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レガロ #1
道果ての向こうの光
平凡な町娘だったユーナの日常は唐突に失われた。
真っ白い空間で出会った正体不明の「光」に請われるがまま、「聖女」の身体に入って生活することになってしまったユーナを待っていたものは、「聖女」の婚約者、神聖騎士アシュートの思いがけない侮蔑のまなざしと、侍女たちの努めて無感動な表情、そして、王宮をつつむ張りつめた空気であった。
わけもわからず混乱のまま、それでもなんとかやっていこうと決意するユーナであったが、ある夜、螺旋階段の奥に潜む「聖女」の罪を知り……!?
真っ白い空間で出会った正体不明の「光」に請われるがまま、「聖女」の身体に入って生活することになってしまったユーナを待っていたものは、「聖女」の婚約者、神聖騎士アシュートの思いがけない侮蔑のまなざしと、侍女たちの努めて無感動な表情、そして、王宮をつつむ張りつめた空気であった。
わけもわからず混乱のまま、それでもなんとかやっていこうと決意するユーナであったが、ある夜、螺旋階段の奥に潜む「聖女」の罪を知り……!?
- GenresFantasyLight Novel
328 pages, Paperback
First published February 18, 2008
2 people are currently reading
9 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 2, 2016
I really enjoyed this book. I first the web-novel that is being translated here by kukkiriri and thought it was interesting so I read ahead in the Japanese version. It intrigued me enough to get the published versions and... I REGRET NOTHING.
The author improved a lot between the web-novel version and their published version. The writing is more subtle and gorgeous and the scenes have been re-worked or shifted around for better pacing and impact.
The story goes as follows: Yuna, a common villager girl, dies in an accident and finds her soul transferred into her country's priestess, Celiastina (?), who had committed suicide and died at the same time that Yuna did. A disembodied and mysterious voice tells Yuna that she has to live as Celiastina until they can return Celiastina's soul to her body, which will take around a year at most.
The setting of this world is that bad things happen to the country if it doesn't have a priestess and so the priestess is a very important treasure to the country. At any rate, Yuna has to try and keep up the ruse of her being Celiastina and overcoming the things that Celiastina did in her life (because it turns out that she isn't the nicest person in the world...).
This story has elements of fantasy, mystery, and of course romance! I love how this story treats its secondary characters because they're all developed and it's easy to grow to love them. I'm totally biased though and I love the main couple despite how little scenes they have with each other (it's not more or less than any other character) but it's SO memorable and vivid.
Ascht (?), the male lead, is the greatest knight in the country and has been raised into this position. It's another tradition of the country to have this knight marry the priestess and together they serve the country. Anyway, there's hints dropped early on that Ascht dislikes Celiastina because of something she did in the past but this doesn't get in his way of doing his duty.
His character is really dynamic and I love that the most. He's responsible and duty-bound but that doesn't make him an emotionless robot. He has friends, he jokes, he can be kind, and he smiles! And even though he dislikes Celiastina, he doesn't let it get in the way of his duty. I'm just thankful he and the heroine don't butt heads for no good reason. It makes their relationship in the first book bittersweet because he's polite but there's this cold distance; it's slowly closed in the first book but you also have the looming fact that Yuna will disappear in a year hovering over you as the reader. (THIS COUPLE HAS THE SLOWEST OF SLOW BURN ROMANCES, I SWEAR).
Yuna herself is a fantastic character too. She's optimistic and generally good-hearted but she's not naive and she learns fast. She understands nothing of the political atmosphere and what it really means to be the "priestess" and her duty for that but she picks it up fast. (I love her so much).
THERE'S SO MANY CHARACTERS I LOVED TO BE HONEST BUT DON'T HAVE TIME TO TALK ABOUT (and this is growing into a monstrous review so...). I'll just leave it here and urge anyone who enjoys this kind of scenario and understands Japanese to give this book a try because it was a great read. I'm so happy there's 3 more books to go in this series.
The author improved a lot between the web-novel version and their published version. The writing is more subtle and gorgeous and the scenes have been re-worked or shifted around for better pacing and impact.
The story goes as follows: Yuna, a common villager girl, dies in an accident and finds her soul transferred into her country's priestess, Celiastina (?), who had committed suicide and died at the same time that Yuna did. A disembodied and mysterious voice tells Yuna that she has to live as Celiastina until they can return Celiastina's soul to her body, which will take around a year at most.
The setting of this world is that bad things happen to the country if it doesn't have a priestess and so the priestess is a very important treasure to the country. At any rate, Yuna has to try and keep up the ruse of her being Celiastina and overcoming the things that Celiastina did in her life (because it turns out that she isn't the nicest person in the world...).
This story has elements of fantasy, mystery, and of course romance! I love how this story treats its secondary characters because they're all developed and it's easy to grow to love them. I'm totally biased though and I love the main couple despite how little scenes they have with each other (it's not more or less than any other character) but it's SO memorable and vivid.
Ascht (?), the male lead, is the greatest knight in the country and has been raised into this position. It's another tradition of the country to have this knight marry the priestess and together they serve the country. Anyway, there's hints dropped early on that Ascht dislikes Celiastina because of something she did in the past but this doesn't get in his way of doing his duty.
