Emilia Zeijrn II

Darkness.

For a long time, all I could see was darkness, no matter if I moved or tried to open and close my eyes. - A sensation I had lost a long time ago since I could not distinguish between opening and closing them.

Perhaps, I had died and would be wandering in this vast and endless sea of dark fog, for eternity, or until I was reincarnated (something I had always believed in and that my mother had taught me).

With nothing else to do or ration, my brain flooded through my memories, from when I was just a little girl in that small town until the day I entered the great walls of the city of Aren and walked, expectant and excited about what the future would hold for me.

Little by little, even my vague memories became clearer and I even recalled those memories that had been forgotten, in the dark background of my mind, like me right now.

I remembered the day I walked for the first time, the beautiful smile that held my mother's face as she caught me in her arms, keeping me from falling to the ground and hurting myself.

That time I was sitting outside the house, in the beautiful garden that my mother had carefully and passionately cultivated, which was full of purple flowers. Lavender, Bellflower, Cosmos, and of course, mine and my mother's favorite, Emilia's Flower.

They called her that to pay homage and reference to an old tale, passed down orally among the people of Aren, which told the story of a woman who healed the kingdom with her powers.

It was said that she was a kind girl, who helped her neighbors and respected everyone, she was happy with her mother, who worked selling flowers in the market.

But one day that happiness ended, thanks to an epidemic that was generated in the surroundings of the kingdom of Aren and which ended up reaching her village and ended up infecting most of the population, including her mother.

Nobody knew how the disease was transmitted, there was no known way to avoid contagion and of course, there was no cure.

The disease continued to spread as the girl watched her friends, neighbors and her mother fall sick in bed, all the while she remained the same, showing no symptoms whatsoever.

Little by little people were dying and in the end, her mother also died, at that moment something awoke inside her, a power that helped her to save others, but no matter how many she saved, she could not save her mother.

Over time her name became known among the common people like the one who could cure any disease and thanks to those rumors she was taken to the capital, where she cured thousands of people whether they were noble millionaires or poor commoners.

Among those many, she met someone, someone special, who changed her life, turning it back to color, a man she came to love with all her being, people were happy to hear that the healer and the man, who was known to be a great warrior, got married.

They had a happy life for a long time, but as it always happens in stories, happiness does not last forever.

And that happiness ended the moment that man came home in a critical state from which, even with the woman's immense powers, he could not recover and in the end, he ended up dying.

"Hmm?"

While I was lost in my thoughts, something seemed to change in the dark infinite sea.

In the slowly shrinking distance, white, holy-looking light illuminated the darkness.

The speed at which I traveled toward the light suddenly increased and my eyes were soon filled with the mowing white light.

It was a few minutes before I finally felt able to open my eyes and what I saw only generated more confusion in me.

I had made it out of the darkness, I had woken up, but it was different from what I expected, very different.

I was in my room, my eyes observed more than darkness and the feeling of wandering in an inconsistent fog had disappeared.

But, it was as if it was not my body. No matter how hard I tried I couldn't move, I couldn't move my eyes in the direction I wanted to go.

It was like seeing the world from someone else's eyes, only that body was mine, but I couldn't control it.

At first, I wondered if I had died and my soul had not detached from my body, but I discarded that theory when I saw that my body moved by itself, as if I was the one moving it.

I kept looking attentively while waiting for someone to notice and look for a way to help me, but that didn't happen, not because I didn't have someone who knew me, but because the thing that was controlling me was like a puppet was just like me.

Rather, it was just like me, there were even times when it responded exactly as I would.

As I continued to see the world through the eyes of my body - but without being able to control it. Time passed and changes became visible in me.

The thing, or person, that controlled me began to say and do things that I would never do, I constantly ignored my friends, who just stood there and a few seconds later woke up, as if they were coming out of a trance.

I would go on tours around the city, which I knew like the back of my hand, I would talk to people as I roasted and went places I never imagined existed, showing me things, which little by little, as well as the way my 'body' was, changed me.

I had stopped counting the time I spent observing the world as if I were a ghost, the thing controlling my body became strong, extremely strong, usually every so often after school, I would leave the dormitory area in the evenings.

