Chapter 2

The sunlight dazzled through the open window, waking up the sleeping Olivia. Laid on a small bed, there's a pair of chairs and a table adorned with a small flower vase. The room looks plain without any other decorations. "..Where am I?"

"Mom! She's awake!" yelled a girl. Olivia looked toward the door and saw a girl with red hair and green eyes filled with curiosity staring at her. By the girl's side, a woman with a similar shade of red hair with a pair of black eyes comes closer and checks up on Olivia. "Good, your wounds are healing." She nodded in relief. "My name is Aria and this is my daughter Lily. My husband found you in the forest, injured."

Forest… Olivia's memory came back in a flash and she started to tremble. She cried hard, wailing a few incoherent words and started to kick around causing the wound to open up again.

Aria quickly get a hold of Olivia, not letting her move as she hugged the girl, "Take it easy... You're safe now, it's okay... You're safe now... You're safe.." Aria hummed slowly as Olivia calmed down. She then laid Olivia on the bed again as she wiped the sweat on her forehead. “Lily, get the medical box.”

An open wound on the abdomen with the flesh around the wound looks like it was minced as her clothes soaked in blood, skin that had paled until veins could be seen. The rib cage had fractured and broken bones on every limb. Just thinking about it has already made Aria wince, she can’t even think about how the girl survived the ordeal. Aria looks at Olivia who’s letting out grunts and tears even in her sleep. Her fair skin is paler than before, similar to a corpse.

The devastation and despair Aria saw in the girl’s eyes before showed what she experienced before.

“Just what had happened? That monster is not that ferocious in the past.”

******

“No! Help me! Please, help me! No, no, no, no, no, please, help! It hurts, it hurts!” Olivia’s screams wake Aria and the others up.

“Olivia, Olivia, You’re safe, you’re safe...Relax, you’re safe now, take it easy...I’m here, I’m here…” Aria hugged Olivia and pat her head. A week passed and the same nightmare keeps haunting her every night so Aria always does this. Lily on the other side wipes the sweat on Olivia’s forehead while Ben makes some hot chocolate.

“Aria, Aria, you’re here..Aria..” Olivia muttered softly as she hugged Aria tight. “Please...Don’t leave me.”

*******

It’s been a year since Olivia came to this world. The past incident overwhelmed her, causing a big gap in her memories. Her memory jumbled and missing a few pieces. She still remembered, of course, the fact that she’s not from this world.

“Olivia, you’re going to the library again?” Aria gives the packed lunch to Olivia. “Here’s some money to spend on.”

“No, it’s okay Aria. You’ve helped me a lot. I still have some savings.” Olivia does a housework job. She helped do housework for others and was paid money in return. Aria smiled, this girl in front of her is really reserved and polite, she finds herself thinking. “...Thank you.”

Aria laughed, “You're welcome!”.

The sun hung high casting a shadow on the boisterous market. It’s now packed with traders, merchants, adventurers, street performers and stalls selling all kinds of things from food to accessories. Olivia greets a lot of people on her way to the library as she received all kinds of treats. ‘The people here are kind and caring. They even accepted me…’

“Good Afternoon, Olivia.” A girl with braided black hair and honey brown eyes, skin fair with freckles greets her as soon as she enters the library. She’s one of the library’s employees.

“Good afternoon, Fiona. Here, have some.” Olivia smiles and give Fiona some snacks then went to do her own thing, reading.

Since Aria has been teaching her how to write and read, Olivia has been reading over and over, from history to the present about this world. She needs to learn about this world and regain a lot of knowledge. She may have come from another world but it can’t be used to her advantage. ‘After all, I’m only aware I’m from another world and not the whole memory.’

Currently, Olivia is interested in magic and she’s been reading about it for quite some time now. ‘I want to try it.’ So she went outside of the gate today.

Since the forest was split into two areas, one of them is safe for people who can’t fight or anything. In that part of the forest, monsters did not appear due to the daily hunting of the adventurer. “Here should be okay..” The commonplace Olivia went from time to time is near a waterfall. It’s peaceful here and people rarely come due to a rumour of a living witch in the waterfall. Olivia always laugh when she thinks about it, ‘What witch? There’s no one here.’

Olivia sat down and closed her eyes as she calmed herself, ‘To use magic, I need to control the vitality.’

Rustling leaves, birds chirping and whistling wind. Amidst that, whispers could be heard gradually. The whispering became louder as a swirling flow could be felt. Olivia felt herself shivering a little as she felt the gradually cold wind around her. The flow roams around her body before it stops and gathers on her forehead. A moment later, she opened her eyes.

‘Hmm..it definitely felt different. My sense heightened...Where’s the mirror?’

“What is this rune?” On her forehead, a small light blue rune could be seen. Olivia thinks about it for a moment before deciding to cover it up. As instructed in the book, direct the vitality to the place you want and imagine. “Good! It is gone now!” Olivia is really glad how she’s successful on her first try.

Splash!

The splashing sound coming from the waterfall shocked her as she put her guard up and stared in the direction. Olivia is now scared enough to even say a word, ‘Don’t tell me there really is a witch!?’

A silhouette of a man appeared behind the waterfall as it came into her sight. A beautiful shiny silver hair and eyes, he has ivory skin and a tall structure. The man has a bewildered and confused expression as he limps out of the waterfall. She could see the open wound at the man’s feet. ‘It looks pretty bad.’

‘Never though there’s a cave behind the waterfall.’ Olivia thought. Olivia stares at the man, baffled, ‘Where did I see this guy?’ She felt that the man before her was familiar.

The said man looks up, straight into Olivia’s eyes. It’s the man's turn to be baffled. He gaped and trembled, pointing at Olivia with a bloody hand, “O-Olivia..?”

‘..He knows me?’