152 – Tales of the Past: Serena Elizabeth – 3
“Do you have anything to say?”
Now it’s an extremely respectful name that’s completely attached to the mouth. Unbelievable height for an 11-year-old. Likewise, it is hard to believe that he is 11 years old, his eyes and actions.
Lila looked at Serena, who had changed so drastically in just a year, with lifeless eyes. Serena took the look in his eyes.
Lila’s height was on the short side. No matter how much she has grown rapidly in the past year, she still has to look up at Serena, who is only 11 years old at most.
“You’re blocking the way to the kitchen. Why are you meddling with me when I say I’m walking around my mansion? I can’t even walk around here without anything to say?”
“I see. I’m sorry I didn’t understand your intentions.”
Serena, who silently greeted Lila, tried to walk past her. If it hadn’t been for the loud shouts coming from behind his back.
“Aren’t you standing there?”
“…”
I stopped walking and looked back. Compared to a few years ago, there was a woman who still had ferocious eyes that hadn’t changed at all.
my brother will be waiting for you Serena suppressed the growing irritation. If you get angry here, you are the one who loses. He bowed his head and answered.
“Yes.”
“What are you doing on your own? Even if you’re very crazy, are you really crazy?”
“sorry.”
“Sorry? If you’re sorry now, is that all?”
Is it a start again? Serena sighed inwardly. It seemed that he had to be late for today’s swordsmanship training. In Serena’s experience, two or three hours passed lightly.
Still, he did not express himself outwardly. If Serena showed even the slightest dissatisfaction while being caught, she might use that as an excuse to make her do something more.
You just have to endure a little bit more anyway. Over the course of one year of repeated swordsmanship training, he became considerably stronger, and most of all, his mother’s stamina returned.
After he improves to the point where he can ride a wagon, he may leave this mansion and settle down somewhere else. If that happened, I would say goodbye to this filthy place forever.
Serena was confident in her skills. Even if he started an adventurer right away, he had the confidence that he could do enough for one person.
“hey.”
“Speak.”
“Am I a dick?”
“……Yes?”
“Am I being a jerk? Is that why you’re opening your eyes like that?”
“no.”
“So what? Then what? What do they believe? You’ve grown a little taller lately? Huh? What? Do you steal food from the kitchen? Is there something you’re hiding from us? We’re a little taller and a little stiffer, so we seem to be easygoing?”
Lila raised a finger and stabbed Serena in the chest. Serena didn’t even move, let alone pushed back. Layla seemed to be even more enthusiastic about that fact.
“I didn’t think so.”
“Didn’t you think of that? Then you thought of something else besides taking us for granted?”
It was a familiar circulation structure, and a familiar fault-finding. Serena kept her mouth shut. Anything he said here would be criticized, so it was better for him not to say anything.
Seeing Serena’s reaction, Lila’s voice became even sharper.
“Look at this, you’ve completely shut up now? Don’t you want to talk to me? Do you feel so bad about opening your mouth in front of me?”
Serena endured. You just have to endure a little longer.
“You won’t keep your eyes open? Why are you staring at me? Look at this. You want to hit me? Hit me. Hit me. Instead, if you hit me, your mother won’t be safe. I’ll do anything to hurt her, so I know that. If you touch me, you’ll get sick and go to bed. I’m going to crush your mother who is stuck in the bathroom too. She’s an idiot who leaves all the chores to an 11-year-old kid, so it’s easy to drag her out, right?”
If you hold out a little longer.
“Ha, I really don’t understand. Tsk. Why did you leave a bitch like this still in the mansion? I should have just sold her to a whorehouse with her mother a long time ago.”
little bit more.
“Even if we go there, you and your mother will continue to do what we were doing anyway.
That was the limit. Serena felt something snapping in her head, and clenched her fist, striking Layla’s thrush right in front of her eyes.
Layla couldn’t even scream and floated up and flew backwards for a while, then fell on the other side of the hallway and rolled over. Pieces of broken teeth fell in the hallway.
Lila, who had fallen on the ground, groaned and raised her upper body with her elbows. He groped for his face with his other arm, and as soon as his hand touched his mouth, he screamed for the mansion to leave.
“Oh ah ah ah ah!”
At the sound of shrill screams, the building of servants who could be seen through the window lit up. Attendants rushed out of the door.
It didn’t matter if he ran or not. It was an overflowing time to kill that thing that had fallen on the floor. Serena used body strengthening by infusing mana into her body.
once. Just one punch and Layla’s head will explode like a vase on the floor. That was it. Serena walked right in front of Lila and grabbed her hair and lifted it up.
He clenched his fist. Blue mana wrapped around his body.
“stop!”
