WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Pushover Young Lord in a Romance Fantasy Won't Take It Anymore ◈

Chapter 21: Afterimage

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This time, I definitely owed Lucia.

If it hadn't been for her, Celine would have been framed with no way out.

Once Celine, who had been sobbing in Lucia's arms, calmed down, Lucia glanced up at me.

“There's a mountain of things I want to ask you, Young Lord.”

Her crimson eyes swept across the ballroom. A faint frown creased her brow.

“I don't think we'll be able to talk quietly here. There are too many people getting in the way.”

She was right. Even now, hundreds of pairs of eyes were fixed on us.

Lucia, the darling of high society, had defended Astin the wastrel.

It was certainly juicy enough to draw the attention of every noble present.

“True. There are a lot of eyes on us.”

Some of those gazes were especially vicious.

The Crown Prince, the Northern Grand Duke's second son, even the head of a major merchant guild.

Simply standing beside Lucia made me a public enemy.

I rubbed my chin, lost in thought. There was plenty I wanted to say to Lucia as well.

Not because I was trying to woo her. There were simply things I wanted to say, person to person.

Lucia let out an awkward sigh.

I conspicuously held up my index finger.

“There is a way.”

“Really?”

Lucia tilted her head, her eyes full of curiosity.

Before answering, I looked over her dress.

“You stand out more because you're moving around in such extravagant clothes. If you change, it should be a little better.”

Her eyes went round as marbles. Her mouth fell open in dumbfounded surprise.

“You want us to change clothes?”

* * *

“Oh, I see. I thought you were going to put on my dress.”

“...Would I ever do that?”

I had spare clothes, a navy tailcoat.

The fabric was a little stiff, but I could breathe easier.

Whoooosh.

A cool breeze blew pleasantly across the terrace. It was far more comfortable than a crowded, enclosed ballroom.

Lucia awkwardly adjusted her clothes. As I watched, our eyes met.

“Wh-why are you looking at me like that...? Does it not suit me?”

“No. I'm looking because it suits you well.”

I had given her the uniform I had been wearing.

Since we were changing clothes anyway, another feminine outfit would still draw attention.

The outfit that least suited the Lucia people imagined was a uniform.

It happened to be what I had worn to the ball. Its color was the Black Lion's black, the complete opposite of Lucia's yang energy.

She had tied her hair in a ponytail too, so no one would recognize her from a distance.

“Hm, so this is your type, Young Lord.”

Lucia smiled mischievously.

The truth was, Lucia in a uniform felt more familiar to me. That didn't mean it was my type.

“You look much better in a uniform than in a dress. Enlist.”

“I didn't realize you were a recruiter.”

I stole a glance at her profile.

Against the night sky, she looked beautiful all over again.

Ash, blood, smoke, and gunpowder had failed to leave a mark on her face.

“Everything's good, but it is a little big.”

Lucia's sleeves fluttered.

She had rolled up the sleeves, the hem of the jacket, and the cuffs of the pants to make them fit somehow.

Even so, the shoulders were too broad, making the outfit look loose.

“It's not uncomfortable, though. And it doesn't reek of perfume.”

Sniff, sniff. Lucia smelled the uniform.

Even a gesture that would look tacky on someone else seemed graceful when she did it.

Her beauty made anything believable. Before her, everyone, young or old, man or woman, would lose all sense of subjectivity.

“I hate the smell of perfume. It gives me a headache.”

Nobles used perfume to cover their own stench.

Some remnants of my modern sensibilities remained. From my perspective, the nobles' stench was unbearable.

They might bathe once a week, if that. It wasn't quite the Middle Ages, but the stench was still terrible.

“Smelly nobles slather themselves in perfume. I don't use any, but I do wash properly. I shower at least once or twice a day.”

“I've finally found a comrade in a place like this!”

Lucia's voice rose.

She looked genuinely delighted, like someone with two eyes who had found another two-eyed person in a village full of one-eyed people.

