Chapter 58 Volume II – Chapter 24: Finding a Few Answers

I checked and rechecked everything in my luggage, making sure that everything was in order. Then I stood up with a smile on my face for the first time in a long time and stood in front of my mirror.

I made sure that my bruises and scars were not showing and finally nodded my head up and down in approval.

It was okay, all I had to do was walk to the station.

I was going back to my brother for three days because the academy was on break, and I had a smile on my face that I couldn’t put down.

Just being away from here, even for three days, was a blessing. How could I ignore it? Of course, I couldn’t.

I quickly opened the door and took my first step outside with beautiful dreams, but then my expression instantly faded with what I saw in front of me. I stared blankly at the scene in front of me as if I was hallucinating, but no matter how long I waited, what I saw didn’t change.

There was a boy leaning against the wall just opposite my door. His long dark blue hair was tied behind his head and he was looking at me with his golden, cold eyes.

It had been almost three months since I had last seen him, but he hadn’t changed, he was still the same. That’s exactly why I couldn’t move a muscle, I never thought he would see me again.

I wanted to step back and close the door in his face, to get him out of my sight, but all I could do was swallow.

He was silent because he knew what I was going to do and what I was thinking.

“W- what do you want?”

I wanted to speak calmly, but I stammered involuntarily. However, a smile appeared on his smooth face and his expression turned wry.

“Would you like to relax a little, Sue?”

He straightened up from where he was leaning and took a step toward me. Unlike him, I took a step back, gripping the door handle tightly to slam it in his face if he made a move.

“I haven’t forgotten what you did to me, Sue, I never forget those who betrayed me. That’s exactly why I need you. Help me and I can halve the number of people bullying you, and I can make sure you live comfortably for a few weeks.”

At first, I looked at him blankly, not understanding what he meant.

Then I replayed what he said in my mind, my eyes slowly widening as I questioned whether I had misunderstood him.

It was five months… It had been five months since I started getting new wounds and bruises every day, over and over again. No one was talking to me, not a single person was trying to help me. I couldn’t even eat properly, I was afraid to go to the grocery store.

All because of… It was all because of the boy in front of me. He especially made sure that no one would help me, he especially made everyone avoid me and bully me.

And now he was in front of me showing me a way out as if he hadn’t caused any of this for these five months.

A proud person might have started yelling at him, questioning how he could offer him this. Me… I didn’t give a damn.

Pride? I had thrown it away a long time ago. The idea of getting out of this hell put everything else on the back burner.

When I thought back, he hadn’t said he was going to stop bullying completely, just cut it in half… I still wasn’t completely free of it, but… wasn’t it even that wonderful?

I imagined a world where I didn’t have to put cream on my bruises every night, where I could take a step without getting hurt, where my wallet was expanding because of the money I spent on medication, and I swallowed.

After I swallowed, Justin widened his smile.

“Aiden Tenebra, the rumored guy. He made a deal with me and broke it. He needs to be punished for that, but he’s interestingly hard to reach. So you will be my bait, Sue.”

At first, I couldn’t remember who he was talking about, I had enough problems with myself that I hadn’t paid much attention to the rumors at the academy, but then suddenly I remembered.

It was Aiden, the boy who had helped me a few days ago. He didn’t seem very strong, but he handled the bullies pretty well. He was also someone who saw me and chose to help me instead of walking past.

I was grateful to him, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. The fact that someone helped me, even after a long time, the fact that he looked me in the face and spoke to me instead of ignoring me, unlike the others, made me happy that day, but that was it. I didn’t think I would ever meet him again, nor did I think I would ever need him again, so I erased that day from my mind.

“Sue, you’re the only person he’s helped directly in the time he’s been here. I’d rather use you than pick someone at random and make it less likely that he’ll come to me, he’s more likely to come to you. So help me and you’ll have a more peaceful life ahead of you. And of course…”

He did not finish his sentence and smiled slightly.

