151 – Tales of the Past: Serena Elizabeth – 2
Serena couldn’t sleep well that night.
Usually, after a hard day’s work, when I’m in my mother’s arms, I fall into a dream right away, but today my eyes are sore.
‘I should sleep. It’s time for the sun to rise in a little while. Then I have to work again… … .’
Knowing from experience what punishment awaited her if she fell asleep during the day, Serena desperately tried to fall asleep.
Of course it was to no avail. Serena stood up in a gloomy mood. Beside her, her mother was fast asleep, almost passed out.
Perhaps Serena wouldn’t wake up easily if she jumped up and down on the bed, but she got up as carefully as she could and got out of the arms that were holding her.
Then I opened the creaking wooden plank and carefully left the house. I couldn’t figure out why he did that. I can only guess that fate has led me.
Serena liked the forest.
It was because the place where her parents went to play the most was the forest, and the place where the knight and lord read in fairy tales confirmed their love was in the deep forest.
So, when I had time, I would often stare blankly at the forest. The house Serena lived in was tucked away in the corner of the mansion, so it was a simple hobby that required just leaving the house.
“uh……?”
While looking at the forest as usual, I noticed an orange flame shining through the trees.
Orange flames glowing in a dense forest where even sunlight is obscured by dense branches. It piqued Serena’s curiosity.
Although many of her unique personalities have died due to being abused, Serena is fundamentally more curious than timid.
Even before my father locked himself in the room, he wandered around the mansion and kept hiding in the basement, to the point that the servants removed the crane and put a lock on the door.
In the end, Serena, unable to overcome her curiosity, jumped over the seemingly non-existent fence and walked toward the light.
It was possible because the defense magic surrounding the mansion was activated except for Serena’s house. Otherwise, it would have been blocked by defensive magic.
The light was surprisingly close. Serena moved forward carefully through the bushes and trees. His skin was scratched by branches, but he didn’t mind.
Then, near the campfire, I found a black-haired boy whose lower body was being eaten alive by a wolf-type monster.
“ah.”
“ah……?”
The boy’s voice and Serena’s voice overlapped, and only then did the smell of blood spread all over the place. As soon as Serena saw the wolf’s eyes glowing red, her legs gave out and she slumped to the ground.
Our eyes met. Then, the monster threw away the boy’s half-swallowed upper body and began to approach Serena step by step.
“Heeep!”
A hiccup came out. No matter how hard she was going through at the mansion, Serena was a 10-year-old girl after all. It was natural to be scared when facing a monster head-on.
In fairy tales, monsters, along with bad nobles, were the ones who gave the knights trials, so it was all the more so.
Serena struggled on her limbs and crawled backwards. I didn’t turn around. If I took my eyes off it, it seemed as if the monster would attack and devour me at any moment.
No matter how far back I crawled, I felt something hard on my back. Startled by my pool, I looked back. It was a tree. This meant that there was no more room to retreat.
As I turned around, my elbow touched something. This time he turned his head the other way. Beside it was an elongated metallic object lying on the floor.
A longsword of normal length, contained in a scabbard.
Serena trembled with fear and caught it, distraught. The feel of cold metal lingered in his hand.
“Krrr,” said a low cry. Saliva dripped from his half-open mouth.
Serena aimed the tip of the longsword she hadn’t pulled out yet at the wolf-type monster, and the monster that saw it roared and jumped at it.
And honestly, I don’t remember what happened after that.
When I came to my senses, Serena’s body was covered with a fluffy blanket, and a bonfire was burning right next to it with a crackling sound.
Feeling the warmth from the bonfire, he unknowingly wrapped himself in a blanket and curled up, then raised his upper body as if bouncing with a hot sound.
Eyes full of bewilderment looked around.
“Woke up?”
is it dead Serena was sure she was dead. The last thing I remembered was a wolf-type monster attacking from the front, so it wasn’t strange at all to be swallowed in that state.
I expected to die someday, but I felt depressed thinking of my mother who would be left alone after her daughter had died in vain.
If Serena disappears too, Mother will surely not last long. Will we be able to meet each other even after we die? I thought I would like that.
“Hey? Hey?”
So why couldn’t he overcome his curiosity and entered the forest? I just got out of bed. If I can’t sleep, no reason
right! Serena was startled by the sound of fingers snapping right next to her, and lost her thoughts. When I looked to the side with surprised rabbit eyes, the thrusting hand withdrew.
There was a black-haired boy who had been eaten alive by wolves earlier. Serena opened her mouth with a parent.
“How… how? Uh… is my brother dead too?”
Serena tried to call the boy Mister, but quickly changed the title. The boy’s appearance was too young to be called an uncle. It looked like he wasn’t even twenty yet.
Fortunately, the boy shook his head with a wry smile as if he hadn’t heard the title ‘Old Man’.
“I’m dead. I really wish I had.”
“Would you like that?”
“You’re alive and well. I’m not dead either. Why did you think you were dead in the first place?”
Stirring the pot on top of the campfire with a ladle, he asked such a question. Serena searched for memories. It reminded me of the boy whose lower body was eaten by a wolf.
