Hope

I wake up slowly, but I don't move, despair hits my body in the form of lethargy, my mind trying to assimilate everything that happened to me. I raise my little hands and stare at them with a vacant look.

I spend some time like this, I don't want to do anything, just stand still for a while, I feel tired even though my body is perfectly fine, my mind has reached its limit.

'I wish it was all just a dream...'

The memories that flood my mind make me realize how right Aurora was, I'm no different from Ayla in this situation, in fact, I may be going even worse than her.

'How can I escape if I can't even walk around the castle...why am I so useless in this world?' my mind decides to deal with the problem by simply blaming everything on me.

'I wish I could die...that way at least I wouldn't be in this dangerous world' I, who know I will suffer greatly in this world, cannot have hope in myself.

'How ironic...my determination ended in the first few days...'

My determination, which is weaker than I thought, doesn't handle this situation well.

I don't even have the strength to cry, I just want time to pass quickly, but even time passing is not comforting, since with this immortality I will be in this castle forever.

'Is this my destiny? To stay in this place forever? To serve only as a prostitute for the 7? Never being able to die or escape...I can't believe I'm so useless...'

I lie in bed for a while, with a dead look. Just looking at the ceiling, waiting for time to pass, my will to do anything becoming zero as I sink into guilt and sadness. Then I feel my pulse slightly warm, a strange, comforting sensation.

I look at it with some kind of impulse and see my bracelet glowing a little, it emits a faint blue glow.

"This..." for some reason, I feel tempted to touch it.

"..." I put my hand on it and start putting my magic into it, I've never used magic before, but this is the second time I've used it by reflex, even without knowing how to do it.

"Hello? Ayla, are you there, if you are, answer, this is Uriel" a worried voice comes out of the bracelet.

"!!!" I feel surprised by who is speaking.

'HERO' strangely, I feel a sudden excitement to hear his voice.

"Uriel, it's me, I can hear you" I say desperately, calling him by name, I don't feel strange calling him that, as if I already knew him.

I feel tears of joy forming, though I don't understand why he gives me so much hope.

"Ayla, I'm so glad...I won't be able to talk much because..."

"A..."

"Connection with the castle is difficult" his voice through the bracelet is slightly cut off, but understandable.

"A-Are you okay?" I feel worried about him, even though I've never seen him.

"Yes, Ayla, I'm more worried about you, I know it must be hard for you to be trapped in this place, but..."

"Don't worry, I'll save you" I hear strange sounds on the call, like the clinking of metal hitting metal.

'Is he in a battle?'

I feel like I've gained new hope, I don't know where this confidence in the hero came from, but I feel like it's what I needed to move forward.

'So the bracelet is a communicator...'

"And don't be sad, Ayla, I promise I'll try to rescue you as soon as possible."

"H-How did you..." I question the bracelet slightly.

'How did he know I was sad...no, he must have just guessed' I deny this fact, which would make me even more hopeful.

"It's our bracelets, Ayla, the color changes 3 times, one if you're sad, one if you're in danger, and one if you're cursed" he explains to me.

'So he reached out...just to cheer me up...' I feel strangely happy about this fact that never happened in the game. I wipe my tears and put on a smile.

"Thank you, Uriel...Thank you so much" I feel my magic being drained by the bracelet as I speak, but since I have so much, it's not worrying. Now I hear the sound of monsters through the audio, confirming that he's in battle, and yet he continues to keep in touch with me.

"Ayla, I..." the connection is completely cut off, but I feel my hope renewed.

"Really...thank you" I thank him, even though he won't hear, now with a new hope, I feel ready to try my best to escape, I don't know why talking to him gives me hope, but I decide it's better to go with the flow.

"I know I can, it's not impossible" now with renewed hope, I let myself be carried away by the emotion, putting the bad memories aside and thinking about how to get stronger.

'The castle doors change positions, so the items don't have specific coordinates, this is done to prevent invaders from moving around freely.'

'However, I know there are a few rooms that maintain their positions, one of them has an [Evaluation Stone].'

The [Evaluation Stone] is used to evaluate items, objects, and people. The degree of evaluation in living beings depends on the strength of the evaluator and the evaluated, and in objects and items, it depends on the magic of the evaluator.

"I need that item." If I put it in my system, I can gain the ability to evaluate. Since I'm weak, I won't be able to use it efficiently on living beings, but since I have a lot of magic, I can use it on objects and items.

"Where is it...Where is it, I need to remember" this item is very useful, so I force myself to remember the area where it might be. The castle has many stones with different effects, mainly because they are formed by Natural Magic.

This castle has the 7 strongest beings in the world, so naturally, it is a place rich in Natural Magic, but that is not necessarily a good thing. Many of these stones also carry curses, although they cannot be permanent on my immortal body, they still work for a short period.

"I remembered!"

The castle is divided into 9 areas, each of the 7 main areas is dominated by one of the 7, but that doesn't mean others can't go there, it just means that only the owner of the area can change it as they wish.

Besides these 7 areas, there is the neutral zone where I am, basically a place that none of the 7 touch, and there is a last area, but I've never reached it, it's very far and difficult.

"This room is located on the border between the neutral zone and the area of the...Demon of Lust" I curse my miserable luck that makes this room be near that pervert.

"At least the door to my room only moves through the neutral zone and doesn't go to other areas" I mutter to myself.

The neutral zone has entrances to the 7 areas of the Demon Lords, so technically it's the best point to look for the entrances.

"I will go, I can, I will succeed" I say to myself to motivate myself, my dress is already back, and my appearance is as if nothing had happened to me.

