Chapter 113 Volume III - Chapter 34: The Strangeness of The Tenebras
My eyes slowly opened.
When I saw the beams of sunlight clearly illuminating my room and heard the refreshing sound coming from outside, I felt... strange.
I slowly sat up, waited for a moment, and finally closed my eyes slowly with a deep sigh.
When was the last time I woke up in the morning feeling so... peaceful?
I opened my eyes again, this time without thinking about anything extra, I went to the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, one after the other. I looked at my face in the mirror, thought about the conversation I had with my sister yesterday, and smiled awkwardly.
I'm pathetic.
I'm really pathetic.
I feel a little better though, I guess. Like I pulled out a dagger stuck in my chest after I exploded like that yesterday.
I took a deep breath and this time I got into the shower.
As Clara said, I didn't think about anything. I stayed under the hot water for almost an hour and a half and all I did was relax.
I didn't think about my future actions or anything, my goal today was just to rest. Nothing more or less, simply resting.
After I finished showering, I threw myself back on my bed.
For the first time in a long time, I have some real free time. And now... I have no idea what to do.
Great...
'Haayh... Good morning.'
Sith suddenly appeared in front of me, yawning. I couldn't help but smile.
"Good morning."
Sith was there at the... thing yesterday. He kept quiet because he didn't want to come between me and Clara, but I'm sure he was there. Now he pretends not to know, he doesn't question me even though I use phrases like 'when I came into this world'.
He's really worried about me.
My smile widened even wider, though I took a deep breath, finally letting it go, because I had a big problem...
I'm bored. I can't find anything to do and... like I said, I'm bored.
Should I look at the media? I haven't looked at what's going on for a long time... it might be nice.
So I turned on my watch and the first thing I did was to go to a news website.
<<------------------------------
Melany Quie and the Royal Family Speak Out After the Attack at the Civilian Development Academy!
Nearly a week after the incident, the academy board, which has been silent for a long time, finally responded to the media!
Click to see the rest of the news!
------------------------------>>
When I looked at the text below, my eyebrows went up for a moment.
No way... is it here too?
I pressed 'continue' and stared at the page loading in front of me.
<<------------------------------
Cevilian Development Academy Management Speaks to the Press Together with the Royal Family!
Crown Prince Lucas Cevilian and the Rector of the Academy, Melany Quie, made a statement yesterday afternoon. It was a statement that shook the balance among the royals!
Click to see the rest of the news!
------------------------------>>
A grin appeared on my face, and then I burst out laughing. I laughed so hard that I had tears in my eyes, and Sith was looking at me like I was crazy.
'H- hey? You're okay, aren't you, Aiden?'
'Yeah, yeah. I am.'
"Pfft."
I let out another short laugh and wiped the tears from my eyes. Then I looked at the news again.
It was funny to see the same kind of news that the news sites in my previous world always did, the ones that kept going on and on and on. Seeing how similar the two worlds actually were made me feel strangely relieved and happy.
I left the news site, and even though I had a good laugh, I really wanted to know what was going on, so when I went to a more decent site and saw a news article with a more detailed explanation, I opened it without waiting.
<<------------------------------
In a speech yesterday afternoon, Crown Prince Lucas Cevilian and Rector Melany Quie accused several noble families of collaborating with this 'secret' organization. Among them was the Malus family, one of the only pillars on which the kingdom has depended since its ascension only eleven years ago.
The Malus Family has yet to respond to the accusations.
------------------------------>>
The article went on and on, but what I read was enough for me to grasp the situation.
After learning about the general situation, I decided to go on social media out of curiosity. And then I thought of something else.
Even though I follow the media occasionally, I haven't used any social media apps since I came to Lunerra. I guess it was normal since I wasn't a social media person in my previous life either.
Although...
I know Aiden's e-mail, but what's the password to his social media account? First of all... does he have a social media account...?
I quickly switched to a popular social media platform, entered the email, typed in a random password, and hit 'login'.
<<------------------------------
You entered your password incorrectly!
