The Extra's Regressor Wives

Pixie Phea was the first to react.

"I only remember him as the one who discovered Aldric was using us."

Kiyomi the Fox Spirit looked at her.

"That’s all?"

"What else would there be?"

"Nothing."

Kiyomi didn’t press further.

Elaria the Elf placed both hands on the table, her gaze still fixed on the Fox Spirit.

"If you only wanted to meet Lathel, you wouldn’t need to offer the Saintess position as a bargaining chip."

"I like certainty."

"You have another purpose."

Kiyomi admitted it at once.

"Obviously."

Phea frowned immediately.

Kiyomi raised the fan to cover her mouth.

"But that’s my business."

No one continued to press.

A Fox Spirit who voluntarily claimed to have no ulterior motives would be the truly suspicious one.

Judicator Rhea tapped the table lightly.

"We’ll discuss Lathel later."

Kiyomi glanced at her.

Rhea’s expression didn’t change.

"I didn’t call everyone here to talk about men or fight over the Saintess position."

She paused.

"Aldric is the problem."

The instant the name appeared, all four expressions shifted.

The fan in Kiyomi’s hand snapped shut.

Elaria’s fingers tightened slightly.

Phea’s wings stopped fluttering.

Rhea looked at each of them.

"In the last life, all four of us were too stupid."

Phea was clearly unhappy with that, but in the end didn’t argue.

Rhea continued: "Aldric knew exactly what each of us needed. He appeared at just the right moment, offered exactly what we wanted, then made each of us believe we were special to him."

Her gaze shifted to Kiyomi.

"Especially Kiyomi the Fox Spirit."

Kiyomi raised an eyebrow slightly.

Pixie Phea immediately laughed coldly.

"That’s certainly true. In the last life you were basically Aldric’s bitch. One crook of his finger and you were happily wagging your tail and running over."

The fox tail behind Kiyomi stopped at once.

The smile remained on her face, but those golden eyes had turned cold.

"Phea."

The Pixie lifted her chin.

"What?"

"If you’d like to die a second time, I can help."

Reddish-violet mana immediately appeared around Kiyomi.

Phea’s wings also spread wide.

"I’m only stating facts."

"And I’m only making an offer."

"You..."

"Kiyomi. Phea."

Rhea’s voice cut through.

The Judicator’s hand was already resting on the hilt of the greatsword.

Both turned to look.

Rhea said flatly: "If you want to fight, step outside this room first. Don’t break my arrays."

Phea pouted but still folded her wings.

Kiyomi also slowly reined in her mana.

A moment later, the Fox Spirit unexpectedly laughed.

"She’s actually right."

Phea paused slightly.

Kiyomi looked at the fan in her hand, her voice this time devoid of any playfulness.

"In the last life, I really was Aldric’s dog."

The room went quiet.

Kiyomi spun the fan between her fingers.

"He wanted resources, I gave them. He needed information, I found it. He said he was in danger, I came running. I even thought I understood him best, believed that once he stood at the top, there would surely be a place beside him for me."

The smile on her lips thinned.

"Then he strapped me to a stone altar."

The fox tail behind her slowly curled inward.

"I watched him stand right there while my magic veins were ripped from my body one by one."

Phea stopped mocking.

Elaria also lowered her eyes.

Kiyomi raised her head.

The smile returned, but colder than before.

"So this time, I’ll go on being his bitch."

Phea immediately turned.

"Have you lost your mind?"

"On the surface, at least."

Kiyomi opened the fan.

"In the last life he knew what I liked to hear. This time I also know what he likes to hear. He likes women who admire him, likes the feeling that everything is going exactly as he foresaw, likes it even more when others treat him as someone special."

Her golden eyes narrowed.

"I’ll give him all of it."

Elaria understood.

"Then lead him into a trap."

"Exactly."

Kiyomi smiled.

"He led me around by the nose for an entire lifetime. This time it’s my turn."

Rhea didn’t object to the plan, but her expression remained serious.

"Don’t act on your own."

Kiyomi looked at her.

Rhea continued: "Grail Pass already showed signs of diverging from what I remember. If Aldric begins to suspect the future he knows is no longer accurate, his behavior will also change. When that happens, our advantage will erode very quickly."

Elaria gave a slight nod.

"In the last life, after our magic veins were taken, we knew almost nothing about what was happening behind the scenes."

"Correct."

Rhea looked at all three.

"We only witnessed the result."

At this point, the memory none of them wanted to revisit began to surface.

Before everything happened, Lathel had tried to find them.

More than once.

Elaria remembered clearly one afternoon in the eastern corridor of the Academy.

Lathel stood blocking her path.

He couldn’t speak.

