Ch.152Past Stories: Serena Elizabeth – 3

“Do you have anything to say?”

The extreme honorific that had now become second nature to her. A height unbelievable for an 11-year-old. Similarly, eyes and mannerisms that were hard to believe belonged to someone so young.

Laila glared at Serena, who had changed dramatically in just one year, with murderous eyes. Serena calmly met her gaze.

Laila was quite short. Despite Serena’s rapid growth over the past year, it was to the point where Laila had to look up at her, even though Serena was still only 11 years old.

“You’re blocking the way to the kitchen. Why are you interfering when I want to walk around my own mansion? Do I need permission to move around here if I have nothing to say?”

“I understand. I apologize for not realizing your intentions.”

Serena, who had greeted her respectfully regardless of Laila’s provocations, tried to walk past her. She would have succeeded if not for the shrill voice that came from behind her.

“Stop right there!”

“…”

She stopped walking and turned around. There stood a woman with vicious eyes that hadn’t changed at all compared to a few years ago.

My brother must be waiting. Serena suppressed her rising irritation. Getting angry here would only hurt herself. She bowed her head obediently and answered.

“Yes.”

“How dare you try to walk past me? Have you completely lost your mind?”

“I apologize.”

“You apologize? Is that all you have to say when you’re sorry?”

Here we go again. Serena sighed inwardly. It seemed she would be late for today’s sword training. From her experience, this would easily take two or three hours.

Still, she didn’t show her feelings outwardly. If Serena showed even the slightest dissatisfaction during these provocations, Laila would use it as an excuse to make her do something worse.

She just needed to endure a little longer. After a year of sword training, she had become considerably stronger, and more importantly, her mother’s health had improved significantly.

Once her mother recovered enough to ride in a carriage without issue, they could leave this mansion and settle elsewhere. Then they would bid farewell to this filthy place forever.

Serena was confident in her own abilities. She had the confidence that even if she started as an adventurer right now, she could certainly pull her own weight.

“Hey.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Do I look like shit to you?”

“…Pardon?”

“I asked if I look like shit to you. Is that why you’re looking at me like that?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Then what? What makes you act so high and mighty? Is it because you’ve grown taller recently? Hm? Are you stealing food from the kitchen? Are you hiding something from us? Do you think we’re pushovers now that you’ve grown a bit taller and your head’s gotten harder?”

Laila raised her finger and jabbed Serena’s chest repeatedly. Serena didn’t even flinch, let alone step back. This seemed to infuriate Laila even more.

“I have no such thoughts.”

“You have no such thoughts? So you admit you have other thoughts about looking down on us?”

It was a familiar cycle, familiar nitpicking. Serena kept her mouth firmly shut. Whatever she said would be twisted against her, so it was better to say nothing at all.

Seeing Serena’s reaction, Laila’s voice grew even sharper.

“Look at this, now you’re completely silent? Don’t want to talk to me? Is opening your mouth in front of me so unpleasant?”

Serena endured. Just a little longer.

“Can’t you look at me properly? Why are you glaring? Look at this. Want me to hit you? Go ahead. Hit me. But if you do, your mother won’t be safe either. I’ll make sure to punish her too, by any means necessary, remember that. If you touch me, I’ll also deal with your sick mother who’s confined to bed. It should be easy to drag out a pathetic woman who dumps all the housework on her 11-year-old child. Right?”

Just a little longer.

“Ha, you really don’t listen. Tsk. How did we end up keeping someone like you in the mansion for so long? We should have sold you to a brothel along with your mother long ago.”

Just a little more.

“Even if you went there, both you and your mother would just continue doing what you’ve always been doing. It’s what you were doing before you came here anyway, so you must be used to—”

That was the limit. Serena felt something snap in her mind and punched Laila square in the jaw with her clenched fist.

Laila didn’t even have time to scream as she was sent flying backward, tumbling down the corridor. Fragments of shattered teeth scattered across the floor.

Laila, sprawled at the far end of the corridor, groaned and propped herself up on her elbows. She felt her face with her other hand, and as soon as her hand touched her mouth, she let out a scream that could have brought down the mansion.

“KYAAAAAAAAAAH!”

At the piercing scream that echoed through the halls, the servants’ quarters visible through the window lit up. Servants rushed out of the doors.

Whether they came or not didn’t matter. There was more than enough time to kill that creature lying on the floor. Serena infused her body with mana, using physical enhancement.

One hit. Just one punch would make Laila’s head burst like the vase that had fallen to the floor. That would be the end of it. Serena walked right up to Laila and grabbed her by the hair, lifting her up.

She clenched her fist. Blue mana enveloped her body.

“Stop!”

