Tia’s Smooth Life After Regression - Chapter 114

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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 114

Leaving behind the door with a broken lock that creaked, Tiya looked around Lev’s room and asked.

“Brother, you know I’m not Tina, right!”

Ah, so she noticed that.

Thinking she had caught on faster than expected, Lev grumbled.

“Isn’t that obvious? Other people might not know, but I remember what you looked like when you were tiny as a bean, Corn.”

To be honest, when Tiya had shrunk in half and came carried in Mia’s arms, Lev had been mistaken.

He thought he had returned to those times when he wasn’t healthy but at least hadn’t received a terminal diagnosis, when he believed without doubt that someday he would become a healthy brother who could give Tiya piggyback rides.

Well, that delusion was completely shattered when Corn spouted nonsense about being Tina.

Still, whenever he saw Tiya rolling around in front of him, he wondered if he might be able to lift Tiya up easily now.

‘Should I just pick her up, thinking of it as getting rid of my last regret before dying?’

It was when Lev was seriously contemplating this. Tiya, who had been busily looking around the bed where Lev was leaning his back, searching for something, asked.

“Brother, where’s Valen?”

Lev couldn’t hide the irritation that suddenly surged up and spoke sharply.

“Why are you asking me that?”

“Well, because you and Valen are best friends, and you’re always together.”

“Why would I be best friends with him! If you keep saying such annoying things—”

Lev, who was about to tell her to get lost as usual, hesitated.

Seeing Tiya’s chick-like eyes staring up at him intently, not only was he at a loss for words, but the terrible feeling he had experienced when Valentina kicked him out swept over him.

In the end, Lev slowly changed his words.

“…Leave whenever you want to leave.”

【Is it time for him to die? Why is he saying things he never said before?】

“Brother, are you sick somewhere?”

Indeed, he really did look strangely dejected.

At those words, Lev’s complexion grew even darker.

Now he had truly become someone with numbered days.

He wondered if he should tell Tiya about this fact.

But he quickly came to a conclusion.

“No, I’m fine.”

Even if he told everyone else, he couldn’t tell Tiya the truth.

Especially not to Tiya, who believed without doubt that the frost spirit’s egg would heal him.

“Okay. Then I’ll go look for Valen!”

Tiya turned around with a spirited face and left the room.

Winter couldn’t take her eyes off Lev’s face until the very last moment of leaving the room.

It seemed like he was hiding something.

Something felt like it was about to come to mind but didn’t quite, so she crossed her arms and recalled past events.

Then, the moment she saw the spring flowers in full bloom outside the window, she remembered.

Around this time, Lev’s seizures would begin.

‘Is the frost spirit’s egg not hatching?’

She knew that spirit hatching took time, but wasn’t this taking too long?

It was certain that Lev possessed the talent to subjugate two spirits.

Yet for the frost spirit’s hatching to be delayed this much, she couldn’t help but think there must be another cause.

‘Surely there aren’t specific conditions needed to hatch a spirit.’

Even if Lev were to die, Winter wouldn’t be able to feel any emotion about it.

What she was worried about was whether Tiya would be able to accept Lev’s death.

If Tiya became deeply distressed and it disrupted the plan to save the family, that would be troublesome.

The moment Winter glanced at Tiya, Tiya also looked up at Winter.

“Winter.”

Deep anguish that didn’t match her age appeared on Tiya’s face.

Winter flinched, wondering if she had seen through her inner thoughts.

The next moment, Tiya lowered her voice as much as possible and asked.

“Winter, you noticed too, didn’t you?”

【What?】

“Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

She tried to deflect, but Tiya didn’t seem to believe her words.

Then Tiya said with a serious expression.

“I think Brother and Valen had a fight.”

【…As expected.】

“Right? Winter thinks so too, doesn’t she?”

It was a part she hadn’t considered at all, but Winter nodded as if she had thought the same.

Tiya let out a deep sigh.

“I don’t know how to make friends reconcile yet.”

Then she looked up at Winter with eyes seeking an answer.

It seemed she expected Winter would know the right answer.

Winter, who had been racking her brains, came up with the most plausible answer.

If there was conflict between the two for some unknown reason…

【Make them duel.】

“…A duel?”

