I Proposed to My Childhood Friend After Regressing - Chapter 67

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

After the Regression, I Proposed to My Childhood Friend
Chapter 67
“Ah…….”
Valois’s expression grew strange as he heard Beatrice’s question.
It wasn’t so much that she’d caught him off guard, but rather that he seemed to be struggling with how to express something.
The way he labored looked exactly like someone forced to explain the fundamentals of Alchemy to tradition-bound nobles who didn’t know the first thing about it.
Because his hands were bound, he twisted his body and groaned several times before finally managing to speak.
“Well… if I told you that I know what happens to Valois, would you believe me?”
“Ah, yes—like a prophecy?”
“Hah. I never thought I’d say something so clichéd…….”
Valois muttered something incomprehensible, then nodded his head.
“Something like that. The Valois Edbain Crawford I know commits every atrocity imaginable with Elodie’s consent, and then loses his head to Crowell once the coup succeeds.”
Whether true or false, the certainty blazing in those eyes was unmistakable.
Oddly enough, the moment Beatrice saw that unwavering certainty—more than anything else he’d said—she accepted that this was not the “real Valois.”
“A prophecy is hard to swallow, but I think it makes sense if I assume that Miss is someone from further in the future than the point where I died.”
“……Wow, you’re sharp.”
“Pardon?”
“No. It’s nothing!”
Watching Valois shake his bound hands eagerly, Beatrice asked one more thing.
“So in other words, Miss wants to join hands with me, a Regressor, to avoid that predetermined future?”
“Temporarily, yes! Exactly right.”
Valois answered Beatrice’s question in an oddly cheerful voice and continued with a nod.
“Let me be clear—my goal is to escape far away from this mess! I admit Valois was a ch… person I really despised, but what can I do? Now I’m Valois.”
“……I see?”
“So I want to settle somewhere quiet and remote, living like a dormouse! Ideally, I’d hope the genre would change to something like a landholding story or a romance novel!”
Half of it made no sense, but Beatrice clearly understood the word “settle.”
“Wait, you’re not looking for a way back home?”
Valois’s eyes widened at Beatrice’s words.
Like someone who’d never considered such a thing possible, Valois blinked rapidly.
“That is… well…….”
“You don’t want to go back?”
“No! Of course I’d go back if I could! If you asked me whether I’ve ever wished for something this novelistic while living my life, I’d say no—but Possession and all that? Once is more than enough! Dopamine plots are only dopamine when you watch from behind glass; when you’re the one experiencing it directly, it’s pure stress! Real, genuine stress!”
The defiant tone she’d been maintaining suddenly crumbled from her face, leaving her visibly deflated. All the fierce determination that had been there just moments before evaporated.
“That said… is it even possible for something like that to happen multiple times? I’ve barely seen any endings where a possessed person managed to return to their original body…….”
“I don’t know what you’ve seen, but if you’ve witnessed it even once, then it’s not an impossibility, is it?”
As she’d said before, every phenomenon had a cause—whether discovered or not yet. And if Possession could happen, then there must necessarily exist a way to reverse it.
‘There’s no force in this world that flows in only one direction.’
All forces, including Mana, possessed a circular structure.
Alchemy was the science of combining diverse materials and forces to bend, manifest, or weaken that cycle.
After thinking quietly for a moment, Beatrice recalled the old manuscripts and a few other books that had crossed her mind earlier, and spoke again.
“It will certainly be difficult and dangerous, and the materials needed will likely be extremely rare… but I think if we research it, we can find a way.”
At Beatrice’s earnest reply, Valois fell silent for a moment.
A swirl of conflicting emotions flickered across her face, one after another.
After moving her lips uselessly several times, she slowly raised her head and met Beatrice’s gaze directly.
“Actually, I was planning to ask for those Glasses as compensation if this cooperation went smoothly.”
“Glasses?”
“Yes. Those gaudy Disguise Magic Glasses you used in the Marquis Territory. With just those, I thought I could slip into a merchant caravan and escape.”
“Wait, wait!”
Beatrice cut Valois off urgently, her voice rising with visible shock.
“Miss… you knew…?”
“Knew what? That Miss is Lia Kruger?”
“Insane! You knew! When, when did you find out?”
“Ah, from the very beginning. So that time in the forest…….”
“When you blamed me for breaking the Doll?!”
Valois’s body flinched slightly at Beatrice’s unexpectedly fierce reaction. With a somewhat aggrieved tone, she offered a weak defense.
“No, I was trying to help in my own way…….”
“What? Help? I got dragged off as a criminal, thrown in a cell, and interrogated!”
“That’s true, but… back then I couldn’t think of any other way to quickly warn you about the danger of that Doll and give you a clue about Orharkon! As someone wearing Valois Crawford’s body, I had almost no options available to me.”
“That’s…….”
Come to think of it, that probably was the case.
“Plus, you should’ve seen how hard I worked in the Healing Clinic storeroom!”
“Ah!”
A small exclamation escaped Beatrice’s lips. Now that she thought about it, Valois had been spouting all those cryptic remarks back then!
“I just thought Valois was so hot-tempered that he was babbling on without any regard for propriety…….”
But looking back, those had been Valois’s signals to hurry and pick up the information.
She’d rushed out in shock at the news about Clyde’s death, but if she’d stayed longer, she probably would’ve heard details about the attack as well.
Hearing Beatrice’s account, Valois shook her head and spoke.
“I do have a conscience… even if escaping was my first priority, I tried to help as much as I could within my knowledge and ability.”
It was things like sneaking out of the Healing Clinic every night to destroy the Doll, and slipping documents containing information that the Religious Order had hidden or smuggled away into the papers sent to Beatrice and Cassian.
As Beatrice swiftly reviewed her past memories in light of this new revelation, Valois steered the conversation forward.
“In any case, no one knows yet that Miss is Lia Kruger. So I thought those Glasses would really help my life on the run. But…….”
But?
“But if… there’s actually a way to go home…….”
Valois fixed Beatrice with an earnest, imploring stare.
“Miss, I know this is incredibly sudden, but would you help me find a way to go home?”
“……Me?”
“Please! There’s no one else I can ask, no other thread to pull. If you’d help me, I’ll do my absolute best to help you too! A temporary alliance? What kind of nonsense is that!”
The only reason he didn’t grab the hem of Beatrice’s skirt was because his hands were tied to the window frame.
Valois’s eyes shining with desperation suddenly lit up with a new thought, and she called out to Beatrice.
“My body… use this body however you need!”
“What? Ah, ah, no, what are you saying!”
“To be honest, this body is incredibly useful. Because Valois Crawford’s past deeds are so flashy, people won’t suspect or criticize him for ordinary things.”
There was no denying that.
‘Right now, even…….’
Perhaps thinking the same thing as Beatrice, Valois shook her bound hands slightly and spoke with confident conviction.
“So if you need something you couldn’t do in your right mind, or something a normal person wouldn’t do—just say the word! I’m used to it now and I’m good at it!”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————