Return

A war is something that can bring great despair to one's mind and soul. Those who've died during war are left as restless souls, roaming around, watching their allies die one-by-one. I can say that I was one of these souls. I was an officer who worked for the imperial empire. In our world, we have magic, monsters, and swords, which give us great advantages but also brung great difficulties.

Sometimes I wonder how I died so recklessly, a part of me knew that it was dangerous to blindly go to the front-lines, thinking that if I did, we would finally end this war. Now that I think of it, I should've waited until the right time to charge in. Staying back at the strategy base would have expanded my life by just a bit, well just a bit until it was destroyed by a surprise attack shortly after I died. The enemy was a hard one to deal with, their way of strategizing and attacking was just on another level, they also had an 'unlimited' amount of resources which we thought was suspicious, the coincidences was just too large of a gap.

Now I'm just a wandering soul like the others who've died. I sat on a nearby boulder as I slumped down, watching magic bombs flying everywhere, the sound of steel clashing against each other.

"Sigh, am I going to be here forever? Just roaming?" I looked up into the sky, it was covered by the smoke which made the days look gloomy.

"Well perfect timing, you will be leaving right away." A deep voice said in amusement.

"Huh?!" I turned around, seeing a dark figure swirled in smoke. "Who- Who are you?" I mumbled, this figure gave a feeling of absolute force, it was just something I couldn't describe... it felt so mysterious.

"That's not important right now. The thing you need to know is that the absolute being didn't want you to die yet and that was an accident when you died." 'It' said.

"Wait- You're saying that my death was an accident by the lord?!"

"Well, if you put it that way, then, yes." 'It' confirmed. "Now then, the lord has told me to give you another chance and bring you back in time, the lord has also told me to give you a little gift from him." It said as they opened some kind of black portal that swirled with so much force it felt as if it was going to swallow me.

"Going back in time? Is that even possible?" I asked it.

"For you lessers, no, but for us, yes." They replied. "Let's not waste any time, step into here and you will be able to go back, quickly now, don't waste my time, I have more important things to attend to." It said in annoyance.

"Wait, what do you mean by the gift from the lord?"

"You will see later. Now stop asking questions, it's getting annoying, get in there." An invisible force pushed me into the portal, it felt as if I was being sucked into a drain.

"DAMN IT!" I yelled as the portal closed, leaving me in the dark.

"What the hell was that… me going back in time, and the lord, is that god? But then who was that dude in black? So many questions…" I mumbled, sighing in disbelief of what just happened to me.

I drifted through this empty darkness until a warm light blinded my vision. My eyes felt heavy as a loud buzzing sound filled my head.

I woke up to the rattling of the carriage I was sitting in, sleeping near the windowsill where I looked out to the endless numbers of trees.

"I- I'm really back… woohoo!" I exclaimed happily. I looked around the carriage space, there were multiple textbooks and I wore a uniform, my sword rested next to me. It seems like 'It' has sent me back to when I first enrolled into the academy. I think I was… what? 13? Yea, I think I'm 13 right now, I went 10 years back... this uniform really brings back nostalgic memories.

A sudden memory came back, "the lord has also told me to give you a little gift from him." I wondered what the gift was, he thought and thought until the carriage stopped at a halt. 'What happened?' I looked out the window, the knights were all in formation, ready for an attack. 'Was there monsters?' He was curious and opened the carriage door, grabbing his sword.

"Young master, it's too dangerous out here, please go back in!" One of the knights said hurriedly. 'The feeling of being called a young master again… how nice.' "What happened?" I asked, looking around. The air was tense, like anything big was going to jump out right this second.

"One of the mages sensed something big coming this way, they said it contained a lot of corrupted mana." The knight informed him, his eyes looking around hastily.

Now that he said that, it had become clear, I could feel the immense pressure of corrupted mana. Corrupted mana are usually formed in mutated monsters, if I was correct, this monster would at least be a B tier.

"Prepare for an attack!" The captain yelled as a large beast appeared, it was a bear with pitch black fur and it's eyes shone a red color, it's claws looked sharp enough to pierce through your body even with armor on 'a demon bear.' Demon bears weren't common in these parts, how come they were even here? Demon bears rather stay away from people, more 'kept to themselves' kind of thing.

"Defend the carriages! Make sure we bring it's head with us!" The knights circled around the bear, making quick slashes then retreated back to their original position.

"Aim at the legs! Knock it off balance first!" I yelled as I went to help them, unsheathing my sword. I knew that they wouldn't keep up, the demon bear would eventually overpower them since the bear had much more stamina than normal humans. The best idea is to decrease its movement as much as possible, that way we could get a better chance to kill it.

I casted a water blade that sliced one of the bear's feet easily, making the demon bear tumble to the ground. I was one of those 1 in trillions of people who was a quadruple elementalist. But I mostly specialized in water and air, I'm decent at earth and fire but not good enough.

"Take the paws!" I shouted at them as they hurriedly slashed off the bear's claws before it regained it's balance on just one foot, and without a paw.

"What the hell! How did it stand up again?!" One of the knights yelled.

"You guys retreat! I'll finish him off." I shouted at them.

"But-"

"No buts! It's an order!" I conjured a gust of wind that lifted me up, now I stood at the same height as the bear, 3 meters up from the ground. Since it's been a short while since I've been revived, I had to experiment to see what my limit was. I wrapped an invisible barrier around the bear and began sucking the air outwards, suffocating the bear. The demon bear swayed slowly before falling down to the ground with a loud BOOM.

"HOORAY!" The knights cheered in victory.

'Whew, that was a bit tiresome.' I whipped the sweat off my forehead.