The darkness slowly faded away from her eyes, turning into a combination of shadows and the flickering rays of pale light that filtered inside the cold cell. As if the voice had predicted the moment in which she would wake up, Skill Master started to talk into her mind like a whisper.

「Learning Successful. The divine skill [Skill Master] has been upgraded to [Skill Master II]. Subordinate skills do not meet the requirements to be upgraded by the Sixth. All skills obtained or modified by skill master that are susceptible to changes will now be upgraded.」

"Fuck... Here we go again..."

Suu tried to open her eyes just to roll them, but the heaviness on her eyelids made it nearly impossible to even begin forcing them to move.

「Learning successful. The inherited unique skill [The Fortress] has been upgraded to [The Castle]. Half of its original magic capacities have been restored. From now on, the user will have the ability to use a few magic properties related to Grand Mage Archene's magic castle.

•As a consequence, the subordinate active skill [Inner Wall] has been acquired. Once a day, the user can call for the inner wall of the castle, protecting up to four willing creatures, blessing them with the user's physical defense.

•As a consequence, the subordinate passive skill [Master Bedroom] has been acquired. Second-generation passive and active skills called [Furniture] can now be stored inside the [Master Bedroom].

•The second-generation subordinate skill, furniture [Queen Sized Bed] has been acquired. Sleeping for eight hours or longer will grant the user immunity against magical effects that exert sleep, paralysis or stupor.」

Suu wasn't particularly impatient. She waited for Skill Master to tell her that each and every one of her skills had been upgraded, and that she now had access to learning fourth-tier spells. It felt like several minutes passed before peace came back to her thoughts, enough time for her to open her eyes and regain the sensations across her whole body.

She pulled up her windows with the speed of a snail, and observed how the blurs turned to sharper and better-drawn shapes. The little light from the moon that filtered through the bars on the other side of the cell indicated that it hadn't passed that much time since she had passed away.

The pressure on her wrists told Suu that she had been tied. She had expected to be laying on the ground, however, as soon as she opened her eyes, she realized she was standing up, tied from the neck, wrists, legs, and torso.

"Don't pull!"

Someone called for her with a trembling voice.

Suu turned her eyes to the front and saw a familiar image. The face of a short-haired, small, muscly girl, yelling at her not to move. Her hands had been tied, her legs, neck, and torso too. Suu could guess that she looked exactly the same as that girl, being tied in a similar fashion.

"Erina." Suu blinked in surprise. "Shit... I don't remember why am I here."

"Miel... tricked us."

Another familiar voice called her, and as she looked to her left, she saw Thom tied up in the same way as her and Erina. Before she could ask anything else, Thom made the same remark: "Don't pull from the chains."

Suu looked at her arms and saw that the chains were not actually tied to the wall, but they ran inside the stone towards something, and when she pulled very lightly, the chains seemed to move as if they were dragging something from the other side.

"I also thought of breaking the chains..." Erina cowered slightly. "Thankfully, Chamgue is a chivalrous man, even if he follows Miel's instructions blindly. He waited for me to wake up to tell me that if you pull from these chains, a blade will come out from the metal piece on our neck."

"That's... concerning for you, Erina, but why do we care?" Suu looked at Thom with a confused expression. "We just break the blades with our neck and get the fuck out of here— or is there a catch to it?"

Thom replied with a tired smile, his bruised and black eyes barely moving. The man was a bloody mess, scratches and roughly-placed bandages covering his body. It seemed like whoever had given him first aid simply did not want him to bleed out, but did not care for his health at all.

"The catch is that you do not pull from your own blade." Erina sighed. "It pulls from someone else's. The blades are made out of deep iron, too."

"Alright, who has mine?" Suu asked, looking between the two. "Whoever has my blade, pull and break the chains. We're all strong enough, right? And that stupid deep-iron won't do anything on me, so come on!"

"Ughu..." Erina made a very disheartened expression. "Well, I have Thom's blade... That's what Chamgue told me. I have Thom's, but it is not normal deep-iron the one on his blade. It's enchanted, it does its fair share of magic damage."

"I see... you can't pull, then. He... He'd surely die." Suu swallowed dry. Although she had said that, Thom had stayed equally as still, without moving a muscle, wearing an extremely gaunt look on his eyes. He seemed like he was on the verge of death.

"Alright, Erina. If you have Thom's, I have yours and he has mine. Is that how it works?" Suu asked.

"I-In theory..." Erina stammered with her answer.

"Then it's simple! Thom, pull from the chain as hard as you can and I'll—"

"Can't." Thom replied before she could finish her sentence, his voice extremely dull. "Both my arms... Are broken. And I barely have enough energy to breathe. Can't heal, either..."

The black-haired girl felt a great void in her heart as she saw Thom's expressionless face staring at the dark abyss that was the cell's cold floor, she looked away with a pout, sighing as if losing some of her hope.

"Shit..." Suu gritted her teeth as anxiety started to well in her stomach. "Then... all I have left is pulling from my own chains."

"Wait, don't!" Erina screeched. "I, I know we haven't known each other for long, but you wouldn't kill me off like that, would you?" She started to get teary as she saw Suu's determined frown. She wanted her to negate the premise of decapitating her, and she pleaded her with her eyes to stand still. Suu, however, seemed to regain her vitality and chuckled with a brilliant smile.

"Erina, if I had a method to make your skin as hardy as mine, would you trust me to break my chains and help you out so we can escape?" Suu said, completely convinced that her method would be effective.

"Eh? Ah? Ehm, yeah, I... I trust you, but, what do you mean?"

