Chapter 103
[Jaquir. I'll leave all the minor day-to-day management of the Garden to you. You can handle it in my place, right? I'm busy wandering around the Abyss.]
[Then at least set some standards for what counts as "minor."]
[Come on. Just handle it as you see fit. You're my subordinate now, Jaquir. Isn't that all right? Other than me, you can go back to being the ruler of a vast kingdom.]
[If there is someone above you whom you must obey, that is not ruling. It's labor.]
[What, there's nothing much to it, right? Various matters concerning the soldiers, and appointing and dismissing knights. Things related to hunting, too. Oh, and don't forget to receive 'Alice' when she comes someday, okay?]
[Why don't you look for her yourself? If it's Your Majesty, shouldn't you be able to tell just from someone entering the Garden?]
[Hmm. That's simple.]
[The Queen of Hearts doesn't look for Alice first.]
* * *
The Queen hadn't given him many clues about 'Alice' and 'King.'
She had said Alice would look exactly as she herself had when they first met, and that Alice's personality would be unpleasant.
She had said that would be enough to recognize her.
And now, that person was right before his eyes.
"Die!!!! You fucking bastard!!!"
-Clang!
The appearance was exactly the same as Her Majesty's in the past. The clothes were slightly different, but the face was identical.
-Whoosh!
-Clang!
The techniques were the same, too. Star-shaped magic. It looked exactly like the magic that had once crashed down on the castle and pierced holes through his body. Its power varied wildly, though.
On top of having Her Majesty's appearance, she also had the foul mouth to match. She perfectly fit the characteristics Her Majesty had described.
'Just as she said. Were those clues really enough?'
"You must have plenty of time to spare, huh?! Even thinking about other things!"
A staff swung with a hysterical cry. The reason for her anger was almost certainly revenge for the companion whose arm had just been severed by that slash.
But she wasn't simply surrendering herself to anger. She understood the overwhelming difference in power, yet expressed anger that was almost an act while searching for an opening—a display that unquestionably deserved praise.
Seeing a completely different personality on a familiar face was a fascinating experience in its own way.
Especially seeing someone who never got angry and whom he'd never even seen frown—despite wearing Her Majesty's face—express such undisguised anger.
<But for someone who resembles Her Majesty, she is remarkably inept.>
[Royal Strike]
-Crash!
"Kuh?!"
<I acknowledge that you have a talent for imitation. But is it not also an important virtue of a warrior to understand whom you are facing with it?>
Her Majesty had told him to receive 'Alice.' She had not told him to kill her.
If she had been an ordinary intruder, he would have already cut off her head and returned, but if she was the person Her Majesty had been waiting for, as her subject he had no choice but to obey the order, whether he wanted to or not.
Moreover, it seemed Her Majesty intended to make this person 'King.' He had to say what needed saying for that purpose as well.
<My name is Jaquir. I am the first vassal of the Queen of Hearts, and the monarch who ruled before this 'Garden' came to be called by that name. While serving Her Majesty, I have experienced most of Her Majesty's techniques. Even if you attack me with the same technique, using power that does not reach Her Majesty's toes, you cannot even leave a scratch on my sword.>
"...Fuck."
Although she spoke that way, he could see her eyes wavering.
Sometimes, a heavy truth was more effective than a sweet lie for putting someone in a bad mood. She, too, must have been unable to turn away from the truth.
<Whether my words are true or false, you know that best.>
* * *
'...It doesn't work.'
Normally, I don't trust what Abyssal Ones say. How could I possibly believe the words of monsters that invaded someone else's dimension? Most of what they said was bullshit anyway, so what was there to believe?
But...
'...He really knows all my moves.'
Even if it was an imitation, I had lived as a magical girl for eight years.
I could tell whether my opponent's movements were merely nullifying every technique through an overwhelming difference in power, or whether he really knew exactly what each technique was and was defending against it.
If what he said was true.
If he had already fought the real Alice, Han Serin, and knew all of her techniques.
'Never mind attacks weaker than Luna Blast. What about my ultimate? It was powerful enough to inflict a fatal wound on that knight, but will it work? What if it doesn't? Then it's over.'
Still, there was no point in creating a new technique on the spot.
Stella Escape and Astral Shift, my original magic, were miraculous exceptions. From the very beginning, I had started my career as a magical girl by imitating Alice's magic system, and the magical system I'd built up in the process was already 99% identical to Alice's.
In this state, even if I created new magic, it would inevitably become another one of Alice's spells—something related to stars or space.
I was already a vessel molded as close as possible to the vessel called 'Alice.' Even if I forcibly created different magic here, its power would...
-Clang!
"Guh...!"
-Crack... cra-crack...
