I Don’t Remember the Number of Regressions of the Villainesses Who Have Returned.

“You really caused a commotion.”

After a while, Aslan came out of the forest with very leisurely footsteps and was looking around.

“You seem… very relaxed?”

His appearance puzzled me, speaking as if it was no big deal in the middle of the forest that had become a logging site. Due to Sephir’s so-called training, only the tree stumps were visible.

‘Normally, wouldn’t people be surprised if the forest turned out like this?’

Not him walking around with an appearance as if he’s about to put his hands behind his back.

“Ahem.”

Maybe he felt my meaningful gaze. Aslan cleared his throat and explained a simple reason.

“It’s because I’ve burned a lot.”

“What?”

“Forests.”

“…What?”

“I remembered often burning the surrounding forests when I had realized the properties of aura.”

As expected of a duke.

The scale of his mishaps is on a different level.

-Stare

I put all my strength into giving him a look with drowsy eyes.

“I wasn’t a nuisance to that extent. The few forests I ate up can’t even be compared to the accidents Gwen caused.”

When I stared at him as if he was a nuisance, Aslan made excuses, even bringing up Gwen.

‘But what kind of accidents did Gwen cause for him to casually belittle burning a few forests as not being that bad?’

In the original work, the only descriptions of Gwen’s past were her sparring scenes with Aslan, so it piqued my interest that there was a narrative I didn’t know about.

‘I’ll ask Aslan later.’

Because it’s too scary to ask Gwen, the person involved.

After that, as Aslan and I were chatting and exchanging jokes…

“Did you forget about me?”

As if she had erased her presence and approached, Sephir, standing next to me before I knew it, pulled on my clothes to make me turn my gaze.

“Maybe?”

I said it jokingly.

Because it was true that I had… very slightly forgotten.

How could I keep my mind straight when a girl smaller than me had done this, leaving only tree stumps as if she had logged an entire forest in just a few minutes?

It was inevitable that I momentarily forgot about Sephir, who was in the middle of it, with my mind going blank at that sight.

Anyway, it was a joke I made with a smile.

She started pulling the sleeve she was holding harder and harder with a bright smile.

Even puffing out her cheeks like a hamster.

‘Aren’t you a wolf?’

It seemed like I could hear the voice of emotion saying what’s cute is cute, whether it’s a wolf or a hamster.

Ultimately, I slowly bent my waist, following the sleeve she pulled.

And the answer that came back to my ear along with her soft voice.

“Then, should I make it so you can’t forget?”

She definitely answered with a bright smile on her face and a happy-sounding voice.

So why does the chill I felt earlier seem to rise up my back like a cold sweat?

“No.”

A moment later, I could tell the answer from her back, so I lowered my head wisely.

“Tch.”

This time, she’s pouting her lips as if her mood is sulky.

Why did she click her tongue?

Put away the viciously jagged daggers you’re holding behind your back before you speak.

Was my gaze too blatant? As if she felt my gaze looking beyond her face, she hurriedly stuffed what she held into her clothes.

“…I didn’t mean it that way.”

“It was definitely a threat, no matter how I look at it.”

“No, it wasn’t!”

“……”

I would have called her cute if she wasn’t holding daggers just now.

“Hmm…”

First, what should we do about Aslan, who seems to have strange imaginations while looking at Sephir and me?

“Why are you looking at us like that?”

“I was wondering if Ninian and I look like this to others.”

What’s with that insight?

“It might be similar.”

“I see. I’ll have to be careful in the future.”

“Why?”

“The woman glaring at me right now is definitely the Empress…”

I turned my head and looked at Sephir.

“What?”

“……”

I looked back at Aslan.

“She really lacks gravity, doesn’t she?”

Even I think the current Sephir is quite different from the Sephir I know.

-Nod

Aslan also seemed to think this was a problem as he closed his eyes and slowly nodded.

And Sephir’s reaction, who was watching this from the side.

“You two are terrible…”

Ah.

She’s sulking.

—–

Since we went up the mountain after the academy classes ended and joined up with Aslan, by the time we reached the bottom, the night sky was already enveloping us as if someone had sprinkled stardust.

“Lord Aslan. Thank you for today.”

Behind the dormitory. Before parting ways to go to our respective rooms, I bowed to him in gratitude.

Without him, I wouldn’t have obtained the information about my penalty and the problem with my aura path.

Aslan made me stand up straight as I was bowing and answered.

“Express your gratitude while bowing moderately. If you always bow like that to show gratitude, the weight of the gratitude you express next time will decrease.”

Aslan gave me advice on my repeated, seemingly exaggerated displays of gratitude.

A word to him.

“That’s what Lady Ninian meant when she told you to bow your head moderately.”

He’s doing some mirror therapy.

Hearing my words, he was momentarily stunned and let go of the hand holding me.

In the middle of the night, when only the small cries of animals and insects were ringing,

“Hahahahaha!”

He started laughing loud enough to possibly echo inside the dormitory.

“Excuse me, Lord Aslan? It’s the dead of night.”

As soon as he laughed, I quickly grabbed his shoulders and stopped his laughter.

‘You’re being a nuisance, Aslan. Most students are sleeping at this hour!’

Of course, even if dozens of students from the dormitory who were awakened gathered and ran to Aslan, they would kneel down and flatter him.

“Ah, sorry about that.”

He stopped his laughter, which would have been called hearty if it were daytime, but ended up being a late-night noise terror, and apologized to me.

