Rebellion Rising from the Depths: Mocked by the Hero Who Impregnated My Childhood Friend Before My Very Eyes. - Chapter 9: The Dead Man’s Return.

The Dead Man’s Return.

“I’m giving it all back.”

Even after those words left his lips, the Abyss remained as cold and indifferent as ever.

Outside the hall, the cry of a monster echoed from some distant reach. The sound of water dripping down the damp rock face rang out with startling clarity. Even here, amidst the ruins of an ancient altar where the miasma was thin, the bottom of the Abyss offered no mercy. Hunger gnawed at him, his wounds throbbed, and the slightest movement of his right leg sent a creaking pain straight to his ribs.

Even so, Noah stood.

He braced a hand against the wall, regulating his breath over and over as he surveyed the hall. Sunken pillars. Bleached bones. A small stone basin tucked behind the altar. Faded patterns etched into the stone floor. Even if this place had been built for the “Vessel,” it was no sanctuary. The scattered remains proved that those who reached this place did not simply survive.

If he stopped here, he would become one of them.

His father’s voice resonated quietly in the depths of his heart.

Live.

Noah knelt beside a skeleton near the altar. Before, he had only noticed a metal plate, but a closer look revealed the debris of a life scattered around the bones: a rotted bag, a cracked canteen, a rusted knife, and leather boots falling to pieces. They had likely been here for decades, perhaps longer. Almost nothing was usable.

However, a thin metal pin wedged beneath the hip bone had kept its shape. When he pulled it out, he found it was a small brooch pin. The tip was dull, but it would serve to fasten torn cloth. Behind the altar, he found a small leather pouch beside another set of remains. Inside were crushed stones, a lump of salt, and two withered herbs. Whether they retained any medicinal properties was doubtful, but it was better than nothing.

While searching the hall, he discovered a narrow fissure in the wall behind the altar.

It wasn’t a natural crack; it was a seam between the stones. As he approached, the crest on his palm pulsed with a sudden heat. Half-doubting, Noah pressed his left hand against the seam.

A faint vibration followed.

Then, the sound of something heavy grinding deep within.

A section of the wall receded slightly inward.

“…It opens?” he muttered in a raspy voice.

As if in response, the seam widened further. It was a stone door. Its movement was sluggish from ages of disuse, but it eventually yielded a gap just wide enough for a single person to squeeze through.

A thin, cold breeze drifted from beyond the door.

By instinct, he knew: this was air flowing upward.

Noah stared at the gap for a long moment. There was no guarantee this led outside. It could be another dead end. But if he stayed at the bottom of the Abyss, he would eventually be consumed by monsters, hunger, or the miasma.

He had no choice but to go.

He took one last drink of the altar’s water and used more strips from his tattered tunic to re-bind his arms and ankles. The wound from the lizard’s bite was still feverish, but because the poison had been returned, it was no longer fatal. He retrieved his chipped dagger. He pulled a usable leather cord from the remains of a bag and tied it around his waist. Finally, he draped a scrap of cloth from an old cloak over his head; it was better than leaving his skin exposed.

He had nothing that could truly be called “preparation.”

Regardless, Noah slid his body into the crevice.

Inside was a narrow passage. At first, it was so cramped he had to hunch his shoulders to move. The walls were artificially hewn in places, marking it as a corridor from an older era. The floor sloped gently upward. There was little phosphorescent moss here; instead, needles of greyish light pierced through cracks in the ceiling. Each time he saw them, he was reminded that the surface lay somewhere far above.

Navigating the path was harder than he had imagined.

Dragging his right leg and cradling his wounded left arm, he climbed, gripping the rock face with one hand. In the narrowest sections, his ribs scraped against the stone, stealing his breath. He fell to his knees countless times, overcome by waves of nausea that left him retching nothing but watery bile.

The hunger was agonizing.

Though he had returned the “Starvation Venom” of the Abyssal Lizard, a genuine, hollow hunger crawled up from the depths of his malnourished body. It was more than a stomach cramp; it felt as though his internal organs were devouring one another. But there was nothing to eat. He tried putting a bit of the thin white moss growing on the walls into his mouth, but it tasted of nothing but dirt and lime.

Yet, with every step upward, the air changed.

The heavy rot of the Abyss thinned, replaced by the scent of dry stone and cold air. That small change was the only thing that kept Noah moving.

