Elegy from Another World

Consciousness resurfaced from the chaos, and the familiar, involuntary torrent of senses enveloped me once more. I suppressed the humiliation and discomfort within me, forcing myself to focus on the present moment. This time, I no longer passively endured it, but instead pricked up my ears, trying to glean fragments of information from the rough breathing and indistinct conversations around me.

"...This batch of goods is quite good..."

"The boss said, it's okay to play around, but don't break anything. The merchants from the south will be coming to pick up the goods in three days."

"Tsk, these elven slaves are really fun to play with, they're fine no matter how you mess with them..."

Fragmented words, like pieces of a puzzle, gradually pieced together a terrifying truth in my mind: robbers, human traffickers, commodities, elven slaves, about to be sold… and I, this body named "Lysia," was that "commodity" about to be traded. Before being officially delivered, I was nothing more than a plaything for them to "taste" at will.

A sense of absurdity welled up inside me. Reincarnated into another world, granted immortality, yet starting as a slave—this script was far too hellish. But then I thought, perhaps this journey to immortality was always fraught with thorns, and the humiliation and predicament before me were merely the first hurdle I had to overcome. Immortality meant having enough time to change everything.

I don't know how much time passed, but with the clanging of the iron gate and a rough shoving, I was thrown back into that cold stone cell. Unlike before, this time they injected some kind of drug into my arm. A strong sense of drowsiness and inexplicable restlessness intertwined, making my thoughts feel like they were sinking into a quagmire, and my mental state was extremely poor.

But the urge to escape burned my will more fiercely than any medicine. I cannot fall, I cannot give up. My only hope now lies in my nascent magic.

I struggled to sit cross-legged, ignoring my mental lapses and physical discomfort, and focused my mind once more. Controlling water was the only power I currently possessed. For days, I practiced day and night, progressing from initially only being able to condense a single water sphere to later being able to control the water flow as if it were my own arm, even weaving it into a dense, incredibly resilient net. I secretly tested the water net by tying it to an iron fence, discovering it was as strong as a water-soaked hemp rope.

The effects of the drug made this spell exceptionally difficult; the magic flowed sluggishly, and the water's form nearly spiraled out of control several times. I gritted my teeth, sweat mixed with an unknown liquid sliding down my forehead, as I struggled to maintain my focus.

It's now!

I manipulated a thin yet incredibly solid stream of water, like a living water snake, silently slipping into the keyhole of the old iron lock on the prison door. With days of exquisite control over the water's form, I made the water subtly deform, expand, and apply pressure within the lock's core…

"Click".

A soft, almost inaudible crackling sound rang out like a thunderclap in the silent cell.

The lock is open.

I took a deep breath, suppressing my wildly pounding heart, and gently pushed open the heavy iron door. Beyond the door lay a dark passageway, leading to unknown freedom and danger.

Eternal rebirth has finally taken the first step in breaking free from its cage.