I look carefully at my drawer to see if I've gained anything from Leviathan.

'Nothing...too bad' this time he didn't give me anything...technically he gave me the book, so it makes sense that he wouldn't leave anything else.

I leave the room and walk carefully through the corridors, the corridors of the neutral zone are still beautiful, those lovely white walls with the detailed wooden beams form a beautiful image.

"Strange...why are they white?" I question the reason for the walls being white, the castle has a design that represents things, so nothing is without purpose.

"?" I decide to leave it aside, shrugging, I'm not smart enough to figure out why this area is white just by looking.

I continue walking, ignoring any doors, this time I see many corridors, showing that the door to my room has changed position.

'Or the other doors changed position...this is so confusing' the castle's security system is really incredible, as always changing, the only ones who can really know where everything is are the 7, not even the servants know where everything is.

I hear a beautiful melody, as if a woman is emitting the sound, this time I know it's dangerous, so I take another corridor, I know she doesn't know there's prey, so she won't leave that room.

"Lotus Assassin...how unlucky I am to encounter another" even though the castle has many traps, they generally don't repeat them too often.

I continue on my way and turn the corner, I see the wall colors gradually changing from white to a silvery blue.

"I'm not going in there..." I turn back and go to another corridor. That's Leviathan's area, the easiest way to find out who an area belongs to is to look at the wall color, they remind you of the owner of the area.

This way you can more easily find a specific Demon Lord by going to their area.

Although this is not a rule, as usually it's only the entries that have this color with the inner parts varying in color, so if you trust it too much, you might end up changing areas without realizing it.

I continue wandering through the hallways without touching anything, at least I know the floor of the neutral area corridor doesn't have traps.

"I didn't want to have to go near the Lust area..." in a way you could say that that area is one of the "less dangerous" ones because most of the traps are to fulfill various types of sexual fetishes of Valac the Demon of Lust, although there are still some traps to hurt.

"At least it's on the border, so I don't have to go too deep in," I murmur to myself to calm my thoughts.

I change corridors and continue, the castle is so big and I've been walking in it for more than an hour, and this is just the neutral zone.

"Why did it have to be so big?" I complain about this ridiculously large size, if this whole size is just the neutral zone, which is the smallest, imagine putting all the parts together.

After another 1.5 hours of walking, I finally find another area.

"..." I kick the ground when I see the black color division indicating the Sin of Pride.

"Ugh, how annoying." My legs hurt and I'm tired of all the walking.

'Why do I have to be so small and have this shitty Resistance?' I think, complaining about my body.

I've stopped several times to rest. I thought if I trained, I could increase this status, but I gave up on the idea.

1 single status point makes a big difference, in other words, leveling up 1 point can take years, it's faster to increase status with items than by training.

Finally, after walking so much, I turn a corner and see the division, which has a salmon pink color representing the Sin of Lust.

"Glory... I finally found it," I walk up to it and take a careful look.

"Now... which is the door?" There are 8 doors in the division, and only one is the one that doesn't change.

"..." I didn't think about how I would find the right door since they're all the same.

'Ha ha ha, I can't believe I'm going to have to rely on luck...' I laugh mentally at the fact, my bad luck that has shown up will determine if I open the right door.

"Think on the bright side... it's 1 out of 8... it could be worse..." I walk between the doors, putting my head on the door to try to hear anything, but I don't hear anything in the 8 rooms.

"Well... I'll open this one," I chose the second door on the right.

"...but I'll be cautious..." I hold the doorknob, but instead of opening it normally, I stand next to the wall with just my hand in front of the door, slowly turning the knob and pushing the door, pulling my hand back immediately.

Click

I hear a clicking sound.

Whoosh

Then a whistling sound, and suddenly several arrows fly through the door, hitting the wall in front.

"..." I fall to my knees on the floor, the tension of what happened hitting me.

"..." I feel like cursing, but my mouth can't, my luck almost made me suffer again, and if I didn't know it was dangerous and opened the door normally, I would have ended up like a porcupine.

"Think on the bright side... let's be positive... the chances of the right door are now 1 out of 7..." I try to cheer myself up not to give up and go back to the room.

I look at the doors again, I don't know what's in each one, they might have terrible things and I don't want to have to open them, but I force myself to continue.

I choose the fifth door on the left this time.

"Goddess, please let this be the right door, I beg you" I pray to Aurora to bless me with luck at least once.

I do the same with this door, opening it carefully.

"Nothing..." Nothing happened, so I look inside.

"Seems normal..." I look through the door and analyze the room, nothing seems wrong, so I enter carefully.

I go to the desk and open it cautiously.

"I-I-I found it!" I'm happy with the find, a slightly reddish stone with a magnifying glass symbol is in the drawer.

I also see a book.

"...there was a book?" In the game, the [Evaluation Stone] was alone.

I take the book and look at it carefully, it's a small wooden-covered book.

"Basic Encyclopedia of Races?" A book that talks about the basics of races is not something I remember.

"Did I miss this in the game?"

"I'll look at it later, first I need to update the system."

"Status... absorb the Evaluation Stone" the stone in my hand starts to disintegrate into a reddish powder.

The system stays with the same silver screen, but now has a function called [Evaluation].

I can't help but smile. Something finally worked out for me, made by my own effort without immediately falling apart.

I test the evaluation on the book to see.

"Evaluate" I say the command, looking at the book.

[Basic Encyclopedia of Races]

Rarity = Rare

Content = a book that contains the races that exist in the world as well as the basic classification of monsters.

My smile grows even wider as I see the system notification giving me information.