After an indeterminate amount of time, the passage widened into the ruins of a staircase.

It must have been a grand set of stairs once. Now, more than half had collapsed, leaving black pits yawning between the steps. One wrong move would send him plummeting into a deep fissure. Noah pressed his back against the wall, ascending carefully, one step at a time.

Midway up, something dropped from above.

He twisted his body by reflex.

A black shadow slammed into the stone steps, letting out a high-pitched shriek. It had wings. It resembled a bat, but its face was disturbingly human. Its eyes were a cloudy white, and dried blood caked its mouth. Two, then three more dropped from the cracks in the ceiling.

Miasma-Eater Bats.

He had heard of them in the old rumors of the slums. Monsters that nested in caves thick with miasma, latching onto prey to drain their body heat and mana.

In his current state, a single bite would be enough to paralyze him.

One lunged for his face. Noah swung his chipped dagger, but the strike was shallow. Another clung to his shoulder, sinking its fangs in. A wave of cold surged through him. His warmth was being siphoned away. He felt as though his heart had skipped a beat.

But the Noah of now was not the same man who had knelt broken in that room.

I can see it.

A grayish-white thread of light was flowing from his shoulder into the biting bat.

A thin line of siphoned mana and warmth.

“Give it back.”

He didn’t even have the luxury of aiming his palm. The moment he willed it, the thread reversed.

The bat’s body convulsed in mid-air. It shriveled instantly, as if its own heat had been stolen. Its wings stiffened like ice, and it shattered against the stone steps. The remaining two circled for an attack, but Noah, leaning against the wall, returned them one after another. The heat they tried to steal, the mana they tried to suck—he simply reverted the causality of their actions.

All three ended up as nothing more than shriveled husks on the floor.

His breathing was ragged.

His knees were shaking from a mere encounter with bats. His ability wasn’t omnipotent. Returning an attack didn’t heal his own wounds, and every activation left a heavy, unpleasant weight in the back of his mind. Still, it served as a blade for survival.

“Causal Retribution.”

Each time he repeated the True Name in his heart, a cold conviction grew within him.

Further up the passage, he encountered several more sets of remains.

A man who looked like an adventurer. A woman in the crude leather armor of a “Disposer.” A severed arm belonging to someone unknown. He didn’t know if they were people cast into the Abyss or those who had died trying to explore it. Noah hesitated for a moment to scavenge from them, but he killed that emotion instantly.

To die out of hesitation would be a greater insult to the dead.

In the man’s bag, he found two pieces of hardened rations. They were like stones, but they tasted faintly of salt when chewed. He moistened his throat before slowly grinding them down and swallowing. In the woman’s hip pouch, he found a small flint and dry cloth wrapped in oil paper. By the feet of the one-armed skeleton lay a short length of usable rope. None of it was much, but for Noah, they were lifelines.

Eventually, the passage narrowed sharply, becoming a vertical shaft that had mostly collapsed.

There were traces of an old wooden pier, but more than half had rotted away. All that remained were iron pitons driven into the rock. He looped his rope over them, pulling himself up with one hand and one foot; the pain in his shoulder was so intense it felt as though it might pop from the socket.

When his foot slipped for the third time, Noah truly thought it was the end.

His right leg kicked empty air, and his body spun. The rope bit into his wrist, tearing open his wounds. Looking down, he saw the darkness of the depths yawning like an open mouth. If he fell here, he would likely never crawl back up.

“Ghh…!”

A beast-like sound escaped his throat.

In that instant, the face that flickered in his mind wasn’t Leon’s. It was his father’s grave. A nameless mound of dirt in a communal cemetery without even a wooden marker. That fragile headstone where he had broken his fingernails trying to carve a name into the rock.

If he fell here, he would never be able to stand before that grave again.

Noah gritted his teeth with enough force to shatter them and hauled on the rope with blood-slicked hands. His ribs screamed. His arm felt ready to tear off. Yet, inch by inch, he pulled his body up. Finally, his knee caught a rocky ledge, and Noah collapsed onto it face-first.

For a long time, he could do nothing but breathe.

With every ragged gasp, blood dripped onto the stone. His vision darkened repeatedly, and a sweet voice whispered that it would be easier to just sleep. He refused to close his eyes. He felt that if he did, he would simply fall.

He didn’t know how much time passed.

Eventually, he heard the distant cry of a bird.

