Surviving without God

I remember what happened four years ago. Myself, barely three months after being thrown into this alien world, struggling desperately to adapt—and finally leaving the village, clumsy and inexperienced.

Dawn had not yet come. The light in the eastern sky spread like a murky dark-blue stain, and the village lay frozen somewhere between that light and shadow.

What did I feel back then? Some kind of strange excitement.

I still didn’t truly feel it in my skin—that I was in another world—and deep in my mind there lingered anxiety and urgency, a desperate desire to return to Earth no matter what.

At the same time, there was a tremor of anticipation at the thought that I could see this world and its protagonist with my own eyes, mixed with a tightening tension, because I knew just how cruel this world was.

With those feelings, I adjusted my travel pack. The old scabbard brushed against my thigh with a faint clink.

— Hey, brat.

Something nudged my shoulder. I turned—it was Mason. With that same impassive expression, he held out a heavy pouch.

— No point starving on the road before you even become a mercenary. Just some odds and ends.

The pouch he tossed me smelled of dried meat.

— Thank you.

A short reply. Having secretly replaced their beloved “Gunther,” I couldn’t force out anything more—words stuck in my throat.

— Hmph. With the swordsmanship I taught you, you’ll earn your bread. Good luck.

Mason muttered it and turned away, but the tips of his ears were slightly red. And behind him...

— Gunther, you’re already leaving?

A gentle voice. Berta slowly walked up to me.

Her small hand covered mine. The wrinkled skin was warm, trembling faintly.

— Make sure... you eat on time. Alright? If things get hard, come back whenever you want.

I only bowed my head once more.

— Brother!

It was too early for a child to be awake. In the boy’s hands—whose name I hadn’t even properly memorized yet—was a bracelet, clumsily woven from thread and wildflowers.

— This is... a lucky bracelet! I made it myself!

A bit tasteless, very crude. I stared at it for a second, then silently tied it around my wrist.

— You have to come back before it breaks, promise?

“...I might have to come back the moment I leave the village.” I couldn’t help but smile at the absurdity of that thought. What kind of person had the real Gunther been?

— Gunther! Damn it, why are you leaving so early? I’m dying for sleep.

— What are we supposed to do without you? It’ll be boring, you know?

Without even realizing it, the villagers began to gather one by one. The drunk who was always sprawled in the tavern. The aunt I ran into every time at the market. The few peers I had.

Some waved, some nodded silently. You don’t hold back someone who’s leaving. But neither could they send him off lightly. There was more in those gestures than in words.

Yes... it was that kind of village. A warm village, one that made Lee Jonghyeon hesitate for a moment before leaving.

.

.

.

The Apostle of Justice, who had been laughing at me for so long, dragged me back to the village with rough, insistent force. As if forcing me to see everything with my own eyes. And I saw it.

— How is this...

A voice, hoarse to the point of sounding чужим, tore from my throat.

— How?!

The village, ringed with execution stakes, had become something like a giant hedgehog. Charred corpses, half-eaten, hung from tall poles. Through the thick fog, once-familiar silhouettes had turned into grotesque shadows, staring at me with lifeless eyes.

The village that had once been full of life; modest but lively streets; cheerful faces. Those I had seen just recently... were now dead. Only death remained, sharp and vivid.

— .......

I dropped to my knees and met the gaze of an unnaturally small skull. The head had been severed and impaled on a stake, while the body—pierced and burned—was displayed right there in the field where the boy had once woven his flower bracelet.

...When I left the village, I knew. I knew that the path I was walking could one day bring disaster to these people. Even if it was some remote backwater on the edge of Nereus, a place not even marked on maps, I understood—I had to be careful.

Of course, I didn’t know I would take Dominic Wolf’s place and become the vanguard against Luthien, but I was aware of the risk.

That’s why I cut all ties. I didn’t leave a single letter. I sent no word.

And at some point... I simply forgot them. The days passed so quickly it felt suffocating just to try to survive. I had no time to look back, and I believed there was no reason to return.

In the end, this world was just a stopover. A story that would end the moment I cleared it.

— Curious how I found them? — a cheerful voice broke the silence. — One of the villagers wandered into a nearby city asking about you. Said there’d been no news since you left. The Archbishop herself took an interest.

Archbishop of Justice Bellesa Lucan—I slowly repeated the name in my mind. And I recalled the line that defined her in the game:

“Heresy does not bloom suddenly. It crawls out from rotten cracks, because the soil itself has rotted.”

“Which means tearing out the roots is not enough. You must crush the seeds, plow the earth, and cleanse the soil itself. The soil that nurtured heresy... That means leaving not a single person alive.”

“Burn even the air they breathed, in the name of God.”

.

.

.

Gunther finally understood the nature of that strange feeling pressing down on him.

It was helplessness. Until now, he had always managed. If a tragedy was within reach, he would stake his death as many times as necessary to turn it back. He twisted causality and rewrote ruined endings.

Because it was possible. Because he had time.

But this time was different. Even if he returned to the save point, the village couldn’t be saved. The Archbishop of Justice Bellesa Lucan had burned it long before.

The same applied to interfering with the past through tablets. “Access to a moment in the past.” It wasn’t a miracle that let you scoop out a single drop from the flowing river. The past was layered, stacked upon itself—a massive structure of countless slices of time. To cut out and change just one moment was equivalent to rewriting the entire chain of causality.

