Chapter 1. Light
Shane.
The moment a sword imbued with holy power pierced his heart, he felt an indescribable sense of liberation.
“Ah. Finally…….”
Among the Seven Deadly Sins, there was the power of Corruption that belonged to Envy.
At long last, the power that had shackled him for so many years was disappearing.
And it was all because of the Holy Sword embedded in his heart.
Before long, a light that had never come to him no matter how many lives he had taken was etched into his eyes.
“Brother……?”
Beyond his half-shattered mask, Shane saw the face of his younger brother, Klein—the hope of humanity and the Hero.
It should have been the moment when the Hero defeated the villain.
Yet why did the boy look so utterly bewildered?
It did not take Shane long to understand why.
“Klein…… You still shine as brightly as ever.”
“Brother……? Why are you……?”
SWISH-
Shane’s trembling hand brushed Klein’s cheek.
But only for a moment. As though he no longer had the strength to keep it raised, his hand slowly fell.
As the power of Corruption drained from his body, his life force was fading along with it.
‘It has been…… ten years.’
A catastrophe born from a moment of greed.
Ever since then, Shane had not known a single moment of peace.
Consumed by the Corruption known as Envy, he had destroyed everything but himself.
Together with the ‘Organization,’ he had plunged countless kingdoms into seas of fire.
By now, what little remained of humanity had rallied around a single man and formed a resistance.
That man was Klein, the younger brother Shane had envied and hated with every fiber of his being.
And yet, upon seeing his brother with a clear mind for the first time in ten years, Shane felt not the slightest trace of hatred.
Was it because he had spent the last ten years trapped within Corruption, deprived of even the smallest measure of freedom?
Or was it because of the divine power contained within his brother’s sword?
The place in his heart that should have been filled entirely with hatred now held nothing but guilt.
Shane did not know what to say.
There was so much he wanted to tell him.
But Shane was a sinner.
A sinner whose crimes could never be washed away, much less forgiven.
How many kingdoms had fallen at his command?
How many people within them had died?
He was the vilest of villains, a man who had robbed people not only of their homes, but also of their families, friends, and lovers.
That was who he was.
Clayton R. Shane.
At the very end, Shane looked up at his younger brother, Klein, who was drowning in uncontrollable grief.
“H-How……? How can this be…… How?!”
His brother had only just realized who had been behind the mask.
If Shane had known Klein would grieve this much, perhaps he should have made the mask sturdier.
No.
What would that have changed now, when he had never even been able to move according to his own will in the first place?
As Klein’s older brother, Shane wanted to comfort him one last time.
Even though Shane was a villain who deserved the anger and curses of everyone in the world.
Even so.
“Do not feel guilty. I was the sinner, not you.”
Klein was both his younger brother and the Hero upon whom humanity had placed all its hopes.
Could Shane not, as his older brother, lighten the burden on those shoulders even a little?
With that, Shane closed his eyes.
As though telling his brother not to carry even the slightest guilt over his death.
His expression was peaceful.
—
When Shane opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was warm sunlight streaming through the curtains.
The blankets, filled with the warmth of the morning sun, offered both a pleasant coolness and comforting softness, while the pillow cradling his head was perfectly plush for greeting a peaceful morning.
“That dream again.”
After waking, Shane quietly sat up.
His body protested against leaving such comfort, but he ignored it, rose from the bed, and opened the window.
Beyond it stood the wooded hill behind the estate, thick with lush trees.
He could hear birds chirping to announce the beginning of another morning.
Everything was the complete opposite of the scenery he had once grown accustomed to.
He had spent his days atop an ancient castle steeped in death.
No matter where he looked, there had been nothing but a dead wasteland.
Now, however, everywhere he turned, the world brimmed with life.
Shane shifted his gaze and walked over to the mirror standing in one corner of the room.
Black hair and roseberry-colored eyes.
Those were no different from before.
But his rough skin and gaunt face were nowhere to be found. In their place were the smooth skin of youth and a strikingly handsome face.
“I suppose I have to accept it now.”
Clayton R. Shane.
An executive of the Organization ‘Nameless’ who had represented ‘Envy’ among the Seven Deadly Sins.
He had regressed fifteen years into the past.
—
Maria wore a worried expression as she brewed tea in a teacup.
The cause of her concern was none other than the young master she served: Shane, the eldest son of House Clayton.
“Haah…….”
Bringing tea to the young master she served every morning.
It was an ordinary duty performed by servants in every noble household, yet for Maria, it was the most difficult part of her daily routine.
Watching her, one of her fellow maids asked with a puzzled expression,
“Maria. Why have you looked like you are about to die lately?”
“Huh? Oh…… It is nothing.”
“Aha. Is it because of Young Master Shane?”
Her fellow maid spoke with one corner of her mouth raised in a smirk, making Maria’s already miserable mood sink even further.
‘Why ask when you already know?’
Clayton R. Shane.
Young Master Shane was the eldest son of House Clayton, a count’s family that operated a renowned great merchant guild throughout the Allied Nations.
From the perspective of a mere maid, the young master appeared almost godlike, someone who had nothing in the world left to desire.
His personality, however, was infamous throughout the estate.
Maria was now in her fifth year as a maid and could be considered fairly experienced, but dealing with the perpetually foul-tempered Shane was always agonizing.
‘If he would only curse at me or hit me, at least I could run away.’
