Chapter 102 Grief [1]

Rubbing the bridge of his nose, Lloyd felt a headache coming. His family, as well as Zack's, have been quite suspicious of him from the moment he had awakened. Too many things had been happening around him, so it was only normal for such a thing to happen.

'Wait... Why are they still living with us? Shouldn't they have gone back to their mansion?' Lloyd thought, yet he had to throw the thought to the back of his mind since he had more important things to contemplate.

On the other hand, his mother was nervous for a different reason.

She had held herself back this whole time, yet even though she wanted to throw herself after him and suffocate him under a million kisses and hugs, she had to do what was right, and that was to ask him the questions that they, as parents needed to know the answers to.

Transcendent and Grisha hadn't explained much of why they were there, yet all the adults quickly recognized them as part of the Starforger family, and since they seemed to know Lloyd, they let them in with them.

"What is there to say?" Lloyd replied, his expression not changing at all throughout saying those words. While Lloyd was no longer filthy since one of the healers had offered to use a cleansing spell on him, it did not mean that his grief and anger had also been erased.

While he thought that his facial expression had remained neutral, the slight permanent furrow in his brows spoke a thousand words, while his eyes spoke a million.

"Lloyd." Transcendent, aka Arthur Starforger, cleared his throat, then, cast the attention upon him for a moment, and took it off Lloyd simultaneously.

"My sister and I would like to talk to you; however, since this seems to be more of a family thing, we are going to take our leave and wait for when your mind is clearer." Arthur explained.

However, instead of waiting for everyone's approval, he simply turned around and left the room with Grisha following right behind him.

'Sister?' Lloyd thought briefly before shaking his head lightly.

While he saw the similarities between his repair smith- *Cough Cough*. Between Grisha and Transcendent, he never thought that she was also a Starforger, yet when he looked back at it, it made sense.

When the two left the room, everyone looked back at Lloyd while Layla thoroughly examined his emotional state.

Of course, she wasn't quick to overlook that his emotional state was a complete mess, but saying it out loud would have most definitely stressed Olivia out much more than needed.

"Before you answer any real questions, who were those two?" Ava asked.

"Dungeon friends." Lloyd replied as simply as he could.

"Dungeon friends? So you've-" However, before Ava could continue, Lloyd shot her a deadly glance when he remembered something Veronica had told him.

"Before you ask anything... Ava, do you know who Veronica Everdale is?" Lloyd asked, causing all of them to either raise a brow or widen their eyes in shock.

"How do you know-"

"Just answer my question." Lloyd cut them off, finding it difficult to keep his disgust, anger, and grief from seething into his voice the moment Veronica's name left his mouth, yet no matter how hard he tried to hide it, even a blind man would be able to notice it.

"Yeah, I've known her since we were kids. Dad and I go to visit them every now and then. Why, what's the problem?" Ava asked with signs of worry in her voice.

The moment Lloyd had mentioned her, they all assumed the worst. From the way it seemed Lloyd spoke, it seemed like he was holding back a torrent of emotions when he said her name, and since she hadn't come out of the dungeon yet, to their ears, it only meant one two things.

Either she was dead, or that she had to remain behind to fight the boss while the others escaped.

"That... That bitch." Lloyd gritted his teeth and clenched his fists so hard that his fingernails dug into his skin, yet since he wasn't a human, no blood came out while the skin healed the moment Lloyd took his fingernails out of them.

Yet, it was not Lloyd who completed his own sentence.

"That vampiric bitch tried to kill all of us."

Everyone turned around to see a moderately tall man with red hair standing at the entrance of the room with a deep scowl on his face.

Silence percolated in the room for a few moments, yet when it all registered in their minds, they turned to Lloyd to confirm if what the man said was correct.

A single glance was enough for them to understand that the man was not lying, yet they couldn't believe such a thing so easily.

"That's not possible! We've known Veronica and her family for decades. They even knew Ben's grandfather when they fought in the war. Are you sure it was her? It might have just been someone acting like they were her." Noah argued.

"Are you sure she knew who you were? Maybe she didn't know who your were and was on a mission." Ava tried to reason, yet Lloyd simply pulled up a group photo from his birthday instead of answering their questions.

The hologram showed the entire team smiling radiantly, with Lloyd standing in the middle of them wearing a party hat and hugging both Tina and Felix closely.

If you were to look past their different races, they looked more like a family in that photo than most families out there. They had been bonded through thick and thin. They were bonded through blood and war, yet such a photo only brought a horrible feeling to the stomachs of Lloyd and Rex.

While Rex still held signs of anger and resentment toward Lloyd, the moment he saw him holding Tina in his arms with extreme care, he put all his feelings aside and saw Lloyd for who he used to be rather than seeing him as just a Void Walker.

It was hard, yet he had hours to think of what to do. While he knew that Lloyd saw him as a liability for his secret, he chose to run past him.

Anyone else would have killed him before they could even reach the spatial tear, yet even when Lloyd came so close to him, his attention was not directed toward him; it was directed to making sure that Tina was alright as if nothing else mattered in his eyes.

Not wanting to look at the full photo any longer, Lloyd zoomed in on Veronica, who was casually sitting on Rodrick's shoulders with a soft drink in her hand and the biggest smile on her face that radiated warmness akin to that of a mother.

"That's... That's her." Ava couldn't believe her eyes, simply stepping back and waiting for Lloyd's explanation.

"She gave the boss something to boost its commandment, moving it from a topaz seal to a mid-stage amethyst seal." Lloyd explained, making all the adults gasp in shock.