It wasn’t the shriek of an Abyssal monster. It was the high, short chirp of a bird from the surface.

Noah lifted his head.

Beyond the shaft, through a gap in the collapsed stone, a thin but unmistakable light was shining through. It wasn’t the moon, nor was it moss. He didn’t know if it was morning or evening, but it was the light of a real sky.

Seeing that light sent a sharp pang through his chest. He couldn’t tell if it was joy or resentment. Reaching this far felt like a miracle, yet he knew that returning to the surface wouldn’t bring anything back.

Still, he had to get out.

He climbed the final slope almost on all fours. As he slipped through the cracked rocks, the wind changed abruptly. It was dry. Cold, but devoid of the scent of death. It was a wind that told him, just by brushing his cheek, that this was a world apart from the bottom of the Abyss.

Noah tumbled out onto a crumbling slope.

There was the sky.

Not a narrow, jagged ceiling, but a vast, ash-blue expanse. Clouds drifted by, and the pre-dusk light stained the western horizon a faint crimson. The brilliance stung his eyes, and he instinctively shielded them with his arm. The wind ruffled his hair, carrying the scent of dry grass and earth. The familiarity of it all made his chest tighten.

The surface.

He had actually come back.

Noah had emerged in a desolate, rocky area on the western outskirts of the Royal Capital. Black cliffs stretched in rows, and below them, the great maw of the Abyss stood open. There was no sign of anyone nearby. However, he could see the ruts of cart wheels in the distance, and a fence marking a path used for transporting corpses and cursed tools.

Noah immediately hid himself in the shadow of a rock.

Coming back didn’t mean he could walk freely. The people who threw him here were still out there. If they discovered he had survived the Abyss, they would undoubtedly come to finish the job.

Before long, he heard the sound of wheels.

Two carts stopped at the edge of the cliff. “Disposers” in crude cloaks began tossing hemp sacks from the beds, carelessly kicking them into the Abyss. The sound of breaking bones was swallowed by the distance. Noah held his breath behind the rock, straining to hear their conversation.

“Man, there’s been a lot lately.”

“Busy with the Hero’s triumphal return. They said to settle the disposals all at once.”

“Triumphal return, huh. Well, it’s one piece of good news after another. An engagement and a coronation, right?”

“The Hero and that beauty. They say she’s even got a kid in her belly. The commoners are over the moon.”

Noah’s fingertips gripped the stone. His knuckles turned white.

One of the disposers laughed.

“And that incompetent brat got taken care of too, so no loose ends.”

“The one named Noah?”

“Yeah. Died during transport—tried to run and fell into the Abyss. The paperwork’s already out. No point looking for a body.”

“The Hero’s a merciful one. After all the trouble that kid caused him, he just let it slide without making a scene.”

“That’s why the people love him.”

Laughter erupted.

Noah unconsciously gritted his teeth. His aching jaw creaked. Escaped during transport and fell to his death. That was the script they had written. Rather than disposing of him as a criminal, it made for a better story to say the Hero had grandly forgiven him, only for the fool to destroy himself.

A convenient death.

That was his official end.

Noah didn’t move until the carts were gone. Raising his voice wouldn’t change anything. What he needed now wasn’t to vent his rage, but to return to the capital alive.

Once the area grew quiet, Noah crawled from the shadows and began to walk slowly along a backroad leading to the Royal Capital.

The sun was sinking. The western sky turned red, and beneath it, the white walls of the capital came into view. Even without a mirror, he knew his appearance was wretched after days in the mud. His hair was matted with blood and dirt, his clothes were shredded, and his face was covered in bruises and scabs. Entering through the main gates would invite immediate suspicion.

Fortunately, from an old job, Noah knew of a secret path used by bandits and smugglers in the ruins of a deserted village on the western edge. He circled the outer wall and slipped into a collapsed waterway. Wading knee-deep in mud, listening to the scurry of rats, he pushed through the dark drainage tunnel until he emerged behind the old warehouse district in the Southern District.

Once, such a route would have been a joke.

Now, it was his only way home.

By the time he emerged from the waterway into the warehouse district, the sky was nearly submerged in night. The lights of the capital were beginning to flicker on, one by one. He could smell the scents of daily life: toasted bread, stewed meat, soap, liquor. The scents of human existence that were absent from the bottom of the Abyss.

It was so ordinary that Noah stood still for a moment.

