Mushoku Tensei

Volume 24 Epilogue : Prologue Zero

Part 1

Armored Dragon Calendar Year 500.

There was a young girl named the Playback Miko.

That girl had eyes similar to that of the dead.

Her pupils had looked blank since the time of her birth. Only despair was reflected in them.

The adults around her thought of her as ominous and kept their distance.

The girl was aware.

She was aware of just what kind of fate awaited her.

She was aware even before her birth.

Nay. It would be fallacious to conclude that she knew before birth.

The girl was reborn time and time again.

Nay. It would be fallacious to conclude that she was reborn.

The girl just kept repeating the same life over and over again.

Nay. It would be fallacious to conclude that she lived the same life.

The girl kept repeating a life with only some slight differences.

A life with only some slight differences.

Nevertheless, the conclusion of that life always remained the same.

There was never a big change that occurred, and she approached the same conclusion time and time again.

That conclusion was her death.

The girl died.

Death was something that couldn’t be avoided by anyone. However, the death of the girl was an atrocity.

After the girl had been handed over to the country to be used as a tool, she was caught by the enemy and died.

Just like a toy being fought over by children.

At times, she was cruelly violated. At times, she was eaten alive by beasts. At times, she was drowned in water.

The girl died each time, surrounded by despair and pain.

Life was nothing but a path that lead to despair for the girl.

There was only one step before she reached the executioner's stand and she was simply taking that one step each and everyday.

She had no hope.

The girl had a power.

The power of rewinding the time of an object to a maximum of 24 hours.

The power to restore something that had been broken.

The power to resurrect the dead.

24 hours.

Only by 24 hours.

However, that power that could resurrect even the dead was enough for her to be requisitioned by the Country.

The King of the Country took her into his hands, monopolizing her.

That power which could turn things back by 24 hours ridded the King of all diseases and injuries.

She couldn’t perform miracles like bringing a stop to aging, but that was considered a trivial matter.

As far as the girl’s knowledge went, there were three types of Kings.

When the girl died and each time a new nightmare began, there was a slight change.

However, the actions taken by any of the kings never changed towards the girl.

Thus, for the girl, all the Kings were the same.

The power of a Miko did not bring the girl any luck whatsoever.

Neither could she rewind her own time nor could she use it for her own sake.

She had no choice but to be shackled in the prison of the Royal Palace.

And then, she died.

While being kept at the corner of the Palace and meeting different people each time, in the end, she died.

At times, by the King’s wrath when her power wasn’t up to the task.

At times, when the country was invaded by another country and she was taken as a prisoner.

At times, when the country was invaded by Demon Races and she was massacred along with everyone else.

The girl’s life always came to a tragic end.

And then, again from the beginning.

In a corner of the country, it began once again with her birth in a remote countryside.

The girl being thought of as creepy by the adults, was taken by the country, and then died.

Of course, the girl tried to run away from her own fate at the start.

While hiding her power, she tried living her whole life together with her mother and father.

Nevertheless, it was futile.

For some reason, whenever she reached the age of 5, the soldiers came from the country and took the girl away.

She tried running outside the village before the soldiers arrived.

Still, it was futile.

She would either get eaten by a beast or get caught by bandits or kidnappers.

After being caught, she was sold to various places but reached the country eventually.

Fate tied the girl to the country like the sand pit of an ant-lion, and she was killed while in despair.

It was hell.

She kept continuing forever and forever. It was a never-ending hell.

The hell completely and thoroughly destroyed the girl’s mind.

It came to the point that the girl had a vacant expression on her face and obeyed the King’s orders like a machine.

For 100 years, 200 years.

She no longer knew just how many times she had died and how many times she had lived.

However, her memories of being killed were clear to her as the day.

It was probably her instinct.

The instinct of not wanting to die. In order to avoid that event, her mind may have stored the memories of being killed.

As a result of that, the girl’s memories were all painted over by the memories of her deaths.

She could no longer recall anything else.

Only the moments when she was killed became her consecutive memory.

Within those incessant continuous deaths, the girl thought.

