"You're awake! I was afraid you might be dead." A strange woman-like voice spoke as Aefia tried to sit up. Her entire body felt frozen and was having difficulty to move. She felt as if she was currently paralyzed and was put in a glass chamber which was stuffed with weird gooey liquid. She immediately looked up to see who the voice belonged to.
"I know it may sound strange to hear that the missing queen's mother is also a secret underground scientist, but I have got to survive somehow! Afterall, my joy and pride has been snatched from me on the day of his coronation. If he were found anytime sooner, I would have been living the life of a noble until now." Her lady spoke.
She was uniquely tall, perfectly shaped and definitely not too old. In fact, her face told Aefia that she was currently in her fourties. She had ombre coloured hair with the end of the hair a deep amber. She looked more like a fashionista with her hair suggesting a crown style. Her lady wore a lab coat and on the inside, she was wearing a regal gown it seemed to Aefia.
She was also clad in simple jewelry, knowing that she was from a noble family, Aefia dismissed the fact that she was actually wearing a badge. Her lady mendled with multiple test tubes and a small amount of liquid inside one of them.
"Sorry, but I don't want to be rude. May I go back to wherever I came from?" Aefia asked.
"Before that, can I know why you deeply angered the demons? By what you have done, the demon king is already chasing your tail and is finding any means possible to find you. You should be happy that I found you before you had to take down any more demons." Her lady replied.
"How do you know that the demon king is behind me already? He has a huge population of demons working under him. Killing a few hundreds won't make a difference to him even."
"It may seem like it to you, but when it comes to their people, they are really considerate into what is causing that mass extinction." The Queen's Mother replied while looking at Aefia with a serious and scary state, the ones that mothers give to their children when they do something wrong in front of public.
"But that was no where close to extinction. And the demons are also unhappy with how they are being forced to live such a life. They got turned into a demon whether they wanted or not. Whoever that demon king is, they are stealing people from other populations and turning them into slaves of his populations." Aefia tried to contradict, but she still got the mother-like stare back.
"Enough child. I believe that if you don't stop, the medication won't work."
"How would you feel if you knew that they also stole your son to become a slave of their tribe." Aefia spoke out of confidence, knowing that it would most definitely piss her off.
The Queen's Mother slammed her fist into a button and the cuffs that were tieing Aefia in place, released. She hurriedly got out of the tube and placed a step onto the ground. Suddenly, her head spun on herself and she was spiralling to the ground.
Her lady caught Aefia and placed her back into the tube. Once the medication reconnected to her blood vessels, Aefia's vision returned. "This is exactly how weak you are. Now the medication will take two days to settle in." Her lady explained.
Aefia took a quick look around her surroundings, knowing that there was a major difference this time. She wasn't inside the tube, rather, she was seated on a chair with cables replacing the view. She still had the cuffs strapping her to the handle of the chair and so were her legs.
"Why does it need two days?! I need to go back now!" Aefia exclaimed. "You don't get it but I was summoned to that place to fulfil a certain mission and tomorrow is the day the mission will be completed. I was just claiming the item I needed for the day of the decend."
"So you needed the sacred key for a certain something. Interesting how you didn't wish to go back the vary second you claimed that key. What were you busy doing?" Her lady asked. This time, she wasn't wearing her lab coat, but her regal gown was on show.
It was a light pink covered with rhinestones, as expected from a noble family. Her lady was wearing a necklace with a huge white gemstone in the center. Her lady took off the centre piece and pinned it to her dress. It took the shape of a badge, which Aefia had noticed earlier.
"You are pretty smart to take note of the forbidden necklace of Crition. You have a lot of knowledge that you have inside your brain. Too bad that all those hard work would have gotten erased if you stayed out too long. I fear that you would have forgotten how to walk when you faced the courage to step out for once.
"If you have read through volume three about ritualistic magic, you would have realized that it takes over the mind in quite a variety of frightful ways, one of them is absorbing the power from an ingested item. The item you absorbed magic from was a lemon leave, so you were safe."
Aefia thought through her foggy mind. "So you know how to heal ritualistic magic? Without forming a sacrifice?"
"Yes, if you put it that way. But like I said before, I am an underground scientist, I have researched a lot of ways in how to recover them. Though I will be honest, it was quite an expensive task. The chemicals itself is expensive, the time is the main money. For most chemicals reactions to happen, it takes up to a month to prepare them."
"A month is insane. You must be a very patient person than. But may I ask, how are you planning on curing me? And what are the damages that I have received? Nothing too bad, right? Because I need to return the way I came."
"Well thank you for acknowledging my patience. You haven't really reached the amount of injuries necessary to be fatal for you, but the main damage was done by the magic you had absorbed. It seeped into your brain, causing you to forget a bunch of things. But that's one thing I am trying to heal, all your memory should be restored soon."
"Ritualistic magic is also the magic of the mind, I should keep that noted." Aefia opened up her system and opened the notepad function. Seeing this, the queen's mother spoke with a questioned tone, "Why are you tapping the air? It's not like a screen will pop out of it."
"Yes, a screen does pop out of thin air. But only for me, for the others, its an invisible wall. You can try touching the places I am tapping on if you don't believe me." Aefia continued tapping on the screen.
