How the Regressor Loves the Reincarnated

66. Selection(Complete)

1.

It is only now that I belatedly realize what a blessing I was to never have hated someone so much that I literally wanted to kill them.

Leticia Isvant.

A name that was forgotten by everyone by the hand of the zodiac, and now only I can remember. She was my six-year-old sister.

My older sister, who is now possessed by the 6th Apostle, Virgo. It was 15 years ago that she was deprived of her body.

And it was also 15 years ago that my mother, Aria Isvant, who was thought to have passed away from a mysterious illness, was killed at the hands of a man presumed to be one of the apostles of the Zodiac.

I don’t know what kind of talent the Zodiac made that possible, but… The memories of me and my father were manipulated starting from 15 years ago. That alone was an obvious fact.

The older sister Leticia completely forgot her existence with the power of Virgo’s sacred object. The truth about her mother’s death was completely submerged as my father’s and mine’s memories of the event were manipulated.

This is why it was known externally that her mother had died from an illness. Because her husband, the Duke of Isvant, believed in the fabricated memory like a stone, it soon became the truth.

“Ah, write…”

It bothered me that my palms had been itching a little bit earlier, so I scratched them lightly and the hot soreness that came up made me frown. When I lift my right hand up to my face, the first thing I notice is the clear nail marks. The blood oozing little by little from it spreads through the slightly wider wound from scratching earlier.

I didn’t have to look at it to know that the left hand would be the same.

Maybe it’s because my nails, which I usually manage to keep reasonably short, got longer while I was staying here. In the short span of time between recovering his memory and controlling his anger, his palms became like this.

But it was only a minor wound. It was because Nox’s holy power, which now moved like my own limbs, could heal even fatal wounds dozens of times more serious than this.

“It’s filthy convenient.”

The pale green light dissipated the surrounding darkness, and the wounds on his palms healed in an instant. The unpleasant sensations that hindered my thoughts disappeared, and I was again in deep trouble.

Perhaps this wound was treated for nothing. If I had left it as it was, I would have been more focused on it. If I had, I would have been able to put off this unpleasant feeling a little longer.

The tragedies that befell Isvant were all caused by me. More precisely, it’s not me, it’s a situation brought about by the fate that this Luke Isvant was born with…

I didn’t want to admit or accept that fact.

Since I was a baby, until now. The memories of being born in this body and living until now remain vividly in my head. But what should I say if I admit that as a fact, I feel as if my very existence is being denied.

Did I reincarnate with this body, or did I possess possession? I couldn’t help but ask such a fundamental question.

“Adele, are you there?”

After a moment of hesitation, I carefully called her name. But no answer came back to me.

A street dominated by the silence of late at night. I was the only one walking down this street right now.

In a way, this may be a natural situation. Although Adele begged me not to hesitate, it was hard for her to think that she was not heartbroken at all.

The time that she and I have known each other is not so short now. During that time, we’ve built trust as well as affection for each other.

But a little while ago, in front of Burgo, I showed myself choosing my sister without much hesitation. Wouldn’t Adele have been a bit disappointed with my choice?

…Even if she was disappointed with my choice, Adele was not the hard-hearted one to deliberately ignore my calls for that reason. So either she’s waiting for me to go back to the inn before me, or she just needs some time alone.

When I came to my senses, I found myself stepping inside the inn we had made our accommodations. It wasn’t that much of a surprise, since I hadn’t come and gone that far in the first place.

“Welcome to Breeze’s Haven, stranger- eh, are you a wizard?”

As I entered the inn, I heard a voice right next to me that gave off a feeling of disappointment somewhere. When he turned his eyes there, he saw the hairy innkeeper sipping a drink behind the counter.

“What is it, that lukewarm response? Not a new guest, are you disappointed?”

“No, not at all!”

Apart from the shaggy hair, the innkeeper, who has a fairly benign appearance, shakes the glass she is holding in her hand with a playful smile.

“Wizard man, with the price of the room rented by you and his wife, you don’t have to worry about guests at all for the time being! Hahaha!”

“…So is he.”

I don’t think I would normally say that in front of the person in question. Anyway, after seeing the innkeeper like that, my tension melted away.

She was a bit taken aback when I called Adele my wife, but in a way it was understandable that aristocratic men and women share the same room, so it is natural for others to see them as husband and wife. Nobles tend to save face a lot, so they don’t do things that can be openly criticized like this.

“But, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone come down from above… It’s amazing that it’s magic after all!”

“Haha… Then I will go upstairs.”

