After the group interrogated the bandits' leader, they found out the exact time and place where the slave auction would take place.
Leaving the bandits chained in their own basement, the entire group left and took the surviving victims to the orphanage, where the others were taking shelter.
After Morgana gave everyone some food rations, they took the dark shaman woman into one of the rooms.
As the sun started to set, she opened her eyes and found herself in an unknown room with both Morgana and Selene sitting next to her.
"Mom, she is awake!" said Selene as she ran up to her mother, who was sitting in a chair beside the bed, taking a nap.
The trickster yawned and rubbed her eyes before smiling and picking up her daughter, admiring her cuteness.
The dark shaman stared at the happy pair, confused about her situation but still relieved that she wasn't imprisoned anymore.
"How are you feeling?" said Morgana, approaching the woman who held her head in disbelief.
"I'm… Feeling alright. A bit dizzy, it's all…" The woman said slowly.
"You were pretty beat up when we found you. I wanted to ask you who it was that did that to you-..." the trickster tried asking, but the woman spoke louder, almost yelling.
"Haldor!" she exclaimed.
"Is that the name of the guy?" she asked.
The woman nodded as she clenched her teeth with anger, making Morgana turn to Selene and ask her to leave the room for a moment.
"Aww, but I wanted to speak with the shaman lady…" said the girl, sulking.
"It's only for a moment. I promise you can talk to her all you want after." her mother replied softly, and Selene obediently left the room with a smile.
After the little girl closed the door behind her, the dark shaman introduced herself as "Lily Zarina" and began telling the trickster what had happened with a distressed tone.
Lily had to travel to Kartan to obtain an item she needed for one of her skills. However, she was ambushed by high-level members of a clan called the Black Cross.
The Black Cross was a clan of people that focused on curses and dark abilities. Their leader had been interested in recruiting Lily due to her being a dark shaman, but she refused countless times.
As she traveled through the streets of Kartan, she was ambushed by a group from that clan. Lily was level 110, so she would have had no problem dealing with one or two of them, as most of their members ranged between level 50 and 90.
However, there were ten of them, including their leader, who showed up to make Lily pay for declining his offer.
After losing the battle, she was chained to the underground and forced to make black straw dolls with the corpses of the adventurers they killed.
The man Haldor wasn't the leader, but one of their senior members who was a "dark monk" level 100.
Whenever she refused to make any black magic items, Haldor would torture her until her body caved. That's how she had lost her tongue, eye, and fingernails, which had all been healed by Morgana.
"I… I can't believe I'm alive… Thank you… uhh." Lily said to her savior before realizing she didn't even know her name.
"I'm Ren Morgana. It's nice to meet you." The trickster said with a smile and shook Lily's hand.
The shaman took a few seconds to process the information, switching her expression from gratified to perplexed.
"Mor-Morgana? The trickster!?" the woman asked.
"Yup, that same one." She responded casually.
"But, how is that possible?" Lily asked.
Morgana sighed. "Well, it's a long story. So basically…" She began telling her story of how she got to Kartan.
She told her about being in The Underworld for a century when a group of cultists summoned her, and from there, she traveled with the children they sacrificed to bring her there.
"So, you didn't truly die one hundred years ago?" Lily asked, her face showing a mixture of relief and sadness.
The trickster shook her head. "I was just keeping Zaudan some company…"
Lily held her stomach as she tried to hold back her laughter, then started giggling.
Morgana raised an eyebrow with confusion. *Well, at least she is happy.* she thought.
"I'm sorry, it's just… My parents used to tell me stories about you, so now I'm wondering if this is all a dream…" she said as she wiped a tear of joy from her eye.
"Heh, good stories, I hope… Wait, Lily. Are you not a player?" The trickster asked with urgency.
However, the shaman told her that her parents were the ones who were immortal players but were killed by the leader of another big clan when she was a teenager.
It was thanks to her parents that she was able to level up quickly as a child, and after they were murdered, she bowed to hunt for the killers.
"I see. That makes more sense now…" said Morgana, explaining that she thought she was a player due to her first name being inside the parenthesis that only other players could see.
However, it didn't make sense to her that she was only twenty-one years old when all players had been sent to Aegis over a century ago.
"And, which clan was it that killed them?" The trickster asked.
"They are called the 'Ashen Legion'…" Lily replied.
Morgana arched an eyebrow, seemingly not hearing of them before, but the shaman explained that the clan had only existed for twenty years, so there was no chance that she had heard of them.
However, she also explained that the members of the Ashen Legion were at a much higher level than the bandits at the Black Cross, and their base of operations was in an area called Red Ridge, which was located on the eastern continent.
Lily had been training hard all this time to level up and eventually face her parent's killers, but she still had a long way to go, as she said that the Ashen Legion had a few members that were max-level, including their leader.
Morgana respected the girl's wishes for revenge and told her they could join their traveling group since they would be going to Veridian once they finished their business in Kartan.
"Wh-what business do you have here?" Lily asked.
"Well, for starters, I'm killing that Haldor guy for blinding my daughter… Then, we will probably kill all the enslavers that we can find. Wanna join?" The trickster asked with a sweet smile that contradicted her words, and the shaman answered in kind.