Her lady placed her hand opposite to Aefia's fingers and her expression changed. A cold surface could be felt and a wall was blocking her from reaching the other side. "Is that what your magic enables you to do?" She curiously asked.
"Not really. Given that a certain skill of mine allows me to do that, I think you can say that this is something the skill provides me with." Aefia answered while shutting it off. "May I ask why you went into hiding after you partially saved your world from destruction?"
Her lady stared into void at that question. "I don't know. I just felt like my people would think I was behind all this. But only after I left, I realized that no one really survived. I then took on a mission to try and hunt down the person who has done it. At first, I though maybe the demon king was behind it, but then I learned that a much bigger force was behind what really destroyed countless worlds. What about you? Why were you summoned into this realm?"
"Realm? What exactly do you mean by a realm? Isn't this another dimension from our actual home?" Aefia asked.
"In the fantasy genre of the books I have learnt about which were brought from Earth, a realm is often a vast geographical or conceptual place or planet that serves as the setting for different stories, often showcasing an entire world, kingdom, dimension, or distinct plane of existence, and is usually governed by its own unique physical laws, magical properties, dominant species, political structures, and prevailing culture. I thought you knew about this since you are from Earth."
"No, I meant in another way. Since vocabulary is different in this universe, I though maybe it had a different meaning. But how did you decode that I am from Earth?"
"Given that people from Earth are always hungry for knowledge, I could tell it already with the amount of things that you have learned or are interested in learning. Another thing is, no children your age in any other universe are that exceptinally good at combat. I am surprised at how you managed to take out one-tenth of the entire population of demons who were summoned to the fallen world for working on that huge project."
"Are children my age really that slow in this universe? Back during my days at the Mafia, I would always think that I was the only one who was falling back on reality."
"Hold on kid, you are telling me you worked for the Mafia? And you are not even an young adult yet. Since when did you start and provide me with more details." The queen's mother suddenly got more interested.
"Well, for starters, I used to work as a child spy for my uncle's company from the age of eight. My uncle was a Mafia boss, so he decided that I could use my problem solving skills for his company while they taught me some self-defense as I had requested. Other then that, I don't think just any information will seem necessary to you." Aefia answered while scratching her head. "Also, did I happen to get bashed in the head?"
"Oh yes. A pretty bad one I guess. Anyway, I wanted to ask you a question ever since I first heard about you from a few demons about a week ago. As a kid, I didn't want to believe that you were capable of doing that, but honestly, I just found you sort of mysterious. That's when I picked you up from Hellas. Anyway, what is your goal and mission?"
How do I explain such a thing to the woman of a noble family? What if my mission or goal is something that deeply upsets her and she calls an all out war for it to stop? She is a very powerful person, what if she doesn't really want to help me with my goal?
"Well, I would say I have almost the same goal as you. To confirm it first, you too also wanted to hunt down and stop multiple worlds from being destroyed, right? Because that's what I had read about you from the books I had borrowed."
"Yes, for short my goal is to destroy the Torture Cell. But for long, I actually want to recover the destroyed worlds too. Likewise, I would also try and find where my missing population and son has run off to. Unless of course, you have said it yourself. My son is a slave for the demon king, you said earlier?"
"Yes."
"Then my current goal is the same as yours, take down the demon king first."
"Hmmm..." Aefia thought. "My current mission is to stop the ongoing project and break the alliance between the demon king and the Torture Cell. Then, I will take down the demon king.
"You probably already know why I want to break their alliance. It is because, say we have already got rid of more than half of the strongest demon guards they have, then he might ask for help from the Torture Cell. Once that's done, we will be sent back during our progress all the way to the starting position."
"That's a very general thinking. What else are you going to do next?" Her lady asked with more sincerity towards Aefia.
"I am not sure, perhaps I will get rid of the mage who is in charge of the ritualistic magic sector of the Torture Cell. After all, my research tells me that they are a group of interstellar Mafias, if that term even exist.
"And since I have some experience working there, I think I can navigate through and find out what they are willing to do next. Most of the time, they would try and get an even better alliance. But that won't be possible to do if the better alliances are teamed up with an unknown rival.
"With that in mind, they will have no choice but to try and get back their power through confronting the unknown rival. That is when I plan on actually destroying them."
"That's a very precisely planned work. But how do you want to form a team who is willing to co-operate with you while you defeat the Torture Cell?"
"I am already forming a team. In fact, I already have a team and I would like to ask for you to join." Aefia hesitated a few seconds before starting to speak again. "Knowing that we both have the same goal and mission, how do you want to form a bond between us?"
"You want me to join you on your mission?" Her lady asked with anger in her voice. "I am a noble woman, I don't listen to what peasants have to say!"
Aefia put up an annoyed face. "That hurts my pride a little further. But whatever you wish. I guess as the Manipulator of Time, I am still at a lower rank than you." After saying that, she internally laughed knowing that she her Lady will fall for it.
"You are the original King of Tyrants?" Her lady asked.
"Wow, it's still a popular name. But I really hate it."
"Actually, thinking about your offer, it isn't bad though." Her lady spoke. "I would like to join your team."
"Don't worry, you already are a member." Aefia got up from her chair and helped her lady to stand up from her abrupt kneeling position. Her lady stared with disbelieve, "How did you do that?"