Next morning.
BIRDS CHIRPING
As I slowly opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was the silhouette of a hand floating directly above my face. Still half-asleep, I reached up with my left hand, trying to touch it. But as my fingers cut through the air, a voice spoke from my right.
"Are you awake?"
I snapped my head around. The elf girl—whose full backstory I learned yesterday, though she still hadn't told me her actual name—was sitting right beside the wooden trunk I was using as a bed. Her face was only a few inches away from mine, her hand still hovering in the air where it had been moments before.
Seeing her face so incredibly close gave me a mini heart attack. I scrambled backward in a panic, losing my balance entirely and tumbling right off the trunk.
THUD
"Sorry! Was I too close?" she asked quickly. She stood up, leaning over the other side of the trunk to offer me a hand.
"N... No, not at all," I stammered, grabbing her hand as she pulled me back up to my feet.
"Sorry, I'm just a little susceptible to jumpscares."
"What's a 'jumpscare'?" she asked, her eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
"A jumpscare basically mea—" I froze mid-sentence.
My sleep-fogged brain finally caught up to reality. I stared at her, completely dumbfounded. She just understood me.
"Ho... How did you just... understand what I said?" I asked, the confusion hitting me like a wave.
"Oh, that? I just used magic," she said, shrugging her shoulders casually as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world.
"Didn't you use magic yesterday, too? How does a spell just randomly start translating my language out of nowhere?" I demanded, my shock boiling over as I practically grabbed her by the shoulders.
"Yesterday, I only used a basic translation spell. I thought that would be enough," she explained.
She gently used her hands to free herself from my grip, then sat back down on the wooden trunk. She tapped the empty space beside her, signaling for me to sit.
"But it turned out your language isn't part of the original twelve languages woven into that spell's '??' ," she continued.
Obviously it isn't, I thought to myself. My language probably wouldn't even be in the top twelve hundred in this world.
"So, I just spent a few hours modifying the spell's core structure to include your language, too," she said, turning her head toward me with a bright, radiant smile.
The morning sunshine caught her just right, filtering through the canopy and casting a golden glow around her. In that light, her smile and her face seemed even brighter—and, maybe, even beautiful.
"Ho... How did you just add a language you've never even heard before?" I asked, my mind completely boggling at the concept.
It doesn't make any sense, I thought, trying to piece it together. I originally thought the spell worked like a magical version of Google Translate, just roughly converting what they said so I could understand them. But to translate what I say into their language too...
"I completely underestimated the power of magic," I accidentally mumbled aloud.
"Well, it's really not that big of a deal," she replied, dismissing it with a wave of her hand.
"Not a big deal?!" I almost screamed the words. "You just changed my entire life! I don't even know what to say... I... How..."
"There's no need to say anything. You've already done more than enough for us," she said softly. Reaching out, she playfully tapped the tip of my nose with her finger before standing back up.
"Besides, it seems like in all your excitement, you haven't even noticed that breakfast is ready."
She turned and began walking back toward the center of the camp.
I sat there for a second, staring at her back. I don't even know what to think.
For the first time since I woke up in this place, I genuinely feel excited. And... thankful to someone else.
"Aren't you coming?" she called out, pausing a few feet away to look back over her shoulder.
"Yes! Yes, I'm coming," I said, quickly shaking off my shock as I stood up and ran to catch up with her.
"By the way, you still haven't told me what a 'jumpscare' is," she reminded me as I fell into step beside her.
"Basically, it's..."
Now that I finally had the ability to talk to people, I didn't even realize how fast the morning flew by.
We spent the next couple of hours walking around the campsite and tackling chores—washing the dishes, clearing away the scraps from the night before, and hauling fresh water up from the nearby river.
As we worked, I peppered her with questions about how her modified spell actually functioned.
As it turned out, it wasn't that they were suddenly speaking or understanding English. It was much more fascinating than that. The magic acted as a conceptual bridge;
whenever I spoke, the spell translated my words into whatever language the listener understood best. For example, when I spoke to the elf girl, she heard her native tongue, Eiznic.
If I were to speak to a beastman, they would hear Ciatnabi.
Through all our talking, I also finally learned their names.
The elf's name was Eli. The young girl was Kyo, and her older brother was Nyoko.
"So, are all siblings given similar-sounding names?" I asked Kyo a bit later, watching the campfire as we waited for a fresh pot of water to boil.
