WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
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◈ The Regressor and the Blind Saintess ◈
Chapter 94: Confusion
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In one of the imperial palace’s reception rooms.
Maximilian sat drinking tea as he looked at the Mage Tower Master across from him.
Long, curly red hair. Upturned eyes and lips tilted upward. She was a beauty with a seductive air, but Maximilian knew.
That woman was an ancient crone more than one hundred and twenty years old.
“Why have you summoned me like this?”
The Mage Tower Master spoke, putting on an elegant act. Maximilian replied without the slightest sign of disturbance.
“The festival has begun, so I called you to commend you for your accomplishments.”
“Oh my, and by commend, you mean?”
“You have worked hard.”
“...”
The Mage Tower Master’s smiling expression froze in place. Even now, Maximilian was so poor with words that he said things without making himself clear.
Unaware of that, Maximilian recalled what his younger brother had asked of him.
-Please keep her here until sunset. Only until then.
It was a request from the younger brother he had always thought immature. As his elder brother, it was only right to grant it.
“Have you experienced any inconveniences?”
At Maximilian’s words, the Mage Tower Master’s eyes curved.
“Thanks to the imperial family’s grace, I have always lived in abundance.”
“Is that so?”
Maximilian nodded and continued.
“I saw the items the Mage Tower put up for auction. There were many remarkable things.”
“Oh my, I am very glad they pleased Your Highness.”
“Yes, those artificial organs in particular were impressive. I believe we should discuss possible applications with the healers.”
“They are a work I’m particularly proud of.”
A work she was particularly proud of.
The question of how she had completed such technology slipped back down his throat with the tea. What his younger brother had told him came to mind.
‘Corpses walking about without organs.’
Was that not a deeply suspicious and blatant connection?
“I am grateful that you always strive for the Empire’s well-being.”
“You flatter me. Ah, if we are finished, may I leave now?”
He flinched.
Maximilian froze at the words he heard.
“...Stay a little longer.”
“Is there more business?”
“I would like to speak with you a little more.”
Fortunately, his voice had not shaken. The composure he had cultivated while living as Crown Prince continued to serve its purpose, even now.
The Mage Tower Master stared at Maximilian. After watching him intently and making a thoughtful hum, she began to giggle. Then she rose from her seat and approached him.
The Mage Tower Master sat on Maximilian’s lap. Her hand began to stroke his cheek.
“It sounds as though you mean you wish to do this. Am I mistaken?”
For one of the few times in his life, Maximilian felt flustered and disgusted.
The thought that he might be misunderstood as making advances on an ancient crone more than one hundred and twenty years old made his skin crawl.
However, he could not show it. Maximilian set down his teacup and placed his hand over the one resting on his cheek.
‘My lady, forgive me.’
He apologized to his fiancée inwardly as he spoke aloud.
“...It depends on how you see it.”
A broad smile, nearly splitting her face, appeared on the Mage Tower Master’s lips.
“Hmm...”
Narrowing her eyes as she watched Maximilian, the Mage Tower Master slowly leaned forward. Maximilian’s pupils trembled as if there had been an earthquake, and his entire body tensed.
It was a reaction born from his revulsion at what would follow.
He wanted to push her away and flee at once, but he could not. Maximilian tightly shut his eyes.
Trying to scatter his thoughts, to feel nothing, to empty his mind, what Maximilian felt next was...
Lick.
The sensation of a tongue running over his earlobe.
His stomach churned. He felt like vomiting. Maximilian clenched his teeth and endured it.
Goosebumps rose along his spine.
For the Empire. For his younger brother. As Maximilian screamed inwardly that he would endure all of this, he had no choice but to open his eyes wide at the words that followed.
“The Second Prince is quite curious, is he not?”
Thump.
His heart seemed to drop.
The sudden mention of Albrecht had caused it. Maximilian inhaled sharply. His head turned stiffly toward the Mage Tower Master, whose nose was nearly touching his.
The Mage Tower Master smiled. Her lips, too, were stretched as though they would reach her ears.
“You could simply pretend not to know.”
Maximilian was not so foolish that he failed to understand what she meant.
‘...She knew.’
She had noticed. She knew everything about what they were doing and why he had summoned her today.
Suddenly, Maximilian’s thoughts sharpened.
‘My younger brother is in danger.’
The moment his expression froze before he could compose himself...
“...You should be worried about yourself, Your Highness the Crown Prince.”
The Mage Tower Master spoke. Her hand moved down Maximilian’s cheek, past his neck, and toward his chest.
Her hand caressed his chest in an utterly lewd motion, then went lower still. The moment Maximilian’s breath stopped...
Squelch.
A sickening sound of flesh tearing rang out.
In an instant, all sense of reality vanished, replaced by shock.
Maximilian lowered his trembling head and looked at his abdomen.
“Cough...!”
A bloodied cough burst from him.
The Mage Tower Master’s fist was buried in his stomach.
“Honestly. I might have considered letting you live if you had been a little prettier.”
When the Mage Tower Master withdrew her fist, blood poured from the wound.
“You look far too manly, Crown Prince. You do not look very appetizing.”
Drip, drip.
Maximilian staggered at the pain suddenly engulfing his body and looked at the Mage Tower Master.
The Mage Tower Master rose and walked toward the window with a light click, click of her heels, humming to herself.
“Since it is a festival, should we not have a more splendid celebration?”