I was about to put a fist into my face, but when I heard a man’s voice, I reflexively stopped. Her eyes, filled with all sorts of emotions, trembled.
“What are you doing!”
I turned my head. I saw a man walking towards me.
Familiar look, familiar voice, familiar height.
He was Serena’s father.
“Dad…….”
“Can’t you shut that mouth!”
Serena reflexively uttered the word daddy, but immediately voila! As he turned his head to the side with a sound, his eyes widened.
It wasn’t because it hurt. I put mana on my body and even used it to strengthen my body, but there was no way I could feel pain from being slapped on the cheek.
I was just shocked by the fact that the father in my memory, who was always kind and gentle, appeared in reality and yelled at me and stabbed me. Tears welled up in my eyes.
“Tie up this bitch right now!”
The servants who arrived just in time rushed out and violently grabbed Serena and pressed her to the floor. It was a form of restraining a beast, not a human.
Serena felt nothing. I couldn’t. In the wet blue wall, the image of her father holding Laila dearly was reflected.
‘why… … ?’
Even as he was dragged along by the servants, such a question lingered in his head.
Serena was on her knees with her head bowed in the middle of the mansion’s garden, her body tightly bound with ropes and restraints on her hands and feet.
As soon as she saw Layla, who came down with her father, she cut the rope and ran wild, saying she would kill her, but was soon overpowered by a group of A-class adventurers dispatched from the union.
No matter how much he had made great progress over the past year, it was true that his skills were far from being comparable to that of an A-class adventurer, who was treated as a great force by the Adventurers Guild in earnest.
After being subdued, his hands and feet were filled with restraints, and his body was even injected with poison. My hands and feet continued to tremble from the poison, and my eyes kept blurring.
“father…….”
“I’ve never had a daughter like you.”
Serena, who was desperately looking for her father, lowered her head at the cold reaction that came back. I couldn’t understand why it changed like that.
The father in my memory was a man who did not even remember raising his voice, let alone getting angry. She was always kind to her maids and servants.
Now is? His cheekbones protruded sharply due to overlapping skin bones, his skin was completely discolored, and his darkened eyelids sunk inward, making him look like a completely different person.
The friendly voice disappeared without a trace, and only a disgusting voice like scratching iron remained.
“Do you know what you’ve done, you nasty thing?”
“That person first—”
“To my lovely wife, that person!”
Before Serena could finish her words, a thunderclap came back. My body shuddered.
On the day before his father disappeared, the image of him crying and hugging himself and saying he was sorry could be seen over and over again. That was the reason Serena couldn’t completely abandon her lingering feelings.
I kept thinking that if that woman named Layla had done something to my father, maybe we could solve it somehow.
Besides, didn’t the boy also offer to cooperate? After hearing the details of Serena’s father, the boy was sure the woman was up to something.
Maybe at first he found a weakness or something and used it to intimidate him, but during the period he didn’t show up, there must have been something else.
Serena had no intention of arguing with her father, who would never have acted like that intentionally, or with a blood clot around her neck. I wanted to somehow get my father back, and even more so, my family.
“Hey, let go of this!”
“mother!”
Serena’s eyes widened at the familiar voice. In the distance, her mother was being dragged by the arms.
Bare feet with nothing on were dragging on the dirt floor. It must have been thrown away somewhere, and the clothes were all covered with dirt. In front of an A-class adventurer, a sickly woman’s resistance was meaningless.
Seeing her mother thrown roughly beside her, Serena struggled to break the restraints. To the disgrace of that effort, the body did not have any strength at all.
Her mother called her husband anxiously.
“Honey! Please wake up! It’s me!”
“Honey? What are you talking about!”
“Oops!”
An adventurer from behind grabbed him by the hair and threw him to the ground. Serena’s eyes lit up as she saw bloody coughs coming out of her mother’s mouth.
While forcing his body, which could not move well due to the poison, to fight Layla, he was hit by a stick and sprawled out. A merciless beating continued on top of Serena, who fell to the floor.
At that time, Layla’s arrogant smile swept past Serena, who had not lost her ferocious spirit despite being beaten up by sticks and kicks. An ominous feeling crossed Serena’s mind.
Lila walked up behind the man and whispered something in his ear. Serena’s father, who heard the whisper, was very happy, and opened his mouth to see Serena and her mother lying on the floor.
“Be grateful for the fact that my wife is a caring woman. Originally, I was going to execute her on the spot with the authority of the lord, but mercifully decided to give her a chance to preserve her insignificant life.”
mercifully? Serena glanced back at Layla. Those eyes were stained with sadism. It wasn’t. That was never mercy.
Lila’s mean smile caught her eye, her teeth shining white even though she had obviously smashed them all last night.