Both hands kept forming signs she could only partly understand. When he realized Elaria didn’t follow, Lathel hurriedly pulled out a writing board.

Don’t go with Aldric to the western forest.

Elaria had only looked at the board at the time.

Then at him.

She still remembered how cold her own voice had been.

"Are you spying on us?"

Lathel shook his head frantically.

He kept writing.

He’s not what you think. Please be careful.

Elaria hadn’t finished reading.

She walked straight past him.

A mute with no magical talent.

An adopted child with no standing in House Kirlinghalm.

In Elaria’s eyes back then, Lathel had absolutely no right to pass judgment on Aldric.

Phea’s memory was no better.

Lathel had once rushed to find her before a mission outside the Academy.

He used sign language.

Phea didn’t understand.

Lathel took out paper and wrote for a long time, trying to explain that there was something wrong with the mission, that Aldric seemed to have known in advance about something hidden inside the ruin.

But Phea at the time couldn’t even be bothered to wait for him to finish writing.

She had only frowned and said:

"If you have something to say, find someone to relay it. I don’t have time to stand here watching you write one word at a time."

Then she left.

Phea now sat in this room, both hands slowly gripping the hem of her dress.

Kiyomi the Fox Spirit also remembered.

Lathel had once appeared outside her room one night.

His face was full of worry.

His hands kept signing.

Kiyomi at the time had only found it amusing.

She had even waved her fan and teased:

"You’re trying to say Aldric will hurt me?"

Lathel had nodded at once.

Kiyomi had laughed until her eyes curved.

"Are you jealous?"

Lathel froze.

She still remembered stepping forward, using the tip of the fan to lift his chin, then speaking in a voice dripping with contempt:

"You can’t speak, you have no strength, and you have no status. If you want to badmouth a man who’s better than you, at least come up with a reason someone might actually believe."

Then she shut the door right in his face.

Kiyomi was still holding that same fan now.

But her hand had clenched so tightly the knuckles had gone white.

Rhea had her own memory as well.

Lathel had come to the Judicator’s division of the Church many times.

He tried to hand over notes related to Aldric.

Tried to request an investigation.

Tried to explain that several missing geniuses were connected to secret rituals.

But no one had taken him seriously.

A mute.

A teenager with no rank.

A person who still bore the title of Aldric’s older brother.

Many Judicators even assumed he was jealous of his younger brother.

Rhea hadn’t helped him either.

She had looked at the pages Lathel brought and said only:

"There’s no evidence."

Lathel had stood there.

He pointed at the words he had written.

Rhea handed the papers back.

"These are your speculations, not proof."

Lathel bit his lip.

In the end he took the sheaf of papers and left.

It was a very long time later that he actually found evidence.

But by then it was too late.

All four of them had been lured by Aldric to the secret chamber beneath the Academy.

By the time Lathel discovered it, the ritual had already begun.

He ran to the Judicator’s division and used nearly everything he had to force an enforcement squad to come with him.

When they broke down the door and entered, the four were still alive.

But the magic veins had already been ripped from their bodies.

Aldric had vanished.

Lathel stood in the middle of the blood-soaked room, both hands signing desperately to explain.

No one understood.

He immediately grabbed the board.

But the evidence Aldric had planted appeared before he could finish writing.

Demonic aura on Lathel’s body.

Ritual implements in his pouch.

Forged notes written in handwriting that closely resembled his.

The person who had run to save them became the culprit.

Rhea closed her eyes for a few seconds.

When she opened them, the present room had returned.

Pixie Phea bowed her head.

Elaria no longer maintained her fully detached composure.

Kiyomi was still smiling, but the fan in her hand had stopped moving.

Rhea looked at the three of them.

"We had so many chances to listen to him."

No one argued.

"But none of us did."

Kiyomi laughed softly, her voice full of self-mockery this time.

"Because he was mute."

Phea pressed her lips together.

Elaria said quietly:

"And because we all thought we were smarter than him."

Rhea didn’t dig deeper.

She moved to the matter at hand.

"This time Aldric will still come to the Academy. The aptitude examination, then the combat trials. This is the point in the last life when he began approaching us."

Kiyomi opened the fan again.

"Then let him approach."

Phea looked at her.

Kiyomi smiled.

"Me, at least."

Rhea nodded.

"That’s possible. But no one changes too much on their own. We know part of what Aldric will do. Let’s hold that advantage as long as we can."

Elaria asked: "What about the person who sent the letters?"

Rhea was quiet for a moment.

"Continue investigating."

Phea spoke up at once:

"Anna."

"I know."

"You’re not going to ask her directly?"

"No."

Rhea answered very quickly.

"Until we know what she wants, no one should go out of their way to confront Anna."

Kiyomi laughed softly.

