WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Regressor and the Blind Saintess ◈
Chapter 61: Aisha Dragnov - 3
──────
Aisha felt at a loss for words.
No...
Why had someone who had been smiling until moments ago suddenly changed her attitude? Was this woman mentally unwell?
As that thought crossed her mind, Rene spoke again.
“Don't take an interest in Vera. Vera is going to leave with me soon.”
She had no interest in him.
What was there to interest her about that guard? His air was gloomy, his face looked irritable, and above all...
He doesn't even have fur on his ears.
Why would she be interested in someone with no fur on their ears?
Aisha was angry. Rene was making her out to be some weirdo who liked people without fur on their ears, and she was suddenly snapping at her like this.
Still, a question came to mind.
...Does she really like him?
No, seriously, she liked him? Someone with no fur on his ears? What sort of taste did she have to like someone like that?
“Well? Aren't you going to say something?”
Rene lifted her chin.
Aisha fumbled, unsure how to answer. Then, offended by the thought that she might lose this argument if things continued, she replied.
A sly smile played on her lips.
“Well? Shouldn't we hear what that man has to say, too?”
“W-What did you say?!”
Screech! Rene shrieked.
Her face was bright red, and her shoulders trembled.
Aisha sensed that she had gained the upper hand and continued with something the mercenary captain always said.
“How can someone live on home-cooked meals alone? Sometimes you have to eat out, too!”
To be honest, Aisha did not really know what it meant. Still, she clearly remembered that whenever the mercenary captain said that, the woman who always followed him around would explode with anger.
Surely that blind woman would get angry, too.
Aisha was not wrong.
Rene froze at those words, looking as though she had been struck in the back of the head with a hammer.
“N-No...”
Rene was speechless.
She was not so foolish that she could not understand what Aisha meant.
Considering the context, the home-cooked meal must be herself, and eating out must be Aisha.
That was right. Aisha was declaring that she would steal Vera away.
“Y-You shameless woman!”
Her voice was full of anger.
Aisha tilted her head.
All of a sudden?
Naturally, she had no idea what she had just said.
Meanwhile, another dreadful image rose in Rene's mind.
Vera was turning his back on her and walking away. Beside him stood a small woman with her cat ears twitching. After showing Rene her back for a long time, the woman turned her head toward her, smirked, and spoke.
“Meow.”
Rene's shoulders jerked.
Her head was burning, and her emotions boiled over.
It was so unfair. She had only held Vera's hand so far. They had not even hugged, nor had they kissed. Why was this woman trying to take Vera away from her?
She was so upset that she felt as though she might cry.
No, tears were already beginning to fall.
Someone might ask why she was crying over something like this, but Rene had something to say for herself.
This was different from what had happened with the elves. That had been entirely her own imagination, while this time, her opponent was openly declaring war in front of her.
And Aisha was older than her. There was a practiced air to the way she spoke.
This was a crisis among crises.
“Hic...!”
A stifled sob escaped Rene's mouth.
Panic appeared on Aisha's face.
“U-Um?”
“Hic...! Hic...!”
Seeing Rene suddenly about to burst into tears, Aisha forgot all about being angry and began to look utterly helpless.
“H-Hey... Why are you crying...?”
“Sniff... Hic...”
Tears gathered in Rene's eyes. A little snot dripped from her nose.
That was simply how emotions were. Once they crossed a certain line, they made rational judgment and normal thought impossible.
The same was true for Rene. Aisha's provocation was not the only reason tears were about to spill from her.
There was the anxiety over a relationship that had made no progress for more than three years. Then there was Aisha, a sudden danger. Mixed in with it all was anger at herself for being unable to offer any rebuttal. Rene's emotions finally began to cross the line.
Rising fury consumed her. Then, even as she thought that crying meant losing, her body refused to do as she wished, and she burst into tears with a pop!
“Waaaaah!!!”
“H-Hey...”
Aisha began trying to comfort Rene, her face full of panic.
It was a strange situation, with Rene crying and Aisha consoling her.
That ugly spectacle, too painful to watch with open eyes, only ended after Norn, who had gotten an uneasy feeling and left midway through, returned with Dovan and Vera.
Only after everything was over did Rene learn that Aisha was actually a twelve-year-old child.
* * *
A little later, inside the forge.
Dovan let out a deep sigh, looking exhausted, and spoke to Vera.
“I apologize. My apprentice is immature.”
“...It's all right.”
Vera answered Dovan's apology while staring vaguely into empty space.
The scene still played in his mind.
Rene, tears and snot streaming down her face, speaking in a voice full of sorrow.
“Cheating is bad!!! Waaaaah!!!”
He had gone over afterward to sort things out and did not know what had happened, but Rene had said that the moment he arrived. For the rarest of moments, Vera found himself wondering, What is wrong with her?
It was a very impious thought, but... wrong was wrong.
Vera squeezed his eyes shut.
“...Let us continue discussing the matter at hand.”
