Lee Hyo-ju, Shaking Off The Past

—The effect of the Dance of the Dice increases the absolute value of your luck by 8 for 24 hours.

Lee Hyo-ju felt her heart pounding and her legs trembling as she moved away from Kim Han, wanting to collapse at any moment.

Fortunately she gave no sign of it, and as soon as she reached her room she sank down onto the floor.

“Sob… sob sob…”

She had begun to torment herself about a month ago, after the Rebound Legion entered the Garden of Gods and met Aetas.

Aetas looked at Lee Hyo-ju pityingly and greeted her. Feeling Aetas’s gaze, Lee Hyo-ju asked why.

“Is Kim Han still pushing you away?”

“…It’s okay. As long as I’m fine, it’s enough.”

“Weren’t you the type to think a man who likes another woman is a betrayal?”

“Me? No. But you talk as if I had seen something like that.”

That day Aetas’s words felt odd to Lee Hyo-ju, and Aetas himself behaved oddly—almost negligently so.

In the end Lee Hyo-ju clung persistently to Aetas, and Aetas, for reasons she did not know—Medical Arts—revealed that Kim Han had regressed.

The shock Lee Hyo-ju felt then was beyond words.

Only then did everything related to Kim Han snap into clear alignment in her mind.

An astounding amount of knowledge about the Battlefield of the Gods.

Information about a transcendent that even Aetas, her patron god, was shocked by.

An inexplicable hostility toward Violentia and Benialis.

Even an astonishing ability to plan for the future.

Then Lee Hyo-ju suddenly wondered: had Kim Han known her in a past life?

Aetas pondered Lee Hyo-ju’s question for a long moment before speaking.

He said Kim Han had known her before he regressed.

And that he was the one who sent Kim Han back to the past, and that, as the price, a wish had been made to have the memories of the Battlefield of the Gods erased forever.

“So even if you want to hear it, I can’t tell you.”

“…How can I hear it?”

“There isn’t a way. Well, there is, but think carefully. How miserable would you have had to be to make such a wish? And in your past life you did not love Kim Han.”

Aetas’s words made some sense.

If in their past lives she and Kim Han hadn’t met early on, she might not have loved him; there’s nothing absolute about human feelings.

“Yes, I understand. So is there a way to find out?”

“You were truly miserable, Hyo-ju. You wanted to forget so desperately.”

“Yes. But the ‘me’ of now wants to know.”

Lee Hyo-ju was resolute; she wanted to know.

Then Aetas said he would only show matters related to Kim Han, prepared briefly, and handed over a small orb.

“Information about expeditions or other representatives won’t appear. You can only view the matters of your relationship with Kim Han as if dreaming. And if you ever want them erased, tell me. I can grant that to an extent. No, I must grant it.”

“Yes, thank you.”

Lee Hyo-ju dreamed.

A terrible nightmare….

A tension of unknown origin flowed along with the omen of war.

It wasn’t only because it was leading up to a battle that would mark the end of the Battlefield of the Gods.

It was because the face of Lee Hyo-ju, called the Military Star and a genius of strategy and tactics, had stiffened and wouldn’t relax.

There was a man embracing this Lee Hyo-ju from behind.

“What’s the matter?”

“Ah… it’s nothing, Unos.”

A tent used as the Rebound Legion camp’s meeting room and also as Lee Hyo-ju’s personal tent.

Unos, who hugged Lee Hyo-ju from behind, gave her a brief kiss on the lips.

At that moment, legion members were just entering the tent.

“Hey, Unos. Keep your lovey-dovey acts for when you’re alone, will you?”

“You really have no sense. Do you want to do that in this situation?”

“Strange Star, why don’t you just like me instead?”

As the senior members entered, they chided the two while glancing at the muscular man who had come with them.

“What are you talking about? What’s wrong with lovers acting like that. Anyway, let’s get the meeting started.”

The man proceeded with the meeting wearing a simple smile.

But the results of the meetings were always the same: the plan proposed by the Military Star Lee Hyo-ju was nearly perfect.

A clash between two organizations known to be inferior in numbers and force.

The war with Violentia’s legion ‘Gunrim’ was imminent, but none of the members worried; the mood was such that they wanted to finish the war quickly and discuss the next matters.

Only one person’s face—Lee Hyo-ju’s—remained troubled, and the ‘Strange Star’ Kim Han, who never took his eyes off her, likewise grew pale.

