So, I'm a witch, so what?

I opened up to the girl beside me. I didn't know how she would react, but I couldn't have expected a more reasonable reaction when I told her I had died once already. Vera called me a "reincarnation." I had never heard of the term before, and it was all thanks to Vera that I found out why I had such a unique power.

"Reincarnations usually carry unique powers or advantages. I'm a prodigy, but you're one of the lucky few who come from another world. Could you tell me about that old world of yours? Was it better than ours?" Vera asked, quite hopeful. I did not want to ruin her mood, but I had to be honest.

"It was dreadful. At least during the time I lived. I was born in the middle of a war, and my family and I had to run ever since I turned five. I remember the day my father said he would deflect from the army because he felt it was doing too much." Vera sighed at my words as she replied.

"Sounds like you had it much better here until you got tricked. Would you want to return to your world, Yoimiya?" Vera asked, followed by more heavy coughing, which had me worried.

"I would like to return, but not until the war ends. I don't wish to return to another miserable life of running and hiding. Are you okay? You sound sick." Vera slightly chuckled, followed by even heavier coughing. Her voice became even softer and harder to understand the longer we spoke.

"I'm dying; since they've had me here with malnutrition and poor conditions, I eventually caught something that is killing me. I wish they would just stab me to death already. This fate is awful." Vera once again began to cough, triggering my own fears. What if I got the same sickness as her? No, I don't want that.

"Do you think anyone is looking for us?" I ask Vera, but she doesn't respond for a solid minute as she struggles to breathe. I could hear her heavy breathing on the other side of the wall, so I soon stopped indulging. It was clear that Vera was at her limit.

Ideas began floating in my mind as I looked around me to see if there was anything I could use to escape. Was there anything I could do to help Vera? Could we still save her if I somehow got us out of here? Was it too late for her? I refused to believe I was this powerless.

It was only then that I began to grow curious about the floating transparent screens that I had seen before. How could I make one appear, if at all? Could I still use my magic in some capacity? I couldn't know since I had never activated my powers, so how could I know?

"Vera, I know you can't speak, but could you make one last effort and tell me how to make magic work?" I heard a silly noise on the other side of the wall as Vera grunted.

"Y-you need a Grimoire. There's no other of accessing magic. At least, not that I know of. If you could, then I guess you need to recite words to activate a spell, but since you usually read the words from your grimoire, I doubt one could use magic and spells without one."

Vera soon said she would need until tomorrow to talk again, so I stopped asking her questions since it sounded like she was already at her limit. Yet I had so many questions. I didn't understand even a little of what she told me. Grimorie? Spells? How was I supposed to ever learn? Was that why my mother pleaded with the Queen?

If magic requires complex activation mechanisms and your own spells, how was I supposed to learn from someone else who wasn't in my same category? There had to be a catch of my power; something had to compensate for such a disadvantage, I told myself as I experimented with my hands and words.

""I'm the source of all power. Hear my words and heed them! Create a flame to illuminate our paths! All flammable torrent!" I repeated my mother's words over and over again to no avail. I tried to conjure something, but nothing came out of my hands, no matter how hard I tried. Until I made another screen appear before me.

[Magic request denied, reason: User not registered as a fire user. Spell denied]

What did the text mean? Was I really able to channel magic without whatever Vera mentioned? What else could it mean if the message said it got denied because I'm not a fire type? It could only mean I can channel this new power without a grimoire.

So, I kept trying other words and combinations off the top of my head. I even tried cliche spells from some fantasy novels I had read. "Avada Kedavra!" But nothing happened. I didn't know what I was doing, but I kept going.

What else was there to do? Nothing besides sitting there crying about it. I could sit there all day long crying about my fate, or I could keep trying to activate my magic repeatedly. What else could I do? There were no toys, and the stench didn't let me rest.

"I Yoimiya! Command the Earth! Command the heavens! Bring forth the end of this jail door! Blow it out with the power of darkness given to me by god! PLEASE!" A small ball of light came out of my hands toward the cell door as I finished my last spell after hundreds of tries.

Yet when the light touched the bars, I got shocked again, this time more intensely than last time. The pain increased so much that I even peed myself from the sheer amount of pain it caused me. A friendly reminder I was not free appeared again.

[Punishment Delivered. The user has tried to escape, reporting your actions to your owner. All skills disabled]

The shock stopped, and just like the screen said, a woman soon appeared from the portal between the beast realm and us. Whoever the new woman was, it was not Edwina and certainly not Eris, but she did not hesitate to get inside my cell to scold me.

"Who the fuck you think you are?! You tryna escape, uh? Fucking idiot, I'll teach you what happens when you play stupid games!" The new lady grabbed me by my hair and angrily yanked me outside the cell. She threw me around so easily that I lost my will to fight almost immediately.

"Ahhhh!! I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Please! AHHHH!! AHHHGG!!" The lady did not hear my pleas for mercy as she began to strike me with a long whip over and over. I felt every one of the strikes, leaving red spots and scratches everywhere they landed.

"We are not done yet! You bitch just got here and already trying to run! I'm gonna have to break you!" The woman said as she dragged me around toward an unknown place. She took me deeper into the dungeon until we arrived at another room, where she hung me.

Each one of my limbs was tied to a metal cuff. The cuffs hung from the ceiling with the help of chains, which just made me hang slightly forward, keeping me suspended mid-air. The cuffs hurt my limbs as they were put on my thigh, but what wasn't all the table the lady had next to her horrified me.

All sorts of tools like the ones Miss Eris had lay there covered in old blood, and therefore, most look extremely rusted and jagged. I immediately began to hyperventilate as the lady put some sort of gloves and mask on.

"You're going to learn your place."