Keep moving forward.

A quote that has great importance in my own life.

Thanks to this quote I could go on with my life. Even after I died and came back, I didn't stop because of it. This quote has brought me this far. But now everything- everything I did, every pain I endured, every loss I suffered- was in vain.

I was crawling around with a severed left arm, a shattered right leg, and a huge hole in my stomach. Finally, I found a piece of rock to lean against and rested my back on it. I raised my head and looked around. The sky was deep red, the ground was crimson, and the weapon the silhouette was holding before me was shining with a bright red glow. It was as if they had all merged with the blood that flowed endlessly from my body.

I turned my head and looked at the silhouette before me. It had a slender yet fit-looking body and it was about my height. From a distance, it seemed no different from a human, but as you got closer, you realized it was something else entirely.

It had no eye, no mouth, no nose, no ear. Instead, when you look at its face, you see the Universe, the Cosmos, the Existence. The System; is a supreme entity that controls and governs all existence. Normally the System exists to maintain order. It grants abilities to people, strengthens them, guides them, tests their place in existence with scenarios and tasks, and passes judgment accordingly.

But all this- these are the words of that bastard. Not my thoughts. I've hated it with every fiber of my being since I realized that this skill is no different than a curse.

As I was lost in my thoughts, it pointed its lance at me and spoke. Its voice echoed directly inside my mind.

"You have lost again Damian. I have lost count of how many times this has happened."

Bastard. I wished it was making fun of me, but it wasn't. Because I too have lost count of that. I got a chuckle when I thought of my pathetic state. I probably lost my mind a long time ago. I shrugged, grinned, and replied:

"Go ahead, kill me. What are you waiting for? I'll be reborn, live this worthless life again and come after you until I end your fucking life anyway. You should never have given me this skill."

It was nothing but a futile intimidation. The System didn't give a damn either.

“You mean regression?”

“Yes... It's all your fault. My sorrow, my pain, my grief... All of it.”

Regression. It's a disgusting skill. It's a damned skill. The skill just takes me back to when I was eight years old, without any penalties or memory loss when I die. The exact age I got the skill. In appearance, it's a pretty cool and useful skill, isn't it?

I thought so too. But the reality was far different than that.

I was born with a condition, a condition that does not allow me to forget anything, that forces me to remember every single detail of everything I have ever experienced. They called this extraordinary memory disorder Hyperthymesia.

Hyperthymesia and regression. Either one alone is exhausting and dangerous, but together they are unimaginable.

As I lay there, half dead, slumped over a stone, my first life flashed before my eyes. My birth, my infancy, the death of my mother - my father had died before I was born- and the day after my mother's death, on my eighth birthday, I was given this skill... A translucent blue screen appeared before me with the words: [You have gained the Regression skill].

At that time, I lived alone and eventually died in a car accident. In my second life, I was stabbed; in my third, I was poisoned by something I ate. The list goes on.

After several such lives, I somehow got used to it - though the scars and memories were as fresh as the first day. I made friends, got a job, and even had a family. But in each life, I saw them die. Over and over again. Some died from mistakes, others from illness, and some were killed.

Perhaps driven by the burden of remembering, I tried to prevent every mistake and every death I could. But life, as always, was cruel. For every mistake I corrected, for every death I prevented, a new and unfamiliar event would unfold before me. Hundreds of lives and thousands of years wasted. All my efforts were in vain.

I fell into despair, fear, not knowing what to do. The only thing that kept me going was something my mother used to say: "When faced with hardship, put on your best smile and keep moving forward."In my early life, I didn't fully understand this, but as time went on, its meaning slowly began to sink in.

To keep moving forward, I needed a purpose. Constantly fixing mistakes or saving others was becoming a dead end for me. The only thing left to do was to research how to escape this regression loop.

Hundreds, thousands, millions of lives passed in my relentless search. I crossed into different worlds and wandered through different universes. Along the way, I met all kinds of beings - some good, some evil. Some chose to follow me, others stabbed me in the back.

