Tia’s Smooth Life After Regression - Chapter 6

—————
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 6

Eyes as dry and lifeless as a parched desert where even a handful of emotion had evaporated.

For a moment, instinctive fear made her throat feel constricted, unable to say a word.

Just then, Winter stepped forward as if protecting Tiya.

【Tell him you witnessed Erin’s suspicious behavior the night before and followed her.】

Only then did Tiya come to her senses and stare at Winter’s back.

Though her tone was commanding, her back felt incredibly reassuring.

Thanks to that, Tiya was barely able to squeeze out her voice.

“I wanted to see the spirit egg.”

Tiya felt Winter turning around with signs of trying to stop her, but she didn’t stop.

“Erin told me there was a spirit egg there. So when I saw the door was open, I went in… but I got trapped inside…”

If she followed Winter’s advice, she might be able to avoid Father’s interrogation.

‘But that would be a lie.’

Tiya didn’t want to run away from her mistake by telling lies.

Just as Tiya was about to honestly confess her wrongdoing, Winter’s hands suddenly covered Tiya’s ears.

【Don’t listen. It’s bullshit.】

However, her voice and hands couldn’t block the Count’s words that followed.

“So you did go in to steal the spirit egg after all.”

【You’ll be falsely accused of stealing the spirit egg.】

Winter had definitely said that.

But she never thought Father would think that way too…

Her head almost drooped, but Tiya clenched her fists and held her head up even straighter.

And she defended herself clearly.

“I don’t touch other people’s things carelessly.”

Grandmother’s teachings, and Winter’s hands still covering her ears, gave Tiya courage.

“I heard that Father would use the spirit egg as medicine. But if I covet the spirit egg, you won’t be able to treat sick people. So I would never do such a thing.”

Before she knew it, Tiya was looking straight into the Count’s eyes.

While everyone in the study looked back and forth between Tiya and the Count.

The Count pulled out a sheet of paper from his drawer with an expressionless face.

“State what reward you want.”

“Reward?”

“Didn’t you want a reward for catching that little rat?”

That wasn’t what she meant…

As Tiya hesitated, Winter spoke as if she had been waiting.

【Gold coins worth half the value of the ‘spirit egg’. You can demand that much.】

Just as the hesitating Tiya was about to open her mouth.

Knock knock.

Urgent knocking sounds were heard.

Then the butler who entered the study lowered his voice and whispered something to the Count.

“In the North… an epidemic… urgent lockdown…”

‘Epidemic’. And even ‘lockdown order’.

Tiya’s eyes widened at the words she caught in fragments.

It was just as Winter had said.

The Royal Court’s lockdown order to prevent the epidemic threatening the North from spreading throughout the empire.

However, what no one expected was that the lockdown would continue until the Vladijef family’s destruction.

Shurkha immediately prepared to leave and carelessly handed something to Tiya as he passed by.

“Write down however much you want and deliver it to my aide.”

As if that concluded the matter, the Count left the study.

Everyone filed out, and Tiya was also pushed out of the study and returned to her room.

Only after being alone did Tiya examine what Father had given her.

【Good that he keeps business and personal matters separate.】

“What is this?”

【It’s a blank check. If you write the amount you want here, you can get that much cash.】

“A blank check…”

Maybe this was Father’s way of praising her?

But this kind of praise didn’t make her happy at all.

Her heart didn’t flutter, and no motivation to do better in the future welled up.

“Father must have no talent for praising… It can’t be helped. Even if Father praises me poorly, I have no choice but to understand it well.”

Tiya rubbed her head vigorously like Grandmother used to do.

But no matter how much she did it, her hair just got messy, and not a single warm ember formed in her heart.

Tiya drooped her shoulders glumly.

‘Once I become a spirit mage, I’ll make Father give me all 8 years’ worth of overdue praise.’

As she fingered the spirit stone around her neck and strengthened her resolve as usual.

A frost-like anxiety threw a snowball at Tiya’s heart.

Suddenly Tiya’s gaze turned to Winter.

It felt like she had suddenly obtained the answer key to the problem she most wanted to solve.

The intense desire to peek at the answer key was strong enough to shake even her faith in herself.

In the end, Tiya reached for that answer key.

“Have you met me before, Winter? I mean, the future me.”

【Why are you suddenly asking that?】

“Um, just… I’m curious if I become a spirit mage.”

【…】

“I do become a spirit mage in the future, right?”

【That’s…】

The few seconds waiting for Winter’s answer felt like years.

Just as she unconsciously clasped her hands tightly as if praying.

【Why are you asking something so obvious.】

With those words, all anxiety melted away like snow in spring sunlight.

“I, I knew it! Right. I do become a spirit mage too. What kind of spirit comes to find me? No, no! Don’t tell me!”

Tiya hastily covered Winter’s mouth and drew a gift box in her mind.

And she imagined the future spirit that would pop out from inside it.

Father has a sand spirit. Brother Rodion has a shadow spirit.

Brother Lev has a flame spirit, and Grandmother subdued a lightning spirit.

Among the many spirits, Tiya immediately thought of a spring spirit.

For some reason, she naturally imagined herself filling the manor’s garden entirely with spring flowers together with a spring spirit.

‘No, it doesn’t have to be a spring spirit.’

She was confident she could love any spirit more than anyone else in the world!

And once she became a spirit mage, surely Father would also…

【Even if you become a spirit mage, the day Shurkha Baloz acknowledges you will never come.】

Winter’s sharp words tore through Tiya’s inflated heart.

Tiya’s body, which had been sitting on the sofa swinging both feet wildly while lost in happy imagination, slumped down.

Tiya asked with a resentful voice.

“Why are you saying such things?”

Because it was Winter saying it, not someone else, it sounded exactly like an ominous prophecy.

【I didn’t bother to explain it before.】

Winter’s fingertip pointed to the great spirit in the tapestry.

【To make a contract with the spirit of time and return to the past, two conditions must be met.】

Winter held up two fingers and spoke while folding them down one by one.

【First, you must carry Vladijef blood. Second, you must possess the family head’s ring where the spirit of time is sealed. The Count once met these conditions too, didn’t he?】

…He did.

Though he’s Count Baloz now, until Mother’s funeral, Father was called Young Duke Vladijef.

And on his hand was surely the family head’s ring….

【That human must have made a contract with the spirit of time.】

“How does Winter know that?”

【The spirit of time’s power isn’t omnipotent. There are restrictions.】

This time Winter continued speaking while extending his fingers one by one in reverse.

【First, you can go to the past multiple times, but the total time you can turn back is only 20 years, and second, your soul gets damaged with each regression.】

The spirit of time guides the contractor’s soul to take them to the past.

However, just as salmon swimming upstream against the current lose their scales and have their fins torn, human souls also suffer wounds.

The more one goes against time’s torrent, the more the soul wears down, and one loses their humanity.

The spirit of time said this was the price for going against nature’s order.

【Seeing how rotten his eyes are, there’s probably no humanity left to be damaged anymore.】

The current Duke Vladijef erasing his own son from the family registry was also evidence of this.

The Family Law Book passed down only to family heads clearly stated that those who consumed all 20 years lose their qualification as family head.

【Due to the prohibition, we’ll never know what he turned back time for. But the result is that appearance.】

20 years of time regression.

Having turned back all that time, Shurkha’s soul had worn down completely, turning him into a human who could feel nothing.

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