Chapter 576: Protect the World from the Regressor
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 576: Protect the World from the Regressor
The Tree of Genesis was Nevida’s Divine—a tree that had inherited the essence of the World Tree and was imbued with the Divine’s immense power. As a Primordial Druid and a Divine, Nevida could control this magnificent, colossal tree at will. Within it, she was truly a godlike being.
And like a god, Nevida created my room in mere seconds. It was so spacious and comfortable that it was hard to believe it had been carved from wood. It was perfect, aside from its inconvenient location, which kept me from wandering outside.
A bed made of soft straw. A table that had grown from the wood itself. A tree stump served as a chair, covered with a cushion of dry moss, and ivy growing along the wall had formed natural coat hooks.
The room even had a bathroom, a kitchen, and a pantry. I could hear the clear sound of water flowing through a bamboo pipe overhead. If I pulled the cork plug, water would surely pour out.
Inside a container shaped like a flower’s calyx, I saw petals soaked in vegetable oil. When I flicked a nearby bean pod, a spark flew out and ignited the oil. The sight of fire and plants, natural enemies, coexisting, was a reminder of nature’s mysteries. When I closed the lacquered wooden lid, the suffocated flame fell back into a long slumber.
It was a civilization made of nature. To create a home for me, complete with furniture, in an instant—if that wasn't the work of a god, what was? It might be a temporary home that would one day disappear, but I was nothing but grateful.
I brought the armless Regressor into my new room. Having barely survived thanks to me, the Regressor showed her gratitude.
“Just kill me…!”
She did not.
What is she on about? I was so dumbfounded I had to ask.
“What’s this all of a sudden? Are you a captured knightess or something?”
“…Ugh. It’s a similar situation, isn’t it?”
Though a captured knightess usually didn’t have her arms ripped off, so she was probably treated better than the Regressor.
The Regressor groaned in pain, gritting her teeth as she looked at her empty shoulders. I had staunched the bleeding with Qi Art and first aid, but the blood soaking through her clothes was a stark reminder of her wretched state.
“I’ve already lost my arms and my weapon. There’s little hope of recovery… and Nevida won’t allow it anyway. There’s nothing I can do now. If I’m going to die, it’s better to die quickly.”
Honestly, it wouldn’t be strange for her to choose suicide. The only silver lining was that she didn’t seem to be in complete despair. A warrior who had been defeated and had her arms torn off should be despairing and pessimistic, but the emotion I sensed from the Regressor was frustration.
‘Right, that’s how she can regress with a sound mind. Dying in a broken state would be a waste of time… Ugh, is it because I’ve lost so much blood? My head is ringing, I feel like I’m going crazy.’
Thanks to that, I wasn’t swept up in her emotions and remained level-headed. If the Regressor had truly wanted to die, I might have helped her commit suicide, so this was a relief.
“Don’t be so pessimistic. What does that make my efforts to save you, Shei-ssi? It’s disheartening when the person you worked so hard to save acts like this.”
I spoke with words of comfort and encouragement, but the Regressor’s reaction was one of suspicion.
“…You’re just after my body, aren’t you?”
“What the hell are you talking about?!”
What? I was never after your body even when both your arms were attached! And now you think I’m after your half-wrecked body? Seriously? As if there’s nothing better to be after!
“The moment I revealed I was a woman, you demanded I be handed over to you…”
“What do you mean, what for?! To treat you! Are you really going to die like this?!”
“What’s the point of treatment? I have no arms and no weapon. Even if I stay alive, I’ll just become the Great Witch’s test subject or Nevida’s hostage…”
That’s why I gave Nevida a valid reason to keep you alive! So that neither she nor the Great Witch could kill you carelessly! Do you have any idea what I went through?!
The lengths I went to, tarnishing my own image! This won’t do. I’ll just have to hit her with the cold, hard truth…!
‘Huh? That man is the King of Humans? Why?’
Wait. Let’s calm down.
I could read someone’s thoughts from outside. My mind cleared as if I’d splashed it with cold water. I stopped what I was about to say and focused my mind-reading on the thoughts flowing in from somewhere.
‘Mmm. Right. He does bear a slight resemblance to the one sleeping up there… But looks aren’t reason enough. What? The Dog King found him, and he steals and uses Unique Magic? Who said that? The Unique Magic of that little gear-boy…?’
It was the Great Witch’s thoughts. She seemed to be conversing with Nevida, but Nevida’s thoughts were as placid as ever, making them less clear to read than the Great Witch’s.
‘But it’s strange… Setting aside the fact that the Beast King is male, even as a male, his desire for procreation is low. Gender is merely a form; the essence represents both male and female… The Beast King is a perfect being unto itself, like a hermaphrodite. Its descendants are born naturally, so there’s no fear of the line ending.’
Tch. She’s already sensed something is off. I thought it would take her a little longer.
Nevida was a druid who dealt with grass and plants. The Great Witch, on the other hand, was an authority on the animal kingdom, using beasts as familiars and possessing extensive knowledge of poisons and herbs. It was only natural that the two would form a cooperative relationship.
