Strongest Nova: Path of Vengeance

Chapter 107: I’m so Sorry

"How do you know about Varinox?" Sheila asked with a surprised look on her face. She had not expected to hear those words from the young man in front of her.

Stanley looked at her, his anger still apparent in his eyes which he failed to control. "You know about this thing?" he asked.

Sheila looked at him, judging the danger of the situation before nodding. "I do," she said. "How do you know? Are you not from here?"

"What do you mean?" Stanley asked. "No, never mind about that. Tell me what this thing in my head is. It keeps shouting at me, telling me to restock it."

"Oh, you don’t know?" she was confused even more. "Varinox is one of the latest medicinal nano-machines."

"What?" Stanley asked. "What does that even mean?"

"What? Nano machines?" Sheila asked. "Those are microscopic machines or robots. Varinox is a company that specifically engineers nanomachines that can be placed into your system where it directly interacts with your body on a cellular level, amplifying your own healing capabilities to a certain extent."

"It also monitors stuff like your health level, illness, disease, and poisons, notifying you when it can’t solve the problem on its own."

"If it is telling you to restock, then it must have run out of power. You will need to inject another batch into your body," she said.

She looked at Stanley’s face, seeing that he was more confused by her explanation. ’He doesn’t know what I’m saying. This is his first time hearing all of this,’ she realized. ’Then... did he get a shot of Varinox without knowing what it was?’

"If you don’t understand what I’m saying, just understand that it improves your healing capabilities. Now, tell me, where did you get Varinox?" she asked him.

"I don’t know," he said. "But if it does improve my healing as you said then... it was after I woke up from my coma 5 months ago."

"Your... coma?" she asked. "Why were you in a coma?"

"I was impaled by a piece of wood through my shoulder, and I was buried under my collapsed house," he said. "It... it all happened the day the Crawlers attacked."

Sheila nodded as she heard that. Then, slowly her eyes widened. Her hand reached for the empty holsters on the left side of her belt.

She felt the three empty holsters there.

She had used two on herself. One the first time she was injured, and another when it asked for a restock.

And the final one...

"The Crawler attack... was it the one from 6 months ago?" she asked while doing her best to hide her trembling finger behind her.

"Yes," Stanley said. "My mother died that day during the attack, and I was injured and sent into a coma."

Sheila gulped as she remembered the events of that day.

"I’m..." she stuttered. "I’m... so sorry."

Stanley nodded. "Thank you," he said.

Sheila’s heart sank when she realized that he had taken her apology instead as a form of condolence from her. He thought she was sorry for his loss, when in fact she was apologizing because she was the main reason for that loss.

"No..." she said. She was still debating on whether or not to tell him about what she was thinking, but in the end, she decided to do so.

"I’m sorry that I was the one that brought those Crawlers to you. I’m sorry... that I was the reason that you had to suffer that loss that day."

"What do you mean?" Stanley looked at her.

"I didn’t mean to do it. I didn’t even know what was happening, but it happened, and it was only afterward that I realized how horrible a thing I had done," she said.

Stanley’s hands balled into a fist in anger as he suspected something. "What did you do exactly?" he asked.

Sheila gulped for a second and explained what had happened.

6 months ago, she had arrived outside of the veil by accident. She had then decided to walk in through it, to see what was inside. She could see silhouettes of some things, so she employed her concealment technique and walked in.

It was then that she realized that she was in trouble. The monsters could see her even when concealed and they started attacking her. Her way back was blocked, so she could only run to the front, which she did.

The veil wasn’t even 20 meters wide. After running for that short distance, she arrived inside. At the same time, she had also dragged in the Crawlers, starting the biggest Crawler attack on the town to date.

She had run away from the veil, up the slope as a Crawler had chased after her. The others had changed their targets to the Defenders, but one was following her, so she ran as fast as she could.

When she arrived at the house on the slope, the door had opened, making it easy for her to run through, instead of having to go around it.

The Crawler had changed targets at that moment and slammed through the house to attack the people in it. Stanley was pinned below rubble while his mother was injured to the side.

Sheila remembered turning around and seeing at the last moment how the Crawler crushed someone there. The Crawler left the place as soon as it noticed more people around it, letting Sheila run back into the house to check on those that had been there.

The corpse on the right couldn’t even be called one, but the person on the right was just wounded, albeit heavily.

"I’m so sorry," Sheila had said as she truly was sorry for what she had made happen. She had then reached for her shot of Varinox on her belt and stabbed it into the young man’s arm.

As soon as Varinox entered the system, the young man had fainted.

Sheila then looked around and saw the death and carnage that the Crawlers had brought in, and it had all been her fault.