The Regressed Mercenary’s Machinations Chapter 851

Episode 851: Leave it to me now. (3)

The light flickered, and Deneb’s voice rang out.
“Giselle… do you know us now?”
“Yes.”
I know your faces.
I know your names.
I… … remember all of you.
The light grew a little brighter. The smile of an old friend seemed to bloom within it.
Deneb’s voice rippled again.
“I don’t know how much time has passed… but if you’ve come… it must have been a thousand years, as promised, right?”
Giselle slowly brought her hand toward the light.
The light seemed both cold and warm. It seemed to contain the warmth of a heart that had endured so many years alone.
“Have we waited too long?”
“Ah…”
The light wavered.
It was difficult to discern whether the trembling was joy, sadness, or pain.
It contained the cries of a soul that had been broken and reassembled hundreds of times.
Giselle could now roughly guess Deneb’s state.
Deneb had poured her last strength into this future. Somehow, she had likely intervened in the future multiple times, creating this timeline.
The plan she had prepared ultimately guided Giselle onto the right path. Instead, her soul, in the silent darkness, gradually crumbled over those long years.
Ultimately, her soul could only morph into a state bordering on a ghost.
“Deneb…”
It struck me with such pain.
Her heart, which had waited painfully in this darkness for a thousand years.
How terrified she must have been.
How lonely she must have been.
And how… …she must have missed her friends.
Forced by violence under the pretext of saving the world, she abandoned everything to save her loved ones.
I can’t even imagine how much she must have suffered.
Giselle quietly, yet with a firm heart, embraced the light.
“Don’t worry. I haven’t forgotten my promise to you.”
The light trembled violently. It was as if Deneb’s soul were bursting into tears.
The wavering light asked,
“Gisele… Yulien… Arterion…”
To Deneb, Arterion was more than just an enemy.
He was the mastermind behind everything, the embodiment of fear, the shadow of endless repetition.
Arterion would relentlessly pursue Yulien. Their fates were constantly urging them to kill each other.
Giselle answered with a gentle smile,
“Arterion is dead. He can no longer touch Yulien.”
In this timeline, Arterion was undeniably decapitated.
Giselle had prepared for the dragon hunt, successfully defeated it, and Yulien had been the last to behead him. She
now understood what the darkness that had seeped from Arterion’s body was.
It was a darkness Yulien had left for the future, a decisive move that had weakened Arterion.
But… …Yulien, now reclaiming his darkness, might awaken as an adversary at any moment. To save him, Giselle had to fight again.
Deneb knew this too. If she didn’t choose that path, there was no way to save Yulien.
But she couldn’t be sure if all this was the right thing to do anymore.
After enduring for a thousand years, her heart had crumbled again and again with the passage of time.
“Gisselle… our journey… was it truly meaningful…”
Giselle closed her eyes for a moment.
In truth, she too had asked herself similar questions countless times, searching for the meaning of her journey to the past.
Despite solving numerous problems and changing the past, she couldn’t prevent the most crucial sacrifices: those of Yulien and Deneb. Despite all the effort she had put
into nurturing, preparing, and preparing her friends.
Looking back, no matter what Giselle had done back then, she couldn’t have prevented their sacrifices. The force of fate that had overtaken them was so cruel and powerful.
But only after losing them did Giselle realize one thing.
Slowly opening her eyes, she answered,
“There is. A meaning more precious than anything else….”
Giselle Ferdium had returned and changed the future.
Had she not returned, the Salvation Church would have already taken over the continent, and Yulien would have become their king, destroying the world. She
then traveled to the past, met her friends, and learned the truth. Through her past experiences, she once again opened the path to change the future.
It was also thanks to him, who had changed the past and the future, and to Deneb’s sacrifice.
So, all the effort wasn’t in vain.
Neither Deneb’s sacrifice nor
the tears shed by her friends.
None of it could be considered meaningless.
To set everything right again, in line with the future changed by regression.
Thus, I will save Yulienne and Deneb, and finally end all the darkness that has fallen upon this world.
This journey was the way to prove that all our lives were not in vain.
At Giselle’s assurance, the light began to glow softly, as if finally reassured.
“You always were… You always gave us unwavering faith…”
Deneb was stronger and more trustworthy than anyone she had ever seen.
Strength wasn’t simply ability. It was an
unwavering conviction.
A heart that wouldn’t waver even in the storm.
And a sense of responsibility that was heavier and deeper than anyone else’s.
These were the forces that made Giselle stronger and more trustworthy than anyone else.
Paaaaaaaaaaah!
A brilliant wave erupted, and the deep darkness instantly cleared away.
The small light began to faintly take shape as Deneb’s figure.
Giselle held her breath as she gazed at her.
She greeted him with her usual bright smile.
A quiet smile soon spread across Giselle’s face.
Soon, the surroundings were filled with a blinding white light, so intense it was impossible to open her eyes.
Deneb’s form slowly dissolved into the light, and countless golden letters began to be etched into the pure white space.
It was someone’s old record.
A time when the world was shrouded in darkness.
The story of the heroes who fought against that darkness.
It was a story Giselle knew, a story she had shared.
At that moment, scenes from the past came crashing down like waves.
The breath of endless battle, the shouts of comrades erupting from all sides, the moments when they held each other’s hands and rose again.
The earth trembled beneath the hooves of a colossal monster, the courage to fight to the end in the face of despair, the magical starlight pouring down from the night sky.
Every memory flashed before her eyes like a grand narrative.
Giselle closed her eyes again, thinking of her old friends.
Deneb’s voice lingered in his ears like the wind.
― Giselle… … .
― Our story, recorded by Astion, has now ended… … .
― Now the remaining story… … .
― You complete it… … .
― We, bound by the past… … .
― So that we can turn the next page… … .
Giselle answered in a very low, yet unwavering voice.
“Don’t worry.”
You don’t have to be in pain anymore.
You don’t have to be anxious anymore.
You don’t have to endure it alone anymore.
“I’ll solve everything now.”
Paaaaaaaah… … .
The light slowly went out.
In the place where everything had disappeared, only quiet darkness fell again.
Giselle slowly opened her eyes.
Then, one by one, she saw faces that were both nostalgic and familiar. The voices of the people she longed to see embraced her all at once.
“Young Master!”
“Giselle!”
“Your Highness! ”
“My Lord! ” “My Grand Master
!” “My Grand Master!
” “Oppa!”
“Wow! I’m awake!”
Giselle smiled deeply as she looked at those faces.
It had been a long journey.
Now that her journey is over, Jiselle
has finally opened her eyes to reality.

