Tia’s Smooth Life After Regression - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Tiya’s Smooth Regression Life

Chapter 1

00

The Northernmost Region of the Empire.

What ruled that place were snowstorms and bitter cold, and the great lord of the North, the ‘Vladijef’ family.

The terrifying notoriety that saying ‘Vladijef will take crying children!’ would make kids not stop crying but rather gasp in shock reached its peak during the current Duke’s generation.

A ruthless beast who slaughtered all the branch families and even severed ties with his only son, taking away his castle—merciless even to his own bloodline.

The cold-blooded predator was now leisurely wandering through the snowfield as if hunting for a post-meal snack.

Small like a snow rabbit’s, round like pebbles—footprints.

That was the Duke’s prey for today.

Soon, she spotted what she was looking for in the distance.

A cute child with jet-black straight hair and bright yellow eyes sparkling like starlight.

Dragging a Knight Order uniform cape like a cloak, looking exactly like a baby crow that had fallen from its nest.

“…nim?”

The child was talking to someone.

The next moment, upon confirming the child’s conversation partner, the Duke’s figure vanished from that spot and shot forward.

“Then, would you like to be friends with Tiya?”

Just as the other party was about to respond to the child’s innocent words.

The Duke grabbed the child’s scruff like lifting a kitten and swept her remaining hand through the air.

And.

Crack!

Literally a bolt from the blue struck the brown bear that had been standing in front of the child just moments ago.

The bear with its crown fur burned black staggered—

Thud!

It collapsed, raising a cloud of snow dust.

Tiya, the child who had been blinking in shock, quickly struggled and escaped from the Duke’s grasp.

Then she clung to the bear as if hugging it and cried out.

“Sp-spirit-nim!”

But the bear didn’t move. Tiya puffed up her cheeks and looked up at the Duke.

One of the Duke’s eyebrows rose crookedly.

The lightning-shaped scar crossing her left eyelid made even that gesture tremendously intimidating.

An ordinary child would have burst into tears.

But this little one, as if she too carried Vladijef blood, instead bristled defiantly.

“Grandma killed the spirit-nim! He said he would be friends with me!”

“It’s unconscious. And it’s not a spirit, it’s a brown bear. It has a physical form, doesn’t it.”

“Br-brown… bear?”

Only then realizing something was strange, the child let go of the brown bear and clenched and unclenched her hands.

Soon, bringing her hand to her nose and sniffing, the child’s face wrinkled like a pickled cucumber.

“Stinky!”

The child buried her hands deep in the piled snow.

Seeing her carefree appearance, she seemed unaware that Frost Castle was in chaos because of her disappearance without a word.

“Why did you come out here alone.”

Even at the sharp, interrogating voice, Tiya answered bravely without fear.

“They said there are lots of spirit eggs in the North, so I came out to find them.”

She had probably overheard the castle employees talking.

‘Spirit eggs’ were condensed natural energy said to be found very, very rarely in the wild lands.

It was said that when someone with spirit sensitivity incubated a spirit egg, a spirit would hatch and they would become a Spirit Mage, but the Duke had never bothered to seek them out.

Vladijef was a great family blessed by the Great Spirit.

When they performed the spirit ceremony, they would always receive a spirit’s selection, so there was no need since none of the family’s direct line were non-Spirit Mages.

However, it seemed desperately important to the granddaughter before her.

Tiya, who had been burying her hands in the snow until they turned bright red, rolled her eyes and blurted out.

“Grandma. Because Tiya isn’t a Spirit Mage… That’s why Papa sent Tiya to the North, right?”

A Vladijef not chosen by spirits.

The only non-Spirit Mage born into a family where becoming a Spirit Mage was natural.

The Duke first met Tiya, who bore such a label, at her daughter-in-law’s funeral.

That’s when she learned that her son, whom she thought was living harmoniously with his family in The Dominion, had been broken for a long time.

“What do you plan to do with this defective product that even spirits have turned away from.”

She couldn’t leave her granddaughter with someone who said such things, so she brought her here.

“Even if Papa abandoned me, Tiya still wants to be Papa’s daughter. So, I have to become a Spirit Mage.”

Why did she only now realize that it wasn’t normal for a four-year-old child not to cry.

Even now, her granddaughter was showing her reddened fists clenched tight, pretending to be brave.

“Astiya.”

The Duke once again grabbed the child’s scruff and lifted her to eye level, then corrected the child’s misunderstanding.

“You’ve been mistaken all this time. You weren’t abandoned…”

“…?”

“You were kidnapped. By this grandma.”

“…!”

Tiya’s face, swept by shock, wrinkled like a dried plum. Soon, chicken-dropping-like tears fell from her amber eyes.

“I hate Grandma!”

She burst into wailing tears like a broken dam.

“I want to go home! Send me back to Mama and Papa! I want to see my brothers!”

The child’s wounded and festering inner feelings were finally revealed.

No matter how inadequate parents might be, to a four-year-old child, they are everything in the world. She couldn’t not miss her separated family.

The Duke swallowed the truth she couldn’t bear to tell and held her granddaughter in her arms.

“Little cream puff, from now on you’ll learn how to become strong under this grandma. When your body and heart become strong enough to beat up brown bears, then I’ll send you home. Can you do it.”

Between hiccupping sobs and gasping cries, a rather fierce voice flowed out.

