The Last Place Hero’s Return - Chapter 2

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 2. A Reason to Live (1)
“One week of suspension.”
“….”
“What, do you have a problem with that?”
A middle-aged man with a wild, leonine appearance asked in a low, gravelly voice.
Lucas Kane.
A professor who had overseen the third-year Warrior Department during my time as a hero candidate.
A former hero known as the “Blood-Starved Hound,” renowned for having slain hundreds of Mains.
And today.
The very man who had struck me in the solar plexus the moment I woke up.
“Disrupting class and assaulting a professor… you should be grateful suspension is all you’re getting.”
“…Yes.”
I nodded awkwardly at Professor Kane, whose fierce gaze bore down on me.
“Now go back to the Dormitory and write a reflection. I need to finish the rest of my class… Ugh.”
As Professor Kane tried to rise from his chair, his expression twisted in pain and he clutched his chest.
“Are you alright?”
“Mind your own business.”
At the professor’s sharp rebuke, I turned and left his office.
The walk back to the Dormitory.
I trudged through the normally bustling corridors filled with candidates, heading toward my room.
Amid the confusion, there was one small mercy.
Despite all the time that had passed, I still vaguely remembered the room number from the four years I had spent here before.
[Hero Candidate ‘Dale Han’. Identity confirmed.]
Beep, click.
As I held the wristwatch to the sealed door, a familiar mechanical sound rang out and the door slid open.
A small bed, a desk, and a shabby shelf holding a few cheap bottles of wine.
‘This is my old room.’
So much time had passed that my memories of my days as a hero candidate weren’t particularly vivid, but I could hardly forget the appearance of the private dormitory room where I had lived for four long years, from age eighteen to twenty-one.
I stepped into the room, where a cold silence hung heavy, and sat down on the worn bed.
“…What in the world happened?”
After I had accepted the Primordial Flame into my body.
I had closed my eyes, thinking I could finally put an end to that unbearably long life.
‘I’ve come back?’
As far as I knew, the Primordial Flame possessed no power to turn back time.
In the first place, the reason I had wandered for hundreds, even thousands of years searching for the Primordial Flame was because there were records stating it could incinerate the Seven Divine Blessings—the ‘Stigmata’—within me.
“Wait, if that’s the case…”
I hastily unbuttoned my shirt and looked down at my left chest.
The Stigmata inscribed on my left chest.
The Stigmata bestowed by the Forest God, one of the Seven Deities, remained intact and unburned.
“Ah.”
A chilling shudder rippled down my spine.
I had wandered across the Continent for so long, seeking the Primordial Flame with only death in mind.
Was it all for nothing?
‘No, I shouldn’t judge yet.’
Strictly speaking, my inability to end my own life wasn’t due to the stigma the Forest God had granted me, but rather the ‘Blessing of Resurrection’ that dwelled within it.
While any hero possessed a stigma, the blessing was a power granted to only an extremely select few.
‘The stigma may remain, but the blessing could have vanished.’
Testing it was simple enough.
With a metallic whisper.
I drew a blade from the scabbard lying in the corner and pressed it against my neck.
A crude slash or cut wouldn’t reveal whether the blessing had disappeared.
The Blessing of Resurrection only activated in response to fatal wounds.
So there was only one way left.
-A sharp scrape.
I gripped the hilt firmly and drew the blade across my throat without hesitation.
As the cold sensation of steel biting into flesh registered, my severed head tumbled to the floor with a dull thud.
Blood fountained upward, staining the bedsheet crimson.
And then.
A deep, resonant hum.
Blue light erupted from the stigma carved into my left chest, and my vision, which had gone dark, returned to normal.
The head rolling across the floor, the bedsheet drenched in blood—everything had returned to its pristine state as if nothing had happened.
“Heh.”
A quiet laugh escaped my lips.
Nothing had changed.
Neither the stigma carved into my left chest nor the Blessing of Resurrection dwelling within it.
At the end of this unbearably long life, I had found not a period, but a repeat sign.
‘Then what happened to the Primordial Flame?’
The thought crossed my mind—had it vanished along with my regression?
“Ugh!”
A searing pain shot through my left chest.
It felt like a white-hot brand searing into flesh, leaving me gasping.
I looked down to see a faint flame flickering like a candle around the stigma on my chest.
‘What is this?’
This was a phenomenon I had never experienced in thousands, tens of thousands of deaths repeated across the ages.
The reason something that had never occurred before was suddenly appearing.
Finding the answer wasn’t difficult.
‘The Primordial Flame didn’t disappear after all.’
Though compared to when I first absorbed it, the flame was pathetically faint.
Still, it seemed the Primordial Flame itself hadn’t vanished with my regression.
‘Regardless, the fact remains that the Blessing of Resurrection hasn’t disappeared.’
I clutched my throbbing head and collapsed onto the bed.
Tangled thoughts churned through my mind in chaotic disarray.
“Regression…”
I placed my hand over the watch on my left wrist and gently channeled mana into it.
A soft hum resonated.
Light burst from the watch as a translucent holographic window materialized before me.
[Candidate Information]
Name: Dale Han
Origin: Republic
Grade: 3rd Year
Department: Warrior Department
Overall Candidate Ranking: 472 / 472
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this.”
Seeing my overall ranking listed at the very bottom of the candidate information window, I couldn’t help but let out a bitter laugh.
