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Fragments of lights and shadows flashed before my eyes, clamorous noises continued to ring by my ears, while a cool and gentle touch would brush past my face from time to time.

What’s the matter? Where…am I…

As my consciousness drifted back, I involuntarily asked the same question a sleeping person would ask when getting up from sleep. Slowly opening my eyes, light… flooded my eyes…

As well as countless wide-open eyes that were filled with curiosity.

“She…she, she’s awake!”
“Wa! She’s so cute! Her sleeping appearance is really cute…”
“What soft and tender skin! She’s just like a doll.”
“Hey! You guys shouldn’t be so selfish. Let me have a touch too.”

I opened my eyes, only to see a group of young girls of various looks and races, yet undoubtedly beautiful in appearance crowded around me, surrounding me so tightly that even light would find it hard-pressed to seep through. If not for the well placed Illumination Stone shining down onto my head, I might still be submerged in darkness.

Just like a troop of monkeys that have been set free from the zoo, this group of young girls continued to rub their hands across my body, especially focusing on my face. They continued doing so, all while screaming out in delight about “so cute” and “what soft and tender skin”, “She’s just like a doll!”, not even giving any consideration towards my feelings of being treated like an object of scrutiny.

“Who…are you guys…” I asked. Nevertheless, the voice ringing out from my mouth was as hoarse as one would sound after enduring countless days without drinking.
“We’re slaves of this auction house.”
“A kindhearted person rescued us from there.”
“That kindhearted person also said that you’re one of them. Is that true?”
“So awesome! So awesome! You clearly are younger than us…”
“……”

So noisy!

Right as the question left my mouth, the group of young girls proceeded to chirp incessantly in response. However, as all of them started to chirp at the same time…I was utterly incapable of catching exactly what they were saying. The only words I could make out were “slaves”, “kindhearted person” and “younger”. Despite how awesome I am, I’m definitely incapable of making out the situation I’m in right now. Can someone explain to me what the heck happened?

The heavens might have heard my request, as a little head suddenly squeezed through the crowd, appearing before me. With a flash, the eyes of that little head lit up before an excited voice rang out: “Wa! You’re finally awake, Lilith!”

“Ah! The kindhearted person is here.”
“Come let this elder sis hug you, you kindhearted person.”
“Can you guys give way. That kindhearted person can’t come in.”

With some effort, Carol squeezed herself through the crowd, avoiding hands extending out to grab her, while saying: “You really scared the hell out of us after discovering you knocked out along the corridor, you know. I really thought you’d died!”

Can you please not say such inauspicious words with a happy expression on your face? However, since Carol’s here, and there’s so many of what looks like young girls who were slaves, this meant that…

“Did we fail the mission and get captured?”

“Nope! We’ve succeeded!” Completely ignoring my hoarse voice, Carol started to dance about while waving her slightly weird-looking right hand around. With a radiant voice, she exclaimed: “We’ve completed our mission with distinction. We’ve even rescued all of the young slave girls, you know!”

So that’s the case! Carol and the others have succeeded! Looks like even the Carol, whom I’ve subconsciously labeled to fail at any given task, can change this failure trait of hers. After all, even Carol can be a bit reliable at times, though I don’t even need to think to guess that she contributed absolutely nothing towards this matter.

“Speaking of which, are you alright, Lilith? Why did you faint along the corridor?” Asked Carol while purposely using that strange, yet the exceedingly familiar-looking hand that I would absolutely not admit knowing to prod at my shoulder.

“I’m alright.” I replied while shaking my head: “Right now, I…!!!!”
“What…what’s the matter? Why do you suddenly have such a bad expression on your face, Lilith?”

Since waking up, I’ve been getting a feeling of unease, as though I’ve lost something. I felt as though I was floating about, with my entire existence dropping to an extremely low level. Furthermore, I finally understood what was missing-

Pain.

I found out the reason behind me not feeling any pain wasn’t because I was numb to it. However, upon doing so, I suddenly felt a bone-splitting pain appear throughout my entire body. The pain washed over my entire body with a blast, leaving me unable to say a word at the instant it happened.