“That…… my brother was being eaten by a monster, and the monster attacked me as well.”
“Ah, that? I thought you knew everything about it, but it seems you didn’t. I thought you were a formidable skill at that age. I wondered if there was a famous swordsmanship that I didn’t know about yet.”
“Do you know what to do?”
The boy pulled a ladle from the pot and pointed the other way with the tip. Serena’s head naturally turned in the direction the ladle head pointed.
There was the corpse of a wolf-type monster that had been horribly egged on. Seeing the monster’s corpse, Serena was frightened.
“Hee, hee!”
“What are you so surprised about? You did all of that.”
“Me, Zeze, me?”
Serena looked at the boy with even more surprise than before. The boy nodded.
“Yeah, you did.”
“How, how?”
“Why do you ask me that? You grabbed the sword and avoided all monster attacks and made it look like that. Not even drawing the sword and using the scabbard. I’d rather ask how you did it. What on earth did you do to cut monsters with the scabbard?”
He looked down at his hand with a puzzled expression. Did I really mean that? You killed that wolf without taking out the scabbard?
“…”
Serena felt dazed. I didn’t quite understand. I really don’t remember anything after the wolf ran into it, but when I said that I made that corpse myself, I didn’t realize it at all.
However, since the result was right in front of my eyes, it was a bit like denying it openly. The boy’s lower body was eaten by the wolf and only his upper body was left, so he couldn’t fight monsters with his body like that.
‘what?’
Serena, who had been thinking that far, tilted her head and looked at the boy’s lower body.
It was fine. both legs.
“What are you looking at?”
The staring gaze was so blatant that the reaction came back quickly. Serena cautiously opened her mouth.
“Hey, that… earlier.”
“just now?”
“A little while ago, he was being eaten by that monster…”
“Oh, that one?”
As if it was nothing, the boy took out a bowl and filled it with something boiling from a pot on the bonfire. A delicious smell spread through the air.
“It’s nothing special, so you don’t have to worry about it. Then, come on.”
“Uh, yes? Yes?”
Serena took it with her body moving before her head, even though she was flustered by the unexpectedly presented dish. Due to the hard life of a servant, he was accustomed to accepting something offered to him.
It was hard to see inside because the only light was a campfire, but it was like some kind of soup. It smelled very delicious. Growling, Serena’s stomach clamored for something to eat.
But I had to be patient.
“I-can I hold it like this?”
“What?”
The boy, who was about to put the ladle down to see if he had his share, looked at Serena as if it were absurd.
“T-Take a look at me while my brother eats—”
“Did you give it to me to eat?”
“yes?”
At those words, Serena widened her eyes and looked down at the bowl. Certainly, there was a wooden spoon in the bowl with the handle sticking out.
“You, what the hell… no. Just eat. Let’s think about it after eating.”
Serena hesitated for a while even after the boy’s permission was granted. The boy who couldn’t see it sighed and forced the spoon into his hand.
After that, I carefully took a bite of the soup. Then, as if surprised by the taste, his eyes widened, and he hurriedly played with the spoon. It took less than three minutes for the bowl to reveal the bottom.
The boy smiled slightly at Serena as she glanced sideways at the pot on the campfire, then took the bowl and poured more soup.
After emptying the pot, which was quite deep, and dipping the bread into the last bowl, Serena was able to put the spoon down from her hand.
As his stomach swelled, his face blushed red as if he remembered the rudeness he had shown. In a hushed voice, a stuttered thank you was handed over.
“Ah, thank you…”
The grateful boy met Serena’s eyes. It felt like he was making fun of himself, and the heat rose from his blushing face.
“Thank you so much, can I ask you a few questions?”
“Yes, yes? About what?”
“Who is it? It’s in front of me.”
The boy pointed at Serena.
Perhaps because of her fully loaded stomach and the warm warmth of the campfire, Serena very obediently confessed who she was and what she had been doing up until now, even though she had seen the boy for the first time today.
Starting with her mother marrying a nobleman who ruled this territory, her father suddenly took another woman and locked herself in her room saying she fell ill.
After that, the treatment of herself and her mother got worse and worse, and even the fact that they are now living in an old building in the corner of the mansion where they are treated worse than servants.
The boy, who listened to Serena’s story to the end, hardened his face.
“You said you were suddenly sick and locked yourself in your room? It looks a bit messy… Write it, it must be mental magic at least. It won’t be of much value, but let’s investigate.”
The boy’s face looked quite serious, so Serena naturally looked at him. Is there something I did wrong?
The boy who had been muttering something for a while suddenly raised his head.
“So, you’ve never held a sword before? Is this your first time?”
“Yes Yes.”
“…….”
As soon as he heard the answer, the boy touched his chin again as if contemplating something. It was only after quite some time had passed that his head was raised again.
“There you are.”
“Yes Yes?”
Serena replied in a puzzled voice. The boy had a very serious face.
“Don’t you want to learn a sword from me?”
“yes?”
The sudden words made my bewilderment even greater. It’s only been a few hours since we’ve met at most, so you’re going to cut the sword?
