Ch.154Memories

Serena opened her eyes. The landscape regained its light, and the desolate forest with its colorful falling leaves came into view. Wind blew through the skeletal branches.

But only in this specific area. Serena’s eyes turned toward a spot some distance away. There, an endless forest of lush greenery stretched out.

As if sliced by a knife, one side of a clear boundary line was late autumn while the other was midsummer. For anyone seeing this for the first time, it would surely be an unsettling sight.

Serena pushed through the knee-high pile of fallen leaves covering the ground and moved toward the forest. Considering her rather tall stature, this was an impossible amount of leaves by normal standards.

Her steps showed not the slightest hesitation. Each time her leather boots crushed the leaves beneath, the dried foliage crackled sharply.

The leaves where her boots had trodden moved on their own, filling in the path. Any trace of someone passing through was completely erased. It was a strange sight.

Her footsteps halted. Before her was a circular space, clean as if a hole had been punched through, devoid of both the knee-high leaves and the dust covering them.

All that remained were traces of a campfire and a thin sleeping bag.

Serena knew this place. It was where she and her lord had their fateful first meeting. The place where their destinies began.

A faint smile formed on her lips as memories resurfaced. Yes, regardless of what had happened in the past, she had ultimately met her destiny, which in a way made everything turn out for the better.

If she had lived an ordinary life, if she had been born into a normal family and lived a normal life, would she have ever met her lord?

If disaster hadn’t struck and she had continued living a comfortable life of plenty, would she have discovered that campfire rising in the forest?

Probably not.

They say when coincidences pile up, it becomes fate. Serena was deeply convinced that she was bound to her lord by an unbreakable destiny.

Her entire life was merely a product of coincidences, all leading to meeting her lord.

By coincidence, her noble father fell in love with her commoner mother; by coincidence, Serena was their firstborn; by coincidence, she possessed talent enough to catch her lord’s eye.

By coincidence, that witch had a spending habit; by coincidence, that witch chose an unimaginably extreme method to obtain money; by coincidence, the noble the witch chose was Serena’s father.

By coincidence, the witch’s sadistic nature spared Serena and her mother; by coincidence, they were driven to an abandoned house near this forest.

And by coincidence, she couldn’t sleep that particular night; by coincidence, Serena was curious by nature. By coincidence, she loved fairy tales with knights, and by coincidence, those tales were set in forests.

Serena couldn’t even begin to imagine how many coincidences had overlapped.

Having overcome such impossible odds to fulfill their destiny, the relationship between her and her lord was one that could never be severed, no matter what.

That’s how it should have been.

“…My lord.”

Serena called out to her lord with a yearning voice. But no answer came. Of course not. Her lord had been taken away by that damned woman who appeared from who knows where.

Why?

Because she couldn’t protect her. Because she was too weak.

What kind of knight was she, then? Serena bit her lip. To call herself her lord’s knight with such meager skills was utterly shameful.

She stepped forward again. Right beside the unnaturally circular clearing of leaves, as if a line had been drawn, lush greenery spread out.

The moment she crossed that boundary, the space changed. This time, she stood before a mansion.

Serena tilted her head in confusion. This wasn’t the right order from her memories. She shouldn’t have come directly to the mansion; there should have been an abandoned house in between.

But what did it matter? Serena quickly dismissed her doubts. There was nothing wrong with skipping the middle process. If anything, it was better, preventing her from needlessly wallowing in sentimentality.

The mansion was enormous. Just counting the human-sized windows on one wall, there were easily more than several dozen. With five additional floors stacked above, one could imagine its sheer size.

It was also a familiar place. It had to be.

This was the mansion where Serena had endured her time of suffering to meet her lord. A place that embodied her childhood struggles in darkness.

Her reason for coming here now was simple. It was to reclaim her lord, and to fulfill the promise to come here and completely sever the past when she reached her limit.

Serena enveloped her body with mana, using physical enhancement as she clenched her right hand. The still air began to twist and change chaotically.

Rough winds whirled, and the surrounding fallen leaves were swept up, forming a vortex that scattered in regular intervals.

A Wind Shear appeared in her right hand.

Serena gripped the Wind Shear and swung it in a cross pattern. With a sharp, glass-shattering sound, the space directly in front of her was torn along the cross-shaped slash.

She stepped into the torn space. Instantly, Serena found herself at the front entrance of the mansion.

Despite its enormous size, the mansion had not withstood the test of time and was in a half-collapsed state. Its exterior was faded, and cracks covered the walls.

Ivy vines had grown through the cracks, covering the bricks. One corner had completely crumbled. The glass was so covered in dust that one couldn’t properly see inside.

She reached out and gently pushed the door. The rusted hinges creaked, welcoming the human visitor after a long absence in their own way.

Dust swirled from the entrance. The floor was so dusty that Serena’s footprints were clearly visible, and the nearby carpet was completely worn out, with none of its original color remaining.

Cobwebs hung everywhere, and the chandelier on the ceiling looked as if it might collapse at any moment. Since she had never been to this part before, it wasn’t strange that it was in such a state.

Serena pointed her Wind Shear into the empty air and quietly murmured.

“Come out.”

There was no answer.

“I said come out.”

Despite her second warning, the mansion remained deathly quiet. Serena didn’t get angry. She didn’t become irritated or grumble.

Instead, she simply enveloped the blade of her Wind Shear with blue mana.

“I’ll count to three. If you don’t come out by then, I’ll blow this place to pieces.”

The Wind Shear took on the form of transparent glass.

“One.”

The blade emitted a blue light.

“Two.”

She raised her arm.

“Three.”

And just as she was about to bring down the Wind Shear, a hazy gray mist appeared some distance away. Serena lowered her sword. She had come to summon them, so her purpose was achieved.

The mist gradually took human form. A head formed, then arms and legs, covered by clothes made of cloth and leather.

There were three of them in total, each with an utterly wretched appearance.

Their clothes were soaked in blood, and their limbs were incomplete. One had a hole in its chest, another had its neck half-severed, hanging limply to the left like a pendulum.

Where eyes should have been, there were only hollow black holes, devoid of pupils.

Even more strange was that even those without legs moved as if they had perfectly intact limbs. There was no hint of limping in their steps as they approached Serena.

An ordinary person would have fainted with foam at the mouth just from seeing such an appearance, but Serena wasn’t surprised at all.

Instead, she issued a curt command.

“Guide me. Now.”

Though she was familiar with the mansion’s layout, she didn’t know where the witch might be. She had no desire to search each room one by one.

The three ghost-like figures with human forms stared at Serena with their hollow eye sockets, then silently turned around. Serena followed behind them.

Four were walking, but only one set of footsteps could be heard. True to their ghostly nature, the three guides made no sound as they walked.

They stopped in front of a massive door. Serena recalled her old memories. A huge door on the top floor. This was a room used for entertaining guests.

Having completed their guidance, the ghosts transformed back into gray mist and disappeared.

Without hesitation, Serena grabbed the door and flung it open on both sides. An eerie energy flowed through the opened doorway.

A voice was heard.

“What… why are you here…”

It was a voice as eerie as the energy.

“After leaving me in this state and dumping me here…”

From the far side of the room, a woman rose from a worn-out leather chair. The sunken sofa regained its original volume.

“How dare you show your face here!!!!!!”

A half-rotted, ruined face, a half-decayed, crumbling body, and clothes reduced to rags barely hanging on her form.

Eyes expressing hatred toward Serena, trembling clenched fists, and hazy mist forms gathering nearby.

It was Laila.