His expression looked as though he cursed everything in existence, while his indifferent eyes regarded her as if she were no more than a lowly creature.
And whenever she made even the smallest mistake, seeing thick disgust seep into those indifferent eyes sent chills down her spine.
For Maria, meeting that gaze was one of the hardest things in the world.
Especially during the last two days.
Lately, she had even sensed killing intent from Shane, leaving her on the verge of tears.
Maria’s fellow maid knew her circumstances perfectly well.
Yet there was not the slightest trace of sympathy on her face.
After all, Maria’s hardships had earned her the head butler’s absolute trust.
Jealous of that trust, the other maid had taken to making such snide remarks.
And that was not all.
The person her fellow maid served was Klein, the second young master of House Clayton.
He was a prodigy among prodigies, renowned as the greatest genius of his generation.
Even now, very few of the family’s knights—men who had wielded swords and survived battlefields for more than ten years—were capable of standing against Young Master Klein.
A servant’s standing within a household naturally rose and fell with the prestige of the master they served.
From the other maid’s perspective, Maria served a master inferior to her own, yet still enjoyed the head butler’s confidence.
Naturally, she found that irritating.
As always, Maria swallowed her anger, ignored her fellow maid’s mockery, and made her way toward the room of the young master she served, Shane.
—
KNOCK KNOCK-
At the sound of knocking, Shane spoke casually.
“Come in.”
“Yes, Young Master. I have brought your tea.”
The person who entered was Maria, the maid he had seen the previous day as well.
She was a young woman whose face always stiffened with nervousness whenever she entered his room.
Looking at her, Shane was overcome by the strange sensation of finding her both unfamiliar and familiar at once.
After all, today marked the third day since Shane had regressed.
For the first two days, he had been unable to believe that he had truly returned to the past and had constantly regarded his surroundings with suspicion.
He had suspected that the Organization might somehow have done something to him.
Because of that, both the day before yesterday and yesterday, he had coldly ordered the maid to leave.
But now that he had finally begun to accept his regression as reality, there was a need to change the way he behaved.
“The tea has a pleasant aroma.”
“Pardon?”
“I said the tea has a pleasant aroma.”
“……?”
Maria, of course, had no way of knowing what Shane was thinking. Her suspicion only deepened as she wondered why a man who never offered praise was suddenly complimenting her.
“I apologize for the past two days.”
“……!”
“I had a bad dream.”
“N-No, Young Master. There is no need.”
His voice did not sound particularly sincere.
If anything, the apology felt almost obligatory.
However, just as a single good deed stood out all the more when performed by someone who normally did nothing but wrong, Maria was so stunned that it felt as though the entire world had turned upside down.
“Return in an hour to collect the teacup.”
“Yes, understood.”
Maria left the room, and only after stepping outside did she finally regain her composure.
She recalled Shane’s eyes as he had looked at her moments before.
“What has gotten into him……?”
His eyes still seemed as impassive as ever.
And yet, somehow, they had seemed just a little more human.
—
Shane fell into contemplation for the first time in a long while.
Corruption never came without a reason.
Of course, the power of Corruption that the Organization had implanted in him had unquestionably been powerful.
But just as mana required the medium of a human mana organ, Corruption also required a medium through which it could grow.
And before his regression, Shane had possessed conditions more suited to Corruption than anyone else.
Envy.
More precisely, envy toward his own younger brother, Klein.
There was the reality that he was inferior to his exceptionally talented brother.
And then there were the constant comparisons from those around them.
Of course, Shane had not envied his brother from the beginning.
When he had been very young, Shane himself had also been called a genius thanks to his brilliant mind.
Yet although Klein was not quite as intelligent as Shane, he was still more than clever enough in his own right.
On top of that, he possessed an unrivaled talent for swordsmanship.
And that was not all.
He had even been blessed with an innate talent beloved by mana itself, eventually becoming known as a genius the likes of whom had not appeared since the dawn of the era.
That was precisely why, when the Organization later revealed itself to the world in earnest, Klein had been able to become the Hero—the hope of humanity.
His younger brother possessed that much talent.
And so, for a time, Shane had been driven mad by envy.
To the Corruption seeking to grow, Shane’s jealousy must have been sweeter nourishment than anything else.
But perhaps too many years had passed.
Or perhaps it was because of the divine power within the sword his brother had driven through his heart before his death in his previous life.
Whatever the reason, the Shane of the present barely felt anything that could still be called envy.
And Shane wanted to erase even the faint remnants that remained in his heart.
He had already experienced more than enough envy for one lifetime.
He had even become the embodiment of Envy itself.
And he had massacred countless human beings because of it.
So Shane carefully examined the emotions within himself.
Then he remembered his final moments before his regression.
He remembered the younger brother who had freed him from the power of Corruption.
Klein’s face had been filled with profound grief.
Uncontrollable grief.
There had been the guilt of killing the last member of his family with his own sword.
And on top of that, there had been the immense weight of duty resting upon his shoulders.
‘Do I envy my brother?’
The answer was no.
At that moment, even the last traces of envy buried deep within his heart crumbled away like grains of sand.
For the first time in his life, Shane’s mind became perfectly clear.
It felt as though he had finally stepped into the light.
Just then, another knock sounded at the door.
“Brother, it is Klein. May I come in?”
Speak of the devil, as the saying went.
A smile that Shane had not worn in so long that he could scarcely remember it appeared on his lips, and he rose from his seat.