“Ah, of course, I’m not saying I’ll teach you for free. If you come to me to learn, at least I’ll make sure you don’t get hungry or sleepy. I have some magic tools. What do you think?”
Hearing that made me even more perplexed. Wasn’t it not common that the one who was taught usually paid the one who taught?
But that boy had been asking me to learn swordsmanship because he would pay for it. I couldn’t help but wonder.
“……why?”
It wasn’t that he was wary of the boy or anything like that. just pure curiosity. About why he was so good to himself, who was only a servant. It was an act that Serena couldn’t understand.
Seeing such a questioning gaze, the boy said dumbly.
“I need you.”
Serena accepted the boy’s offer.
He didn’t seem like a bad person, and he said that he would feed him until he was full and teach him how to use swordsmanship and mana as a bonus.
Moreover, it was all the more so because it had been a very long time since Serena had felt human warmth. The boy’s gaze was also far from the lying eyes.
When the male servants of the mansion looked at Serena, goose bumps ran down their spines, but when they met the boy’s eyes, none of that feeling was conveyed.
“First of all, take this. The recognition distortion magic has been put on it, so it won’t be visible to others. This is a necklace that periodically sucks up your body’s fatigue, this is a bracelet that makes your hands feel cool even when you dip them in cold water, This is also a bracelet that prevents various odors from permeating the body…”
On the very day that Serena accepted the request to train him in swordsmanship, the boy handed over all kinds of magic tools as he had said. All were magic tools optimized for chores.
The amount of magic tools Serena received was so enormous that she wondered where she got these things from. Among them, there was also a medicine that did not make her mother’s condition worse.
If you want, you could give her a medicine that will cure her illness right away, but if you do, the source will be questioned, so when Serena reaches a certain level, give her a gift saying you got it on your own.
It was enough that it didn’t get any worse, since my mother boasted that she would never die from the disease anyway, while taking the medicine.
“Is your brother a wizard or a prosecutor?”
“Me? Why are you curious about that all of a sudden?”
“He’s good at swordsmanship, but he also has a lot of magic tools. They said magic tools can only be made by wizards.”
“Only wizards can make magic tools, but ordinary people can buy them too.”
“So, is your brother a swordsman? Does he have enough money to buy so many magic tools?”
“Well.”
Serena couldn’t figure out the boy’s identity in the end. He complained, saying that one day he would definitely hear the answer, but he just laughed it off.
The encounter with the boy completely changed Serena’s life. Serena now works at the mansion during the day, and at night she leaves the house to learn swordsmanship from a boy waiting in the woods.
Didn’t sleep. Because the necklace the boy gave me didn’t have to.
First of all, she tried to learn body strengthening through mana, but Serena soon decided to skip body strengthening.
Until now, mana had been unconsciously raised to relieve fatigue from labor, and it was because he realized that the actions he had taken unconsciously were a kind of body strengthening.
The boy couldn’t hide his ridiculous expression when he saw Serena, who instinctively learned how to raise mana and strengthen his body at the age of only ten.
“I think this will make cleaning easier!”
“……yes?”
Although the thought that came to me while doing it changed to an absurd expression when I heard that it was easier to clean.
Even after that, Serena absorbed all the knowledge the boy taught her. In particular, in the field related to swordsmanship, when one was taught, it reached the stage of understanding a hundred and applying it to a cloth.
It was around that time that Serena began to noticeably grow in height.
Until she met the boy, her body was abused every day and she was not getting proper nutrition, so she was significantly shorter than other girls her age.
However, when the supply of nutrients is sufficient and there is no time to feel fatigue, the body begins to grow properly.
Her height, which was shorter than girls her age, had grown to a level taller than that of boys a year or two older. There was no way the servants of the mansion would not notice such a change in Serena.
Before anyone knew it, a year had passed since the meeting between the boy and Serena began.
“You, you! What the hell did you do!”
“What do you mean?”
Serena responded to the maid who was pointing with a stiff tone.
As I opened my heart to new encounters, I became more firmly locked up with others.
In front of the boy, she looked like an 11-year-old girl, but not in front of the rest. He wasn’t afraid of being threatened with a fist, and even if he was beaten by chance, he passed it off as nothing.
Serena could leap from the 1st floor to the 3rd floor windows at once by using body enhancement. There was no way he would be in pain with a fist that wasn’t even covered with mana.
The servants couldn’t adapt to Serena’s sudden change and kept asking her what she had done. Serena kept her mouth shut.
It was because he didn’t want to let these insignificant people know about the boy’s existence.
“Keep your mouth shut until the end!”
Clap, the palm slapped her cheek, but Serena didn’t even move. Conversely, the side that slapped me grabbed my palm and felt pain.
Faced with eyes that no 11-year-old could possibly see, the maid hesitated and left the kitchen cursing.
Serena remained in the kitchen to clean up after herself. My situation didn’t change, but Serena did. I was no longer as sad as before. Because you have someone who knows you.
After tidying up the kitchen neatly, I opened the kitchen door to return to the building.
“Are you coming out now?”
And I narrowed my eyes because I met an unexpected person.
Lila.
She was the woman who took over the real power of the mansion on behalf of her father, who was confined to his room.
