Omniscient First-Person’s Viewpoint

The regressor had fallen asleep on top of me, completely unaware even if the ground had collapsed beneath us. Given that her hammock had actually collapsed, it wasn’t even an exaggeration. I twitched reflexively, turned into a makeshift bed, and the regressor groaned with a frown.

"Mmnn..."

My first thought was: I’m screwed. That was the only one. This emotional, irrational regressor wouldn’t hesitate a second to kill me, even though she’s the one who crawled in here in the first place.

The one that visits you at night is supposed to be a fairy, not a lunatic who chops off people’s arms like it’s a hobby. What the hell happened? Why is there a bomb lying on my chest?!

I glanced up. The rope tying her hammock had slackened and sagged. Looks like after being left alone in this abandoned camp for so long, the hammock lost its tension just as the regressor climbed on. It didn’t snap, but instead slipped slowly until she ended up sinking down—still asleep.

Damn it, what rotten luck.

Right now, the regressor is like a bomb. Wake her? She explodes. Don’t wake her? She’ll wake up eventually—and still explode. However this ends, it ends with me getting blown to pieces. Even though I didn’t do anything wrong!

But I’m a magician. No matter how bad things get, I’m supposed to escape gracefully. I quickly took stock of my options: a few spirits, my own body, and the remnants of the hammock holding the regressor up.

All right. That’s it. Levitation magic.

Levitation magic is usually done with thin threads. Whether the trick succeeds depends on how smoothly and naturally you move the object strung on the thread.

I’ve never lifted someone over 50 kilograms before, but now that I’ve gotten stronger, maybe I can pull it off.

Let’s feel the center of gravity. Her face is on my chest, body curled up like a shrimp. I anchored the left rope to the wall with my left foot. Then wrapped the right rope around my right foot and pulled. The hammock tightened slightly.

I took a slow breath and carefully adjusted the balance, then began to lift the rope.

“...!”

Even with all my strength, lifting a person with a hammock was no joke. On top of that, pulling the ropes with my limbs made my entire body feel like it was being wrung out.

But fear of death can summon great strength. Slowly, the regressor’s hammock began to rise.

Good. Just keep lifting. Once I fix the rope to the wall with earth magic and alchemy, I’ll slide out from underneath.

Guess all that time as a magician wasn’t wasted. I’m managing to pull this stunt off without letting the regressor fall.

She floated about 10 centimeters above me. That’s plenty of room. I fused the rope and the wall with alchemy, then started to slide out while supporting the opposite rope. Just a bit more and I can re-tie it and be done.

Saved. I was just starting to feel relieved when—

My eyes locked with Azzy’s.

“Woof?”

Why are you standing there staring at me?

She froze like a guilty criminal caught red-handed. Then, just as she opened her mouth, she grinned and said cheerfully, “You awake? Are you up?”

“Shh. Can’t you tell? She’s still asleep, so don’t bark.”

“Woof? She’s still sleeping! I’m good at waking people!”

“Shut up! Don’t light the fuse! Just let her sleep!”

Of all times—why now?! Move! I have to get out of here!

"Mmm..."

But I had forgotten one critical fact.

Humans move. And when they move, their center of gravity shifts. And when the center of gravity shifts while hanging by a thread—everything flips.

In an instant, the hammock flipped over. The regressor, who had been floating above, suddenly plummeted.

In that fleeting moment, she jolted awake, grabbed Tianying, and swung it.

Tianying’s defensive stance, Heaven’s Circle, always prepares for retaliation—whether the wielder is conscious or not. Even in sleep, it targets anything approaching with precision and speed.

Even if that “enemy” is the regressor herself, approaching from above.

Tianying slashed toward my neck. If she were fully awake, I could read her intent and react with mind-reading, but this was a reflex. A trained motion. No intent to read, no time to react. All I could do was pray that I’d regenerate.

“Huh? Hughes?”

Right then, the regressor snapped awake fully and stopped her swing just in time. But in that instant, her balance collapsed. The hammock swayed wildly and flipped. The world spun two, three times.

“Ah!”

The result: the regressor and I became tangled up in the hammock like a pair of tightly wound cocoons.

I had watched the entire sequence unfold and knew exactly how it had gone so wrong. But the regressor, freshly awakened and clueless, yelled in confusion.

“Wh-what the hell?! Why are you in my bed?!”

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

“My bed?! That’s what I should be asking! You’re the one who fell into my hammock!”

“What are you talking about?! There’s no way I wouldn’t notice if I fell!”

“Exactly! And there’s no way I wouldn’t notice if I crawled into your bed! Not that I have any reason to, anyway!”

“Then why are you here with me?!”

“That’s my line! Why didn’t you wake up while crawling over here?! If you had, we could’ve avoided all this embarrassment!”

Thankfully, my head did not end up separated from my neck. At least she had enough self-restraint now to ask before decapitating me. How kind. Never mind that I’m the victim here.

“Just get off me!”

The regressor reached out and slashed with Tianying. Slice—the rope was cut, and both of us tumbled to the floor with a loud thud. She looked stunned at how quickly the ground arrived.

