A middle-aged woman asked.
"If you divide it in half, wouldn't half be bad karma? That would be a more reasonable amount."
The scholar laughed.
"Even if she only received half, it wouldn't be worth half a penny. Do you think wiping out a million people in the southern kingdom is a small feat?"
He added.
"Besides, the other side of that regression didn't make it to the tribunal. What a brilliantly crafted loophole."
The first woman also spoke with a frown.
"That opponent... was a bit lacking in class to become a regressor in the first place. He really succeeded by exploiting a loophole in the system."
Agosto, if Akirilou had challenged him directly, the awakened ones would likely not have accepted his challenge. The soul Akirilou had accumulated to this point bordered on the border of being worthy of being a returnee, and the energy accumulated within was impure. It was a color that often appears when the vessel has been nurtured through various sorceries, rather than through true enlightenment.
But he was well versed in methodology, and after handling all the procedures himself, he finally presented Ariadne, the regent's fiancée.
The middle-aged woman, who was struggling to figure out how to help the regressor, did not give up and asked a question mixed with hope.
"Couldn't you tell us some things about our returnee?"
"Look at that guy's energy. Will you help me? He seems like a terrible person."
"Wait a minute, can you see the energy?"
The first woman stopped the scholar. She questioned him.
"We cannot see clearly except for two types: those who have ascended to the judgment seat, or those who are about to ascend."
At these words, everyone suddenly began to recall their memories.
"Come to think of it...? The other half, haven’t things been strange lately?"
It was from the day Agosto succeeded in having Isabella in the real Etruscan kingdom that they began to perceive Agosto differently.
"I feel it too. Whenever I look at him, I sometimes get the feeling that there's a hole in the boundary between the world of the living and the world of the gods. It's as if air is flowing through it..."
When Agosto forcibly took Isabella, Akirilou from another timeline, who was wandering around in a state of resentment, gained existence in the current timeline.
Unlike in the past when he had only been involved indirectly, like in a dream, he was able to speak directly to Agosto, show Agosto visions, and become one with Agosto for a moment, making Agosto believe that Akirilou's wish was Agosto's own.
And at the same time, Agosto lost the anonymity that had been placed over him.
"Once connected to the divine realm, he will now be under the watchful eye of the 'awakened ones'."
Akirilou placed Ariadne at the forefront, avoiding the prying eyes of the "Judgment Panel." It was a crude and deceptive tactic, exploiting loopholes in the system by presenting a scapegoat.
"As you have seen, as we have seen, from now on he will be visible to others."
"On 'Judgment Day'... Our regressor and the one who stopped might be on the board at the same time..."
"This is an unprecedented situation."
The first woman pondered over whether there was any way she could help Ariadne.
"That... Couldn't our regressor possibly catch the other person and push them onto the stage on Judgment Day?"
The person most knowledgeable about this subject here was a middle-aged scholar. He stroked his goatee.
"It's not methodologically impossible, but... Since there hasn't been any interaction between the two yet, it seems like our regressor doesn't know that the other exists."
A kind middle-aged woman asked.
"Can we tell her?"
We don't have the strength to engage in such intense engagement. Where do we have the soul left?
The primordial woman clenched her jaw. Then she looked at the others.
When the Gallico heavy cavalry marched south, she sent a halo to Ariadne, hinting that she should help Cesare.
The soul vault must be quite empty. With few people attempting to return from the Central Continent these days, the soul vault in Etruscan lands is always short on supplies.
The middle-aged woman sighed, not even dreaming of what the primordial woman had done.
"In the end, it's a problem that our regressors will have to figure out on their own..."
"That's right. Life is about each person's survival. It's no different for regressors. It's even more so for regressors."
The primordial woman avoided the gaze of the scholar and the middle-aged woman, who were conversing with her pupils dilated. Is there any way I can help? Somehow...
For a split second, everything stopped when Leo III reached out to take off Isabella's dress.
The old man's breathing was rapid, his anticipation of what was about to happen, and the young woman's was gripped by a fear of syphilis. Finally, Isabella's small hands pushed the old man's wrinkled ones away.
“Isabella is scared.”
Her voice was objectively trembling, almost pitifully so, but the old man wasn't capable of such empathy. Leo III questioned in an irritated voice.
“No, why?”
He barely managed to hold back his shout, "What nonsense are you talking about here?" That was the best Leo III could do.
Despite the manly look and the lingering rage of Leo III, Isabella remained unintimidated. Instead, she feigned fear.
Isabella looked up at Leo III with a longing expression. Her veil concealed her eyes, leaving only her soft, gentle eyes visible.
“Isabella, Isabella...”