“No wonder you smelled so nice. I don't like strong perfume either. People ought to smell like people, shouldn't they?”

“I think so too.”

Lucia leaned her arms against the railing. I rested against it as well and tilted my head back.

The red sunset had faded from the sky. Stars were scattered like silver dust across the deep blue curtain overhead. It was a spectacular sight.

“It's strange. Other men are desperate to say even a word to me, but even when you're standing right beside me, you seem so indifferent.”

“My heart's racing right now.”

“Want to feel it?”

I remained silent. Lucia chuckled and poked my side with her elbow.

“You even tried to run away from me. How indifferent.”

“Did it never occur to you that I might dislike you, my lady?”

“Come on, you just called me your comrade, and now you're drawing a line already.”

“You were the one who called us comrades first...”

A stray thought cut me off.

Comrade. Lucia was more than some mere comrade to me.

She had been a comrade-in-arms who had shared life and death, joy and hardship with me. An irreplaceable friend who had survived beside me until the very end.

“Nngh! Ah, I can finally breathe. The ballroom must be in chaos by now.”

She stretched, then giggled playfully.

“Those people will be searching for me with fire in their eyes. Let them search for the rest of their lives. I doubt they'd recognize me even if they saw me.”

“It must be exhausting to keep hiding like this. Why not push them away if you hate it?”

“Can people really be pushed away just because you push? They're not objects.”

Lucia rested her chin on the railing.

“People don't move aside. They fall over. Then they get hurt, and I alone become the victim. That's happened a lot since I was little.”

“Since you were little?”

“It still happens a lot now.”

Lucia took in the night sky. The Milky Way reflected in her ruby-red eyes.

“Maybe everyone puts their own feelings first, no matter what others say. Well, that's probably just how people are.”

Then her eyes reflected me.

“You seem altruistic, Young Lord. You think about others more than yourself, don't you?”

“I'm selfish too, in my own way. I only care about myself.”

“Then why did you buy General Vermang's sword? For fifty million shillings.”

“Because it was worth buying.”

“So you're a knight who knows honor?”

“I'm a Cardenos. I can see the honor and glory dwelling in an old sword, the sweat and blood that have seeped into it.”

“I see. You're not selfish. You're just deeply understanding.”

Lucia's lips moved, though she seemed to have trouble speaking.

“General Vermang was someone I had a close connection with.”

I opened my mouth out of habit, then closed it again. The words wouldn't come.

This was the first time I had heard that Lucia had a connection to General Vermang.

Neither in the novel nor in my first life had I heard of it.

“He was an anonymous benefactor. He paid off all of my family's debts, covered my living expenses, and even paid my tuition. I was very grateful to him.”

“This is the first I've heard of it. Does anyone besides me know?”

“No one does. He kept it secret. He was afraid people would suspect a military commander of colluding with a noble family under the pretext of sponsorship.”

Lucia's eyes curved as she looked at me.

“You didn't know, did you?”

“No. I had no idea.”

“I thought so. When people buy it to win my favor, it's obvious. I think that's why I like you even more, Young Lord.”

Come to think of it.

There was still much I didn't know about Lucia.

“I thought I knew you fairly well, my lady. I was wrong.”

“Pfft. But today is the first time we've met.”

In my previous life, I had only become acquainted with Lucia after the Great War began.

Back then, all I knew of Lucia was the Lucia from the romance fantasy novel.

“You said earlier that I wasn't selfish, but understanding.”

“Yes, I did.”

“I thought about it for a moment. I think I really am selfish.”

“Why would you be?”

The Lucia I knew from the novel was just like this.

The title alone was Men Keep Chasing Me, So I Keep Running Away.

Lucia was a heroine who lived up to that title all the way to the end.

It was a dark fantasy novel wearing the skin of a romance fantasy.

There had been countless comments saying that a romance fantasy with no romance, where the heroine didn't even have a fling with any men and the world ended, made no sense.

“I hated one person unilaterally.”

In my first life before regression.

