The Hunted Regressor: My Heretic Saint System-Chapter 71: SURVIVE

***

Nikalaos was a coward.

He wasn’t ashamed of it, at least not anymore.

He had been, once upon a time, back when he still cared about his House’s reputation and the people who whispered behind his back.

But that was before the incident... before the night he’d gotten himself drunk and picked a fight with some Runebearer in a backwater inn.

Only later did he find him to be a House Death heir.

And he, Nikalaos?

Nothing more than a middling fool from an old House that barely held on to its land.

Damn that Goddess, he should’ve never knelt to Her...

It was by accident; he fell for no more than a moment.

Almost instantly, he was accepted.

He saw not even a whiff of a Blessed.

None of it made sense, but he’d long since given up on that.

In any case, he should’ve died that night.

Nikalaos didn’t, and that terrified him.

Because ever since then...

He knew they were coming.

Around him, the cave walls groaned as he paced back and forth, torchlight flickering across damp stone.

It wasn’t much, just a hollow in some mountain he crossed, but it was his ’hollow.’

He’d spent the last few months digging into the earth like a mole, carving out tunnels, layers, and side chambers. Every inch of it was wired with traps, and Scrolls that he’d bought, spells stored in Divine Paper, all tested a dozen times over.

Tripwire Scrolls near the entrance, sound-detecting Scrolls in the ceiling, and explosive ones along the tunnel floor, covered with a thin sheet of dust so no one could see them.

He stopped at one, crouched down, and wiped sweat from his forehead.

’It’s still active.’

The thing was glowing a faint blue.

"Good girl."

He patted the Scroll like it was a pet.

"You always behave, don’t you? Hehehe..."

His laugh came out wrong, revealing his less-than-ideal state of mind.

His hands shook as he checked the next trap, then the next, and the next.

"The pressure spell still works... surge barrier intact... weaken-field humming."

Nikalaos mumbled to himself as he went, the sound of his voice making the loneliness less suffocating.

He hated silence.

Silence meant something was listening.

Every time he thought about closing his eyes, he’d see that night again.

The flash of red, the fire escaping that man’s palm, the feeling of power so absolute it made him want to vomit. He’d barely escaped with his Rune intact. Literally.

It wasn’t luck, no; all he had was Calamity.

That was pure, pathetic, cowardly desperation.

And now he lived here, hiding and waiting for the day they found him.

He crouched down near a wall of hanging heads, where, beneath them, sat even more traps.

Nikalaos double-checked each tripwire, muttering, "Still intact... still active..." before stopping at one that looked like it was about to snap.

"Oh no, no, no, no. I can’t replace another one!"

He pressed his hand against the wire, pouring a bit of Divinity in.

Absorbing it, the trap reformed a little, stabilizing.

"Good. That’s better."

Nikalaos stood up and exhaled.

"All of it is operational and perfect. No one’s getting in here."

He smiled, a crooked, tired—

Schwing!

Something fast moved through the air.

With it came a whisper and a glint.

Before Nikalaos could even turn around...

Thud!

The world went dark.

When he blinked his eyes open, he wasn’t in the cave anymore.

He floated in an endless and still blackness.

And before him... something spun.

A glowing ring of light.

No, not a ring, a Rune.

His Rune.

Fortune’s Wheel.

It turned endlessly, a ticking clock that had lost its rhythm.

Once, twice, three times, until it finally...

DING!

Stopped.

A blinding flash followed.

Blink.

"AAAAGGGHHHHHH!"

Nikalaos screamed awake, stumbling backward while clutching his neck.

His heart was beating, his lungs were working, and his hands were shaking.

He looked around the cave in a panic.

The torches and the Scrolls—he’d studied them for long.

If anything were different, he would easily know.

And they looked as they did earlier.

All were EXACTLY as before.

Nikalaos couldn’t doubt it.

"I..."

His knees buckled.

"I died."

It wasn’t possible.

"I really died."

But the ache in his chest said otherwise.

"If I didn’t choose Time..."

