Orestis lifted the hero by the throat with one hand, hoisting him effortlessly into the air.

  The young man kicked uselessly, boots scraping against nothing, fingers clawing at the wrist crushing his windpipe. His eyes burned with pain and stubborn fire—defiant to the very end. Orestis watched him struggle for a few moments longer, then exhaled a long, weary sigh.

  The hero’s sword lay shattered at his feet. His armor was cracked and caved in, metal warped from repeated impacts. His mana and aura had long since burned out, leaving his body trembling from exhaustion. It was clear that he had pushed himself far past his limits.

  The battle was over, and Orestis had won—much to his dismay.

  Truth be told, the fight hadn’t been entirely dull. There had been moments—brief, tantalizing sparks—when hope had fluttered in Orestis’s ancient chest. Moments when he’d wondered if this might finally be it.

  But not entirely boring wasn’t what he wanted. Not after all the expectations he’d placed on this one.

  “Is this all?” Orestis asked, his voice carrying the same disappointment he felt.

  The hero glared back at him, still defiant despite knowing death was seconds away. Well, credit where it was due. Unlike the countless heroes before him, this hero at least had no fear.

  The hero’s hand suddenly darted downward, then snapped back up, carrying a dagger which he easily plunged into Orestis’s heart.

  Not a surprising outcome, given that he was wearing only an open vest on his upper body. A deliberate choice, since he disdained armour of any kind.

  Orestis glanced down at the dagger protruding from his chest. Then he looked back up at the hero.

  “Really?” he asked drolly.

  As far as last-ditch efforts went, that was profoundly underwhelming. The dagger wasn’t even poisoned or cursed. Granted, poison didn’t affect him—but still, it was the principle of the thing.

  Then he frowned slightly.

  Oh wait… It looks like there is something on the dagger.

  He could feel it now: a faint, almost insidious enchantment. It wasn’t shaped using mana. Not with aura, either.

  Divine blessing.

  This one had been designed to take a soft approach. Orestis felt its subtle tug—like invisible fingers trying to gently nudge his soul loose from the vessel he had been trapped in for centuries.

  “Ah,” he murmured. “So that’s what you were aiming for.”

  A decent effort. Too bad attacks targeting the soul didn’t work on him either.

  “Why—won’t—you—die!” the hero demanded, each word forced out as he clawed helplessly at the fingers crushing his throat.

  Orestis loosened his grip just enough to let him speak.

  “Honestly,” he said mildly, “I was hoping you’d tell me. I thought you’d be the one to finally find a way to kill me. After all, you’ve always turned the impossible into the inevitable.”

  The hero’s chest heaved as he listened.

  “All those traps I laid. All those monsters I dropped in your path—you solved everything. Perfectly. Every time. It was impressive.” Orestis tilted his head. “Suspicious, even. Enough that I started wondering if you had some kind of foresight. A way of knowing how things were supposed to go.”

  Silence.

  No denial. No confirmation. Just strained breathing.

  Pity. He’d been expecting some response.

  Looking at him now, maybe he had overestimated the boy. Even with foresight—even if he knew every outcome—knowing wasn’t the same as solving. Especially when the problem had no solution.

  Oh well. Perhaps expecting some upstart barely past twenty to succeed where Orestis had failed for centuries had been… a bit too optimistic.

  Still, considering this hero’s ability, if there was even the slightest chance…

  “If I let you go,” Orestis said, “do you think you could find a way to kill me?”

  The hero’s response was to spit at his face.

  Orestis was quick to dodge, because getting spit on was just plain disgusting. A dagger, he could accept; but saliva? Never!

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “I suppose that’s an answer,” he said dryly.

  Then he drove his free hand through the hero’s chest, shattering armor, bone, and heart in one brutal strike. He released a surge of aura and mana to finish the job.

  For a moment, the world stilled.

  Then light erupted from the hero’s wound—brilliant, blinding. Enough to make Orestis squint and turn his head away.

  “What… is happening?” the hero’s voice whispered.

  Orestis blinked. He’s still alive? After that?

  Interesting.

  He tried to pull his hand free—but something held it fast.

  When the light finally dimmed, both of them stared.

  The hero’s body was beginning to crumble. Slowly, impossibly, grain by grain, as though turning to sand—starting from the fatal wound.

  At this point, Orestis was able to free his hand, only to see that it was disintegrating as well.

  There was no pain, but that was normal. He hadn’t felt any pain ever since he became immortal.

  What wasn’t normal was that it showed no signs of slowing down.

  “Well,” Orestis muttered, “that’s new.”

  The hero, wide-eyed, stared at the dust drifting from his skin. “What did you do? This has never happened before.”

  “I have no idea,” Orestis admitted truthfully as he let go, allowing the boy’s half-crumbled form to slump to the ground.

  His choice of words had been interesting. But Orestis couldn’t be bothered to focus on that.

  Not right now.

