WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Natty

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ The Regressor and the Blind Saintess ◈

Chapter 5: The Gutter - 4

──────

A day and a half had passed since Rene stopped returning.

Barely able to keep breathing, Vera stared blankly at the ceiling.

‘...Did she leave?’

The thought came to mind.

His dazed mind had conjured it.

Wasn't it only natural? It had been nearly half a month. Rene had cared for Vera all that time despite barely managing one proper meal a day and despite being injured herself. It was about time she ran out of patience.

Vera let out a broken chuckle at the thought, but each breath brought a stabbing pain to his chest until breathing itself became difficult.

Now Vera could feel it clearly. The last ember of life was fading away.

At last, this tiresome life was coming to an end.

A smile returned to Vera's lips.

The damned beggar from the gutter's depths, the Butcher of the Gutter, the Empire's Mad Dog, the Continent's Tumor, was finally meeting death.

A sinner destined for the lowest pit of hell was dying alone in a filthy corner of the gutter.

Wasn't this the best news the entire continent could receive?

Vera kept laughing at the thought for some time, until the laughter abruptly stopped.

It was not by choice.

Someone had filled his thoughts.

An ugly woman covered in filth, her skin melted away by burns. Rene came to mind.

The woman whose every word turned Vera's gut inside out came to mind.

The woman who had shown kindness even to a monster like Vera, who seemed like virtue itself given form, who had made Vera think of regret, came to mind.

Even now, Vera thought poorly of her. Still, Vera knew.

For however short a time, the Rene Vera had seen would never have abandoned him.

She had not run away. If she had intended to flee, she would not have endured this long. She would have long since been worn down by hunger and gone.

Vera knew better than anyone how painful hunger could be.

And so Vera knew how difficult it had been for Rene not to show her hunger for those past fifteen days.

A woman who had endured something that difficult would not run away for such a reason now.

‘...She's dead.’

She never listened, no matter how often Vera warned her. In the end, a Scavenger must have caught and killed her. Her body was probably lying somewhere in the gutter.

Staring at the ceiling with unfocused eyes, Vera imagined Rene's body sunk in muddy water. An unfamiliar emotion suddenly surged up, and Vera clenched his teeth.

He did not know what it was.

It was an emotion Vera had never felt in all his life.

He knew countless emotions resembling it, but no word came to mind that could explain this one.

It resembled regret and pity. It took the shape of guilt, yet it could not be called guilt.

Perhaps it could be described as fear, but rather than something overwhelming, it felt like a small ember spreading faintly.

It felt like gratitude, and somehow like shame.

This emotion that churned Vera's insides made his body tremble.

It was far too complicated. It tightened around his insides, suffocating him more than the chest pains that had tormented him until now.

So Vera twisted his whole body, forcing limbs that had not moved at all until then to move.

“Ghk...!”

The moment his fingertips moved, pain spread through Vera's entire body. When Vera moved an arm, blood seemed to boil within.

But Vera could not stop.

This dizzying emotion was enough to make him vomit. There was no room to care about the pain in his body.

Vera raised his upper body.

Cough!

Blood burst from his mouth.

His body fell back down with a thud!

Even then, Vera raised his head and looked toward the half-open door of the shack.

He stretched out an arm. Planting it against the ground, Vera dragged himself forward, shaking violently.

In a state too miserable to look at, Vera crawled on.

He left through the door, pressed his hands into the muddy water, and crawled for a long while without knowing where he was going.

The blood spilling from his mouth flowed back and dribbled from his nostrils.

Each time Vera stretched out an arm, pain crushed his entire body.

Even so, he could not stop.

It was because of the strange tightness that gripped his insides.

Vera crawled about aimlessly like a mad person until he found a figure lying in another corner of the gutter, covered in muddy water.

Vera knew at once who it was.

It was Rene.

Her skin melted with burn scars, her white hair stained with mud, and beneath her half-closed eyelids, her blue pupils had lost their light.

Everything around her was dyed in dark, gloomy colors.

The colors of the dead. The same colors as those dying in the gutter. The dreary colors that always surfaced when congealed blood mixed with muddy water.

Vera saw those colors spread around Rene and stopped.

He remained there, filthy from crawling about.

One emotion joined the strange feeling that had been tormenting him.

This one, Vera knew for certain.

It had ruled Vera's childhood. There was no way he could fail to recognize it.

Despair.

That was the emotion that surfaced.

Vera did not know why it had arisen.

He only instinctively understood that the emotion taking shape within him was despair.

For a long time, Vera stared at Rene's body with a face covered in blood and filth. Then he crawled toward her, very slowly.

Only far enough for his hand to reach hers.

Having burned the last flame of life merely to crawl that far, Vera looked at Rene with the face of someone about to die.