Beads of cold sweat started to drip continuously from my forehead, filling Carol and a few young girls with extreme worry as they looked at me, tongue-tied and speechless. All of a sudden, a blackout feeling like getting dead drunk flashed across my mind, followed suit by the memory snippets and a feeling of emptiness.

That jet black staircase, that powerful enemy that could not be defeated, that unilateral suppression, as well as…that scorching fire, terrifying expression, heavenly punishment descending, and the bloody mosaic images.

Is that right? Looks like I got schizophrenic again. What’s more, I’ve paid a very huge price to deal with the earlier enemy. Just the thought of me being blown up like that causes my skin to crawl. This should be the reason why I’ve only just regained my sensation of pain. Although I don’t know what kind of effects a dragon’s adrenaline surge would have, it seems that it had sealed some of my pain receptors in my brain, as a kind of self-protective feature.

This isn’t the first time this sudden schizophrenic had happened. There’s no worry about the pain, as I can endure this much. However…I seem to have forgotten about the most important part of my memories during that period of time…

What was it? It seems very important.

Just as I was trying my best to recall those very important memories, the intense heartrending pain disappeared. No, it should be covered up instead, covered up by another more frightening feeling.

The feeling of hunger. So much hunger I feel that I could eat an entire giant deep sea beast and drink up an entire lake!

Seemingly having received some kind of signal that I was in the clear, those adverse reactions from the adrenaline surge started to flood through my mind.

If the earlier pain I’ve felt was just the crumbling of a wall, the intensity of the hunger and thirst that had just hit me felt just like a lifeless desert, brimming with true despair.

This was a feeling utterly more horrible than the fright I’ve experienced from death in my previous life!

“Lilith, Lilith! Don’t frighten me…” seeing my worsening expression, Carol started to shake my shoulder wildly with that “right hand” of hers.

“Water.”
“Huh?” Carol tilted her head while replying with a cute and doubtful voice, all while continuing to shake Lilith with her hand.
“Give me water!!!:
“Guaaa…so painful! I got it, alright! I’ll go get for you water…let…let go of my hand! Ouch!”
………

“Hah~I feel that I’ve just come back from the dead.” ignoring the shocked gazes coming from my surroundings, I gulped down water amounting to over a few humans in volume. Only after doing so did I regain some sense of meaning to live in this world.

It’s worth mentioning that Carol didn’t have a single drop of water on her body. Instead, all of the water was conjured by me using a Water Scroll, with the food being the ones that I’ve prepared within my Storage Ring in preparation for emergency situations. Frankly speaking, Carol wasn’t able to offer any help.

That’s why Carol is currently holding that arm I didn’t want to recognize while squatting at a corner and mumbling something with teary eyes.

She’s probably muttering stuff like, “You’ve gone overboard, Lilith!” and such. I can just ignore her.

“So you’re the only one? Where’s Durango and Eleanor?”

“Durango’s over there.” Carol pointed to a location that was completely filled up with a crowd of people: “As for Eleanor, she said that she had some important task to do, so we split up after saving those people.”

Important task? That’s strange! Isn’t the mission already over? What else does she need to do?

“That’s right. Did you guys bump into any trouble?”
“Trouble? Nope.” Carol shook her head: “We didn’t bump into anything other than a zombie.”

Nothing? That’s strange. Before the explosion, I’ve heard [Number 1] say that the auction housemaster had arranged an all-encompassing trap for us. However, what’s with the zombie and nothing else that Carol had just said?

However, I have to confirm something before that:

“What the hell’s a zombie?”

……………
……………

“Are you sure?” asked Kenlov Wilkis, the auction house master, as he looked sternly at the young girl lying on the ground before him.

“Yes…yes…” Weir raised her head, revealing her deathly pale, sweat covered beautiful face, with her trembling body showing the level of terror present in her heart.

This terror not only stemmed from the male before him, but also the self-criticism towards herself for doing this thing.

Nevertheless, as though she was fulfilling a deep desire of hers, Weir continued to reply in a resolute voice: “Those few people are planning to rescue all of the slaves in the auction house before fleeing from here.”