WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Natty

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◈ The Regressor and the Blind Saintess ◈

Chapter 3: The Gutter - 2

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About three days had passed.

Vera could not be certain. That was simply the nature of the Gutter.

When the sun should have been up, the Mage Tower's shadow blocked its rays. At night, dim light flickered from the lanterns carried by Scavengers.

The Gutter was always murky, a place where there was no distinction between day and night.

There was another reason as well. Vera's condition was at its worst.

Pain assailed his body every moment. His thoughts flickered and broke off.

Lying there in a state where it would not have been strange to die at any moment, Vera had no way of measuring the passage of time.

"Cough!"

The moment he coughed, Vera felt his chest seize up, his breath catching painfully.

"Gasp!"

After drawing another breath and assessing his condition, Vera had some sense of it.

'...At most, a week.'

He would die within that time.

The curse had been lifted, but his injuries were severe enough to be a separate problem. He needed immediate treatment, yet that was not an option.

The only thing worth trying was...

"Are you all right?"

Rene, the blind Saintess who had lost her divine authority.

In other words, there was no way to survive.

"...How could I be?"

"Just a moment."

"Urgh...!"

When Rene's hand touched Vera's chest, another groan burst from his lips.

Vera suppressed it and watched Rene kindle the divinity that seemed ready to gutter out.

"Stop wasting your effort. Even Your Holiness knows there's no hope, doesn't she?"

"You never know."

Her tone was firm.

Vera struggled to hold on to his flickering consciousness as he looked at Rene.

'...What a strange woman.'

In the brief time he had spent with her, Vera had come to think that she was peculiar enough to deserve being called a freak.

Her face was marred with burns so severe that its original shape was impossible to discern. With eyes that could not see, she wandered outside to beg.

All she received was a bowl of porridge worse than livestock feed, yet she savored it as though it were a lavish feast.

Vera could not understand it at all.

How could he? When Vera had lived as a beggar in the Gutter, he had eaten that pig swill porridge more than anything else. He knew exactly what it tasted like.

More absurd still, despite eating it so eagerly, she never finished it.

After taking only two or three spoonfuls, she fed all the rest to Vera, wasting it on easing the hunger of someone who could not move.

Yes, wasting it.

Vera could think of no greater waste.

He would die soon. His injuries had become so severe that he could stop breathing at any moment.

So Vera had repeatedly told her to let him die.

"You never know."

Yet that was all Rene ever said.

Watching Rene hold out a spoon, Vera turned his gaze into empty space and muttered, "I didn't realize the Saintess was an idiot."

"What do you mean?"

"If you've lived as a Saintess your whole life, shouldn't you know better than I do what state this body is in? Yet... you keep pretending not to know. Isn't it only natural that I'd think you an idiot?"

Vera said it because he was irritated. He wished she would simply abandon him, but she kept stubbornly holding on.

Still, Rene paid no heed to Vera's attitude and held out the spoon again.

"You never know. Perhaps this porridge will give you strength, and you'll get back on your feet."

"That's exactly...!"

"Please eat first."

Vera glared at Rene, his insides twisting.

With unfocused eyes turned toward empty space, Rene waved the spoon around where she thought Vera's mouth would be.

"...You're a foolish person."

"In the Holy Kingdom, such foolishness is called love."

"Do you get a thrill from watching someone die, Saintess?"

"I do not believe love refers only to sexual desire."

The burn scars rose with the wrinkles on her face. At the end of Vera's gaze, Rene was smiling.

"The Lord commanded us to love our neighbors. As one who was once His most cherished servant, how could I turn away from him?"

"Well, if your god values love so dearly, He wouldn't have pitied the Saintess so little as to leave her in a place like this."

Vera forced a sneer. Of course, she could not see it, but he wanted to sneer at her anyway.

"I chose this."

"In the Gutter, people like you are called idiots."

"Then I gladly accept that. And not Saintess. Rene."

Once again, she smiled.

* * *

Perhaps another two days had passed.

Rene held a spoon to Vera's lips once more.

"You're relentless."

"I am persistent."

"Foolish..."

"Love."

Vera's mouth shut.

"Please eat."

Vera watched the spoon wave over his face, let out a short breath, then lifted his head and took it into his mouth.

"Well done."

At the praise, Vera looked toward Rene.

She was smiling. Vera could recognize it now.

Looking at that smile, Vera thought, 'What a truly strange woman.'

She had no duty or responsibility to care for Vera like this, yet she did so anyway. Strange was the only fitting word.

Rene no longer looked anything like a Saintess once praised by all.

Her face had melted grotesquely enough that an unaware person might scream and run away. Blue eyes showed through her barely open eye sockets. Her white hair, dulled of all luster, was caked in filth.

She must have suffered every kind of cruelty while begging in that state, yet there was not the slightest darkness about her.

Only a smile.

That was all her face ever wore.

Vera could not understand it. His curiosity swelled until it was unbearable, and he asked her, "...Don't you regret it?"

"What do you mean?"

"Giving up your divine authority."

If she had not given it up, she would not have needed to live like this. Even if war had engulfed the continent, she herself would have remained safe.

As Vera looked at her with that thought, Rene let out a soft laugh and answered, "I do not regret it in the slightest."