<This staff. It is not yours. Did you steal Her Majesty's and use it?>
"Shut... up!"
-Ting!
"Haa...! Haa...!"
The difference in strength was overwhelming.
The difference in basic physical ability alone was absurd. Just from that knight casually swinging his sword, I had to focus my magic throughout my body and detonate it at a single point with all my strength merely to barely withstand it.
With the basic difference in ability already overwhelming, I was outmatched in technique, too.
And not just slightly outmatched: he knew my techniques perfectly, while I knew nothing about his. No, from the outset, I was struggling even against his fundamentals.
'Is this... the end?'
I hadn't stepped in front of him without thinking.
My goal in blocking him had been to help Black Rose escape. If possible, out of the Abyss.
I still hadn't found a way back to Earth. But on the day Momo and I explored the Hunting Castle, I did discover a portal used for hunting in an external dimension.
I already knew that energy consumption varied according to the strength of the creature being transported. That's why I'd sent Black Rose.
I couldn't escape through that portal, but Black Rose alone could easily replenish the energy needed and activate it.
-Grind
Of course, that was merely wishful thinking. Realistically, even with Momo's support, it would not be easy for Black Rose, with one arm severed, to reach that place and escape the Abyss on her own.
Then, was I simply staking my life on that tiny hope? No, that wasn't it either.
I was confident I could at least survive.
I was also thinking of escaping with Astral Shift, but from the moment I became certain the opponent was connected to Han Serin, I was certain the opponent wouldn't be able to kill me.
Why? It was simple.
Because there was no way the opponent would let me die.
The opponent would want to keep me by my side, and I would have to endure a very, very terrible and disgusting time, but at least my life would be spared.
That was the calculation behind this fight, but...
'He's just too overwhelming...'
It was a variable that was obvious in hindsight, yet I hadn't considered it.
Had I become too arrogant during the years I'd lived as Alice?
...I had been arrogant. After all, I'd played the hero with power someone else had left behind and an imitation of someone else, yet I'd mistaken it for my own strength and believed my achievements were my own, looking down on weaker magical girls and Abyssal Ones.
And now, I was paying the price in full.
-Clang!
I have to think.
-Craaaack...
"Ghk...!"
<Perhaps because it is Her Majesty's staff, it is sturdier than you deserve. If it were an ordinary contractor's staff, it would have broken long ago.>
"Shut up..."
I retrace the foundations of my magic.
The basis of my magic: imitating Alice. Studying Alice, copying Alice, and using Alice's techniques.
The way Alice posed at every angle, how she smiled, how she spoke, and what techniques she used to defeat her enemies. Imitating that Alice was my magic...
...was it?
[Astral Shift]
-Flash!
-Thwack!
<...This is a technique I have never seen before. So you are not merely an imitator?>
"Huff... huff..."
A crisis threatening my life. Not danger to my survival, but a situation where my life itself was under threat—my thoughts raced fiercely.
My magic. My magic. The magic I had defined and put out into the world as my own. Even if I searched through every other dimension, it was ultimately my one and only magic.
'Magic is...'
The power to deceive the world.
That definition was intensely powerful, but everything in the world required a price.
Just because I defined it as the power to deceive the world didn't mean I could do anything I wanted.
In the end, all I could actually do was what I'd done for eight years simply because it was so familiar.
* * *
-Flash!
'...He disappeared. Did he run?'
The strange technique appeared again. It was different in nature from simple spatial teleportation or high-speed movement.
There were naturally many Abyssal Ones in the Abyss with abilities like that, and I had probably cut down dozens of them with this sword alone.
<A pointless act.>
Even if he had fled, if I spread my magic around the area, I could track him again in no time...
'Hm?'
-Hwooo...
Something was approaching this way. Something fast, spinning as it came.
'A staff?'
It wasn't difficult to identify what it was. The staff he'd been holding and swinging until a moment ago was flying this way, spinning with an unusual glow.
...leaving behind a dark-red afterimage uncharacteristic of Her Majesty.
'A new little trick improvised on the spot? Throwing a weapon is something one uses only as a last resort...'
-KRAK-KRAK-KRAK-CLANG!!
<Huh?>
He swung his sword to knock it away, but the rebound was greater than he'd expected.
An afterimage should have been nothing more than a trace left along a trajectory, yet each and every one of those afterimages possessed physical force.
Because he disliked wasting strength, he had to use more force than he'd put into deflecting a single staff, and was delayed slightly as a result.
And at that moment.
-Whoooosh!!
-Crack!
-BANG!
Along with the sensation of some fragment embedding itself in a gap in his armor, a searing sound of something striking through the air rang out.
And this was.
This was not Her Majesty's technique.