“Ah, yes! Well, it’s quite late, but… The bath water is ready at any time, so just call and we’ll send it right away.”

After roughly nodding and answering the innkeeper’s words, as I was climbing the stairs, a strange thing came to my mind.

“Uh…?”

I tried to withdraw my magic to cancel the invisible magic, but there was no reaction.

Only then do I realize that I forgot to use my magic again in the process of leaving my seat.

Wow, that’s going to turn around.

I’m glad I didn’t get caught by anyone, but it was a pretty ridiculous mistake.

Has Adele’s habit of being clumsy at important moments transferred to me as well? She climbed the stairs, thinking that she would have been disgusted if Adele had heard of it.

After arriving at the door of the room we are staying in, I stand in front of it and rummage through my pockets to find the key. Then, remembering that the key belongs to Adele, I just use magic to open the door. It would be a crime to do this to someone else’s room, but what if it’s a room I rented with my own money?

As soon as I entered the room, I immediately closed the door, took a few steps, and lay down on the bed. As I had already expected by the time I opened the door myself, Adele was not here.

I quietly close my eyes and try to organize the mess in my head as much as possible. Still, it seems that I chose the best among the options I could think of in that situation, but it is still unknown what the result will be.

Originally, the advantage in a situation like this was always the one who took the hostages.

Tack-

I don’t know exactly how much time had passed, but I could vaguely hear the door opening and closing. I opened one eye and saw Adele, with an unusually serious expression on her face, casting her gaze at me.

“Luke, Burgo intends to stab you in the back.”

“Well, of course it is, right?”

“No, I’m not going to answer that casually…!”

It was a moment when Adele’s questions about where she came from and what she was doing were resolved. She must have stayed and watched Burgo’s reaction.

Maybe I’m glad that Adele did it. I was only guessing that Burgo would react that way if I left so quickly. As long as Adele has confirmed that to be true, the first button has been put in place.

“Wait, could it be on purpose…?”

“When someone takes a hostage and tells you to drop your weapon, is it really more like asking me to kill you too? There’s nothing more stupid than believing everything your enemy says. Well, if the contract was notarized by God on the spot, Burgo would have had no choice but…”

If that happens more than anything else, then I will have to completely withdraw from this work, so that method was also reluctant on my part.

Notarization of a god is one of the few cases in which a god can directly influence a human being. When a contract is signed with a priest in front of an image of a god by being notarized by God, the contract must be absolutely kept. If you don’t keep it, it’s because there will actually be a divine punishment.

Since the current status of Leticia Isvant, my sister’s body occupied by Burgo, is literally Saint Aster, the highest-ranking priest, the conditions for the priest to proceed with the contract are established. Even if the subject moving that body was an apostle of Nox, that fact would not change.

“Anyway, Luke, it hasn’t changed at all that your sister is in danger after all…”

Adele looked down at me, slightly biting her lip, and gently stretched out her arm and pulled her beside me. And, as always, Adele silently accepted my actions.

“I will. I spoke very slickly, but I don’t think I can be a cold-hearted person to the point of throwing away another precious person just to save one precious person for me.”

When someone takes my precious person hostage, it’s stupid to actually throw away a weapon just because it was told to. But in such a situation, it’s not that easy to really not let go, even when you know that it’s safer for each other if you don’t.

“I will take revenge on the Zodiac and on Burgo.”

Until now, the only time I faced the Zodiac was to help Adele, who had been fighting them alone.

…If Adele fails, that is the end of the world, so there was also a selfish reason that I wanted to live in peace for a long time.

But now it includes personal revenge. And that was also the sound that the motivation was right.

“The first step would be to strike Burgo in the back first from this side and destroy the Zodiac’s plans.”

“…I can help you too.”

“Do you know that those words sound very reassuring when Adele says them?”

I made a promise while holding Adele tightly.

No matter what happens, I will never regret this choice.

2.

Took

Walking around the streets to arrange a wagon heading out of the Holy Land. Someone moves hurriedly, bumping into me and disappearing into the crowd.

My first thought was pickpocketing, but I soon realize that’s not the case.

I remember what Aquarius told me in the past, that apostles can see stigmata engraved in each other’s souls. One stigma that I couldn’t even see when I met Burgo last night. It was the first time I saw the stigma.

That was also from the man who had just bumped into me and disappeared.

After hiding in the shade, he takes out a handkerchief and engraves letters on it with magic.

[Contact with twins. Careful.]

I used my magic again to transform the handkerchief into a bird, and thought as I ordered Adele to fly away.

This variable, maybe we can use it to make this situation better for us.