She must have died in terrible pain, yet her face was peaceful.

“...What an ugly sight.”

Wheeze. Wheeze.

The words were mixed with ragged breaths.

Vera spoke, stared at her face for a while longer, then continued.

“What did I tell you? I said you'd die.”

Vera tried to smile, but lacked the strength to lift the corners of his mouth.

His eyelids were heavy. He could not breathe.

Feeling that the end had truly come, Vera studied Rene's face.

She was such a selfish woman.

She had made Vera break the vow to bear all the consequences of his sins and die miserably alone, yet here she was, sleeping with such a peaceful face.

Vera still did not know what this emotion twisting his insides was, and Rene had gone to sleep without teaching him.

Strength drained from Vera's whole body. His thoughts sank heavily, like cotton soaked in water.

As Vera watched Rene through half-closed eyes, his lips moved on their own.

“...Do you know something?”

Even as Vera thought it was absurd to speak to a corpse, he did not stop.

“I have an extraordinary talent. It was because of this talent that a beggar with nothing became the greatest monster on the continent.”

Gathering every last bit of strength left in his body, Vera finally took hold of Rene's hand where it lay in the muddy water.

Beneath Vera's rolled-up sleeve, a tattoo of eight curved strokes intertwined into a circle was drawn upon his forearm.

“In your words, it is a Holy Mark. I have one.”

Vera gave a quiet chuckle. It was absurd that he was revealing a secret he had never told anyone in his life to a corpse.

“The God of Covenants. It is his Holy Mark. If I use it, I can give weight to my words.”

Vera did not know why. One day, the Holy Mark had simply appeared upon his forearm.

A Holy Mark was a miracle said to be bestowed by gods upon the servants they cherished most. Vera had wondered why one had appeared on him.

Naturally so. Vera neither believed in the gods nor wished to act as an agent of their will.

Thus, Vera had used the Holy Mark solely for his own greed.

“...If I make an oath and set a price upon it, I gain power equal to that price.”

With this talent, this miracle, Vera had seized half the continent.

He had placed every shadow cast over the continent beneath his feet.

“Of course, there is a penalty. If I fail to keep the oath, then on top of whatever I staked, my soul is worn away by as much power as I gained.”

Only once had Vera failed to keep a minor oath.

He still clearly remembered the pain of that moment.

The pain of feeling as though his very existence were being torn to pieces, so terrible that merely remembering it made cold sweat pour down his body.

It was more frightening than any other moment Vera had experienced in life.

That was the pain that came when one broke a covenant.

And so Vera had vowed never to break an oath again.

“...But because of you, I've broken another oath.”

Because of Rene, Vera had broken the oath staked on his entire life. The oath that he would never regret his life. The oath that he would willingly endure punishment for every sin he had committed.

Vera met Rene, and because of her light, regretted his life.

Now his soul would be worn away entirely. Perhaps not even a speck would remain. Most likely, his very existence would not survive.

Thinking this, Vera stared blankly at Rene and reflected on the past fifteen or so days spent with her.

It was almost like a life flashing before his eyes.

If asked for the most miserable moment of his life, Vera would place this first. Yet ironically, it was also the moment he had been most saved.

Vera savored the memories passing through his mind, then looked at Rene through vision now so blurred that he could barely make out the shape of things.

His lips moved soundlessly and words spilled out.

“...I lived for myself. That was how I lived. But.”

These were not words that had passed through thought. This nameless emotion was simply making Vera say them.

Vera wanted to say this to the woman who had forced the feeling of regret into him.

“If there is another life, and if some part of my soul remains...”

If the one who shook him so deeply was Rene, then...

“...Then I think it would be all right to live for you. If I'm with you, I think I could truly live without regrets.”

By Rene's side, even a monster like Vera might dare to live something worthy of being called a life.

As he spoke, Vera revealed the Holy Mark one last time in this life.

“Yes, that would be good. There may not be much left, but... I will use whatever remains of my soul for that oath.”

The Holy Mark blazed gold.

Now all that remained was to inscribe a covenant upon it.

As he always had, Vera inscribed a covenant upon the Holy Mark burning gold.

“If I am granted another life, then in that life... I will live for you. That is my oath.”

Vera would place Rene in the most glorious seat and live a life guarding her side.

He carved that covenant into his soul.

As the covenant was inscribed, Vera's body trembled. He felt his soul burning.

It was a sensation close to abstraction, yet it was deeply familiar to Vera, who had used the Holy Mark throughout his life.

Only after confirming that the Holy Mark had activated did Vera slowly close his eyes.

And just as he thought, ‘At last, I'm dying.’

Tick.

Vera heard the sound of clock hands beside his ear.

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