He should have called for the guards who would be right outside the door, but all strength had left his body. He had no energy to do so.
Before Maximilian lost consciousness, he saw flames as red as blood.
* * *
The hollow revealed beneath the Gutter’s scrap shop.
After Rene, held in Vera’s arms, leaped into it and touched the ground, the first thing she did was...
“Urgh...!”
She retched.
“Saintess!”
“I-I’m all right... Urp!”
Another wave of nausea rose in her.
There was no other reason. It was simply the foul stench filling this place. Rene’s hands trembled. Her legs were shaking. She could guess what that smell was.
A fishy, rotten stench. It was a vile smell she had never encountered in her life, yet the moment she caught it, she instinctively understood.
Rene, who had been covering her mouth, reached for Vera with trembling movements. Her outstretched hand grasped his collar.
“...Vera.”
“...Yes.”
“Are those... corpses...?”
It was the stench of corpses. Not one or two, but a stench that suggested at least dozens of bodies tangled together.
Vera’s expression twisted at Rene’s question, and his lips moved.
“Yes. They are lying all over this hollow.”
Vera looked around.
Corpses with their abdomens split open covered the place. They appeared to have been left here for quite some time, with parts of them rotting away. The blood pooled beneath them had turned black, and insects swarmed over it.
Yet what stood out most were the heads resting atop those corpses.
‘...Anna.’
Anna, according to Rohan. A woman with long, straight pink hair and a gentle appearance. Every corpse had her face.
What was even more grotesque was that while their entire bodies had decayed and blood pooled around them, their faces remained clean and utterly free of decay.
What sort of cause and effect was this?
What had this hollow been built for?
As Vera continued thinking, the others descended into the hollow after them. Their faces showed the same shock.
“What is this...?”
Rohan was the most shaken. His thoughts reeling once more, he staggered a step back.
Mari and Count Vaischur surveyed the sight with grave expressions, while Albrecht stood frozen in shock.
“This is insane. They did something like this and walked around so calmly?”
Veins stood out on the hand gripping Pure Blood.
Vera watched him briefly, then pieced his thoughts together again.
‘There is no one here.’
He could sense no presence. It was not that he had failed to catch one. There truly was no movement in this hollow besides their own.
Aside from the faint rustling of insects.
There had to be someone who had given the Mage Tower Master the serum. There had to be an interloper for any of this to make sense.
Vera felt his thoughts become tangled.
What had he overlooked? What kind of place was this?
As he agonized over those questions, Vera sensed something unnatural about the entire space.
‘...What if they cleared it out?’
What if they had removed all the equipment that had filled this place?
Vera sharpened his sight and carefully examined the hollow.
He first checked the walls. They were rough and uneven, carved crudely from bedrock.
Then he examined the corpses. They were the same as before, long-decayed bodies.
Next, he inspected the floor.
As Vera studied the floor beneath the corpses, his body jolted at what caught his eye.
“Saintess, excuse me.”
Vera handed Rene, whom he had been supporting until then, to Mari. He walked over to where six corpses lay piled together and began moving them aside.
The wet sensation and the corpses’ distinctive chill spread through his body.
Ignoring it, Vera removed every body and wiped away the pooled blood.
‘...It is indented.’
The ground was notably more sunken than the surrounding area.
It looked as though something had been placed there.
Only then did Vera realize.
‘They withdrew?’
Just like the scrap shop above, every piece of equipment that had been here had been removed.
Furthermore, the corpses had been deliberately arranged to hide the traces.
Withdrawal. Camouflage.
As Vera linked his thoughts together once more around those keywords, his body stirred.
‘...They knew we would come.’
They had known this hollow would be discovered.
His thoughts continued.
‘Then where did they go?’
Judging by the size of this hollow, this could not have been a small operation.
There must have been more of the moving corpses that had guarded the area above.
The final numbered test subject in the journal had been in the two-thousands.
Even if that number had accumulated over the past several years, even if there had been people they had replaced in the process, there should still have been hundreds remaining.
If such a large group had moved, if they had tried to leave the Empire, there was no way it could have gone unnoticed.
As Vera continued thinking...
‘...What if they did not leave the capital?’
That possibility came to him.
What if they were still within the Imperial Capital, hiding throughout it with a purpose?
A chill ran over Vera’s entire body. He abruptly rose to his feet.
The strongest forces in the Imperial Capital were currently in the Gutter. Outside the Imperial Capital, tourists from every region packed the streets. The Mage Tower Master and the interloper already knew they had been exposed.
Then what situation might arise? What choice might they make?
Rumble...!
The ground shook. The group stiffened. Everyone turned toward the direction the tremor had come from.
“...The vibration is coming from the center of the Imperial Capital.”
Albrecht’s words.
They sealed the conclusion.
They would terrorize the Imperial Capital during the festival. Escape amid the chaos. Leave no strength to pursue them.
Having reached that point, Vera realized what they would seek through the attack.
He remembered where the Mage Tower Master was now.
“...The Crown Prince.”
They would target the Crown Prince. To ensure the Imperial Capital could not move carelessly even after resolving the incident, to bind it in internal chaos, to buy time.
Vera hurriedly turned his head. Looking at Albrecht, he shouted in a voice filled with urgency.
“The Crown Prince is in danger!”
...They would try to assassinate the Crown Prince amid the chaos.
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