FSFSLU 4

Chapter 4

The very first thought I had when Isabel called me “Angel” was this:

“I don’t want to disappoint her!”

Yeah, I really didn’t.

The reason Isabel was so overjoyed to discover my existence wasn’t simply because having a guardian angel descend upon her was an honor.

Before her regression, Isabel’s final memory was of Daerex reborn as a Demon King, destroying the entire world. Then she opened her eyes here.

How hopeless must she have felt?

If I had just let Isabel run around in the euphoria of regression, she might have been happy at first, but later she would have realized that she was the only one who had returned—and that despair could have crushed her.

But now that I’ve come to her, Isabel must have thought it was literally divine intervention.

Something like, “The goddess hasn’t abandoned me—she sent me an angel!” That wouldn’t be strange at all.

So naturally…

“Angel…?”

That trembling voice calling me down weighed heavily on my chest.

Stay calm. I wasn’t doing anything wrong—I came here to help Isabel.

But… how was I supposed to answer her?

What would sound like something an angel would say?

In a flash, countless options popped into my mind: Hello, Isabel. Nice to meet you. How does it feel to regress? You prayed really well, and so on.

Of all those choices, the one I picked was:

“I have come, my little lamb.”

I said it in the deepest voice I could muster, trying my hardest to sound as angelic as possible.

“……”

Ah… that’s embarrassing.

I tried, but even to myself it didn’t sound convincing at all.

Yet when Isabel heard my awkward reply, her face gradually lit up.

Wow, it just kept glowing brighter and brighter, like raising your phone’s brightness in a dark room—until it was dazzling.

“Angel!”

My goodness.

I’m the angel here, so why does she look like the one shining?

“Are you truly my guardian angel, the one assigned to me?”

“Y-Yes.”

“You’re also the one who sent the glowing words to my eyes, weren’t you? But they’re gone now. Where did they go?”

Of course they disappeared. Those “quests” Isabel saw were all illusions I created.

Now that I was directly responding to her prayers, it seemed I couldn’t project revelations or visions at the same time.

Still, it looked like I got away with it. Isabel didn’t seem suspicious or disappointed—on the contrary, she looked thrilled.

I cleared my throat, ready to move on to the important part—

“The angel clears his throat too!” Isabel exclaimed, eyes wide.

Apparently, she found every little thing I did fascinating.

“…Little lamb, do not interrupt me.”

“Ah!”

Even though she made that big reaction, Isabel still kept chattering on for a while: how my voice seemed to echo in her head, how grateful she was to Lady Sunya for letting us meet, how this was her first time ever seeing a guardian angel. Then she just giggled shyly while stealing glances at me.

It was kind of cute, but for me—knowing how much work lay ahead—it was exhausting.

Time to finally get to the point.

“I… am the angel the goddess has sent to help you after your regression.”

Isabel tilted her head, puzzled. Did I just mess up?

Fortunately, she asked something else:

“Angel, what’s a regression?”

“It means returning to the past while retaining memories of the future.”

“Oh! Then this really is the past, isn’t it?”

She spread her fingers and began ticking them off one by one.

“Did you see them? Jeremy, Otam, Sherry… all my friends were alive. Father Graham and Sister Susanna, and even Lina… the diary she hid under her bed was still there! Isn’t that great?”

By the time she said “Isn’t that great?” her eyes were glistening with tears.

Ah, jeez.

“If this really is the past, then Hero Marcel must be alive and well too, right? And Erica and Keijo…”

I flinched.

Marcel, Erica, Keijo—and Isabel herself. The four of them formed the hero’s party that stood against the Demon King’s army.

But Erica and Keijo both died in the desperate battle with the Demon King, and Marcel was eventually corrupted by demonic energy and perished alongside Isabel.

Isabel couldn’t have forgotten all that.

Yet instead of crying, she brushed the tears away with the back of her hand and smiled brightly.

“Sorry, Angel. I won’t cry anymore. Because you’re here with me.”

“……”

Yeah… it’s a good thing I came.

Just now, seeing Isabel’s tears, I thought for the first time—accepting Sunya’s offer had been the right choice.

If I weren’t here, Isabel would’ve had to bear all of that alone.

And—

“I should go tell Sister Susanna that I regressed! She’ll definitely help me!”

—there’d have been no one to stop disasters like that.

“Isabel, I know you’re happy, but restrain yourself. The fact that you’re a regressor must remain secret.”

“Oh, so someone who regresses is called a regressor! But why?”

“If others found out you came from the future, chaos would follow. You wouldn’t be free to act… and—”

I hesitated, then added carefully:

“If the Demon King’s army were to learn you were a regressor, they might move up their plans.”

Isabel’s expression immediately shifted—more serious now.

The Demon King’s army were the main villains of Tales of Old, who had been hoarding strength while waiting for their master’s resurrection. Though they had collapsed alongside him three centuries ago, remnants survived and grew their power in secret.

When Daerex revived, the hidden army surfaced all at once and unleashed massacres across the continent—that’s what turned Tales of Old into such a dark, brutal story.

So of course Isabel became solemn.

“They’d act earlier? That mustn’t happen. Don’t worry, Angel, I’ll guard the secret with my life!”

She said it confidently, but somehow it didn’t reassure me.

Well, nothing I can do.

