Chapter 105: You Call That an Answer?

"......"

She was alive. She was breathing, and she could speak properly, too.

No strange wound was visible on her neck. In a Garden so bizarrely obsessed with beheading people, I had thought it wouldn't be strange if her head had been cut off already, but there wasn't even a single red line.

...An obvious intruder in a Garden that beheaded not only knights but even headless card soldiers. The fact that it still hadn't cut off the head of an opponent who couldn't put up any resistance meant it was reasonable to assume it wanted something.

"...What do you want."

Han Serin wasn't... a stupid bitch. She often behaved incomprehensibly, but when it came to this, she was actually extremely meticulous and cunning.

-Squeeze...

"...If you haven't killed me, then you must want something."

The staff she always carried felt unusually heavy today.

It might have been because I was extremely exhausted right now, but it could also have been because its original owner was standing before me.

"Huh? Oppa, why do you think I didn't kill you because I wanted something? That's like saying that if I didn't want anything, I would have killed you as a matter of course."

"Don't spout nonsense when you know everything. You already know what I'm talking about."

"Ahh. If you put it that way, you're cutting off the conversation, Oppa. I want to talk with you more, but when you answer as if you don't want to talk, it hurts my feelings."

-Crack

...What a fucking bitch.

-Tremble...

I had never been particularly good-natured to begin with, but the reason I couldn't help using even harsher language was surely the terror engraved into me.

They say the more frightened an animal is, the louder it barks.

That saying fit perfectly.

What the hell is she...?

After I'd spent some time working as a magical girl, sensing an opponent's aura to gauge their strength had become the most basic of basics.

But this girl... I couldn't feel anything.

She was obviously dangerous. Considering everything she'd done up to now, it wouldn't have been strange if I had fainted from shock while sensing her aura.

Nothing. I couldn't feel anything.

Just like in the old days. Just as she had been back then, when magical girls and Abyssal Ones didn't even exist in the world, smiling brightly as she told me fairy tales.

"Mmm~ Still, since Oppa became Alice as perfectly as—or rather, even more perfectly than—I expected... I'll forgive you. For entering the Garden, and for using the Garden's things however you pleased. Oh, I'll forgive you for hurting the soldiers and knights, too. Abyssal Ones get replenished again soon anyway."

"...Aren't they your subjects?"

"Hmm? Well, yes. But they're Abyssal Ones."

"..."

The more we talked, the more I felt like something was off.

Even if they were Abyssal Ones, weren't they subjects she'd gathered through her own hard work? No matter that I was her older brother, shouldn't she at least get angry if I'd hurt them?

-Smile

"What's wrong, Oppa? This is our reunion after so long. I'll listen to anything you have to say. Go ahead."

"...What the hell is your objective?"

"Ah-hah."

That innocent smile. That innocent smile, which had never cracked no matter what happened, had already been burned so deeply into my mind that it would never disappear.

When I closed my eyes to sleep, that smile and her laughter lingered by my ears, and sometimes they appeared even when I opened my eyes.

"I said I'd listen, but I never said I'd answer, did I? That's something Oppa can figure out well enough on his own. I don't think I'll tell you."

"...You little sh—..."

"Still, here. Take them with you."

-Swish!

-Whoosh!

-Grab!

?!

"They're your companions, aren't they, Oppa? Or is one of them a junior? Either way, Alice shouldn't abandon her companions. So take them with you."

"..."

-Stare

The flexible sword she had been holding coiled around Black Rose and Momo, then tossed them toward me.

...They weren't injured. In fact, the arm that had fallen off earlier was attached again.

...Why?

"...What the hell do you want?"

"No, Oppa. That's a question you've already asked. Wouldn't it be more fun to ask why crows and desks resemble each other?"

...She had always been like this.

She loved riddles, so she never answered anything straightforwardly, and the answers to those riddles were usually absurdly strange interpretations.

"Hmm... But since you're my Oppa and we haven't seen each other in so long, I'll give you a hint. I've never changed, not once, since I was Alice. This is who I am."

As she said that, she spun around as if proudly showing off an outfit quite different from the one she'd worn as Alice.

...The magic of hers that Tokkaengi had once told me about.

To her, magic was... 'revealing oneself to the world exactly as one is.'

We were twins, but she was my exact opposite.

It was an utterly ridiculous thing for someone who had played at being Alice to claim, but that was who she was.

That girl truly... As Alice, as the Queen of Hearts, and as Han Serin. She considered all of those to be aspects of her "self."

The way she constantly changed what she said, changed her own appearance, deceived and misled others, and always showed an utterly unpredictable side...

To her, that was "her own appearance."

