Pain radiated throughout her body, a gut-wrenching agony that pulled Aurora Starling from the depths of darkness.
With a supreme effort, she pried open her sore, heavy-lidded eyes. A faint light pierced the gloom, accompanied by a grating sound that encircled her ears.
"If you don't have the skill, you can't blame others. It's sheer luck that she was rescued this time; next time, she might not be so fortunate."
"A good-for-nothing should know their place. To act so brazenly when you're nothing but trash, you've brought nothing but shame to our family."
Two voices, one male and one female, echoed in Aurora's ears.
Who were these bastards to call her a waste? When had the organization produced such insolent brats?
Ignoring the pain that racked her body, Aurora focused her gaze on the source of the voices.
Two teenagers, a boy, and a girl, both around fifteen years old, stood with arms crossed at the bedside. Their appearances were strikingly similar, almost identical twins apart from their attire.
Instead of showing any guilt at being caught, they looked at the waking figure with scornful smirks, their disdain and contempt evident as if they were looking at a piece of garbage.
"Oh? Has our dear waste of a seventh young lady finally awoken? It's a miracle that you're still alive after such a severe injury," the beautiful girl sneered at Aurora Starling, who was sitting up in bed, her loathing for her unmasked.
The handsome boy merely scoffed and glanced at the pale-faced Aurora. "Idiot, you know what to say when Grandfather questions you. Say one wrong word, and I guarantee you'll spend the better half of your life lying in that bed."
Contempt, threats, taunting, the barrage of hostility did nothing to rile the person sitting on the bed.
Aurora was too preoccupied with the flood of unfamiliar yet familiar memories filling her mind to care about the nonsense the two brats were spewing. Fragmented scenes, not her own, cascaded down upon her. If not for her iron will against the dizziness, she would have collapsed again.
These were the memories of another person, from a toddler's first words to a thirteen-year-old girl's unfinished youth. The chaotic images formed a patchwork of the girl's thirteen years of growth, opening a completely alien world to Aurora Starling.
This world was a far cry from the modern society she knew, a fusion of ancient Eastern and Western cultures, filled with marvelous martial energy, Furyflame, and magical wonders, Arcanergy. Even dragons, creatures of legend, existed in this fantastical world.
As a master thief from the 24th century, Aurora could hardly believe that she, who should have been dead, had somehow been reincarnated into this young girl's body. What was even more laughable to Aurora was that this girl shared her name – Aurora Starling.
She now found herself on a land known as the "Luminous Continent," within the "Dragon Pavilion Empire" of this continent. The body she inhabited belonged to the seventh young lady of the Bennu Clan, one of the five great families of the Dragon Pavilion Empire. This should have been an adored and pampered existence, yet as the two young troublemakers had pointed out, the body's owner was indeed a genuine waste.
Nested within the Bennu Clan, yet unable to cultivate either martial aura or the arcane arts, her strength was pathetically feeble, and her mind was no better. At the age of thirteen, her intellect remained static at the level of a four-year-old child. Dubbed the shame of the Bennu Clan, the useless Seventh Miss was her title.
Standing before her bed were two members of the Bennu Clan, like her, but unlike the "useless" one she was, they were twin siblings, each adept in their respective fields of martial aura and magic, hailed as the rising stars of the Bennu Clan.
Their greatest pastime, aside from honing their skills, was to torment her, the so-called "useless" one.
Aurora's battered state, lying on the bed, was a testament to the cruelty of this brother and sister.
Taking advantage of Aurora's diminished wit, they had goaded her into sneaking into the dungeon that housed fearsome beasts. The result was Aurora being mauled by the creatures within. Had it not been for the guards who noticed the anomaly, she would have surely met her end in the maw of a monster.
Only after absorbing the memories of another did Aurora find the moment to deal with these despicable twins.
Clearly, they were more concerned with the potential investigation by the head of the Bennu Clan, their grandfather, and were now threatening her to keep silent about their deeds. They failed to notice that the once vacant gaze had been replaced with a sharp glint.
"You'd better behave and not upset us, or you know the consequences," Seraphina Starling said with a curl of her lip, looking down at the idiotic sister in name only. She would have never bothered with this simpleton had she not feared the repercussions of trespassing into the dungeon.
Aurora raised an eyebrow, a flicker of thought passing through her mind, before she masked her sharpness with a vacant expression. Blinking her eyes innocently, she nodded meekly at Seraphina Starling.
"Seraphina, I've told you this dummy knows nothing. Even if she blabs, Grandfather would never believe a word from a fool," Phoenix Starling, the brother of the twins, grumbled impatiently.
Seraphina Starling ignored her brother's remark, giving Aurora a once-over to ensure she was still as compliant as ever, before relaxing and leading her brother out of the room.
As for Aurora's injuries... they were of no concern to them. If she had died in the dungeon, it would have only meant one less eyesore in the household. They would not have deigned to speak to this waste if not for the fear of their grandfather's inquiries.
Once the twins left the room, the timid Aurora on the bed suddenly sprang to life, leaping off the bed with a swift movement.
"Ouch." The abrupt action tugged at the wound on her waist, and Aurora ground her teeth, assessing the damage to her new body with a silent sneer.
Given a second chance at life, she was determined to make the most of her new identity. However, it seemed that this new persona came with its own set of troubles. To survive, she could not continue the life that "Aurora" had led.
Useless? Idiot?
Those words had never been her creed.