“Little lamb. Based on your first life’s experience, you must rally forces to oppose the Demon King’s army and accelerate your party’s growth even faster than before. So you’ll be ready to defeat the Demon King without fail.”

Ah… maintaining this angelic tone is exhausting. The longer I talk, the more awkward it feels.

This is why you should never half-commit to a role.

Thankfully, Isabel just smiled more comfortably and said:

“So if the first life is the first round, then this regression must be the second round, right? What should we do first?”

“First, let’s check if you received any special benefits for being a regressor.”

Regressor perks would be a completely foreign concept to Isabel. Look at her eyes—begging me to explain.

“It’s like… a gift given to regressors.”

“Wow, a gift?”

“Don’t get your hopes up too much. There might not be one.”

I warned her, but I was sure she had at least something.

After all, Sunya wouldn’t have sent Isabel back alone—she also sent me as her angel. But I doubted she’d stop there.

From a big-picture perspective I was useful, but I couldn’t actually protect Isabel from immediate threats. So it made sense she’d have been given something more direct.

What would Sunya have given her?

Hmm… there was one thing worth testing.

“Isabel.”

“Yes, Angel?”

“Say the word Status Window.”

“Okay! Status Window!”

“…Without the ‘okay.’”

“Status Window!”

I waited for a change. But judging by Isabel’s expression, nothing happened.

Too bad.

Yeah, I doubted Sunya would hand out something as modern as a status window. The goddess of this world wouldn’t even be familiar with such a concept.

But Isabel looked at me with sparkling eyes after saying it, as if expecting something spectacular to happen.

Wait—was she… waiting for a miracle?

But I couldn’t do anything!

I was starting to sweat. Isabel probably believed, “Since the Angel told me to say it, something amazing will definitely happen!”

“…Good. Well done.”

“Angel, what is a status window?”

“…It’s like a spell that makes you feel stronger when you say it.”

“Ohhh!”

Look at her face, all proud as if she learned something new. Ugh, my conscience…

Anyway, we confirmed there was no status window.

So, another approach.

In the hero’s party, Isabel’s role was as a healer using holy power. She could bless her allies’ bodies, create barriers, and even wield a staff clad in divine light.

Since this world had no concept of “skills,” healing, blessings, and barriers were more like techniques honed through practice. Having lived one life already, Isabel should be able to use them all.

If I were Sunya, I’d give Isabel a gift of divine power itself—vast and pure—enough to fuel her abilities.

“Isabel, check if you have a stigmata.”

“Stigmata?”

In the original story, Isabel was called Saintess after a major event halfway through: the “Undead Parade.”

That catastrophe was caused by Dorothea, a necromancer general of the Demon King’s army, who awakened hordes of undead across the continent.

Even while coughing blood from exhaustion, Isabel singlehandedly held back thousands of undead. Just as her barrier was about to collapse, the goddess Sunya bestowed upon her the stigmata—granting her superhuman holy power.

From then on, Isabel inherited the title of the Saintess, lost for three hundred years.

If I were Sunya, that’s exactly the perk I’d give Isabel upon regression.

In a game world she might’ve gotten new skills or traits, but here, it made sense.

When Isabel heard me, she nodded in understanding—then promptly turned around and began lifting her robe.

Uh… maybe it’s because I’m an angel now, but…

I felt a little awkward seeing bare skin, but that was it. My inner manliness seemed to have lost all meaning.

Probably for the best. Since I’d be watching over Isabel day and night from now on, this way was easier.

Anyway, thanks to Isabel’s bold disrobing, I could clearly see the cross-shaped mark engraved on her back.

Though called a stigmata, it looked more like overlapping thin-line tattoos. With her small frame, it stood out vividly—visible even from a distance if she ever exposed her back.

“Lower your clothes.”

Her robe was bunched awkwardly over her head, muffling her voice as she asked:

“So I really do have it?”

“You do.”

“Ah, then that means I’ve got tons of holy power!”

Grunting, Isabel managed to pull her robe down and fix her clothes, then made an oops face.

“Erica always told me not to do that!”

“At least you remembered now.”

Still, good thing Sunya had some sense. To give Isabel the stigmata as her perk, right after she regressed from being fatally wounded—that was clever.

With the stigmata now, Isabel should already have enough holy power to block something like the Undead Parade.

But wait.

Right now, Isabel was just an ordinary priestess at the start of her second round. If someone like her already had saintess-level holy power, she’d need to keep it hidden or she’d draw too much attention.

If word got out, the Church might try to seize her under their control. That would strip her of freedom.

So like her regression, the stigmata had to stay a secret.

“I’ll try it out!”

Of course, Isabel had no idea!

“W-Wait—!”

I couldn’t stop her.

From the moment Isabel clasped her cross, radiant light erupted from her hands.

Whoooom—

A sudden gale swept the room.

With a deafening resonance, a brilliant aura burst upward from her hands, flooding the entire chamber.

Isabel couldn’t see it, but I could. The column of light rose not only through the ceiling, but far above the church’s rooftop.

Then, from that single point high above—even higher than Zeroprime’s tallest spire—it spread outward in all directions.

My god.

A vast, translucent, hemispherical barrier large enough to cover the entire city of Zeroprime.

This was the very same shield Isabel had used to repel the Undead Parade!

“Look! Isn’t it amazing?”

I mean… yeah, it’s amazing.

But Isabel—if you use it now, everyone will see!

We were supposed to stay hidden!