His voice trembled.

"...I’d be gone for good."

His breathing quickened.

"Who—who the Hell—who killed me?!"

Nikalaos started roughly biting his nails.

"It has to be them."

He could feel the pain and taste the blood, but he couldn’t stop.

"It has to be them, it has to be them, it has to be them, it has to be them, it has to be them, it has to be them, it has to be them, it has to be them, it has to be them, it has to be—"

The man had snapped.

"You useless things!"

Nikalaos turned toward his traps.

"You’re supposed to WARN me! You were supposed to trigger!"

He slammed his foot into the wall.

"You think you’re clever, huh?! You think you’re funny?! Worthless—"

"So you really can go back in time~."

Nikalaos’s body went rigid.

That calmly playful voice was heavy.

Turning around with wide eyes, he saw him.

A tall, lanky figure leaning lazily against the wall.

This was no man... he had to be...

He had to be a Demon!

"It’s funny."

The Demon tilted its head.

"You’re a time-looping mortal. How... useless."

Nikalaos opened his mouth, but no words came.

"Ah—"

A sword slid clean through his chest.

He felt the cold aftershock of Divinity being snuffed out.

"You will run out of Divinity."

The Demon whispered.

Blink.

Time rewound.

Nikalaos stumbled back to the start once more.

"FUCK!"

He clutched his skull, his mind racked with pain.

"It worked again! It actually worked!"

The man didn’t stop to think or wonder how.

He just screamed again and again while running out of the cave.

Unbeknownst to him, something beyond him had touched his Rune.

Ignotus’s Calamity.

It shouldn’t have been possible for his Rune to activate twice.

There was no way it could; it was a one-time use ability. That was how it remained a Normal Rune despite being so strong.

A Rune so impossibly impossible that its success rate was a statistical anomaly.

This here was nothing more than a divine error.

And yet it kept working.

Because, well, Ignotus’s Calamity wanted it to.

So Nikalaos died again.

Again and again...

And again, and...

Again.

Each time faster and messier.

Ignotus always found him.

It was destiny.

By the seventh regression—

"WHAT DO YOU KNOW?!"

By the eighth—

"HOW DO YOU KNOW?!"

By the ninth—

"CAN YOU SEE THE FUTURE?!"

By the tenth—

"IS A GOD HELPING YOU?!"

Each time, the answer was silence.

And each time Ignotus killed him without hesitation.

By the twelfth—

"Ah."

Nikalaos slipped.

A stupid misstep, his foot catching on a rock.

He cracked his head on the floor before Ignotus even swung.

Was this really destiny? Or just bad luck?

It didn’t matter.

He died anyway.

The loops went on.

One hundred.

Two hundred.

Five hundred...

He stopped keeping count and stopped fighting back.

Sometimes he’d beg, sometimes he’d laugh, and sometimes he’d cry.

Each time, though, Ignotus was a little closer to ending this all.

Until, at the very end, on loop seven, seven, seven...

Nikalaos finally saw the demon clearly.

He saw its pale skin and flash white hair.

With that was something that could never be missed.

Gray eyes empty of everything but a faint, cruel curiosity.

"W-What are you...?"

They both knew the answer.

This... Demon was Nikalaos’s death.

"Your hunt has ended..."

There was a flicker.

"Break."

Nikalaos’s vision blurred before suddenly...

His head pounded, leaving his shoulders.

But how? The Demon was far from him?!

Had his rewinds attracted another?!

Oh, it didn’t matter.

His eyes saw the night sky...

The one bright moon.

Ugly.

It was so ugly that night.

***

"You..."

Indeed, Ignotus wasn’t the one who killed that man.

It was someone else... someone much stronger than him.

Ignotus knew it at first glance; Nikolas’s killer was an Acolyte.

A Runebearer likely many Ordinations above him.

He, once the hunter, became the prey.

Now he had one objective...

Ding!

One quest.

—

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║QUEST UPDATED!║

╚════════════╝

[New Objective: SURVIVE]

—

’...damn.’