Invisible Cage

Linsey froze.

He prided himself on having seen quite a few beautiful girls, and even more in games.

But when such a stunning girl met his gaze in reality, her eyes seeming to reach straight into his soul, Linsey could not help being shaken.

"I... yes, this is your dinner."

"Tomorrow is Harvest Day. Tonight is the eve of the celebration, and the village prepared food for you as well."

Linsey's shock was genuine, but the foundation of having lived another life allowed him to adjust quickly.

He immediately regained his composure. "Also, hello."

Linsey walked into the mill and handed her the food.

At the same time, he studied the astonishingly beautiful girl.

She sat atop a sack in the mill, dressed in bright silver armor, yet with no sword at her side. As Linsey entered, the girl rested her cheek on one hand and watched him with a smile.

Something about this felt off. "Thank you."

While Linsey was still thinking, the girl thanked him, but she did not rise from the floor.

She lightly took the food and began eating while seated on the sack.

The Law Knight who had come to the village today...

The village's guest...

Linking those two pieces of information, a bold thought occurred to Linsey.

"Are you... that Law Knight?"

"..."

"Pfft—"

The mill fell silent for a second before the girl's laughter shattered the stillness.

"Ha ha ha!"

Linsey's question seemed to have struck upon something absurd.

The blonde girl clutched her stomach and laughed, but the violent movement made her choke. The food she had just swallowed got stuck in her throat.

"Cough! Cough, cough, cough!"

Seeing this, Linsey knew he had guessed wrong.

He hurried over and patted her back, only for his hand to hit metal armor with a crisp clanging sound.

"I merely guessed your identity wrong. Was that really so funny?"

"No, sorry." The blonde girl rose from the floor and smiled as she shook her head at Linsey. "It was just that the term Law Knight felt rather abrupt when applied to me."

Linsey stubbornly pressed on. "If you're not a Law Knight, then you must have come with him, right?"

This time, the girl did not refute him. Instead, she admitted his guess.

"Mm, there's nothing wrong with putting it that way."

"But child, you are not asking this simply because you are curious about my identity, are you?"

The girl's question struck directly at the heart of the matter.

And as she asked the latter question, her gaze became intensely aggressive.

Linsey did not know whether it was an illusion, but the curiosity and desire to explore in her eyes seemed to become something tangible, filling the space within the mill.

After giving it serious thought, Linsey decided not to lie. He answered honestly, "I want to know how to become an Awakened."

"..."

"I was wondering how that fellow Bargett could possibly allow an Awakened with no ability to defend himself anywhere near me. So you're a child who awakened on his own."

Trouble! With just one answer, Linsey sensed danger.

But just as he began considering how to escape—

"Don't worry. I mean you no harm."

The blonde girl did not step forward to threaten or restrain Linsey.

Instead, she openly sat down on the floor and even patted the ground beside her, inviting Linsey to come sit with her.

Then she explained frankly.

"Simply put, I am the prisoner of the Law Knight you mentioned, secretly being escorted and confined here by him."

Linsey swept his gaze around the room.

The mill was completely empty, and there were no chains or any other restraints on the girl. What kind of prisoner was that? "Confined? Prisoner?"

The blonde girl saw Linsey's confusion and immediately let the facts speak for themselves, reaching out toward the wall beside her.

Crackle!

In an instant, golden light erupted from the wall of the mill, and the girl's fingers were knocked back by the glow.

Linsey was stunned by the incredible sight. "Th-This... what is this?"

The girl explained without concealing anything.

"The Law Knight's Law, the thing binding me."

Linsey could not help asking, "Do you have no other way to escape?"

"I do." The girl glanced at Linsey, amusement in her eyes. "If I pinned you, little Awakened, to the ground and drained the Essence from your body, escaping would not be a problem."

Only then did Linsey recall their earlier conversation.

He suddenly realized something. "Wait, you said I'm an Awakened. What does that mean?"

The blonde girl answered, "Exactly what it sounds like. You have already awakened."

"Huh?!" How could Linsey accept such a claim? "What kind of joke is that? I'm an Awakened? How is that possible?"

Yet the girl asked with absolute certainty, "Think carefully. Today is the day to sense Essence and awaken on your own. There must be something unusual about yourself that you have not noticed yet."

