Chapter 53: Nina Wraiths Story
“Leo! What are you doing standing there?! Hurry up and kill it before it kills you!” Miss Camille shouted at him when he stood there in a daze, snapping him awake.
“R-Right!” Leo quickly composed himself before shooting a Black Bullet at Nina’s mother, who was just a soulless zombie that was filled with bloodlust.
However, the Black Bullet was nowhere close to hitting the target, missing her head by several inches.
Although he was unaware, Leo had subconsciously missed the target on purpose. Even though the entity before him wasn’t a human, she was still Nina’s mother, and he has never tried to attack another human with the intention to kill before.
“No! Don’t hurt her! She’s my mother!” Nina started shouting.
“Are you blind? Does that thing look like a human being to you? She’s turned into a zombie! Forget about being your mother, she’s no different than a monster now!”
“N-No! I’m sure my mother is in there somewhere! Just let me speak with her! Please!” Nina begged her with teary eyes.
“I refuse.” Miss Camille coldly said.
“I will talk to her no matter what!”
Nina suddenly activated her mana and summoned an army of skeletons inside the room, surrounding Miss Camille.
“You think you can stop me with this?” Miss Camille sneered.
Her body suddenly emitted a bright and golden light. When the skeletons were exposed to this golden light, their entire body quickly turned black before disintegrating until there was nothing left.
As for the zombie, it started screaming in pain even though the golden light was nowhere near it.
“No! Stop it! You’re hurting her!” Nina started running towards her zombie mother.
“H-Hey! That’s dangerous!” Leo wanted to stop her, but he suddenly heard Miss Camille’s voice.
“Leo! Don’t stop her. If she wants to die, let her die. We will kill the zombie afterward.”
Leo’s body froze after hearing Miss Camille’s ruthless words.
He turned to look at her with a perplexed expression on his face.
‘Let her die? Can I do something that cruel?’ He turned to look at Nina a moment later, who had just arrived before her mother.
“Mother… It’s me, Nina, your daughter… Do you remember me?” Nina approached her rotting mother with an emotion expression on her face.
“Please… I don’t want to lose you again… You promised that you would start a new life with me in this city— Ah!”
Nina screamed when her mother suddenly struck her, causing her to fall to the floor.
However, she quickly got back up and approached her mother again, ignoring the blood that was flowing down her arm.
“Mother… We left the city to start a new life— to lead a better life. We can still do it… You and me… Please—”
“Arrrgh!”
Her mother suddenly lunged forward with her mouth wide open, seemingly trying to take a chunk of flesh out of Nina’s body.
Nina closed her eyes, but she didn’t run away.
“Are you really going to let her kill you?!” Leo’s voice suddenly resounded, followed by a screaming noise that came from in front of Nina.
Nina subconsciously opened her eyes to see that her mother was missing one of her limbs and even half a shoulder.
“Mother?!” She cried out loud before turning to look at Leo, who had just used Black Bullet.
“I think it’s about time that you snap out of your delusions and open your eyes, Nina Wraith! Your mother is gone! Are you really going to continue disrespecting your deceased mother like this?! Although I don’t know anything about your relationship with your mother or your mother in general, I would like to believe that she’s someone who would be against your current actions! Any reasonable and loving mother would never allow her children to be hurt, yet you’re making your own mother hurt you! If I were your mother, I would be crying in heaven right now!”
Nina’s body trembled after hearing Leo’s words, her eyes overflowing with tears.
After a moment of silence, she turned to look at her mother and spoke in a low voice, “Mother… I’m really sorry for disturbing your eternal rest… My goal has always been to let you be at peace, yet here I am, doing the complete opposite…”
“Since I am the reason you awoke, I will bear all responsibility and be the one to put you back to rest…”
Nina summoned her army of skeletons again, but she used it to surround her zombie mother this time.
Nina closed her eyes before commanding her army to attack the zombie.
A few moments later, when she opened her eyes, Nina could see her mother on the floor, but she no longer bore any resemblance of a human and had turned into a pile of ash.
Nina retrieved an empty glass jar before going to collect her mother’s remains.
After the whole ordeal was finished, Nina turned to look at Miss Camille and Leo.
