WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Natty

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Regressor and the Blind Saintess ◈

Chapter 102: Aftermath

──────

Very slowly, Rene’s consciousness rose, as though something submerged were floating to the surface.

A strange sensation of drifting through empty air lingered around her, followed by the soft feeling of something covering her body.

Realizing she was lying in a bed, Rene twitched her fingers before slowly lifting her eyelids.

“...Saintess?”

Vera’s voice reached her.

“Yes...”

The answer slipped out automatically. Then Rene felt her body flinch.

Her voice was terribly dry and hoarse.

It seemed she had been asleep for quite a long time.

‘That’s right...’

She recalled the last thing she had done before collapsing. She had drawn out every last bit of divine power she possessed and woven it into her Authority, forcing open the gate to the divine realm that Rohan had intended to open. Then she had layered divine arts over it and formed a wide-area healing Spell Formula.

“Are you awake?”

“How many days has it been?”

“It has been a week.”

Surprise appeared on Rene’s face.

“That long?”

“...Yes. Many people were worried about you. How do you feel?”

At Vera’s question, Rene checked her condition. Perhaps because she had been lying down for too long, her body felt weak and her mind was still sluggish, but there was nothing else unusual.

“I’m fine. I feel full of energy.”

She answered with a faint smile, then let out a long breath.

“What happened to the attack? The people, and the imperial palace?”

“Everything was resolved safely. The divine power that poured from the gate to the divine realm you opened quickly healed the injured, so the human toll was not severe. I have also heard that His Highness the Crown Prince has begun to recover.”

“That’s a relief.”

So everything had turned out well. Her heart felt far lighter.

“Did you catch the Mage Tower Master? What about the accomplice?”

“...I cut off the Mage Tower Master’s head, so they are certainly dead. As for the accomplice... we were unable to catch them. I apologize.”

“There’s nothing to apologize for. It’s still a relief that you caught the Mage Tower Master.”

A quiet laugh slipped from her lips.

Rene closed her eyes again, releasing a deep sigh of relief as she examined herself once more.

It felt as though something had changed.

Not her body or her abilities.

Her state of mind.

All the little worries that had shaken her for so long seemed to have fallen away, leaving her strangely refreshed. She felt as though she had become a little more detached, and as though her thoughts were flowing more clearly.

As she savored that strange, pleasant sensation.

“...Saintess.”

“Yes.”

“This time, you pushed yourself too hard.”

Vera’s rebuke fell over Rene.

Hearing the concern and resentment in his voice, Rene let out a snort of laughter.

“Do you understand how I feel now?”

She remembered Vera, who always pushed himself too hard and returned injured, along with the words she had always said to him.

Vera let out a groan.

“Ah, don’t apologize. I only said it because I don’t want you nagging me.”

“...Yes.”

Vera’s voice trembled.

For some reason, that put Rene in a good mood. She laughed, her shoulders shaking, then held out one hand.

“Your hand.”

Tap.

Vera’s hand settled over hers. Rene gently stroked his large hand, rough and cracked in several places.

“You got hurt too, didn’t you?”

“It is minor. I drew too heavily on divine power, so I suffered divine exhaustion...”

“Either way, you were hurt.”

“...Yes.”

“You know you’re not in any position to lecture me, right?”

Vera groaned again, and Rene burst into laughter.

What had changed?

She could not describe it all exactly in words. It was a change in how she felt.

Still, there was one realization she had gained, and it allowed her to act this boldly.

“Vera.”

“Yes, Saintess.”

“There’s something I want to do.”

A faint surprise appeared on Vera’s face, though Rene could not see it.

“Is that so?”

“Yes. I want to help people. More earnestly than before. I want to do my very best.”

She knew clearly what she had to do.

So that this blunt man she loved could finally reach the light, so that he could fulfill the dream he had longed for, she wanted to become a light more brilliant than anything in the world.

Perhaps that was why she felt so refreshed, and so strangely at ease. Her goal was clearly in sight.

Rene smiled, looking thoroughly refreshed.

* * *

Rene spent her time lying blankly in bed.

Though she did not feel anything particularly wrong with her body, she had been told to avoid moving around for the time being, having spent an entire week in bed.

It was boring.

As a blind person, there was only so much Rene could do while lying still like this.

She spent most of her time speaking with the four apprentice priests attending to her or with Vera, but they had their own duties and could not remain by her side all day.

‘They said Aisha would come tomorrow.’

Perhaps her pride had been hurt by having done nothing but flee throughout the attack. Since it ended, Aisha had been out in the streets with Dovan, helping deal with the aftermath.

The Apostles were the same.

Though they were outsiders, they could not simply sit still when they bore the title of Apostle.

That left Rene with time to organize her thoughts, and amid that boredom, the thought that came to her most often was, naturally, Orgus, whom she had met in the Gutter.

That strange time period Orgus had shown her, whose place in time she could not determine.

It continued to bother her.

Rene kept thinking as hard as she could.

‘It wasn’t the past.’

She was certain of it.

There were too many pieces that did not fit for the time Orgus had shown her to be the past.

Vera’s tone of voice alone proved it.

‘He sounded more subdued than he does now.’

His voice had already carried a mature weight that could not belong to the past.

Vera’s voice, as he snapped someone’s neck with a crack, had unmistakably belonged to an adult.

‘But it wasn’t the future either.’

There were too many suspicious aspects for that time period involving Rohan and the person with him to be the future.

That unknown person, whose voice and name were both concealed by the silent “---,” proved it.

That person had met Vera in a time period Rene could not place.

