Chapter 119 Volume III - Chapter 40: A Few Comfortable Days
On November 27th, I woke up to something I never expected.
The Malus Family had finally made a statement, logically defending themselves against the royal family. They were claiming that the documents presented were forged, but it was precisely at this point that the unexpected thing happened.
Every single person who had ever been silenced by the Malus Family, every single person Justin had bullied, every noble who had taken a heavy blow from them, and so on, suddenly began to confess in the media. The kingdom was shaken by the confessions of these people who were suddenly emboldened by the support of the royal family. Immediately after this, with the documents released by three influential noble families, some of the illegal activities of the Malus family suddenly became public.
Drugs, smuggled weapons, the slave trade which was banned worldwide, and much more were suddenly exposed. And with the effect of these, the Malus Family was lynched and dragged into such a collapse that everyone forgot what had happened to the academy.
The academy was now a 'victim', and even though it would be quite difficult for it to recover its reputation, people's eyes shifted from them to the Maluses. And that was a pretty good thing for the academy.
As I continued to follow the development of events with the media throughout the day, I did not forget to pay another visit to Celine. I stayed a little less than the day before this time, but we had a much more productive time. Celine was not silent during the whole conversation, she said a few words, albeit quite short and simple. Seeing this, the doctor decided to enter the room to see if there was any progress.
I was actually against it, I knew Celine wasn't ready yet, but the doctor said I didn't need to worry and stepped into the room.
The moment that happened, all hell broke loose. Celine screamed at the doctor at the top of her lungs, bursting into tears and screams.
I had a long talk with the doctor after I barely calmed Celine down. I told him how I could ruin his life and that I had connections with Ronald Potenbea, Melany Quie and Ulka DeLaor.
He lashed out at me about who I was to tell him this. He knew how much money he could get out of this and he didn't want to back down. Eventually, he saw the audio recording I had made of the whole conversation, and when I told him I was going to pass it on to Celine's father, he just went silent.
He tried to attack me, but for someone who had never tried to get stronger in his life and was totally focused on his career, he was weaker than me, who was not even 19 years old.
In this way, Friday, November 27th came to an end, albeit with a bit of action.
The day immediately following that, Saturday, November 28, was much more monotonous. I sent a message to Ronald Potenbea and sent him the audio recording, and I had a little talk with Melany to get the doctor relieved of his duties.
The only incident worth mentioning, apart from the talk with Celine, is that Adrian and I had a bet in which he almost got a very strong disciplinary sanction for knocking down seven of the trees on the academy's property.
Honestly, I had a really good laugh, it was worth seeing.
So the date turned to Sunday, November 29th, and today, as I was following the media, I stumbled upon something remarkable. After the confessions of the victims of bullying by the Maluses in the past few days, people were really fired up and started organizing. People who were bullied were gathering together, forming groups, and criticizing one of the main problems of the kingdom: bullying. And I have to say that even though they didn't have much influence for now, they gathered a good amount of supporters in a short period of time.
It was hard to predict their future for the time being because these things can often be momentary surges that happen on a whim and then fizzle out after a while.
Still, I was really interested.
Apart from that, I continued to see Celine and talk to her, it had become a routine for me, and it was a relief to tell Celine how my day had gone every evening. Celine had no complaints, so I kept going and I could feel that she was talking more and more, even if it was just a little bit each day. The change was really small, I only noticed something like that because I was talking to her every day and I was paying special attention to her condition, but even that made me breathe a sigh of relief.
So a few more days passed. It became clear that the academy was not going to be closed and when classes would resume, the academy announced that we would resume classes on Monday, December 14th. The reason for putting the date so far away was for the restoration of the academy. The academy had indeed suffered great losses, and not only financial losses.
First of all, out of a total of two thousand five hundred students divided over four years, only nine hundred and fifty-three remained. The Academy had lost more than half of its students, and these were not the only losses. There was also a considerable loss of staff. Professors, employees, and some senior officials had left the academy. The academy had lost its status as the best academy in the kingdom and had fallen to the bottom, but neither Melany nor I cared much about that. We were already making plans to restore the academy's reputation.
On December 1st, I finally got rid of the medical bracelet that was covering my entire left arm and restricting most of its movement. Of course, I still needed a cane, but the feeling of freedom of being able to use my left arm freely again was quite good. In addition to that, the date Alexander and I had agreed on was slowly approaching, so today I went online to the black market.
I would normally do all the preparations on the day of my meeting with Alexander, but there were a few important things I was going to use in that dungeon and the black market was the best place to buy them. Since I had already made a few purchases there, I was a privileged customer in the system, so it wasn't difficult to find what I was looking for.
So on December 4th, when I arrived in front of Celine's room as usual, I found something I wasn't expecting.
The door in the center of the double-sided room where Celine's room was was open. Celine was nowhere to be seen, but I wasn't so stupid as not to realize that the door had been left open on purpose. After all, I had seen the door closed on the cameras in the control room.
Considering Celine's skill, it wasn't hard for her to realize that someone had come to her room. She must have left the door open, knowing that I was the only visitor to her room.
I swallowed, felt my heartbeat quicken, and approached the door. With slow and timid steps I entered and turned my gaze to the bed.
Celine was sitting on the bed. She had a quilt covering her whole body except her head and her eyes were looking at the floor. I could see her hesitation.