"There is no way I could be mistaken about that!"

Linsey was just about to refute her, but the next second, he was left speechless.

Because today, he had awakened the memories of his previous life.

No matter how many wondrous experiences existed in the world, that was surely a miracle among them.

"See? You understand now."

Linsey's silence delighted the girl.

But she did not mock his slowness. Instead, she immediately advised him, "However, child, I must remind you of something. Self-awakening is an exceptionally precious talent. You must make good use of it."

Linsey caught the key point in her words.

"Self-awakening?"

The girl continued explaining without reservation. "Once every ten years, the Essence of the world becomes active, and those with exceptional talent can awaken at that time. Those somewhat less gifted can also sense Essence and awaken with the help of the strong."

As she reached the latter part, the girl pointed at herself with her other hand.

"A long time ago, I was the kind with slightly poorer talent, who could only awaken with someone else's help."

The girl had made herself very clear, and Linsey's question changed accordingly.

"Since I have already awakened, why do I not have any special abilities? Master Bai Lin and the Village Chief can both do so many incredible things."

Linsey's question made the girl laugh again.

She laughed as she punched the weathered wall of the mill, only for golden light to restrain her in the next instant.

"Tch!"

The girl shot a vicious glare at the golden lines on the wall.

Then she turned back and continued explaining.

"Communicating with Essence only means that you possess the energy needed to use techniques."

"The wondrous abilities of each school still require every person to train and cultivate their own techniques before they can manifest real effects."

He had mana, or rather, an energy bar, but had not learned a single skill.

Linsey immediately understood his current situation from the perspective of a Game Player.

A new question followed.

"Then where should I go to learn techniques?"

The girl gave him a reassuring answer.

"Once you become an Awakened, you have your entire life to explore techniques that belong to you. Or, relying on your talent for self-awakening, you can join a school. Believe me, that is very popular. In any case, this is not a problem..."

At that point, the girl suddenly raised her brows.

She looked toward the center of the village, and the conversation changed as well.

"Child, you should go back."

"The Law of Laws imprisoning me has been triggered several times already. Bargett will definitely come to check. His stubbornness has been twisted by the Laws to the point where he has nearly lost his humanity. If he sees you here, you'll be in terrible trouble."

The Law Knight truly was not someone Linsey should provoke.

Linsey knew it was time to leave.

But before bidding farewell to the girl prisoner, he had two more questions.

"Didn't you just say you could control me and drain my Essence? Why didn't you do that?"

The girl answered frankly.

"If I forcibly took the Essence from your body here and then escaped, the Law Knight would decide that you had helped a fugitive. He would then brand this village as a camp of rebels and begin purging the rebellion."

"Even if I were to escape, I could never do so at the cost of other people's safety!"

Linsey asked his second question. "What crime did you commit?"

Before a child, the prisoner had neither deceived nor abducted him, and had even offered quite kind advice.

From the entirety of their exchange—

Linsey truly did not think she was a vicious criminal.

"What crime did I commit?"

For the first time since they had met, the girl scratched her cheek in mild embarrassment, then rested her head on her right arm. "Uh... intent to rebel and overthrow the dynasty?"

"But honestly, I really do not think that counts as a crime."

At that moment, the girl propped up her cheek with one hand and dragged the food tray in front of herself with the other, picking up a piece of bread and stuffing it into her mouth.

It was precisely because both her arms had spread apart.

That Linsey saw the emblem on the breastplate of her armor: a design of a longsword, thorns, and a code of law intertwined.

—Thorned Law Sword.

The emblem of King of the Righteous, ruler of the City of Law in The Annals of the Young King Xingzheng.

The emblem of this world's ruler was on a prisoner? And the person responsible for escorting her—

Was the Law Knight who should have served that ruler!

Linsey did not want to dwell on a question that was obviously courting death.

After bidding farewell to the girl in the mill, he immediately headed toward the village, his thoughts a tangled mess.

"Awakened, Law Knight, rebellion..."

As Linsey muttered and returned to the center of the village—

He saw that the enormous elk made of bundled straw, also a symbol of the harvest, had already fallen to the ground.

A knight stood with one foot on the elk's head, imposing without showing anger!