His character is really dynamic and I love that the most. He's responsible and duty-bound but that doesn't make him an emotionless robot. He has friends, he jokes, he can be kind, and he smiles! And even though he dislikes Celiastina, he doesn't let it get in the way of his duty. I'm just thankful he and the heroine don't butt heads for no good reason. It makes their relationship in the first book bittersweet because he's polite but there's this cold distance; it's slowly closed in the first book but you also have the looming fact that Yuna will disappear in a year hovering over you as the reader. (THIS COUPLE HAS THE SLOWEST OF SLOW BURN ROMANCES, I SWEAR).
Yuna herself is a fantastic character too. She's optimistic and generally good-hearted but she's not naive and she learns fast. She understands nothing of the political atmosphere and what it really means to be the "priestess" and her duty for that but she picks it up fast. (I love her so much).
THERE'S SO MANY CHARACTERS I LOVED TO BE HONEST BUT DON'T HAVE TIME TO TALK ABOUT (and this is growing into a monstrous review so...). I'll just leave it here and urge anyone who enjoys this kind of scenario and understands Japanese to give this book a try because it was a great read. I'm so happy there's 3 more books to go in this series.
April 2, 2020
3.5
i wrote a review for volume 3 first bc this volume and the next were really good but i didn’t LOVE it. but honestly the volumes are quite short and if u read this and ur renerally into it and entertained i really recommend sticking with it. all the characters have so much depth. and even the “villains” have depth. there’s no person that’s just inherently evil for the sake of being evil. the mystery behind celiastina’s past rly makes u wonder. the author and translator are both amazing. they author writes beautifully an. had a really profound way with words. and the translator is so good at keeping with that. sometimes translated novels lose a bit of their eloquence and, for lack of a better term, poetic words. but this translator does an amazing job of keeping with that. seriously they did a really beautiful job.
i’m gonna end this with quoting the prologue as it immediately sucked me in:
“The road upon which humans walk has always been short-lived.
No matter the amount of splendor amassed by the rich.
No matter the depth of envy incited by the beautiful.
No matter the degree of faith collected by a servant of God.
As long as they were human, death visited them all the same.
Thus, what befell one girl that day, was nothing removed from the norm.
She simply found herself at her inevitable destination, no more, no less.
But the masses would lament. For a girl so young, death was too sudden and cruel.
(“But you won’t stop moving forward, will you. As long as the flickering light beyond the road’s end is within sight.”)”
i wrote a review for volume 3 first bc this volume and the next were really good but i didn’t LOVE it. but honestly the volumes are quite short and if u read this and ur renerally into it and entertained i really recommend sticking with it. all the characters have so much depth. and even the “villains” have depth. there’s no person that’s just inherently evil for the sake of being evil. the mystery behind celiastina’s past rly makes u wonder. the author and translator are both amazing. they author writes beautifully an. had a really profound way with words. and the translator is so good at keeping with that. sometimes translated novels lose a bit of their eloquence and, for lack of a better term, poetic words. but this translator does an amazing job of keeping with that. seriously they did a really beautiful job.
i’m gonna end this with quoting the prologue as it immediately sucked me in:
“The road upon which humans walk has always been short-lived.
No matter the amount of splendor amassed by the rich.
No matter the depth of envy incited by the beautiful.
No matter the degree of faith collected by a servant of God.
As long as they were human, death visited them all the same.
Thus, what befell one girl that day, was nothing removed from the norm.
She simply found herself at her inevitable destination, no more, no less.
But the masses would lament. For a girl so young, death was too sudden and cruel.
(“But you won’t stop moving forward, will you. As long as the flickering light beyond the road’s end is within sight.”)”
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 22, 2020
Lo primero que me ha llamado la atención es que, a diferencia de otras historias de transmigración (es decir, un alma ocupando el cuerpo de otra persona), aquí es temporal. La protagonista, Yuna, muere al inicio, y entonces van y le dicen que tiene que ocupar el cuerpo de Celiastina, la Santa, mientras el alma de esta no pueda volver. Así que tenemos a una muchacha muy buena que, de repente, se ve en el lugar de una chica que, oh, sorpresa, es odiada por todos.
Poco a poco, descubre que el odio está justificado, porque, sin entrar en detalles, la dueña original de su cuerpo no es que tuviera una actitud muy desagradable (que también), sino que ha cometido actos de lo más reprochables. Todos alrededor de Yuna están recelosos de ella por su "cambio de actitud" y por sus intentos de reparar lo que Celiastina ha hecho.
De momento, es bastante interesante... Una se pregunta qué pasará cuando Celiastina vuelva. Es más, todavía Yuna (y el lector) sabe muy poco sobre ella, y tengo la esperanza de que, más adelante, se explore.
Poco a poco, descubre que el odio está justificado, porque, sin entrar en detalles, la dueña original de su cuerpo no es que tuviera una actitud muy desagradable (que también), sino que ha cometido actos de lo más reprochables. Todos alrededor de Yuna están recelosos de ella por su "cambio de actitud" y por sus intentos de reparar lo que Celiastina ha hecho.
De momento, es bastante interesante... Una se pregunta qué pasará cuando Celiastina vuelva. Es más, todavía Yuna (y el lector) sabe muy poco sobre ella, y tengo la esperanza de que, más adelante, se explore.
August 14, 2017
This is so good. The book, plot, and characters are, so to say, multi layered. You first think like trait X is just a random character trait given by the author, but then you suddenly realize that the character gained it because of event Y, and suddenly it becomes super deep and logical. Something like that.
... an awesome easy read!
... an awesome easy read!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews