Adler was sitting on the front seat of the red car, along with Agnes who was in the driver's seat. He couldn't believe that she was actually his niece. Though given that he was stuck inside the dungeon for so long, everyone outside was bound to grow old and have kids, His sister included.
He could see his sister's features in Agnes. She had the same eyes and nose. Though Agnes's hair was red, he couldn't argue that had it been black, this was what his sister would look like if he got to see her when she was this old.
"Is my sister alive?" he asked. He knew what the answer would be. He could hear it through President Chen's pattern of speech, from his reverence towards her, when he talked about her. But, he still had to ask to get a sense of finality.
"No, uncle. Mother died 10 years ago of Mana poisoning. She kept it suppressed with her healing skills all her life, but she couldn't stop it from weakening her physical body as time went on. She grew so weak that one day she just passed away in her sleep." Agnes replied with tears forming in her eyes. She set the car to auto and took out a little handkerchief to wipe her tears.
Adler had a blank look on him when he heard the answer. Mana Poisoning. He knew what it was. Hell, he had also been poisoned with it himself. Mana wasn't the same everywhere.
The dungeons that formed on earth had the same mana that humans mostly awakened with. But, the mana that the Demon King's army used was different.
And it was the most abundant form of mana available at the time. Had he not found the S-rank skill at the time he did. He would've probably died during the first 10 years of his time in the dungeon.
Adler tried to think of other things to ask about his sister, but the news of her death was too much for him to think of anything else.
After a few minutes, he thought of something. There was one thing that kept bugging him ever since Agnes introduced herself as his niece, that no matter how much he tried to make sense of, he just couldn't.
Thinking about it for a long time but still being unable to form any sort of logical answer, he decided to ask Agnes herself.
"Hey Agnes, How old are you?"
Agnes looked a little hesitant, but she still answered, " I'm in my mid 40's, uncle."
This got Adler more confused. "How are you only in your 40's if my sister was already 20 years old a century ago. Did she give birth to you when she was in her 80's?" He asked.
Agnes laughed a little when she heard him. She looked a little funny right now laughing with tears still in her eyes. She had gotten the same question when she told her husband when her mother was born. She had laughed at that time too, reveling in her husband's confusion.
"I guess anyone who didn't know mother's story would ask the same. To start with, She gave birth to me when her physical age was 32." Agnes said.
"Physical age?" Adler didn't understand what she was trying to say.
"I will have to start my mother's story around the time you disappeared. A camera outside the dungeon had caught you getting pulled into it.
After you entered, nobody else was able to enter the dungeon as it would reject everybody. After several days of not returning, you were pronounced dead. Mother said that she held a small funeral for you."
"About 2 or 3 years after your 'death', mother awakened as an A-ranked healer. She was scouted by a high-level guild at the time and in a few years she reached S-rank. During that time, the world was getting worse. Dungeons were getting stronger and stronger, and people who could keep up with the increase in difficulty just weren't enough. It was around that time when people started finding keys in dungeons."
"Timed dungeons started popping up everywhere, that spanned anywhere from hours to weeks. Most anybody had to stay in one was 10 months at that time. Then, somebody in my mother's guild found a key that led to a timed dungeon that if not cleared would be the entry point of the Demon King's Army. Only S-rank and above could enter the dungeon and it didn't allow more than 5 people."
"My mother was one of the 5 people to enter as she was the highest-ranked Healer at that time. The 5 people fought the Demon King's army for 20 years and defeated the army. During their absence, they would have gone through multiple smaller dungeon breaks that nearly ended humanity. Brave hunters fought the monster hoard and brought victory to the world. The only thing left was for mother's group to return."
Agnes continued, "When the dungeon finally closed, mother was back. Only thing was, for some reason, defeating the dungeon had turned their physical bodies back in time. Mother had an 8-year-old's body when she came out. I don't know if only my mother was the one who returned. She said that the government hid any info about her return on her behalf so that she could a normal life in the world that had returned to normal. "
"I asked mother about the other heroes, but she wouldn't tell me if they had returned alive or died in the dungeon. She always kept her mouth shut about the events that occurred in the dungeon, only that they had somehow defeated the Demon King's Four Horsemen and that foiled the invasion plan of the Demon King."
"So, after becoming a child again in what should have been her 50's, mother lived her life once again hiding her true identity. My father was always out of the city to work when I was very young, so my mother had to raise me by herself mostly. "
"When I awakened at 16 years old, my mother finally revealed herself as the hero 'Saint' to me. She gave me multiple skill stones that she got from the timed dungeon and helped me be an S-Ranked Hunter. It was also around that time that her mana poison started flaring up."
" She hung on for 20 years, but in the end, she had grown too weak physically from fighting the poison and died in her sleep. My father also died 2 years after in a car accident."
Agnes's eyes had started to tear up again as she remembered her mother's final days.
Agnes continued in a trembling voice, "Just before that, she had told me about you, how you were stuck in a timed dungeon. After the technology to determine the strength of a dungeon had been perfected, it also showed how long a timed dungeon could last. In your case, it was 100 years. She wished to see you once again, but alas, her final wish remained unfulfilled."
Adler had tears in his eyes by now. Had she survived 10 more years, he could've cured her of the poison. To him now, the poison was no different from a mosquito bite. The most it was was annoying.
He couldn't help being sad. But he was happy for her. She lived longer than most people ever could. She had a happy life with her husband and daughter. She lived a glorious life as a hunter that he couldn't help but be proud of. A hero. The Saint. People revered her as a savior. She lived a good life.
The car rolled up to an open field, full of greenery. They had gotten out of the city at some point, and he surprised to see not many buildings around here. He looked around surprised that there was such an open field around here but soon realized why.
He could see multiple small stones popping out of the ground and were there in symmetry. He realized they were headstones. They had come to a graveyard.
The car stopped and both of them got out. Adler started following his niece, and she took him to one of the headstones that were more or less secluded from most visitors.
On the headstone was a picture of an old lady smiling and below were the words [Andrea 'Lee' Jones. Faithful Wife, Loving Mother, and a Caring Sister].
Agnes had somehow brought out a bunch of flowers that she then laid out in front of her mother's grave.
"Hello mother, look who I brought. You said you wanted to meet him once more right. You were right mother, he really survived. He really did return back after a hundred years. Look." Agnes started talking to her mother. After saying a few more things, she got to the side and let Adler see the grave fully.
He couldn't keep the tears in his eyes anymore and they were falling like a waterfall. Hearing about her death was already hard for him, but seeing her grave, destroyed whatever little false hope of her survival might've been inside him.
"I'm sorry Andrea. Your stupid brother's greed got him stuck somewhere and couldn't get back to you." Adler spoke through his tears. "I'm sorry for leaving you all alone. But, I see you didn't fall during my absence. Instead, you rose to be one of the best people in the world. I'm really proud of you sister. "