Chapter 1
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: I Stole the Villainess's Regression
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Midnight, and the castle was burning.
The black stone walls that had dominated the night split open, spewing red breath.
Flags symbolizing once-vaunted authority and arrogance hung from every tower.
The flags tore apart in the flames, unable to protect their lord's crest to the end.
Patterns carved into the pillars twisted in the heat, screaming in grotesque grimaces.
Chandeliers dangling from the ceiling crashed to the floor amid molten metal.
In the midst of it all burning away...
A lone man trudged forward with difficulty, a woman on his back.
The black iron armor encasing him clung to his body like a second skin.
Its surface was scarred with countless scratches and dents.
No decorations.
Armor forged purely for utility.
Ision Calrad.
The exclusive knight who had served the world's worst villainess since her childhood.
An exclusive knight in name only—he was little more than a punching bag.
The villainess was a genius, after all.
But even geniuses had one foe they could never defeat.
A man far more brilliant than the villainess herself.
And the man she loved above all else.
The male lead of this romance fantasy novel.
Leharion Perzan.
She had spent her life yearning to best him, striving endlessly for it.
"...In the end, I couldn't win against you even once."
Her voice echoed through the collapsing stone walls of the blazing castle.
A low, beautiful timbre.
The voice Ision heard every single day.
It used to ring with energy and confidence, but now it rang hollow, drained of strength.
Her carefully bottled emotions now cracked like fragile glass...
Slowly squeezing the listener's heart.
"This world decreed it so. That I could never beat him."
She proclaimed herself "this lady" before others, but her words softened around Ision.
"No matter how many times... how many times I tried."
The villainess's efforts never reached their mark.
"Even loving Leharion so fiercely, chasing everything he ever wanted."
And neither did her love.
"All of causality revolved around him. It was fated that way."
Leharion Perzan was the male lead of this romance fantasy.
Thus, he was fated to love only the heroine.
"This was a curse."
The villainess was smiling.
The smile tugging at her lips was unnaturally prim, her eyes reflecting nothing.
"A curse to mock me all my life."
Regret welled in her crimson eyes, stark against her jet-black hair.
Her locks had once gleamed like flawless crystal, but they had darkened at some point.
Much like her life.
"Have you finished lamenting, my lady?"
Ision asked the woman who poured out nothing but laments.
"...It's too far."
The villainess buried her face in his shoulder and sobbed quietly.
To the world, she was the flawless apex predator, utterly ruthless—but before him, raised together since childhood, she was always like this.
A woman who fussed and whined and wept, utterly ordinary.
A servant at her beck and call for fifteen long years.
She had too much history with Ision to put on an act before him.
"Then save the lamenting for later. We survive first."
"...You know how this ends for me."
Blood poured endlessly from her body.
No ordinary wound.
A scar left by the Saintess of the Orthodox Heaven.
An incurable wound.
One that ignored even the divine stigmata bestowed by the gods themselves.
She was a regressor.
Her god-granted stigma, Reverse Heaven.
Through it, she had regressed countless times.
To defeat Leharion.
To crush the heroine and claim his love.
She had invoked Reverse Heaven again and again.
Yet victory eluded her. Love eluded her.
Reverse Heaven allowed regression at will.
But hers came with restrictions.
Regress to a fixed point, and she could never go back before it again.
The more she regressed, the narrower her window became.
Regression was now all but impossible for her.
Not even minutes back could alter this reality.
Each loop, she repeated failure.
Trying to steer toward better outcomes, only to worsen them like inescapable fate.
Disaster begat disaster, until she became the Witch of Reverse Heaven.
"Even the Witch of Reverse Heaven ends like this, I suppose."
"Knew it would come to this, the way you went around stirring trouble, bragging about regressing."
Ision staggered, her arm tightening around his throat.
Dying or not, she was still the world's number two.
She could crush Ision without effort.
"Why do you always do this? Not serious to the bitter end!"
Even her scolding lacked bite now.