"No..." Kyo's voice trailed off. Her expression instantly shifted, the earlier happiness and hope draining from her face, replaced by a deep shadow of sadness. "Only in those houses where the eldest child is, unfortunately... a girl."
Unfortunately? I thought, my chest tightening a bit. Yikes. Sounds like their parents, or maybe this whole world, are pretty sexist.
Even though a part of me wanted to dig deeper into the lore and history of this world, I could tell the topic was painful.
I looked over at Eli, desperately hoping she would help me change the subject.
Thankfully, she caught my look right away and stepped in, clapping her hands together to break the heavy silence.
"Alright, that's enough heavy talk for now. You've heard more than enough about us," Eli said, turning her bright eyes onto me.
"Shouldn't you tell us about yourself next? Like your name, and where you're from?"
My stomach dropped. That is the absolute last thing I want to talk about.
Ever since my first day in this world, I had tried to piece together a fake background story for myself just in case anyone asked.
But I couldn't do it. I couldn't bring myself to invent fake parents, a fake hometown, or especially a fake name. Every single time I even tried to think of one, my mind would instantly plunge back into the painful memories of my real family, my friends, and the voices of the people I loved calling out my actual name.
To survive here, I had consciously decided to try and bury all of it.
"I don't have a name," I told her. I kept my eyes glued to the bubbling, boiling water, forcing a hollow, sorrowful look onto my face. I knew that the longer we stayed on this topic, the higher the chances were that I would slip up and ruin my cover.
"Wha... Uh, what do you mean?" Eli asked, glancing at the children for a brief second before looking back at me, her eyes wide with concern.
"I mean... I don't remember my name," I continued, weaving the lie as smoothly as I could. "My home... my family... I don't remember any of it. If I even had one to begin with."
"How can you not remember?" Eli pressed, her voice softening with pity. "Were you too young when you were taken, or something?"
"Are you an escaped slave, too?" Kyo chimed in, her young voice full of sympathy.
"No... it's just that the last thing I remember is getting hit hard in the head by that lean slaver," I said, doubling down on the falsehood.
"I don't remember a single thing that happened before that blow."
But as the words left my mouth, a strange, heavy weight settled deep into my chest. It felt entirely too real. Maybe my heart realizes that my brain actually wants this lie to be true, I thought bitterly. Maybe it knows that if I stay here long enough, a time will come when I truly won't be able to remember the faces of the people I loved the most.
"No worries, though," I forced myself to say, trying to lighten the dark mood. "Maybe I'll remember it sometime in the fut—"
Before I could even finish the word, all three of them moved at once, throwing their arms around me in a massive group hug.
"It's okay," Eli whispered, squeezing me tight. "Maybe we can be your new family."
The two kids nodded vigorously against my sides, murmuring their agreement.
I let out a quiet breath, my mind racing. Well... looks like the lie worked perfectly.
"Thank you, you three. For this," I said quietly, genuinely touched by the gesture despite the deception.
But as I said the words, a sudden realization hit me like a physical punch. I tensed up, my eyes widening as I stood up abruptly, breaking out of the group hug.
"Wait. Three??" I said, my voice rising in panic as I looked around the campsite. "What happened to the fourth one?!"
They blinked up at me, startled by my sudden outburst.
"What happened to the blue girl?" I demanded. "The one from the cage?"
"She, uh... I don't really know how to say this..." Eli stammered. She broke eye contact immediately, looking down at the dirt as if she were trying to hide something from me.
"She ran away," Nyoko blurted out, completely cutting through the tension.
"Nyoko! That is absolutely not how you break bad news!" Kyo scolded him instantly, smacking his arm.
"What?" Nyoko grumbled, defensive. "You two were clearly panicking and stalling, so I just said it."
"Still, you should have—"
Before Eli could finish her sentence, I cut her off, my voice echoing through the clearing.
"What do you mean she RAN AWAY?!"
Eli let out a heavy sigh and stood up. "Just follow me. Let me show you."
She led the way across the camp, taking me back toward the iron cage where we had kept the mysterious girl. I leaned over the bars and looked inside.
Lying on the floor of the cell were the heavy iron chains that had been binding her. They hadn't been unlocked. The thick iron links were jagged, twisted, and completely chewed to pieces.