{Valerie"s POV:}My name is Valerie Tepes and I"m the daughter of the Tepes Faction leader. I have 2 older half brothers but we don"t get along well since I"m the child of fathers mistress. While my living conditions in the faction weren"t bad they weren"t good either. I didn"t have friends but I also didn"t have people who would bully me.
I was very lonely most of my life, having no one to talk to but eventually, I found someone who would talk to me. His name was Gasper just like me he was also isolated by everyone he knew. We got along really quickly and soon became good friends.
Gasper was a timid and shy boy but from his physical appearance, you could mistake him for a girl if he wore girl clothes. One day I actually wanted to see him in girls clothes so I begged him for a full day until he eventually did it, but in the end, he told me he would never do something like that ever again.
Against his wishes, I was able to get him to wear girls clothes more often and it got to the point where he no longer held any resistance to it. I was happy those days were super fun. However, all good things must come to an end, I can"t remember if it was 1 or 2 years ago but Gasper came to me pleading me to help him escape from Romania.
Gasper never asked me for anything before so as his friend I accepted his request. As we were on our way out of the country I found out that Gasper"s family was planning to kill him for being a cursed child. This caused me to pity Gasper while also being angry at his family. My determination to help Gasper escape shined brighter and we hastened our pace until we were at the country"s border.
Unfortunately, as we were walking through a clearing we were ambushed by many vampire inquisitors who planned to take us back him. Despair soon began to show inside Gasper"s eyes and I also began to lose hope. But then something inside me started to glow and caused the entire area to be blinded by its light.
Unaffected by the light I ran past our pursues with Gasper and went into the forest. The light coming from my body wouldn"t go away so I hid Gasper inside a small hole under a fallen tree. With me being around him I knew he would get caught so I became a decoy. He cried not wanting me to go but I used light sleep magic to make him lose consciousness, and camouflage magic to make him blend in with the surroundings.
After that, I run away from the inquisitors for 2 days in Romania before I was eventually caught and imprisoned back home. The glow coming from my body went away while I was on the run but whenever I wanted to see it my hands would glow with a calming light.
The doctors later told me it was a sacred gear but they didn"t have any knowledge on it. After a month of solitary confinement, I was released from the factions holding cells and given back my "freedom" but there would always be 1 or 2 guards keeping an eye on me.
I regretted nothing I just hope Gasper was able to get away. Months went by and I returned to my lonely life but one-day Mariusnii-sama came up to me and asked about my sacred gear. After a full night of talking, he came to the conclusion that I could use my sacred gear to support the faction and thus improve my image in everyone"s eyes.
At first, I didn"t know whether to accept Nii-samas offer but eventually, he convinced and we soon began our experiments. Everything was going well at first we found out the benefits of my gears which were healing, Animancy, Soul Manipulation, and resurrection. With this, we were able to improve the combat strength of our faction but a couple of days ago my body started to hurt every time I used my sacred gear.
The thoughts of stopping appeared in my head but I never did stop eventually, I started to see dead people. Ghosts weren"t uncommon in Romania but they had consciousness, but what I saw was mindless people floating around the castle. When I tried to talk to them they didn"t respond and when I asked around to see if anyone saw them as well they told me I was going crazy.
It was at that point that I truly stopped working with Nii-sama. Nii-sama was mad at me but I just could continue with the research, knowing he couldn"t convince me he turned to father. I thought that father would take my side but, all he said was
Father - Think about the future of our clan, one small sacrifice is enough for many generations of happiness!
Helpless and afraid I was forced to continue Nii-sama"s research. The pain became more unbearable but Nii-sama didn"t care and simply watched as I suffered. If not for the magic restrictions put on me I would have run away as well but I couldn"t I was stuck.
Days went on then weeks, and eventually months. I eventually got to the point where I didn"t care about the pain and just did as I was told. On the outside, I looked like an expressionless girl but no one knew what I was feeling inside.
Emotions, I still had them but they rarely surface these days. Even if I wanted to show them I don"t think I would do it so easily. One day as I was going through the same routine but strange enough I felt different today. A part of me was telling me that I would soon meet freedom and that I"d soon leave Romania.
I don"t know why I felt this but for some reason, a spark hope lit up in my soul. Was I going crazy had I finally fallen into true despair. I don"t know but as I looked at the ceiling of Nii-sama"s lab I began to lose consciousness and drift off into sleep.
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Inside my dream strangely felt warm, these past few weeks I"ve had nothing but cold nightmares but today I felt warm. Looking at my dream I saw nothing but darkness but wrapped thinly around me was a small glowing membrane. The glow had now color and some parts of the membrane were cracked but I only looked over it before I returned my senses to the warmth I was feeling.
To pa.s.s the time I began to count the time that has pa.s.sed by and after around 8 hours had pa.s.sed small slivers of light started to appear in the distance. Intrigued by this I stopped counting and looked at the slivers of light. With a length of only 1 meter, and a thickness similar to string the light approached the cracks in the light membrane.
After the first sliver of light entered the crack another came soon after. Before long the crack began to shrink and after an unknown period of time, it was gone. Now with the crack gone, I began to wake up from my dream and instead of the same old cement ceiling, I saw a fine wood roof.
The air smelled fresh and clean and to my side, I saw sunlight. Wanting to get a better look at my surroundings I began to sit up but my body was sore and getting up was difficult. All I could do was bare it and groan.
Rubbing my eyes I looked around and noticed that I was in the middle of a garden, inside a gazebo, lying in a soft bed. Then as I looked at the enterance of the gazebo I saw a boy.
He was a little taller than me and he had long light brown hair with small grey hairs. He wore a short sleeve green shirt, with a pair of blue pants. His body was lean but well built. Right now he had his back to me and looked like he was going to leave but he heard my groan and turned around.
He had a handsome face with magenta colored eyes. He looked surprised and neither of use spook for a while and just watched each other silently. No longer able to handle the silence I spook the first question that came to mind.
Valerie - Who are you?