My Daughters Are Regressors - Chapter 152: My name is Ha Taeho. And I... (3)

In fact, I was quite curious.But some curiosities would just end as that.

Because they were questions no one could answer.

If I kept asking “What existed before the Big Bang? And before that? And before that?” Eventually, the day would come when I’d give up saying, “I don’t know”.

There was no point in carrying questions in my head all day that I knew would never be answered.The clock honestly ticks away second by second, and sooner or later, I’d get hungry and need to work. In the face of survival, questions like “Who am I?” lose their significance.

But still.I harbored one question that would never fade, sharp like a dagger in my heart.

It was “Why was I taken to this world?”I had just gone to the convenience store to buy ice cream.Because ice cream is delicious.It was the cone type, decorated with chocolate chips on top.

But when I came to my senses, I was dropped onto this Pangea continent.Ever since then, I kept pondering and asking.

Why exactly?What was the problem?

Could the ice cream be the issue?If I had bought a popsicle instead of a cone, or one of the other 31 flavors, could I have avoided this suffering?Why exactly?Of course, no one answered, and I just buried it in my heart.But now, the being before me just revealed the truth.

『Yes, stolen one. I have stolen thee from a distant land.』

Nocturne told me it was him who stole me.Regardless of which ice cream I chose, I was destined to be stolen by this creature.

“Why me, of all people?”

『You were suitable as my vessel. I seduced and deceived the woman of this land and made her open the door to another world to steal you.』

“…Don’t tell me it was Elle Cladeco?”

『It was her, indeed.』

“Was Elle Cladeco’s husband also you?”

『He was one of the vessels I stole. But it didn’t matter who it was. The predetermined outcome was for you to come to this land, become my vessel, and become me.』

“……”

『From the beginning, you were destined to be my vessel. I am that result. The result that is me, merely created the process that is you, and brought it into place.』

It was complicated.Honestly, I knew nothing about magic, so I couldn’t understand.

Then he looked at me with a face full of pity.His expression was so compassionate that I almost found myself kneeling down and praying to him.He said.

『So release me now. You plan to keep me trapped and sealed within your mental world. Yes, to conclude, you will succeed. Your willpower is strong.』

“Then stay put.”

『But even if you seal me away, you’ll die in 25 years. I will reappear 100 years from now, by which time you’ll be gone.』

A pretty horrific prediction.To think that I would die in 25 years.Did I just get my death spoiled?

It was certain that I wouldn’t die a peaceful death.Considering that I would be sharing a body with this incarnation of a nightmare for 25 years. A life worse than death awaited me for those 25 years.

But what of it?Better than actually dying.And better than losing everything.

To be honest…I was hesitating.It was a deadly temptation, a fight against myself.

『I have plenty of time. 25 years, 100 years, it’s less than a speck of dust on a mountain. I can wait as long as it takes.”

He said this and then sat cross-legged in the air.

His hands forming a seal looked almost like a Buddha, yet it was astounding to find a Buddha that was so blasphemous and yet, at the same time radiated a holy aura.But I couldn’t be completely relieved.

Because my ‘flesh’ that had almost lost control to him was unleashing a tremendous force.

I thought my body was on the verge of bursting through the enlarged Molumolu, and my means to stop it were limited.My only option was to fight the nightmare before me and regain control of my consciousness.

If even a single moment of attack succeeded, my body would falter, and in that interval, heroes of the world including Brigitte would cast all sorts of firepower─but then I’d die!If I die, my daughters won’t be born!

Damn it.That was the problem.It was crappy that the problem wouldn’t end with just killing me.

“Indeed, the only way is for me to kill you.”

All I had to do was kill Nocturne.That would solve everything.

Sounds too simple?They say that’s the nature of truth.It’s called truth because it’s simple enough for even a fool to understand.

I readied myself again.Moments ago, I had unleashed dozens, hundreds of attacks on him, and I too had dodged a similar number of attacks, but we were equally matched.He was very much like me.

“The heart… what matters is the heart….”

But now, I intend to use what I call the ‘restrictions’ of my heart. To be precise, I planned to use my passive skill.The poorer I got, the stronger I became, and the wealthier, the weaker.

“Just lighten the load. Don’t regret it.”