“I said it’s a problem to always bow your head, but directly showing it like this made me feel like I was truly an airheaded fellow, and I couldn’t stop the hollow laughter.”

He ran his hand through his hair.

“Well… we’re not adults yet.”

With a smile on my lips, I responded to his unwanted mutter.

“Even if we make mistakes, we can fix them from now on. We’re still students.”

The moment I finished speaking while shrugging my shoulders, a voice suddenly came from beside me.

“…Pfft.”

Sephir, who hadn’t even faced me until we came down the mountain, had her head down and was laughing.

“What?”

“No… I just thought it was so like you, Aaron.”

Although Sephir spoke with her head down, her upturned mouth and shaking voice were audible.

“What do you mean by ‘like me’?”

“There’s something like that.”

I don’t know what she means by saying it’s like me, but judging from her current laughing reaction, it doesn’t seem to have a good meaning.

“Aaron.”

“Yes.”

“What you said just now. You put it nicely, but isn’t it telling me to be careful from now on because it’s a time when we’re immature?”

“……”

“If you say that with a smile in front of another duke…”

“I understand.”

I didn’t think of that.

I’ll be careful next time.

“Well, it was still quite comforting.”

“That’s a relief.”

But if the person who heard it was comforted, isn’t that enough? That’s what I ended up thinking.

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. See you.”

Like that, I looked at Aslan’s back as he headed towards the dormitory entrance and spoke to Sephir beside me.

“Aren’t you going in?”

“I want to go in together.”

“Even if we go in together, we’ll part ways in front of the room anyway.”

“Why do we have to part? If we sleep in your room-”

“You make me uncomfortable when I sleep.”

No matter what I say, why won’t this girl think of leaving me?

When I see Sephir like this, it reminds me of that character.

The blue-haired goddess character in an isekai comedy manga who was said to be a beauty as long as she didn’t open her mouth, but could only heal.

The way she’s stubbornly refusing to go in while making absurd retorts beside me now feels similar to the scene where that character was lying on the ground crying and throwing a tantrum. Is it really just my imagination?

“Sephir,”

I put strength into my voice to let her know it wasn’t a joke anymore, as it was too late for any more retorts.

“You go in first. I have something to do.”

Maybe she finally showed some discretion.

“…Okay.”

Sephir walked towards the dormitory entrance with a deflated voice, her tail and ears drooping.

“Phew…”

Seeing a back like that makes me really curious about what kind of relationship I had with her.

If that’s acting, I’ve been fooled, and if it’s not acting, haven’t I been fooled in a different sense?

“Still, it’s fortunate.”

That I don’t have to show this appearance.

[Fatigue has rapidly increased.]

The warning that started ringing since Aslan flowed aura into my body.

Maybe it was because he flowed a lot of aura into the hole in my path.

Moreover, I hadn’t released my physical reinforcement since I woke up in the infirmary.

I managed to endure it until I came down the mountain, but now, as if it were truly impossible, the pain piercing the inside of my body started to increase.

That’s why I strongly told Sephir to turn back, even if I had to.

“Ugh!”

A groan leaked out of my mouth that I was forcibly closing as if I couldn’t bear it any longer.

I ran back near the mountain behind the dormitory and released the physical reinforcement.

-Woong… wooong…

I felt like I hadn’t experienced the sensation of mana rotation slowing down in a long time.

Just like feeling more empty when you turn off a fan that you had on for several hours in midsummer, the sensation felt from my skin changed as soon as I released the physical reinforcement.

“Cough!”

The flood of fatigue created by the hemoptysis that started with it.

My arms and legs unconsciously bent strangely, as if cramps had occurred all over my body.

From my mouth, I could only spit out the blood flowing back up my throat as if a faucet had been turned on.

“Uwaaah…!”

After spitting out so much blood that I didn’t know how I was alive, a pool of blood naturally formed under my feet.

Fortunately, the pool of blood soon seeped into the soil, and I could perfectly hide it by covering it with a little dirt.

“Gasp… gasp…”

Maybe the accumulated fatigue had been somewhat relieved, the blood flowing out of my mouth like vomit had decreased to the amount of saliva pooled in my mouth.

“It’s really fortunate.”

I felt it earlier, too, but it’s really fortunate.

If Sephir had seen me like this…

“She might have been a little disgusted.”

Before I knew it, my face, which had been distorted in pain, was smiling a little.

“Thinking about this about a girl I’ve known for less than a week.”

I was laughing without realizing it.

“I must have become too nosy.”

Like the hands of a broken clock, they sway and clatter as if trying to move, but they keep pointing at the same time.

I was just laughing as if I was broken.

—–

Sephir’s POV

“This is why I didn’t want to go in.”

Leaning against a tree as if it were hard, catching his breath, and looking at the night sky with hollow eyes, I watched Aaron’s appearance from the top of a giant tree far away.

Sitting on a branch of the giant tree, I hugged my knees and buried my head in them.

“I already know…”

He’s a fool.

He always tells others to lean on him, but he doesn’t lean on anything.

He foolishly tries to hide his pain.

When I later found out about his condition.

“I just didn’t want to tell you because I was afraid you’d be disgusted.”

Until the end, he even took away the burden I would have felt.

“Can’t you lean on me just this once…?”

I wished he would lean on me.

Just as I could stand up because I leaned on him, I wanted him to lean on me and stand up too.

But he didn’t.

He doesn’t lean, and he stands up on his own.

And he’ll repeat that.

Until he can’t stand up on his own anymore.

“…Fool.”