* * *

“Ugh…”
Erenes clutched her head and sank to the ground.
Blood trickled from her eyes, nose, and ears, dripping down her chin.
“Why…”
She felt a pressure, as if the entire world were pressing down on her. At the same time, memories that had been vaguely surfacing for some time now surged like a tidal wave, filling her mind. The memories
she had originally held gradually faded. Like watching someone’s play from afar, like an elusive dream.
But Erenes knew.
This, too, was the life she had lived.
But it was now a lie.
This wasn’t the life she had truly lived.
The memories that were surfacing now…
This was the life she had truly lived, and the reason she had waited for a thousand years.
“Chief!”
The elves rushed over, startled.
Their faces were etched with anxiety. After leaving the Kingdom of Rutania, Erenes’s condition had become strange.
She often suffered nosebleeds, sat in a daze, and sometimes collapsed for no apparent reason.
But this was the first time she’d lost so much blood and felt so lost.
“Are you alright?”
The elves approached and supported her.
Erenes shook off the hands around her. She stumbled, walking forward.
“Why, why…”
Why did she only remember it now?
Even after all these years of longing and waiting?
“Giselle…”
She took another step. As she walked, she relived the memories of the past.
Iraniel collapsed from the aftereffects of war and guilt. She stopped eating and drinking, spending her time in a daze.
In the end, Iraniel handed over the position of warchief to Erenes and returned to the embrace of the World Tree.
―The fate of the elves is now in your hands. Do what you want. As a member of the Yulian mercenary company, you have the right to do so.
Those were her last words.
But Erenes had already lost all motivation.
Erenes was a member of the Yulian mercenary company. That’s why she believed the elves should pay the price for betraying the Yulien Mercenaries.
But she was an elf, too. She couldn’t drive her own people to their deaths.
So she did nothing.
Even when other tribes were attacked by humans, even when the elders urged her to come up with countermeasures,
she simply reminisced about the past.
However, as the continent descended into chaos, even she, as the warchief, faced immense pressure. The elders even attempted, for the first time in elven history, to overthrow the existing warchief and install a new one.
In the end, she left the forest, carrying only the seeds of the World Tree.
Erenes, who had departed for a remote area unknown to humans, replanted the World Tree there and created a barrier.
Then, she slept peacefully in the embrace of the World Tree,
waiting for a thousand years to come.
However, she didn’t rest peacefully for a thousand years.
Eventually, the humans launched a full-scale attack on the elves and dwarves. The defeated elves and dwarves were taken as captives.
― This was punishment for the two races that betrayed the warrior and the saintess!
The humans justified their actions by shouting this.
Failing to prevent the curse of the adversary was the very punishment the goddesses had bestowed upon them.
The elves and dwarves, who had shared a long history together, became slaves to the humans.
A small number of elves managed to escape and came to Erenes.
Erenes could not ignore them.
She had brought the seeds of the World Tree herself and replanted them, leaving the original tree withered and gone, unable to protect the elves.
She had accepted them, and the elves who now followed her were their descendants.
Erenes stumbled and muttered,
“…We never truly finished it.” She had
lost the last apostle.
But at the time, Erenes paid him no mind. The situation was unfathomable.
She had simply assumed the others would track him down and bring him to an end.
However, after a long time, she learned that the Salvation Church survived and continued to exist.
It was a chance discovery by an elf observing the outside world.
Even if Erenes had no interest in worldly affairs, she couldn’t ignore the activities of the Salvation Church, the mastermind behind all this.
She had spent so long tracking down and fighting the remnants of the Salvation Church. But she had to endure for a thousand years, so all she could do was wake up intermittently, issue orders, and then fall back asleep.
And on the thousandth day,
she finally escaped the embrace of the World Tree and stepped toward the one person she had been waiting for.
“Giselle…”
She had lived her life forgetting him. She could only guess why she had only just now remembered Giselle.
It must have been because Giselle had used Deneb’s power to alter the past.
But it didn’t matter.
“…This memory is mine.”
It was her true life, the reason she had waited a thousand years to finally arrive at this era.
Before she knew it, her body had become as light as the wind.
And as swift as light… …
she moved towards the Kingdom of Rutania.