As if a switch had been flipped, tears began to fall from her pretty amethyst eyes.
“I have such ugly scars all over my body right now, I’m afraid to show them to Your Majesty... I’m afraid Your Majesty, the one and only in the world, will think I’m ugly...”
Leo III took the plunge without any thought as to how he would feel if he saw Isabella's naked, bloody body.
"It's okay. Can't you see that I'm here now? My feelings for you won't be diminished by that little scar!"
“For me... All I have left is Your Majesty...”
Isabella wept. Like a pitiful, pitiful woman, her white fingers slid across Leo III's hand and clasped it tightly. It was as if she were imitating a baby grasping its mother's hand, or perhaps she was squeezing Leo III's hand so he couldn't touch her. Her movements resembled those of a snow-white spider.
“If Your Majesty sees my wounds and thinks they are disgusting, I really won’t be able to survive...”
Isabella burst into tears. Her tears were genuine.
She had lost everything. If she had lost even Leo III's interest, Isabella would be as good as dead.
Leo III was trying to appease Isabella when a brilliant idea struck him. Emotional consideration was too much for him. It would be better to postpone the date of the first act.
“So, all I have to do is erase the scar?”
That was what Isabella had been longing for. Her eyes sparkled, widening.
“Yes? Is that possible?”
Leo III was delighted by Isabella's delight. He said with a smirk.
"Well, actually. I have a small facility set up in the Orte Forest hunting lodge."
After the botched import of gunpowder from the Kingdom of Gallico, Leo III wasn't idle. He summoned the kingdom's finest alchemists to investigate the ingredients and formula for gunpowder.
However, while studying alchemy, a by-product emerged.
"Your Majesty. We're using saltpeter and sulfur as research materials... We found records from the Moorish Empire that state that mixing the two in a specific ratio, adding mercury, diamond, and various precious stones, can also function as an elixir of immortality."
"Oh?"
It didn't take long for the roles of the researcher, who had once taken a detour, to be reversed.
“Your Majesty, this time we decided to experiment with melted gold as a material, but the cost of the materials is...”
"Your Majesty, we have run out of sulfur. We used to use Latgalin acid as the raw material for gunpowder, but now that it's something that will come into direct contact with the body, it seems better to import it from the Moorish Empire. The cost is..."
The alchemists melted gold and used it like water, and Leo III's treasury also melted like water. Of course, only the alchemists themselves know how much of that was for materials and how much for labor. With taxes from local lords struggling to collect, Julia Helena's dowry flowed unchecked into the research of this elixir of life.
It was a waste of money that was maintained out of greed but failed to produce results, but the opportunity has finally come to put this facility to good use.
“The Orte Forest Villa is a place I haven’t shown even to Rubina, but I’ll show it to you in a special way.”
If you apply mercury all over your body and soak in the hot springs of the Orte Forest, filled with medicinal plants, your unsightly scars will quickly disappear. Especially since you're young.
Leo III couldn't help but smile as he thought about decorating his first wedding room in the Orte Forest Villa.
He touched Isabella's buttocks, brimming with anticipation. It was covered in pus from the whipping. It was excruciatingly painful, but Isabella smiled seductively without batting an eyelash.
Ariadne, who confessed that losing her baby was nothing, looked up at Sancha with eyes filled with a mixture of guilt and confusion. Sancha said nothing. The silence was unbearable.
Just as Ariadne was about to regret saying something in vain, Sancha grabbed her shoulders with force.
"Miss!"
Ariadne was startled. But she was even more surprised by Sancha's next words.
“It’s better than nothing!!”
"What?"
She didn't know she would receive such positive feedback after saying something like this.
But the equation of Sancha was simple: what happened was what happened, and if the girl didn't feel sad about it, then it was a jackpot. It was persuasive...
Ariadne poured out her true feelings, which she had never been able to tell anyone before.
"My body kept sagging, and my mood was fluctuating. That was pregnancy. I'm still angry."
Her body had become subtly numb. Had she been alone, she might have easily avoided Isabella's advance.
“Enough! I could have beaten them!”
"If you divide it in half, wouldn't half be bad karma? That would be a more reasonable amount."
The scholar laughed.
"Even if she only received half, it wouldn't be worth half a penny. Do you think wiping out a million people in the southern kingdom is a small feat?"
He added.
"Besides, the other side of that regression didn't make it to the tribunal. What a brilliantly crafted loophole."
The first woman also spoke with a frown.
"That opponent... was a bit lacking in class to become a regressor in the first place. He really succeeded by exploiting a loophole in the system."
