Chapter 1
“Hey.”
At the brief call, the child looked up.
Covered in dust, the child was rummaging through the pockets of a corpse.
“Hungry?”
Leviathan asked. Instead of answering, the child rolled those blue eyes around.
Judging by the way their lips twitched, it looked like they wanted to say yes… but they were clearly on guard.
Smart choice.
No matter how hungry you are, you shouldn’t go running up to a stranger, right?
Though digging through a dead soldier’s pockets isn’t exactly great either.
“Eat.”
Leviathan pulled out a piece of jerky from inside his coat and held it out.
“And come out from there.”
It was hard to keep looking at the child standing near a horribly mangled corpse.
Even if this place was a blood-soaked battlefield.
“Looks like an Eosian.”
From the uniform, the dead man was a soldier of Eosia.
Leviathan dropped down onto a pile of rubble and took out a cigarette.
As he lit it and exhaled, the desolate surroundings came into view.
“I’m from the Empire. I won’t hurt you.”
He held out the jerky again.
Long trails of smoke drifted away with every breath.
“The war’s over, too.”
The child, stiff as a board, still looked wary.
After a moment, they shuffled closer and took the food.
“……”
“You’re supposed to say thank you.”
The child pressed their lips tightly together.
Up close, the child looked even worse.
Filthy beyond belief. What were they even wearing—rags?
Tsk. Leviathan clicked his tongue.
The hair was chopped unevenly, as if hacked off at random, and the thin wrists visible beneath the shabby clothes were clearly those of a child who had never known proper care.
But…
For some reason, the blue eyes looking up at him were strangely bright.
“All right, all right. Just eat. Hurry.”
Leviathan roughly shoved the food into the child’s hands.
The child bowed their head slightly, then took a small bite from the top. The teeth marks left in the tough jerky were pitifully small.
A very young child.
Six or seven years old, maybe.
Lost their parents, I guess.
The village had been reduced to scorched ruins by an attack from black monsters. Leviathan hid his heavy feelings and exhaled a long stream of smoke.
“A recovery unit will be here soon, so eat while you wait. Don’t go near the bodies. You’ll get sick.”
The wind shifted. Leviathan quickly crushed the cigarette underfoot.
When he brushed the dust from his silver hair, the child stared straight up at him.
Damn it, what kind of eyes are those…
So big and clear—like they might spill over at any moment.
Scratching the back of his head roughly, Leviathan stood up.
Just as he took a step forward, the child’s tightly sealed lips opened.
“Mister.”
A surprisingly clear voice.
“Yeah?”
“Is the war really over?”
Leviathan looked down at the child in silence.
“Yeah. It’s over.”
Only after forcing the words out did it feel real.
Ten years.
A full ten years.
The war between humans and black monsters.
Leviathan had spent all ten of those years on the battlefield.
But it was over now. Because he had killed the damn black mage who started it all.
All that remained was cleaning up the leftover small fry—like the pack of black monsters he had just wiped out in this village.
And yet…
Leviathan swept his gaze over the ruined village once more.
“I’m sorry.”
The child blinked their big eyes.
“For not coming sooner.”
Leviathan said it offhandedly as he began to walk.
The recovery unit would arrive soon enough. The child would be taken under their protection.
He intended to return to the Empire.
That was when he felt a weak tug on the hem of his clothes.
“……”
When he turned around, the same pair of eyes that had been bothering him were staring up at him again.
“…You want to come with me?”
Nod.
“That’s not a very good choice. Still?”
Nod, nod.
“Just in case—your parents…?”
Shake.
“…Any other family?”
The child shook their head vigorously.
Unable to watch any longer, Leviathan grabbed the small head.
“All right, that’s enough.”
“……”
In those clear, transparent eyes, he saw his own troubled expression reflected back.
He ruffled the back of his head with a rough hand.
“Hah… well. I guess it’s fine as long as you’re not from the Mage Kingdom.”
The Mage Kingdom, Arcadia, was a closed nation made up solely of mages. Its citizens were forbidden to relocate freely without the king’s permission.
Leviathan let out a long sigh.
This is troublesome. Looks like a local kid.
But it was hard to keep turning away from those clear, sapphire-like blue eyes—or from the small hand clinging to him as if he were a lifeline.
Besides.
What did nationality matter to a child who had lost their parents? Their entire world had already disappeared.
“Come here.”
Leviathan scooped the child up with one arm. They were shockingly light.
He placed the child atop his warhorse, which had been drinking water nearby.