Just as she was about to drive her fist into Laila’s face, she reflexively stopped at the sound of a man’s voice. Her eyes, filled with a complex whirlwind of emotions, trembled.

“What do you think you’re doing!”

She turned her head. She saw a man walking toward her.

A familiar appearance, a familiar voice, a familiar height.

It was Serena’s father.

“F-father…”

“Shut your mouth!”

Serena had reflexively called him “father,” but her head snapped to the side with a sharp sound, and her eyes widened.

It wasn’t from pain. With mana surrounding her body and physical enhancement active, there was no way she could feel pain from a mere slap.

She was simply shocked by the fact that her father, who had always been kind and gentle in her memories, had appeared in reality only to yell at her and strike her. Tears welled up in her eyes.

“Bind this wench immediately!”

The servants who had just arrived swarmed around Serena, roughly grabbing her and pinning her to the ground. They restrained her like an animal, not a human.

Serena felt nothing. She couldn’t. Her blue eyes, growing moist, reflected the image of her father tenderly embracing Laila.

“Why…?”

Even as she was dragged away by the servants, that question lingered in her mind.

Serena knelt in the middle of the mansion’s garden with her head bowed low, her entire body tightly bound with ropes and restraints on her hands and feet.

She had tried to break free from the ropes and kill Laila as soon as she saw her coming down with her father, but she was quickly subdued by a group of A-rank adventurers dispatched from the guild.

No matter how much she had grown over the past year, it was true that she was still far from matching the skills of A-rank adventurers, who were considered formidable forces in the adventurers’ guild.

After being subdued, restraints were placed on her hands and feet, and poison was injected into her body. Due to the poison, her hands and feet kept trembling, and her vision blurred.

“Father…”

“I never had a daughter like you.”

Serena, who had been desperately calling for her father, lowered her head at his cold response. She couldn’t understand why he had changed so drastically.

The father in her memories was someone who had never even raised his voice, let alone gotten angry. He had always been kind to the maids and servants too.

And now? His cheekbones protruded sharply from his emaciated face, his skin was completely discolored, and his darkened eyelids were sunken in, making him look like a completely different person.

His once gentle and affectionate voice was gone, replaced by a repulsive voice that sounded like scraping metal.

“Do you even know what you’ve done, you wretched thing?”

“She started—”

“How dare you refer to my beloved wife as ‘she’!”

Before Serena could finish speaking, a thunderous rebuke came back. Her body instinctively shrank.

The image of her father hugging her tearfully and apologizing the day before he disappeared kept overlapping with the present. That was why Serena couldn’t completely let go of her attachment.

She kept thinking that if this woman named Laila had done something to her father, she could somehow fix it.

Moreover, hadn’t the boy promised to help? After hearing the details about Serena’s father, the boy was convinced that the woman must have done something.

He said she probably first blackmailed him with some weakness, and during the time he was absent, something else must have happened.

Serena had no intention of arguing or fighting with her father, whom she believed was not acting this way of his own volition. She just wanted to somehow get her father back, and by extension, her family.

“L-let me go!”

“Mother!”

Serena’s eyes widened at the familiar voice. In the distance, her mother was being dragged along with both arms restrained.

Her bare feet dragged across the dirt. Her clothes were covered in mud, as if she had been thrown somewhere. Her resistance was meaningless in front of the A-rank adventurers.

Seeing her mother roughly thrown beside her, Serena tried with all her might to break the restraints. Despite her efforts, she couldn’t muster any strength.

Her mother desperately called out to her husband.

“Darling! Please come to your senses! It’s me!”

“Darling? How dare you speak to me like that!”

“Aagh!”

One of the adventurers from behind grabbed her by the hair and threw her down. Seeing her mother cough up blood, flames ignited in Serena’s eyes.

She forcibly tried to rise despite her body not moving well due to the poison, attempting to lunge at Laila, but she was struck with a club and collapsed. Merciless beatings continued as she lay face down on the ground.

At that moment, Laila’s arrogant smile swept over Serena, who maintained her fierce demeanor despite being beaten with clubs and kicked. An ominous feeling crossed Serena’s mind.

Laila approached the man from behind and whispered something in his ear. After hearing that whisper, Serena’s father looked extremely pleased and addressed Serena and her mother, who were lying on the ground.

“You should be grateful for my wife’s kindness. Originally, I was going to execute you here using my authority as lord, but I have mercifully decided to give you a chance to preserve your worthless lives.”

Mercifully? Serena glanced at Laila. Her eyes were filled with sadism. No, this was not mercy at all.

As Laila gave a vile smile, Serena noticed her teeth gleaming white, despite having completely shattered them the night before.