Agosto, if Akirilou had challenged him directly, the awakened ones would likely not have accepted his challenge. The soul Akirilou had accumulated to this point bordered on the border of being worthy of being a returnee, and the energy accumulated within was impure. It was a color that often appears when the vessel has been nurtured through various sorceries, rather than through true enlightenment.
But he was well versed in methodology, and after handling all the procedures himself, he finally presented Ariadne, the regent's fiancée.
The middle-aged woman, who was struggling to figure out how to help the regressor, did not give up and asked a question mixed with hope.
"Couldn't you tell us some things about our returnee?"
"Look at that guy's energy. Will you help me? He seems like a terrible person."
"Wait a minute, can you see the energy?"
The first woman stopped the scholar. She questioned him.
"We cannot see clearly except for two types: those who have ascended to the judgment seat, or those who are about to ascend."
At these words, everyone suddenly began to recall their memories.
"Come to think of it...? The other half, haven’t things been strange lately?"
It was from the day Agosto succeeded in having Isabella in the real Etruscan kingdom that they began to perceive Agosto differently.
"I feel it too. Whenever I look at him, I sometimes get the feeling that there's a hole in the boundary between the world of the living and the world of the gods. It's as if air is flowing through it..."
When Agosto forcibly took Isabella, Akirilou from another timeline, who was wandering around in a state of resentment, gained existence in the current timeline.
Unlike in the past when he had only been involved indirectly, like in a dream, he was able to speak directly to Agosto, show Agosto visions, and become one with Agosto for a moment, making Agosto believe that Akirilou's wish was Agosto's own.
And at the same time, Agosto lost the anonymity that had been placed over him.
"Once connected to the divine realm, he will now be under the watchful eye of the 'awakened ones'."
Akirilou placed Ariadne at the forefront, avoiding the prying eyes of the "Judgment Panel." It was a crude and deceptive tactic, exploiting loopholes in the system by presenting a scapegoat.
"As you have seen, as we have seen, from now on he will be visible to others."
"On 'Judgment Day'... Our regressor and the one who stopped might be on the board at the same time..."
"This is an unprecedented situation."
The first woman pondered over whether there was any way she could help Ariadne.
"That... Couldn't our regressor possibly catch the other person and push them onto the stage on Judgment Day?"
The person most knowledgeable about this subject here was a middle-aged scholar. He stroked his goatee.
"It's not methodologically impossible, but... Since there hasn't been any interaction between the two yet, it seems like our regressor doesn't know that the other exists."
A kind middle-aged woman asked.
"Can we tell her?"
We don't have the strength to engage in such intense engagement. Where do we have the soul left?
The primordial woman clenched her jaw. Then she looked at the others.
When the Gallico heavy cavalry marched south, she sent a halo to Ariadne, hinting that she should help Cesare.
The soul vault must be quite empty. With few people attempting to return from the Central Continent these days, the soul vault in Etruscan lands is always short on supplies.
The middle-aged woman sighed, not even dreaming of what the primordial woman had done.
"In the end, it's a problem that our regressors will have to figure out on their own..."
"That's right. Life is about each person's survival. It's no different for regressors. It's even more so for regressors."
The primordial woman avoided the gaze of the scholar and the middle-aged woman, who were conversing with her pupils dilated. Is there any way I can help? Somehow...
***
For a split second, everything stopped when Leo III reached out to take off Isabella's dress.
The old man's breathing was rapid, his anticipation of what was about to happen, and the young woman's was gripped by a fear of syphilis. Finally, Isabella's small hands pushed the old man's wrinkled ones away.
“Isabella is scared.”
Her voice was objectively trembling, almost pitifully so, but the old man wasn't capable of such empathy. Leo III questioned in an irritated voice.
“No, why?”
He barely managed to hold back his shout, "What nonsense are you talking about here?" That was the best Leo III could do.
Despite the manly look and the lingering rage of Leo III, Isabella remained unintimidated. Instead, she feigned fear.
Isabella looked up at Leo III with a longing expression. Her veil concealed her eyes, leaving only her soft, gentle eyes visible.
“Isabella, Isabella...”
As if a switch had been flipped, tears began to fall from her pretty amethyst eyes.
“I have such ugly scars all over my body right now, I’m afraid to show them to Your Majesty... I’m afraid Your Majesty, the one and only in the world, will think I’m ugly...”
Leo III took the plunge without any thought as to how he would feel if he saw Isabella's naked, bloody body.
"It's okay. Can't you see that I'm here now? My feelings for you won't be diminished by that little scar!"
“For me... All I have left is Your Majesty...”
