"You’re going back where?" Natash asked as she wondered if she had heard Shiro correctly.

  "I said I’m going back to Cairosa for a while. It’s the city that me and my friends had to evacuate to for a short while." Shiro repeated.

  "An exactly how long are you going for?"

  "Hmm…… well if I don’t factor in travel time and the such, maybe only a week or two. Perhaps longer depending on what happens." Shiro replied. Since the second part of the task wanted her to investigate the reason as to why the distress call hadn’t been answered, it may take her a while if the culprits were extra careful with their tracks.

  "Mn, shall I mark it down for one and a half months of absence?"

  "That would be helpful." Shiro nodded.

  "Alright. You’re clear to go. Just remember, if you need assistance, you can send out a signal to the nearby disciples if they’re near the city and they’ll come to your aid." Natash reminded.

  "If I’m in trouble, do you really think that the disciples can do anything about it?" Shiro raised an eyebrow as she looked at Natash in humour.

  ". . . Alright alright. I know it was a dumb idea." Natash sighed as she too understood the power difference between Shiro and the other disciples.

  "But if you need any help, just remember to use it ok?"

  "Of course."

  Leaving the faction building, Shiro wondered if she should disguise herself a little for the trip. She didn’t want the enemies who blocked the signal to see her face after all.

  ’Hmm…… Well I’ll just cover it up for the time being.’ She thought as she entered the rift to get changed.

  Pulling out the face mask, she covered the bottom half of her face while she changed her outfit a little.

  Summoning a few nanobots, she crafted a black set of armour that had a slight purple tint to the metal.

  The armour was limited to her torso, shoulders, arms and boots. She added a few more parts to her dress as well.

  These additions include extending the back and side parts of the skirt to reach her lower calves instead of thighs.

  "This should do." Shiro smiled as she changed her stats as well.

  [Nytri LVL 51 – Elemental Sword Sage]

  Nodding her head in satisfaction, she stepped out of the rift.

  "I was wondering what you were doing inside the rift so it was just to get changed huh." Yin said with disinterest.

  "What else would I do?" Shiro shrugged her shoulders.

  "Forget I ever spoke." Yin rolled her eyes.

  "Anyways, we’re going skydiving for a bit." Shiro grinned.

  Grabbing both Yin and Lisandra by the arm, she jumped into the rift and dashed towards the edge.

  "What do you mean skydiving?" Lisandra asked curiously.

  "We can’t have Yin transform into a phoenix in the city now can we?" Shiro smiled.

  Jumping out of the rift, they dived down into the ocean of clouds.

  Their postures were relaxed while Yin was acting as if she was in a hammock.

  Falling through the ocean of clouds, they readjusted themselves quickly.

  "Yin, would you mind?" Shiro asked with a smile.

  Yin only shrugged before shifting herself back into her phoenix form.

  Spreading out her wings, she quickly caught Shiro and Lisandra before flapping her wings in the direction of Cairosa.

  "A little to the left." Shiro instructed since she remembers the way back to Cairosa.

  Crossing her legs, she looked up at the sky while leaning back a little.

  "Say mum, I’ve always wondered what’s your background but you’ve only glossed over it before. Could you…… tell me the whole story?" Lisandra asked curiously.

  "Hmm…… why not. Yin can also listen in while we wait." Shiro chuckled slightly and patted Yin’s head.

  *Ki~

  Nodding her head, Yin was indeed quite interested about the full story.

  "Where shall I start?" Shiro asked.

  "How about when mum was a kid?" Lisandra suggested.

  "From the very start huh? Why not. Let’s see…… My family consisted of only me, my mum and my dad. Born in the countryside, there wasn’t much that one could do but I always played with the neighbouring kids.

  "Naturally, there were monster attacks but the village guards held them off every time. The technology was quite diverse as well. There was a large division amongst the adventurers. The poor could only afford the most basic while the rich had access to the high level mana tech. No unlike my nanobots." Shiro smiled while summoning a few strands of nanobots to demonstrate.

  "Anyways, as unbelievable as this is, I was quite scared of violence you know haha. I was even scared of punching something."

  "Bullsh*t." Lisandra countered immediately. For someone that could skewer a boss without batting an eye, violence was definitely the biggest trait about them.

  "*cough* Don’t counter so quickly ok? I was very ’normal’. Even I was a delicate girl at one point alright? But while I wasn’t in love or anything like that, I did find a few boys cute you know? Normal girl stuff." Shiro shook her head.

  "I…… can’t see that happening." Lisandra pulled a suspicious face.

  "Oi, I’ll hit you ya know."

  "I’m sorry, please continue with your story mum."

  "As I was saying, I was very passive and didn’t like to fight. Of course, I was pretty so there were boys wanting to go out with me but I didn’t really care. After all these years, I do remember myself being quite the loner since girls didn’t like me that much while the boys only liked me for my appearance." Shiro said while placing a finger on her chin.

  "But before it became a problem, the village was massacred and I was kidnapped."

  "I feel like you glossed over it a bit too much mum."

  "You want me to describe all of the slaughter, r*pe and other crap I saw in detail?" Shiro raised an eyebrow.

  "Wha? No I mean like, who did it and what happened." Lisandra quickly waved her hand in a panic.

  "Hmm…… It was just a small time bandit group that migrated to our village I think? But during the attack, both my parents dragged me out of the village to keep me safe. My dad held the bandits off when they were near while my mum sent me off on my own so that she could buy time for me to escape safely. Unfortunately, I ran into some Scientists that had initially planned to take the village for an experiment. I don’t know if it’s a blessing or not but my parents died against the bandits so they were safe from the experiments." She sighed while shaking her head.