I hypnotized myself with words.Making a resolution.

“I’ll erase the memories of my university days.”

I decided to delete the memories of my university days from my memory storage.

That I had attended university─it was a rather precious experience, so I openly bragged about being a university graduate to everyone here. But it couldn’t be helped anymore.I was someone who grew stronger as I became poorer.

Ssshhh…The buildings of the university and all its connections that had been floating in the air scattered like dust. Along with it, all the memories from my elementary school days to high school disappeared all at once.

Surprisingly, I began to forget that I had attended school – no memories related to it, associated people, or even their faces came to mind.

Yet, strength surged through my arms and legs like never before.I kicked at the air with that power.Whoosh-! As if trucks running at 240 km/h had collided, a loud crash sounded, and I closed the gap to Nocturne’s neck in an instant.

『Have you begun to enter the realm of transcendence, Asura? If you let go of yourself like that, you won’t remain. Even if you defeat me, you will no longer be Judas─.』

Slash—!My palm aimed for Nocturne’s neck, so he couldn’t speak and leaped back to create distance.My strength was still insufficient to catch him.

Many things floating in the air turned to dust and scattered.Blood seemed to boil in me again, and I drew a butterfly knife from my waist and charged at Nocturne. He always looked relaxed, but his face turned serious at the sight of my knife.

『I won’t be able to possess your soul entirely this time either.』

Swish— Swish—!My butterfly knife fluttered through the air, targeting Nocturne’s neck and heart.Of course, he dodged my attacks with an easy smile.

『What memory will you discard now?』

“……”

I didn’t speak.But I saw a family photo floating in space being erased. It was the memory of my family from the 21st century.

My blood-related family.

They were precious memories, but I was fated never to meet them, and I forgot the existence of a family, my family, of my mother and father who gave birth to me.And my younger sister as a bonus.

『How does it feel to be an orphan?』

Nocturne asked.This time, instead of attacking him, I contemplated what I could do. My power was strong now.But, to be honest, it still wasn’t enough to defeat the being standing before me.

The stronger my power grew, the sharper my senses became in understanding him.

He was like a planet that had lived a long life.A living planet, yet harboring malice.I was facing a planet now.

Boom—!Then my body shook.It was an external shock.Regaining clarity, I sensed something changing rapidly through my body. Someone had entered the giant barrier created by Molumolu.They looked very much like someone I knew, and astonishingly, except for one, they were SSR princesses.

“Cecily? Hina?”

Hina and Cecily had grown into the SSR princesses I had hoped for.What happened?Did they undergo a Gigantamax evolution while I was away?

But Naru…

Why is Naru still a child?Where is SSR Naru?

The older Cecily and the older Hina were waiting for the older Naru.They had promised to meet again in front of this grand Molumolu after dealing with their pasts.But.When they had waited for a long time, it wasn’t the older Naru who appeared but the younger Naru.

“Fuck this shit.”

Twenty-five-year-old Cecily cursed with a frown, her profanity shockingly vulgar for her refined face, enough to make onlookers grimace.Wouldn’t only mercenaries who lived hand-to-mouth curse like this?

Yet, even so, SSR Princess Cecily’s character remained unblemished.A single curse couldn’t tarnish her, for Cecily had trained herself well.Cecily asked the younger Naru.

“Hey! Naru, why are you here!? Where’s Naru!?”

At that question, Naru suddenly raised her hand.

“Naru is Naru!”

“…No…”

The older Cecily recalled the distant past.The Naru of yesteryears had this incommunicable aspect.The reason was simple.Naru had been gravely ill in Brigitte’s womb, which led to speculation that something might have gone wrong then.Although she improved with age, at 6 years old, Naru was a bit… like that.

‘Naru, this girl. Just when I thought she had calmed down with age. To send her 6-year-old self at such a critical moment, what is she thinking…!? You shouldn’t meet your past self!’

The older Cecily was horrified.And she turned to look at the older Hina.

The older Hina was equally shocked, yet she sensed that the older Naru must have had some reason. The older Naru was a tomboy but also the leader of Erinyes, as annoying as she could be.

“…What did Naru say?”

Hina asked Naru.Then Naru answered.

“She told me to help Dad!”