Yeah. Leaving a kid behind in a place full of corpses had been bothering him anyway.
Looks like I’ve picked up a burden.
When he mounted behind the child, the small, bony shoulders twitched.
I’ll take them to the Empire for now and find someplace suitable to place them.
At least it would be better than here.
Clop, clop. The horse started moving.
Leviathan carefully adjusted the pace.
“……”
Warm body heat pressed against his chest.
A round head bobbing with the motion. Silver hair cut jaggedly at random. Lips chewing on the remaining jerky. Sunken cheeks—no, not chubby at all. Way too thin.
Pretty small for a boy.
He forgot to ask the child’s age.
Well… they’d part ways eventually anyway. Probably didn’t matter.
“Don’t eat while riding. You’ll bite your tongue.”
The child quickly shoved the jerky into their mouth.
No matter how I think about it…
This is right, isn’t it?
It has to be.
“Stay back. Sparks’ll fly.”
That face.
“Why are you so far away? Cold?”
That tone.
“Put this on, at least.”
And this uniform’s insignia!
I flipped open the inside of the oversized military coat the man had draped over me.
Embroidered into the dark navy lining of the allied forces’ uniform was a personal identification mark.
There was the crest of the Vamillon Empire—
And the crest of House Gevert!
So it was him.
This man really was Leviathan Gevert!
“Hngh…”
For some reason, tears welled up in my eyes.
All the suffering I’d been through flashed past me like a reel.
So yeah.
I recovered my past-life memories in the middle of a godforsaken battlefield.
That’s right. This was the world of a novel.
A war story called <The Sword Planted on Ruins>.
And I had reincarnated as a nameless extra who didn’t even get a single mention.
The novel was divided into Part 1 and Part 2, centering on the war between humans and black monsters.
And the male lead was, of course, the man right in front of me.
The “hero,” Leviathan Gevert.
According to the original story, this was the ending of Part 1—the exact moment when the First Human–Monster War had just ended.
Because Leviathan went and sliced up the black mage!
A non-mage killing the continent’s strongest dark mage. Truly a man worthy of being called a hero.
But here’s the problem.
This isn’t the end.
And in war novels, what does Part 2 mean?
A new war begins.
“O dark mage! Please be reborn and awaken once more the majesty of mages upon this land!”
With lines that ridiculous, the king of the Mage Kingdom loses his mind and resurrects the black mage.
The reason the black mage could resurrect and run wild was simple.
The protagonist of Part 1—the strongest being in the setting, Leviathan Gevert—dies suddenly.
“(Omitted) Thus, the hero of the Human–Monster War, Leviathan Gevert, passed away.
The continent fell into mourning.
Seizing the opportunity, the Mage King succeeded in summoning the black mage. The once-peaceful continent was reduced to ruins once more.
Then now—
Who will plant the hero’s sword upon this land again?
<End of Part 1>”
A completely insane ending.
Readers hurled every curse imaginable at the author for that cliff-diving finale.
Ironically, thanks to the massive improvement in writing and the explosion of cool characters in Part 2, the novel later clawed its way back to popularity under titles like [Webnovel Author Returns After Making a Deal with the Devil.jpg].
But—
I’m a Part 1 character!
A character guaranteed to get slammed by a cliff ending if I sit still!
“Ughhh…”
So my conclusion was simple.
I want to live. And I’m sick of war.
Which means I can’t let Part 1 end like it’s supposed to.
This peaceful ending has to continue forever. And that means—
“Careful, kid. You’ll fall through the ground.”
—I can’t let that hero die!
But the problem is… I can’t remember why Leviathan dies!
No matter how hard I squeezed my brain, the cause of his death just wouldn’t come back to me.
I skimmed the later chapters back then, and this life was so intense that my past memories had faded.
Still—forgetting the most important part?!
First, I have to figure out why the male lead dies. To do that, I need to stick right by his side and watch him.
I looked down at my hands.
Tiny, child-sized hands.
There wasn’t much I could do in a body like this.
Which meant there was only one option.
“Mister.”
At my solemn voice, Leviathan lifted his eyes.
With his sharply upturned gaze, he looked like a fierce beast that had just finished feeding on meat.
He really does look scary when he shuts up…
But no backing down.
That insane author’s cliff ending is way scarier. So don’t die—keep working, hero!
I relaxed every muscle in my face and spoke with the most harmless expression I could manage.
“Do you need a youngest kid at home?”
From a war story to a slice-of-life.
Let’s go.