She lowered her body and bowed to them, “I am really sorry for my selfishness and forcing the two of you to help me, but I do not regret my actions because I am finally able to let my mother rest in peace. I won’t complain even if you decide to punish me.”
“If you’re really sorry, then you’ll clean up the mess here. I won’t be helping you.” Miss Camille said.
“Leo, meet me in the infirmary tomorrow morning at nine.”
After saying these words, she turned around and walked out of the training room, but she didn’t immediately leave, as she had to make sure that nobody would learn of their little event today.
“What are you going to do now…?” Leo suddenly asked Nina once they were alone.
“Who knows, but I will probably leave the academy,” she sighed.
“Seriously?”
She nodded and said, “I no longer have a reason to stay in the academy. The only reason I came here was to study about resurrection magic so that I could resurrect my mother.”
“But where will you go after you leave?”
“I am going to become an Adventurer, and then I am going to avenge my mother by getting rid of all monsters in this world. That has always been a secondary goal of mine, after all.”
“Getting rid of all monsters in this world…? All by yourself?” Leo mumbled in a dazed voice.
“I know, you don’t need to say anything. However, I still want to try.”
Leo wanted to try to convince her to stay at the academy, but he realized that he had no reason to do so, nor did he know her well enough to convince her.
‘I have no right to stop her from achieving her goals no matter how ridiculous they may seem…’ He sighed inwardly.
Then he realized something else.
‘What about me? What are my goals? I haven’t really thought about it since coming to this world since I’ve been too busy training and doing what everyone around me wants me to do… What do I want to achieve in this world? Now that I’ve been given an opportunity to live my life to the fullest, I should do just that…’
He recalled when Miss Camille asked him to find a goal in this world, yet he hadn’t thought of anything.
In his old world, his goal was just to survive university and hopefully become a successful adult with enough money to live a stress-free life, but after being tossed into this crazy world with magic and monsters, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do.
“I’m going to clean up now. You can leave.” Nina said to him as she started cleaning the blood stains on the floor.
“I’ll help you.” Leo said, surprising her.
“Huh? Why would you do that? I’ve caused you nothing but trouble.”
“I just feel like it.” He shrugged and started helping her clean the blood off the floor with some towels that they had prepared beforehand.
As they cleaned, Leo suddenly asked her, “Hey, if you don’t mind, can you tell me a little about yourself? Why did you decide to move to this city with your mother?”
Nina was a little reluctant at first, but she recalled saying she would accept any punishment they gave her, so she considered this as her punishment and said, “My family lived in poverty. My mother was born with complications in her body that made it difficult for her to find work, and my father died when I was just three years old. He was trying to provide for us as an Adventurer, but he didn’t even last a month as one. The fact that our city was being ruled by a corrupt tyrant did not make it any easier for us. In fact, the majority of the city lived in poverty. You were either filthy rich or filthy poor— there was no in-between. Therefore, we decided to escape the city.”
“However, leaving that city is easier said than done. We had to pay people to smuggle us out, but we didn’t have any money, so in order to acquire the funds, my mother sold her body. Every day for almost four years she would return home with new bruises on her body before her old ones could disappear. Once we had enough money, we smuggled ourselves out of the city, but before we could reach our destination, monsters attacked us. We survived only because some Adventurers happened to be nearby and saved us, but my mother… She was not so lucky, as she was poisoned during the attack. She died before we could reach the city.”
“After coming to the city, I found out that I had talent for dark magic, allowing me to enroll in this academy. The rest is history.”
Leo was speechless after hearing Nina’s tragic backstory. He would’ve never imagined that she had to live such a difficult life if she didn’t tell him. Compared to his own life… No, it couldn’t even be compared.
Now that he knew about her backstory, he could no longer hate her for trying to resurrect her mother. In fact, he would’ve willingly helped her if he knew about it beforehand.
“Thank you for telling me… And I am sorry about your mother…” He sighed.
After cleaning the training room, Leo and Nina left the training center through the backdoor.
“Once again, thank you for everything. If there’s anything I can do for you before I leave the academy, don’t hesitate to let me know.” Nina thanked him again right before they went their separate ways.
<You have completed a Special Quest>
[+100,000 Magic Experience, +500 Magic Points]
Leo went straight back to his room afterward, but he had a bitter taste in his mouth that he could not get rid of.