Chapter 230 On A Chilly Night, Shadows Lurk Behind The Curtains



"Arden!" 

Inside a room with dim light illuminating the darkness, a voice of a young girl echoed. It was a scream filled with agony. 

"He is gone," Emilia said to herself as she looked into the corpse. "No, it can't be like this…." After some time had passed, Emilia, who was the only person Arden was close to inside this academy, was finally able to see his body truly after all the examination was finished. Her eyes were slightly red, showing signs of crying. 'Was his end really going to be like this?' She couldn't help but think as she remembered the things that she had experienced with him. The innocent smile he had, the angry expression he made when he saw people getting robbed, the sad expression he had made every night when he prayed for his mom.

All those little things filled her heart as she looked into the necklace inside her hands. 'In the end, this is all left from him, isn't it?' A feeling of melancholy filled her heart as tears were about to fall down once again.

"Student Emilia, have you finished what you wanted to?" Interrupting her solitude, a stern voice shattered the silence. Startled, Emilia turned to face the man behind her—a figure of authority, cold and worn. She tried to compose herself, aware that she couldn't afford to wallow in grief any longer. 

"Can you give me a minute?" She responded as she looked slightly into the metallic door and the man waiting behind it.

"Just a minute." The same cold and tired voice responded as the man walked away, granting her the space she had wanted to be alone. 

"Arden... I will never forget you," Emilia whispered, her voice filled with raw emotion. "Neither do our paladin unit…. Even though you sometimes fought with them over your ideology, you were always someone that they had taken inspiration from….." Her eyes turned determined, as they were rather dark, just like the room.

"I swear, on behalf of the goddess I serve, I will avenge you and your mother. Your blood will not remain spilled on the ground."

As her solemn oath left her lips, a faint pillar of light descended upon Emilia, a testament to her resolute determination. Wiping away her tears, she turned away from her fallen friend, facing the door where a bearded man awaited her.

As her words left her mouth, she turned his back to the young man lying on the mortuary slab, heading towards the door. "I am finished." She said as she saw a man with a beard waiting for her on the second door. "Took you long enough." She was able to hear the slight mumble coming out of the man's mouth, thanks to her strong senses as a knight, but she decided not to cause a scene, even though she got mad involuntarily. 

Not looking back anymore, the young girl who would normally have a very bright future in the game as the heroine entered the route that she would have never taken, thanks to one little thing being changed….. 

No matter how purely she had been raised by the church she had been living in, in the end, the dark feeling of hatred and anger filled her heart….

In the end, humans were humans; even the brightest ones had a darkness inside their hearts…

*******

/TOK/ /TOK/ /TOK/

On that same eerie night, when the moon cast a ghostly glow upon the desolate landscape, a man cloaked in black robes trod silently through the chilling breeze. The air itself seemed laden with sorrow as if the very essence of anguish clung to the surroundings.

The man ventured deeper into the heart of darkness, guided only by the faint flickering of inadequate lights. The room he entered was shrouded in perpetual gloom, its walls composed of cold, unforgiving stone. Long shelves, like solemn sentinels, stood sentinel against the solemnity of the chamber, bearing witness to the weight of countless sorrows.

Dim illumination struggled to pierce the thick shadows, casting feeble light upon the room. The mournful ambiance hung heavy, suffusing the air with a tangible sense of desolation. The occasional flicker of faint bulbs provided meager respite, offering only glimpses of the room's macabre contents.

Upon a stone slab, at the room's very heart, lay the lifeless form of a young man. His visage, etched with the marks of an untimely demise, spoke of life extinguished too soon. The stillness of his features, coupled with the silence that enveloped the room, intensified the anguish that lingered in every corner.

In this solemn sanctuary of the departed, time stood still. The quietude was punctuated only by the hushed whispers of mournful souls and the distant echo of a lamentation. Here, the veil between the living and the deceased was thin, where the sorrow of loss found solace in the embrace of shadows.

Within this somber morgue, grief echoed through the halls, mingling with the scent of formaldehyde and the faint rustle of crumbling parchment. Each box upon the shelves held a tale untold, a tragedy concealed within its weathered confines. The room itself seemed to exhale a mournful sigh, its walls whispering secrets lost to time.

In this hallowed place, where sorrow reigned supreme, the veil between the realms of the living and the dead grew thin within the frigid embrace of the morgue, the anguish of departed souls intertwined with the palpable grief of those who remained, creating a tapestry of sorrow that defied the bounds of the mortal realm.

As the man in black robes lingered in this chamber of sorrow, his steps echoed softly against the stone floor, an echo of longing and sorrow. His purpose, shrouded in the veil of darkness, remained a mystery—an enigma within the greater enigma that was the room itself.

"What a good subject to test this on." A chilly voice sounded as the man covered with the robe spoke. Even though his face was covered, even though he was inside such a room, from his tone alone, one was able to say that he was smiling underneath.

"Kekekee…." A creepy laugh followed as the man approached the corpse….

-----------------------A/N--------------------------

Finally, my semester is finished... Freedom!

It is time to pick the pace up. Now, I will post more than two chapters sometimes... I think the foreshadowing was pretty good for the last chapters; now, the plot will thicken for a bit. 

I am also planning to start a new novel(I have a weird setting in my head I want to try). And I will also edit the first chapters. 

I am planning to create a discord server, but I want to take your opinion. Will you join, or will you not? Please comment under this sentence.