Proof she was truly fading.
Reverse Heaven or no, the stigmata powering it lay shattered.
True death was all that remained.
"You don't like serious types, my lady."
"...Leharion's serious."
"Don't even say that bastard's name. What's serious about some skirt-chaser with his tongue lolling out?"
"Don't curse Leharion."
Ision snorted derisively.
"I'll curse him plenty. He hasn't a clue how brilliant and beautiful our lady is."
"...You, honestly."
Ision had finally escaped the burning castle.
The protagonist's party was long gone.
Having dealt her a fatal blow, they knew she wouldn't survive.
They were busy enough as it was.
Stopping the heretics of the Council of the Apocalypse left no room for distractions.
The Witch of Reverse Heaven was beneath notice.
Which let Ision carry her beyond the walls.
His legs had reached their limit.
He'd already clashed with the protagonist's group alongside the Witch of Reverse Heaven.
First time fighting so desperately since possessing this body.
But leg strength or no, he gently laid his lady down.
Then inspected her wound.
Massive blood gushed from the gaping tear.
Grievous at a glance.
Incurable. Death's approach was palpable.
"Ision, it's cold."
"You were just in that inferno—of course it's cold."
His words were gruff, but he draped his half-charred cloak around her.
His touch was gentle, the mark of a knight who had served her lifelong.
Yet warmth wouldn't come.
Blood loss had robbed her of body heat.
The light in the villainess's eyes dimmed by degrees.
Ision sensed his lifelong charge's death drawing near.
The girl who had been so young when he possessed this body.
Now dying before his eyes.
"Ision."
"Yes, my lady."
"Sorry for dragging you into this."
"No need for that now. You've always done as you pleased with me."
"You should've just run."
"Then you'd bawl like a child."
"True. I'd cry. Cry buckets."
Their exchange continued.
But her replies grew slower, more delayed.
Ision knelt now, clasping her hand.
The knight's due reverence to his lifelong lady.
"Ision."
"Yes, my lady."
"Stay there."
"Yes, right here."
"Ision."
"Yes, my lady."
"Thank you... always."
"Yes, it was my honor to serve you."
"I... sion."
"Yes, my lady."
"...Stop."
The villainess tried to pull away her trembling hand.
But Ision held fast.
Upon the back of his hand...
A blue flame flickered to life.
The villainess knew what it was.
Ision's stigma, Vicarious Sacrifice.
A peculiar mark that took on another's damage and wounds in their stead.
Useless to any onlooker.
But in this moment, Ision was grateful for it.
"My lady, an exclusive knight is fated to die with his master—or so I was taught."
The exclusive knight training grounds.
The Training Commander's words drilled into his ears endlessly.
How he'd despised the barked orders to die for one's lord.
Slipping a centipede into the man's boot had been some small catharsis.
"Taught that way, I can't let my lady die first. I'd have no right to call myself an exclusive knight."
"This is my... fault. The con... sequence of my... actions."
"Yes, no doubt. But a master's failings bind her knight equally, by noble law, don't they?"
He smiled faintly through his battered visor.
"My failure for not making you victorious, my lady."
The flames leaped.
Blue fire engulfed Ision's body, coiling and consuming him.
All the pain and wounds his lady had endured transferred to him.
Her injuries began healing at a rapid pace.
She gazed at him, shouting something.
But Ision's ears were deaf.
Having shouldered his master's death throes, his body could endure no longer.
As expected of the Saintess of the Orthodox Heaven's mark.
Devastatingly effective.
"My lady, live."
He couldn't hear, but he forced the words out.
"Live brilliantly. Happily. So gloriously those bastards envy you."
This was Ision's other curse upon her.
A malediction to keep her from dying while thinking of him.
"Live on. You've grown strong enough without me."
Ision's final smile.
In his fading eyes...
His lady, desperately calling his name one last time.
Upon the back of his hand.
Unaware that an unforeseen wound had transferred with the rest.
His consciousness slipped away.