The price for that would be unimaginable.

...Impossible. It can’t be brought back.

— .......

Silence fell.

.......

And in that silence, Gunther thought again.

“...Is that really true?”

Thump. His heart skipped a beat as something clicked.

If this had happened before he awakened the fragment of the God of Time, his thoughts would have stopped there. He would have given up. But not now.

※ At the end of endless repetitions, you have finally grasped the true name hidden within fate. As a Savior bearing the fragment of the God of Time, you redefine and enhance temporal authority.

It wasn’t a flash of inspiration. Not even the feeling of “learning something new.”

It felt like finally being able to use something he had always known. Like a fish not learning to breathe through gills. Like a creature that had been holding its breath finally taking a natural inhale. It wasn’t revelation—it was restoration.

— ...Yes.

Gunther’s gaze slowly grew heavy. Right. There was no need to overturn the entire past. No need to touch every layer. One thread was enough.

That moment when a villager wandered the city searching for him. If he could grasp and distort just that single line of causality? Of course, even that would demand an unimaginable price, but...

“...Speaking of unimaginable price.”

Gunther shifted his gaze forward—toward the Apostle of Justice, who stood there grinning.

The ultimate weapon raised by the Cult of Justice through countless offerings. After the incident at Audrey House, when the other Apostles had become unusable, the Theocracy had poured enormous resources into her.

“In other words... she’s a supreme offering, packed with an immense amount of causality.”

Of course, Gunther understood that the most efficient solution was to stall this fight, just as originally planned. Buy time while his allies repelled the sea dragon and cleared out enemy forces. Force the Apostle of Justice to retreat.

The safest and most reliable path.

But if he did that, the Apostle of Justice would definitely escape. She was the type who valued her own safety above all else. The moment she sensed the outcome was decided, she would not hesitate to turn her back. And then... the chance to pay the price for “access to the past” would disappear. The villagers could not be saved.

Which meant there was only one answer. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

With everything he had—no, at the brink of death—he had to throw himself at her and force a fight to the death. Then beat her down to the point where she could be used as an “offering,” stripping away all possibility of resistance.

From a strategic standpoint, it was the worst possible choice. To save a handful of villagers, he might burn through several death counts.

— ...So what.

A quiet whisper slipped from Gunther’s lips. On the way here, he had made inefficient choices more than once. Even if they seemed foolish at the time, later it turned out they had been the right choices. No—if he hadn’t made them, he wouldn’t have reached this moment. Causality always leaned this way.

Clang—

Gunther slowly tightened his grip on the sword. Power pulsed in his palms.

— ...What?

Meanwhile, Revmael felt a strange unease. Her gaze locked onto Gunther.

“...Strange.”

His homeland burned. Every villager slaughtered. Right after witnessing that, Gunther’s eyes had been filled with despair.

Revmael knew that look well. The look of someone who had lost everything. Someone writhing in agony from an irreparable loss. It suited this impious heretic who interfered with the Theocracy at every turn. She had been deeply satisfied.

...But a moment later, his gaze changed.

And it was a gaze Revmael had never seen before. She didn’t understand it at first.

— ...You’ve lost it. Completely lost your mind.

Resistance? No. Something more savage—and far more arrogant. Revmael met a gaze that looked at her like prey... like something meant to be devoured.

— How dare you... — veins bulged along her neck. A being that had always been the predator, never “food,” felt its territory invaded for the first time.

— HOW DARE YOU!!!!!

Boom!

Revmael’s foot crushed the ground. The impact flipped the surface inside out, forming a massive crater.

Shrrk—shrrk—shrrk—

The poles planted throughout the village began to sway violently. The charred skulls hanging from them...

Thud. Thud.

Fell helplessly to the ground.

Death trembled, death rained down—it was a truly grotesque sight. But Gunther didn’t even blink. He simply raised his sword.

— In my homeland... — he took a short breath. — There’s a saying: “You reap what you sow.”

He who rose through offerings would perish by an offering.

Step—

Gunther swung his sword and surged forward.

***

This place. Once, not a single ray of light had reached it. Only cold that scraped at the lungs with every breath, sticky dampness, and crushing silence mixed with pain.

...But now it was different. A faint light, like dawn, slowly spread through the space.

Down there, three prisoners looked at each other and smiled.

— Wow, finally.

— B-be careful. This isn’t full freedom yet.

A thousand years. No, far longer. They had endured that span and were ready to endure even more.

For them, “freedom,” even for a moment, was a true miracle. And all three knew the name of that miracle.

Gunther.

The countless deaths he had gone through, and the Karma he had gathered piece by piece each time. That immense causality had become a crack in their prison. Their voices rang with excitement:

— Gunther doesn’t even realize, does he?

— Of course not. He’s over there planning to die ten more times just to win. I wonder what kind of face he’ll make when he finds out?

— We didn’t tell him on purpose, just to see that.

— Surprise~.

Clang—

A heavy metallic sound echoed between them. The knight, lowering his visor, spoke with a clear smile in his voice. Even through the narrow slits of his helmet, the curve of his lips was unmistakable.

— I’ll go first.