  "After the scientists saw that the village had been raided, they took everyone who was alive, including the bandits, and brought us back to their secret labs.

  "Over the course of two years I think, they would inject the subjects body’s with nanobots that would consume the flesh if not compatible. If it wasn’t compatible, they would keep the bots inside the body for a while to see the reason as to why it was incompatible before taking it out. Out of all the subjects, I had survived the longest so they took extra care of me. Assigning me with their best healers so that I didn’t die. I was a precious source of information after all.

  "Naturally, they didn’t stop with just me. I remember seeing fresh faces every month or so but none lasted long enough for me to bother remembering them. Every time they found out something new about the reaction of nanobots in my body, they would test the data on the newcomers and see if there were any improvements or variables that could be adjusted to increase the effectiveness and compatibility of the subject.

  "Honestly, even I don’t know why I survived for so long. I think it was also this when my mentality started to change." Shiro smiled while rocking back and forth.

  "At first, my goal was to survive since I didn’t want to waste the life that my parents had sacrificed themselves to give to me. After a while, it changed to me wanting to survive so that I could torture the bastards who had done this to me. However, I was young and rash back then. I exposed my intent too clearly.

  "They were attempting to create a powerful artificial class therefore they couldn’t allow the subject to rebel. After they discovered my intent, they subjected me to torture on top of experiments. Not that there was a difference between the two but my suffering doubled. Heh, they even started to implant controllers inside my body so that they could control my body remotely. Cautious bastards.

  "Just before the third year, one of the scientists made a breakthrough and decided to risk it all on me. Receiving a green light from his superiors, he did all the experiments he could on my body without care of my survival. The process was very painful and had lasted a few days. By the end of it, I was pretty sure that if nothing was to be done, I’d definitely die. I can’t remember the next part too well since I think I blacked out. But once I was conscious, I felt a connection to the nanobots and felt like I could create them at will. My power skyrocketed as my body was quickly fixed up by the nanobots. It was a temporary state since I didn’t know any of the blueprints I know now.

  "The only thought was to survive so my nanobots naturally did that. It was crude but it lasted long enough for them to get a healer and fix me up. That scientist was rewarded with a promotion along with taking over the entire conversion project with me as the core subject.

  "Unfortunately for him, he wasn’t able to recreate another Nanomancer like me so he dedicated himself to making me the most ’perfect’ being he could. In the end, he succeeded but that was also when the hero appeared. He was able to defeat me and break the main controller used to keep me in check.

  "After that, well, I gathered all the scientists and tortured the living crap out of them." Shiro shrugged.

  "That’s the mum I know. Honestly, I don’t know if I should be disturbed at that or not." Lisandra forced a slight smile when she noticed the abnormality of the situation.

  "Well you should accept it since I’m here now aren’t I?" Shiro replied.

  "So what happened after the hero rescued you?"

  "Well we partied up, I made a few friends with the people in his party. One of the people I had the best connection with was the Elven Sword Saintess, Isilia. If I had to describe her with a few words, it’ll be skilled, compassionate and understanding. She didn’t force anything onto you and tried to understand things from the way you saw it. She was someone you could form a strong connection with. Out of all the people, I miss her the most." Shiro smiled sadly while hugging her knees.

  "At that time, she was a higher level than me and would protect me from danger. But during one of our adventures outside in a high level area, we had accidentally provoked a hive monster at the peak of tier 5. For 5 days, we fought side by side while pushing our limits just to survive.

  "She witnessed me at my best while I also saw her at her best. But even then, fighting against several minions near the peak of tier 5 was no easy feat. On the last day, she was already on the verge of death. Her mana was depleted while mine was the same. At that point, we were just hanging on by sheer willpower.

  "Heh, the f*cking hero never showed up at all despite the fact that we had sent out a few distress signals at the start. If we could get their help, I’m sure we would have been able to slaughter the monsters from back then.

  "Before she died, she turned to me and grabbed my hand. Plunging it into her own chest, she smiled at me before dying to my hands. Landing the final blow on a high level adventurer such as her meant a large amount of EXP and she knew that. On top of this, she had activated a skill that used her life to transfer a portion of her power to me. This gave me enough power to level up continuously and kill the monsters by ripping them to shreds. It was also this fight that I became the first tier 6 legend of my world." Shiro said while looking at her hands with sadness.

  Suddenly, a pair of hands wrapped around Shiro as Lisandra hugged her from behind.

  "I’m sorry I asked about this……" She muttered with guilt. She knew that the pain of having to kill such a close friend after a cruel childhood was definitely painful for Shiro. And yet, because of her own curiosity, she had made her remember all of it again.

  "Heh, silly girl. I owe my life to her you know? If not for her sacrifice, I wouldn’t have lived pass that day. Remembering this is another form of keeping her alive for me." Shiro smiled while patting Lisandra’s head.

  The rest of the story was quite simple. She just told Lisandra about how the hero betrayed her not too long after and how she woke up in a dungeon as a snow girl.

  "So mum’s not human?" Lisandra asked.

  "Nope. I’m a ex-human turned snow girl. But after my last class up, I’m now a Mystic Fae." Shiro chuckled lightly.

  "Wow…… that’s quite a journey." Lisandra couldn’t help but admit.

  "Yeah, and it’s not stopping any time soon." Shiro grinned.