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

It’s been 3 days since I left the mansion by carriage, heading towards the academy.

There was one thing I was mistaken about.

-Swish

“Guest, are you uninjured?”

The coachman checks my condition while wiping the blood splattered on his cheek.

“Yes…”

The coachman was an incredibly skilled individual.

I’m not injured.

So could you please put down the person you’re holding by the collar?

I’m scared just looking…

“P-Please spare me! We…”

“Quiet.”

-Crunch

The man who was about to beg for his life was pulverized by the coachman’s kick.

“Phew… Working at this age is indeed tiring.”

No. That would be tiring even for young people.

The start of the incident goes back a little…

The sun had already set, and the carriage was running through a dense forest where owl hoots announcing the night were echoing.

The atmosphere was eerie, but what could we do?

They said this was the fastest way to get to the academy.

After traveling for a few hours, we stopped to rest.

As I was eating my meal, I felt a tap on my shoulder,

-Tap tap

“Guest, please go inside.”

“Huh?”

The coachman’s eyes and tone had completely changed from before, becoming sharp.

“It seems we have some night visitors.”

Only after hearing those words did I understand.

Now, people targeting the carriag-

-Ping

Suddenly, a dagger flew behind me.

I only realized after the coachman deflected it.

“Hurry!”

In that space full of killing intent, an unknown feeling overwhelmed me. Blinking became impossible, and I forgot how to breathe.

As my whole body was freezing up, the coachman’s voice woke my mind.

-Tadat

I felt it from the dagger just now. That I was still nothing.

So I entered the carriage as quickly as possible.

At least to not become a burden.

-Tadat

As soon as I got into the carriage, the battle began.

The scene visible through the carriage window a little later was…

“What’s this?”

It was a bit different from what I expected.

I hadn’t realized it earlier due to confusion, but the coachman sensed something in the surroundings and deflected the dagger thrown at me.

A miraculous sight that made my worried feelings about the dangerous situation disappear.

-Thud

-Boom

‘How does a single punch send a person flying beyond the sky?’

As I observed the coachman by shifting my weak mana to my eyes, a red fluctuation appeared.

That must be what they call aura.

Certainly, there seems to be a big difference between mana’s and aura’s physical enhancement.

Even though the thief-like guys were maintaining physical enhancement with mana, they were losing in simple strength against the coachman’s aura, emitting a similar energy.

‘There was a reason it was expensive…’

Now I understand why it was so expensive when I first tried to call for a carriage.

That included the safety cost.

There was a reason why the game expressed warps for movement between certain areas if you had a carriage.

-Swish

“Guest, are you uninjured?”

-And so we return to the present-

-Scrub scrub

“To help even with this, I’m grateful.”

-Scrub scrub

“It’s nothing…”

After confirming the disposal of the thieves, the coachman quickly found a nearby lake and wiped off the blood stain on the carriage.

Sitting in the carriage felt awkward, so I ended up helping too.

-Scrub scrub

Neither of us intended it, but there was an awkward silence with only the sound of rubbing rags due to the sudden attack and impromptu car wash.

“Coachman.”

I broke the silence and asked first.

“Yes.”

“Why do you work as a coachman? With your skills, you could earn much more doing something else.”

Just now, I could tell by looking at the fluctuating aura again.

‘This person is deliberately lowering his aura.’

The constant aura shook every time he threw a punch or jumped.

It was as if the aura, which was like a calm lake, suddenly had waves rushing in from the sea.

Although I’m not sure about the level of aura users or mana users yet, I couldn’t understand why such a person was working as a coachman.

“Haha. I’ve tried other things too. It’s just that none of them suited me.”

The coachman speaks with a smile as if my question was nothing special.

“Hmm…”

I looked at the coachman while making a sound indicating suspicion.

“……”

-Whoosh

He turns his head, perhaps feeling a bit embarrassed by my staring.

“Hmm.”

I also turned my head, thinking it wasn’t right to keep staring.

After some time passed, the coachman opened his mouth, perhaps feeling a bit itchy to speak.

“Actually… it’s for an unremarkable reason.”

While we were both washing the carriage, I listened while looking at the carriage, not turning my head so the coachman wouldn’t feel embarrassed.

“I know I could earn good money doing other things. In fact, I used to do mercenary-related work when I was young.”