The Lee Hyo-ju inside the dream did not know, but the Lee Hyo-ju watching the dream could very easily see Kim Han’s expression change.

Perhaps he couldn’t bear it; Kim Han went back into the meeting room after the meeting ended and everyone had left.

Unaware that Kim Han had entered, Lee Hyo-ju was biting her nails and chewing her lower lip—her habitual signs of tension and anxiety.

“What are you so worried about?”

“Oh? Ah… Kim Han.”

“Yeah, it’s me. What are you so worried about?”

“No…”

But Kim Han sat down beside Lee Hyo-ju as she said no. If you look at one woman for twenty-five years, can you know her better than she knows herself?

“I’m Kim Han. Do I not know you? What could make the country’s Military Star so tense?”

“…No, there’s no problem. I’m just nervous.”

“If you ever feel like telling me later, tell me. As you know, I’m always stupidly on your side.”

“…Okay.”

Lee Hyo-ju stared blankly at the place where Kim Han had gone.

Blood was seeping from her bitten lip now, but she did not notice.

“If…you were to find out, could you really forgive me? Forgive Unos?”

Lee Hyo-ju’s low voice did not escape outside the tent.

The night before the war, Lee Hyo-ju, tossing and turning and barely asleep, woke with a start at the sensation of someone touching her.

This was the battlefield, and her quarters were guarded even more strictly than the legion commander’s. Yet someone approached and touched her without her noticing?

Only after she sprang up did Lee Hyo-ju realize she was still in a dream.

“Aetas!”

Knowing that the only being who would do such a thing was her patron god, Lee Hyo-ju cried out irritably.

But Aetas, whose voice she heard without revealing his form, was calm.

“Lee Hyo-ju, have you thought about it?”

“About what?”

“I’m talking about my proposal. When you visited the Garden of Gods this year.”

“Ah…”

Only then did Lee Hyo-ju recall what Aetas had proposed, and her expression turned cold again. She replied to Aetas’s voice in a chilly tone.

“No, I absolutely don’t want to. I don’t want to turn back time and go through this hell again.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll erase it for you.”

“…What?”

“I’ll erase them—your memories. The hellish memories you experienced here, I’ll erase them completely.”

“…How?”

“If you accept my proposal I’ll do that. And I’ll consider not selecting you as a representative for the restarted Battlefield of the Gods.”

“…Really?”

“Yes, really. I swear by divine word: I will erase everything you experienced in the Battlefield of the Gods!”

Lee Hyo-ju was speechless and stared wide-eyed as if someone had struck the back of her head with a hammer.

She knew it was a dream yet not just a dream; she’d heard that as the Battlefield of the Gods reached its later stages, gods—if not directly—often intervened in such ways.

Of course, this was the first time Aetas, Lee Hyo-ju’s patron god, had done this, and it was unprecedented because the Rebound Legion had a particularly bad relationship with their patron god.

“I’ll do it.”

“Okay. But… will you be all right?”

“…Yes. It’s a memory that will be erased anyway, and it’s going to be the Battlefield of the Gods again anyway. So it won’t matter what happens, right?”

Lee Hyo-ju’s eyes returned to the confident gaze of the Military Star; only Aetas’s tone asking her was full of pity and worry.

“All right… understood. Please take care of it. Now get up.”

Lee Hyo-ju woke from the dream and from sleep at Aetas’s command to get up.

She moved in bed and hurriedly searched her magic pouch. A stone the size of a child’s fist was shown on the magic pouch icon.

Lee Hyo-ju’s gaze sharpened as she stared at the pure white stone.

On the day of the decisive battle, both camps were busy from morning.

At last, just before the war began.

Strangely, even as time passed, the leaders of both legions were not to be seen.

By now they should have come out to boost morale in their respective legions.

With only the ordinary members present, the faces of the Rebound Legion members suddenly contorted strangely.

“Ugh!”

“…Gasp!”

“Th-the divine power….”

Only the Rebound Legion’s divine power was not gathering. In the unexpected situation, everyone’s gaze turned to Lee Hyo-ju.

But even Lee Hyo-ju had no method to counter the dispersal of divine power.

And then.

“Kakakakaka—!”

Violentia appeared.

As always, Violentia appeared with a maniacal laugh and looked down at the Rebound camp as if she already knew what had happened.