“...Very well.”
An awkward air passed between them.
* * *
An empty room in Dovan's house.
On the bed in the room prepared for guests who occasionally stayed over, Rene was tightly wrapped in a blanket and groaning.
“Ugh...”
Her face, hidden beneath the blanket with her eyes squeezed shut, was red with shame.
Only after she had calmed down a little did she realize.
With a twelve-year-old...
She had seriously argued with a child. No, it would have been fortunate if that had been all.
I-I lost...
She had even lost. Provoked by a child, she had wept and wailed her eyes out.
Overcome with self-loathing and shame, Rene recalled the vow she had made once before.
...Let's die.
Rather than live so shamefully, she should die and become glorious. Rene's tongue poked out between her lips.
However, Rene did not truly have the courage to die. All she could do was tremble all over and twist her body in self-loathing.
As Rene writhed, the blanket wrapped around her kept wriggling.
While she was wriggling like that, a scene suddenly came to mind, making her body jerk.
“Cheating is bad!!! Waaaaah!!!”
Why!
Why had she done that? Why had her failure to endure that moment caused such a disaster?
Self-loathing crashed over her like a tidal wave, followed by anger at herself.
Rene could not bear it any longer.
“...Hella?”
There was no answer.
Using the last shred of reason left to her, Rene confirmed that she was alone in the room. Then, with a bang!, she kicked off the blanket with all her strength.
“Aaaaaah!!!”
Today, too, Rene despaired over the fact that she did not possess the divine authority to turn back time.
* * *
As Vera looked over the samples Dovan brought out, admiration rose within him.
A master craftsman.
He could tell at once.
On par even with the Empire's Meisters.
The swords Dovan brought out as samples were far beyond ordinary standards.
It was not merely the quality of the swords themselves.
Vera felt from them the same sensation he always felt when holding a sword made by someone called a master craftsman.
The gleam of the blade's surface, its straight centerline, even the balance he felt when lifting it. They all bore a distinct character that made it clear they had come from the same person's hands, a character that could seem almost stubborn at a glance.
That was what he sensed from the swords.
Dovan was a master craftsman capable of imbuing swords with the maker's individual character.
“What do you think?”
“They are excellent.”
Vera answered and looked at Dovan.
I never knew of a craftsman like this?
He found it strange that he had not known Dovan in his previous life.
Vera had been serious about weapons. He had his own stubborn desire not to lose to anyone in that regard, to the point that he had committed the eccentric act of tracking down every master craftsman on the continent and compiling a registry of them.
From the Empire's Meisters to the eastern dwarves and the Mage Tower's magitech engineers.
Even now, the names of countless master craftsmen were engraved in Vera's mind, yet Dovan's name was not among them.
There was only one possible explanation.
...The dead.
By the time Vera had begun seriously seeking out master craftsmen, Dovan had already been dead.
Why...
A craftsman like this would have been protected and recruited at the national level. Why had there been no such movement?
Vera's expression grew grave as he considered it, when Dovan spoke.
“I believe you know this as well, but Proden takes a very long time to forge. Once it has been forged and shaped, melting it down again takes twice as long. So we must establish the direction clearly from the start.”
Dovan paused and looked at Vera, then gestured with their chin toward the swords on display.
“These samples are the specifications I am most confident in. Choose whichever one best suits your hand.”
“...Yes.”
Vera erased the question from his thoughts and nodded at Dovan's words.
This is not something that will yield an answer immediately.
For now, it would be best to watch Dovan and learn the circumstances of Dovan's death.
Having reached that conclusion, Vera examined the displayed swords again, considering their qualities one by one.
He considered the length of the blades, the width of their surfaces, their balance, and more as he swung them through the air. Then he noticed a sword tucked away in a corner and narrowed his eyes.
Is that a sample, too?
Just as Vera approached the sword with that thought in mind,
“Ah, not that one.”
Dovan hurriedly stopped him.
Dovan propelled the wheelchair toward the sword with a squeak, then added.
“I forgot to put it away. My apologies. It is still unfinished.”
“It is all right.”
“This is embarrassing. I was in the middle of making it, but I did not like how it was turning out, so I threw it aside in frustration and forgot about it.”
Dovan smiled awkwardly while speaking.
Then Dovan grasped the hilt of the sword that had been tossed aside and pulled it out.
Vera's eyes widened at the sight of the sword finally revealed.
“That is...”
The sword slid free, and it looked less like something unfinished than a complete work of art.
A slender blade the color of dark ink, a narrow guard, and a fairly long hilt extending behind it.
“Every craftsman has an ambition, do they not? To create the masterpiece of their life. I have that ambition as well, which is why I am making this, but... it seems rather unsatisfactory.”
Vera could not focus on Dovan's words, even as Dovan laughed heartily.
He already knew what that sword was.
...The Demon Sword.
The sword Dovan called unfinished was the Demon Sword Aisha would one day take up and wield.
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