This smile had many meanings, but when I thought about what it meant here, I realized that my eyes, which had just widened, slowly returned to their original state.

You have no choice anyway, he was telling me.

He was doing nothing but playing games with me, he probably didn’t even need to use me… No, he could have forced me to follow him in the first place, but he chose to talk.

He was insulting me, telling me that he would use me and that I couldn’t do anything.

And yet… What could I say anyway? Even if I really had a choice, I knew and he knew what I would choose.

I… I don’t want to hurt other people. I don’t want to be involved in anything that involves Justin, even indirectly. It’s a disgusting, almost vomit-inducing thought, but…

It’s not a good thing I’m doing.

I know, but just for once… Don’t I have the right to be happy for once?

Isn’t this world already rotten to the core?

I, not even a tiny dot among billions of people, have done something bad to be happy… is that too much?

“Will you… leave me alone?”

Justin’s smile slowly widened. His expression became even more cynical than it already was, but he still gave a calm and short answer.

“Yes, I will.”

Traces of a smile appeared on my face. It was the kind of smile I didn’t want to show him, it was pathetic. And the person I felt pity for was me, myself.

I am a bad person… right? No matter how many excuses I make to myself, it doesn’t make what I’m about to do a ‘good’ thing.

Still… If I want to be happy, I shouldn’t pity other people.

I’m not a hero, I’m just… a poor person trying to survive.

Still, that doesn’t mean I trust him completely.

“Promise me… No, let’s make a contract.”

It was a momentary idea, the words came out of my mouth spontaneously. So by the time I realized my mistake, it was too late.

Justin’s expression suddenly dropped. Before I knew what was happening, a gust of wind hit my body and I could hardly stop myself from being thrown backward.

“First of all, I’m a man of my word, and it broke my heart that you didn’t trust me with this, Sue.”

His cold golden eyes flashed angrily down the hallway, clicking his tongue in a disgusted expression as if he were looking at an ant.

“The fact that you could still think of wanting to make a contract with me… That broke my heart even more. We were together for two years, I dated you for two whole years and you never got to know me?”

The atmosphere suddenly became heavy as an icy cold penetrated my skin.

I was shivering, cold and stiff. I was scared, he was not someone who was afraid of his actions. If he wanted to do something, he would do it as long as he wouldn’t be severely punished afterward, and even if he did something bad, with the support behind him, he would at most get a warning.

Maybe he wouldn’t even get that…

“Just do what I say and you’ll have an easier life, Sue. I could have easily forced you to do this, I could have even knocked you unconscious and kidnapped you, but I didn’t. Do you know why? Because I think you’ve had enough of your punishment and I’m offering you a chance. Every person deserves a chance, but it’s up to them how well they use it. So prove your worth to me and I will ease your suffering, and if you can’t…”

He paused, unable to hide his grin for a moment as if to show that even he didn’t believe the bullshit coming out of his mouth, but he recovered quickly, took a deep breath, and turned around.

“We’ll worry about that then, now follow me.”

I continued to stand where I was with the echoing footsteps as Justin slowly made his way down the empty hallway.

Finally, I lowered my head, fixed my eyes on the floor, and clenched my fist.

‘I’m sorry…’

For a moment I thought about the boy who helped me, but then I erased all these thoughts from my mind.

If I want to survive in this world, if I want to live a decent life, I have to be ruthless. So what if he helped me? I don’t even know him.

I looked down the hallway where Justin had disappeared. He hadn’t called out to me, he had just kept walking because he knew what was going to happen; he knew what choice I was going to make.

I took my first step hesitantly, but the next steps, thinking that what I was doing was the ‘right’ thing for me, came naturally and I entered the corridor where Justin had disappeared.

I’m sorry Paul… Your sister will make you wait a bit.

*******

I was back inside the walls of the academy, back here, ‘physically’ unharmed.

That didn’t matter, though.

