Tia’s Smooth Life After Regression - Chapter 33

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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 33

But that can’t be called compensation for you. This is purely….

“From now on, this is Valentina’s house too.”

It was something done for him.

Yet Tiya looked expectant, as if Valentina’s joy was her own joy.

The moment he saw that face, Valentina suddenly realized.

What kind of person Astiya Vladijef was.

“Valentina? Are you okay?”

Coming to his senses belatedly, Valentina realized everyone’s eyes were on him and managed to smile.

“Ah… I was just surprised. I didn’t know you’d prepared something like this.”

“Hehe, it was a surprise!”

Following Tiya’s triumphant laughter, Valentina also smiled shyly.

No, did he smile properly?

He’d always been confident about smiling, but somehow the corners of his mouth felt awkward.

Then the maids came with dry towels and led Tiya and Valentina to the fireplace.

“You should dry your hair before enjoying the party. My goodness, how excitedly did you two play that you didn’t even notice getting this wet.”

“I, I’ll do it myself.”

Valentina pulled back and tried to take the towel from the maid’s hand but dropped it.

Someone picked up the towel that had fallen to the floor before Valentina could and began drying his hair.

“I’ll do it for you. I saw earlier that your hands were frozen solid, so they don’t move well, right?”

It was Tiya again, as expected.

Even though he’d never asked for help.

Valentina found himself speaking sharply without realizing it.

“Don’t do this. I told you. The spirits will scratch you.”

He had no intention of ending it with just a threat.

It was when he was about to actually grow thorn vines to prevent her from touching his body carelessly again.

“Then let them scratch me a little. Wounds like that heal quickly if you put some spit on them, right?”

“….”

Those words completely deflated him. It seemed foolish to raise thorns against the tough Tiya.

Valentina’s head dropped down.

Soon his frostbitten hands and feet began to tingle as they thawed in the fireplace’s warmth, then the sensation spread throughout his body.

Valentina wanted to bite his flesh with his teeth to create wounds instead.

That’s how unbearable it was.

The sensation of his frozen hands, body, and heart gradually melting.

“Valentina, do you like chocolate? The chef made an amazing chocolate cake!”

Even while Valentina bit his lips and endured the tingling, Tiya kept asking about Valentina’s preferences without rest.

Valentina was giving appropriate responses to the questions when.

“…So I’ve been thinking of a nickname for Valentina.”

“Just call me Valen.”

He suddenly snapped to attention.

What did I just say?

“Hmm, Valen sounds like a boy’s name though.”

“Wait, that’s….”

“But it suits you well. Then please take care of me from now on, Valen!”

That was… the nickname his mother used to call him.

His chest suddenly tightened.

No matter how off-guard he was, he couldn’t understand how he’d allowed that name so easily.

Valentina searched for a reason as if being chased by something.

‘Because Astiya Vladijef is… useful.’

Right. That’s right. Tiya was also a Vladijef, wasn’t she.

Rather, it seemed not bad to use this opportunity to get even closer to Tiya.

If he could perfectly deceive her into thinking they were friends, he could obtain more information. To avoid his father’s suspicion, he must not forget his duty.

Thinking this way, his usual coldness seemed to return.

‘It’s okay. I didn’t make a mistake.’

Valentina composed his expression and carefully grasped Tiya’s hand.

Then he met Tiya’s eyes and smiled so lovingly that she wouldn’t be able to resist unless she refused.

“Now that we’ve decided on a nickname, won’t you become friends with me?”

He was confident he wouldn’t be rejected. This smile was like his ultimate weapon.

But somehow Tiya’s reaction was strange. She looked surprised as if she’d never imagined hearing such words—

“What? What are you talking about?”

She asked as if questioning him.

What Valentina felt at that moment wasn’t bewilderment at being rejected, but disappointment.

Just as he was about to hide under the towel again and try to conceal his disappointment.

Tiya pulled away the towel and shouted with a shocked face.

“Weren’t we already friends?”

“Huh, what…?”

“I thought we were!”

Tiya looked very wronged.

Valentina, who had been staring blankly at that face, burst into laughter.

Of all the smiles he’d shown so far, it was the most childlike, without a shadow of darkness, a clear smile.

* * *

Winter had come to the past to change the future, but he thought there were things that could never be changed.

For instance, Lev’s death or Shurkha regaining his emotions.

‘No, it’s closer to say I didn’t feel the need to change them.’

That thought remained unchanged.

So it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say this situation was entirely Tiya’s achievement.

“Tiya, I’ll give you this strawberry.”

“Gasp, the strawberry from the cake! Is it really okay to give me something so precious?”

“Yes. Because Tiya is my friend.”

“Valen…. I won’t eat this strawberry and will treasure it!”

“You guys… why are you making all this fuss in my room.”

“That’s because we’re having Valen’s welcome party in big brother’s room.”

“So why are you having someone else’s welcome party in my room!”

Lev, who had been sulking throughout the party, finally exploded.

However, despite his fierce expression, he still had a party hat on his head, so he wasn’t scary at all.

Tiya hit Lev’s weak spot with an innocent face.

“That’s because big brother stays holed up in his room and won’t come out. If we’d prepared it in my room or Valentina’s room, you wouldn’t have participated anyway.”

“…You could have just done it without me.”

“Gasp. Big brother is really heartless. Valen came all the way here from the South to become friends with you!”

“No, that is true, but….”

“Right. The journey from the South to the Dominion was really arduous.”

“Hey, you came in just one day using the gate anyway!”

“I don’t think that’s something big brother, who won’t take a single step outside his room, should say.”

Children sitting around a huge cake, bickering with each other.

In the past Winter knew, those three children never sat facing each other.

‘But from where exactly, and why did things change.’

When she found out that Valentina wasn’t a girl and was a spy for Dantal?

Or when she learned that Valentina was actually an abused child?

No, those were merely pieces of information.

What had changed their relationship so drastically was Tiya’s mindset.

【Valentina isn’t as good a kid as you think. She’s deceiving you.】

“Then I’ll just let myself be deceived. Everyone has at least one secret they can’t tell.”

Just like how I have Winter.

Winter said nothing more to Tiya, who secretly winked with one eye.

It wasn’t because he pitied Valentina’s circumstances or respected Tiya’s opinion.

‘Yes, this works out better. There’s no chess piece easier to manipulate than a spy whose identity you know.’

Give up flesh to take the bone.

Instead of giving away some information, he could deliberately feed false information at crucial moments to use her in reverse.

In this case, there would be no benefit for Tiya, who couldn’t act, to know about it.

In the end, that’s all Valentina meant to Winter.

Still, the reason he had Tiya tail Lucian and then told her the location of the keepsake was because.

“When the time comes, I’ll definitely kill him.”

He had discovered a very familiar emotion in Valentina’s true face, finally revealed after losing her smile.

The hatred that would one day give birth to the Thorn King.

But Winter also knew well the terrible self-loathing that lay beneath it.

That bone-deep disgust with oneself.

Perhaps that was why.

Why he couldn’t completely turn his back on Valentina.

* * *

A small annex building standing apart from the Vladijef Manor Main Building.

There exists a basement that no faithful and loyal manor employee would ever set foot in.

In the dead of night under a full moon.

Rodion’s footsteps heading from the main building to the annex’s basement were no different than usual.

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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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