Reader’S Regeneration Life [EN]: Chapter 196

196―――――

What are you going to do?

All the women Zion had seen so far:

Lilith, Princess Vanessa, Jhan of Liana in the North, and even Trisha.

All of them possessed a form very similar to what he had seen in the novel, even if not exactly as it was.

It wasn’t Kim Yu-hyun, who was hard to communicate with and questionable about whether a sex life was even possible; everyone showed a relatively softer side than in the novel.

And Lucia, until now, had been exactly as she was in the novel.

Her incredibly warm atmosphere and the way she subtly captivated people’s hearts, as well as her approach to those who, like Kim Yu-hyun, tried to hide their feelings, were all the same.

But, that being said, was she as aggressive as she is now?

If asked that question, Zion would answer, ‘No.’

‘I really didn’t expect those words to come out of Lucia’s mouth.’

It seemed like something had changed slightly, but Zion couldn’t figure out the reason.

Clearly, in the novel, Lucia was a woman who blushed in front of Kim Yu-hyun and acted cute, begging for a kiss or two, and she had never been this proactive.

Rather, Lilith, the succubus queen, was much more aggressive when it came to making advances.

“Aren’t you taking my joke too seriously?”

Lucia asked with a slightly embarrassed smile, as if she thought Zion’s reaction was strange.

Zion pondered for a moment, wondering how to start a conversation to find out the reason for the current situation, and then exclaimed ‘Aha!’ in his mind and said,

“It’s just a bit unexpected.”

“Unexpected?”

“Kim Yu-hyun once said that Lucia is as warm as the spring sunshine. Like she unknowingly embraces people, or something?”

“…Yu-hyun? He said that?”

Rather than being embarrassed, she tilted her head, reacting as if to say, ‘He’s not the type to say that.’

In fact, that line was what Kim Yu-hyun had said to Lucia later, after the Holy War and during the fierce battle against the large-scale appearance of the Celestials [powerful beings from another realm].

In other words, it was a line that would come out of Kim Yu-hyun’s mouth at least half a year later, so it was only natural that Lucia would tilt her head now.

“Oh… that’s unexpected. I didn’t know Yu-hyun was that kind of person.”

“Then what kind of person do you think he is?”

“If I had to say… he seems more rigid and stronger than my father, but on the inside, he’s actually very vulnerable, I guess?”

Zion burst out laughing at Lucia’s accurate answer.

Even though she wasn’t that close to Kim Yu-hyun, unlike in the novel, he was impressed that she knew Kim Yu-hyun’s true nature so accurately.

“But why are you suddenly asking about Yu-hyun?”

At Lucia’s question, Zion hesitated for a moment and then decided to try a little prank.

“I heard that Kim Yu-hyun spent quite a bit of time under Raido’s care. I thought he would naturally be a little close to Lucia too, so maybe…”

“Ah, I see what you mean. There’s no such thing as friends between a man and a woman, something like that?”

“That’s roughly it.”

Then Lucia covered her mouth and started giggling.

The gentle curve of her eyes and the comforting smile made it clear why Kim Yu-hyun had ultimately chosen her from among the many heroine candidates.

“Well, to be honest, it felt like a wolf had come in rather than a man. I was scared at first because he was so wary of people and reacted so sharply, you know?”

“Pfft! Cough, cough! I understand. I was definitely scared when I first saw Kim Yu-hyun, wondering if I was going to die.”

“Right. But as time passed, I realized that what you see on the outside isn’t everything. There are people like that, right? People who have been hurt so much that they try to pretend they’re okay, try to act strong, and prevent others from approaching.”

“Lucia talks as if she knows what kind of life Kim Yu-hyun has lived.”

At Zion’s words, Lucia gave a slightly nonsensical explanation, saying, ‘I can roughly see it. I pride myself on having an eye for people, even though I look like this!’

Thanks to that, Zion smiled again, and she pouted, saying, ‘I’m serious!’

“Anyway, I don’t have those feelings for Yu-hyun. I just desperately hope he doesn’t cause trouble like my father.”

“That’s a relief.”

At those words, Lucia exclaimed ‘Huh?’ and then suddenly had a strange expression.

Then, she took a rather provocative pose, like Lilith, and looked at Zion.

Perhaps because she was in the middle of practicing martial arts, all she was wearing was a pair of hot pants.

She had taken off her top and thrown it somewhere, barely covering her chest with an elastic bandage.