The rumors that had circulated about Lucia.

“At the time, I had my own reasons. I thought that while I was suffering this much, that person enjoyed everything they wanted and did nothing but complain.”

Rumors claimed she had kissed the Crown Prince in a corner of the Imperial Palace, exchanged embarrassing love letters with the Tower Master, and held secret talks outdoors with the Northern Grand Duke under the pretext of hunting magical beasts.

Lewd rumors like that always followed Lucia's shadow.

“Many others thought poorly of that person too. You only had to listen a little to hear one scandal after another.”

Blessings hoarded by one person fed on the jealousy of others before returning as curses.

I was among those jealous people.

Let me be honest.

I hated the woman called Lucia.

“I listened to those rumors too, and added my own words to them.”

The grand cause of saving the world.

Ironically, it couldn't be achieved with a righteous heart alone.

Human emotions were shallow and fickle, but malice could harden into something firm.

No. Not everyone was like that.

“I didn't only do it to that one person. I did terrible things to the person closest to me too.”

Someone like me needed an emotional dumping ground.

Before I became aware of my previous life, I had used Celine that way.

Her day changed according to my mood.

Becoming aware of my previous life didn't change me.

Leaving my family had only been running away, and trying to save the world had been nothing more than flailing.

“After the person I mistreated left, I used someone else in their place. The person I mentioned first... the person I hated unilaterally.”

I had failed to change until the end.

I used Lucia, someone I had never even seen, as my new emotional dumping ground.

“You're a man-crazy bitch. You're a whore hopping from man to man just for fun.”

The protagonist of a romance fantasy who shirked responsibility and played around with men.

A man-crazy heroine who had thrown away the duty of being the protagonist.

That was how I had judged Lucia.

While someone was working themselves to the bone to save the world, that woman who was supposedly the protagonist must still be playing around with men.

Using the unfairness of my own suffering as an excuse, I had degraded and insulted her as I pleased.

“I was steeped in self-pity, cursed and blamed that person... then dumped every responsibility on them. I said it was all your fault that we had ended up like this.”

My own sickness became my excuse for hating Lucia.

To endure the hell I lived through, I placed every responsibility on the protagonist's shoulders.

Human malice could become this ugly.

Without knowing any of that, Lucia worried about me with clear eyes.

An unbearable shame washed over me.

I swallowed hard and forced my eyes away. It felt as though my voice would shake if I spoke.

“I realized it far too late. Every fault and every responsibility belonged to me.”

“You were right about everything. I was crazy. It was all my fault.”

The more I blamed Lucia, the more she took all of that blame upon herself. She was different from me.

She was a protagonist who blamed herself before anyone else.

“I should have tried to find real love.”

She was a pitiful person, rotting inside from the unwanted obsession she endured.

Contrary to my resentment, Lucia had never experienced real love.

Her regrets and lingering attachment came from that absence.

“You know, Astin. If tomorrow were the world's last day, what would you want to do?”

What she had said to me might have been a confession she had struggled to voice.

Lucia wanted to fall in love with a man, kiss the man she loved, and roll around in bed with him.

Perhaps even on the world's last day.

Lucia loved me. She had wanted to kiss me and roll around in bed with me.

“It's okay.”

Those words brought me back to reality.

I saw my face reflected in her ruby-red eyes.

“You realized it and reflected on it, even if it was late. You just have to sincerely apologize to that person. If it's you now, Young Lord, they will surely accept it.”

“I can't anymore.”

“...What?”

“I can't apologize.”

Lucia's lips parted slightly. Silence hung between us.

I had nothing in particular to say, so I waited for Lucia to speak.

“That person...”

Her voice trembled.

“What kind of person were they?”

A tangled mass of thoughts filled my head.

I barely managed to speak.

“They are a good person, one that is difficult to describe. Since I hated someone like that, I'm a pathetic person.”

Even now, I regretted that time.

If I had been with Lucia from the start. If only I had opened up and spoken honestly with her even once. If I had tried to learn about her.