‘There’s a possibility the King of Humans is a little different… If he was split in half, he would also be incomplete. Mmm, I understand.’
That was why she had a better grasp of beasts, and the Beast King. The Great Witch finished her conversation and thought to herself.
‘But he might have other intentions. Nevida won’t watch him. That would be sacrilegious. But it doesn’t matter to me. Voyeurism is a witch’s specialty, after all… I can’t miss the chance to observe the ecology of the King of Humans.’
Don’t you dare turn witches into a bunch of peeping Toms! They already have a bad reputation, and it’s because of behavior like that that witch hunts happen!
But the Great Witch had her way, forcibly turning nearby insects into her familiars. Normally, one would have to raise and bond with them, but as a witch who also possessed the blood of a vampire, she had long since transcended such limitations.
Twenty insects squeezed through the cracks and settled in various spots around the room. They were the voyeuristic witch’s eyes and ears. An ordinary human would be unable to interpret the signals sent by twenty insects at once… but these insect familiars, fused with her Bloodcraft and made part of her own body, would serve as her eyes and ears.
Surveillance. I guess I can’t even rest easy. Not that I ever really do.
I have no choice. Ugh, this really hurts my pride, but…
“No. Shei-ssi, you won’t become the Great Witch’s test subject or Nevida’s hostage.”
“…How do you know?”
“Because, Shei-ssi, you have to be my girlfriend.”
“Wh-What?”
“So stop being so stubborn and let’s reattach your arms. Do you want to die?”
‘What, so suddenly, what is he saying?’
I half-dragged the stunned Regressor over and sat her down in a chair. Confused, she moved as I led her without any resistance.
Ah, my pride is in tatters. I’ve been hit on many times in my life, but I’ve never been the one to make a move.
But you can’t always do what you want in life. If I want to protect the Regressor’s life under the watchful eyes of Nevida and the Great Witch…
No, that’s not it.
To protect this world from the Regressor’s life, this is the only way!
“I have normal aesthetic sensibilities, you know. I don’t want to be with someone who’s wriggling around armless and dripping blood. Look at you. You’re smelly and dirty. It’s disgusting.”
“…I can’t help it! My arms, ugh, they were torn off…!”
“That’s why I’m trying to put you back to normal. Here. Present your shoulders. I’ll try to heal you with the Divine of Tyr, so use your Qi Art to hold the connected parts in place.”
I held up the pair of arms I had carefully brought with me. They were the very arms the Regressor had lost. Mangled as they were, one would normally worry if the body would die before they could even think of reattaching them, but that depended on the person.
Even in the worst-case scenario of having her arms torn off, the Regressor’s Heavenly Counter Domain was blocking the blood flow to her arms and circulating it back into her body, minimizing blood loss. It was a precise response, as if she’d had her arms torn off before.
“Here you go. Your lost left and right arms, which I brought for you. Wave hello. Oh, right, you don’t have hands to wave with, do you?”
“How can you joke when I’m at death’s door…!”
“Getting all serious in a serious situation just makes things heavier. Let’s think positively.”
I held her two severed arms and waved them. The bones were twisted and the torn muscles dangled, but life still flowed through them. That was all thanks to me circulating blood through them without a moment’s rest.
The Regressor saw a flicker of hope at the sight of her relatively intact arms, but she soon shook her head.
“…Even if you reattach them, it’ll take months to regain my strength. And even then, I won’t be as strong as before.”
“Then you can spend a few months recovering. You have the rest of your life ahead of you, what’s a few months of recovery?”
‘…He’s right. Hughes wouldn’t know. The fact that I can regress… It’s better to die and start over than to struggle for months to reattach my lost arms.’
This is for my sake, not yours. Things have been going strangely well for me in this timeline; I might even regain my full power if things go right. I can’t have a reset just yet.
“Think of it as another form of training, why don’t you? Living for a few months without arms might open up a new state of enlightenment, don’t you think?”
“Does that even make sense?”
“So, saying ‘Oh, my arms got cut off, I’ll just die~’ makes sense? Especially for someone whose arms can be reattached. Your attitude is an insult to every armless person in the world. And it’s a terrible thing to do to me, too.”
‘But, from Hughes’s perspective, since he doesn’t know about my regression, I must seem strange for wanting to give up on life. Ugh. Fine. There’s still a lot to gain in this timeline. And starting over is a pain, so let’s see this through to the end. …A-And. What Hughes said is bothering me, too.’
The Regressor fidgeted, leaning back in her chair and nodding her head in place of her missing hands.
“…There’s an elixir in my Pocket. If you process it as I instruct, it will help with reattaching the arms. It’ll take a lot of Qi to connect each and every muscle.”
“Good. I have a lot to say, but let’s make reattaching your arms the top priority for now.”
“O-Okay.”
The Regressor’s nervousness wasn’t just because she was about to undergo treatment.
…Hah. It’s been a while since I’ve felt like I’m back at the host bar, pandering to a client. How about it, Great Witch? Are you satisfied?
‘Hmph. So this is what it’s like… Not bad…’
Reading the thoughts of my voyeuristic audience, I carefully continued my act.