【Yeah. And the winner makes the loser submit. That’s how you reconcile.】

She was confident there was no better method than this. But suddenly Tiya’s expression became gloomy and even her shoulders drooped.

“…It was true that I had no friends. I’m going to become an adult with not a single friend in the future.”

* * *

Valentina was sitting on a bench in Vladijef Manor that was particularly deserted.

She held a plant encyclopedia in her hands, and seemed so absorbed in reading that she didn’t notice Tiya’s arrival.

Tiya, who had been stealthily approaching Valentina, hesitated.

From a distance, it had seemed like she was reading to enjoy some leisure time. But Valentina’s expression seen up close was quite desperate.

“Valen, are you okay?”

“…”

“Valen.”

She called Valen several times but got no answer. Tiya carefully sat down next to him so as not to startle the sensitive Valen.

Of course, the bench was too high for her four-year-old body, so she had to struggle a bit.

How long had she waited like that?

Waiting for Valen’s reading time to end while doing nothing, drowsiness began to creep in.

If there was one thing she had realized after becoming a four-year-old, it was that children sleep a lot.

Tiya soon began to nod off.

How many times had she repeated dropping her head down with a thud, then startling awake?

“Come here and lean on me.”

Someone’s hand wrapped around Tiya’s shoulder and pulled her close.

Half-drunk with sleep, Tiya obediently let her body be guided by the touch.

The warm spring sunlight kept poking at her eyelids, making her unconsciously frown, when a shadow soon fell over her face.

Only then did Tiya relax her furrowed brow and breathe out peacefully.

When she had a sweet sleep and opened her eyes, the hand that had been casting a shadow over Tiya withdrew, revealing the face she thought was the prettiest in the world.

‘An angel must have woken me up.’

In her half-awake state, Tiya thought so.

“Did you sleep well?”

Each time she slowly blinked, the drowsiness faded little by little.

Fully awakened from sleep, Tiya realized that the one looking down at her wasn’t an angel but Valentina, and that she was lying with her head on Valentina’s lap.

Tiya stared blankly up at Valentina, who was beautiful even from below, then soon pouted her lips and asked.

“Valen also knew I wasn’t Tina, didn’t you?”

“Hmm….”

Valentina neither confirmed nor denied it, only scratching her cheek.

Tiya quickly sat up.

When she had introduced herself as Tina, she hadn’t noticed it at the time.

But thinking about it, Valentina had extended her hand first from the very day she met ‘Tina’.

She had said she was inexperienced with handling flower spirits and usually avoided contact with people.

The reason she extended her hand to Tina first must have been because she knew she was actually Tiya.

“You seemed like you didn’t want your identity revealed, so I pretended not to know.”

Valentina smiled with an apologetic expression.

Tiya covered her face with both hands and mumbled.

“Ugh, ugh. To show such a weak side to everyone.”

“You don’t look weak at all. Whether you’re four, eight, or eighteen, Tiya, you’re always strong.”

A pause.

Tiya slightly spread her fingers and peered at Valentina through the gaps.

Eyes like ripe grape berries were gazing at Tiya with sincerity.

“Do you really think so?”

“Of course.”

Tiya’s mood lifted at those words and she laughed, “Hehe,” but Winter, who was watching them, couldn’t laugh along.

‘Why did she specifically mention eighteen years old?’

It could have been a comment to just let pass, but the fact that it came from the perceptive and cunning Valentina felt ominous.

“What were you looking at?”

“Just a plant encyclopedia.”

Valentina showed Tiya the page she had been reading.

The page was filled with flower illustrations and suffocatingly dense lines of text.

“The Magic Association’s Central Library has countless books on all kinds of subjects.”

“That’s right, the Central Library is huge, and there are tons of books too.”

Tiya answered with a somewhat proud feeling.

“So you’ve been to the Central Library too, Tiya.”

“Of course I have!”

Tiya answered nonchalantly, but Winter began to feel this conversation was becoming increasingly ominous.

【Wait, try keeping your mouth shut.】

It was the moment Winter gave that warning.

“Then… what about the Forbidden Zone?”

Winter’s ominous premonition had come true.

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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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