“You can survive if you just spread your legs for the adventurers here. You’ve probably done plenty of prostitution on the streets, so you shouldn’t have any aversion to it? Be grateful for my wife’s merciful decision to spare your lives.”

“Darling, please…”

“Enough! You lot, move quickly!”

As if they had been waiting for those words, the adventurers surrounding them approached Serena’s mother.

“You all, just try touching my mother! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you all! I’ll kill every last one of you!”

Serena screamed, but it was of no use. Perhaps annoyed by her outburst, someone kicked her in the jaw. Her mouth was forcibly shut. She tasted blood.

“L-let me go!”

Her mother struggled as best she could with her arms and legs. But of course, the resistance of a frail woman whose illness hadn’t fully healed was no match for the sturdy adventurers.

Rough hands grabbed her wrists, and her dress, which was little more than rags, tore with a ripping sound. Men with vile smiles surrounded the woman lying on the ground.

Serena couldn’t bear to watch and squeezed her eyes shut, desperately wishing that this whole moment was just a dream, that she would wake up in her bed.

Of course, no such fortunate thing would happen. Serena was still pinned to the ground, and her mother’s screams could be heard among the men.

“You…”

Her father looked at Serena with lifeless, hollow eyes. Laila was pressed close behind him. She brought her lips to his ear once more and whispered something.

A hearty laugh was heard.

“Haha! That’s right. My wife is correct. You’re the daughter of a whore, so you’ll probably walk the same path as your mother anyway? Then it wouldn’t be bad to let you experience the life you’ll lead in the future, right here.”

Serena’s eyes met Laila’s. The corners of her eyes curved into a crescent moon shape. The meaning was clear. It was mockery.

In the distance, the adventurers were squabbling over the order, arguing about something Serena didn’t even want to think about. Serena bowed her head deeply.

If the defensive magic surrounding the mansion hadn’t been there, the boy who had taught her swordsmanship might have been able to enter the mansion and help, but that was unrealistic no matter how she thought about it.

Serena knew very well about the mansion’s defensive magic. It was high-level magic set up by that woman, capable of easily killing any impudent human who dared to intrude.

No matter how excellent a swordsman the boy was, she didn’t expect him to be able to break through that defensive magic. It was too robust.

Once, when she had asked if he could break through the mansion’s boundary with swordsmanship, he had vaguely answered, avoiding the question. He probably couldn’t do it.

She had thought she had become a little stronger now. She had thought she could now take her mother and live independently. Tears welled up.

“Well then, you—”

“What’s going on here in broad daylight?”

At the familiar voice, Serena raised her head from the ground. Could it be?

And seeing the familiar figure walking toward her, she finally let her held-back tears flow.

It was the boy.

The boy, walking toward Serena with a calm expression, alternately looked at the adventurers surrounding the naked woman and Serena who was bound and lying face down, then frowned deeply.

“You, you…!”

Laila was unable to hide her shock. Even Serena, who had been observing the boy closely, was greatly surprised, so Laila’s shock must have been even greater.

“How, how did you get through the defensive magic…!”

“Defensive magic? Oh, the one surrounding the mansion? It wasn’t much.”

“Wasn’t much? Don’t talk nonsense! Do you know how much I—”

Laila, who had spoken that far, covered her mouth with her hand as if she had made a mistake. Serena was puzzled.

“So you were the one who modified it? I thought so. It had quite high lethality for an ordinary defensive magic. The first one is a decoy, and the second and third are the real lethal ones? You used your head quite well.”

“You should have died! You should have died! Why are you still alive? As long as the defensive wall exists, you absolutely shouldn’t be able to enter here!”

“Absolutely?”

The boy smirked.

“Want me to tell you how I got through it?”

“…?”

“It’s simple. I just didn’t die while coming in.”

“…What?”

“Really. If that barrier kills humans who pass through it, then naturally, if you don’t die while passing through, you can enter here, right? You should be able to understand this simple principle.”

To be honest, Serena didn’t understand either.

The boy’s words were sophistry itself. How could life and death be controlled by human will? If that were possible, the world would already be overflowing with humans.

“You, don’t you value your life? It seems like you pulled some trick, but shall I kill you myself?”

“I do tend to be that way. I have so many lives to waste.”

Before Laila could rebut his sophistry, the boy began to move.

The adventurers surrounding Serena’s mother also realized that the situation was turning strange and began picking up their weapons one by one. Some were hastily getting dressed.

Taking advantage of the gap, Serena crawled on the ground toward her mother. There were clear bloodstains around her mouth, and dark red blood spurted out whenever she coughed.

Fortunately, it seemed she hadn’t suffered too severely yet. It helped greatly that they had wasted time fighting over the order.