“Oh my! Look at that stupid expression. I almost want to cut the head off and stuff it. Maybe I should skin it and keep it? Hmm? What do you think, Unos?”

More than Violentia’s arrival, everyone in the Rebound Legion was shocked by what she said. Had she kidnapped Unos? That question crossed everyone’s faces.

“I think so too, but wouldn’t the skins of such low-class trash be beneath Violentia taking the trouble to stuff them?” (Unos)

The voice from Unos, filled with mana, spread across the battlefield.

They say that when someone is shocked beyond measure, they can’t even speak, let alone get angry. Most of the Rebound Legion were too stunned to open their mouths.

“Is that your choice, Unos?”

“Huh? Ah… who is this. Isn’t this the Military Star? Huh?”

“Is your choice that woman instead of me?”

Lee Hyo-ju, asking such an ill-timed question, made the Rebound Legion members even more bewildered, and Violentia and Unos burst into uproarious laughter.

They laughed until tears formed, then looked at each other and kissed.

After the deep kiss ended, Unos smirked nastily and looked at Lee Hyo-ju.

“You’re too obedient, it’s not fun. Still, thanks for trusting me until the end. To me you don’t seem stupid or submissive—rather, you seem mentally ill. Otherwise how could you watch me join with Violentia and still believe in me? Hahaha.”

The Rebound Legion’s faces were filled with resignation and surrender, as if they had no energy left to be astonished.

“Do you know why I’m stalling like this?”

This time the question came from Unos; Lee Hyo-ju glared at him in silence.

“You probably know. After all, you’re the Military Star. The limit of your time regression is probably about this—by now you can’t return time to before breakfast, no matter how capable you are. Right?”

This revealed the reason Unos and Violentia hadn’t shown up even as the battle time neared.

They were stalling to make it so that even if Lee Hyo-ju, who could turn back time, tried, she could do nothing.

“I wasn’t planning to reverse anything anyway. Time stop.”

Even Violentia and Unos, who had been sneering at the group, froze. The only people who could move were the Rebound Legion.

“Run. You must flee as far as possible.”

“…All right, let’s do that for now.”

Inex had many questions, but for the moment he agreed to Lee Hyo-ju’s suggestion to flee.

And with everything frozen, teleportation was impossible, but they moved quickly, even using Haste (Haste: acceleration) magic.

Lee Hyo-ju kept time stopped while being carried piggyback on Kim Han’s back until she fainted, rationalizing it to herself as she passed out.

‘I’ve done about as much as I can.’

Carrying the unconscious Lee Hyo-ju facing forward, Kim Han ran, and the Rebound Legion members thought they could escape smoothly.

But when does the world ever go as planned?

As if predicting this, Violentia’s cackling laughter and Unos’s mocking words were heard nearby.

What on earth was happening? No one knew the reason, and in the suddenly unfolding chaos Kim Han stood stunned.

At that moment, Inex and the others bought Kim Han time to flee, and Kim Han ran straight toward Exorsus with Lee Hyo-ju on his back.

Inside a cave in the Monster Belt.

Lee Hyo-ju woke up and looked around. Kim Han was sleeping a short distance away. She stared at him.

Strange. After realizing that Unos had betrayed her, she had thought she would naturally love Kim Han or have good feelings for him.

That would be the most reasonable and rational reaction, yet she felt none of those emotions.

Exhausted, Lee Hyo-ju approached Kim Han, who did not notice her coming.

What dream could he be having? Kim Han’s face was full of a smile.

She took the pure white glowing stone from the magic pouch. Squeezing out the remaining divine power into the hand holding the stone, she placed it into Kim Han’s chest.

Why is that?

I don’t love him,

I feel no emotion toward him,

Tears flowed from her eyes.

But it’s okay.

Now I will forget all of this.

I’ll just forget the truth of my father’s death too, and live on like that.

It’s all right.

Since that day, Lee Hyo-ju often had this nightmare.

She would beg the foolish version of herself in the dream not to do that, cry, get angry, and then wake up to morning.

What Medical Arts did Aetas have in showing Lee Hyo-ju the past?

And why doesn’t Lee Hyo-ju ask to have her memories erased again and instead suffer like this?

Leaning against the door and sobbing, the voice of the person she most wanted to hear at that moment—and yet most did not want to hear—came from beyond the door behind her.

“Come in.”

Kim Han’s voice was heard and the door opened.