It wasn’t long until the end of the ninth month when my sister would take time out of her school break to come visit me in prison. She was ten years older than me and the only one who had ever come to visit me in prison. She didn’t care that I had been labeled as some sort of mentally unstable time bomb and would come visit me whenever she had a break from her schooling. I didn’t hold it against the rest of my family though because I had been mentally unstable and literally mind controlled in my past life, so I never gave any indication that I even wanted to see the rest of my family let alone ask for them to visit me.
Considering that my parents in my first life on Earth pretty much neglected me in favor of playing video games, it was no surprise that I didn’t put much stock into my family relationships in my first run through of this life either. However after interacting with Mystdell when she came to visit me, I came to realize that maybe I should put more effort into my family relationships and not judge them based on my previous life. This breakthrough in my perspective came much too late though, and I soon after became completely mind controlled and forced to focus on other things.
This time however I was determined to change and put more consideration into my family relationships. However I didn’t hold out much hope that my family situation would be that different from the one in my past. The first major obstacle would be that my family operated a fairly successful business within the black market selling artifacts. This meant that they couldn’t risk drawing attention to themselves by interacting too much with a potentially dangerous individual like me.
This could change in the future, however over the course of the past month I had been knocking myself out on a regular basis, plus I had been silent and unmoving in my room the rest of the time. So even if they wanted to interact with me I wasn’t giving them many reasons to do so.
These were the kind of thoughts that went through my head as I waited in anticipation for my first visit with Mystdell. Then at the beginning of the tenth month, two guards came to my room and went through the familiar process of turning on my prison collar and moving me through the prison halls as they took me to the children’s meeting room before leaving me there alone. The room was nice and colorful with bookshelves full of children's books, bins full of toys, and a variety of different drawing and coloring materials on a short table in the middle of the room.
I knew that Mystdell wouldn’t get here for a while if things went the same way as they did the first time. So, knowing there wouldn’t be enough time to do something productive like visiting The Archives or practicing my magic, I just walked over to the table and started to draw a simple enchantment design while I waited for Mystdell to arrive.
After doing this for a while I heard a door open along with the sound of my sister’s voice, “-I swear it’s like they try to make everything as tedious and boring as possible.”
I looked up from my drawing and met the eyes of my sister who I hadn’t seen in forever. I could feel tears coming to my eyes as I smiled and almost choked on the words, “Mystdell.” I had more I wanted to say but the words got stuck in my throat.
Mystdell took one look at my face and started running towards me and embraced me in a hug, “Radiant! Hey, I know this is all hard to handle but you’ll be out of here in no time. I know you must be scared, being all alone here, but I’m here now, everything’s going to be ok.”
I could tell that she misinterpreted the reason behind my tears, but I didn’t feel a need to correct her and just hugged her back and enjoyed the moment. After a while I got a reign on my emotions and we separated.
“I’m alright Mystdell. I was just happy to see you.”
Seeing that I wasn’t crying anymore she visibly relaxed. I had never been one to show many emotions, so Mystdell didn’t really know how to handle a situation where I was emotional. After she took a moment to probably feel proud of herself for handling the situation appropriately, Mystdell took a look at my drawing on the table and said, “Did you draw this?” She picked up the paper and looked at it closer before saying, “This looks like an enchantment. Since when did you learn about enchantments? I didn’t learn about enchanting when I was five. Although I didn’t really want to anyways…” The last part was mumbled and almost imperceptible but I could still make it out.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
I almost let a smile come to my face as she tried to start a different conversation. Mystdell was always very prickly when it came to the family inheritance, and anything related to it, which included enchanting. I didn’t want to start anything so I focused on her question, “I haven’t been taught enchanting yet. I saw this on the blade of a sword I once saw and just wanted to draw it for fun.” I didn’t mention that the sword I saw it on was being wielded against me, there was no need to tell her that.
“Well it’s still impressive that you can remember and draw it. I remember that Dad would always get after me when I couldn't remember everything perfectly the first time. But anyways,” She shook her head and continued, “Speaking of Dad, him and Mom were worried about you and wanted me to ask why you were fainting all the time. Are you sick or something?”
“Mom and Dad know that I've been fainting?” I was always under the impression that they wouldn’t bother with checking up on their worthless son.
Mystdell seemed to take my question differently though and she said, “Yeah this place allows families to check the recordings they take here. Mom and Dad saw that you were fainting through them. They didn’t say why you were fainting when Mom asked them, so I was told to ask you about it when I came here.”
I scratched my head and said, “It’s nothing really. I was just practicing magic.” I could’ve elaborated further but I was a five year old, and a five year old wouldn’t really elaborate on these kinds of things.
My answer seemed to confuse Mystdell and she said, “What kind of magic would you be practicing that would make you pass out like that?”
I thought she would be more surprised by the fact that her five year old brother was practicing magic, but I guess this just showed that she cared more about my safety.
“I was trying to make that system that everyone talks about show up.”
“The System? But that won’t be unlocked until you go to a dungeon. You won’t be able to see that until you unlock it so it’s no use trying to pull it up.”
I could explain to her that I was trying to practice divination magic and not trying to open up my system, but that would expose my capabilities to those that were watching us. Instead I said, “Yeah I know. You don’t have to worry I won’t practice that anymore.” This could be interpreted that I had already given up, but in reality I had already succeeded and therefore wouldn’t need to practice that anymore anyways. My response seemed to mollify her and we went on to discuss some other things, things like what was going on back home and what was going on in the family.
After talking for a while my sister brought something interesting up while talking about her week saying, “There was a Count’s daughter that was asking to meet you this last week saying she wanted to talk to you in person. I think her name was Genesis Rotthall? She was denied of course, there was no way that you would be able to meet her with you being here and all.”
Genesis was trying to talk to me in person? Why would she need to do that when we can talk in The Archives? This was a little bit of an unexpected development. I thought about what I should do in this situation and whether I should tell Genesis not to look for me at my home, but after a second of thought I decided that maybe I could make use of this development.
“Genesis is my friend. I hope she wasn’t treated badly.” It was a simple statement but it would set the groundwork for a few different things in the future.
Over the course of talking with Genesis throughout the past month I had found out that she was the daughter of a Count and an heir candidate. In the future I knew, she was disowned from her family but eventually rose up through the use of her own abilities and made a name for herself in the government. I didn’t know what circumstances would lead to her getting disowned, but perhaps when that time came I could get my family to take her in if they thought that she was my friend and I could get her to feel indebted to me. Besides, even without her being indebted to me, being the friend of a Count’s daughter would be beneficial to me as well, and perhaps my family wouldn’t think I’m as unlikeable if they thought I was friends with Genesis.
Mystdell sounded incredulous as she said, “She’s your friend? No way, I don’t remember you having any friends let alone being one with a Count’s daughter.”
“Hey. You don’t have to sound so shocked. Is it so hard to believe that I have a friend?”
Without hesitation and a serious expression she said, “Yes, yes it is.”
I threw a punch at her to try and make her regret teasing me, but I only managed to make her laugh with my pitiful five year old strength. We continued to talk with each other about different things and spent time with each other until our time was up and we had to say goodbye.
Mystdell embraced me in another hug as we said our goodbyes, “I’ll come and visit as often as I can Radiant. Be strong and be happy, ok?”
“I will. I’ll be waiting for your next visit. Goodbye.”
“Goodbye Radiant.”
With that we parted ways and I was once again filled with determination, and I vowed once again that I would do what it takes to escape from this prison and gain the strength to be with and protect those I loved.