She thought long and hard.

(No more.......someone, save me......)

At that time, the law of the world changed.

Part 2

There was a change in her next life.

As usual, she was born in an un-named countryside village and then headed towards the Country after she turned 5.

As usual, she used her powers exactly as ordered by the King everyday. Those things did not change.

However, when she turned 10, something different happened. An event that never once occurred in all of her lives and deaths.

The day she turned 10.

As if being taken somewhere to celebrate her birthday, she was taken along to that place.

The basement of the Palace.

She was taken to a compartment where a huge magic formation was drawn.

The girl did not know that there was such a magic formation inside the Palace.

It was because she was not allowed to freely roam around the Palace.

There were several tens of human adults surrounding the magic formation.

The adults were holding staffs, wearing pitch black robes, and hid their faces with hoods.

She was aware of the fact that those adults were called magicians because of all the hellish times she had been through.

However, she did not know what she would be doing from now on.

It was because she wasn’t well-informed on the topic of magic and magic formations.

During the girl’s hell, she never got a chance to study anything about magic or magic formations.

The girl was tied up with the magic formation.

But the girl’s eyes remained the same as usual, blank.

A new thing had happened.

And yet it didn’t even cause a ripple in her heart.

She would be dying in the end anyway.

Even if something changed mid-way, it was still all the same.

Such resignation had filled the girl’s heart.

The ceremony started.

The magic formation mercilessly sucked up mana from the girl’s body.

There was an enormous amount of mana contained within the body of the girl known as the Miko.

That mana was a different type from the one used in ordinary magic or swordplay. By all rights, it wasn’t for use in magic or this type of magic formation.

Then, was it a coincidence that the magic formation sucked up the girl’s mana?

Nay.

That magic formation was made for that sole purpose.

It was a formation which operated by using the『Playback Miko’s』mana.

Just who made it?

The girl couldn’t see her, but the manufacturer was standing at the corner of the room.

Known as the Kingdom’s all-time prodigy, it was a Magic Knight.

She too, was watching the ceremony with a bored-looking face, although her face wasn’t too similar in expression to that of the young girl’s.

And then, the ceremony was a success.

The magic formation began to release a dazzling light.

Rainbow colored light.

It was the summoning color.

And when the intensity of that light weakened, one boy could be seen in the center of the formation.

“It’s a success.”

“It was a success!”

“The country is saved with this!”

While the magicians were basking in happiness, the boy looked around the surroundings with a puzzled face.

And then, he slowly sat down directly in front of the girl with the vacant expression.

“Excuse me.....where is this? I was with Nana and Kuro, but......huh?”

It was a language that nobody in that place knew of.

But for some reason, the girl could understand him.

Maybe it was because her own magic power was used to summon him, or maybe she was involved in the reason he was brought here.

“Ah, my name is Shinohara Akito...... who are you?”

“I’m the『Playback Miko』 .”

“........Mi─? .....Ummm, I’m asking for your name though?”

Now that she recalled, within this hell, the girl was never called by her true name, especially after she came to the country.

The Mikos don’t have a name.

There may be an exception if a Miko were to be royalty, but the Mikos are basically stripped of their names.

From thereafter, they are referred to as Miko and there’s no need to call them by their real names.

The girl was no exception either.

But the girl remembered her real name before she took the name of Miko, before her real name was stripped from her.

It was only because she had died so many times over and over again that she remembered it.

The name given to her by her father and mother.

“──Riria.”

“I see, that’s a nice name.”

The boy smiled.

Looking at that smile, the girl’s heart skipped a beat.

Part 3

The girl could feel the change.

The girl was released from the duty of a Miko by the King and was given the position as an interpreter for the boy.

With the Magic Knight as a guard, the three of them strided through the Palace.

“Riria, what’s that?”

The boy who came from another world asked the girl about various things.

About the world, about the lifestyle, about the people.

The girl had died so many times and yet she did not know anything.

“What’s that......he’s asking.”

“That? That’s a Magic item. The one that spits out fire from the tip if it’s loaded with mana. It's probably used for exterminating monsters between here and the forest.”