“For the adventurers here, you can survive if you just spread your legs. You’ve done prostitution on the streets a lot, so there’s no objection, right? Thank my wife for making the difficult decision to spare her life with such a merciful act.”
“Honey, please…”
“Eight, noisy! You guys, move quickly!”
As if waiting for those words to fall, the surrounding adventurers approached Serena’s mother.
“You guys, just touch my mother! I will kill you! I will kill you! I will kill you all!”
Serena screamed, but to no avail. As if Serena was getting on her nerves, her leather shoes got stuck in her chin. Mouth was forced shut. It tasted like blood.
“Hey, let go of this!”
Her mother struggled on her limbs in her own way. Even so, the resistance of a weak woman who had not fully recovered from her illness would not work against strong adventurers.
A violent hand gripped her wrist, and the rag-like dress ripped open with a crackling sound. Men who laughed meanly surrounded the woman lying on the floor.
Serena couldn’t bear to see it with both eyes open, so she closed her eyes tightly. Rather, I longed for all of this moment to be a dream, to be a bed when I open my eyes.
Of course, such a lousy thing could not have happened. Serena was still pinned to the ground, and her mother’s screams could be heard among the men.
“you…….”
Her father gave Serena a lifeless stare. Leila was right behind him. He put his lips to his ear again and whispered something again.
A hearty laugh was heard.
“Haha! I see. My wife is right. You’re also the daughter of a prostitute, so you’re going to walk the same path as your mother anyway, right? Then it wouldn’t hurt to let you experience the life you’ll be living here in advance.”
Serena met Lila’s eyes. The corners of the eyes curved in the shape of a crescent moon. What that meant was clear. It was ridicule.
On the other side, the adventurers were arguing with each other, deciding on an order they didn’t want to think about. Serena bowed her head.
If it hadn’t been for the defensive magic surrounding the mansion, the boy who had taught him swordsmanship could have entered the mansion and helped, but that was impossible no matter how much he thought about it.
Serena knew very well about the mansion’s defense magic. A high-ranking magic installed by that woman that could lightly kill any reckless human who dared to break into this place.
No matter how excellent the swordsman the boy was, he did not expect that he would be able to pierce that defense magic. The magic was too strong for that.
Because once before, when I asked if it was possible to penetrate the boundary of the mansion with swordsmanship, he gave an ambiguous answer and went overboard. Maybe it’s better to think I can’t.
I thought I was a little stronger now. I thought I could take care of my mother and be independent now. Tears flowed.
“Then, you too—”
“What are you doing in broad daylight?”
At the familiar voice, Serena lifted her head, which had been planted on the ground. no way.
And when I saw the familiar figure walking towards this direction, I finally shed the tears I had been holding back.
It was a boy.
The boy, who walked toward Serena with a calm expression, looked at the adventurers surrounding the naked woman and at Serena, who was lying on her face, tied up tightly, and frowned.
“you you……!”
Lila was astonished. Serena, who had been watching the boy from the sidelines, was also greatly surprised, so it was clear that Layla was more shocked.
“How, how do you use defense magic…!”
“Defense magic? Oh, that thing that surrounded the mansion?
“It wasn’t a big deal? Stop talking nonsense! How long did I spend making it—”
Lila, who had said that, covered her mouth with her hand. Serena was puzzled.
“Was it you who improved it? Somehow. For an ordinary defense magic, the killing power is quite high. The first one is a trick, and the second and third ones are for real killing. Didn’t you use your brain quite a bit?”
“You should have died! You should have died! But why are you still alive! As long as there’s a barrier, you’ll never come in here!”
“never?”
The boy laughed.
“Tell me how I got through that?”
“……?”
“It’s simple. As long as you don’t die on the way in, that’s it.”
“……What?”
“Seriously. If that barrier kills people who pass through it, if you don’t die while passing through it, you can come in here, right? You don’t understand this simple principle, do you?”
To be honest, Serena didn’t understand either.
The boy’s words were sophistry itself. How can you control death and non-death by human will? If that was possible, the world would already be overflowing with humans.
“Are you a guy who doesn’t know how precious his life is? It looks like he’s done some tricks. Shall I kill him myself?”
“I’m kind of inclined to do that. I have so many lives to waste.”
Before Layla could refute the sophistry, the boy began to move.
The adventurers surrounding Serena’s mother also picked up the weapons they had left beside them one by one, perhaps realizing that things were going strangely wrong. Some of them hurriedly got dressed.
Taking advantage of that gap, Serena crawled on the floor and approached her mother. Bloodstains were clearly visible on the corners of his mouth, and dark red blood spurted out whenever he coughed.