Serena rubbed her cheek against her mother’s tear-stained cheek.

“But you’re not exactly innocent either, are you? What nerve do you have to control a corpse? Looking at the condition, it seems like it’s been dead for quite some time. Anyone with even a little knowledge of magic would immediately recognize it as a corpse. Don’t you know that playing with corpses is strictly forbidden?”

Serena was startled by the boy’s words. She had thought her father was simply brainwashed, but in reality, he had been a corpse for a long time?

Her blue eyes turned toward her father. Empty, lifeless pupils. Come to think of it, his skin did seem a bit stiff.

Having been hit at a critical point, Laila trembled and screamed with veins bulging in her neck.

“Y-you! What are you all doing! Kill him! Kill him!”

As Laila screamed, the adventurers and servants rushed at the boy. The boy took out a scroll from his pocket and activated it.

A blue sphere expanded from the boy, engulfing Serena and her mother. All outside sounds disappeared, and silence filled the inside of the sphere.

After casually throwing away the torn scroll, the boy approached Serena. Outside, adventurers were banging on the sphere with their weapons, trying to get in.

“Wait a moment. I’ll untie you. Don’t worry, they can’t break this barrier with their skills.”

“B-brother. Wait. My father, is he really dead? Really? No, right? He’s just under a brainwashing spell, right?”

Although she was also curious about how the boy had entered, information about her father was more urgent now.

At Serena’s urgent question, the boy’s face hardened for a moment before he carefully shook his head. The meaning of that action was clear. It felt like her heart was crumbling.

“I thought she wouldn’t kill him since there might be occasions when Charlotte would summon him, but she was much more short-sighted than I expected. What nerve does she have to do something like this? Charlotte would definitely notice.”

The boy grumbled like that but diligently untied the ropes binding her body and removed the restraints on her hands and feet. Then he took out a scroll from his bag, placed it in Serena’s hand, and activated it.

The characteristic green light of healing magic enveloped her body. Her body, which had been growing weaker due to the poison, returned to its original state.

Serena suppressed her sadness. Strangely, she didn’t want to show weakness in front of the boy.

“…How did you get in here?”

Instead, she decided to ask what she was curious about. It was an attempt to forcibly divert her attention elsewhere.

“What do you mean how? I was lurking around the mansion when you didn’t come after staying up all night, so I came in. I’ve consistently told you. It’s my loss if you run away. Teaching you swordsmanship is beneficial for me too, you know?”

As soon as the healing magic subsided and her body regained its original strength, she rushed to her mother and supported her head. The amount of blood on her mouth and chest had noticeably increased since earlier.

“B-brother. What about my mother? She’ll live, right? Right?”

Tears seeped through Serena’s voice. She couldn’t lose her mother after losing her father.

The boy took out another scroll from his bag, gave it to Serena’s mother, and gently pulled it. Once again, the characteristic green light of healing magic burst forth.

Her breathing, which had been so labored it seemed she might die at any moment, gradually began to stabilize. It couldn’t completely stop the coughing, but at least there was no more blood mixed in with it.

“I’ve finished the emergency treatment. It’s just a temporary measure that only replenishes her strength since the disease hasn’t been completely cured yet. But she won’t be in immediate danger right now.”

“Th-thank goodness…”

Serena staggered as strength left her body. The boy, as always, gently stroked her head. After stroking her head for a while, he suddenly called Serena’s name.

“Serena.”

“Yes?”

“Do you want revenge?”

“…Revenge?”

“I mean those things outside. You want to kill them all, don’t you?”

The boy pointed in turn to the servants and adventurers still pounding on the sphere outside, and Laila who was screaming beside her father’s corpse.

“If you really want, I can kill them for you instead. But, knowing you, I think you’d prefer to take revenge with your own hands rather than leaving it to someone else. Am I wrong?”

Serena didn’t answer. Because those words were right. If she could, she wanted to kill them all with her own hands.

It was a cruel thought unbecoming of an 11-year-old, but then again, those creatures outside had treated Serena with cruelty unbecoming of how one should treat an 11-year-old, so it was even.

So slowly, she nodded her head up and down.

“If I can.”

“I’ll help you.”

“…Really?”

“Have I ever lied to you?”

Serena shook her head. The boy had always told Serena only the truth. No matter how absurd it sounded, what the boy said was always the truth.

“And I’ll make you much stronger than you are now. You have talent. I became convinced of that while teaching you.”

“…”

“In return, let me ask you for one favor.”

“A favor…?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

In response to Serena’s question, the boy’s lips curved into the same smile he had shown when he first offered to teach her swordsmanship.

“Help me die.”