The people I loved died. Those I trusted betrayed me. I suffered, I was tortured. I died and I killed. With each return, I lost a piece of myself - my emotions, my mind, my resilience. All slowly crushed and ground into dust in the cluttered wasteland of my brain.

The saddest part? I remembered it all.

After millions of lives, even the hope of a solution had vanished. I had become an empty shell, a machine designed solely to complete the task I had set for myself. I burned the heavens and obliterated the hells. I cut down gods and destroyed worlds. The number of lives I had lived was beyond even my comprehension.

Then one day I was summoned here.

A translucent screen appeared before me: [The solution you seek is before you. From now on you will proceed from here.]

Standing before me was a figure - an abomination, humanoid in form. I've been fighting it ever since. Every time I die, I resurrect, only to fight again. An eternal battle with no hope of victory.

After all I've been through, I finally understood what my mother meant. She wanted me to smile because it kept me sane. It allowed me to think positively no matter what, and served as a source of hope. She wanted me to keep moving forward because she believed that in the end there was a beautiful life ahead of me - a life worth living.

I'm sorry, Mother. My smile lies at the bottom of an abyss and the value of my life has long since been shattered into pieces.

"So this is what they mean when people say their lives flash before their eyes, huh?"

Heh, now I know why I'm seeing all this.

"How long have I been like this?" I asked.

"Just a minute has passed." 

A minute, huh... It felt like years. My vision began to blur. I felt my time running out. I gathered my strength and shouted. 

"In the next fight, I'll definitely defeat you and finally break out of this cursed cycle. Did you hear me?" 

In response to my outburst, it stood there, unwavering, unfazed. Its calm voice echoed directly into my mind.

"I am curious," it began, "You have lived through so much and remember everything. Aren't you tired of it all?"

The question hung in the air, and pierced me from every angle, something I hadn't expected. Even the bastard who put me through all this pitied me. Look what I've become. But why did it ask such a question out of the blue? Wasn't its only purpose to kill me and have fun with it? My mind was flooded with questions, but I couldn't have cared less about most of them.

Except for one.

Tired, huh? Yeah. To be honest, I was physically exhausted. But what wore me down most was the futility of everything I had done. It was the unattainable goal that drained me. I couldn't even see the silhouette of the System in front of me anymore. With the last bit of strength I had, I started muttering to myself. 

"Yes, I'm tired. So much more than you could ever imagine."

Deep down I didn't want it to hear me, but I knew it did. So I went on: 

"You know, giving up is the only thing on my mind. But I don't want everything I've been through to be for nothing."  

My voice was shaking, tears were streaming down my face.

"I wanted to forget. I wanted to erase all the pain I'd experienced, all the torment I'd suffered. I wanted to rest. I wanted to throw away all the experiences I had accumulated and find peace. I... I wanted a fresh start, a clean slate, a life I could forget and cherish. As meaningless as it all is, I wish I had one last chance..."

My voice trailed off. Yes, I had wished for one last chance. One last chance where I wouldn't be resurrected. I wanted to live my life fully and beautifully and finally find eternal peace...

But I knew I would come back. Again and again and again...

Or so I thought.

.....

"Good job."

As the system looked at the corpse in front of it, it turned in the direction of the voice.

"Thank you, my Lord."

A silhouette approached from the direction of the voice. From a distance, it looked like a shadow of a person, but as it got closer, it became clear that it was now really shaped like an anthropomorphic shadow.

"Aren't you going to ask, ‘Why did I ask that question?’"

"No, Master, because it was a question I was curious about the answer."

"Hmm, I see."

"My Master, may I ask you a question? Did his wish come true?"

The figure before him paused for a moment, then replied. 

"We will see. But... never underestimate the power of wishes and stories, my child."

"I am grateful to you for answering my questions, my Lord."

The figure turned its back on them and slowly began to take on the full form of a human being as it began to walk away. All the while, with a mischievous grin spreading across its face, it murmured a story to itself with a melody.

"Once upon a time, there was a little goldfish..."