Fortunately, it didn’t seem like anything serious had happened. The fact that we wasted so much time fighting each other to set the order was huge.
Serena rubbed her cheek against her mother’s tear-stained cheek.
“By the way, aren’t you proud of yourself too? How did you have the guts to take a corpse and sit on it? Looking at its condition, it looks like it’s been dead for quite a while, but even if you’re a little knowledgeable in magic, you’ll know right away that it’s a corpse. With a corpse, Don’t you know that playful behavior is strictly forbidden?”
Serena was taken aback by the boy’s words. I thought he was simply brainwashed, but in reality he was already dead a long time ago?
The blue wall turned towards her father. Empty, lifeless pupils. Come to think of it, somehow my skin felt a bit stiff.
As if struck at the pinnacle, Layla shuddered and screamed with a blood clot in her neck.
“This, profit! What are you doing! Kill! Kill!”
As Laila screamed, adventurers and servants rushed at the boy. The boy took out a scroll from his bosom and activated it.
The blue orb spread around the boy and engulfed Serena and her mother. All sounds outside disappeared, and silence settled within the sphere.
The boy, who roughly threw away the torn scroll, approached Serena. Outside, adventurers were pounding spheres with weapons and trying to get inside.
“Wait a minute. I’ll let you go. Don’t worry, they won’t be able to break this shield with their skills.”
“Oh, brother. Hold on. My dad, is he dead? Really? No? Just brainwashed?”
She was curious about how the boy had gotten in, but now she needed more information about her father.
At Serena’s urgent words, the boy stiffened his face for a moment and shook his head cautiously. The meaning of the action was clear. It felt like my heart was about to collapse.
“I thought I wouldn’t kill her because there’s a chance she’ll be called out by Charlotte from time to time. She must have been far more shortsighted than I thought. What kind of guts did she really do that? Charlotte would definitely notice.”
Even as the boy grumbled, he steadily released the ropes and restraints on his hands and feet. Then, he took a scroll from his bag and put it in Serena’s hand to activate it.
A green glow unique to healing magic wrapped around her body. The body, which had been gradually weakened by the poison, regained its original state.
Serena suppressed her sadness. Oddly enough, I didn’t want to appear weak in front of the boy.
“……Here, how?”
Instead, I decided to ask what I was curious about. It was an attempt to force attention elsewhere.
“How, what, how? I stayed up all night and didn’t come back, so I snooped around the mansion and entered. I constantly told you. If you run away, it’s my loss. Teaching you swordsmanship is also beneficial to me?”
As soon as the healing magic faded and her body regained its original strength, she hurriedly ran to her mother and supported her head. The amount of blood on the corners of his mouth and chest was noticeably greater than before.
“Oh, brother. What about my mother? Can I live? Right?”
Tears streamed through Serena’s voice. I couldn’t lose my mother after my father.
The boy took out another scroll from the bag next to him, handed it to Serena’s mother, and gently pulled it out. Again, the green light unique to healing magic burst out.
His breathing, which seemed to be out of breath at any moment, began to stabilize gradually. It didn’t completely stop the cough, but at least there was no coughing up blood.
“The first aid has been completed. The disease has not been completely cured yet, so it is a temporary measure that only replenishes your stamina. Right now, your life will not be affected.”
“Everything, I’m glad…”
Serena’s body was weak, and she stumbled. As always, the boy stroked his hair. After stroking her hair for a while, she suddenly called Serena’s name.
“Serena.”
“yes?”
“Do you want revenge?”
“……Revenge?”
“Those out there. You want to kill them all.”
The boy pointed to the servants and adventurers who were still pounding the sphere outside the sphere, and Layla, who was standing next to his father’s corpse and screaming.
“I could have killed you instead. But, if you’re the one I know, I think you’d rather do it yourself than leave it in the hands of someone else. Isn’t it?”
Serena didn’t answer. Because that’s right. If I could, I wanted to kill them with my own hands.
It was a cruel idea that was not like an 11-year-old, but those outside the sphere anyway treated Serena cruelly, not like an 11-year-old, so it was a teacher.
So, slowly, I nodded my head up and down.
“If you can.”
“I will help you.”
“……Really?”
“Did I ever lie to you?”
Serena shook her head. The boy always told Serena only the truth. No matter how absurd it may sound, what the boy said was always the truth.
“And, I’ll make you even stronger than you are now. You have talent. I was convinced while teaching you.”
“…”
“Instead, let me do one favor of you.”
“Please… is this?”
“okay.”
“What is it?”
At Serena’s question, the corner of the boy’s mouth drew the smile he had shown when he first offered to teach him swordsmanship.
“You can help me die.”