  Orestis watched, entranced, as the decay spread up his arm. Still unrelenting. Still unstoppable.

  It was possible that cutting off his arm would prevent the spread. But he had no intention of doing so.

  Because for the first time in centuries… his body wasn’t healing.

  A slow, feral smile curled across his lips.

  “But I think I like it.”

  The disintegration crept up his neck, his jaw, his skull. His laughter echoed across the battlefield—raw, jubilant, unrestrained.

  So this was it. This hero—this stubborn, fearless, annoying child—had succeeded where gods, monsters, curses, and Orestis’s own desperate attempts had all failed.

  His vision dimmed. His awareness thinned, dissolving along with his flesh.

  He could feel it. At long last, he was going to die.

  Finally. Oblivion.

  His last, exultant thought scattered into nothing as the final remnants of his consciousness were erased.

  …

  And then he opened his eyes again.

  He groaned.

  “… Of course.”

  As if it would be that easy, Orestis thought dejectedly.

  Then he blinked in confusion.

  Wait... why is there a roof over my head? I was out on the plains a moment ago…

  He sat up and immediately realised that something was wrong.

  Very wrong.

  For one thing, he could feel… an unfamiliar, irritating sensation in his limbs and along his spine.

  And for another—

  Why is my body so small?

  He slid out of the bed he’d been lying on and stumbled, nearly falling flat on his face. It wasn’t vertigo. His limbs were simply too short compared to what he had been using just a minute ago.

  Orestis took a moment to mentally adjust his sense of balance and coordination to his smaller frame. Then, step by careful step, he crossed the room.

  It was strange. He felt a vague sense of familiarity as he took in his surroundings. Before he could think more on it, he saw his reflection in a mirror and stopped short.

  Is that… me?

  A child was staring back at him. Nine, perhaps ten years old.

  Orestis walked closer to the mirror, a whole slew of emotions going through his head. He touched his face and let out a short, incredulous laugh.

  This wasn’t the usual restoration. Whenever his cursed body regenerated, it returned him to himself—the unchanging, unaging version he had grown to despise. But this? He couldn’t even describe this as a healing mistake.

  The whole situation was so strange that Orestis instinctively began a series of mental checks to ensure that he was not trapped within an illusion, a dreamscape, or some mind-twisting curse.

  But no; his mind had not been tampered with. Which meant this was real.

  Did that dagger’s enchantment have something to do with this?

  Orestis crossed his arms and scowled at his reflection. “Well, this is inconvenient.”

  Aside from being short and having tiny hands, he could feel that this body did not even have any mana. And without mana, he couldn’t continue his research on how to end his immortality.

  Sure, he could regain his mana pool if he trained for a few decades, but the thought of wasting so much time pissed him off. Besides, he wasn’t too keen on the idea of spending eternity as a child.

  Speaking of which…

  Why do I keep getting the feeling that I’ve seen this kid before?

  Orestis leaned closer to the mirror, studying the features.

  Green eyes. Dark hair. A faint dimple in the chin.

  It really was familiar. Uncomfortably familiar.

  Actually, it wasn’t just this kid.

  He turned his head to look around the room again. The bed, the furniture, the painting hanging on the wall…

  Recognition washed over him slowly, then all at once.

  Orestis finally realised where he was.

  His home.

  His first home!

  This was where he had been born—where he’d lived, laughed and dreamed… until he’d foolishly packed a bag and stormed off to chase adventure, only to eventually stumble upon that cursed shrine of immortality.

  It was also a place that should not exist except as a ruin, eroded by centuries of neglect.

  His eyes darted back to the mirror as he realised that this was not something as simple as his soul switching bodies. This wasn’t even a case of his age winding backward.

  No, this was far bigger; time itself had been reversed till he was sent back to the years when he was a simple child.

  His thoughts snagged on the strange discomfort that had been nagging at him—the dull tightness in his limbs, the subtle ache along his spine.

  He was finally able to put a name to the sensation.

  Stiffness.

  The ordinary, mortal stiffness of a body waking from sleep.

  Something so mundane, so forgettable… yet he hadn’t felt it in millennia. But this small ache—this imperfect, wonderfully flawed sensation—told him everything he needed to know.

  I’m not immortal yet.

  His heartbeat quickened, each thud bright and heavy with possibility. He stood very still, afraid that even thinking too loudly might shatter it. This feeling—this fragile chance—was something he had pursued for centuries.

  That means…

  Orestis immediately started running through the house, laughing breathlessly as he climbed stair after stair until he eventually reached the highest floor. At which point, he jumped head-first out of the nearest window.

  He was still grinning from ear to ear when his head hit the ground. Orestis felt the pain of his skull splitting open before everything went black.

  …

  And then he opened his eyes again.

  Orestis blinked, once… twice… confusion spreading across his face like a slow-creeping shadow.

  “The f—”

  He stopped, breath catching.

  Because this time, the confusion didn’t fade.