This city hadn’t changed. Not while he was dying in the Abyss, not after his father died. Not a single thing.

He “borrowed” a crude hemp cloak that had been hanging to dry behind a warehouse. He knew it was theft, but he was in no position to be choosy. He pulled the hood low, hiding half his face. This would allow him to pass by unnoticed.

Before heading to the main street, Noah checked the plaza where the notice boards were located.

As expected, several new decrees had been posted. Reports of successful subjugations, the announcement of the coronation, and long-winded texts praising the Hero Leon’s achievements. In a corner, there was a single small slip of paper.

Former Adventurer Noah Feld. Confirmed dead after falling into the Abyss following an escape attempt during transport. Related parties are strictly forbidden from mourning or offering condolences. Further inquiry into this matter is prohibited.

It was a short text.

It was so blunt it was almost comical. His death ended with a single slip of paper. No mourning, no condolences. As if he had never existed in the first place.

Two men were standing by the board, talking.

“Is that the guy who laid a hand on the Hero’s fiancée?” “Yeah, that’s him. To run away and then fall into the Abyss and die… what a pathetic story.” “Well, that kind of incompetent is better off ending that way.”

Noah lowered his eyes beneath his hood.

There was anger, but more than that, there was a cold acceptance. To the world, he was already a dead man. If that was the case, it was more convenient to move as a ghost.

He left the board and headed toward the Southern Residential District.

His feet moved instinctively toward his former home.

There was nothing for him there, but he felt he couldn’t move forward without seeing it once more.

The narrow alleys were as dim as ever, and the cobblestones remained cracked. The corners he had known since childhood, the well, the clotheslines—everything was exactly as it was. Everything, except for the front of Noah’s house.

Planks were nailed over the door, and a seizure seal had been posted.

The windows were boarded up from the inside; it was obvious at a glance that no one lived there anymore. Beside the doorway was a small tag that read: Seized due to unpaid debt and responsibility for public unrest.

“Responsibility for public unrest.”

A dry laugh threatened to burst from his throat at the words.

His father was dead, the funeral was over, and they still broke into the house under such a pretext.

From the shadow of his hood, he peeked through a gap in the windows. It was dark inside. There were no desks, no shelves; it was almost entirely empty. They must have taken everything. His mother’s dishes, his father’s tools, the blankets. All that remained were wood shavings scattered on the floor and shards of broken pottery.

It was no longer a place to return to.

That reality settled over him as a dull ache.

“…Noah-boy?”

Suddenly, a trembling voice spoke from behind him.

Noah turned by reflex.

The old woman from next door was standing there. She was holding a night bucket, her eyes wide as she looked at him. Even with the hood pulled low, she must have recognized his posture, or perhaps his bruised face.

“…Alive—”

She started to say, then clapped a hand over her mouth.

Noah immediately shook his head, signaling her to remain silent.

Tears welled in the woman’s eyes, but there was fear there too. The Hero’s messengers must have visited many times. She knew what would happen if she were caught involved with him.

Noah took a quiet step back and moved his lips slightly beneath the cloak.

“I’m sorry.”

He didn’t voice it.

Perhaps that was enough, for the old woman nodded repeatedly while trembling. Then, she set down the bucket she was holding and pointed toward the shadow of the doorway. There was a small cloth bundle. Inside were wrapped a piece of black bread and some dried fruits.

Noah’s eyes widened.

The old woman said nothing more; she picked up the bucket and hurried back into her house. The door clicked shut.

Only the silence of the night remained in the alley.

Noah couldn’t move for a while.

The seized house. His official death. His neighbor, who knew the danger of being involved but left him food anyway.

Deep in his heart, something dark and something warm grated against each other simultaneously.

He picked up the bundle and tucked it under his cloak. He shouldn’t stay here long. If he were caught, the old woman would be dragged into it too.

His next destination was the communal cemetery.

The night was deepening, and there were no figures in the cemetery on the southern edge. Only the sound of dry grass swaying in the wind and the creaking of crude wooden markers could be heard. Noah knew exactly where his father’s grave was. A mound of earth without a marker. The stone he had scratched with his fingernails sat nearby.

Noah knelt before it.

He took a single dried fruit from the bundle and placed it on the soil. It wasn’t even a proper offering. Still, he wanted to believe it was better than nothing.

“…I’m back.”

His voice was so small it dissolved into the night.

“I’m late.”

The wind blew.

