As blood dripped from her face, Lila's smile became strained. Her mind was a confusing mess of thoughts. She knew she had to escape this prison and get as far away as possible. But on the other hand, the man who destroyed everything and everyone she knew was right here, just a few doors away. Alara was the one who lured her to that cave. After that, she disappeared into thin air.

Lila wanted to pursue her, yet she had no idea where to find her. She was aimlessly traveling, hoping to stumble upon the one responsible for her suffering. Compared to that, Aerlath was an easier and much closer target for her hatred. Especially after he taunted her like this.

Elias... She once thought about spending the rest of her days with him until their hairs grayed out. It's true that he wasn't the most courageous person, but she didn't think he would betray her like that. She didn't want to think about it. Yet the captain's words kept ringing in her ears, poisoning all the good memories and all the dreams she once had.

Carnage, betrayal, greed... Was there nothing else in this world? Where was the virtue of God that Proth preached about? Where was the generosity of good samaritans? Were they all killed by someone more powerful, like Roland was? Like they killed her entire village? No honor, no grace, no kindness—nothing good was present in this world. What was the point of living if there was nothing worth living for?

She bit her lip, now angry at herself. She couldn't think like that. She couldn't just let it all go and wait for her death. Not again. This time, Crystal wasn't here to save her. Out of the jumbled mess that was her emotions, anger was the most prominent one.

Anger at herself, anger at the unfairness of the world, but most of all, anger at Aerlath. So she focused on that to keep going. He killed almost everyone she knew about. He killed everyone she cared about. In his pursuit of fame and glory, he committed atrocities. Worse yet, he reveled in them. If left alone to his devices, he would keep causing the same pain he had caused Lila to the others, unless someone put an end to his madness.

If someone had the right to end his pathetic life, it had to be none other than her, the person who had suffered the most due to him.

Revenge... was a bad thing; her mother used to say that to her. But this wasn't revenge. It was justice. Justice for all those who had been wrongfully murdered for the whims of a maniac. Justice for what she had to go through. Making him pay for what he did was something to live for. Right?

Lila might have made up her mind, but that didn't change the fact that she was still tied to a chair. She had to break it into small steps.

First, the rope that ties her to the chair had to go. Then she had to find a way to open that door. The rest of the plan could wait until she knew the situation outside the door. If those guards were still waiting outside, she might have to wait until they left. They would eventually need to eat or answer nature's call. That would be her best chance to escape.

Her wrists were tied behind her to the middle beam of the chair, with the rope wrapping around her wrists when they took her here. They then crossed the rope between her wrists to cinch the slack, tightening it until it started to hurt. Lila wasn't confident that she could wriggle free, no matter how much she struggled. That left only one option: she had to use magic.

Lila never used her magic to move an object she couldn't see before, but Crystal said it was possible in one of its lessons. She had to get into that weird mindset of believing it was natural for something to move through the air without wings while still keeping an accurate image of the ropes in her head.

If she strained herself, the tips of her fingers were barely able to touch the knot. After figuring out which parts of the rope were going to the tips and which parts were twisting back into the knot, she tried to paint a picture of it in her mind. While focusing on that image, she convinced herself that it was completely normal for the rope to untangle itself.

Lila wasn't sure how long it took, but she finally felt the pressure in her wrists lessen. That made her lose focus and stop the spell, but now that there was some slack, she was able to reach the knot and free her hands. She jumped out of the chair and went towards the gate to inspect it.

She had no idea how these metal locks worked. Back in the village, a plank that slotted into place was enough to keep doors closed. It felt like such a waste of iron to her. She knew that you inserted a key and it turned something, but the internals were a mystery to her. Luckily, this one was bigger than the ones Lila saw at the taverns she's been to—big enough to insert her pinky finger. She tried to rotate her finger, but it didn't accomplish anything.

It was hard to discern things from just that, but she could feel that there were some protrusions along the walls of the key hole. They jiggled around when she tried to push them. Were those things what kept it from rotating?

She wasn't able to see anything except darkness when she tried looking inside the hole. There weren't any sounds coming from outside the door either, so Lila decided to risk using magic again. She was still unable to move things around without making them glow, so she swore to practice twice as hard if she managed to escape.

She once again stuck her pinky into the lock and tried to form an image in her mind, painting a vague picture of the internals. She tried to move those parts that stuck out, but whenever she focused on one of them, she would lose control of another one. After struggling for quite a while, she gave up and simply focused all her mana on the big cylinder.

It took her a great deal of effort and mana until something snapped with a crunch that made Lila wince. Hopefully, nobody heard the sound of the lock breaking. On the bright side, the gate was now open.

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Lila poked her head out of the jail cell. The right side of the cell was a dead end; apparently, hers was the last cell on this corridor. To her left, she could see four more holding cells. There was light coming from a room right across the middle cell, along with rowdy noises. By the looks of it, that was the room where the guards stayed.

Cautious, she slowly crawled to the opposite wall, keeping her steps as silent as she possibly could. She approached the guard's doorway and crouched down so she could use the small gap under the door to peek inside. She quickly retracted her head when she saw the guards all gathered up around a table in the middle of the room.

"No way. I apprehended her; the dagger's mine!"

"I've been here since you were sucking on your mom's teats, boy. I got seniority and the rights to that dagger."

"Gentleman, please! We all know that belongs to me. The captain likes me the most, so he'd approve of this."

