Theresa woke up in a daze.
She vaguely smelled the aroma of frozen dumplings.
But, that was strange. Didn't cooked frozen dumplings have no taste? Why could she smell them?
"Oh, Aunt, you're awake! Want some dumplings? Doctor Tesla bought them on her way back from her night patrol."
Kiana was happily munching on dumplings, a tied-up Wendy floating behind her, completely unresisting.
It looked like Wendy had been thoroughly disciplined by Kiana's sadistic tentacle whip, which she learned from Noldrei.
"Huh?!"
Theresa's eyes opened to this terrifying scene, and she almost fainted again.
But Kiana casually picked up a pillow and smacked Theresa on the head.
"Don't sleep! You've been sleeping all day! Am I really that scary? I even changed the color of my tentacles to a cute, transparent pink! Don't girls usually like blue and pink things?"
No one knew if Kiana misunderstood girls, but you couldn't really say anything about someone who had wandered alone for years, enduring hardships. She really hadn't had much normal interaction with girls her age.
By the time she had gotten to know enough girls her age, those girls were all made abnormal by Noldrei.
"Waaah..."
Theresa woke up with tears in her eyes. She looked at the girl tied up behind Kiana, finally digging out the girl's identity from her memories.
"Isn't that Wendy?! Has she been cured?"
Theresa came to this conclusion after seeing the damp and twitching legs of Wendy.
"She's only fourteen! She's at the age where even mentioning it will get the book censored! How could you do this to her?!"
Theresa wrapped herself in the blanket and huddled in the corner, as if doing so could provide her with a sense of security.
"What are you talking about? I didn't do anything to her..."
Kiana's tentacles weren't some kind of hentai corruption tentacle, she simply wanted to restrain Wendy.
"She woke up and grabbed a kitchen knife, preparing to stab you in your sleep. I saved you, dear Aunt."
"It's Auntie!" Theresa tried to correct Kiana's words. She was sisters with Cecilia, not siblings with Siegfried.
But Kiana didn't care. She just said, "Okay, Aunt! What do you want to do with her? Although Noldrei has a use for her, I still think you, as the person involved, should have a say. Whether you kill her or whatever, give me an answer."
"Isn't there a 'let her live' option?!" Theresa was shocked by her niece's ruthlessness.
"Oh, sorry, I exaggerated a bit. Then, imprison her or beat her up? Just give me an answer."
"That won't do either!" Theresa retorted and then looked at Wendy with a complicated expression. After a long hesitation, she said, "Just… just… just turn her into a pony. That way, she might have enough time to reflect."
Kiana thought Theresa would give her some kind of suggestion, but she didn't expect her forty-something-year-old aunt to also be a pony enthusiast.
"Aunt, she was planning to kill you! Are you sure about this? If I hadn't been monitoring this villa, you would have been dead in your sleep."
Theresa shook her head, explaining, "After all, I was the one who sent her to the Herrscher core experiment."
"......"
Another awkward silence.
Kiana hesitated for a while and asked, "Then, should I release her and let you two have a proper fight? Now that she has the living Stigmata from Noldrei, she should be much stronger."
"Aren't you going to eat your dumplings?"
Theresa changed the topic. She thought it was best not to continue this discussion.
With a thud, Kiana threw the unconscious Wendy onto the floor.
"Call me big sis, and I'll feed you, okay?"
Kiana really wanted to tease this forty-year-old little girl.
Theresa sighed, saying, "If you didn't want me to eat them, you could have just said so."
"Fine… But we have an activity tonight, do you want to join us?"
Kiana invited Theresa to join her party.
Theresa curiously asked, "Is it some kind of New Year's activity?"
"Nope, it should be considered a Kaslana family reunion," Kiana thought for a moment, deciding that it was indeed a Kaslana family reunion.
"Kaslana family reunion?!"
Theresa couldn't imagine what kind of family reunion Kiana, who had been wandering around, could have.
But she didn't want to reject her niece's invitation, so she agreed.
"Okay! After you finish eating your dumplings, we'll begin!"
Kiana was excited. After hearing about the Kaslana family Stigmata space, she had always wanted to see it. Now that she had the opportunity, she naturally wasn't going to miss it.
Theresa still didn't know what kind of reunion it was. She figured, even if it was strange, how strange could it be?
Very strange!
"Why has my niece turned into such a terrifying thing in my dream?!"
Theresa looked up at the giant, terrifying eye in the sky. She hadn't expected the Kaslana Stigmata space to look like this.
A blood-red ocean on the ground, and a huge, distorted, evil monster hanging in the sky.
And that monster…
Was Kiana Kaslana.
"Huh? Auntie, you're so small…"
She said as she tried to reach out and touch Theresa.
But when she did, the tentacle smashed down towards Theresa like the sky was falling.
"Don't come any closer!"
Theresa's face instantly turned pale with fright. She had no idea why she was dreaming about her face turning pale in the Stigmata space.
In any case, it had turned pale.
Theresa turned and ran, dodging the attack of the giant tentacle.
When the tentacle landed in the shallow red sea, it stirred up countless memory fragments.
They were filled with happy memories of Theresa and Cecilia.
It was impossible to tell whether they flowed into the Stigmata space from Theresa's side or from Cecilia's side, or perhaps even from Siegfried's memories.
"Huh? Didn't catch her?"
"Who would let you catch them like that?!"
Theresa fled in panic. Looking back, those tentacles didn't seem like normal biological entities.
They seemed like some kind of flowing substance from her memories, like a mixture of strange colors.
It was like a liquid memory, with fragments of memory, like shards of glass, scattered within.
"What is this strange thing?!"