Tia’s Smooth Life After Regression - Chapter 13

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

Tiya’s Smooth Regression Life

Chapter 13

“Huh…?”

As Tiya’s eyes widened in surprise, the sharp eyes of the woman in the mirror opened languidly.

“Is this… me?”

Jet-black straight hair contrasting with snow-white cheeks like the first silent snowfall at dawn.

Her eye corners elegantly stretched upward with an arrogant air, and her golden eyes were as coldly sharp as honed metal.

Thanks to the growth potion’s effects, her regrown front teeth were perfectly aligned, so even the slightest twist of her lips created an arrogant smile that seemed to look down on others.

Tiya cupped both cheeks and chattered as if enchanted.

“Woooow. Winter, I’m really incredibly cool….”

【You’re being ridiculous.】

The sight of a beautiful woman with an arrogant and sharp appearance stomping her feet like a child was quite absurd.

However, the real absurdity was just beginning.

“This height! This fierceness! This sharpness! It’s like, it’s like… a snow leopard prowling the snowy mountains in search of prey!”

【That’s nonsense that would make a snow leopard freeze to death.】

Before she knew it, Tiya had grabbed a fire poker and assumed a sword stance while reciting in a low voice.

“Hmph, you finally noticed. That’s right, I am the snow leopard of the North, Astiya Vladijef.”

【Please stop….】

Winter groaned in agony and covered her face as if she was embarrassed for Tiya.

Finally, Tiya was able to tear herself away from the mirror only after quite some time had passed.

“Gasp, this is bad. I was so amazing and cool that I lost track of time! Winter, am I not too late?”

【You’re fine.】

Winter answered in a voice that had aged ten years in that brief moment.

To escape the manor according to plan, she needed to start moving soon. Tiya reached for the travel bag she had secretly packed.

What had been quite burdensome for a child’s body now felt light as a feather as an adult.

“Being an adult is the best!”

The moment excited Tiya yanked the bag toward her.

Thud.

The music box that had been precariously placed on the edge of the nightstand wobbled.

【Be careful!】

Winter warned, but it was already too late.

Clang-

From the music box that rolled once on the floor, a greenish light spread throughout the entire room with a sharp discordant sound before disappearing.

“Wh-what was that just now? A ghost? Did Winter call her friends?”

【I don’t have friends. Just show me that thing.】

How could someone not have friends?

While Tiya was shocked by Winter’s social life, Winter examined every corner of the music box in Tiya’s hands and spoke.

【Now I see the collector got his money’s worth. This isn’t a music box, it’s a memorial box.】

“Memorial box?”

【An expensive magical device that was once popular in the Dominion. It can store surrounding scenes with the magic crystal built inside.】

However, the reproduced images were crude and couldn’t record sound, and despite the high price, it had limited playback times, so the trend quickly died out.

【Something’s already stored in it… wait, why are you winding the spring?】

“Huh? Oh no, I did it without thinking!”

Tiya hurriedly removed her hand from the spring. Then the castle inside the glass dome began spinning round and round as a lullaby melody flowed out.

Soon, dim light spread in all directions from the music box and gradually began to take shape.

A cradle where sunlight lingered, toys and dolls piled up like mountains.

A room that seemed to smell of milk unfolded before her eyes like a faded masterpiece.

Tiya instantly became a minor character occupying one corner of that masterpiece.

And the moment she laid eyes on the protagonist of that place.

“…Mother?”

The past that Tiya couldn’t remember began to come alive.

【This is absolutely ridiculous….】

Tiya’s mother was looking into the cradle with a bright smile.

As Tiya approached as if enchanted, she saw a newborn baby squirming in the cradle.

Jet-black hair and amber eyes.

She realized instinctively.

“This baby… must be me.”

Then the Duchess of Vladijef carefully picked up the baby and held it out as if showing it to Tiya.

The moment Tiya flinched and pulled back, something passed through Tiya’s body and embraced the child.

Though it was a back view, she could recognize him immediately.

“Father….”

Soon, the face of the past Count turning toward Tiya was no longer at an unreachably high place.

So she could immediately discover it.

The spring sunlight filling Father’s eyes.

Tiya had never seen such warm eyes.

The Count smiled as if he owned the whole world and kissed the baby’s forehead.

“My father was an adult who smiled like this.”

The Duchess lightly tapped her husband’s shoulder and scolded him about something.

“My mother was originally this healthy.”

One petal, two petals, the past began to accumulate in Tiya’s heart.

A lovingly smiling father and a healthy mother.

Enough to want to secretly take out and look at during lonely nights….

“They look happy.”

It was perfect.

Beside Tiya, Winter, who had been unable to take her eyes off a scene from the past just like her, came to her senses at that voice.

Shaking her head lightly, she turned away from the vision and muttered while examining the memorial box in Tiya’s hands.

【…I should have noticed when I saw that the decoration inside the glass dome resembled Frost Castle. It must have been a lost item that flowed out from Vladijef Manor.】

“Yeah….”

Tiya failed to notice that the voice was strangely dry and only nodded.

Tiya’s gaze was nailed to her parents’ faces, unable to move.

‘What are they saying?’

She watched Father’s lips, trying to read those words.

‘This child… will not….’

Just as she read that far, the music box’s lullaby stopped with a thud and the image scattered like a mirage.

It felt like seeing snow fall in a desert. Tiya couldn’t easily escape from the afterglow of the vision she had just seen.

It was Winter who woke such a Tiya.

【Let’s go. We can’t be any later.】

“Ah, right.”

This wasn’t the time to be spacing out like this.

Tiya carefully placed the music box in her hands on the nightstand.

And after quietly looking around her room that seemed empty unlike before, she crossed the windowsill and escaped the manor.

* * *

That morning.

Mia started her day by tidying Tiya’s bedding, which had been vacated before she could even help with the morning preparations.

She spent the entire morning cleaning Tiya’s room, then came out around lunchtime and asked her colleagues.

“Have you seen the young lady by any chance?”

“Well, isn’t she with the Count?”

“Hmm, she did say she would, but I haven’t seen her face at all.”

“Then she must be with the Count. Don’t even think about going to check on her. You know how scary the Count is.”

At her colleague’s worried warning, Mia, who had been about to head to the Count’s study, hesitated.

‘Right. She did say in advance that she’d be with the Count all day today.’

Since she didn’t have the courage to check on the Count’s room anyway, Mia forced herself to set aside her worries.

Meanwhile, at that moment in Count Balloze’s study.

In the silence where only the sound of pen nibs scratching paper echoed, the aide spoke up.

“The young lady won’t be coming today. She came to see me yesterday evening and gave me word that she would spend the entire day with Young Master Lev today.”

Shurkha looked back at his aide.

Eight years as the Count’s aide. He had learned through experience that there were different types of silence from the superior he served.

This silence was questioning ‘Why report such a thing?’

“I reported it in case you might be waiting for the young lady.”

This silence carried the rebuke of ‘Why would you think such a thing?’ along with the unspoken threat of ‘Don’t waste time with such useless reports.’

Without saying a single word, Shurkha silenced his aide and began moving his pen again.

However, he failed to notice.

That at some point, Tiya’s visits had become so natural that a pocket watch for checking the time she had demanded as payment was always prepared on one corner of his desk.

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