-Drip drip

He rinses the bloodstained rag in the lake and cleans the carriage again.

“And indeed, I earned good money.”

“What was… the problem?”

I thought that if you use your specialty to work and earn good money, that should be enough.

That’s what I was thinking.

-Shake shake

“Many things were the problem. Because I earned good money.”

A single sentence that felt like it contained a lot.

“The biggest issue was that I lost peace of mind.

“Just working and earning money, living like that for several years, I asked myself.

“Why was I earning money?

“I earned enough money to feed my wife and children with plenty left over, and my children became independent, but for some reason, I was mindlessly swinging a sword in blood-splattered places.

“The day I realized that, I went home and talked about it, and my wife scolded me. ‘You used to leave without a word when the children wanted you around, and now you want to play husband?'”

The stories that followed were ones I had often heard somewhere before.

In fact, he had been stubbornly doing what he thought was his responsibility without realizing that his relationships with his children and wife had cracked until those cracked relationships shattered completely.

Only then did he decide to break free from a life focused solely on money and try living while looking at other things.

If he could use his specialty, he wanted to become a shield meant to protect someone rather than a sword mindlessly directed at others.

Only then could I understand.

“You seem quite satisfied.”

-Nod

“I’m very satisfied with this job now. It’s a bit late, but on days when I don’t have work, I can take care of my family, and sometimes when my wife is in a bad mood, we can go on a date riding these horses.”

The coachman’s answer was mixed with a bit of humor.

“It’s a common concern among coachmen in my age group in this line of work. If we went to a place hiring mercenaries, we could earn the pay of dozens of men, but we do this job for various reasons.”

“That’s cool.”

“Thank you for saying so.”

-Splash

A brief silence, only the sound of wringing water from the rag, is heard.

“Guest. May I say one thing as a senior in life?”

“Ah, yes! Any advice would be appreciated.”

Who would dislike hearing advice when it’s not even an insult?

“Guest, I’ve felt this before, but your questions seem more like ‘investigation’ rather than ‘curiosity.’

-Pause

“Ah, you don’t need to react like that. I’m not saying anything because it was such an intention or for any reason.”

“Then…?”

“I suppose you were doing that because of the Academy or maybe some personal plan.”

“…Yes.”

“If you’re asking a coachman about such things, I felt it must be quite urgent.”

-Nod

I carefully and slowly nodded my head.

-Pat

The coachman lightly placed his hand on my shoulder.

“This is my advice as a senior in life.”

With a shallow sigh, the coachman’s atmosphere became lighter.

“Don’t try to run too fast, but if you do, look back at least once.”

-Pat

He gave my back a refreshing pat with the hand on my shoulder.

“Don’t live a life like mine where you’ve run too far and when you look back, there’s not a single person following you.”

That was the last conversation of this story.

-Clop clop

The coachman, now on the cleaned carriage, signals the horse to start.

“Well then, shall we depart?”

He asked me about departing with a smile.

It was the familiar face of the coachman I had seen for days, but perhaps because of the recent conversation.

He looked,

‘……’

Scratch that, he is

“Yes. Let’s go.”

Very cool.

—–

Afterward, having become closer to the coachman, I learned many things by asking various questions I had been curious about without hesitation.

One of the most shocking things among them was…

‘This carriage wasn’t the average carriage of this world, but a special one.’

Most carriages travel in big groups. They can’t be alone in case bandits attack.

So they needed carriages that could be used when guests needed to leave urgently, and that’s how this carriage came to be.

‘If bandits are a problem, why not just have coachmen who can beat them?’

It was created based on the seemingly crazy idea of a noble businessman.

In other words, this carriage was like a kind of premium taxi.

“No wonder it was expensive…”

Damn it.

What’s a bit frustrating is that no matter how much I searched the crystal ball for a carriage to go to the academy, this was the only one that fit the schedule.

Of course, it’s fortunate that a carriage was available, even if it was expensive.

“Oh, we can almost see it!”

As I turned my head at the coachman’s rising voice, I saw… what is that?

‘What kind of castle is that?’

In the game, there was no way to check the scale of the buildings, so seeing them in reality like this,

“Isn’t this too big…”

A huge castle shining in the moonlight far away, despite being a distance that would take half a day more to reach.

That place is the soon-to-be mess, the stage for the protagonist and main characters, full of education and politics.

The Academy.