"Celine?"
When I called her, she looked up and for the first time in a long, long time I made eye contact with her amethyst eyes.
Celine just stared at me for a while. She didn't move a muscle, she didn't make a sound.
She just kept looking at me and I smiled awkwardly.
"Hi?"
Until now she was always afraid to talk to me face to face, she was afraid of me. Neither of us knew if my face would change, even though he could talk to me. There was also the fact that I had almost hurt her myself...
Both she and I knew she needed time to process all this, and now she had gathered her confidence and attempted it.
When I saw that her eyes were tearing up rather than screaming straight out, I knew there was no problem, so I cautiously took a step toward her.
"You're okay, right?"
Her eyes watered even more, her expression turned tearful and she covered her face with her hands. I kept getting closer until I was right up to her. I stayed where I was for a few seconds, then I let out a deep sigh. I wrapped my arms around her, hugged her, and pulled her fragile body toward me, stroking the back of her head.
"I'm sorry, I'm here."
We didn't say anything that day. I just held Celine until she fell asleep, not moving a bit, and when she did, I gently put her to bed. Seeing her at peace made me feel at peace too.
In the days that followed, when I came to visit Celine, instead of talking behind the door, we would face each other and if there was one thing I noticed, it was that she never smiled once.
She was reacting to me, talking to me, sometimes even showing emotion, but never once smiling. As much as this worried me, I knew that she still needed more time, so I kept it to myself and kept being cheerful around her.
So time kept passing. Day after day after day. On December 6th, I started walking without a cane, and on top of that, the things I had ordered from the black market arrived. After making sure there was nothing missing, I put them in a safe place and breathed a sigh of relief.
Two days later, on December 8th, I had a good portion of my former strength. I would have needed a few more days of rest under normal circumstances, especially since I had pushed my body too hard when it had not yet healed, but the doctors had made this calculation based on the fact that I was a human being. But I was a wiera, even if I was a hybrid, so my recovery time was shorter than usual.
Of course, I was still not fully recovered, I still needed two more days of medication to regain my full strength, but I was in pretty good shape now. In fact, my endurance and vitality stats had improved considerably due to my body's conditioning in the last few days.
In this way, when I woke up in the early morning hours of December 9th with my alarm for the first time in a long time, I felt more awkward than usual. It felt a bit bad to wake up after a long time with an alarm and not on my own.
Taking a deep breath, I got out of bed and took a short shower. I had a nice breakfast, more varied than usual. Meanwhile, I was looking at the internet as usual.
The anti-bullying group seemed to be growing day by day instead of losing its influence. Even though it had been about two weeks since they had formed, they were strangely stable, even if they didn't have much of a noticeable impact. In addition, the Malus Family had officially collapsed. They had done their best to pull themselves together in the process. They appeared on the news channels, defended themselves, and stood firmly on their innocence.
Of course, the amount of documents and confessions used against them was so great that the case was concluded without even going to court. There was no longer a noble family in the kingdom bearing the name Malus. Nevertheless, the effects of the incident still swept the land. The Maluses were now the most talked about topic in the kingdom.
I let out a deep sigh and turned off my watch. It had been a long time since I had finished breakfast, so I quickly cleared the table. I put on some new clothes that wouldn't interfere with my movement. Then I turned on my watch again and dialed a number.
"Aiden?"
He sounded like he had just woken up.
"Sorry if I woke you."
Alexander yawned slightly, waited a moment, and then sighed.
"No, I forgot to set my alarm."
He and forgetting to set the alarm huh...
"Now that you've called for the first time in a long time, shall we go?"
Alexander's voice suddenly became serious. He sounded like he had been waiting for this for a long time.
"Yes, I plan to make preparations today and be at the dungeon by the evening."
"Classes start in five days. Will we make it?"
Dungeons are not simple, small places. Of course, there are small ones, but the average dungeon takes about a week to clean for the first time, even with a team built for that dungeon. Sometimes it can take even longer because of mapping, creature detection, and so on. Even if we don't have that problem, there are only two of us. So it's normal for him to be worried, probably.
"Time works differently in the dungeon we're going to enter, three days there is like two days outside. So we'll have at least seven days, not five, and I think we'll have more than one more day, rather than not making it."
Alexander was silent for a while. I could tell from the background noises that he was moving.
"Okay. Where and when do we meet?"
"Two hours later, at the east gate of the academy. We need to get potions and armor before we go to the dungeon, we can't just barge in there. Oh, and by the way, all the clothes you wear and take with you must be white."
"White?"
"Yes, white."
Alexander was silent for a while, then sighed.
"Alright... I'll be at the east gate in two hours."
"All right, see you then."
Alexander hung up the call without answering me and I let out a sigh as I looked at my watch.
He sometimes criticizes me when he talks to me, but he never says 'hi, see you, hello'. That's the way he is, I know that, but I expected him to be at least a little sincere...
Whatever.
After putting my watch down, I packed a bag full of colorful dimensional buttons with numbers glued to them and took a deep breath after making sure once again that I had done everything I could do, at least inside the academy.
I could meet Alexander right now actually, but there is a reason why I don't. I need to make a visit first.
The source of this c𝐨ntent is fre𝒆w(e)bn(o)vel