If you have forgotten your password, please press here.
------------------------------>>
Oh? So he has an account...
I quickly went into recovery and set myself a new password from the password reset that came to my email address.
When I finally logged into the account, the first thing I noticed was... the account didn't have a profile photo. There was also not a single post, video, photo, or story. It was just Aiden Tenebra in the name and...
When I saw the number three in the followers section, my eyebrows raised for a moment. Curious, I quickly went to the followers section and looked at them.
<<------------------------------
Aaron Tenebra
Aria Tenebra
Clara Tenebra
------------------------------>>
Oh... all three of them are members of Aiden's family. It feels a little... weird that two of them are dead.
I wonder if they have a post.
I quickly went to my 'dad's' profile and started looking through it.
Aaron Tenebra had more followers than me. They were probably high school, academy friends or something, but I didn't care much about them. After all, the platform didn't allow anyone to see who the followers were except the person himself.
What I cared about was that there was only one post on the account.
It was a family photo of Aaron, Aria, Clara, and Aiden.
Aaron, the father of the Tenebra Family, had an ordinary appearance just like mine. He had short dark brown hair and dark brown eyes like his hair. He was a little taller than average and his body was not overly built, but not skinny either.
Next to her stood a short woman with the same coal-black hair and gray eyes as mine. Her body looked quite thin, almost as if she had a disease. This was Aria Tenebra. In contrast to Aaron's ordinary appearance, Aria was a beautiful woman. Her looks were above the norm and her smile was bright.
Clara looked no more than seven years old. She had a smile on her face similar to Aria's. She looked happy, she had the joy of a child.
So my eyes shifted to the last person in the photo, Aiden.
Aiden had the emotionless expression I expected from him. While the whole family was smiling, he didn't have a smile on his face. It was as if he had been forced into the photo, he was soulless. All the joy in the photo seemed to disappear the moment I looked at him.
How could a nine-year-old child be so soulless?
I sighed and looked to see if there was a comment on the post, but I didn't even see a like on the post, much less a comment. Then I saw that the photo was labeled 'private', visible only to family members.
I sighed deeply and checked Aria's account in the hope of finding another post, but there were no other posts on her account either, except for the same photo.
I stood there for a moment, disappointed that I hadn't found anything worthwhile, but then I paused. Suddenly something occurred to me and my brow furrowed.
The Tenebra Family seems like a happy family, at least on the surface, even if the memories I've seen make it seem a little different. And the three of them, except Aiden, are smiling in a very natural way.
So why is there only one photo of this 'happy' family?
Even though I can't check who they are, both Aaron and Aria have several followers... So they have friends, acquaintances. So there must be other photos they have taken. So why is there nothing else on their accounts apart from this private post?
Confused, I looked at Clara's account.
At least her account looked full. She had a few posts, but not many. A few photos of her and her friends and stuff like that... and she had the same family photo.
Yet there was nothing but this one photo with neither his mother nor his father in it.
My brow furrowed even more. This time I took my focus off the holographic screen and tried to recall the memories I had seen earlier. I kept moving them around in my head, hoping to find something, anything, but then I realized that there were some missing things in what I remembered.
I can remember the memories, but... they are extremely foggy as if they were really just dreams.
I pushed my memory, I could see Aaron and Aria talking about something in the kitchen, but I couldn't remember what they were talking about.
I got frustrated. Because I felt like I was getting close to something, but I couldn't quite see it.
It seems that I need to investigate this...
I paused, and when I realized I had been staring at the blank wall and thinking for a few minutes, I took a deep breath and closed the app.
I've been thinking too much.
I'm going to rest today... I'm going to research the Tenebra family anyway, and I'll do it straight away when I go to talk to Ulka, but not today.
Although, isn't talking to Ulka the only thing I need to take care of right now? After talking to him, I can rest until I'm fully recovered, after all...
No. I had to rest...
I put my head on the pillow and closed my eyes. n0vElUSB.C0m
Not today...