▶ Chapter 1. Prologue
+ Prologue
Question.
When do you remember your previous life?
Answer.
Right before you're about to be eaten by a monster.
They say that right before people die, their entire lives flash before their eyes.
But in my case, I remembered my previous life.
‘I really did nothing but suffer until I died, huh?’
The world of my previous life had been the worst kind of hellhole.
As countless evil deeds piled up, even a Demon King capable of wiping out every living creature eventually appeared.
—I shall bestow my blessing upon a worthy Hero.
Only then did God finally break His silence.
Along with that revelation, He sent down the sacred relic known as the Vessel of the Soul.
And the Hero chosen by that Vessel of the Soul...
was me.
A five-year-old orphan.
Five years passed after I began undergoing brutal training.
I was only ten years old, but by then, only one-fifth of humanity remained alive.
I had no choice but to enter the battlefield.
For the next twenty years, I saved people and killed countless monsters.
After an exhausting, cruel, desperate, and horrifying series of battles, I fortunately managed to defeat the Demon King.
But...
‘My body was completely ruined.’
I could instinctively tell that I didn't have much time left to live.
So I announced my retirement and left for a place where no one lived.
I thought I would finally be able to spend the rest of my life quietly.
I was wrong.
Even after I retired, people continued gathering around me.
Perhaps the various rulers felt threatened.
Instead of treating me as the Hero who had saved the world, they treated me like a potential rebel who might one day steal their crowns.
I was furious.
I felt betrayed.
But since I knew I didn't have much longer to live anyway, I endured it.
Then one day, I fell into a trap.
One despicable bastard among my countless disciples had conspired with the rulers to kill me.
To save the rest of my disciples, I willingly threw myself into danger.
And so, the candle of my life finally burned all the way down to its wick.
“I swear...”
That desperate voice I heard at the very end probably belonged to my first disciple.
‘I wonder what happened after that?’
That guy was almost as strong as I was.
He probably wiped out every human who had tried to kill me.
‘After that... I have no idea.’
I was incredibly curious about what happened afterward, but there was no way for me to know anymore.
Anyway.
‘I seriously lived one hell of a miserable life.’
Fortunately, even though it was my own previous life, I could remember it as though I were watching a movie from a third person's perspective.
If that hadn't been the case, the moment those memories returned, I might have gotten so furious that my blood pressure would've killed me on the spot.
‘Well, even without that, my life is already in danger.’
In my current life, I had been waking up at six in the morning, going to work, and returning home close to midnight.
Every single day.
For three years.
No matter how young and healthy I was, even I had finally collapsed in front of my coworkers today.
Thanks to that, I managed to leave work on time for what felt like the first time in a million years.
I rested at home for a while, but I started thinking I might actually die from overwork at this rate.
So I decided to go out and eat some meat for the first time in ages.
And then, because my luck was apparently terrible, I got caught in a Gate that suddenly appeared near my house.
[Notification: You have entered the Spider Den (Grade 5, Sudden Occurrence) Gate.]
[Mission: Eliminate every monster inside the Gate.
Time Limit: Within 10 days of the Gate's creation.
Reward: Determined according to contribution.]
[You will be exposed to monsters in 10 seconds.
Time Remaining: 10 seconds, 9 seconds, 8 seconds...]
A flood of messages appeared in front of my eyes.
Before I could even read them properly, I encountered a monster.
The spider monster was around five times larger than I was.
And it looked absolutely hideous.
The disgusting thing spat at me and paralyzed me.
Then it stared at me as though I were some delicious dessert, its mouth wide open and packed with razor-sharp teeth.
‘Seeing something like that right in front of my face... I guess it's understandable that the fear and shock made me remember my previous life.’
That brutal, exhausting life.
Especially what happened at the very end.
Just remembering it made my blood boil.
Still...
‘I'm glad I remembered.’
Because now, I could completely crush this crisis.
My body was different from the one I had in my previous life.
However, the Hero's power granted to me by the sacred relic, the Vessel of the Soul, had been permanently engraved into my soul.
I hadn't known until now because I didn't have my memories.
