It feels surreal, how everything unfolded.
A society that tried to rise from the rubble, led by multiple rulers of great power, ended up falling under the weight of its own greed.
Though I acknowledge every mistake, I still struggle to understand how we got to that point.
I feel a crushing guilt in my chest for the countless lives that were lost, even though my voice never mattered in the grand scheme of things.
After all, I was just a foot soldier. One among many.
But... maybe I could have done something.
Maybe, if I had been willing to give my life for it, I might have made a difference.
Perhaps I could have freed a few orcs, at least during my brief stay in the short-lived city of Nueva Esperanza: that could have prevented its eventual destruction… and with it, the beginning of the first major racial conflict.
Or, if I had just kept the elf who followed Elena in the early days of the Transfer from being separated from her, his presence during negotiations with his kind might have had some positive influence.
Especially after relations with them broke down following their escape from the control of the Devil of Lust.
As for the beasts… their case was always complicated.
I never got along with them. In fact, almost no one did. It was in their nature to be aggressive, proud, and distrustful.
Perhaps that's why there were so few protests when they were deceived "for the good of humanity."
It was a mistake. A grave one.
Because, due to that betrayal, we were left without a single ally we could trust in all of Craelos.
My head hurts. My hands tremble.
I can't even hold onto a fixed thought, since my memory is in shambles.
That's why, to the me who reads this journal, I want to ask a question:
Would you be willing to change things?
Actually, that's a stupid question. There's no point in asking it.
Even now, in my current semi-conscious state, I already know the answer.
You can't. We can't.
This is nothing more than the dream of a fool trapped in a fragmented mind, unable to control even his own thoughts.
And yet…
I don't want to waste this second chance.
Even though I don't believe in gods —not after facing those who claimed to be such— I should at least be grateful for the gift I've been given.
So instead of wallowing in regret like a spineless wretch, I'll write down everything I can remember, hoping to achieve more than the me who died in vain.
I will tell you, in as much detail as I can manage, each of the events that shaped the course of that disastrous end, and I will describe the faces of those who bent the world's fate.
I trust that I'll know how to use this information in the best way possible.
And remember.
In case all these memories vanish, remember that nothing written here is just a dream. The collapse of the future is no lie.
Fight and persevere.
Do it, at least, to save those you care about.
. . . . .
"Haa, haa, haa…"
The sound of ragged breathing filled the room, along with the characteristic stench of sweat emanating from Dylan's trembling body as he pushed through a final set of push-ups, ignoring the burning sensation coursing through his chest and abdominal muscles. He was exhausted, but instead of stopping to rest like any rational person would, he kept going out of sheer inertia and pride.
His triceps were swollen, and on his once-chubby hands, veins faintly stood out beneath knuckles reddened and cracked from earlier workouts. Each poorly executed movement drew out a muffled groan, lost amidst the female voice echoing through the headphones in his ears.
It was his journal—the one he'd written the day his memories traveled back in time—being read aloud by a monotone software he had installed on his laptop just the previous week.
«But... maybe I could have done something.»
"What a load of crap," he muttered breathlessly, hoping that some self-directed anger would spark a bit of energy.
It was early Monday morning. So early that not a single car was out on the road, and only the roosters had started crowing. Normally, Dylan would have gone jogging around the neighborhood at that hour, but today was an exception.
Last night, he got a call from the girlfriend of his insufferable housemate, Roberto. Though she no longer lived with him, she knew him well enough to guess where he'd ended up after going silent following payday.
And she wasn't far off.
When Dylan went to the bar she suggested, he found him drunk, laughing like an idiot with a group of strangers —men and women he'd only met that very day. They were clearly having fun while indulging in their shared vices, and because of that, getting him away from them was a pain.
In the end, after much struggling, Dylan ended up covered in vomit and beer. That's when he stopped treating him like a human and dragged him out by force, not without first slapping the resistance out of him.
Back home, Roberto collapsed onto the bed and forgot the world. Dylan, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. He needed a cold shower close to midnight, and that, combined with the freezing night weather and his daily routine, made him wake up with a fever and a sharp headache.
That was what forced him to change his plans on the fly: working out at home with something "light" seemed like the safest option in case the fever got worse and he needed to rest midway.
"All done… haa, haa… god, this sucks," he muttered before letting himself fall to the floor, arms drained of strength.
His stomach growled. He hadn't had breakfast; the mere thought of swallowing something solid made him nauseous. Still, knowing he couldn't afford to be sick while running on empty, he forced himself to stand.