‘Wait, this really is the bottom? I was sleeping up there. What? Then I really did fall into Hughes’s hammock? Why? How?’

Don’t ask why—if you’re leaving, just leave already! Before—!

“It’s awfully noisy in there. Are you both awake?”

It was then that the door burst open—and Rash stopped dead in his tracks, frozen mid-step. Before him was a sight he hadn’t expected: the regressor and I, tangled together in the hammock like one single mass. She had been wriggling, trying to pull herself free, which left us nearly pressed together.

Wow. So this is what it looked like from an outside perspective. I mean, ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) it seriously looked like we’d been caught cheating.

Both the regressor and I froze, completely unsure of what to say. While we stood there like a couple of deer in headlights, Rash scratched his chin, glanced toward the door, and muttered awkwardly.

“Well, now. Must’ve been a chilly night.”

Rash muttered to himself like he hadn’t seen anything. Then Azzy barked in response, ever so helpfully.

“Woof? It wasn’t cold! Kinda warm!”

...And unlike what I expected, the regressor remained surprisingly quiet. She finished her meal in silence, sulking, and without saying much more, urged us to move on with the journey.

I offered an explanation using bits of circumstantial evidence and clues, and though she listened carefully, she couldn’t find a single hole in my story. Eventually, she grudgingly accepted that the whole thing had been an accident.

And honestly, it wasn’t even that big of a deal. The hammock had slipped, she’d fallen—it was annoying, sure, but hardly the end of the world. Something we could just move past.

‘No, this doesn’t make any sense! I’ve mastered Heaven’s Circle. Even asleep, I should’ve noticed someone getting that close!’

Yet the regressor was visibly rattled, her expression a mix of confusion and frustration. The calm before the storm, I realized, and carefully observed her thoughts.

‘Have I been too lax with him? But no one’s ever managed to get that close to me within Heaven’s Circle. Is it because it was him? Or is Hughes just that weak?’

Funny how I’m the one who got attacked, yet I’m the one who has to explain myself. The woes of the weak, I suppose.

‘No. It must be because of the blessing. The Saintess’s blessing made me lower my guard. Everything’s been going too smoothly lately, so I must’ve relaxed too much...’

Then, as she brooded over her thoughts, something seemed to click. Her head tilted slightly.

‘...Everything has been going smoothly, so why would the hammock just happen to slip while I was asleep? That’s not exactly a good omen, is it?’

“Teacher.”

“Yes, Rash?”

We were walking again—more like dragging our feet, really, from exhaustion. Rash sidled up beside me and whispered quietly.

“I too had to overcome many hurdles to find love. Differences in culture, traditions, resistance from our communities, even physical compatibility. But through it all, we endured and found our way. It was possible because we both had the strength and resolve to make it so.”

“That’s... an awfully sudden confession. And kind of terrifying, honestly.”

Clearly misunderstanding something in a very big way, Rash continued in a tone full of concern.

“But the boy... he’s still young. He doesn’t yet understand the weight of those trials. As a teacher, shouldn’t you at least prepare him for the difficulty of the road ahead? Especially when gender, identity, and society itself pose so many barriers.”

God knows what happened while I was away, but Rash was now offering me the wisdom of a man who’d wrung his own life dry for experience... or so he thought.

“What are you even talking about? Didn’t you hear me earlier? She’s the one who fell into my hammock, and I didn’t do a damn thing! I was half-suffocating under sleep paralysis until I woke up!”

If she’d said she was coming in, maybe I’d understand. But this was an accident for me, too! The regressor might not see me as a threat, but she also doesn’t get emotionally attached to someone she plans to abandon in this iteration. If I’d made one wrong move, she would’ve stabbed me before I could even read her thoughts.

“So... the boy’s feelings are one-sided?”

“No, I mean—”

The regressor’s a woman, and she’s not interested in me. But she keeps acting in ways that cause these misunderstandings, which makes it hard to even clarify the truth anymore.

But hey. Why should I care? If she wants to clear up the confusion, she can do it herself. It’s not really my problem.

“What else would you expect? I’m just an ordinary guy who likes girls. Whatever reason she had for coming in, I’m the one who felt uncomfortable.”

“Ahh... such hardship. You truly suffer, too.”

“No, I don’t—!”

Unable to take it anymore, the regressor stormed over and shouted.

“It was an accident! The rope just slipped, that’s all! It was nothing—!”

But even then, something continued to bother her. Her voice, raised with frustration, faltered as a sudden thought took hold. She fell silent and drifted into deep contemplation.

‘If it really was nothing... why did it happen now? What’s the meaning? How could this possibly help me?’

Lost in thought, the regressor stopped speaking entirely and simply resumed walking, as if walking itself were her only goal.

What the hell. Say something. You’re acting weird again and—

“Hm. My apologies, Teacher,” Rash said solemnly. “I had no idea she’d be so hurt. Please, as the adult here, do your best to be kind to the boy’s heart.”

...You’re making me look like the weirdo here!