The Loathsome Scapegoat C1
by berryChapter 1
Terren Meyer had returned to the past.
Why?
He had no idea.
He had simply gone to sleep, and when he woke up, a familiar ceiling greeted him.
The gray wallpaper of the Royal Academy dormitory where he had spent his school years, along with the glittering chandelier overhead, filled his vision. Terren’s eyes widened in horror, and he jerked upright as though seized by a fit.
This wasn’t his luxurious mansion.
It was a cramped dormitory room.
And inside it stood nothing more than a boy clutching his pounding heart while frantically looking around from the top bunk.
Terren stumbled down the creaking ladder. Forcing strength into his trembling legs, he stood before the bathroom mirror.
His height had shrunk by several inches.
He was wearing worn-out pajamas.
His face looked pale and gaunt.
His hair was overgrown and unkempt.
There was no doubt.
He was inside the body of his teenage self.
Thinking it might be a dream, he slapped himself across the face.
Pain.
Nothing but pain.
He even picked up a sword and cut his arm.
Crimson blood flowed as sharp agony dug into his flesh.
Everything felt painfully real.
Despair consumed him.
This was a nightmare.
Terren Meyer.
Loathsome Terren Meyer.
That Terren Meyer.
His name had almost become a proper noun.
As a child, he was known as the poor brat from the neighborhood.
A little older, he became “Loathsome Terren.”
And later…
He became simply that Terren Meyer.
Whenever people heard the name “the mad woman’s son, Terren Meyer,” they laughed.
Whenever “that disgusting loser, Terren Meyer,” appeared, people frowned in disgust.
But when he became that Terren Meyer…
People were terrified just to look at him.
Because the last Terren Meyer was a murderer.
A rebel.
A dark mage.
A criminal who bore every infamous title imaginable.
For now, however, he was neither murderer nor rebel nor dark mage.
He was merely the pathetic outcast Terren Meyer.
For nearly an hour, he sat blankly on the top bunk, staring into empty space.
The calendar hanging nearby proudly displayed a single line.
Year 200 of the Kingdom’s Founding.
The year he was sixteen.
“…Sixteen…”
Terren murmured.
Before returning to the past, he had been twenty-six.
Exactly ten years had been rewound.
The hands before his eyes felt foreign.
They were smaller.
Soft.
Untouched by scars.
Only then did reality sink in.
A hollow chuckle escaped him.
The laugh slowly twisted into something deranged.
Terren Meyer slammed his forehead against the wall and let out broken, choking sobs.
Why?
Why?
Why me?!
Terren Meyer—the greatest monster in history.
The dark mage who had dragged his family, classmates, teachers…
Even the king of the kingdom…
To their deaths.
Half of them had even died by his own hands.
And somehow…
He had returned ten years into the past.
Back to this hell called the Royal Academy.
Terren wished this were only a dream.
He wanted to believe that his god had turned him into a ghost wandering through the past.
That this…
Was the punishment he had been sentenced to.
The twenty-six-year-old Terren Meyer had already been on the verge of death.
He had wanted only to fall into an eternal sleep.
To forget every sin.
To return to dust.
Not to be thrown back into the most miserable year of his life.
“…Damn it!”
He smashed his forehead against the wall once again.
A loud bang echoed through the dormitory.
Rapid footsteps followed.
The door flew open.
Terren slowly lifted his head.
A brown-haired boy stood there, glaring at him with an irritated frown.
“Terren Meyer. Have you lost your mind? Shut up already. You’re making a racket.”
He naturally had gentle features.
Yet whenever he looked at Terren, his expression always soured.
“…Lloyd?”
“So you’ve finally gone insane. I don’t care if you want to rot in here all weekend, but don’t take a single step anywhere near my bed.”
Lloyd van Acker—
The vice president of the Royal Academy’s student council—
Shot Terren one last look of undisguised contempt before slamming the door behind him.
Terren stared blankly after him.
Lloyd van Acker.
His roommate when he was sixteen.
A casualty of the war who had died at nineteen.
The rebellion had just begun.
Terren had seized control of the Academy.
Dark mages and students clashed across the campus.
Terren himself had been rushing from battle to battle, subduing…
And killing…
One enemy after another.
That was when he had encountered Lloyd.
The dark mage standing beside Terren had fired a spell without hesitation.
Less than five seconds later…
Lloyd was dead.
Yes.
Lloyd van Acker—
A brilliant prodigy.
One of the kingdom’s brightest hopes.
He had died to a single spell of dark magic.
Without even managing to resist.
His entire body had rotted away as the curse consumed him alive.
And yet…
Lloyd was here.
Alive.
The slight frown as he spoke.
His swaying brown hair.
The contempt in his eyes.
His calm, composed voice.
He was alive.
He was no longer a corpse blackened by dark magic and abandoned on the ground.
No one was pointing at Terren and whispering,
“You killed Lloyd.”
Nothing had happened yet.
Not Lloyd’s death.
Not the death of that damned bastard who had spoken those words.
Not his mother’s death.
As those scenes flashed across his mind…
Cold sweat drenched his body.
“Lloyd…! Please… please… Lloyd, I’m sorry. I was wrong. Get up… Please, get up…”
Terren gasped for breath.
Disgusted that even now his own thoughts were trying to justify themselves, he staggered back down from the bed.
After frantically searching for paper, he grabbed a quill and hurriedly wrote down everything he remembered.
Age Sixteen.
Entered the path of dark magic.
Age Seventeen.
Began killing people without end.
Age Eighteen.
Prepared the rebellion.
Age Nineteen.
Started the rebellion. Killed the king and placed his lord upon the throne.
Age Twenty.
Everyone died.
The rebellion had succeeded.
The kingdom became a nation ruled by dark mages.
Terren began overseeing state affairs beneath the new king.
Every high-ranking official who worked alongside him was a dark mage.
Every one of them was a butcher who slaughtered people without hesitation.
He had lived another six years in that ruined kingdom.
“…Why am I here…?”
Could he truly claim he had never regretted it?
Had there really been nothing wrong with a life sustained only by numbing himself with drugs because he could no longer bear the pain?
Every single day…
He thought about those he had killed.
Those who had died.
The teenage Terren Meyer had believed they all deserved to die.
How ridiculous…
Because throughout his entire twenties…
He lived with them.
Sometimes the imaginary versions of them were even crueler than they had been in life.
Sometimes they were kinder.
And on other days…
They wept as they clung desperately to his legs.
“Terren… I’m sorry.”
“Everything was my fault.”
“Please forgive me…”
…
Hadn’t he regretted everything?
Terren Meyer’s foolish choice had taken the life of his only mother.
It had also claimed the lives of those he hadn’t hated quite as much.
And in the end…
It had condemned him to a lifetime of unbearable loneliness.
There was only one reason why Terren Meyer—
The greatest villain in history.
A piece of trash who deserved to die—
Had returned to this place.
To atone…
For every sacrifice.
“Wash away your sins and close your eyes in peace, Terren Meyer.”
“You are not yet worthy of death.”
It sounded as though a voice echoed down from the heavens.