Beneath it, the firm thighs and calves of the woman sparkled in the late afternoon sunset.

“Were you jealous? That Yu-hyun and I were as close as you thought?”

With her unusual, provocative eyes, smile, and words, Zion wondered for a moment if he was facing Lilith, who had transformed.

“…Did Lilith teach you this?”

He blurted out, just in case.

But Lucia was immediately deflated by Zion’s words.

“Huh? H, how did you know?”

“It’s a bit… different from the usual Lucia, somehow.”

‘As expected,’ Zion thought, smiling, and Lucia blushed and hurriedly tried to cover her expression with the book about the mysteries of the human body that she was reading.

Thanks to that, the heart drawn on the cover of the book was even more emphasized.

“…Was it weird?”

After hiding behind the book for a while, Lucia asked, and Zion shook his head.

It wasn’t weird, but rather new.

“Lucia. You said that Kim Yu-hyun seems like someone with many inner wounds who tries to pretend he’s okay?”

“Yes. Should I say he’s a typical example of being strong on the outside and soft on the inside?”

“Then what about me?”

“…Zion?”

“Yes.”

He was a little curious to hear what Lucia would say.

She probably didn’t know, but the original owner of this body had vowed to take revenge on Kim Yu-hyun, and despite not even having one arm, he somehow managed to survive and eventually sided with the Celestials, luring Kim Yu-hyun into a trap and capturing Lucia, who had relatively many weaknesses, ultimately inflicting a rage on Kim Yu-hyun that made his blood boil.

Because of that, some comments occasionally said that if Zion Claussen had been an ally instead of an enemy, Kim Yu-hyun might have had it a little easier.

Unlike Kim Yu-hyun, who always moved forward honestly, Zion Claussen was quite good at dirty tricks.

‘Maybe she’ll say I seem to have a few dark schemes hidden inside.’

While Zion was waiting for an answer with a bit of anxiety, Lucia put the book on her lap and stared at the man in front of her for a moment before slowly opening her mouth.

“I don’t know.”

“…Huh?”

“I don’t know what to say.

When I first saw Zion, I really thought he was a thug, just like the rumors said. But suddenly, his atmosphere and eyes changed, and I wondered if he was really the same person.”

‘Wow, this is quite sharp.’

Lucia, who was completely unaware that Zion was slightly surprised and smiling as if nothing was wrong, continued to speak.

“After meeting and experiencing various things, and always watching Zion from behind, I started to think it was strange. I wondered what that man was doing all that for; he’s a man whose inner thoughts I can’t understand.”

“…”

“Sometimes he seems weak and surrendering, but then when I look back, he shows a more intense and firm will than anyone else, and on top of that, he has an incomprehensible confident appearance. Honestly, I’m still amazed by Zion. It’s like he’s not the same person.”

Indeed, they say a woman’s intuition is scary.

Worrying that if they continued the conversation any longer, she might really say, ‘Where did you come from!’, Zion decided to subtly change the subject.

“I heard the story from Raido. Even though he couldn’t properly handle the stigma [a magical mark] yet and didn’t have much mana [magical energy], he practically played with an opponent who had excellent practical sense from his naval life and pirate captain life, right?”

“I was lucky. The opponent looked down on me, and since there was nothing to gain from dragging out the time, the captain was impatient and made mistakes.”

“What kind of mistakes?”

“His breathing was a mess, and he forgot that his body was a mess too. Zion would agree that someone who had just swam to shore for his life isn’t a very threatening presence, right?”

‘That’s true,’ Zion nodded, agreeing with Lucia’s opinion.

But even if there was that reason, it wasn’t like Lucia wasn’t particularly outstanding.

In any case, the captain had clearly used the stigma, and even Lilith, the strongest person except for Kim Yu-hyun, was wary of that power.

Lucia had slammed that stigma user into the ground in less than 10 minutes without even trying.

“I was a little surprised that there was someone else besides Trisha who possessed such power, and knowing that such a person was standing on the opposite side of Zion and almost tried to harm him.”

“Come to think of it, Lucia doesn’t know the details yet. Lilith isn’t the type to be so talkative.”

“That’s something I know well. She talks a lot about Zion, but when I ask about other things, she immediately shuts her mouth, and that’s when I feel like she’s a demon.”

“Does Lucia want to know why I’m going through all this hardship to the point of being desperate?”

He couldn’t keep it a secret forever.

The Southern matter was over, so now all that was left was the Holy War and the conflict between the different races and humans.

