The light in my room turns on and I wake up, this is the normal routine here, I don’t remember how long it’s been since I’ve been brought here, but this is my life now. I get up and sit on the edge of my bed, waiting. The door to my room opens and 2 people with full body suits enter.
“It’s time for today's tests, get up!”, the first one screams.
I follow them without saying a word. Everything is better than being in this empty white cell they call my room. We walk for a bit until they stop in front of a door. I know this door all too well, it’s the door to the magic power testing room. They open the door, I enter and walk to the device they use to test magical powers.
“Please proceed with the test.”, another person in a full body suit tells me with a slight annoyance in their voice.
I’ve done this test countless times, they want me to channel as much magic power into the device as I can but I learned how to control my magic enough to only pretend like doing so, hoping that if I don’t make enough progress they will lose interest. I place my hand on the device and use just enough magic power that it reacts.
“How is this possible! It’s been 30 years and her power is still the same as it was 25 years ago!”
“M’am maybe it’s time to stop this test, her progress was good at the start but nothing has changed after the first 5 years.”
30 years? Does that mean I have been here for 30 years?
“Tsk, whatever, let’s go to the next one.”
They escort me to the next room, it looks the same but instead of a device to test magical powers it has a strength test. I learned how to hold back on this one as well.
“Please start the test.”
I hope I can see my friends again today. As I think that I punch the strength test with as little force as I can while still making it look like I use my full force.
“M’am, it seems she got even weaker compared to the last time.”
"Whatever, just get her out of my sight!"
I'm getting escorted again but this time I'm actually looking forward a bit. They bring me into a big room furnished only with a big table and bench. I sit down on the bench and wait. Soon the others should arrive as well, I can barely wait. Like in cue the door opens again and a young woman enters. The woman that enters may look young but she is only a few years younger than me but she has the "Young" skill, which makes her appear like a young adult her entire life but people with that skill usually don't live very long, certainly not as long as she has. She walks into the room and sits down next to me.
“Hey. They told me that because my power increased I’m allowed to go out soon.”
I give her a small smile, “That’s nice.”
After that small interaction we wait, usually they give us our food soon after we arrive but for some reason it’s taking longer this time. A few more minutes pass and the door opens yet again and a young boy I’ve never seen before enters and sits down opposite from me.
“Hello! I'm Xia and this is V, what’s your name?”
“H-hello, they said my name is Clio from now on.”
Just then the door opens for a third time and they bring us our meals. I take a small bite, mentally preparing for what’s coming next. It doesn’t take long for my whole body to be in excruciating pain. Poison this time, huh. I wonder how the new one is holding up. I glance across the table and see him eating as if nothing is wrong. Did they start giving lower dosages for the new ones? I look to my side and Xia also doesn’t seem to have any issues with eating her food. She has always been very tough eating the food here, no matter what they seem to add.
Once we all finished eating the people came to get us and escort us to our respective rooms.
I wonder what’s going to happen next. I lie down on my bed and my lights get turned off. I close my eyes and try to maybe get some rest but my body knows not enough time passed since I got up.
As I’m lying there concentrating on the mana in my body there is suddenly a loud explosion. I have no idea where it’s coming from and it’s not like I can check either since my door can’t be opened from the inside. I probably could just destroy the door with brute force but I don’t know what could happen to me if I get caught doing that. Suddenly I can hear voices coming from seemingly right outside my room. I recognize a few as some of the people working here but there are also other voices I don’t recognize and more small explosions. Wary of what could happen next I walk up to my door to see if I can figure out what’s going on outside but just as I reach the door everything went quiet.
I wonder what happen- “HEY! THERE IS ANOTHER DOOR HERE, COME HELP ME OPEN IT”
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I jump back in surprise and shock and moments later my door opens and a Knight in full armour is standing in the door.
The Knight turns their head back around and screams: “WE FOUND ANOTHER ONE.” and then turns to me, takes off their helmet and says: “Don’t worry everything is going to be okay now, we are here to help you” with a small smile.
