Chapter 170: Elena

Viora and I slowly walked down the dark alleyway, keeping our heads low as the freezing night rain continued to fall.

My left thigh was throbbing with a sharp, burning pain, and my jeans were completely soaked in dried blood and dirty rainwater.

Beside me, Viora wasn’t doing much better. She leaned heavily against my shoulder with every step, her face pale as a sheet as she held her bleeding stomach wound tight against her coat.

"Are you still breathing?" I asked softly, adjusting my arm to support her weight.

"Barely," Viora muttered, her teeth chattering from the cold. "If I pass out on the sidewalk, don’t leave me for the stray dogs."

"I’ll think about it," I said, giving a weak smirk.

We avoided the main streets where the Hunters Association patrol cars were flashing their bright red and blue lights. The entire district was on high alert because of the C-Rank gate collapsing, but we managed to slip past the outer checkpoints through the shadows of the back alleys.

After forty minutes of walking, we finally reached the edge of the residential district.

As we reached the front gate of the villa, I noticed something strange right away.

The living room lights on the first floor were fully lit, casting a bright yellow glow across the wet front lawn.

"That’s weird," I frowned, stopping near the front porch. "Carmilla and the others usually go to sleep early. Why are all the lights on?"

"Maybe they stayed up waiting for us?"

"I don’t think so," I whispered, a cold feeling suddenly settling in my stomach.

"Crap..." I gasped, my eyes widening in total shock. "She’s back."

Viora froze beside me, her pale face turning even whiter. "Wait... you don’t mean...?"

"Auntie Elena," I said, my heart skipping a beat.

"We are so dead," Viora whimpered, taking a tiny step backward. "Brian, my stomach wound suddenly hurts ten times worse. Let’s go sleep in the alley."

"We can’t hide in the alley forever," I gritted my teeth, gripping my iron dagger tight inside my coat. "Just... act natural. Don’t mention the gate, don’t mention Black, and whatever you do, don’t talk back to her."

I slowly pushed the front door open.

CREAK.

The warm air of the house hit us immediately, carrying the rich scent of brewed black tea and sweet honey. But along with the warmth came an overwhelming, suffocating pressure that made the air feel as heavy as lead.

We stepped into the entryway, carefully taking off our wet boots.

As soon as we walked into the spacious living room, we were met with a completely unexpected view.

Carmilla, along with her two younger cousins, Leo and Mia, were all kneeling neatly in a straight line right on the middle of the hardwood floor.

Carmilla—who was usually loud, smug, and proud—was staring blankly at the rug with her hands folded tight in her lap. Her long hair was tied back, and her face was flushed bright red with pure embarrassment.

Leo and Mia were trembling like small leaves, keeping their eyes glued to the floor, not daring to move even an inch.

Standing right on top of the living room sofa was Aunt Elena.

She was wearing a sharp, dark red business suit over a crisp white shirt. Her long hair was tied into a flawless, high ponytail, and her sharp blue eyes flickered with a dangerous, icy spark. She was holding a long, polished wooden yardstick in her right hand, tapping it lightly against her leather boots.

TAP. TAP. TAP.

The rhythmic sound echoed through the deathly silent room like a ticking time bomb.

The second the front door clicked shut, Elena turned her sharp gaze straight toward us.

"Well, well, well," she said, her voice smooth, calm, and utterly terrifying. "Look who finally decided to grace us with their presence."

Carmilla peeked up at us from the floor, giving me a desperate, helpless look that basically said: Run while you still can!

I cleared my throat, forcing a stiff, awkward smile onto my face as I took a half-step forward, trying to shield the bleeding Viora behind my back.

"Aunt Elena!" I said, trying to sound as innocent as possible. "You’re... you’re back!"

Aunt Elena didn’t smile. She slowly crossed her arms, still standing tall on top of the sofa, looking down at us like an angry queen inspecting her rebellious subjects.

"The Gate raid finished early," Aunt Elena said softly. "So I decided to come home to check on my lovely family. Imagine my surprise when I walked through the door at midnight and found my house completely empty, except for these three little troublemakers trying to hide an entire crate of uncertified mana potions under the kitchen sink."

Leo flinched, shrinking his head down into his collar. "It... it was a bulk discount..."

