I swung my sword forward fiercely.

Sparks of electricity flew from my sword, striking the dummy I was attacking with quite high damage.

Immediately after that, my sword reached it.

My mastery of electric magic had greatly improved.

Of course it would… After what had happened in the city, I had started to train much harder.

I was about to make the next swing… when I paused.

I realized I was out of breath, sweating. It was a good time to take a break.

I hung my sword around my waist, grabbed a towel, and started wiping my sweat off while I let myself fall onto the couch in the training room.

I poured a bottle of water down my throat, and as I was refreshing myself with each gulp, I opened a holographic screen in front of me… and my father’s message appeared in front of me.

<<——————————

19:56

Thursday, December 1, 2044

1 new message from Dad:

Celine, are you still training? – 19:53

——————————>>

These days… he was definitely too interested in my training.

<<——————————

You: I’m taking a break now. In fact, I’m going to go to my room and sleep.

——————————>>

The answer… came instantly.

<<——————————

Dad: Okay. Set your training times properly. Don’t overdo it.

You: I’m not overdoing it… I don’t spend every second of the day in my training room.

——————————>>

Actually… I was.

But he didn’t need to know that.

So, for the next few seconds, my father wrote something to me… but then the ’writing’ status suddenly changed.

He waited for a few seconds like that as if he had erased what he had written. Then, he started writing again.

<<——————————

Dad: I have something urgent, see you later.

——————————>>

And he went offline almost instantly.

I took a deep breath, squinting my eyes as I leaned back in my armchair.

These days… he had too much ’urgent work’.

It was clearly because of what had happened in Wiathen.

The city was… literally wrecked. And rebuilding was proving to be quite a challenge. On top of that, the whole kingdom was in turmoil once again because of Saligia. They were working hard on security measures.

I watched the ceiling for a while, I spent a few seconds like that… and then, I pulled the holographic screen, which was still on, in front of me and exited the chat with my father.

I clicked on the chat just below it, and when I realized that the message I sent hadn’t even been seen yet, I couldn’t help but sigh deeply.

<<——————————

–Yesterday–

You: You’ve been gone for days. You’re fine… right?

You: Everyone is worried about you, at least write a message…

–Today–

You: Aiden…?

You: Aiden, can you at least… check my messages?

——————————>>

I scrolled down the chat with my finger, looking at the messages I had written long before.

He hadn’t read any of them.

The last time I’d seen him was… in front of Sue’s grave. After that, I hadn’t heard his voice or seen him anywhere.

It was like… he had literally disappeared.

“I’m… in a relationship with Sue, right now.”

I remembered for a moment what he had said that day.

“And… it’s not that I don’t like her. I… I like her very much.”

I narrowed my eyes even more, then turned off the holographic screen.

Sue’s death… affected him too much.

It hit him too hard.

He lost someone he loved, after all. It’s not that I don’t understand. The day we found out my brother died… my mom and I were in the same state.

But we got over it somehow. We accepted that life… goes on.

Can he accept it, though?

He’s strong… One of the strongest people I’ve ever met in my life, maybe.

He came out of a bloody war, on top of that. So there’s a huge difference between him and a normal person.

He must know the reality of death and that life goes on.

But… what if he can’t pull himself together?

What if… Sue’s death sets him on a path of no return?

I frowned, closed my eyes, and thought for a while.

I kept thinking…

And at the end, I took a deep breath.

Sue… wouldn’t want it to be like this, would she?

She would want Aiden… to be okay.

I’ll… check on him.

I opened my eyes, slowly got up from the couch I was leaning against. First, I changed, replacing my sweat-covered clothes with fresh ones. I locked my room on my way out of the training building, then I walked out with slow steps.

The sun had already set. Since it was December, it was setting quite early… so most of the students were in their rooms. There were few people outside.

Under the cover of darkness, I made my way toward the dormitories. When I got in front of Aiden’s building, I paused and checked his balcony.

His light… wasn’t on.

“Great…”

With a sigh, I entered the building, made my way up to the eighth floor, and arrived in front of his door.

I knocked gently at first.

“Aiden… it’s me, Celine.”

And waited.

After seconds of nothing happening, I knocked again, harder this time.

“Hey, can you hear me…?”

But… again, nothing.

This time, I reached for the doorbell button next to the door.

Again… no answer.

“Are you ignoring me…? Okay, fine.”

