Naia, in a very good mood, decided to extend her stone gambling days. This time, she was planning to go to another town on the other side of the mountain range.

It was a decision she literally just made after seeing how her original ’workplace’ became too popular, it made her scratch her head.

There was no way. Too many people went to the town she had been fleecing. Because she (though in separate identities) won so many times in the span of a few days, people thought that this market was suddenly peaking and more people could get lucky.

As such, even before the whole livestreaming fiasco, droves of people already headed to the town, making it super inconvenient to make moves without being stared at.

The side she had been on was part of the mountain range that faced the border areas. Specifically, it was bordering her home country of the Danian Republic. Sadly, it was mountainous (part of the mountain range was also in her country), so she couldn’t use that path home.

The side she was moving to faced the interior of the country. It had fewer mines, but it was nearer ’civilization’. It was also near the farms and would give her better access to the urban areas, albeit she could only go by bus.

That said, before she could move places, she couldn’t help but feel like she had forgotten something...

Her eyes passed over a group of young people, going around and having fun with stone gambling (though there were many instances they got annoyed by the number of people, forcing them to squeeze around with strangers).

She also overheard them joking around about some familiar topics. It started when a petite girl with a baby face got separated from the group, and she literally had to get dragged out by her friend.

She ended up being mocked playfully for a long time.

"HAHAH! Be careful, baby girl," one of the other girls said. "Don’t separate from our group! You’re the type who looks like you could get kidnapped!"

"Yeah, didn’t you watch the livestream earlier? It’s soo intense! I think they’re still capturing suspects now!"

"Too bad the phone got broken during the chaos!"

"Speaking of which, isn’t that creepy village nearby? Wanna go?"

"When I watched it, I thought I’d see this girl in there."

"HEY!!"

The group played around like this, making the aunts and uncles around smile fondly.

Naia, on the other hand, was gaping. It was only then that she remembered the two people she had forgotten in her space!

Darnit!

...

Naia did not show herself yet; she didn’t know what to say.

Instead, she just awkwardly moved two tents, portable gas stoves, and anything they needed to survive a weird camping trip. She needed a few hours to think. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

She placed the items near the pond. They were obviously very afraid of the adder snake family, so she didn’t torture them and did not place their supplies under the mango tree.

The other wild animals generally didn’t approach them at all. It was their instinct to avoid humans in general, so whenever the two headed in a direction, the animals consciously avoided them. Sometimes, the animals, if there were plenty in a spot, might even squeeze into corners.

It made Naia realize that the forest area really wasn’t big enough. She hadn’t had the time to fill up her new space yet, so at this time, the area with land was still the same as before she went mining.

She shook her head of the thoughts for now and focused on the task at hand. She also placed a little note on the supplies to calm them down. Hopefully, when she appeared later, they were still sane.

The siblings, at this time, had been going around the forest over the past hour. It was just a small forest, but they felt like they hadn’t gone anywhere.

The delineation of the forest was not big, with the forested area just over half an acre, probably just as big as a typical neighborhood park.

They soon found the edge, but they realized that they were unable to go past a certain line. It was like there was an invisible opaque wall that limited their movement.

"Where are we?" the young man, twenty two year-old Glen, asked for the nth time over the past half hour. He habitually rubbed the scarred skin under his neck, before his arms extended to reach in front of him.

He was now at the border of the forest, looking at the endless darkness that he couldn’t go past.

He reached out to touch it, but there was nothing, not even a difference in temperature.

It was so...eerie, but oddly, he wasn’t too scared. His body’s instincts were telling him this was a good place, like finding a nice oasis with fresh air.

This was an inexplicable thought, however, since logically this was a weird situation, and he should definitely be worried.

The changes happened too quickly, too, and they were 40% unsure whether they were not dreaming. Had they not pinched themselves and then each other several times, this percentage of uncertainty would’ve been even higher.

One moment they were in the stinky slave dorm, wondering how to escape an even worse fate, but now they were suddenly in an unknown forest with poisonous snakes and random wild animals.

Did they get themselves into an even worse situation than before? They weren’t sure...

"Wuuuu..." he turned to look at his sister who seemed to have lost the strength in her legs. "Why does this keep happening to us?! Wuuuu—"

She was fine before, even with the air of curiosity, but after more than an hour of uncertainty, reality became a bit bleak.

Gal, his sister, was only eighteen years old. It was understandable that she was still immature. Rather, she had done very well, considering they had lost both their parents not too long ago and then got enslaved right after that.

A year ago, they headed to Varma for a long-awaited vacation. Their mother’s hometown was in Varma, so they decided to visit. Who’d have thought that, due to poor road conditions in the countryside, they’d get into an accident?

The two of them, orphaned and lost in a foreign country. They were also heavily injured, both of them suffering from second and third-degree burns. They were not kicked out of the hospital simply because Gal was wearing some nice jewelry which they had to sell off.

They hadn’t even fully recovered yet when they met the wrong adults, and they found themselves inexplicably sold to slavery. This was particularly humiliating to Glen, who had been an adult for several years.

However, at the time, he was in too much pain—psychologically and physically. When he gathered himself, he already had a pickaxe on his hand.

The only lucky part was that because the injuries from the accident damaged both their skins, making them look a bit ugly, so they—especially his poor sister— hadn’t been touched. However, recently, it seemed like the bastards had gotten a particularly perverted client who did not mind his sister’s condition.

So, when they saw someone shake the status quo, the two of them resolutely attached themselves to her.

And so was their current (awkward) situation.

Though they were not sure whether this place had anything to do with her at all...

Anyway, the two had nothing better to do than pick berries to pad their stomach and take a few handfuls of water from the random water generator by the pond.

Unexpectedly, when they neared the pond, they saw new stuff! They had just been here half an hour ago, so they were 100% sure it wasn’t there before.

"Gasp! Supplies!?" Gal gasped, the traces of tears still on her face combined with her gaping look made her look particularly stupid. "Are we in the Hunger Match?!"

That story transported people to a survival match in a forest, dropping supplies here and there.

Did she have to kill her brother?!

Glen’s eyes twitched when he saw his sister’s wary look.

"..."

"Please stop reading too many fantasy books," he said after a pause, tone a little exasperated.

"It’s a dystopian book, brother! The last book I read since we...you know."

Gene sighed and patted her head, the burn scars on his arm looking particularly prominent. This girl’s emotional journey today was really like a roller coaster, but at least it’s lively. It was better than her crying.

"We’ll...figure something out," he said, heading over to the supplies and studying them. There was basic food and drink, good for a day or two if they were frugal. There was also a tent and sleeping mats, as well as portable cooking equipment.

It was then that he noticed the letter on top of the unset tent.

[Due to some situations, you’ll have to stay here for the next few hours, a maximum a day. I will come and explain the situation to you after that. You’re technically not kidnapped; don’t worry.]

Only then did Naia pull her consciousness away, thinking she wasn’t a bad landowner. Hopefully, they’d be willing tenants later.