2 Awakening #2

Meanwhile within a dirty room, Mallory was caged up as her neck, legs and arms were bound with metal cuffs and chains.

She opened her eyes and looked around cautiously. 'Where am I?'

Just as she started to move, her movements were noticed and someone spoke. "Hey.. the beast woke up finally. What do you think? Will she sell for much?"

Another human shrugged. "It is hard to say since she looks so filthy right now. With a little cleaning up she could be a beauty. Heh heh."

Another human agreed. "Go get some buckets of water and throw them over her. We need her prepared for the auction. You guys are not allowed to do anything to her but make her obedient and presentable otherwise the boss will kill you for messing up such a big catch. We have lost many to those leopard demihumans but we finally caught one of them. Even if she is not a beauty, she will sell for a high price!"

Not long after, several buckets of water were brought in and they were ruthlessly splashed onto Mallory who shivered within the cage and tried to hide away from the humans.

One of the humans inspected her after she had been hit with lots of water and the dirt dropped from her body along with it. "While she needs a good scrub and drying… she is quite the beauty from what I can see."

The other agreed. "Hmm.. gold cat tail and ears with black spots on them, long gold hair, green eyes, her skin is a nice pale colour but not sickly looking, her figure dies not seem too malnourished and looks like she has trained her body. She looks like a beauty but.. those teeth are sharp and not so attractive. If there was one thing that ruins her value then it would be her teeth."

One human asked. "What shall we do then? Remove them?"

The other shook his head. "No damaging the merchandise, at least not on the surface. We need to get to work on keeping her from showing her teeth and being obedient."

While Mallory was pretty and had potential to became a beauty once she grew up, she had sharp fangs which ruined her overall beauty.

If she did not smile or open her mouth wide then that problem was mostly solved and people would be attracted to her rather than feeling intimidated so they approached her with whips in their hands. "We only have a day so.. get to work."

Whip!

"Stop glaring! Be obedient!"

Whip!

"Submit you beast!"

Whip!

"Close that mouth of yours!"

Whip!

"Submit!"

Whip!

Hours passed as she was tormented with the whip and healed with the low grade healing potions to cover up her physical injuries but the mental wounds remained.

She lay on the ground with her mouth closed but her eyes kept their determination. 'I will not submit! I will not submit to the bullying! I will not submit to my misfortune! I will not submit to these humans! I will not even submit to a god if they tried to make me! I will not give in!'

She was drifting in and out of consciousness and she started hearing a strange noise in her head. 'What is your..'

She tried to listen to the voice but she then fell into a deep sleep as if she was hit by a large wave of fatigue.

Mallory then had a long dream but it was of another world which was unlike her current one where there was someone that had a similar situation as herself and suffered many misfortunes.

The girl suffered a lot but she eventually met her master who explained her situation and helped her overcome many difficulties.

The master of her was a self proclaimed taoist, exorcist, feng shui master, spiritualist and master of all kinds of practices which deal with fate, karma, repelling and attracting but also extinguishing evil or malice.

Her master travelled all around the world and studied different cultures religions and other less accepted practices and he took her along as he taught her many things.

They both endured her hardships and trials together while Mallory was learning under him.

She learned many things from different languages to crafting talismans, bracelets, trinkets and other charms or tools used by those to create different effects.

Through studying she was able to determine many similarities between each of them which allowed her and her master to draw or make their own paper talismans for each language.

With more trial and error, they were able to make great strides in developing their own simplified version of everything they had learned together.

They both developed a keen interest in the supernatural and enjoyed watching magical and spiritual anime, tv series and movies but her master often talked about whether such worlds really existed.

He explained to her one day. "From what I know of death, we die and we most likely reincarnate without our memories so we change after dying and being reborn as a new person in a new environment. If there are other worlds then we may have experienced them already and that is why we have such a wide variety of ideas or dreams that may come from nowhere and inspire such people to create such things.

So these worlds could also be other worlds that may exist but there is also another theory… while there are worlds that are like our own which we believe to be real, there may be ones like the movies you watch or the stories you read which may be incomplete worlds that could exist due to the collective imagination and unknown powers that exist in the vast universe or are simply godly powers beyond our understanding. There are far too many theories about reincarnation that it is hard to believe completely in one. You must be wondering why I am saying this right?"

Mallory nodded. "Yes.."

Her master explained. "Your misfortune may follow you to the next place where you are born but no matter where that may be, I hope that what we have done together and the good we have done on our travels will earn you enough good karma to allow you to overcome your next life's trials or at least earn you a better reincarnation in your next life. This life.. sigh. Even after I am gone, you will continue to suffer on your own."

Later on his death bed, her master said. "Whatever world you go to after death, I hope that you can be happy child."

Mallory complained. "Idiot, worry about yourself! What about your reincarnation? Do you not deserve a good one?"

Her master was taking his last breathes and spoke warmly. "Tsk. I will be a tiger for sure in my next life in a different world. It is a life fitting for a man like me, I could use the excitement."

Her life passed as she became sixty, seventy, eighty and she did all kinds of charitable and spiritual deeds to help people even if it was not entirely proven to be helpful or effective and even if she was laughed at or shunned because she cherished her time with her master.

An image of her previous self came before Mallory and asked questions one after another. "Who are you? Awaken! What are you interested in? Awaken! What is it your greatest passion or desire? Awaken! What makes you, you? Awaken!"

Mallory answered. "I am now called Mallory. I am interested in the supernatural and spiritual practices that cannot be explained by science. My passion is to overcome my misfortune and live a long and happy life. I would not be me if I let myself die or submit so easily to whatever I have to endure."

When Mallory woke up, her body felt a lot lighter but she soon realised that her situation had not changed so she pretended to be obedient while waiting for a chance to survive.

Mallory had experienced her awakening and had regained her previous life's memories which contained some matching knowledge from her old world which matches with what she knew about her current one. 'Uh… gods, status, levels, dungeons, Orario…is this really Danmachi?!'