That was it.Hina and Cecily looked at each other, nodded, and then, grabbing Naru, they squeezed through the lush body of Molumolu and entered the barrier.

Inside, they saw Judas sitting cross-legged.As if he were a wooden statue, completely motionless.The older Hina said,

“Cecily, as planned, we’re going to separate our minds. It seems Dad hasn’t fused with Nocturne yet, so we might be able to detach it.”

When Naru, Cecily, and Hina turned 25, magic engineering had developed dazzlingly.Especially Hina and Naru, who had dedicated their lives to helping their mothers separate Nocturne from Judas, and they actually managed to develop that miracle.

But the future Judas and Nocturne had already become one like a shadow and its body. Judas lost consciousness on the day Naru, Hina, and Cecily turned 6 and fell into a coma.

And he never woke up, ultimately passing away on the day the children turned 25.Before collapsing, Judas regretted.

━I hesitated. I… If I hadn’t hesitated then…

He regretted endlessly.And unable to open his eyes again, he closed them forever.

And so, the three sisters resolved.To return to the past, to the time before Nocturne and Judas had merged, and to separate Nocturne.For this plan, the three sisters suffered for a long, really long time.

Cecily and Hina hammered iron pillars around Nocturne. It was an enchantment like the constellations in the sky, and Nocturne did not open his eyes despite the noise.

Crackle—!Finally, the iron pillars emitted a huge pull, creating sharp revolving waves.The waves were so intense that even Naru’s hair stood on end, but the man struck by it still did not stir.

To Cecily and Hina, Nocturne now seemed like a chrysalis.As if melting his own body inside the chrysalis of flesh, preparing to metamorphose into a butterfly or something else.This made Cecily deeply anxious.

“There’s no response from the soul on the modified compass either. He must have sunk too deep into his subconscious. Have we come too late…? To turn back time again, we would need to gather at least twenty years of magical energy….”

“He’s like a dead body… Not even breathing. Really like a corpse… He’s no longer what you’d call human… Similar to when he was in a coma….”

Hina and Cecily hoped for some reaction from Judas.But the current Judas just looked like an inanimate object, like a stone or rock.

…However, to the present Naru, this man was simply her father.Clumsy at times, never having said he loved her, but showing it more than anyone through his actions, Naru’s one and only father.

“Dad…”

Naru slowly approached her father and hugged his neck tightly.Twitch—Then, Judas’s eyebrows, which had shown no response, moved slightly.As if trying to respond to something.

Cecily and Hina were greatly surprised by this.

“…Hina… Have we just grown up wrong…?””I don’t know…, our childhood wasn’t… exactly pleasant… The experiences of one’s early years shape a person’s character until the moment they die….”

Hina and Cecily seemed to understand why the elder Naru had passed the task to the younger one. Cecily, Hina, and Naru had grown too big to run to their father and hug his body.After all, they were now the same age as their father.

And an SSR princess should not embrace people carelessly,even if they were family, like a mother or father.

An SSR princess was, so to speak, like a celestial nymph or angel who had descended to earth. She had to maintain her dignity at all times, anywhere.It was truly a strict rule.Being an SSR princess was, in fact, closer to strict rules and purity than being a person.

But the current Naru was just a child.She knew nothing of SSR princesses or princess power, and even if she did, she wouldn’t care.

“Dad needs to wake up…!”

Naru simply cried her heart out in her immobile father’s embrace, while Cecily and Hina, witnessing this, trembled so much that they couldn’t proceed with their work.

Swish— Swish—Someone else entered Molumolu’s embrace.

It was the younger versions of Cecily and Hina.They had followed Naru.

“I… I’ve grown so much…!”

Cecily was astonished.There she was, having become a truly magnificent noble lady. No, this was beyond nobility.Since Cecily did not yet know of something greater than nobility, she could not find the words to describe it.The elder Cecily frowned, “Oh my, I shouldn’t encounter my past self─.” Just then, the younger Hina asked the elder Hina.

“Is the future me… winning against Naru…?”

To that question, the elder Hina held up two fingers.

“…Losing by two matches.”

“Grrrr…!”

The younger Hina shuddered violently.Then the elder Hina laughed softly.

“…But things are going to change again.”

***

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