She was now twenty-three years old, but judging from the way she behaved, one could a.s.sume that she still was like a teenager in spirit.

Her mother and brother in law were very surprised to see her return and were desperate to know just where she was this whole time.

She wasn't really sure on how to explain what had happened to her, so she simply tried to give the most vague of details.

How she was kidnapped by some crazy kid who wanted to force her to marry him. How she escaped by jumping through a window and was left in the care of a nice old lady. How after she recovered she got a job as an a.s.sistant to travelers and eventually met up with some really nice people who offered her a new job. And how after she finally concluded that new job she had enough resources to get her ticket back home.

Her family kept asking things like who the kid was, what was that new job like, how far away from home she had gone to, but each time she would just dodge the question saying it was "too painful" to go into further detail, as in, trying to explain more was a huge pain for her, but they just a.s.sumed that she had acquired some kind of trauma and didn't want to talk about it.

She tried to get her life back on track and returned to pursuing her goal of becoming a teacher, but since she had lost so many years she had to take especial courses so she could acquire the proper education before taking her master's degree.

She did manage to teach thought, as she started a freelancer job giving art lessons. People would often say that she was very imaginative and had a natural talent for creating things, to which she would always respond "It's not about creating... It's about recreating what's already there into something new! All ideas were already done, but you can just take the ones you like the most and mesh them together to something you want to see!"

All of her students loved Evlin as a teacher since she didn't talk like an adult, she talked like one of them, a teenager. They could all relate to her and always had an easy time absorbing her lessons.

She would teach kids how to draw, how to paint, and even how to sculpt. She was especially fond of sculpting with clay, she loved messing with earth.

She also moved to her mother's house alongside with East, who she had told her family was also someone from her old job who received mental damage and was now looking for a place to stay. She got her a job as the housemaid which helped Evlin's mother take a break from taking care of the place by herself.

Her mother also tried to teach Evlin to take better care of her hair as it had started to grow again. She actually felt she liked it better when it was short and asked if it would be ok to just cut it again. Her whole family tried to stop her but she simply couldn't take it anymore and returned to her usual short style. On the plus side, her hair was finally not looking like a bird nest anymore.

Evlin also had to find a new name for East for obvious reasons and decided to call her Detra Castes. East looked at her as if asking "Where the h.e.l.l did that name come from??" to which Evlin simply said that it was a name she had come up with from rearranging the letters of the word "east" with "scared cat".

East, or rather, Detra was clearly displeased with her new name but she simply accepted and kept her anger to herself.

Evlin's mother tried to teach East about catholic religion but the former G.o.ddess had no interest in the concept of people praying to anyone that wasn't her.

She would often be shocked by looking at Evlin and thinking how this one woman managed to get the best of her.

"I still can't believe you just surrendered all that power... You were the most powerful thing on the planet!! And you just gave all that up just to return to this dumb world!!"

"Eh... It can't be helped... My religion doesn't support the idea of magic, curses, or praying to other G.o.ds... If my mother ever saw me like that she would ground me forever..."

"Are you listening to yourself?? You could have been a queen!! You would have the power to rule the world!!!"

"Yeah... But that world doesn't have pizza, video-games, or my favorite TV shows... So I would say it was a fair trade. Man, I missed pizza so much... How do people live without knowing the greatness of pepperoni??"

"... I hate you... I hate you so much..."

"Good! That means you're finally starting to remember what it's like to be human again!"

Evlin was finis.h.i.+ng changing her clothes to go to her sister's home so she could babysit her niece.

Ellie wasn't too fond of Evlin at first. This weird woman coming into her house out of nowhere and announcing she would be part of her family so sudden. But she quickly warmed up to the idea once Evlin started to tell her a lot of stories about a fantasy world.

A world with dragons, monsters, knights, and mages. Ellie could probably find much better stories if she simply read a book or searched on the internet, but she was still young so her mind wasn't corrupted yet.

She was nine-years-old currently and she loved it when Evlin would visit and play with her. Evlin herself found out that she not only was weak to pets, she was extremely weak to kids. Every time she saw Ellie's joyful smile she felt her heart starting to melt. She loved spoiling the little girl whenever she had the chance.

For some reason, Ellie really liked playing with Evlin's crossbow. At first, she a.s.sumed it was some kind of weird plane toy and tried to place her dolls on top of it, but after Evlin explained that it was meant to be a weapon to shoot at things Ellie became even more excited and started begging her mother to buy her plastic arrows to shoot at tin cans.

Ashley wasn't too fond of letting her daughter play with such a dangerous thing but she was just so happy to have her sister back and seeing the two getting along that she decided to just let them be for now.

Evlin herself wondered if that was ok so she always tried to teach her niece the importance of carrying something so dangerous in her hands.

As she left the house, she noticed her phone vibrating and checked to see who it was. Her therapist had just reminded her that they had an appointment in two days.

Evlin wasn't sure why she needed a therapist but her whole family insisted on getting one for her. Apparently they wanted Evlin to open up to someone about her traumatic experience, but for her, it just felt like a huge pain since she would need to come up with even more lies about her time in the other world.

She could already picture the doctor's face if she ever tried to talk about that time she almost got killed by a kid with knives on his hands or the time she tried to take flight lessons while blindfolded.