After that was the climax of the novel and the apocalypse itself, the return of the Celestials.

Until now, if he said he did this and that for the sake of the kingdom, everyone would believe him, but if the opponent became the Celestials, even those close to Zion wouldn’t know what to do.

Still, everyone on the continent, not only humans but also most of the different races, knew that the Celestials were good, righteous beings who opposed evil.

‘Even if they know, the shock will be great, but it’s better than being caught off guard without knowing anything. Preparation is that important.’

Lilith was a demon who didn’t think well of the Celestials from the start.

And she seemed to have a rough idea of what the Celestials were up to.

Trisha now seemed like she would burn everything, Celestials or whatever, if he told her to, and Lia had become a well-behaved house cat who would hiss a little but would understand if he explained it to her.

Jhan of the North, who came from the Northern barbarian tribes far from the light worshippers who believed in the Celestials, had nothing to worry about.

So, Zion thought it would be better to briefly explain the situation to Lucia first, who was most likely to have positive thoughts about the existence of the Celestials among them.

Of course, just briefly.

The knowledge he had, or rather the future, hadn’t happened yet, and it was so shocking to ordinary people that he had to be careful, very careful, as it could lead to misunderstandings that he was a minion of the demons.

‘Come to think of it, there’s Kim Yu-hyun too… but that guy would trust my words more than the Celestial gang. Honestly, he’s never lost out by listening to me, has he?’

Like the trials or temptations that are always given to the protagonist, Kim Yu-hyun had received love calls from the Celestials several times in the original novel.

Several times before he knew the true intentions of the Celestials, and even while the Celestials were causing a ruckus called the purification of the continent.

Of course, Kim Yu-hyun, who wasn’t a human of the continent and believed that the present life was the best, whether people died and went to heaven or hell, had no reason to listen to the Celestials’ nonsense.

So much so that there were even comments saying that he was provoking them at the level of a Jindo dog [a breed of Korean hunting dog known for its loyalty and independence].

“…Okay. I wanted to hear directly from Zion what he’s thinking now.”

Saying that, Lucia got up from her seat, exclaimed ‘Ah,’ and then hurriedly opened her mouth.

“Ah, I think I need to wash first. I’m covered in sweat and dust from practicing this and that.”

“It’s okay. There’s still plenty of time, so take your time…”

“…Do you want to go together?”

At Lucia’s sudden words, Zion exclaimed ‘Huh?’ again.

He wondered if he had misheard something, but as he looked at Lucia, who was twisting her body as if she was very embarrassed but not avoiding his gaze, Zion realized that her words were not just acting or a joke.

“Th, that… I, I said I had something to tell you, right? But waiting while I wash would be a waste of time for Zion, so… wouldn’t it be nice to tell you the story while w, washing together! H, hence!”

It seemed that the influence of Lilith, combined with Lucia’s own feelings, had overlapped.

Zion looked at Lucia, who was standing in front of him, twisting her body and making a face as if to say, ‘Answer me quickly! Whether it’s a rejection or acceptance!’, and finally burst out laughing.

He really didn’t expect her to change this much.

It seemed that her attitude was different when taking care of Kim Yu-hyun, who was the strong on the outside and soft on the inside type, and when dealing with Zion, who was literally ‘strong strong strong strong strong’ himself.

Or maybe it was because she had many competitors and was feeling impatient.

“Is that using the wish ticket?”

“Huh?”

“You have one wish ticket, right? I’m asking if you’re using it now.”

Just as Lucia was about to reflexively answer yes to Zion’s question.

Suddenly, the woman’s eyes sparkled and she glanced at Zion before opening her mouth.

“That’s not it. A wish ticket is something you use when you want me to grant you something you want, right?”

“Right?”

“When I said let’s shower together, Zion’s eyes sparkled a lot, even though he pretended not to. Like the eyes of someone who received a gift they wanted, should I say? So what I mean is, I don’t think I need to use the wish ticket because Zion will grant my request anyway.”

“…”

“Isn’t that right?”

‘Isn’t that right’ my ass.

In fact, Zion had imagined showering together for a moment when Lucia said she wanted to wash.

‘I’m not impotent mentally like Kim Yu-hyun, or physically like Prince Erader!’

‘Isn’t this normal?’

Zion shouted inwardly, asserting his righteousness.

Of course, he only wore a vague smile on the outside.

“What are you going to do, Zion?”

―――――――Author’s Note―――――――

You’re stating the obvious!