"...How do you know my name?" Betty asked, her voice confused.

"Are they telling about other prisoners to the newcomers these days?" she added. I could practically sense her snorting on the other side of the wall.

"Not exactly... Let’s just say I’m a bit of a special case," I replied.

"Well, whatever. I only have a month here," she said casually.

By the way she didn’t mean she’d be released after a month. She meant she was going to be executed after it.

"That’s sad," I said, leaning back against the cold stone wall with my eyes closed.

I was guessing she was doing the same on the other side too.

"What was your D-day?" she asked.

"Hmm... they said something about twenty-year imprisonment," I replied, a smirk forming on my face. "But then I went ahead and called your sis by name. Let me tell you, Alex, she was not impressed."

There was only silence from the other side.

Complete, heavy silence.

Betty was her alias during her time as a vigilante. Her real name was Alexandra Sinclair.

She is Cass’s little sister. Younger by three years.

I think Cass was around twenty-four now... considering she’d been thirty-three when I joined her as her Warlord in my past life. So Betty must be twenty-one now. Three years older than me.

"Are you a spy that bitch sent to watch me?" she asked suddenly.

Her words were practically dripping with venom. The hatred in her voice was palpable.

Damn. I could even sense the heat radiating from beneath the wall separating us.

I didn’t exactly know what had happened between them or why Betty was imprisoned. But if I left her like this, she would die in the next seven years... in her sister’s hand, no less.

I could still remember the day when Betty had planned a coup after escaping execution. I’d been there during the coup, barely able to follow the speed at which the siblings moved as they went for each other’s throats.

After Cass killed her, Cass was never the same again. The light in her eyes had dimmed permanently.

"Nope. She has better spies that could spawn before you whenever they want," I replied matter-of-factly.

Speaking facts was the best way to bond with someone, in my experience.

"That’s true..." she said, though I could sense she didn’t believe me completely. The skepticism was clear in her tone.

"Besides... why would she even need a spy?" I continued, getting up from the bed... well, the rocky elevation that passed for a bed in this place. "I mean, she comes every day to visit you, doesn’t she?"

"Dude... who told you all that?" Alex said, probably stretching on the other side.

"You have such a caring sister," I said, shaking out my stiffened waist from lying down on the uncomfortable rocky bed.

Betty had been here for a year already. A really caring sister indeed.

"Heh." She snorted loudly. "All that bitch does is yap about her day here. I don’t mind it though... that’s a good lullaby for me to sleep."

I could sense immense anger in her words. Real, burning hatred.

What had even happened between them? Well... I’d ask her eventually. When the time was right.

"But yesterday, she seemed a bit different," Alex said suddenly.

Hmm?

Didn’t she just say she’d sleep while Cass talked? How would she know Cass seemed different if she didn’t actually listen?

Is she a tsundere?

"Why do you think so? Did she show some extra care?"

"Don’t joke. She’s out for my blood," Betty said. I could hear the smirk in her voice.

Actually, she was wrong.

Cass rarely spoke about her dead sister with me in my past life. But from what little she did tell me, I could say with certainty that she loved Betty very much. So much that she always spent part of her night at Betty’s grave.

If she was away from the castle, she’d just stare at the dark sky, her eyes always moist as she remembered her dead sister.

It had been Cass’s plan all along to make it look like Betty escaped execution. Cass had arranged everything for her escape herself.

She must be visiting every night to treasure whatever little time she had left with her little sister before she had to let her go.

"Well, since I’ll be here from today, you might miss your sister’s lullaby," I said, trying to look through the narrow slit in the iron door of my cell.

"Well... I wouldn’t need a lullaby to sleep if I didn’t have to stay in that bitch’s presence," she replied, probably shrugging on the other side.

I was starting to hate hearing her address her sister like that.

Cass loved her. More than Betty could possibly understand right now.

"But..." Betty’s voice came again as I admired how thick this iron door was.

She seemed thoughtful now. Hesitant, even.

"...I think I will need her to come tonight."

Wait... were these the signs of her secret love toward her sister? Was she really a tsundere like I’d thought?

"After all... yesterday she spoke about things she rarely spoke about."

Cass was a person who rarely spoke in the first place. How rare must this thing be if Cass spoke about it rarely even by her own standards?

"Hmm? And why would that pique your interest?" I asked.

If Betty really hated Cass that much, nothing she spoke about should interest her at all.

"It was about our family... our father," she said quietly.

Interesting.

That really was very rare. I could count the number of times Cass had spoken about her late father on my fingers, aside from her reciting his glory and accomplishments, that is.

"I know that’s personal... but is there something you, the late Duke’s daughter, doesn’t know about him?" I asked carefully.

There was silence for a second. Then she spoke.

"Yes... it’s about his death. Only my sister knows how he died."

That caught my attention immediately.

Cass knew about how her father died? But she’d always told me she didn’t know. She’d always declared it as an unknown cause.

Was she lying to me?

That stung a bit. More than a bit, actually.

"She said she got a hold of an item that our father fought to make extinct from this world," Betty continued.

Damn.

I didn’t know the first thing about what she was saying. Their father died fighting? All I knew was that her ancestors had fought against Netherworld beings centuries ago. But that was a tale of the past.... almost an ancient history.

These past few generations hadn’t had to fight them at all because they simply didn’t appear anymore. This period was called the Period of Peace, the time between two wars against Netherworld beings.

Those bastards wouldn’t appear again for another twenty-five years from now. That’s when the rift would open.

"She said she got closer to knowing what happened that day," Betty went on, her voice dropping lower. "How a Netherworld being, who shouldn’t be able to set foot in this land, appeared that day."

I froze.

A Netherworld being appeared during the late Duke’s time?

Impossible.

The rift only opened twenty-five years from now. There was no other method to connect between the two worlds. None. It was physically impossible for them to cross over outside of the rift opening.

For some reason, my breath hitched in my throat.

"She said she found some... ingot?" Betty’s words left her mouth.