Perpetually last-ranked candidate.
The worst dunce since the Hero Academy’s founding.
Professor Lucas Kane’s infamous quote: “A wretch like you shouldn’t be allowed to work as a hero even after graduation”—I wore that crown proudly at rank one.
“Sigh.”
Recalling those days as a candidate, a bitter taste flooded my mouth.
‘Exactly when have I returned to?’
I closed the holographic window and checked the date on my wrist watch—early March, just as the semester was beginning.
‘Then the class I was just attending must have been… practical combat training.’
Practical combat training.
A mandatory course for all third-year students regardless of department, it was an educational program designed to prepare us for actual combat against magical beasts.
‘It was during the midterm evaluation of this class that I first manifested the blessing of resurrection.’
I was flipping through the dusty album of forgotten memories, one page at a time.
“…Wait.”
Like a bolt of lightning.
A forgotten memory struck my mind.
“Hold on… if this is third-year first semester practical combat training, then surely…”
Thump, thump.
My heartbeat thundered in my skull as if it might burst.
Before my thoughts could continue, my body moved first.
Crash!
I kicked through the dormitory door with shattering force.
Squeezing out every last drop of mana to reinforce my body.
I ran.
Even if my legs tore apart.
Even if my lungs burst.
Right now.
More than that….
—Creak, bang!
I threw open the classroom door I’d been expelled from moments before, the hinges groaning under the force.
“What, what is this?”
“Dale?”
The eyes of the candidates pierced into me like daggers.
I ignored them and moved forward.
To the very back of the classroom.
Beside the window where spring breezes drifted gently inside.
“Hmm?”
She.
Was there.
“Iris.”
Something about her sitting in that back seat by the window felt strangely unfamiliar.
The cause of that ‘unfamiliarity’ was not difficult to discern.
She no longer possessed what my memories showed her having.
Beautiful blue eyes that seemed as if they would be drawn inward were now turned toward me.
“Uh… me?”
She wore a bewildered expression, as if she never imagined I would call out her name so suddenly.
A natural reaction.
At this point in time, she and I were nothing more than complete strangers—we hadn’t even properly exchanged words, let alone been lovers.
When I reunited with Iris ten years after graduation, she didn’t even remember the fact that we’d attended the same classes together for an entire year during our candidacy.
Of course.
There would be no reason for her, called a saint and expected to become a hero representing the Holy Nation, to remember a fool who had firmly held the lowest rank from admission through graduation.
Until now.
“….”
Without answering, I walked toward her seat with steady steps.
“You! What do you intend to do to the saint!”
A female student with navy-blue hair tied in a ponytail shot up from her seat.
Camilla Bediche.
A holy knight dispatched directly from the Holy Nation to protect the saint during her candidacy, and a candidate so promising she was being considered as a successor to the position of Sword of Holy Nation.
“Stand down!”
Camilla barked fiercely and reached for the sword at her waist, drawing it.
Before her blade could even leave its sheath, I extended my hand toward her.
My fingertips touched the wrist of the hand gripping the sword’s hilt.
“Move.”
Berald martial arts.
Heaven’s Reversal.
“What—!”
Whoosh!
Camilla’s body lifted into the air before flipping backward and tumbling across the floor.
Screams and shouts filled the classroom.
Ignoring all of it.
I stood before her.
“…Ah.”
I remember.
I recall.
That warmth growing cold as she lay cradled in my arms.
Her trembling hand caressing my cheek, whispering over and over that everything would be alright.
That smile she forced through the pain as I wept.
“Ah… ugh.”
A sob escaped my lips, like the sound of a kettle boiling over.
My chest burned as if the thorns of surging passion had pierced my heart and burst through.
What should I say?
What words should I offer?
I know.
That she doesn’t remember me now.
That all the time we spent together is etched only in my mind.
But.
Even so.
Words I had recalled countless times while walking alone through the snow-covered Snowy Wasteland filled my throat.
There was so much I wanted to say.
Yet only one thing needed to be said.
“Thank… goodness.”
That you’re alive.
“Truly… thank goodness.”
To a life spent chasing only death.
I had found one reason to live.
* * *
“Your suspension is extended to one month.”
“No.”
“No? What do you mean no, you lunatic! You stormed into the classroom during suspension, attacked a candidate during class—and not just any candidate, but the Holy Nation’s own saint! Are you insane right now?”
“Attacked? That’s a misunderstanding, Professor. I didn’t lay a finger on the saint.”
“Then what about Camilla? Tell me you didn’t lay a finger on Camilla either!”
“Didn’t Camilla herself say she simply lost her footing and fell by accident?”
“Of course she did—because she couldn’t even draw her sword against you, so how could she admit it?”
“Come now, Professor. How could I possibly disarm someone like Camilla Bediche, who’s being considered as a candidate for ‘Sword of Holy Nation’?”
“Ha. You actually thought you could fool me with that pathetic act?”
Professor Lucas fixed me with a sharp gaze, living up to the nickname of a hunting dog that had been attached to him, and continued.
“Who exactly are you?”
“You don’t know?”
I shrugged my shoulders and continued speaking with an unbothered expression.
“I’m Dale Han. Rank 472 out of 472 in the comprehensive evaluation. The lowest-ranked hero candidate.”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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