Isabella wept. Like a pitiful, pitiful woman, her white fingers slid across Leo III's hand and clasped it tightly. It was as if she were imitating a baby grasping its mother's hand, or perhaps she was squeezing Leo III's hand so he couldn't touch her. Her movements resembled those of a snow-white spider.
“If Your Majesty sees my wounds and thinks they are disgusting, I really won’t be able to survive...”
Isabella burst into tears. Her tears were genuine.
She had lost everything. If she had lost even Leo III's interest, Isabella would be as good as dead.
Leo III was trying to appease Isabella when a brilliant idea struck him. Emotional consideration was too much for him. It would be better to postpone the date of the first act.
“So, all I have to do is erase the scar?”
That was what Isabella had been longing for. Her eyes sparkled, widening.
“Yes? Is that possible?”
Leo III was delighted by Isabella's delight. He said with a smirk.
"Well, actually. I have a small facility set up in the Orte Forest hunting lodge."
After the botched import of gunpowder from the Kingdom of Gallico, Leo III wasn't idle. He summoned the kingdom's finest alchemists to investigate the ingredients and formula for gunpowder.
However, while studying alchemy, a by-product emerged.
"Your Majesty. We're using saltpeter and sulfur as research materials... We found records from the Moorish Empire that state that mixing the two in a specific ratio, adding mercury, diamond, and various precious stones, can also function as an elixir of immortality."
"Oh?"
It didn't take long for the roles of the researcher, who had once taken a detour, to be reversed.
“Your Majesty, this time we decided to experiment with melted gold as a material, but the cost of the materials is...”
"Your Majesty, we have run out of sulfur. We used to use Latgalin acid as the raw material for gunpowder, but now that it's something that will come into direct contact with the body, it seems better to import it from the Moorish Empire. The cost is..."
The alchemists melted gold and used it like water, and Leo III's treasury also melted like water. Of course, only the alchemists themselves know how much of that was for materials and how much for labor. With taxes from local lords struggling to collect, Julia Helena's dowry flowed unchecked into the research of this elixir of life.
It was a waste of money that was maintained out of greed but failed to produce results, but the opportunity has finally come to put this facility to good use.
“The Orte Forest Villa is a place I haven’t shown even to Rubina, but I’ll show it to you in a special way.”
If you apply mercury all over your body and soak in the hot springs of the Orte Forest, filled with medicinal plants, your unsightly scars will quickly disappear. Especially since you're young.
Leo III couldn't help but smile as he thought about decorating his first wedding room in the Orte Forest Villa.
He touched Isabella's buttocks, brimming with anticipation. It was covered in pus from the whipping. It was excruciatingly painful, but Isabella smiled seductively without batting an eyelash.
***
Ariadne, who confessed that losing her baby was nothing, looked up at Sancha with eyes filled with a mixture of guilt and confusion. Sancha said nothing. The silence was unbearable.
Just as Ariadne was about to regret saying something in vain, Sancha grabbed her shoulders with force.
"Miss!"
Ariadne was startled. But she was even more surprised by Sancha's next words.
“It’s better than nothing!!”
"What?"
She didn't know she would receive such positive feedback after saying something like this.
But the equation of Sancha was simple: what happened was what happened, and if the girl didn't feel sad about it, then it was a jackpot. It was persuasive...
Ariadne poured out her true feelings, which she had never been able to tell anyone before.
"My body kept sagging, and my mood was fluctuating. That was pregnancy. I'm still angry."
Her body had become subtly numb. Had she been alone, she might have easily avoided Isabella's advance.
“Enough! I could have beaten them!”
It was a remark that would have stunned someone like Countess Marquez, but Sancha laughed without hesitation. There was something about it that only people her age shared.
She was sick and tired of hearing things like, "How long are you going to work for Countess de Mare? You should settle down and start your own family and take care of your children," and now she felt like she was hearing a declaration of intolerance in return.
Moreover, Sancha was always on Ariadne's side, without question or question. All that mattered was that her young lady did not lose her strength.
“But, Miss. Being pregnant doesn’t mean you’ll only become weaker.”
“Eh?”
Sancha raised her finger and waved it.
“Fighting isn’t just about the body.”
Ariadne had been confined to her bed for so long that she hadn't heard the latest developments. The young lady would undoubtedly change her mind if she heard this.
"They say there's an uproar in high society right now. People are saying, 'Pity the young lady who lost her child.' No, they're saying, 'Pity the young lady Isabella who was whipped.'"
Ariadne was indignant.
“What? Why is she looking so pitiful? She deserves to be hit!”
“That’s why!”
Sancha shouted with her green eyes sparkling.
“Miss, let’s pretend to be pitiful.”
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