After meeting with Ellie and talking her to the park, Evlin tried to teach her how to be responsible with her tool.

Ellie was wearing a red sleeveless s.h.i.+rt with white shorts while Evlin was wearing a blue jacket over a white s.h.i.+rt and grey pants.

"Listen Ellie... This thing is just a tool... By itself, it can't do anything... But in your hands, it can be used for anything... It can be used for good, and it can be used for bad... I need you to promise me that you will never let this become a tool that can be used for bad... Ok?"

"Ok! I promise aunt Evlin!!"

Evlin looked at her face and realized that she was just saying that so she could go and play already. The former mage didn't mind though, if she made a mistake, she would just learn from it and grow with it, and Evlin herself would be there to help her get through with it.

"Ok, just remember to be careful!"

"O-K!"

Evlin couldn't help but scream inside her mind from just how cute her niece was. She wishes she could return to the other world just so she could shove the girl into the faces of her friends while yelling "Look at her!! Look. At. Her!!! Isn't she adorable!!???". But as she started to think about her friends she began to feel nostalgic.

She wondered if they were all ok. They were probably killing demons right now to make West happy and recovering more lost silver metal left behind by Marceus. Now that they had Marcus with them, he could just absorb the metal and make more when they needed it.

Ria and Auren would probably be married by that point. Maybe they were considering having a baby? If it was a girl would they name it after Evlin?

She also wondered if Sphinx and Daren's black lion would have turned into friends somehow.

Daren himself was no longer cursed so he could enjoy Lilith's company with more freedom. Evlin never even noticed that these two were a thing. She quickly picked up that Auren liked Ria, but Lilith and Daren? How did she miss that?

Heck, maybe Ashley and Gustav also became a couple by this point? Three men and three women? Would it be odd if they all ended up together now that they were an even number? Or maybe they started gathering more allies? Maybe they had formed a larger group under the banner of the crossbow girl?

"G.o.d, I miss them so much..."

As she continued to imagine what kind of adventures her friends were having and even started to feel it wouldn't be too bad to return there one day, she noticed that her niece had made a new friend while playing in the park with her crossbow.

She came running towards Evlin who was sitting on a bench and started to talk to her. The girl's long black hair waved on the wind as she moved. Her niece would often ask if she could have short hair just like her aunt but Evlin a.s.sumed Ashley would be sad if she heard that.

"Aunt Evie!! Aunt Evie!! You'll never guess what I just got!!"

Her niece was so adorable. Evlin just wanted to squeeze her like a pillow, but managed to hold herself back.

"What is it, Ellie?"

"Tdah!!!"

Ellie showed her hand and revealed a small object to her.

Evlin's face began to lose color. She saw the object, a small crystal drenched in a red color that looked very familiar with a special type of crystal she had seen before.

"E- Ellie... What is this...?"

"A girl with twin ponytails gave it to me! She said it was called... Mmmm... What was the name again...?"

"... Absorbing crystal...?"

"Yeah!! That's the one!!"

"... ... ..."

Evlin's heart started to beat at an absurd speed. She was wondering if it was just a coincidence. Absorbing crystals were an item from the other world that had the power to absorb magic inside of them. But that couldn't be a real crystal, right?

"Ellie... Did you say the girl that gave it to you had twin ponytails??"

"Yeah!! She also said that I was using the crossbow wrong! If I place the crystal in it something cool will happen! Watch!!"

"No!! Ellie, wait!!!"

Before Evlin could stop her, Ellie placed the red crystal in her crossbow and aimed at a tin can. She shot the crystal at it and the moment it was released, it started to catch on fire and when it touched the can, exploded into a ma.s.sive ball of flames.

"Aaaahhh!!"

"Ellie!!!"

The little girl was pushed back by the force of the impact but Evlin managed to catch her. Evlin looked at her niece who was shaking uncontrollably after seeing what she had done.

"I'm- I'm sorry!!! I didn't... I didn't mean to..."

Evlin's expression turned serious. That wasn't a coincidence. That was magic. Magic from the other world. Someone had found a way to bring magic to her world.

"Ellie... This ponytail girl... Did she say what her name was?"

"Wha... What...?"

"Ellie!!"

"Mi- Mia... She said her name was Mia..."

"!!!"

Mia. Mia was in Evlin's world. And she had brought magic with her. How was this possible?? Did she found a portal to come after her? How? Why? What was she planning?

Evlin started to gather many questions above her head when she suddenly realized that something was casting a shadow above her.

She turned around and saw a little girl that looked a lot like Ria smiling at her with one hand on her hips and the other holding an ice-cream cone while standing on the bench Evlin was sitting on and blocking the sunlight with her head.

"Did you like my present?"

The girl was wearing regular clothes from this world, a purple t-s.h.i.+rt with short sleeves that was so long it almost looked like a dress and pink shorts beneath it while looking at Evlin with a malicious grin. And as always, the girl had long black hair tied up by a pair of ponytails on each side.

"Mia!!!?? What are you doing here??"

Evlin glared at Mia with ferocity and noticed that something was wrong with her. One of her eyes was in her regular brown color on the left side. But her right eye was green, a very, very, very unnatural color of green. The same kind of green that she once saw when she was on her journey to the southern kingdom.

"You!!!?? No... It can't be..."

"Long time no see... Stick-girl!"