"What...?"
Aren woke up with a splitting headache. He groaned miserably, not only because he felt nauseous but also because he realized that he was lying on the dirty, musty planked floor of a place he could not recognize.
"Wake up, laddie." An unfamiliar voice seemed to stretch and echo from ten leagues away. "Ay, ay, is falling off the table not enough to make you sober?"
If the level of his arts was profound, Aren could immediately dispel the effects of alcohol. Unfortunately, his apprenticeship had only started ten months ago and he was, in fact, very mortal at this moment.
How many bottles of wine did he drink? Just trying to think about them nearly made him puke.
He had a faint inkling that he was even gulping down grass rum from wooden kegs... but no, that couldn't be... He was a noble that only drink wine...
Suddenly, the owner of that unfamiliar voice helped him sit up. This caused the bile he was forcing down to lose control.
Oh, no!
"Come, laddie. Here's a bowl of tonic. I'll not even bill you this one, but you need to drink this now so you can pay for what you ate and drank last night—"
"Bleurgh!"
***
On the other side of Gaelsworth, Cass was happily munching on toasts while she waited to board the first train out of town. She looked like a mess, clothes wrinkled and face dusty, but despite that, her looks and figure still managed to enchant a few passengers waiting alongside her.
She did not manage to sleep a wink. After sweet-talking the innkeeper into letting that dead-drunk Aren sleep wherever is convenient, she immediately stepped out of the inn and tried talking to the passersby in the street.
"How about you join me for a drink in the pub next door?"
"Eek! Kids nowadays. Loitering outside at this ungodly hour."
"The House of Vega? Of course, the eldest is Sir Alyeksandr!"
"You reek of alcohol. Seriously, here's a silver. Go buy yourself another bottle."
"Huh? Lord and Lady Vega have no daughter."
"Oh, I know your name. You're mine, aren't you?"
"Cassandra? Who's that?"
The fact that they do not know any Cassandra Vega motivated her more into getting back her identity. Well, slapping the faces of those who tried to harass her motivated her as well, for all the wrong reasons.
After that, she walked all the way to the train station, repeatedly slapping sense into the brains of stupid people while improvising her plans to get her out of this mess.
After semi-ruthlessly grilling that third young master for answers last night, Cass had a few theories she wanted to test out. One of them was the physical scope of the curse. Since that playboy who remembered her is an outsider, it was possible that only those within Gaelsworth forgot about her. Thus, she wanted to head out to the nearest city, Enqeton, and test out this theory.
Enqeton is also the place where her maternal uncle and his troops were currently garrisoned, so if this theory is proven, she could bring Uncle Jano back to Gaelsworth to beat the daylights out of her father, oh she meant to talk sense into her parents. Not only that. Her two brothers, Alyek and Alistair, were sent there to train as new recruits under the First and Third Divisions. It had been three months since the two of them left. Those two little squirts would surely be thrilled to see their lovely sister. Huh! She was yet to forget that they owed her some silver for taking the rap that one time they sneaked out of the house to party.
Would they still remember her?
"Think positive, Cass!" She slapped her cheeks and forced out a smile to hide her nervousness.
If that didn't work, another theory she thought of was a visit to the Greater Mountains. That Third Young Master Aren said that he and his senior brother were tasked by their master to find some rare beasts indigenous in the forests of the Greater Mountains. But of course, the playboy was bored after a day so he sneaked out towards the nearest town to play.
Maybe the curse she got from the Greater Mountains was also dispelled by exposure to its source.
Cass believed that the deeper parts of the mountains were very dangerous not because of the beasts, but because something otherworldly powerful and sinister exists in there. After all, her childhood friend, Shashka, died in there three years ago...
She quickly changed her line of thought. Happy thoughts! Yes, happy! Happy like... her brothers! She would get to see them soon. Yes, Alyek and his goofy grin... Alistair and that annoying know-it-all attitude...
"THIRTY PIECES OF GOLD?!" A familiar male voice cried out like he was a pig being boiled alive. The whole of Gaelsworth seemed to sway by the energy of the shout. "JUST KILL ME!!!"
Even Cass was stunned, but not because of his showcase of inner strength. A piece of gold is worth a hundred silver. One meal is normally around ten to fifty silver. Just how many did Young Master Aren... when it came to alcohol, he's just a lightweight...
Thankfully, the train had arrived and she was able to board quickly.