"You already took the hat!"

This was an interesting turn of events; they were fighting over her belongings. The dagger they were talking about was probably the one she 'appropriated' from Nure; the other one she got from that looter in Gladeside was barely sharp enough to cut cooked meat. But maybe that didn't have to be the case, Lila thought with a mischievous smile. After all, one girl's trash could be a greedy man's treasure, with the right adjustments, of course.

Lila knew just the right trick to make things interesting. She peeked into the room once again and saw her backpack leaning against the table. Perhaps unsurprisingly, her shabby dagger was sitting on the ground, tossed to the side like trash. She took a good look at her dagger and focused on it, just like the rope and the lock.

This time she had to make it count, as she had little mana left after forcing the lock open. She followed all the steps for the spell but stopped right before floating the dagger. Instead, she directed her mana into the lightshow. A blue glow appeared around her dagger that, for a moment, outshined even the candles before settling down to a dimmer light.

That sudden glow drew the guards' attention to the dagger. There were a few mutters like 'enchanted' and 'sells for a lot'.

"The captain would want it! I'll take it to him right away."

"Oh, piss off you bloody brown-noser. I saw it first; it's mine!"

"Get in line, kid. I'm the eldest, and by right, it's mine!"

Yet again, the greed of humankind prevailed as one of the guards rushed towards the shabby dagger. The other two tackled him to the ground, and things escalated into a fistfight between them. Lila, who had long stopped supplying mana into the dagger, watched with an open mouth. This was more than she expected, but she wasn't going to complain as it made things easier for her.

That first guard was now on the ground, knocked out cold. While the other two were busy beating up each other, Lila was able to slowly open the door and sneak inside. She was planning to grab her things and rush out, but the impromptu duel between guards reached its conclusion at that moment.

As the victor was raising his arms in celebration, he didn't notice Lila raising a chair as an improvised club. She stuffed the scattered items into her bag, leaving the knife at the small of her back for easy drawing. As she was passing by the three idiots laying on the ground, she noticed a ring filled with keys hanging from the oldest-looking guard's belt. She grabbed those too, and after five tries, she managed to find the correct key to lock the guards inside.

Once she was in the hallway again, she took a moment to remember the path they took to bring her here. This place was nothing short of a maze, judging by all the turns and twists they took along the way. However, she had a vague idea of the path outside, courtesy of having nothing to focus on other than her steps.

"Okay, we turned from this corner. There should be another corner on my left if I remember right," Lila thought.

Sadly, it was made clear that her memory played tricks on her, as there was nothing but a dead end once she took the path she remembered.

"What? I'm sure we came from here. Maybe it was the other left we came from? Damn it…"

Lila backtracked her steps and took the other left. The hallways seemed endless. The torches on the walls were barely enough to light the holding cells on each side of the hallway. As she slowly made her way, she noticed that the cells were all empty, save for a rare few that she quickly rushed past.

She knew that she couldn't alert the guards or anyone at all if she wanted to get out. As she was turning around from another dead end, she made eye contact with a man who occupied one of the few filled cells.

"Here to finish the job?" The prisoner spoke abruptly, freezing Lila in her place. As he squinted his eyes, a moment later he too had a look of surprise. She clearly wasn't the one he was waiting for.

"Wait, who the hell are you? You ain't a guard."

Lila didn't know whether to answer him or not, as she didn't have time to waste. On the other hand, he could yell and alert the guards if she ignored him out of spite. Maybe he knew the way out and she could ask him for help? Thus, she decided to try her luck.

"Do you know the way out, mister?" Lila asked.

"Hah! You escaped without even knowing the way out? You better get back to your cell, sweet cheeks, if you wish to live."

"I… I doubt that. They're going to kill me no matter what."

"Damn, you must've done some fucked up shit if it's that bad. They even beat the crap out of you. What did you even do?"

"I'm telling you, I'm innocent. They murdered my mentor and threw me in here."

"Hold up. They've been talking about a girl killing the carpenter today. That you?"

Lila nodded as she tried to keep her eyes from tearing up. The wound was still fresh, and any mention of Roland was like putting salt over it.

"Roland was my mentor. He gave me a job, he looked after me…" Lila said. Looking at the state she was in, the man gave a deep sigh.

"If that be the case, then that twat Aerlath got a grudge against'cha. He's the one pulling the strings in this shithole." He continued, "Okay, if you want to get outa this place, go straight ahead until the third turn, then take a left. Don't worry about the guards; they trust these shitty gates too much, so they are usually betting over dice in their rooms instead of patrolling the hallways. But remember, upstairs is the barracks."

"How do I know you're not playing me?" Lila asked.

"If you manage to escape, it'll piss off that cunt. That be good enough for me."

Lila looked at the man to discern his motives, as she couldn't trust his word fully. However, he didn't look like he was lying, and, to be honest, he had no reason to lie either. If he had said that it was out of good will, she might have been more suspicious, but she could understand wanting to spite Aerlath. She had the displeasure of meeting the captain after all. She bowed her head and thanked the prisoner.

"What's your name, mister?"

The man got up from his spot and bowed in return, though it was so clumsy that it seemed as if he was mocking Lila,

"Name's Turno, missy. Don't bother telling yours; just get outa here."

"I won't forget you, Turno. Thank you!"

"Don't mention it. Now go!"