Wobbling and bleary-eyed, he made his way over to the wooden table on the left side of the living room, where his laptop sat.
There, leaning on the furniture with one hand, Dylan reflected on what he had been doing up to that point: using his time at home to review the notes he took last month, as he hoped they would trigger fragments of lost memory… even though he was already sick of doing it.
«Would you be willing to change things?»
'Ridiculous… To think I'd act like a kid dreaming of being a hero at this age.'
It wasn't the first time he had read —or listened to— those words, but he always felt embarrassed by how he had written them. After all, they expressed emotions he no longer recognized as his.
'Back then, my emotions were so overwhelming I couldn't even be objective with the information. I received so many memories all at once that I got angry over things that happened decades ago and I even mourned the deaths of people I never once interacted with.'
In fact, that was one of the reasons he'd bought the headphones a few days ago, using part of the rent money Roberto had given him. He didn't want him to hear the journal; if he did, he'd probably mock him. Call him crazy. Or worse: an otaku.
'If that idiot laughed at me for this, it'd be a problem to take care of him after leaving him bedridden.'
While his thoughts wandered toward a possible disaster, the female voice continued playing:
«I trust that I'll know how to use this information in the best way possible.»
'Where the hell did I get all that blind optimism...? Whatever. That's enough. My whole body aches from this damn fever, and listening to this nonsense is only making it worse.'
Right after, wiping the sweat off with a towel draped over the back of a chair, Dylan closed the laptop and took off the headphones. He'd heard enough. The audio, far from helping him recover memories, had only worsened his discomfort.
Instead of continuing to torment himself, he headed to the kitchen. There, he splashed water on his face and forearms, which were covered in goosebumps. The faucet made an annoying noise, typical at that hour due to the high pressure, though he was already used to it after so many early mornings.
He grabbed a glass from beside the sink and filled it to the brim to gulp it down in one go. Then he filled it halfway again to take the pill he'd kept in his shorts pocket. It didn't have a bitter taste, so he didn't need anything sweet to wash it down.
"…"
Before bringing it to his mouth, he sighed deeply and put it back into the blister pack. At the last moment, his mother's words came to mind—she always told him never to take medicine on an empty stomach. So he'd have to eat, whether he felt like it or not.
Coffee and bread: not the most nutritious, but he had no intention of cooking something more elaborate.
Determined not to waste more time, he got to work. But just as he'd set the pot of water on the lit burner and pulled the instant coffee from the cupboard, the squeak of a door beside him and a long, sleepy yawn that caught his attention.
Roberto had emerged from his room, barefoot, in loose boxers and shirtless. He walked toward the kitchen, scratching his belly with one hand and rubbing his face with the other, still groggy with sleep. Soon he stopped next to Dylan, stared blankly for a few seconds before finally blurting out,
"Ugh… What the hell happened to me last night? I feel like I got run over by a tractor."
He looked as pathetic as he sounded. The countless mosquito bites on his torso and limbs —courtesy of sleeping uncovered without a fan on a humid night— made him seem even more pitiful than the hangover on his face.
Dylan glanced at him sideways, irritated by the fact that the idiot didn't remember a thing from the night before, even though he himself had gotten sick because of him. But before he could throw an insidious remark, Roberto spoke again, quickly losing interest in his own question:
"Hey, did you make coffee for me too? I need it to kill this damn headache."
At his shameless request, Dylan's face twisted. He said nothing. He simply turned off the stove, with the water nearly boiling, and prepared two porcelain mugs. He filled them halfway with coffee, not bothering to add more than a teaspoon of sugar. Then he picked one up and took a sip as he set the other on the counter. Roberto got the hint and silently walked over to grab it.
They didn't exchange any words after that. One didn't feel like talking, and the other hadn't fully woken up yet. But the fragile morning truce broke when, after a couple of sips, Roberto opened his mouth again, frowning.
"No bread left?"
That was the last straw. Dylan, fed up, replied curtly,
"No. If you can't handle plain coffee, there's a store a few blocks away."
There was bread, but it was just one loaf, and he'd saved it for his own breakfast. Without a second thought, he grabbed it from a red bin next to the fridge and took a bite, without the slightest enthusiasm. Then, coffee in hand, he headed back to the living room, determined to watch the morning news while he ate.
Unfortunately, he didn't get far when a low mutter from the kitchen reached him —one he'd rather not have heard.
"You're grumpier than usual… Seriously, you should get yourself a girlfriend or something. Maybe she could straighten out your mood."
With his teeth clenched, Dylan swallowed the urge to turn around and throw the coffee at the idiot who didn't know when to shut up.