The girl who did not know asked the Knight, to which the Knight answered.

The prodigy known as the Magic Knight, answered thoroughly in a dull tone.

Unlike the girl, she knew everything.

“Hmmm, it’s like a flamethrower....if I recall, you said that there were a lot of tree monsters in this world, right?......has Riria ever seen one?”

“.......Several times. It was restlessly moving around.”

“Restlessly huh...... hahaha, I can’t even imagine it. Ah, but I may have seen something similar in a movie.”

“Movie......?”

“A movie is──”

Everyday life as an interpreter.

It was a completely different life from the previous ones.

It was fresh.

The boy laughed without care each time he was informed about the world, and each time, the girl’s heart skipped a beat.

She had thought that nothing would change at first.

She thought that it was already over for her.

But through the boy’s infrequent tales of his own world, her dreams were allowed to run wild.

By listening to the words of the Knight that answered the boy’s questions, she could feel the world around her extend.

She came to know just how vast the world was, and the various people and things that she wasn’t aware of.

A short time after the boy’s arrival, she realized that food had flavours to them.

She could now listen carefully to the singing birds when the morning arrived.

She could now feel the pleasant sensation of the warmth of sunlight.

She began to feel that she was alive.

She thought that the hell was over.

The boy had come to rescue the girl.

He had come to rescue her from the hell that she had lived in for so very long.

And that she was born in order to meet this boy.

Her real life was finally about to start from this point forward.

This was fate.

While thinking that, the boy became stronger, kind, and became the moral support for the girl.

However, that very same fate had betrayed her.

Part 4

The country was wrapped up in war.

The girl was aware...

That each time she got wrapped up in that war, she died as a result.

She knew that better than anyone else.

But the girl did not know...

That the boy was summoned in order to win that war.

That the prophet employed by the country, suggested to summon a hero from another world to win the war because if they didn’t, they’d definitely lose.

And, just as the prophet had said, the country spent 10 years attempting to summon the boy, and could no longer focus on anything else.

She did not know anything.

And thus, the boy fought.

But the boy knew nothing of war.

The people of the country knew that the boy was unfit for battle, and yet they sent him to battle.

They put the armor on him, gave him a sword, and made him stand at the front line of the battle.

And thus, the boy died.

He was cruelly killed in the battle and he died.

His head flew off with just one hit from the enemy general and he died.

His head was snatched away by the enemy general, and only the body of the boy reached the girl.

The people of the country could do nothing but sigh after seeing the dead boy.

The hero from another world was useless after all.

Believing in the prophet’s nonsense was a foolish deed.

They could only spit on him.

The girl embraced the boy’s corpse and tried to revive him with all her might.

It was futile.

24 hours had already passed after the boy’s death and his body had now started to rot.

The girl could not do anything with her power.

The girl cried.

She shouted, why?

She shouted, just why only she had to suffer like this.

She cried.

It wasn’t a sad feeling that she held.

The feeling of being toyed with by fate.

The girl’s heart was dominated by a feeling of powerlessness, that someone was sneering at her and telling her that no matter what she did, it would be futile.

And then, right before her, the country perished.

The girl was captured, and within the usual despair, her life was taken.

But the girl thought.....

For the first time in her life, she thought hard and hard and hard and hard.

(I WANT TO LIVE.........!)

She neither wanted to die nor wanted to be saved.

(I WANT TO LIVE TOGETHER WITH HIM.........!)

The time she spent with the boy wasn’t that long.

But that short amount of time had certainly dominated the girl’s heart.

The girl’s heart which was painted over by the memories of her deaths were very easily repainted.

The boy was her hope.

It was the first ray of hope for the girl.

That hope raised her face and made her move forward.

For the first time in her lives, the girl completely shifted her focus on her own power.

At the verge of her death, the girl bit her own lips until it started bleeding and then used her power.

She would rewind the time by one day.

She used her power while thinking that.

She strained her power as if burning off her own brain.

The girl used the 『Power to Change the Past』.