"Kuhuhuhu, it seems like I will be the one to save you all again!" She puffed her chest and showed a toothy grin, displaying her confidence towards to Erina. "You may thank this beautiful lady later, save it for now! You see, I have this super cool spell that will make your skin just as hard as mine, so it will—!"

"Don't try it, Suu..." Thom murmured, looking at her from afar with a tired, cold gaze. "Pull from it very, very slowly first. I don't think that someone like Miel would have made a plan like this and not have any countermeasures for something like that."

"... Right. I let myself go."

Suu cleared her throat as if to throw away the excitement that she had been conjuring up, and breathed out softly. With a face full of resolution, she pulled very slowly from the chains tying her wrists, and the mechanical echo of turning cogs resonated inside the chamber for several seconds. Then, a small blade started to come out of Thom's choker, way faster than what Suu had been pulling her chains.

It made a deep cut on Thom's neck, which made Suu immediately retreat her hands, hearing the soft groan from Thom's chapped cut lips.

"Sorry..." She said, her eyebrows arching up.

"It's fine... I knew it could happen. But this... This means that, unless you kill me, we'll stay here." Thom sordidly giggled. "I cannot move nor heal, and you two are tied. If any of you pulls, I'm dead. There might had been a way out if I had my arms to pull, but they're out of their place and simply won't move."

The chamber fell into silence. Thom didn't keep on talking, but simply closed his eyes. After his words had fallen, they noticed how terrible was the scenario they were in, the torturous game they had been forced to play, created by the wretched mind that was general Miel. It was long until someone finally said something. It was Suu's voice, calling out in a soft, broken whisper.

"We are in check." She muttered to herself, the shape of the pieces coagulating like blood in her head.

The moon began to move in the sky faster than what it had done before. It was Suu's mind losing all sense of time, as the dragging of minutes stopped making sense. So many spells, so many skills in her hands, and she couldn't free them from chains meek as iron.

Is this all I fought for? Is this the better life that I wanted to find in this place?

She bit on her lip and lowered her head, feeling like all that she had grown useless. Although desperation was clouding her mind, she was sure, at least at that moment, that she had no escape from this situation.

The cell fell into deep, somber silence. Only the crickets outside and the cicadas played them a lonely and monotonous tune, inviting them to let go even quicker of their little thoughts of hope.

The night continued silently.

But, it was then, when the three of them had fallen into despair and had given up the possibility of escaping without losing one of the three, that a soft, low-pitched, and macabre giggle bounced in their walls. Suu's ears perked up and Erina's body trembled from head to toe.

From the shadows below the high and small window outside of the cells, a mouth with pointy, fierce teeth was showing. Only Suu could get a glimpse of it from her position, but she had been paralyzed from the strangeness of the situation.

A hand broke through stone as if swimming in water, showing a black arm covered in deep-red long robes. A head poked completely through the wall and fell into the room, showing a jet black-skinned humanoid figure, holding a staff on his right hand, showing a row of pointy teeth as it smiled with deep madness.

The figure broke through and landed with grace on the ground, swinging its robe to make a dramatic grand entrance. Suu's heart was beating so hard that she couldn't contain it, and the fear of uncertainty showed in her face. She had always been one to believe in ghost stories. Erina frowned as her already impatient visage turned even darker, but she did not say a word, because she had thought that Suu had been consumed by the fear of entrapment.

She was wrong, however, because it was the nearing image of that unknown image that had actually scared her. There was no necessity to ask, because the dark hand that emerged from robes clasped tightly the bars of the cell, making Erina screech before Suu could have done it. After showing a grin that sent chills down their spine, the figure grasped lightly on the hood covering its head, and slowly pulled it away—

Only to show a perfectly normal human face, although with skin painted a deep black and covered in spots, and a pair of small pointy ears.

"Ahh, I see your king is still living."

The creature said with a very pleasant and warm voice. Its fingers wrapped around the bar with intention. It showed a content smile as its eyes traced Thom's sleeping body, noticing the chains, putting the pieces together as if trying to form a conjecture.

Then, with the same eyes as a heaven-sent angel, it opened it's mouth, and let out a few sweet words.

"Would you allow this poor pawn to escort you outside of your prison?"

Afterword

Hey! If you've read this far, you either actually like the story, or you're reading to create a fully-fleshed piece of criticism at some point in the future. Either way, it is warmly welcomed, and I can't wait to hear from it. I created this story because, I have already been writing for a while, but I feel like I'm really lacking when it comes to several aspects. Painting a scene, pacing, dialogues, character development, memorable characters, distinct personalities, those were all things I wanted to work on. Worldbuilding is my favourite part of writing, but I am not nearly skilled enough to make a book about worldbuilding alone and make it entertaining, haha.

Searching for something interesting to write about becomes hard to me if it's not fantasy to at least some degree, and I must admit that I really like action-based, adventure-like fantasy. I would also like to hear if somebody thinks there are too many fights, or if the dialogues are boring, if things get confusing, or something the like.

I am in love with this story and will not stop writing it until I'm done, even if I may slow down every now and then because of work. However, no matter how much I love it, I am still using it to learn about writing so I can make a better book after I've finished this one.

Thank you for reading thus far! I hope you will keep enjoying it if you have up until now, and if you haven't, thank you for reading anyway! The "tutorial" of the story is finally over, so I hope I don't make the next volumes any worse than this one!

Suu On The Mirror

by me

It is worth noting that I also enjoy drawing my characters and publishing artwork of them here and then, even if they're not that good! I wish my drawing was better to paint them just like I want them, but this is all I can do for now!