She offers me a hand to hold, which I look at in confusion, much to her disappointment. As we start walking down a now destroyed corridor she starts a conversation.
“I’m Eliza. I’m so sorry we weren’t able to help you earlier. It must have been horrible being here.”
I was given food and a place to sleep, which is more than what my parents gave me.
“Once we are out of here we’re going to have a doctor check you out if that’s okay.”
I give a small nod and continue walking while observing the corridors we walk by. Most things are destroyed, doors broken, holes in walls, some things burning, others frozen in a thick layer of ice.
As we reach the stairs Eliza stops and looks at me, “Your eyes are probably not used to sunlight anymore so tell me when you want to stop to get used to it.”
I give a small nod again and we start walking up the stairs. The light starts getting more and more intense but I decide to ignore it but I can’t help squinting my eyes. We finally reached the top and after a few seconds of my eyes adjusting to the light, I see a few makeshift tents. Eliza is taking me to one a bit further in the back and takes me inside.
”Hey doc, got someone for a check up here.”
Inside the tent are a few foldable beds as well as a woman standing over a foldable table with paper scattered all over it.
“Be right with you.” She puts the paper she seemed to be studying on a somewhat neat stack of more paper and then turns around, facing us. “Hey there Eliza, and what’s your name, little one?”
“I’m V”, as I said my name she looks at Eliza with a pained expression and Eliza just shakes her head with a similar expression.
She then gestures to one of the beds, “Please take a seat.”
I sit down on the bed and Eliza sits down on another bed next to me, while the woman sits on one opposite me.
“Let's start with the basics, does anything hurt?”
I shake my head no.
“That’s a good start.” Her expression softens a bit. “Do you know how old you are?”
“I’m not sure, but I came here when I turned 10. The people here said I’ve been here for 30 years though.”
Both the woman and Eliza look at me quite shocked and there is silence for a while until Eliza asks “If you don’t mind, could you tell us what your Talent is?”
I’m thinking for a bit before answering, “Age.”
They look at each other for a moment when the woman suddenly jumps up, surprising even Eliza, and frantically looks through her pile of papers. “I think I saw something about this on one of these documents!”
After a bit of searching she holds multiple papers in her hands. “Eliza, look at this.”
Eliza stands up and walks over to the woman and starts reading the documents. Her expression changes slowly from curiosity to shock to very clear anger. She lets out a sight. “We can’t let anyone else see these.”
“I agree but I think we are going to have to talk about it with her”
Are they talking about me? They look at me with a sad expression and walk over to me, now both sitting on the bed opposite of mine.
“You haven’t been here for 30 years, you have been here for almost 100 years.”
100 years? But how is that possible? I look at them confused.
“I think we have to explain a bit more. About 30 years ago what your parents did to you was outlawed with heavy punishment and strict enforcement. Of course what those people did to you wasn’t okay before but because of the strict enforcement they had to start doing those things more secretly than before. According to these documents,” she holds up the papers, “it’s speculated that your Talent gives you Immortality.”
It takes me a bit to take everything in and think about it, “But why is it like that, doesn’t Young give the person the appearance of a young adult for the rest of their life? How is mine different?”
Eliza averts her gaze with a pained expression and the woman takes a deep breath before answering.
“They used different things to test out the limits. For example, they added different drugs in your meals, one to increase mana and magical power, one to increase physical strength and others that were just straight up poisons. Aside from the excruciating pain, any one of those could easily kill someone even with a low dosage but they gave you up to 20 times that. It’s a good thing progress stopped or things might have gotten even worse. From the reports they have about you both your physical and magic strength are off the charts, I don’t even want to imagine how much higher those numbers would have gotten.”
Does she mean when I pretended to use my full power but I only used as little as I could?
“Which is also why this information can’t be allowed to spread, you already suffered more than enough. The question now is what to do next”
When Eliza hears that she looks at me again with a soft and warm expression, “How would you feel about living with me from now on? I promise nothing bad is going to happen to you anymore.”
I think for a moment and then nod in agreement.