What mattered was that I wasn’t the same person I had left the last time… I wasn’t even human…

Nevertheless, thanks to my passive skill that allows a normal person, especially someone like me who is obsessed with being ‘human’, to remain calm even in such a situation, I never broke down.

In fact, since the skill doesn’t work ‘instantly’, I could feel the bad thoughts even for a split second, so I wanted to rest a bit, to clear my head.

Still, not everything was over, it was time to put things back on track, so here I was; in front of the building called ‘Mana Research Laboratories’…

I took a deep breath and paused as something occurred to me before I went inside.

Really… this is quite strange.

I closed my eyes and focused on the energy flowing through me, the mana, trying to direct it, to imbue it with the attribute of ‘wind’ completely on my own, without the help of the system, and then a gentle breeze swept through my body, just as I had imagined.

I haven’t heard from Sith since I became a wiera, or rather a ‘hybrid’, but I can still use ‘spirit magic’. Moreover, given the movement of mana, I don’t understand what exactly is used as a ‘catalyst’.

Normally, when a spell is cast through the system, a rune containing that spell is drawn in a dimension created by the system just for that purpose, with the help of the system, and projected into the real world. In this case, the ‘catalyst’ for the spell is the rune itself.

In spirit magic, no runes are used. The catalyst is the soul’s own body, and that’s why soul magic is more advantageous than runes in many ways.

So… What does it mean that when I use a wind spell like the one I just used, my mana spreads throughout my body before it starts to mimic the wind?

Has my body itself become a catalyst for the characterization of mana? This is something that is not even seen in wieras.

So when Sith merged with my soul, he relatively merged himself with my body?

That was the thought that came to my mind, but I quickly erased it from my thoughts.

The mana was not specifically interacting with my ‘body’. Rather, it was spreading throughout my body without touching it and then coming out in a characterized state.

The catalyst, then, was not my body, but my soul itself. And the feeling it gave me was even stronger and purer than when I used Sith as a catalyst…

However, having a ‘human soul’ as a catalyst was also something I had never seen before and so I was hesitant.

What if there are downsides to this? What if casting spells has side effects that could be bad for my future? What if, as a catalyst, my soul, as it interacts with mana, starts to exhaust itself and shorten my lifespan because of the burden it puts on itself?

All sorts of thoughts slowly began to occupy my mind, but then suddenly I felt all these thoughts fading away. I was calm again, and my mind was clear.

Okay… I think I have it figured out and it’s not going to do me any good to think about it any deeper for now.

Then let me think about Sith, what could have happened to him? I should be able to sense him because of our contract…

I closed my eyes again and focused inward. This time I wasn’t looking for the movement of mana but for something specific. I was trying to find Sith by following the link between me and him, and I was quite successful. I was following his trail, and I could feel it, but then, just when I thought I was getting close to him, I suddenly felt a sharp pain in my head.

Something seemed to be blocking the connection between us as I tried to get closer to Sith, but I wasn’t about to give up. So I kept moving forward, ignoring the headache, but then something unexpected happened again.

My eyes suddenly opened on their own, all my focus was gone and I found myself on the ground with the whole world spinning.

“Um… Are you okay?”

I reflexively turned in the direction of the voice and saw a boy about my age offering me his hand.

He looked quite ordinary, obviously no one important, but there was a little bit of concern in his eyes.

He was a nice guy, most people would probably have ignored me.

“Yeah, I’m a bit sleepy… I dozed off.”

I shook his hand and with his help, I stood up and shook myself off.

“Thank you.”

I smiled slightly, the ordinary-looking boy smiled back and then went on his way.

Honestly… truth be told, I didn’t give a damn. Because I had found something quite comforting.

Sith was alive. He was sleeping or in a state like that, but he was alive… I could feel that before I was ‘thrown’ into the real world, and so I was relieved.

With that, I had answered a small part of the questions I had in my mind, even if not completely, and now I could move on to the main event.

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