"First time I’ve seen a Judicator this careful."

Rhea looked at her coolly.

"Have you seen Anna in the final battle?"

Kiyomi’s smile immediately faded.

All of them had seen it, at least in part.

After Lathel’s death, Anna had changed completely.

By then Aldric had become an existence standing near the pinnacle of the continent. The strength stolen from countless geniuses, the holy artifacts, and the destiny that protected him had let him survive far too many situations that should have been fatal.

But in the final battle, three women still pushed him to the brink.

Empress Catherine.

A mysterious woman.

And Anna.

What the four of them remembered most was the day Anna returned to the Holy City.

Wherever she passed, color drained away.

No one knew what kind of magic it was.

No one knew when that power had awakened.

They only knew it appeared after Lathel died.

Pixie Phea unconsciously hugged her own arm.

"If those letters really are from Anna..."

Elaria said: "Then she knew we had returned before we knew about each other."

Kiyomi snapped the fan shut.

"All the more reason not to provoke her."

Rhea agreed.

"If Anna wants the Saintess position, I won’t compete."

Phea looked mildly surprised.

"You’re serious?"

"I only want to stop Aldric."

Elaria also said: "I need access to the Sacred Tree. If I can obtain it another way, I don’t need the position either."

Phea thought it over, then nodded.

"Same for me."

All three looked at Kiyomi.

The Fox Spirit laughed.

"I already told you. I need Lathel."

Phea frowned at once.

"He’s not yours."

"He will be."

"You..."

Rhea raised a hand to her forehead.

"Enough."

Phea finally shut her mouth.

Kiyomi was still smiling.

Rhea began gathering the documents.

"The meeting ends here. From now on, all information related to Aldric must be shared. No one acts alone if there’s any chance it could affect major events."

Kiyomi suddenly called out:

"Rhea."

The Judicator looked up.

"What?"

"I’m curious about something."

"I’m not curious about what you’re curious about."

Kiyomi laughed.

"You say your only goal is Aldric. You don’t need the Saintess position either."

She closed the fan.

"Then what about Lathel?"

Rhea’s hand paused on the stack of papers.

Kiyomi noticed.

Phea also immediately shifted her gaze.

Elaria said nothing.

Rhea raised her head.

"What about him?"

Kiyomi leaned slightly forward.

"You truly don’t care about him?"

Rhea looked at her for a few seconds, then answered calmly:

"Just a mute."

The corner of Kiyomi’s mouth curved.

Rhea continued gathering papers.

"Not worth my attention."

No one spoke.

After a moment, Rhea stood, picked up the greatsword beside her.

"Dismissed."

The three layers of arrays opened one by one.

Rhea stepped out first.

Kiyomi remained seated, watching the door close.

Phea frowned.

"What are you looking at?"

"Nothing."

"You’re smiling."

Kiyomi waved the fan.

"I like to smile."

Phea glared at her, then turned away.

Kiyomi didn’t explain.

She had seen it very clearly.

When Lathel was mentioned, Rhea’s hand had paused.

Just for an instant.

But in the eyes of a Fox Spirit, that was more than enough.

.....

Outside the room.

Judicator Rhea walked through two long corridors before stopping in front of a large window.

From this vantage point, nearly the entire central grounds of the Magic Academy were visible.

The examination yard.

The magic towers.

The dormitory district.

And further still, the gate that thousands of young people walked through every year, each carrying the hope of becoming a mage.

Rhea stood motionless, looking at that place.

In her mind, Lathel from the previous life appeared once more.

A mute teenager standing in the middle of a corridor, both hands signing endlessly while no one cared to understand.

A teenager clutching a writing board, chasing after them, trying to warn them again and again.

A teenager who had still walked through the gates of this very Academy, even though most of the people he wanted to save had never truly taken him seriously.

Rhea placed her hand on the windowsill.

The wind blew the silver hair behind her, making it sway gently.

"This time..."

Her voice was very soft.

"You’re not coming here again, Lathel."

Rhea looked down at the Academy grounds.

In the previous life, this place had given Lathel far too few good things.

He had come because he wanted to save people.

Then he was exploited.

Framed.

Hunted.

In the end, even his kindness was turned into a weapon others used to hurt him.

Rhea’s eyes slowly softened.

"Keep being the fool you want to be."

The corner of her mouth barely moved.

"Keep trusting people. Keep helping strangers who have nothing to do with you. Keep holding onto that maddening goodness of yours."

Rhea looked toward the Academy gate for a very long time.

"The rest..."

The hand resting on the windowsill slowly tightened.

"Leave to us."

She closed her eyes for an instant, then spoke softly:

"This time, I’ll preserve that pure and kind heart of yours for you."

"So... don’t come here again."

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