SWOOSH!

Aunt Elena flicked her wooden yardstick through the air, creating a sharp whistling sound that made Leo instantly shut his mouth tight.

"Silence," Aunt Elena snapped, her blue eyes flashing. "I am not talking to you right now."

She turned her icy gaze back to me and Viora. She raised her wooden yardstick, pointing the tip directly at my blood-soaked leg, then at Viora’s torn waist.

"Would you care to explain what you two have been doing out until two in the morning?" Aunt Elena asked, her voice dropping into a dangerously quiet register. "And more importantly... why do you both smell like rotten monster mana and fresh blood?"

The living room went dead quiet again. You could hear a pin drop on the rug.

I looked at Carmilla. Carmilla looked at the floor. I looked at Viora. Viora looked like she was about to fake a faint.

"We... we were just training, Auntie," I lied, keeping my voice steady. "In the lower district training grounds."

"Training?" Aunt Elena repeated, raising one dark eyebrow. "Training grounds? Do you take me for an idiot?"

She stepped down off the sofa with fluid, silent grace, her high heels clicking softly against the floor as she walked straight toward us. The sheer pressure radiating off her body forced me to take a small step back.

She stopped two feet away from me, reaching out with her hand to gently pinch the edge of my blood-stained jacket. She brought her fingers to her nose, sniffing lightly.

"This isn’t training ground dust," Aunt Elena said coldly. "This is C-Rank spatial core residue. The same signature as the unregistered rift that just collapsed near the lower market three miles away."

My heart dropped right into my stomach. I forgot how sharp her senses were as an S-Rank hunter.

Elena looked back at Carmilla, then at Leo and Mia, and finally back to me.

"So," Aunt Elena said, resting the tip of her wooden yardstick against my chest. "Let me get this story straight. I leave the house for a few days. In those few days, you went to a few Gates and brought some guest just beofre without asking the landlord?"

"Aunt Elena, listen—" Viora began weakly, holding her stomach.

"I am speaking, Viora!" Aunt Elena cut her off, though her eyes softened for a tiny fraction of a second as she noticed how bad Viora’s wound actually was.

Aunt Elena let out a long, heavy sigh, rubbing the bridge of her nose in deep frustration. The terrifying, crushing aura in the room suddenly faded away, replaced by the tired look of a guardian who was simply exhausted from worrying about a bunch of reckless kids.

"You kids are going to give me grey hair before I turn forty," Aunt Elena muttered, shaking her head.

She turned around and walked over to the hallway closet, pulling out a large, heavy leather first-aid kit and a stack of clean white towels. She tossed the towels straight into Carmilla’s lap.

"All of you, get up off the floor," Aunt Elena ordered, pointing at Carmilla, Leo, and Mia. "Carmilla, go boil water and make warm tea. The boy, go get the disinfectant bottles from the cabinet. Little girl, go fetch the clean bandages."

"Yes!" the three of them shouted in unison, scrambling up off the floor like unleashed lightning and running toward the kitchen.

Aunt Elena turned back to me and Viora, pointing her wooden yardstick toward the large dining table.

"Sit," she commanded softly.

Viora and I didn’t dare argue. We walked over to the wooden dining table and carefully sat down on the chairs. Viora let out a long, painful groan as she leaned her back against the wooden chair, her hands slowly falling away from her waist wound.

Aunt Elena pulled up a chair and sat directly across from us. She opened the heavy leather first-aid kit, pulling out sharp scissors, roll after roll of sterile gauze, and high-grade healing salve.

Without saying a word, she reached over and gently cut open the torn cloth around Viora’s stomach wound.

"This was a gravity blade cut," Aunt Elena said quietly, her sharp eyes carefully inspecting the deep red slice across Viora’s waist. Her hands were surprisingly gentle as she dabbed clean antiseptic solution over the open skin. "If this hit two inches deeper, your internal organs would have been sliced to ribbons. That also means that we can’t heal it using healing potions."

Viora winced from the stinging alcohol, gritting her teeth. "It looked worse than it actually was."

"Don’t act tough with me, girl," Aunt Elena said, applying a thick layer of green healing salve over the cut. "I’ve seen enough rift wounds to know when someone barely escaped with their life."