The world looped with the girl as the core.

Part 5

The girl’s power reached the past.

Armored Dragon Calendar Year 400.

Fittoa Region, Ranoa town.

The place where the boy lost his life.

A rift in time-space appeared above its skies.

Inside that rift, there was a being which had a strong relationship with the boy.

That being carried the same wish as that of the girl who wanted to live together with the boy.

Therefore, in order to make a future where the boy is saved, the being would change the world accordingly and a path of life would be made for the boy.

As a result, in Armored Dragon Calendar Year 500, the boy would be saved.

……..Or so it should’ve been.

No matter how powerful her ability, the deed of creating a being in the past which normally shouldn't exist was impossible even for the girl.

Even though the rift in space-time existed, it never materialised into the world.

The power of the girl and the power of the world clashed against each other.

K400, K401, K403.

The world continued without any change.

But during that time...

A single soul went astray and passed the rift in space-time.

That soul had no connections with the boy in any way.

At the time of the boy’s teleportation, at the time when the girl’s power was summoning a being, the soul of that person simply died near those phenomenons.

However, because it was in a state of being a soul, the soul found an opening, and passed through the rift in space-time that had been stopped by the world, and thus the soul was able to enter said world.

And after unsteadily loitering around, just when it was about to lose spirit, it entered a baby.

The wielder of that soul was named Rudeus Greyrat.

The existence of Rudeus Greyrat was only slight, but the world definitely changed.

The ideology of Roxy Migurdia changed, the history of Sylphiette was thrown out of order, and Eris Boreas Greyrat was granted wisdom.

Those actions, weakened the resistance of the world.

And thus, the rift in space-time expanded.

And then, in Armored Dragon Calendar Year 417.

Nanahoshi Shizuka was summoned into the world.

However, the existence of Rudeus Greyrat changed the order of the world more than the girl wished for.

Originally, the change was only intended to save the boy's life. However, that alone was inexcusable.

History took a sudden change and started walking towards a future unbeknownst to anyone.

The world changed.

It was unknown whether the change was what the girl had wished for.

But a few years after Rudeus’s death...

The girl was reborn.

As payment for the loop, nearly all of her powers were drained from her and only a shell of the Miko was born.

In order to fulfill her wish...

She was born in the final world.

No one knew whether or not the girl would survive until the end.

Afterword

This brings to an end the story of Rudeus Greyrat, a former unemployed NEET.

Although we were shown the future of Hitogami’s defeat, the future may change so the fight between Hitogami and various people will still continue.

However, the story of Mushoku Tensei itself tells the tale of Rudeus Greyrat only, so please let me have the privilege of ending the story now.

The total writing time would be 2 years. And as for the total amount of characters, it should be around 2,830,000.

I, myself have never in my life written a story this long.

Despite fumbling around in an unknown territory, I continued writing without stopping and we was able to reach the conclusion, I think that it’s all thanks to the readers who supported me till the end.

Thanks to the huge amount of thoughts & evaluations, we were able to reach first rank as a total.

"Don't be fooled by the numbers, or believe that your ability rapidly increased because of the growing numbers, it doesn't mean that the story you've been writing until now suddenly became interesting, don’t be tempted and only look at yourself as an author - or so I kept telling myself and yet I do not know just how many times I have been encouraged by that first place which shone brilliantly. Of course, apart from numbers, there are a lot of aspects that I must reflect upon as well.....

I think that the fact that my story was able to gain the top spot in the 『Shousetsuka ni Narou』 where a lot of different authors assembled will become my self-confidence in the future, enabling me to move forward with this power.

Thank you very very much.

While putting my efforts towards the published version I am thinking about writing redundancy volume which will include 10 years of Rudeus’s story, i.e., from his age of 24 to 34 years old, stories after he crosses 34, stories focused on the kids, stories of characters that I didn’t focus on too much, at a slow pace of 1-2 chapters a month.

I look forward to working on both the published version and Redundancy volume.

Well then, once again.

Thank you very much for your readership.

This chapter upload first at NovelBin.Com