Looking in the direction of her home, Lucielle saw a group standing outside with grinning smiles and lustful eyes. She knew these people very well as they were the reason she had been to the hospital on numerous occasions. Even today, after finally receiving her powers, Lucielle was still a little intimidated when she looked at them.
After all, spending years being beaten and sexually assaulted if she didn't have the money to pay her protection fee had generated more than enough mental scars in her psyche but those would slowly be fixed now that she had stepped onto the path of power. Concealing her feelings of discomfort and disgust she began to walk towards the group as a recollection of the past surfaced in her mind.
When Lucielle had just become a Slayer, she was still a very shy and fearful girl. In the first Gate she had raided, she certainly hindered much more than she helped. However, in addition to the suffering that was her trying to survive without power inside the Gate, being humiliated and assaulted by these people had also had a great influence on her current personality.
Over time, realizing the cruelty that people had inside a Gate, most of the time caring only for their own survival at the expense of other people's lives, in addition to also being abused for being weak on the outside of the Gates, these things forced Lucielle to transform from the shy young woman she had been into the emotionless ice queen she was now. Returning to the present, Lucielle came to a halt a few feet before the group as they openly ogled her body before meeting her frosty stare.
"Well looky here. Our battle princess has returned home in one piece this time as well! May the Gods be praise!" said a burly tall man with a disgustingly large nose and a bizarre facial tattoo.
"About damn time too! If you made us wait any longer, we would have had to teach you a lesson so you could learn not to repeat it again" said a tall gangly man in sharp business attire while staring at Lucielle with open lust through his shaded glasses that he was wearing. After so much technological advancement, surgery to correct vision problems was extremely common, but some people still continued to wear glasses to maintain an air of culture and intelligence.
"I was raiding in a Gate. Today was a raiding day," Lucielle replied in a seemingly disinterested voice, but if someone more sensitive had paid attention, they would notice a slight twinge of anger and disgust contained in her words.
"Great! Unfortunately you are just a rank F Slayer, so a single Gate will not be enough to pay your protection for this month. You better have money to pay or else we'll be taking the interest out of your body.." The man leered at her with his pearly white teeth as the others nodded in agreement. The other two men beside him began to chuckle as they thought she surely wouldn't have the money to pay up and pre-emptively cracked their knuckles as they unconsciously readied themselves for a beat down.
Seeing how the scene was progressing made bad memories bubble up to the surface of Lucielle's mind. Being just a rank F Slayer who didn't even have a proper power, she suffered a lot at the hands of these men since the day of her parents death.
The business man was Lucielle's aunts secretary. Before becoming a Slayer, Lucielle lived with her parents. Her parents were hard working servants in a bigger families mansion so she didn't get to see her parents very often. Especially her father as he was a live in servant at the mansion they worked at. So her mother primarily raised her by herself.
She may not have have had many talents in her life besides being a very caring mother, but her Slayer power enabled her to make the godliest meals on the planet. The dishes she made were praised by everyone who had ever tried them.
Unfortunately tragedy struck her family as her father died mysteriously while working for that great family and Lucielle's mother was let go as well. She briefly managed to run a small restaurant of her own using the saving she and her husband had saved up, but despite the quality of her meal business was not good enough to keep the doors open and so she went bankrupt. The bankruptcy of the restaurant closed the door on many opportunities that she might have had with her power, and in a moment of despair, not knowing what to do to support her small family, she went decided to ask for help from her older sister.
The older sister was a wealthy woman who already knew the gift her sister had and made herself available to help. As she wanted to open her own restaurant, she offered her a loan, however, with high interest rates. Lucielle's mother knew very well how abusive the the interest was, but having to to take care of herself as well as Lucielle who required a lot of resources, there was nothing she could do but accept what her sister proposed.
However, shortly after she accepted this abusive agreement, Lucielle's mother was diagnosed with a very rare disease. This disease was eating away at the cells of her body little by little, but it was fortunately curable, however the treatment to cure herself was very expensive. Being a mother she obviously couldn't let herself perish and leave Lucielle alone in this world, so using the money she borrowed from her own sister to open the restaurant, she started paying for her treatment.
She knew without the profit the restaurant would generate for her, it would be impossible for her to pay the interest that the loan would charge, but she had no other choice available. When her sister found out that instead of using the money she gave her to open the restaurant, and accrue more money to pay the high interest for her, and using it to pay for a hospital bill she was extremely pissed.
Knowing that she would not be convinced to do what she wanted, she tried to forcefully make her return the money. So she sent her secretary along with her personal security that she trusted to get her to return the money or pay the interest.
The problem was that because she had already gone through so much hardship and suffering in her own life, Lucielle's mother could not stand to be humiliated and threatened by the secretary and the men, until one day she fell asleep and never woke again. According to doctors she had a heart attack due to the stress and perish peacefully in her sleep.
Lucielle was 16 years old when all this happened and her awakening had just happened, but she had no power at that point in time. Her aunts men never touched a hair on her mothers head but with her it was with a completely different story. Whenever they came to collect the debt, they tried to force Lucielle to return what was left of the money or pay the interest that the loan had generated, forcing her to raid more Gates than a normal person would raid in order to get enough money to pay the interest.
When she didn't get their money, her fate was to be beaten and sometimes sexually assaulted. Once, they had beaten and violated her so violently that she was hospitalized for a few days, fortunately medicine had already advanced enough to fix her body during her stay, but she still remembered the pain and humiliation that was lying on the floor broken and bleeding as they left her sprawled on her own bed.
That was the day Lucielle realized that people did not see themselves as equals. As long as someone had the strength, that person would feel superior to others. And from there on she swore to herself that she would be stronger, whatever the cost. Even if she had to kill other people, as long as they were innocent, she would not hesitate to take their life once she had the strength to do so.
Looking at these worms before her, Lucielle's fury was beginning to boil over as her hands clenched tightly before an icy calmness over took her. Without any of the men the wiser, her hand which was clenched by her side previously was now open and emitting a soft glow, as if a small flame was floating there ready to strike.
"I have enough money. So don't you dare threaten me again." Her amethyst eyes seemed capable enough to drill holes through a man as she calmly spoke to the secretary. Even though she knew that the money she paid was not fair, her mother had signed a contract. If she failed to pay what was agreed upon in the contract, her aunt could take away the house which had been used as collateral. The problem was that sometimes, even though Lucielle paid how much she was supposed to pay, they still came to beat and violate her.
But feeling that familiar sensation, so warm and familiar, in the palm of her hand, Lucielle knew it wouldn't happen again. Not today. Not ever again, at least by these lowly parasites.