Going Home

Gwen didn't know what to do. At one point, she wanted to explain that it was a misunderstanding yet at the same time she wanted to own up to it since Nio valued wickedness above all else. She needed to tread very carefully as her future would be severely affected by her actions.

A young feminine voice annoying came out from within the carriage behind Nio, "It's like she gets kidnapped every month or so."

Another male voice spoke out, just barely deep enough to recognize that it was a boy, "It's every week! She gets kidnapped every week! How do you not know this? What's she supposed to do?"

"I don't know, maybe just don't get kidnapped?" The female voice sarcastically responded.

From this bantering Gwen immediately recognized these two voices, it was the 3rd and 4th siblings, Rachel Aria and Finn Aria. Rachel was the spoiled and careless sibling while Finn was the attentive and caring one. There was even a point in time in the story where Rachel was captured by an opposing kingdom and Finn singlehandedly slaughtered an army to rescue her back. Rivers ran red that day and new mountains made from bodies were created.

"Rachel! Don't act like that! Hah… Gwendolyn, I feel so bad for you having to deal with this… creature."

"What the- Finn! You can't call a fair maiden a creature! It hurts her self-esteem!" There were rummaging sounds from within the carriage as if Rachel started a fight with Finn. Nio didn't seem to care about the ruckus inside, instead opting to carefully examine Gwen.

"5th, how do you feel?" Nio's tone was undoubtedly flat, but Gwen seemed to notice a trace of concern for her.

"Fine? I'm not hurt."

Nio nodded but still kept asking, "That's not what I meant, did you feel mana or an eerie energy around you?"

Gwen was now forced to either tell the truth or lie, her memories were telling her to lie about her current situation, yet her current instincts were pushing her to tell the truth. Deciding between these two options, Gwen found the idea of lying to Nio more appealing, "Slightly."

Nio's face crunched in agony as if he failed one more time, "No matter, I guess we'll continue on with our current plans," Underneath Nio's breath he muttered, "I still couldn't save her. Is this curse really so all-powerful?"

Gwen entered the carriage only to be met by her siblings. Finn immediately came forward to raise her up by her waist, skyrocketing to the top of the carriage, "Gwendolyn! Welcome back… again." The carriage started moving as Nio's figure started to slowly disappear into the darkness of the night.

Finn inherited his mother's hair, having short purple hair and red eyes that seemed to love everything around him. Rachel was the complete opposite, completely taking on her father's traits, having long raven black flowing hair and bored black eyes that seemed tired of the world. Finn oddly seemed to be the mature one despite him clearly being younger than Rachel by a noticeable margin.

Rachel was leaning back in her seat and had an extremely lethargic look, it was as if she couldn't wait to be done with this. She looked at the burning mansion and decided to have a little fun with it, "Boop."

Rachel pointed her gloved finger at the fire and tapped. An incredibly small magic circle appeared and immediately shot through the air, meeting the orange flame that was currently eating multiple kidnappers inside. This orange flame slowly turned purple as the wooden frame and cement foundation started turning liquid. An even scarier thought was that the voices inside the mansion didn't diminish, instead, it grew even stronger as the screams no longer sounded guttural, instead sounding ethereal.

Finn sighed and flicked Rachel's forehead, who was giggling to herself uncontrollably, "Stop that. Father said to find other things to enjoy other than inflicting pain on others."

Rachel started rubbing her bruise with both hands as a slight tear started to form at the corner of her eye, "That's it, come here you little twerp!" Rachel stood up and tried to pounce on Finn, trying to inflict the same injury that she received. Due to the small capacity inside the carriage, Finn fought hard and desperately, trying to dodge his older sister's tackles.

Gwen was left in the middle to act as a barrier for Finn to shield against Rachel's assault, "What is happening?"

This fight kept going on for a long time, longer than one would've expected. Even after Rachel finally inflicted the same pain she received, she didn't stop and decided to keep going, trying to see how many times she could do it before they reached their estate.

Gwen slowly but surely got used to how cheerful both Rachel and Finn were but still didn't have the mindset to play with them.

'The novel said that the Aria Estate was filled with elite people who trained day in and day out without rest. Gwen was slightly looking forward to just how accurate this description truly was, even looking beyond the borders of text, she wanted to explore everything, to see the essence of what the descriptions couldn't capture.

Time slowly passed as the iconic scent of iron finally reached Gwen's nose. The thick wasteland around the Aria Estate was too toxic and dangerous for any normal person to survive in so there were constant troops cleaning out the monsters that periodically spawned in. These both served as training and maintenance for everyone involved, polishing their techniques and sharpening their senses.

It was still quite a while until they reached their dwellings so Gwen started to take in the scenery. From the distance, a shadowy figure was towering over a seemingly small plant but when a patrol came up to apprehend it, it seemed to have suddenly scaled to the size of a mountain, despite this the elite troops that were stationed here easily subjugated this beast.

Gwen's heart suddenly started racing, this world was starting to shape out to be one that she wanted to live in, except for one key fact, she was still talentless. An initially fun idea suddenly turned deadly and threatening as her only advantage against other people was her background and memories. And as far as she could tell, neither of these would be able to let her rule the world within the 30-year time limit.

Rachel noticed Gwen's gaze in the distance, "Gwendolyn, do you want to fight monsters like those?"

"I wish I could."

Finn who heard Gwen's reply suddenly panicked, "Hey, hey, hey, Gwendolyn, don't listen to her! She's a bad influence. Just stay safe and live however you want to live, alright? Father and Mother will support your decisions, don't worry about it. In fact, this was supposed to stay a secret but-"

"Finn!" Rachel immediately came from behind and blocked Finn's mouth using both her hands, forcefully stopping his next lines of words. "Haha, using magic and killing monsters sounds cool, right? You want to go out tomorrow and watch something fun?"

Gwen's ears perked at the thought of Rachel doing even more aesthetically pleasing tricks with magic. This was both destructive and beautiful, something Gwen wished that she would be able to do in the future.

"Rachel, once Father-" Rachel took out her glove and shoved it down Finn's mouth, she immediately locked Finn's head in place, preventing him from getting out of her grip. Finn was struggling to get out of her grip but the light from his eyes was disappearing as he was losing consciousness.

Gwen only had one thought in her mind, 'He won't die, will he?"