"Why?"

"Why do you think I would?"

Vera was left speechless.

It was not because he had nothing to say. Rather, there was too much to say.

Life in the Gutter was too miserable and ugly to be called life.

It was a life of hunger every day, of being despised for nothing more than being Gutter filth, of likely freezing to death in winter because there was not even a wall to block the bitter wind.

Then why was she not afraid of it?

Why did she not long for the days when she had shone so brightly?

Why could she accept it with a smile?

As Vera remained silent, consumed by such thoughts, Rene spoke.

"...Did you know that there was once a time when I could see?"

Her voice was soft and gentle. Wearing a calm smile, Rene continued.

"When I was very young. Before I had even lost my baby fat, perhaps five or six years old. Until then, I could follow the light of the world with my own eyes, like everyone else."

She was speaking of her past.

"I was a farmer's daughter. The village where I lived was a small farming village in a corner of the eastern Horden Kingdom."

It was a story Vera did not know. He had never cared enough to learn every detail of her personal history.

"There are things I still vaguely remember. Flowers blooming in every color on warm spring days. The sun shining so brightly in summer that it hurt the eyes. Wheat fields turning gold at harvest time. The world turning pure white as winter began to arrive."

Rene closed her eyes and continued with a faint smile, as if trying to hold on to the memories in her mind.

"Everything was wondrous. I was happy, too. The life I lived for others after becoming a Saintess was also happy, but... selfishly enough, if someone asked me to name the happiest time of my life, I think I would choose that time."

She gave a quiet laugh, and Rene's words continued even as Vera listened in silence.

"So when I suddenly lost my sight, I truly felt as if my world had collapsed. It felt as though my brightly shining world had fallen into a deep abyss."

"So the Saintess is human after all."

"Of course. I am undoubtedly human."

It was meant as sarcasm, but as she always did, she let it pass gently.

"Anyway, I think I spent several years crying. I thought I was the most unhappy person in the world, that the world was cruel only to me."

Vera could deeply sympathize with that.

He had once thought the same.

Surely Vera had not been alone in that. Everyone in the Gutter, those at the very bottom of misery, must have lived carrying thoughts like those.

Even as Vera considered that, Rene continued.

"Then, the Lord's Holy Mark descended upon me."

It was a story Vera knew well.

How could he not? The Lord's Holy Mark had not appeared for nearly four hundred years, then it manifested on a young girl just entering puberty. The entire continent had been thrown into uproar.

At the time, Vera had been consolidating the Gutter's cartels and beginning dealings with Imperial nobles, so he knew it well.

"At first, I dared to resent it in my heart. It was blasphemous, but I thought that the Lord had taken away my light, then tossed me this Holy Mark as if giving alms. So I resented Him."

"If the priests of the Holy Kingdom heard that, they would fall over in shock."

"It is a secret deep in my heart."

"Is it all right to tell me so easily? Ah, is it because I'm about to die, so it doesn't matter?"

As Vera continued sarcastically, Rene fumbled with her hand and poked Vera in the chest to silence him.

"Urgh...!"

"That is not a good thing to say. You should be thinking about recovering."

Vera glared at Rene, but glaring at a blind person was as meaningless as ever.

Rene gave another quiet laugh before continuing.

"Then, while I was living with that resentment, I came to the Gutter once."

"That's the first I've heard of that."

"I was traveling incognito, so naturally. At the time, I traveled incognito throughout the continent in order to bestow my divine authority."

After saying this, Rene moved her lips for a moment before speaking again.

"It was a place steeped in despair, so thick that even one who could not see could sense it. Fading breaths, screams filled with pain, the smell of blood and filth, damp air against my skin. It was all shocking to me."

Through her slightly opened eye socket, a blue pupil devoid of light could be seen.

"That was when I first felt ashamed in this Gutter. I know it is wrong to speak so presumptuously of pity, but when I saw those who lived here, I found myself so pathetic for having acted spoiled. That was why I felt ashamed."

A smile touched Rene's lips again.

"For the first time, I felt something other than resentment. I also thought that perhaps the reason the Lord had taken my light was because He wished for me to share that light with these people."

"...That is quite a leap."

"Perhaps it is. But what does that matter? Is it not important that I made such a resolve? So I do not regret living here like this now, not at all. Though I have become such a feeble being, I am truly grateful that even this body can help someone."

Vera looked at Rene.

She was smiling softly. There was not even the slightest crease in that expression.

Suddenly, as Vera looked at her, he understood why his insides twisted whenever he saw her.

'...A Saintess.'

He understood why she was called that.

It was because that Saintess possessed such nobility that Vera's insides twisted.

Vera's insides twisted at that nobility, so unlike his own, having trampled everything in sight at every turn just to escape the Gutter, terrified of returning and starving to death.

Vera forcibly looked away from Rene and closed his eyes.

All at once, misery washed over his entire body.

Never once in his life had Vera thought he would regret his own existence. Yet now, because of this shabby woman, regret rose within him.

This situation should obviously have been unbearably difficult for her. Having once lived a life brighter than this, she should have felt even more despair.

"...You're insane."

"I gladly accept that."

Rene's clear laughter placed a stone upon Vera's heart.

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