Talentless Extra Of The Legendary Hero Academy-Chapter 177: Graveyard

Serena stood in a graveyard.

She was surrounded by groaning dead bodies that twitched and twisted in their graves. Their rotting dead eyes turned to her.

But the thing was...

She didn’t remember any of them. She didn’t know them, nor could she point them out. Even the names that were on their gravestones were blurred to her.

She walked in the grave, lost and cold.

A memory, long lost, came to her. It was so long ago when she was a kid that her father took her to the hall in their house. The hall was filled with pictures. Hundreds of them hung on the walls.

Below each picture were names.

All of the names ended like hers. Serena Ashford.

Ashford.

Once an Ashford dies, their bodies would combust and reduce to ashes. Their Talent Ability is so unlike others. It’s so tied to their family that the bodies combust, turn to ashes, and become part of their powers.

In the memory, her father explained to her, "We are our own power and strength. We all return to ash to help the family. You must treat this with the respect and dignity that it deserves."

Serena had nodded.

And then she went on to learn the names of the Ashford who had died since the family was created. The names were so many it took her two months to be done with it.

But soon, the names were just that. Names. They meant nothing to her.

Now, she stood in a graveyard that was made of the thousands of Ashford. "What exactly am I doing here?"

She turned in place but found nothing more unusual than the groaning Ashford.

She began to walk deeper into the graveyard, still baffled by what she was supposed to do. "This is a training, right? But I still don’t know what I’m supposed to do here."

She walked and walked.

The graveyard seemed endless, and the more she walked, the more the groaning became even louder.

Suddenly, she froze.

She turned around, and her eyes widened.

The bodies. Why were they groaning as if they were in pain?

Her eyes narrowed. "Father told me it is the responsibility of the family to support each other, even in death. But... they don’t seem to look happy about it."

A chill ran down her spine. "What’s wrong? Why are you guys in such pain?"

When she said that, the groaning got louder, but she still couldn’t make sense of what was happening. "I can’t hear you. You guys can’t speak?"

"Tell me! I want to know!"

But her only answer was the groaning.

She frowned in frustration. "How can I solve this? I know the content of my training is in this graveyard, but I don’t know how to deal with it."

She sighed.

She crouched by one of the graves to study the body, but its face was blurred, as well as the name. She could smell it, but she couldn’t see it properly.

The one thing she knew, though, was that the bodies were Ashford.

Finally, she took a deep breath. Since there was nothing she could do, she continued walking. "If only Severin was here. Or Julius. Julius is so good at thinking. He would have been able to figure something out....!"

Suddenly, she stopped walking and frowned. "Right. If I was Julius, how would I deal with this? Julius once shared how to deal with thinking and planning before.

"Yes, he talked about patterns. What did they all have in common? They are all groaning with blurred out faces or names. What does that tell us?"

Serena frowned. "That something doesn’t want me to read their names? They’re groaning because they’re in pain? Alright, the next step is to look for something that breaks the pattern."

She looked around, searched, but didn’t see anything that broke the pattern.

"What other thing is a pattern? Wait... they’re all somehow facing the same way. Even some of them that were positioned in the wrong way were somehow facing front. Is there something in the front?"

That got her to walk faster.

She even began to run, her body bursting into speed as if she wanted to outrun the groaning of her family members. But the sound followed her anyway.

She didn’t know how long she ran, but she knew it must have been for days until finally she met the end. It was dominated by a huge wall.

And on the wall was a painting that seemed to have been done by a child.

A loving family of three. Mother, father, and daughter. Then in the next four panels, the child suddenly turned to a witch and the family... burned her?

Serena felt a chill on her spine.

They packed the ashes home in a jar.

But the ghost of the girl followed them and possessed the ash jar. The ashes would then attack the family in their sleep.

The parents ran to someone in fear, and the person did something to the ash jar that made it possible for the father to control the ashes.

"Fuck," Serena muttered.

In the picture, when the father and mother died, they joined the ashes, and their new son was able to control it.

Serena understood then, somewhat. "This is a curse. This power is not just tied into our family. It’s the very foundation, and we must have been practicing it before the system came along.

"A curse. So all those who died are trapped. It’s not that their spirits are gone and only their remains are getting used as tools. They are trapped in the ashes and likely feeling intense pain as well.

"The curse of the Ashford."

Serena closed her eyes and then bowed to the painting. "I understand now. I’ll see what I can do. Thank you for showing me this."

Serena bowed again, and then she turned around.

The groaning had stopped.

But the ghost still remained.

What surprised Serena the most was the Etherion space she was in. "This place must not be a simple place if I can be shown something like this."