Chapter 1
The Palatino Empire.
A vast empire that occupied half of the continent.
Hundreds of years had passed since the empire was founded, and countless stories had been passed down throughout its lands.
There were stories about the founding heroes who established the nation.
Stories about conquering neighboring kingdoms and expanding the empire.
Stories about exploring countless dungeons and taking back human territory from monsters.
Among all those tales, however, the most famous and mysterious were the stories about the emperors.
The Guardian of the Empire.
The Father of the Empire.
The War God Emperor.
There were many titles used for the emperors, but the most famous of them all was...
The Omniscient Emperor.
From the first emperor to the previous emperor, the rulers of the empire had been called by that title more than any other.
The emperors knew countless things that no one else knew.
They discovered hidden dungeons.
They gathered talented people who had been living unnoticed throughout the continent.
The emperors seemed as though they could see the future.
The citizens of the empire called them the Omniscient Emperors with reverence.
People from other nations called them the same thing with fear.
Unlike the other Omniscient Emperors, however, the final emperor of the empire had lived an extremely ordinary life as emperor.
Unlike the emperors before him, the last emperor had been unable to discover talented people ahead of time.
He had been unable to locate hidden ruins.
He had not even been able to prepare in advance for his enemies.
Was that why the once-mighty empire had collapsed during his reign?
Was that why the world was now coming to an end?
"Damn it. If I'd known he was such a useless emperor, someone else should've taken the throne. Hell, even I might've done a better job."
At the westernmost edge of the continent.
Inside a fortress that had once stood on the frontier of the former empire, a graying man ground his teeth as he remembered the dead emperor.
The empire had fallen because of the countless atrocities and wars caused by the emperor.
And the man had lost his wife and family because of them as well.
Perhaps things would never have become this bad if the emperor had simply been mediocre.
Unfortunately, the emperor had been incompetent while possessing an unbelievably cruel personality.
Whenever someone disagreed with even the smallest thing he said, he would have that person's head cut off on the spot without hesitation.
He confiscated the property of imperial citizens.
He endlessly provoked neighboring countries into wars.
As those old memories surfaced, flames of anger burned in the man's eyes.
Even now, when the world itself was ending, his hatred for the emperor had not disappeared.
Eventually, however, even that anger faded.
He turned his gaze toward the darkening view outside the window.
The black clouds were almost upon the fortress.
The place where he stood was an old fortress, damaged in many places.
It looked as though it had been abandoned for a very long time.
Yet many people besides him had gathered inside.
Children whining from hunger.
Soldiers groaning from their wounds.
Old people so exhausted they could barely support themselves.
Thinking about the people remaining inside the fortress, the man let out a quiet sigh.
His name was Jake Valentino.
He had once been a scribe of the fallen empire.
Now, he was leading the people hiding inside this fortress.
He was neither a knight nor a mana user.
However, after spending decades as a scribe and accumulating unusual experiences, he had naturally become their leader.
Of course, he had learned how to use weapons in order to survive the chaotic era.
Still, he could never compare to a properly trained knight.
Rumble...
The cries of monsters gradually began to echo from the distance.
Messengers of death that slaughtered every human they encountered, regardless of age or gender.
The monsters were approaching this place.
Humanity's refuge.
As their roars drew closer, mournful cries began to spread throughout the fortress.
They were the cries of people who had lost all hope.
They had lost their families.
They had lost their country.
They had lost their land.
And now they were about to lose their lives as well.
These were their final tears.
There was no one preparing to fight against the approaching monsters.
The people gathered here had already given up even the thought of resistance.
Would things have been different if the empire had survived?
If humanity had fought as one nation instead of being divided into countless countries and defeated one by one by the monsters...
Could they have defeated those creatures?
Jake entertained the thought for a moment.
Then a hollow laugh escaped him.
"With that emperor?"
When he thought about it, the empire and its emperor had been the main causes of the current disaster.
Imagining that the empire might have saved them was putting the cart before the horse.
"Still... it's a shame."
If only he had been a knight or a mage instead of an ordinary scribe.
If only he had stopped the emperor's tyranny and preserved the empire.
Or if he had fought the emperor and killed him.
For someone who had spent his life as nothing more than a scribe, those were ridiculous thoughts.
Yet now that death stood before him, regret would not leave him alone.
What was the point of remembering my previous life anyway?
In truth, Jake the scribe was someone who remembered a previous life.
What people might call a reincarnator.
In his previous life, he had been Jeon Youngchan, an ordinary engineering graduate from twenty-first-century Earth.
Born into an ordinary family, he had lived an uneventful life before dying in a normal traffic accident in his early thirties.
Afterward, he had been reborn in this world under the name Jake.
Although his family's status was low, he had still been born into a noble household.
At the age of thirteen, a carriage accident had caused him to remember his previous life.
That same accident had also killed both of his parents.
After becoming an orphan, he moved to the Imperial Capital and lived in the home of an indifferent guardian.
Fortunately, thanks to the memories of his previous life, he had stubbornly endured life in that household.
Eventually, he succeeded in becoming an imperial scribe.
Still, remembering his previous life had not been particularly beneficial.
If anything, his memories of living in a convenient scientific civilization only made the inconveniences of this world feel worse.
Furthermore, most of the knowledge from his previous life was not particularly useful.
He had never possessed specialized scientific or engineering knowledge.
And political ideas such as democracy would probably have gotten him accused of treason the moment he spoke about them.
Because of that, Jake had never told anyone that he remembered a previous life.
Shaking his head once, Jake forced his expression back under control and placed his diary inside a large bag.
The bag already contained other diaries, documents, journals, and various records of things Jake personally considered important.
"Come to think of it... what exactly happened that day?"
While organizing his diaries, Jake suddenly remembered one particular day from his childhood.
A day from when he had been an apprentice scribe.
The first and last time he had seen both the emperor and the Archmage from close range.
And the day he had seen the mysterious underground ruins beneath the Imperial Palace.
It had been an incomprehensible day.
Even now, he had no idea why any of it had happened.
After briefly becoming lost in old memories, Jake shook his head and pushed the useless thoughts aside.
"Well, then. Shall I go bury a time capsule for future generations?"
Muttering to himself, Jake headed outside the fortress.
The bag he carried was his time capsule.