If I had tried to save the world with a righteous heart, so much would have changed.

In the end, the apocalypse was my responsibility, not Lucia's.

I was the one who should have regressed. Perhaps Lucia knew that and sent me back.

If it was Lucia, she might have seen through my feelings long ago.

Was asking me to seduce her a way of telling me not to hate her anymore, but to love her?

“You poor thing.”

I turned my head.

I shook off my thoughts. That allowed me to face reality.

“What about me is pitiful?”

“Nothing. Just... don't keep so much bottled up from now on. You look so sad.”

Lucia leaned forward. Her lower face was hidden behind her folded arms.

The eyes above them stared steadily at me. Two crimson eyes, with no scars.

“It's good to say what you want to say plainly, like you did just now. That's how you live longer.”

She raised her voice to lift the mood.

I decided to play along.

“I want to live until I'm so old I need someone to wipe me.”

“Good! Then you need to take even better care of your heart.”

This conversation felt familiar.

Haa.

Lucia exhaled deeply.

Her white breath was clearly visible in the night air. It looked like cigarette smoke before quickly scattering into the air.

Lucia's scent rode the breeze and reached my nose. Her pure, unblended natural scent left a strange hollow feeling.

“If something feels unfair, say it's unfair. If you hate something, say you hate it. If you like something, say you like it. That's how you should live. Ah... now that I say it, I don't do that either. I can start now, at least.”

The sleeves of her uniform fluttered in the night breeze. A uniform free of dirt and blood. Lucia pulled the collar closed.

Her ponytail fluttered in the wind. My gaze drifted to her neat hair.

“Let's start with me. I'm sorry, Young Lord. Let me apologize once more for misunderstanding you at first.”

“...Me too.”

I wanted to apologize to her as well.

But when I saw those crimson eyes, I closed my lips.

Lucia silently watched my face. For some reason, I wanted to avoid her gaze.

“And thank you. For protecting General Vermang's honor. I mean it.”

“...”

“You said you could see the honor and glory dwelling in that sword. I couldn't see it. I only wanted to protect my benefactor's reputation. That makes me feel a little... ashamed.”

Just as there were things only I could see.

There were things only Lucia could not see.

People could not see themselves without a mirror.

“A knight who knows honor... Doesn't that sound romantic? It's kind of cool too.”

It did not feel real to hear the word “cool” from her lips.

I'd rather have heard her call me someone who looked like a chain-smoker.

I stared blankly into the air, fixing my gaze on the night sky as though I were admiring it.

“High mountains, deep valleys... You know? The one you taught me.”

“High mountains, deep valleys...”

A song slipped past my lips.

“Silent mountains and rivers...”

“What is that? Out of nowhere.”

“An army song. I made it up.”

“You made up an army song yourself?”

“Yes. Won't you sing with me? It feels awkward alone. Just start with ‘High mountains, deep valleys...’”

“Eek, an army song for a lady? It doesn't suit me. Right?”

It really had not suited her. Back then, I had hated hearing it so much.

I had never taught it to her, nor had we ever sung it together.

She had heard my muttering on her own, then sung it by herself like a nightingale.

Traces of me had seeped into her world.

“Young Lord Astin.”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember the question I asked at the ballroom entrance? When I asked if we'd met before?”

“I answered that we might have seen each other once or twice in passing.”

“Not a brief passing encounter. Haven't we seen each other in a much deeper way?”

“I don't know.”

I stared blankly at Lucia.

A uniform that was neither caked in dirt nor frayed.

A neat ponytail, not tangled like dog fur.

A clean but strangely lonely scent.

The fact that she had both eyes, that one of them was not dark gray, that she bore no scar...

“As far as I know, we haven't.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes.”

The night wind felt especially cold.

Author's Note (Afterword)

Another double release today. One more chapter will be posted at 1 p.m.

Footnotes:

The lyrics Astin claims to have written are from a real Korean military song.

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