"Oh, right. But I'd like you to refrain from public displays of affection in the Garden I've worked so hard to cultivate. Of course, I'd welcome it if it were with me... but I'm not ready to meet my sister-in-law yet, you know?"

The way she put her hands to both cheeks and shook her head as if embarrassed might have looked genuinely bashful to anyone watching, but I knew that wasn't sincere in the slightest.

"...How did you reattach her arm? Did you have an ability like that?"

"Are you only asking now how I've been all this time? If you're that preoccupied with just your sister-in-law..."

"...I might get jealous."

-Shudder!

Her voice suddenly dropped. Merely hearing it made the horrible memories engraved into my body and soul begin to creep back up.

My trembling arm instinctively tightened its grip on the staff in my hand, and the muscles in my legs contracted.

Black Rose, held in one arm... My arm had tensed, but I couldn't pull her any closer.

...My body moved that way. It had nothing to do with my will.

"Mm. You do remember well, Oppa? Then I'll answer you, too. It's nothing special. In the Abyss, reattaching a severed limb is simple. Regenerating a completely missing part takes a lot of energy, but for something like that, you just join it with a little Abyssal magic and ta-da, it's attached."

"...You reattached her arm with Abyssal magic?!"

"This is pretty fun and familiar once you try it, too. It feels different from mascot magic, but the fundamentals are similar in the end, you know? Like the difference between milk chocolate and dark chocolate? Hmm... It's hard to put into words. I can't think of a proper comparison."

"Then the side effects...!!"

"Well, think about that after you get back. Hmm. Kariel is still alive, right? Then the hospital must still be operating, too. Kariel will take a look at it."

"You call that an answer...!!"

I'd put something strange in someone else's arm, and she said what? That the hospital would take care of it? She said it so casually...

.........Wait a minute. What did she say?

"...Get back?"

"Yeah. You have to go back. Why? Are you planning to stay in the Garden? If so, I'd be happy to have you."

...Of course I wasn't planning to do that. If I could return, I intended to go back right now.

I absolutely didn't want to stay in this Garden any longer.

...But why was she the one saying that?

Of course, the one I thought would...

...keep me trapped here.

...What the hell is your objective?

Even if I gave her the benefit of the doubt a hundred times over, I could accept her letting us go willingly.

But the fact that this meant we could return to "Earth" was another matter entirely.

I had already determined from the information I'd collected in the Garden that she had no way to pinpoint "Earth" and cross dimensions to reach it. So why was someone like that now telling us to go back to Earth? How? Did she think we knew a way?

"...I heard that in the Abyss, you can't cross over without the coordinates of a specific dimension."

"Yeah. That's right. So I don't have a way to return to Earth, either."

"...Are you saying I do?"

"That's my Oppa. You're good at interpreting what I say. Think about it, Oppa. The mascots. Haven't they been in pretty bad shape since coming to the Abyss? Not merely bad shape—they were completely unconscious, weren't they?"

"......"

How much did she know?

She knew practically everything I'd done after arriving at my Garden.

"Mascots are basically expendable tools, you see. If they fall into an enemy's stronghold, they have no choice but to enter power-saving mode to prevent information leaks. Actually, the safest method would be to dispose of them entirely, but magical girls and mascots are bound by fate, so they can't do that as long as one side is still alive."

"..."

Black Rose had been unconscious since earlier. It was fortunate she hadn't heard me and that girl calling each other Oppa and dongsaeng all this time.

If she had heard... No. I don't know.

"Mm. So to get straight to the conclusion, you and that potential sister-in-law of mine will probably be able to return to Earth. You're both still connected to your mascots, and the mascots must have guaranteed coordinates for the dimension to which they were dispatched. Other people won't be able to use them, but the respective contractors should be able to."

Think. There's no way she'd let me go that easily.

There must be a reason she's letting me go...

..................No way.

"...You. What are you planning to do if we return to Earth?"

"I'm planning to gather as many virtual coordinates as possible. Because of the nature of the Abyss, I won't be able to use those coordinates to travel myself, but I can narrow down the range. If the original range is 100, I expect I can reduce it to around 20."

"You think I'll stand by and watch that?! Rather than drag a monster like you to Earth...!"

"Yes. You'll go, Oppa."

Her voice was filled with certainty.

It was the kind of certain statement that occasionally emerged from that girl, who was always full of deception and lies.

"If you were alone, maybe not, but you have companions, right? A wonderful Alice like you can't abandon her companions."

".........I..."

"Ah, sending that woman alone while Oppa stays in the Garden? I won't allow that. You have to return to Earth, Oppa. Because that's what I've decided."

"Alice always leaves Wonderland in the end and returns to her original world."

...It was an absolute declaration from the Alice of the past to the Alice of the present.