Chương 8: Role Without A Self: Chapter 7

After the little personal jab towards Nate Monet, Nina returned back to reading The Fake Saintess's Revenge. But not before popping a sugar sweet, which Emma had brought for her in fanfare a while back. Even with the sweetness pulling at her teeth, Nina couldn't help but clench her fists when she watched Nate Monet kill off a random character. It wasn't even the fact that he had killed someone that shocked her.

It was the fact that the person was supposedly innocent, and Nina hated seeing him fall into such a frantic, crazed state. Still, after crunching down on multiple other candies in order to satiate her anger, Nina was finally able to reach what seemed to be the end of Part One. She flipped the page and saw the new chapter title page. Rebirth. The rebirth plotline was finally about to begin. This was the plot she had been actively waiting for for quite some time now.

So she could only hold her breath as she continued reading. There were only a couple more lines before the ending when she realized that the Duke had taken control of Nate, making him eat something. Nina felt her stomach churn. She didn't feel good about this. Then, when she read the next line of what the Duke said, Nina clutched her mouth and ran straight to the bathroom to puke out everything, which was mostly candy and some porridge she had eaten earlier that day.

She wiped her lips before flushing the toilet, and as she reached her bathroom mirror, she looked at her own gaunt expression. She hated the current Nate. It was one thing for the guy to kill someone innocent, which had already shocked her, but the thing that made her so angry was that it didn't make it right for the Duke to make him eat his own— She felt her stomach turn again. No, no, no!! She frantically tried to remove that image from her mind. I am not about to think about that.

After taking some minutes to calm herself, she went back to the book in question, dragging her feet every step of the way. The image repeated. This is fictional. This is not real. It will be fine. Once I finish this, I'll tell her never to give me any more. I will finish this. Just this. Just this. I can do it. With the words from the earlier part of the book being so demanding of her focus and so shocking, Nina could only take this one step at a time.

She sat back in her seat, fully drained, mustering every bit of courage to read everything. At this point, when she realized that Nate bit his own tongue to kill himself, she was not fazed. Nina felt like a monk who had achieved enlightenment. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. But that state was shattered when she read the words:"Why do they always do this?"

If there was something else after this, and if that was not the last line of this thing, Nina could have brushed it off. But that was the last line. The next thing after that was the end of Part One. This left Nina staring absentmindedly at the page, almost meditating on that line. While Nina was in her own little world, downstairs, her door was being jostled open. After some time, the door finally opened to two older individuals, one male and one female: Nina's parents.

After opening the door, they unlocked the room. Mr. Blackmore walked straight through in heavy, rapid strides, while Mrs. Blackmore looked around the doorway to see if there were any spare household slippers for her to change into. Seeing there were none, she unwillingly walked in as well. Bit by bit, they searched through the first floor in search of someone. When they heard footsteps coming from upstairs, they both turned to one another and walked up the stairs.

As they reached the top of the stairs, they noticed one door was slightly ajar. Seeing that, they decided to start their search there. When they entered, they found Nina sitting in the middle of the room at her reading table, her face deep in thought. Despite her parents standing right in front of her, she did not stand to greet them, almost as if she did not see them. While Mrs. Blackmore was trying to figure out what this behavior could possibly mean, Mr.

Blackmore walked up to Nina, snatching the book right out of her hands. Nina, who had been in deep thought, wondering if she should get angry at the author for doing such a thing, reflexively reached out without looking at anyone.

"Give it back!" She automatically yelled. Mr. Blackmore stumbled, and in that moment, he ended up letting go of the book as it fell down. Nina, who also belatedly realized the person in front of her was not Emma coming to surprise her, looked up and froze when she saw her own father. The book fell to the ground without anybody being able to catch it. After a loud bang from the book hitting the ground, neither of them moved. Each had their own thoughts, trying to make sense of what had just happened.

It was only Mrs. Blackmore who lightly walked towards Nina, picking up the book that had fallen on the ground and trying to dust it off. As she was doing so, she read the title of the book. Her hands stiffened slightly. In that moment, Nina, who had been staring blankly at her father, quickly snatched the book back, stepping a couple of steps away and looking at her parents in confusion.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. Before Mr. Blackmore could open his mouth and say anything, Mrs. Blackmore stepped forward, looking worriedly at Nina's face.

"Are you sick?" she said, her hands almost trembling.

"Why didn't you tell us? If I knew…"

"No," Nina said, her hands trembling as she hid it by grasping her book harder.

"It's nothing serious. I just ate something off today." Hearing that, Mrs. Blackmore let out a sigh of relief.

"Why are you not ready to go? I told you to go to XX location," Mr. Blackmore said. Nina lowered her eyes.

"You never told me the time."

"Then you should have asked instead of leaving the messages unread."

"I was in the shower. By the time I got out, you had already said that you would come to see me. So I just replied to that." Mr. Blackmore frowned.

"Your manner of speaking is highly disrespectful when speaking to a parent." Seeing that things were getting heated, Mrs. Blackmore stepped between them.

"Nina…" She gave what seemed to be a generous lecture, but to Nina, it only felt like her mother was trying to endure it. Nina looked at her mother and then looked away from her eyes before setting her book aside and stepping closer. After the lecture, Mrs. Blackmore brought fourth a package from her bag, passing it over to Nina with at her with a light smile. Nina opened it, and what she saw inside was a suit.

"... meaningless" Mrs. Blackmore looked at her in confusion.

"We thought the reason you might not want to do this was because you couldn't get an outfit for your brother, so we came to give you that. And something nice, you know." Nina stared at the suit in her hands. Her fingers tightened slightly around the fabric. For some reason, she did not feel happy nor touched. She only felt tired.