I turned around, took slow steps back down to the lobby of the dormitory, and stopped where I had just checked to see if the lights were on.

“If you’re ignoring me… I’ll just come straight to you.”

I stretched slightly, filled my body with mana, and then jumped when I was sure no one could see me.

I jumped from the balcony of the first floor and went up to the second. I grabbed the railing there and threw myself up, going straight up to the fourth floor. Using my foot this time, I jumped up again and went up to the seventh floor. Then, with one last, tiny step, I put my feet right on the railing of his balcony.

For a moment, I felt like I would lose my balance and fall backward, but I quickly regained my balance. Slowly, without making a sound, I jumped into the balcony.

I looked down first.

I saw an open-mouthed student in the distance, looking right at where I was, but no one else was looking at me.

I took a deep, really deep breath and turned my eyes to the balcony door.

Slowly, I approached it and just as slowly opened it.

The first thing I noticed… was the thick air hitting my face from inside.

How many days had it been since he had opened his window or the balcony to make it so stuffy inside…? I had no idea, but I didn’t care too much.

I went back inside again, gently and quietly, and when I went out into the hallway… the first thing I did was to check the living room.

But… it was empty. It wasn’t cluttered or anything, it was pretty neat. It was just… empty.

I swallowed, walked into the bedroom, and knocked gently, just like I had the first time I came to his door.

“Aiden? Are you in there?”

…

…

Just… silence.

There was one thing, though.

It was… my skill.

That otherworldly feeling I could only feel from Aiden… faintly coming through the door.

“I’m coming in, Aiden. If you don’t want to… say so, okay?”

I waited a bit at first, hoping to get an answer.

But nothing happened.

I reached for the door handle, turned it as slowly and quietly as possible… then pushed the door.

Inside… was dark, just like all the other rooms.

But my eyes were already used to the darkness. So I saw a quite different view compared to what I had just seen.

And the first thing I saw ’different’ was… light.

There was a light on the bed, reflected around the rest of the room, behind a figure, presumably Aiden, with his knees pulled all the way up.

“Aiden…?”

He didn’t respond to me, so I slowly approached the bed, my eyes constantly on the source of the light reflected in the room. And… soon, a voice entered my ears.

“-u recording a video…?”

It was a familiar voice.

Too familiar.

Even…

“Huh?”

That was… Sue’s voice.

“Yes.”

But then Aiden’s voice came, and I paused.

I took one last step toward him, and then… I finally found the source of the light.

It was a… video playing on a holographic screen.

And in the video was Sue.

Her eyes focused on the camera, looking directly at the video. She couldn’t help sighing slightly.

“Don’t record people unannounced.”

They were on a… Ferris wheel?

Oh, they were at the amusement park at the academy.

“I don’t record other people, I record my girlfriend.”

I… just froze in place after what he said.

I locked onto Sue as if… something in my mind had suddenly clicked into place.

The corner of her lips twitched. She continued to stare blankly for a while. Then her eyes shifted slightly upward to the person recording her, Aiden, and then back to the camera. And then… her twitching lip curled upward slightly. She let out a little laugh.

Everything about it was so… so… real…

It was like she wasn’t dead.

She was alive… almost.

“Huh, what happened?”

Sue leaned in slightly, lifted her hands, and rested her chin between them.

“It’s nothing. It’s just… I’m happy, I guess.”

A particularly wide smile appeared on her face, her dark blue eyes squinted slightly.

“So, thank you.”

Her smile was… so bright, so… real, that I stiffened where I was.

So did Aiden in the video, apparently.

“Oh…”

He lowered the camera slowly. Before the video ended… he said one last thing.

“I… thank you, I guess.”

The video… was so real, so beautifully capturing Sue and her smile with the view in the background…

It was hard to believe that she was dead, that she wasn’t in this world anymore.

“Are you recording a video…?”

But then I heard the voice and my eyes literally widened and all my goosebumps went up.

“Yes.”

This video…

“Don’t record people unannounced.”

Is it in a loop?

“I don’t record other people, I record my girlfriend.”

I swallowed involuntarily, moved closer to the bed, and approached Aiden’s face.

He had dark circles under his eyes, it was clear he hadn’t slept much. His hands were in front of him like a baby, his fingers turned toward the holographic screen. As if… he was trying to touch it.

“Huh, what happened?”

Aiden…

“It’s nothing. It’s just… I’m happy, I guess.”

How long exactly has he been watching this video?

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep