It had happened too fast for his brain to react humanly.
Shot to death, he didn't have much pleasure to regret before he died.
Awakening instantly in a new body, amidst a fight, only to get crippled.
He also never had a chance to regret his new opportunity before he died again.
But now.
Now that time didn't seem to be a thing, and there was nothing but darkness before him, he could finally drown in his thoughts.
"Now that I think about it, there really are some things I did regret."
"And what are those?"
"I have ten Webnovel updates that I haven't caught up to, and I heard Season 19 of Hourion Sword God is out."
"I procrastinated watching it for two days now, but told myself I would watch it that night after I return home from work."
"I unfortunately died before I got home…"
He mused with a sad expression, looking up to find the golden-red eyes quivering in disbelief.
"That's… that's all you regret?"
"You got something else for me?"
Cad asked with a raised eyebrow, and the figure clasped his forehead.
"What about your second chance that you missed?"
"I didn't expect to get reincarnated, nor could I have done anything beyond the fight."
"Dude broke my dagger and shattered my hand bones with a kick."
"It would be stupid to blame myself for not fighting harder, or cultivating faster, or something, when I had zero control of the body I got reincaranted in."
"And dead is dead. It's milk already spilled."
"What am I to do? Cry over it like a baby? What does that change?"
He said, a weird feeling of anger filling his heart, but he quelled that down.
"I was poor, but I never owed a debt, nor did I take what wasn't mine."
"I was ugly, but I never wished someone bad because they were handsome, nor did I get jealous of people who had friends of their own."
"Are you saying you're a good person?"
The shadow asked.
"I won't call myself good, nor would I call myself bad as I never really got the pleasure to sit down and think about that topic."
"Feel like you wasted your life?"
It pressed, but he responded.
"No, I don't think so."
"Growing up in an orphanage, we get people who come to adopt children at eight."
"I never got adopted due to not exactly looking like the 'dream child' or whatever, and I got thrown out on the street at sixteen."
"Many would have turned to stealing to survive, but I walked into VcDonald's and got myself a job."
"From nothing, I worked hard enough to get a roof over my head and enough food to survive without ever begging."
"All the time I had of free choice was when I got out of that orphanage at sixteen, and I died at eighteen."
"Safe to say, I lived for just two years and the entirety of those two years I spent working hard to feed, clothe, and house myself, and the rest was spent doing the only activities I loved doing."
"So no, I didn't waste my life."
"Life might have given me dirty hands, but I didn't sit and blame myself for a shitty life."
"I took those dirty hands, carved what I could with the dirt, and made peace with it."
"Maybe I really shouldn't have taken that cap from that old man, but truth is I didn't really need the cap."
"I just didn't want to refuse his kindness, so I took it. Anyone in my shoes could have done the same."
"So… there's really nothing deep that I regret."
Cad mused, and this time he was serious.
He had read many cry on their death, or wish for revenge, or wish they had done this or that, but he really didn't have anything like that.
The silence crept on for long, and when it got awkward, Cad spoke.
"Look, if you want to devour me, make it quick. Those eyes are unnerving."
"If you have one more chance, what will you use it to do?"
The figure suddenly asked, and Cad froze.
"One… one more chance?"
He asked.
"Yes. Cadwaladr Aegis didn't fully die."
"He was rescued by an Arcane healing art, though his core has still been crippled, and his life here onward will no doubt be as harsh as harsh can be."
The figure said.
"So you're not fully dead. That's why I'm curious about what you will use this life of yours to do…"
It said.
Cad had many thoughts.
He had heard of cores.
He had seen the golden flames from the sword.
He had seen that art that looked similar to domain expansion from an anime he had watched before, and he had heard of an Undead Invasion.
He knew well this world was completely different from the boring Earth he had come from.
So what would he do?
"I'll do the only thing I've always done…"
Cad said as the shadowy being hummed deeply.
"And what's that?"
"Take whatever life has given me, even if it's a crippling, build the best I can with it, then make peace."
"I won't live a life I would regret, nor a life where, on my deathbed, I would say I wish I had done this or that."
"To live fully, with no regrets, even while crippled."
"That's all."
He said, and the shadow that covered the shadowy being shook lightly, the crimson-golden eyes flaring with blinding light.
It settled after some silence, and a pitch-black hand slowly thrust out from the shadow, opening before Cad.
What lay in the palm was a strange object:
A pitch black tower.
"What is this?"
He asked, taking a step back from the ominous aura he felt, but in the next moment, the tower shot forward, slamming into his head.
Cad's vision slowly darkened as he fell into the void.
All he heard last was,
"Then go out there, Cadwaladr… and live your best."