Free Web NovelChapter 793: April’s Defection
Even though she didn't know why, April could always let down all her guards here, becoming the little girl in her heart at this moment, doing anything she wanted at will.
Coming to the academy, here was her favorite mentor and her best friend.
After being led to the academy by her mentor, she met her best friend.
As for the courses… wasn't entering the academy just the beginning of learning?
Learning how to be happy, learning how to get along with friends, learning how to handle conflicts, learning how to reconcile with others……
In this academy, there was only one reason to look forward to school ending, and that was to see her mother who would take her back and her father who was waiting for her at home…
Occasionally, she would also attend some complex and difficult-to-understand courses; a simple frown was enough to let them pass.
What did this place count as?
And what was this place?
This was the inner kindergarten of one whose heart had not grown up.
Everything here was eerie yet harmonious.
It was the world where April could most easily let down her inner guard.
She was willing to believe this was real and willing to become such a person to experience such a life.
Or rather, this was the strong desire she most wanted—to live once more.
After all, not long ago, she had held a determination to die to prove her final value and defend the family’s glory.
But… was this truly the family’s glory?
The family was a selfish giant monster.
It placed shackles named “Family” on the people April knew, constantly squeezing everyone’s value until they finally sacrificed their lives.
No one in the family could spend their life in an ordinary way.
Those who only thought about peace and comfort only proved that they had no value for existence.
Ultimately, they became the laboring class at the very bottom of the family.
This didn't mean one could find peace in a remote place; the incompetent had no right to peace.
Only those close to the family’s core power-holders had freedom.
What freedom?
The freedom of power!
And the people at the lowest level of the family had only one kind of freedom: the freedom to exploit ordinary people.
Ordinary people thought those family members who exploited them were evil.
In fact, they were both miserable and evil; they were merely coveting the last sliver of freedom within their own cognition.
Compared to this, ordinary people had their own freedom, which was the freedom to be alive……
Even if it was ordinary, it was a place of rest that a soul deeply mired in pain yearned for but could not obtain.
……
School ended.
April bid farewell to her friends one by one, looking forward to the arrival of tomorrow.
This time, April stood at the school gate, peering out in confusion.
If it were the previous days, her mother would already be waiting for her here, would stroke her head and say she was wonderful, would lead her through a long walkway, and then listen to her boldly share the interesting things of today.
“Little April, why haven’t you gone home yet?”
“Mentor Chris… where is my mom?”
April turned her head to look at Mentor Chris standing at the school gate and asked subconsciously.
“Did your mother not come? Then I will accompany you to find her.”
Chris took April’s small hand and said without any hesitation.
And April was completely unaware of the problem.
She didn't choose to wait but instead went to search actively.
Because in the deepest part of April’s heart, she knew that her mother would not be waited for; only by searching actively herself could she find her.
But the anxious April could no longer care about these truths she was unwilling to face directly.
April thus followed Mentor Chris, stepping onto the path to find her mother.
And for some reason, April felt a sense of familiarity with this path.
Walking on the road, it was as if a long-hidden memory she was unwilling to face was gradually surfacing.
April’s spirit began to gradually lose stability.
The surroundings of this dream were constantly shattering, leaving only the road they were still walking to continue extending.
The absurdity of the dream stimulated April’s consciousness for the first time.
The surfacing memory made her a bit afraid.
She… seemed to have done this before… going to find her mother, together with her mentor.
But that was not a pleasant memory.
She subconsciously turned her head to look at Mentor Chris.
An intense sense of guilt toward Mentor Chris, from an unknown source, made her dare not look directly at the kindly smiling Chris at this moment.
She only remembered the road beneath her feet was the road home.
……Truly?
April felt a doubt in her heart.
This road seemed to hold a trace of strangeness.
“April, we have arrived.”
“Mhm?”
April let out a confused sound.
Everything here seemed to have changed greatly compared to her impression.
But the place she arrived at made her face change drastically in an instant!
Because the thing beside her was not her home.
It was a grave.
On the tombstone was a photo of her mother.
“No… that’s not right!”
April instinctively pushed away Mentor Chris beside her, holding her face with both hands, somewhat unable to accept the current reality.
