The Extra's Regressor Wives

That same morning, in a building near the eastern district of the Holy City, Kiyomi the Fox Spirit was sleeping restlessly.

The room was decorated in a style entirely different from the Church’s architecture. A low bed draped with dark red silk sheets, beside it a wooden cabinet carved with fox patterns, and near the balcony sat a tea set alongside a small incense burner brought from the Fox Spirit territory. The door leading outside was left slightly ajar, morning sunlight slipping through the thin curtains and falling across the floor.

Kiyomi lay curled on her side.

Her black-violet hair was scattered across the pillow, and the fox ears that usually stood upright had folded down. The white-and-violet tails were wound tightly around her body by instinct, but her forehead was still beaded with cold sweat.

"Don’t..."

Kiyomi’s hand gripped the bedsheet.

In the dream, she was running.

The scenery around her was very hazy. No Holy City, no Magic Academy, only silhouettes gradually drifting away inside a glow red as fire.

Kiyomi knew who they were.

Even though she couldn’t see their faces.

"Father..."

She ran faster.

The figures ahead still didn’t stop.

"Mother..."

Her voice began to choke.

"Wait for me..."

Kiyomi reached out.

Her fingertips had nearly brushed the hem of the last person’s robe.

But the distance suddenly stretched.

The figures vanished one by one.

"Don’t go!"

Kiyomi jolted upright.

Her ragged breathing immediately shattered the room’s silence.

She sat on the bed, golden eyes wide open, pupils contracted into thin slits. Her hair clung to her cheeks with sweat, her chest heaved without pause, and both hands still clutched the bedsheet so tightly her knuckles had gone white.

Kiyomi looked around.

No fire.

No parents.

Just the familiar room.

The balcony door still open.

The incense still lingering.

From where she sat, she could even see a few of the Magic Academy’s towers in the distance.

Kiyomi sat still for quite a while.

Only then did her breathing gradually steady.

The fox ears slowly stood upright again, and the tails coiled around her body loosened and fell away.

She raised a hand to cover her eyes.

"That dream again."

When her hand lowered, her voice had stopped trembling.

Kiyomi stepped off the bed, bare feet landing on the soft carpet, and walked to the table beside the balcony. She poured herself a cup of tea that had already gone cold, the hand holding the pot still shaking slightly, but only seconds later the corner of her mouth had begun to curve upward.

The Fox Spirit from the dream disappeared.

In her place was the Kiyomi everyone on the outside was accustomed to.

Alluring.

At ease.

And almost never letting anyone know what she was truly thinking.

She took a sip and frowned faintly at the cold taste.

"How annoying."

Kiyomi set the pot down, leaned her hip against the edge of the table, and looked at the Academy in the distance.

"I’ve already come back and it still won’t leave me alone."

She slowly turned the cup in her hand.

During the meeting with the three other Saintess candidates, Kiyomi had said a great many things.

She had said she didn’t care about the Saintess position.

That was true.

She had said she would pretend to keep fawning over Aldric to lure him into a trap.

That was not entirely true.

Kiyomi laughed softly.

"Rhea really is serious."

If Judicator Rhea knew her real objective, that greatsword would probably have been resting on Kiyomi’s neck right there in the meeting room.

Because the other three wanted to stop Aldric.

Kiyomi, on the other hand, needed him to keep growing stronger.

The Fox Spirit dipped her fingertip into the tea, then slowly drew on the tabletop.

A circle.

Then several thin lines radiating outward.

Kiyomi looked at the drawing as memories from the previous life surfaced.

In the final phase, Aldric had come very close to a realm that no one on the entire continent had reached in thousands of years.

Demigod.

No longer entirely human.

But not yet among the ranks of the divine.

By then Kiyomi had already lost her magic veins and could no longer participate in the great battles, but she still remembered the reports that came back.

Aldric had touched the rules governing the soul.

Had once caused a creature that was already dead to live again for a short time.

And he had once said something.

"When I truly become a Demigod, life and death will be just another set of rules that can be rewritten."

Many people dismissed it as boasting.

Kiyomi had also doubted it at the time.

Until she saw with her own eyes a body that had been cold for days open its eyes.

It lasted less than a quarter of an hour.

But it had lived.

Enough to make Kiyomi understand that Aldric had not been entirely lying.

If he took one more step forward, he might truly be able to do it.

She looked at the surface of the tea in the cup.

The image of her parents appeared again.

The people of her clan who had died.

The people she wanted to pull back but couldn’t.

A very small sigh escaped her lips.

"As long as he becomes a Demigod..."

Kiyomi’s fingertip stopped on the tabletop.

"I can see everyone again."

That was what she truly wanted.

Not the Saintess title.

Not revenge.

Even the fact that Aldric had once deceived her, exploited her, then ripped out her magic veins no longer mattered as much as that.

Kiyomi hated Aldric.

