engulfed in war.
To a maddening degree.
Who would believe that I never ran out of work as a mercenary until I was past forty?
'First, find my companions and grow stronger.'
In my past life, I'd met my death because my strength wasn't enough.
So this time, I intended to get as strong as possible so that I'd have no regrets.
So that no power on earth could bring me to my knees.
I'd grow stronger and forge my own path.
'In my past life, growing the mercenary company was all I ever did, but.......'
Now it was different.
After rolling through battlefields until forty, there was no way I'd settle for just a mercenary company this time.
Father had said it.
That the War God played the role of the Ender of a chaotic world, or something?
Rather than believe in some piece-of-shit god, it wouldn't be so bad to do it myself.
Uncharacteristically, my thoughts had dragged on.
BOOM——.
I packed the remaining belongings and Father's remains with care, then stepped out of the shack.
"Father told me to bury him somewhere around here......."
In my past life, I'd followed his wishes and buried Father in this land.
But now it was different.
'The World War.'
The small kingdom of Alton, where I now stood, would be annihilated by dwarven nuclear bombardment in the future.
Necromancers would occupy this land, piled high with countless dead, and summon a Necropolis, and the place called the Kingdom of Alton would turn into a nightmarish undead factory.
That was about two years from now, but at the time, I'd been waging war on the opposite side of the continent and couldn't retrieve Father's remains.
'Those sons of bitches.'
Black mages, necromancers, and dwarves.
They were the groups my Monstrous Strength Mercenary Company had sworn never to take contracts from.
Instead, I hunted them down and killed them.
Black mages and necromancers in particular were my highest-priority targets.
But now things were different.
'I'll enshrine your remains in my mobile fortress when the time comes, Father.'
From there, watch your son become the Mercenary King and command the continent.
Creeeak—.
I carefully placed Father's remains inside the [Cleric's Coffin] he'd prepared in advance.
Then I left the shack without hesitation.
The day after Father's passing was my first battlefield.
***
"When I was sixteen, I fought my first battle."
Whenever new recruits joined, I'd gather every member of the company and give a speech.
I still remembered the rush I felt the first time I saw just over ten thousand mercenaries assembled across a vast plain.
What I'd said back then:
"I saw a knight unleashing aura in my first battle, and I ran."
"But after that, I never once retreated. The first time is frightening, and it was no different for me."
My father taught me the arts of war, but not once did he give me real combat experience.
Cutting down monsters was worlds apart from killing people.
At sixteen, I didn't know that.
Watching soldiers die to aura right beside me, I ended up taking a single step backward, to the shame of my inborn monstrous strength.
The shame of it meant I never retreated in any battle after.
In any case, those few short words were all it took to seize the hearts of every member.
WAAAAAAH!!!
Rip! Rip! Rip! Rip!
Rip-Anything Jack!!!
The reason I, the one they called the Mercenary King, recounted my embarrassing past in front of the ranks was simple.
"Big Brother, try telling the new recruits what you told me. They'll go absolutely wild!"
It was thanks to the advice of our Vice-Commander, Veil, a man over ten years my senior who insisted on calling me Big Brother.
Why did the members go wild over the shameful tale of my first battle?
I still don't know the reason.
"......."
And I had absolutely no idea why I'd returned to that very first battlefield.
To be honest, now that I'd come back to the past, I could easily ignore this tiny little skirmish and go straight to find my companions.
Unlike in my past life, wasn't I even carrying Father's coffin on my back?
'I feel as though my soul is leading me here.'
Swish—.
I looked around and saw slightly more seasoned soldiers handing out sheets of paper to the ragtag young soldiers standing before them.
'The Kingdom of Alton's territorial war.'
I'm from the slums of a barony in the Kingdom of Alton.
Father, who served a piece-of-shit god, had no connections to speak of, and so my first battle had been as a mercenary.
That pathetic first experience was my one and only blemish.
That's exactly why I remembered it so vividly.
"Name's Jack, no surname?"
The soldier who'd approached me handed over a sheet of paper with a question.
Something unimaginable back when I was called the Mercenary King.
But it didn't particularly bother me.
'Different eye level.'
I noticed changes I hadn't been conscious of during my conversation with Father.
The hand holding the paper was small and slender.
My eye level had dropped a bit.
My height had been around 2 meters 50 centimeters, and it felt like I'd shrunk by about 30 centimeters.
While I was mulling over that, the soldier spoke up.
"Don't tell me a big guy like you is scared? If a small territorial war scares you, you'd be better off going home and farming."
How dare he ask me if I was afraid, right before a battle.
Come to think of it, I think I'd gotten the same question last time too.
Swish—.
I looked down at the paper in my hand.
[＃%#^$^%%]
This was presumably the mercenary contract.
As I stared at the paper, unable to read a single character, this baffling phenomenon started to make sense.
I'd never learned to read even after becoming the Mercenary King.
If I kept someone literate around to handle the complicated stuff, what was the point of learning to read myself?
"Big Brother, not being able to read is like starving your soul of nourishment!"
Vice-Commander Veil had nagged me so relentlessly that I could at least draw my own name like a picture.
[JACK]
I scrawled my signature with a single bold stroke in the empty box on the contract.
My past self must've hesitated because he couldn't read.
It was never because of fear.
"When's the battle?"
I handed the papers to the soldier in front of me and asked.
Truth be told, I never wanted to talk about my first battle to anyone.
Every time I recounted the story of running away during my first battle to the new recruits, I'd think, 'If I could go back to that day.......'
If it hadn't been for that damn morale-boosting ritual, I would've dropped the whole thing ages ago.
'If this truly is a return to the past—.'
In the future, I'd gather my companions and tell them this:
<In my first battle, I annihilated the enemy and achieved a flawless victory.>
That's what I'd say.