“No… that’s not right! This is a dream! A dream! How could my mother be dead! It’s impossible…”
“I personally saved my mother! How could I not remember? She even sent me to the academy this morning… Mentor Chris! You saw it!”
But when April looked at Mentor Chris, the other party did not say a word.
Even she hadn't discovered it; in fact, she herself had always known very clearly that this was a dream, only because she was willing to believe in the reality here.
But when April saw Chris’s face, those somewhat strange memories surfaced once more…
Those were all memories of Chris personally taking April back to find the truth, memories that had happened in reality.
Memories she didn't want to admit!
“I don't want to have children. That is my bottom line. It would affect my figure too much. I don't want to be a prisoner at home for a year. If an accident happens in the end and I can't even get out of the operating room, how bad would that be.”
A familiar female voice echoed in her mind; it was her mother’s voice.
“I don't want to bear this risk. Isn't it enough that the child is mine…”
But the words she spoke were so terrifying.
“……”
“Your mother didn't love you as much as you imagine, and this family is the same. Why bother constantly dwelling on these things?”
“The one who killed your mother was your father. Do you need me to trace back some details and reasons for you?”
Memories buried deep within the earth veins were searched out by Mentor Chris.
Her voice echoed in April’s ears.
The violent shock almost made April fall into madness at this moment.
“No… no! This is a dream. Everything in dreams is beautiful! Why, why won’t that cruel reality even let go of my dreams! Why! Tell me why!”
At this time, Chris in the dream looked at the crazed April and finally grabbed her right hand, which was trying to harm herself.
“Because… April, it’s time for your dream to wake up.”
“What?”
April spoke subconsciously, wanting to pull back her right hand only to find she couldn't move it at all.
A sensation of pain, clearly not belonging to a dream, constantly stimulated her nerves.
“Make one last choice with your mentor.”
“What do you mean?”
April looked at Mentor Chris in the dream in panic.
At this moment, the Mentor Chris before her eyes became both familiar and strange, until she stuffed an ice-crystal-like item into her restrained right hand.
“Will you choose to resist… or peacefully accept death?”
After Mentor Chris finished this sentence, everything at the end of the dream seemed to shatter completely, and Mentor Chris’s silhouette before her eyes gradually became blurry.
Subsequently, it was replaced by another person.
A stinging chill instantly gave her a jolt, and the person in her eyes also became thoroughly clear.
Because the person before her eyes was none other than her father.
At this moment, he was clamping down on her right hand with an angry face.
Now she suddenly found that the wrist being gripped tightly didn't seem that painful anymore.
After all… her father was just an ordinary person.
“Finally woke up, didn't you! Tell me what the hell this thing in your hand is! What is it!”
“What?”
At this moment, April had not yet reacted, but being pulled by the wrist so strongly, she still allowed the other party to manipulate her.
“What is this? Tell me what this is! Didn't you say you lost it? Tell me what this thing is!”
The man pointed a finger at the object in her hand.
In the next moment, a slap came directly toward her face, the force showing no mercy at all.
Slap——!
The crisp sound echoed in the bedroom, and April also saw clearly what she was holding in her hand.
It was… the Frozen World.
The item Mentor Chris stuffed into her hand… was the Frozen World?
“How is that possible?!”
April subconsciously touched the place on her face where that slap had landed.
It stung a bit, but compared to the pain brought by injuries during battle, it was not worth mentioning.
But…… this slap had struck hard against her self-esteem.
“You rebellious daughter! You really are just as she said; you’re the witch who came to ruin our Hawthorne Family! You truly deserve to die!”
Listening to her father talk about her like this, April was a bit dazed.
She didn't know exactly what had happened or why things had developed this way.
But she saw that after her father said this, several silhouettes walked out from behind him.
“Take her down! This rebellious daughter who betrayed the family is indeed a vile creature just like her mother. And be sure to bring back the Frozen World in her hand.”
“Don’t come over! I’m not!”
April instinctively retreated, but the several people who came forward gave her no chance at all.
April instinctively resisted, but found the strength of the four people who came up was terrifyingly large.
These people were Transcendent Academy students who had completed their studies!
And they were fellows whose bodies had been specifically tempered with sorcery by the Wizard Academy!
Just upon initial contact, she knew she had no choice.