Rene began picking through every scrap of information about the unknown person.

They held enough status in the Holy Kingdom for Rohan to speak respectfully to them.

They seemed to have a very close relationship with Vera.

At the final moment of the time Orgus showed her, they had shaken Vera’s emotions to the core.

‘It doesn’t add up...’

Rene frowned.

The information she had was a complete jumble, making it difficult to figure anything out.

The only clue was that Orgus had hidden everything about that person while showing her another timeline.

‘It means they’re someone I must not see.’

She did not know what Orgus’s goal was, but Orgus had stopped her from seeing that person in that timeline.

‘Why?’

The question surfaced, but there was no way she could find an answer.

All she could vaguely sense was that the person was important.

A heavy sigh escaped Rene.

‘What could it be...?’

Rene recalled what she had once heard about Orgus.

‘Orgus never acts without a purpose.’

There was a purpose behind all his actions. The time he had shown her, whether it was the past or future, was an event she needed to know about.

As her worries deepened, quiet groans slipped from her mouth.

She wanted to demand that Vera tell her who that person was, but of course, she would not get an answer that way.

It was not as though Vera could know.

The time Orgus had shown her was an event that had not yet occurred, and might not even occur at all.

‘...Was it a warning?’

Could it be a warning that such an event might happen?

Her thoughts became increasingly tangled, and just as groans began slipping from Rene’s mouth.

Creak.

“Saintess?”

Vera entered the room.

“Ah, yes.”

“Have you been well?”

“Well...”

Rene gave an awkward smile.

Her body was well, but her mind felt terribly uneasy.

“How about you, Vera? Did things go well?”

“Yes. I received a request to help organize the districts, so I went out.”

“Ah, they said the Mage Tower was destroyed.”

The Mage Tower Master had truly been vicious.

‘Destroying the Mage Tower just because things turned against them...’

Their obsession was remarkable, at least. Trying to kill the Crown Prince, conducting human experiments, and suddenly blowing up the Mage Tower.

Rene wondered what could possibly drive someone to go that far.

“It’s horrifying.”

“Yes, but I certainly cut off their head, so they cannot be alive.”

For some reason, it sounded strange to hear him speak so casually of cutting off someone’s head.

“I, I see.”

With an awkward smile, Rene fidgeted with her fingertips before letting out a breath.

“Vera.”

“Yes.”

“Before you came to the Holy Kingdom, did you live alone? I mean... was there someone precious to you, or someone you were reluctant to leave behind?”

She asked the question casually.

Even if what Orgus had shown her was from a time that had not yet occurred, perhaps Vera might already know the unknown person.

Vera tilted his head at her sudden question.

He could not understand why she was asking.

After considering it for a moment, Vera decided there was no reason not to tell her and nodded.

“There was. I am human too, so it is not as though I never formed any bonds.”

“Ah! What kind of person were they? I’d like to meet them too.”

“Hmm, I think that would be difficult. They are someone I can no longer meet.”

Vera had only meant that it would be impossible to introduce Rene to Rene. Yet Rene, who did not know that, looked startled.

“Is that so...?”

Rene flinched.

‘They died?’

No, that could not be it.

There was a more plausible conclusion.

‘...They have not met yet.’

That was likely it.

The person Vera was speaking of must be different from the unknown person.

As Rene continued thinking, Vera felt nostalgia rise within him. He let out a hollow laugh and muttered.

“She was an unusual woman. I wonder whether I will ever meet another person like her in my life.”

An unusual woman.

Jolt!

Rene’s body went rigid. The words had done it naturally. Her mind rapidly pieced together what she had heard.

If the person Vera was speaking of was not the unknown person, and if she was already dead...

‘His first love?’

“Saintess?”

“No! My back just felt uncomfortable for a moment.”

Cold sweat trickled down Rene’s forehead.

She swallowed her alarm and tried to calm herself.

‘No, he just said she was a woman. Why am I overreacting?’

She needed to grow out of this behavior. How much longer was she going to fret like this?

Enough wild fantasies! Enough suspicion! It was time to let it go! Had she not promised herself just the other day that she would become more mature?

Rene forced the corners of her mouth upward and nodded.

“I, I see...”

An awkward silence settled in the room.

Naturally, Rene had created it. She could not speak as she struggled to swallow her panic.

The heart did not change simply because one wished it to.

Could a person truly be called human if they changed in an instant just because they had made a resolution?

Rene suddenly felt uncomfortable with the atmosphere and squeezed her eyes shut.

‘I shouldn’t have brought it up!’

Why had she mentioned someone who was dead?

Regret filled her. She wished someone would come and break this atmosphere.

At the moment she prayed desperately for that, the heavens answered her prayer.

Bang!

“Rene!”

Aisha’s excited cry rang through the room.

“Be quiet.”

“Mm, no~.”

A brief confrontation between Aisha and Vera. At Aisha’s taunting, a sun-bright smile appeared on Rene’s face.

“Aisha!”

“Rene! Rene!”

“Yes!”

“Ta-da!”

When Aisha threw both arms into the air in front of Rene, white light burst through the room.

Fwoooosh!

“I can do this now!”

Aisha’s voice was full of excitement. Vera shot to his feet at once. His eyes widened, and his mouth fell open.

Rene was the same. Until just before, she had been smiling brightly, but the light settling over her body suddenly filled her with shock.

“D-divine...”

It was divine power.

The light Aisha had just released was divine power.

A strange silence settled in the room.

Within it, Aisha’s eyes sparkled as she asked.

“Can I be a priest now?”

No one answered.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried