Night Monarch's Cannon Fodder Bride-Chapter 44: Dusk of the Awakening

The red sun bled into the horizon, painting the sky with the hues of red, orange, and purple.

A canvas, Severine thought as she took in the sight before her.

Under the evening glow, students moved as their shadows danced along the academy hallways.

As she walked toward her dorm room, the past week’s events flashed through her mind.

Although most of her time had been spent curled up in pain and then dozing off back into oblivion, she had enough consciousness to recall what she had done during one of her fits.

She had sensed a familiarity around her and, like a child instinctively finding her guardian, she had grabbed onto it.

So, when she woke up, she saw bright red marks on Killian’s hand. Worse yet, she was still clutching it.

"You are awake," Killian said with downcast eyes. His voice was hoarse, exhaustion seeping into his every gesture.

When he tried to check her temperature, she hastily tightened her grip.

The silence that followed blazed in her ears.

After coming to her senses, she was quick to retract her hand, mumbling a soft apology.

Much to her stupefaction, Killian had let out a low laugh.

He was either laughing at her groggy state—or at the nest of hair tangled over her head.

Anyway, it had intensified the heat emitting from her ears.

Having never been this close to the opposite gender before in this way, she did the only thing that made sense to her.

She fled.

The poor assistant Samuel, who had been shouldering all the burden of the company and the newly acquired chemical branch, felt baffled as he hurriedly picked her up from the remote manor.

He made a guess that something might have happened to Severine’s family, or maybe to the important projects they were heavily invested in.

After dropping her off, he went back to the lawyer in a grim mood.

Severine had ordered him to do a task for her, which made Samuel purse his lips in silent defiance.

"Bring them back to me tomorrow." Leaving one sentence, she entered the big metallic gates of the academy.

"What are you wearing to the party? I am thinking of something in red."

"Oh, bold. I like it. I have a perfect dress for it, but I won’t tell you~"

Many different voices drifted toward her, intensifying the faint thuds in her temples.

Only one week—and her surroundings already felt different.

Ah, it was better to say that her heightened senses had opened a new door, allowing her to smell the floral scent of the distant gardens.

Though the range was limited to a few meters.

I feel like an alien in human skin.

She still felt that her body was rather disharmonious. Not that she could find the source of such a feeling.

Every time she moved her fingers or her feet stepped on small pebbles, she was extremely aware.

In a way, she was actually glad to be back on familiar turf again.

Leaving the Luminor Manor had lifted a stone from her chest while placing another, heavier one in return.

Hah... What am I?

She had asked herself again and again, yet she had gotten nothing. It brought her back to the early afternoon when she was listening to the old doctor.

According to Dr. Edmund’s report, she was stuck in the state of Awakening, leaving her prone to weakness. Yet for some absurd reason, the process was taking too long.

"I suggest... You write your will, just in case."

The way the old man was staring at her with so much pity, he might as well have declared her dead on the spot. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

The only conclusion Dr. Edmund could come up with was her blood.

"It might be related to your ancestry. As you know, the bloodlines remain sleeping if not for the external factors to influence them."

This was the basic subject in biology.

The earlier Awakeners had followed such rules, awakening under extreme conditions. While the blood flowing through their descendants was more prone to follow the same path.

Nonetheless, once in a while, someone might awaken with the bloodline of their ancestors.

As for how many survived, the declining numbers were proof enough.

Shaking her head off such gloomy thoughts, she pressed her thumb on the lock, entering the passcode.

The door swiftly opened.

What greeted her wasn’t the sight of a sofa with a few packets of chips on it, but the living room filled with snacks.

Spicy, sour, sweet. The scent of different spices hit her nostrils.

Some snacks were still half-eaten as they lay on the floor, and amidst such a mess sat Alina in her soft clothes.

As she vigorously moved with the gaming console, her wide eyes transfixed on the huge screen on the wall, the fake cat-ears on her headset danced along.

"Fuck! Are you blind? Can’t you see their shooter hiding in the Binava platform?"

"Here we go again, let this grandma teach you how to shoot!"

This was unmistakably the room of someone lazy and reckless, not her.

Alina was so engrossed in her online battle that the noise of the door opening didn’t even register in her mind.

Only when two long legs hidden under blue jeans appeared in her sight did she shift her attention from the screen.

Her yellow eyes widened in clear delight. She tossed the gaming console aside, barking another order in the headset.

"You take care. I have things to take care of."

Without waiting for the response from her teammate, she ruthlessly left them in the middle of the battle.

"Severine!" she yelled, darting forward.

She nimbly avoided the plastic garbage all over the floor.

However, before she could hug her long-lost friend, the said girl raised her palm to stop her in mid-action.

"Dirty."

A cold voice, matched by equally disdainful gray eyes.

"Hahaha... you sound like an NPC with a set rule of answering in short sentences."

Alina lowered her raised arms, but the smile on her face didn’t diminish from that ruthless reply.

"How are you? How was your important business? Did you eat on time? Did you bring a gift for me?"

The heavy silence filled with terrible conclusions from earlier vanished without a trace.