There was no answer. Naturally. Still, he felt he had to say it here.

“I’m… alive.”

His throat tightened.

“I lived, and I came back. Because you told me to.”

His vision blurred. He hadn’t intended to cry, but his eyes grew hot of their own accord.

“But… nothing is over yet.”

Noah dug his fingers into the soil.

“They’ve taken everything. My mother’s ring, the house, your life… everything.”

The wind blew again, rustling the grass.

Noah squeezed the dirt of the grave once, firmly, and then let go.

“I’m going to take it all back.”

It was a vow.

A vow far too dark and blood-soaked to be made before a grave. But for the Noah of now, there was no other future he could speak of.

As he left the cemetery, the sound of bells drifted from the center of the capital.

A high, clear sound. The bells announcing the preparations for a festival. The laughter of the people reached him on the wind. The city was strangely bright for such a late hour.

As he approached the main thoroughfare, he understood why.

Flags were flying everywhere, wreaths were displayed, and stalls were lined up. A special stage had been erected in the Central Plaza of the Royal Capital, and a crowd had gathered. The voices of barkers, the smell of liquor, the sweet aroma of pastries—it was as if the Triumphal Festival was continuing.

Women passing by spoke in excited voices.

“I’m definitely going to see the engagement announcement tomorrow.” “The Hero and Lady Lydie… they really are a perfect match.” “With the coronation coming up and a baby on the way, it’s like they’re truly blessed.”

Noah’s feet stopped.

The engagement announcement. The coronation.

The laughter grated against the inside of his chest.

Pushed by the flow of people, Noah approached the edge of the plaza. With his hood pulled low and his face down, no one would notice a dead man. He would look like nothing more than a gaunt pauper or another festival-goer.

The plaza was packed.

Flowers were scattered before the central stage, and the flags of the Royal Family and the crest of the Hero’s House swayed in the breeze. An orchestra played, and the commoners were buoyed by expectation. Everything was already prepared. A stage for Leon to become the face of the kingdom as a hero, and for Lydie to stand beside him.

Eventually, a wave of cheers rose.

The doors on the stage opened.

The first to appear was a man in black attire accented with silver. Leon. A face without a single scratch. A form groomed to a dazzling degree. A smile perfectly accustomed to basking in the cheers of the masses. He didn’t even look like the same human being as the man who had whispered “You were useful” to Noah in that dungeon.

Then, Lydie made her appearance.

A dress of pale blue. The design, tailored not to press against her stomach, seemed to boast of the future she carried within her. Flowers in her hair. Pearls at her neck. Her cheeks were flushed with a look of happiness. She was a different person from the girl who used to hunch her shoulders against the cold in the slums.

And her left hand.

On her ring finger, a blue-stone ring glittered.

His mother’s keepsake. The one treasure Noah was supposed to give her someday.

The crowd erupted.

“Congratulations!” “Long live the Hero!” “Blessings to the future child!”

Flowers were thrown, children ran about, and the orchestra raised its volume.

Leon raised his hand with an easy smile, and Lydie looked down with a slight bashfulness before smiling toward the people. Even that gesture seemed perfectly calculated. Glory was laid beneath their feet, and no one doubted it. Everyone here believed they were witnessing a beautiful story that deserved to be blessed.

They’re wrong.

Only he knew what lay beneath that foundation.

From the back of the crowd, Noah watched the two of them from beneath his hood.

His chest felt as though it were burning. With rage. With resentment. With the vow he had brought from his father’s grave.

But at the same time, his mind was strangely cold.

Don’t rush, he told himself.

There was no point in jumping out now. No one would believe him. If he shouted here, he would just be crushed again as the ghost of an incompetent. What he needed wasn’t a shout, but the preparation to return the favor. He would watch just how high they climbed, so that he could strike them down from that very height.

On the stage, Leon took Lydie’s hand and lifted it.

The blue stone caught the light and shone.

The moment he saw that light, the crest on Noah’s left hand pulsed with a faint heat. He could see the bundles of black-red causality stretching toward Leon. The thin threads reaching toward Lydie. Threads woven from betrayal, signatures, lies, and self-preservation.

It was all right there.

They weren’t severed yet. They hadn’t escaped yet.

Then, he would eventually reach them.

The crowd’s cheers of blessing did not cease.

In the dead center of it all, only the man who was supposed to be dead watched the two of them in silence.