Side Chapter Nina 1: A Peculiar Guest

For Nina Clarword, one of the most important things in the universe was promises. 

It was a matter of pride to her.

Perhaps it was a childish ideal, a fantastic dream, but she always tried to keep any promises she made.

Of course that didn’t mean she was always successful, far from it. She knew of failure and the pain of broken promises the most. She would admit that her ideal for herself was childish, and the pain of failing to save the many she promised to save always hurt.

Nina began her search for Ceella Stella hopeful that it wouldn’t take long. But after her investigation started, she soon realised that this mission would be a lot more annoying than expected.

It wasn’t challenging, but simply annoying. The reason was because there was nothing hard about finding Ceella, besides simply finding her.

She was able to find out where the Dominous Hood base was located, on the now non-existent moon Juptar. Of course, she kept the secret of Ceella attacking the Dominous Hood base to herself.

Now the annoying part. After gathering her information, she believed one of two likely events happened to Ceella. Either she died, or she was teleported somewhere in the universe.

Nina disregarded the former, not that had any reason to believe Ceella was alive, but simply due to the fact her goal was to find her, no point writing off someone as dead so soon when the goal was to locate them. 

There was the chance something else happened to Ceella, for example being captured. However, examining the damage caused around Juptar and reviewing the events of the day. She assumed Ceella being captured was unlikely, the desperate attack by Dominous Hood, and the cataclysmic damage around where Juptar was, they were likely trying to kill her. Not only that, if she were captured then her family would’ve been harassed already. She didn’t believe Ceella would give up her family or friends, but if they saw her face after capturing her, then Lila and the Stella family would’ve attacked ages ago. 

It had been a few hours after Lila and Mella left Nina’s company.

“You can come out.” Nina placed down her tea cup and called out to her guest. 

She had been on Metous for the last week waiting for this person to show up. They only gave her a vague time when they would show up and due to their peculiarities, if Nina missed them then that would be it, this meeting wouldn’t have happened.

An ordinary man, in a simple shirt and pants, appeared from behind a hedge. He walked to the table and sat down with his right leg crossed over his left.

“So, it is you, Mathew.” Said Nina, she had a feeling he would be the one to appear, but she could never be sure. The message she received came to her in a way only a few people knew how to do. 

Nina had met Mathew when he was a child. A small kid born out in space and whose parents were taken from him far too soon. 

Nina used her skill to take a peek at Mathew's Soul Page.

Name: Mathew | Race: [Human]

Level 200 | Awakened

Vocation: [Witch]

 

Nina was, as usual, blocked from seeing his skills, but the main part she wanted to see was his level.

Still a forever level two hundred 

He picked up the teacup that had cooled down, which was placed there for him. “Thank you for letting me dine with you here Nina.”

“I’m only letting you because of what you said.” While Nina may have known Mathew when he was a child, those times had long since passed. He disappeared when he was eleven, then he suddenly showed up in front of her at age fifteen as a level 200. Twenty years later his level hadn’t changed one bit. 

But Mathew never seemed to mind that his level never increased.

Nina did originally guess he was just hiding it, but after years of interactions she realised that no, he was simply locked at level 200.

Mathew smiled, “So, what do you want to know?”

“What I will learn isn’t up to me, I know how this works Mathew.” Nina tapped the table, “I won’t ask how you knew about my search for Ceella, or why you waited this long to tell me. I just want to know where Ceella is.”

Nina enjoyed Tella’s company, and because of that along with her promise she needed to return her daughter to her.

She initially invited Tella for lunch as thanks for the support she provided on Earth. However, Nina found she enjoyed Tella’s company and now considered her a friend. Nina did know she got attached to people too quickly, but that wasn’t going to stop making friends because of that.

Nina kept her search for Ceella a secret, to the point that no one should’ve known who she was searching for if they even knew she was looking for someone in the first place. She wasn’t surprised that Mathew and his boss knew, but it was concerning that they did.

“Well, depending on if the chaos erupts, the answer is closer than you think.” Mathew took a sip from his teacup. However, he quickly spit some of it out as it was spicy.

Nina ignored his predicament. “So, she’s about to get into trouble soon?”

He pinched his tongue and dragged the spice off it, and then another teacup of proper tea was brought out. He said, “You are really too perceptive for your own good.”

“I just know what your jargon means now.” Nina thought about any events coming up, there were a few. If Mathew was referring to a public event, then yes there were a lot, but she was betting on Mathew’s nature that he would only be showing up if something big was about to be happening.

Nina asked, “Is she going to meet some old angry acquaintances again?”

“Most likely.”

“Jelannax auction then.”

Mathew laughed, “Are you sure about that?”

“Only 70%, but that's better than going for nothing for the past half a year.” This was Nina’s educated guess, and it was worth a shot. If it turned out to be somewhere else, the news would cover it and she would know where to go.

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t go.” Mathew chuckled.

“Why do you say that?”

“Oh well you see, I was wondering why my boss only told me to go now. But after doing a quick search of the area… all I gotta say is be careful, or you will fail to save another life.”

“Is this another prediction of the future?”

“And as I said before, my boss says that stuff is nonsense. No, this is just me seeing the situation with my own two eyes.”

Silence filled the garden.

“Thank you for the advice.” After waiting for her guest to say anything else, Nina asked, “Do you wish to stay? I have more food prepared if that is the case.”

He waved his arm. “No, I don’t want to risk you posing my food with more spice.”

“You can thank your cousin for that, he was quite pissed when you vanished last time.”

Mathew started to stand up. “And?”

“He used his one favour for me to spike your food with spice next time we met.” 

Mathew paused, “I… I will never understand that man.”

“I think the feeling is mutual with him.”

Then without warning Mathew vanished.

“Sigh…” Nina could only groan while contemplating what Mathew said. He didn’t provide her much information, he never did, but it was enough. What was concerning though was the potential danger nearby.

She did her research, there were no more architects in the city, so there should be no reason for there to be any issue from Dominous Hood.

However, Nina wasn’t going to ignore the warning, if she did, then she knew she could end up regretting it.