“I’m not cream puff. Hicc. I’m Tiya.”

Tiya clenched her tear-soaked fists tightly and spoke clearly in a nasal voice.

“Tiya, hicc, can do it. Hicc, I’ll do it.”

From that day on, Tiya’s dream for the future was to become a strong Northerner like her grandmother.

“A healthy mind dwells in a healthy body. You must not neglect training of the mind or training of the body.”

Tiya swung her wooden sword until her small, soft hands became hard with calluses,

“Strength is proven not by defeating opponents, but by not giving up. You must not become complacent with where you are.”

She learned how to get back up no matter how many times she fell.

Thanks to this, Tiya eventually became strong enough to give a hungry brown bear a good knock on the head.

On the day when Tiya, who had grown so robustly, celebrated her eighth birthday.

[In celebration of the Holy Day, we invite Astiya Vladijef to the consecration ceremony.]

An invitation arrived from The Grand Cathedral of The Dominion.

* * *

The Day of Sacred Blessing, when priests bestow blessings upon eight-year-old children, praying for their well-being.

Being invited to the Grand Cathedral was a privilege only a few high-ranking nobles could enjoy, but the Duke had no intention of sending his granddaughter to the Dominion.

Just then, a commotion arose outside the window.

“Caw caw caw, everyone look at this!”

Looking outside, he saw the carcass of a bear loaded on a dog sled.

And there was Tiya, standing triumphantly on the bear’s head.

Every time the child opened her mouth to laugh, her particularly sharp canine teeth glinted in the sunlight.

“Grandmother!”

Spotting the Duke at the second-floor window, Tiya raised her crossbow high.

“Look at this! I caught a bear!”

“You’ve become quite the little Northerner.”

Yes, that’s my granddaughter alright.

Just as he was inwardly smiling with satisfaction.

“So now I want to go to Dad and my brothers!”

The Archbishop’s invitation crumpled in the Duke’s hand.

“…You’re not ready to go yet.”

That’s right, not yet.

If that fragile thing went to the Dominion, she’d be pushed around and flattened.

Having made his decision, he looked down again, but Tiya had disappeared.

Where did this little bean roll off to now?

The answer came from behind him.

Having somehow run up the stairs, Tiya was panting and shouting.

“Northerners don’t go back on their word, right? I can even catch bears now!”

“Just catching a tiny little bear, what’s the big deal.”

“It’s not tiny! Then try stuffing that bear up Grandmother’s nostril!”

“Fine. You think I can’t do it.”

I’ll chop up that bear right now and stuff it in my nostril.

But seeing the bear that was too big to fit in a nostril, he realized.

The one who wasn’t ready to let the child go was none other than himself.

As it happened, the epidemic spreading up from the south of the domain was looking quite serious.

As a precaution, it would be better to have his granddaughter stay somewhere safe, at least for a while.

Most importantly, didn’t his granddaughter want this so much?

Holding onto her any longer would just be an old person’s greed.

In the end, the Duke permitted Tiya’s journey to the Dominion.

And so, on the day Tiya departed for the Dominion.

All the servants of Frost Castle and the Northern Knights gathered to see Tiya off.

Among the people sniffling and even shedding tears, only the Duke’s expression remained stoic.

“I’ll be going now.”

It was when Tiya gloomily stepped onto the carriage step, glancing at her grandmother.

“Astiya.”

When she turned around, the Duke spoke with a stern face.

“I permit a heart attack.”

“Hmph, you should have said so earlier!”

As if she’d been waiting, Tiya threw herself forward and clung tightly to her grandmother.

At his granddaughter’s affection as she rubbed her forehead against his chest, the Duke’s glacier-like heart melted away.

She familiarly patted the child’s back.

Four years since being with her granddaughter.

The child still calls for her mom and dad in her sleep.

He had thought he couldn’t fill the hole in this child’s heart.

After taking in plenty of Grandmother’s scent, Tiya gently lifted her head and smiled brightly.

“Grandmother. You miss Dad too, don’t you?”

The Duke’s hand patting his granddaughter’s back stopped.

“I know all about you secretly going to Dad’s room.”

Just as the Duke watched over his granddaughter with concern, Tiya had been watching over her grandmother too.

Before Tiya came. What had filled this castle instead of his granddaughter’s crow-like laughter was none other than his son’s voice.

“Look, everyone, look at our Rodi. My wife gave birth to an angel!”

When his first grandchild was born, his son had been busy going around the entire castle showing off his child held high.

“Mother. For Lev’s health, we need a high priest’s divine power. We’re leaving the North to go to the Dominion.”

Until he left the hometown he’d lived in his whole life for his second grandchild, there hadn’t been a day without laughter in Frost Castle.

“When I meet Dad, I’ll tell him to make up with Grandmother. Just trust in Tiya!”

“That guy is hopeless.”

“Hey, tsk! No mean words!”

Tiya imitated her grandmother and tapped the Duke’s hand.

“Still, if you miss me too too much, you have to come kidnap me anytime!”

With those final words, the carriage carrying Tiya slowly disappeared from view.

Just like the day his son, daughter-in-law, and grandsons had left.

When would the children who left return?

The Duke, who now had nothing left but waiting, turned around.

Tonight, the Duke would probably visit his granddaughter’s room instead of his son’s room.

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