And a sentence echoed in her ears.
“Make one last choice with your mentor.”
That was her mentor’s voice… the one in the dream, but now it should be reality, yet she heard it again… it could also be an auditory hallucination.
But in this critical moment, she suddenly activated the Frozen World.
The ice crystal in her hand instantly emitted a brilliant radiance!
The enemies she had to face were four.
Even though she was a former teaching assistant who had just left school, and her own body’s strength, undying nature, and so on were still at their peak, having lost the means she was most proud of and not knowing many close-quarters combat techniques, she was simply no match for these four people.
Therefore, her only breakthrough was the Frozen World!
But the ice crystals that bloomed after the Frozen World was triggered instantly made her right hand throb with pain.
She had no protective spells, and her right hand could only constantly consume its undying nature in the extreme cold.
Pain was unavoidable.
But she suddenly entered into the Frozen World, and the four people instantly grabbed at the empty air.
“Father, listen to me……”
“April! What are you doing! Do you really want to revolt! Not only do you not obediently admit your mistake, but you even use the Frozen World to resist. Is this how I taught you!”
“……”
April, who had just wanted to explain, was interrupted by the man's angry tone.
Her brewing emotions were suddenly stifled; this tone made it difficult for her to breathe.
She suddenly felt this family was so strange and this world was so suffocating.
A sense of nothingness with nowhere to go enveloped her entire body.
She suddenly discovered that her father was actually such a powerless person too.
Revolt… such a strange word.
Was it used to describe herself?
Obediently admit mistakes… What mistake had she committed?
Finally… What had he taught her?
In the end, it was nothing more than putting the family’s shackles around her neck.
“I just wanted to live an ordinary life… is even that not allowed?”
This seemed to be the second time she had expressed her thoughts, or rather her demands, before her father.
The first time, she had received a severe beating, so she understood that everyone in the family was not allowed to have their own thoughts.
Even if they did, they had to be suppressed in the heart and could not be expressed.
“You are a person of the family! You have no right to say what you want! Ordinary… ordinary my foot! What are you still standing there for? Go up and catch her!”
Crash——!
With a sharp sound of shattering, the bedroom window simulated in the Frozen World was smashed by a figure.
Subsequently, this figure fell from the high part of the castle in a free-fall posture toward the ground.
But the girl was not afraid at all.
Under the brief weightlessness in the air, April thought of too much… complaints?
Rejoicing?
Liberation?
She didn't know, but finally, she was called back to reality by the solid ground.
Her form seemed to smash through a surface of ice.
She “fell” out of the Frozen World, without a single wound on her body.
Even if there were wounds, with her powerful undying nature and physical strength, this height was not enough to wound her heavily.
That’s right, April chose to escape.
She wanted to flee from this place… because this was not home.
There was no longer anything she cared about here.
Having tasted that ordinary and wonderful flavor in the dream, how could she endure the misery of reality?
At this moment, she was like a rat staying in a dark corner reminiscing about the taste of sweetness, crouching in the gutter named reality, looking forward to coming to the heaven named the dream state once more, enjoying the sweetness she yearned for but could not obtain.
What she wanted was just an ordinary life and simple love!
Was even that a luxury item!
……
In the bedroom.
“Sir… the Miss… she jumped out the window and escaped.”
“What 'Miss' anymore? Just a traitor… then what are you still standing there for! Chase her! Sound the alarm! Mobilize all the family security forces to move out! Catch her! And bring back that Frozen World in her hand!”
The man ordered like he had gone mad, frantically driving the power belonging to his family status.
To recover the Frozen World, this family would not hesitate to use all its strength.
But he thought it was ridiculous again.
The thing they were desperately trying to recover would ultimately be given to those players!
“What a pity she actually escaped like that.”
At this time, a female voice sounded from outside the door.
“Don't you talk sarcastically!”
The man was still in a fit of rage.
Seeing this female player, he was even more infuriated.
“Still so much hostility. I clearly helped you find back the most important thing, and this is how you treat me?”
“It's going to be given to you players in the end anyway. It’s as if you want me to be eternally grateful.”
The man snorted coldly.
“You joke even if this fragment isn't found, we players only lose a fragment but the things your family loses will be quite a lot.”
The woman said with a sneer.