I would talk to a few people and then jump over the walls, starting a little trip into the monster forests, where I would walk for a while - it almost seemed like the same forest that I had never seen before was the home of the thing that controlled me. And then I would enter dungeons in what I deduced were teleportation portals.

With each passing day, I grew stronger and perhaps noticed that the thing stopped going out to kill low-ranking monsters and now turned its attention to people.

Every time I saw the thing's sword pierce a human body, taking its life in the process my mind would get dizzy and my stomach would churn, but in the end, I could do nothing.

After many deaths, it stopped affecting me, although not completely, with a rational mind I could notice certain peculiarities, such as that person who saw me doing this seemed not to care, and especially after a battle or winning something in the dungeons, I felt that my eyes were blurred, unfocused from everything like my body, which moved, just as controlled, but not by that thing, but by something that I could not even ration.

One day Adad spoke to me - something he did whenever he could - with his characteristic and well-known smile, which seemed to be the only thing that illuminated my dark world.

But the thing seemed to hate him, everything he said and did was meant to hurt Adad, even more severely than the others.

And then after some time, the day came that I feared so much, Adad no longer spoke to me, but there was no change in the thing, it ignored Adad's condition and instead began to accept Nickolas' unpleasant advances towards me.

With that same life and in the blink of an eye we changed semesters, entering our third semester.

And that's when everything went to shit.

Starting with Adad, who approached me, maybe to talk, I don't know and possibly I would never know, because the moment she approached me she took a step, so fast that if it wasn't for the fact that it was my body that was moving I wouldn't have been able to see where she moved to.

Adad tried to fight, but he couldn't do anything, even when a black sea flooded the whole place, the Emilia that controlled my body didn't even flinch.

At that moment my eyes met Adad's and a hope shone inside me, that the person I was looking at was not the one controlling my body, but me.

But it was broken in only seconds when a red and murderous Aura rose from Adad's body, shortly after that a pressure flooded the atmosphere, one that was not human, the pressure that the old adventurers of my village told each other, the one that appeared in books and stories.

The Dämonischer Druck, the natural pressure that a demon could exert.

A battle that was beyond human filled my vision, but even with such power Adad could not win, he ended up falling with the now recognized vision of a rapier through his stomach.

No matter how much I screamed, cried, and tried to move my body, Adad fell to the ground, causing the sound of splashing to fill the silent void that had fallen over the place.

After that my eyes closed and when I opened them again, I was able to move my body.

I didn't even have time to rejoice, when I came to the senses I was in front of Tasha, who looked at me with hatred and told me that Adad had run away from home and no one had heard from him for a week, during which I had been sleeping.

As I waxed in my room and wallowed in my tears and my misery like a cockroach, I remembered the reason I had traveled to the capital of Aren.

My mother.

I promised myself to save her, I promised that at least I would make her happy and that I would do everything to achieve it.

In that instant, my resolve was fortified and I forced myself to get up. A message flooded my vision as a beeping sound echoed inside my head.

[Congratulations on unlocking the second part of the system.]

[As a reward this system will grant you whatever is needed]

[The system will give you a way to save your mother]

[Click yes, if you want to accept the gift, or no, in case you want another one].

"Yes, I want it," I said as I moved my hand to the board in front of me, "What is this?"

I said as I looked at the golden key, finely decorated with jewels of all kinds, that had appeared in my hands.

[King's Key]

[Rank: S]

[Ability: Allows to open the doors to the eagle cellars where most of the treasures are kept and can only be opened when the person also holds the King's Crown of Aren].

I tightened my grip on the key and once again strengthened my resolve about my future.

I thought about keeping the key in my storage bracelet - which had been obtained in a dungeon as well as my rapier. But it was stored somewhere else.

I quickly discovered where it was, due to an image of the system that appeared in my eyes.

In which were reflected the things that until now were stored in my bracelet.

Suddenly once again an image like the one that welcomed me to the system appeared once more.

[You have a new mission]

[Mission name: Cavern of Flowers] [Mission name: Cavern of Flowers]

[Description: Conquer the rank D dungeon Cavern of Flowers, located in the monster clearing of Bordstall Forest]

[Rewards: Skill ranked at rank C - Euphorbia Milli]

[You accept the quest]

"Yes, I accept the mission," I said as I pressed the button marked yes and made my sheathed rapier appear in my hands. I will save my mother."