She wanted to tear apart the face that had smiled at her while she lay on the stone altar.

But she needed him.

At least until he became a Demigod.

Kiyomi raised the cup to her lips but didn’t drink.

"Where exactly did he fail in the last life?"

The answer wasn’t just one thing.

Too many people had turned against Aldric.

Too many fortuitous encounters were destroyed.

Too many women had eventually seen his true face.

But Kiyomi remembered one turning point clearly.

Lathel died.

After his death, Anna changed completely.

Empress Catherine also entered the final war.

Another mysterious woman appeared.

A great many people who could have continued standing on the sidelines began fighting Aldric together.

A death that seemed insignificant had ultimately dragged in far too many variables.

Kiyomi smiled faintly.

"Lathel."

Her fingertip wrote that name on the tabletop in tea.

"You really are a nuisance."

A person with no great power.

No status.

Who couldn’t even speak.

Yet wherever he appeared, the people around him began to change.

He saved.

He warned.

He took the losses.

And afterward, the people he had once treated well turned one by one to look at Aldric with different eyes.

In the previous life, Kiyomi had realized it far too late.

Lathel didn’t need to defeat Aldric himself.

Simply by existing long enough, he could make the people around Aldric walk away.

"You’re a stone in the path."

Kiyomi’s voice was very soft.

She used the tip of her nail to draw a circle around Lathel’s name.

If Aldric was to become a Demigod, the trajectory of the previous life couldn’t be disrupted too early.

The fortuitous encounters needed to appear.

The magic veins he needed had to be taken.

The useful relationships also had to be maintained long enough.

And Lathel, in the end, still had to die.

The smile on Kiyomi’s lips didn’t change.

"But he can’t be killed too soon."

That was the problem.

Lathel was still very useful.

In the previous life, he had saved no small number of people who should have died, and had uncovered many secrets that even the great powers had overlooked. Some of the people he saved later became critical links in other events.

Even the four Saintess candidates were only alive because he had brought the Judicator in time.

Kiyomi didn’t want to discard something this useful before she had wrung out every last drop.

She propped her chin on her hand, golden eyes narrowing slightly.

"You’re too kind."

That was Lathel’s greatest weakness.

A selfish person was very hard to manipulate.

You had to offer money.

Offer power.

Or show them a benefit large enough.

Lathel was far simpler.

All it took was someone who needed saving.

Kiyomi had watched with her own eyes as he turned back to help a person who had just been mocking him.

Had watched him keep warning people even though no one believed him.

Had watched him throw himself into danger simply because someone else might die.

She dipped her fingertip in the tea once more.

"Before you die..."

A new line of water appeared beside Lathel’s name.

"I have to use up every last bit of that kindness."

If there was someone Lathel could save, she would let him save them.

If there was an event that needed someone willing to sacrifice without asking for anything in return, he was the perfect choice.

If the price was injury, blood, or a bit of lifespan...

Lathel could pay it willingly on his own.

Kiyomi laughed very softly.

"I won’t even need to force you."

All she had to do was place someone who needed saving in front of him.

Then tell the truth.

If you don’t go, that person will die.

Lathel would step forward on his own.

The Fox Spirit looked at the name on the table, not a flicker of hesitation in her eyes.

"Drain every last drop of your value."

"Then kill you."

She said both things in a tone no different from arranging the order of a few tasks for the day.

But right at that moment, the hand holding the cup trembled slightly.

Kiyomi noticed.

The smile on her lips stiffened for an instant.

The memory from the dream came rushing back.

Father.

Mother.

The silhouettes walking away.

She immediately gripped the cup tighter.

"I don’t have a choice."

For the first time, her voice lost its teasing edge.

If Aldric didn’t become a Demigod, the people who had died would never come back.

If he failed the same way as the last life, she would have to keep living with those dreams.

Kiyomi didn’t want that.

She had already lost them once.

She couldn’t lose them again.

After a while, the trembling in her hand disappeared.

The alluring smile also returned.

"So, Lathel..."

Kiyomi leaned slightly toward the empty chair across the table, as though the man she was speaking of were truly sitting there.

"Be a dear and keep playing the good person for a little while longer."

Her fingertip gently touched the name on the table.

"Keep saving the people who need saving."

"Keep sacrificing when others need you to."

"I’ll make use of every bit of it."

Kiyomi smiled.

"And then, before you can make everything veer off Aldric’s path..."

A sharp nail dragged across Lathel’s name.

The line of water instantly split the name in two.

"I’ll kill you myself."

She straightened up, raised the cup, and took a sip.

Her expression was as calm as if she had never said anything frightening at all.

Kiyomi looked toward the Academy in the distance.

"This time, Aldric must become a Demigod."

Her voice was very small but certain.

"No matter how many people have to serve as stepping stones."

She paused.

Her gaze fell to the name on the table, now crossed through.

"Including you."

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