Tia’s Smooth Life After Regression - Chapter 54
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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 54
She was startled and looked around her surroundings.
“Who’s there?”
However, there was only Astiya in the shabby lodging.
Her frightened golden eyes carefully examined the surroundings before stopping at a full-length mirror in one corner of the room.
Astiya felt a strange sense of unease as she approached the mirror and peered into it.
Something was odd. Her skin, which had been pale from staying indoors and being absorbed in magic without going out, was flushed with life today.
Moreover, she was wearing an extremely displeased expression. As if she was angry about something.
‘Somehow I seem to have gotten a bit shorter too.’
It was when she was standing with her face pressed close to the mirror, tilting her head this way and that.
【Apologize! I’m not stupid!】
“Kyaang!”
The figure reflected in the mirror shouted at Astiya.
She was so surprised that she stumbled backward, her legs got tangled, and she fell over.
Even so, the figure in the mirror stood upright and glared at Astiya.
【Winter said I’m going to become an amazing mage!】
Astiya clutched her pounding heart and tried to understand this absurd situation.
Surprisingly, the answer came easily.
“This is a dream.”
Thinking that way, everything became clear. Astiya brushed herself off and stood up. She needed to wake up from this dream quickly.
“You fool. The promotion exam isn’t far away. I can’t believe I fell asleep and am having such a stupid dream…”
【Again! You called me a fool again! Apologize! I’m not stupid, and I’m very useful, and I’m not defective! I’m a limited edition!】
The girl in the mirror chattered noisily. Astiya snapped irritably.
“Be quiet. Leave me alone.”
【Of course I can’t leave you alone! Grandmother said so. Speaking badly about yourself is the most pathetic thing in the world.】
Thud. Astiya’s steps stopped.
“Just now… what?”
【You’re doing something really pathetic right now. I won’t let myself become a pathetic person!】
From the girl shouting like that, she could feel the stubbornness of someone who would never bend her will.
Astiya hesitated for a moment, then looked straight at the mirror again.
Right. Grandmother had said that nothing was more pathetic than hating and tormenting yourself.
But…
“I really am pathetic. It’s all my fault in the end.”
Astiya’s eyes darkened.
Not being acknowledged as a daughter by Father, Rodion keeping his distance from her, Lev constantly kicking her out of his room…
“Because I’m a useless existence, my family doesn’t need me.”
It was when Astiya’s head was about to drop toward the floor again.
【But… you know.】
“What?”
With eyes filled with firm trust, the girl spoke again.
【You won’t give up on anything, whether it’s learning magic or returning to the North.】
Not a question, but certainty.
【Even this late at night, you’re not sleeping and working hard. So you won’t give up on anything.】
“I am…”
Astiya looked down at her own hands.
On the hands that had once held a sword, calluses from pen grips had formed solidly. That was proof of how much effort she had put in.
【Not giving up is proof that you’re a strong person. And strong people aren’t pathetic.】
That was a teaching Astiya had learned from Grandmother.
“How do you know whether I’ll give up or not? Even now I’m struggling with just one promotion exam…”
Even knowing the girl’s words were right, her heart that couldn’t trust herself made her utter such pitiful words.
Then the girl grinned and thumped her own chest.
【I know everything! Because I am you.】
The girl in the mirror says.
Because I am you, I know you won’t give up.
If someone else had said those words, they probably wouldn’t have touched her heart this much.
But the girl’s words, which really seemed like she was speaking to herself, anchored heavily in her heart.
Then the girl in the mirror extended her hand toward Astiya as if seeking agreement.
Astiya reached toward the mirror as if enchanted.
Her hand passed through the mirror’s surface and firmly grasped the girl’s hand.
【You know, right? The spirit of a Northerner.】
The moment Astiya nodded, her entire body was sucked into the mirror and the world reversed.
* * *
Feeling the dizzying terror of falling off a cliff, Tiya fell backward.
The fallen child covered her face with both hands and didn’t move for a long while.
Someone’s shadow fell over Tiya’s face.
“Are you planning to lie there face down for the rest of your life?”
A tone that seemed sharp but was filled with worry.
Relief brought tears to her eyes. Tiya mumbled without removing her hands from her face.
“Sniff, Winterrrr…”
Tears rolled down the child’s temples drop by drop.
“It was a reeeally terrible nightmare.”
In the nightmare, Tiya had been trapped in the mirror the whole time, watching the world beyond the glass.
Beyond the mirror, in that reversed world, Tiya was a helpless child who was of no help to Vladijef and couldn’t do anything.
“I really am pathetic. It’s all my fault in the end.”
If Winter hadn’t been there for her, she surely would have thought the same way.
Being falsely accused of stealing spirit eggs, being branded a liar, jealous of Valentina and hating herself… she would have thought everything was her own fault.
“Sniff.”
She didn’t want to cry, but tears kept coming. She should clench her fists and get up like she had told her reflection beyond the mirror.
Perhaps trying to hold back her tears, Tiya’s cheeks puffed up more and more. Then Tiya flipped over and curled up like a pill bug.
Hiding her face like that, she finally began to sniffle.
‘Come to think of it, that child did the same thing on the day she learned how the Vladijef direct line would die.’
When she couldn’t hold back her tears, the child would hide under the blankets and cry. So no one could see her face, just like now.
As if being caught crying was forbidden.
Winter silently watched over such a child, reached out her hand, withdrew it, hesitated, and finally gently stroked the small back.
Then, as if she had been waiting, Tiya buried her face in Winter’s lap.
Words mixed with sorrowful crying soaked Winter’s lap.
“Sniff, I’m, hic, not pathetiiiic, sniff.”
“Yes, yes.”
“I have Winterrr, hic, but she didn’t have Winterrr.”
“…”
“So, I was really scared.”
Things that weren’t absurd, that could very well have become reality.
The future she would have experienced if she hadn’t met Winter.
That’s why the nightmare was even more terrible for Tiya.
She wanted to explain to Winter what kind of nightmare it was, but she kept making hiccupping, breathless sounds and couldn’t properly get the words out.
Even so, Winter spoke as if she knew exactly what kind of nightmare Tiya had experienced.
“It’s just a nightmare. I told you, didn’t I? If you hadn’t met me… you would have become as excellent a Spirit Mage as the Duke. There’s no need to fear something that won’t happen.”
Something that won’t happen.
For some reason, those words brought her an unbelievable sense of relief.
‘That’s right. Lev has the frost spirit’s egg, and I became friends with Valentina.’
Not only that? Father’s upbringing was progressing smoothly, and she had sent medicinal herbs to treat the epidemic to Grandmother Bear.
Tiya’s back, which had been rising and falling breathlessly, gradually began to quiet down.
After a while, Tiya slowly raised her head and rubbed around her eyes with her hands.
Then she stubbornly avoided Winter’s gaze and added defiantly.
“…I wasn’t crying.”
“Oh my.”
Sniffle.
Tiya, who sniffled one last time, forced open her swollen eyes that wouldn’t open properly with her fingers and looked around.
And then she asked a question that was quite overdue.
“But where is this place?”
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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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