Chapter 62
I had read almost all the letters. There was nothing special about them. They said things like, “I’m always watching over you,” “I’ll always support you,” “Thank you for saving me back then,” and “Please appear on broadcasts more often.” They were all standard fan letters, the kind fans commonly sent to magical girls.
Well, one or two fans had worked up a little courage and asked why Alice had been appearing on broadcasts so infrequently, saying they wanted to see her more often, but the rest hadn’t even asked that. Given the nature of magical girls who operated while hiding their identities, they probably felt it would be rude to ask carelessly when they didn’t know what circumstances might be involved.
There had even been cases where it was revealed that a magical girl had been unable to work much because she was caring for a sick family member. Considering situations like that, even asking could burden the other person and be impolite.
‘I don’t really care, though.’
Didn’t I say so? Whether they were fans or anti-fans, I didn’t feel anything because I wasn’t Alice.
Whether they urged me to be more active or not, they weren’t my fans in the first place, so why would I care? I would go out if I needed money. Otherwise, I wouldn’t.
And right now, I had nowhere to spend money... so I could take a break for a while.
‘...Alice’s stock has already risen too much recently.’
My policy for operating as Alice was ‘not attracting too much attention.’ Even when I went out as a magical girl, I simply returned after defeating the Abyss One, without providing any unnecessary fan service. I had also limited the programs and works I appeared in to those where I could merely give a brief sign that I was still alive.
The reason I didn’t disappear completely was that it was impossible to erase myself from the world entirely without retiring in the first place...
‘...I have to eat and live somehow.’
I did have some money saved, but it wasn’t enough to spend the rest of my life playing around and doing nothing. I needed a steady source of income at a reasonable level.
Even so, things were a little dangerous at the moment. I had appeared on a program where I could earn a large amount of money in a short time because I urgently needed to pay for repairs to my house, but the result had been far greater than I expected.
The Alice fandom, which I had thought was practically dead, had regained this much strength.
-Scritch
‘But I can’t exactly kill it for real.’
Not in a physical sense, of course... I could probably make the fandom disintegrate in no time by causing a few controversies under Alice’s name, but wouldn’t the aftermath be far too troublesome?
-Riiip
“Anyway, this is the last letter. The internet... I’ll read that later.”
[Is there anything special about the last one?]
“No. It’s only the last one because I opened it last. I’ll give it a read...”
<This letter started in England and...>
“Mm. I won’t need this.”
-Flop
Just as I was about to fold up the letter I had opened and tear it apart, I noticed writing on the other side that had been revealed as I closed it.
<Oh dear. Were you going to close it after reading only the first sentence? Aia worked hard on this. It’s a handmade letter written by Aia’s pretty hands, without even being printed, so I would really appreciate it if you read it. Judging people by their first impression, or letters by their first sentence, is a bad habit.>
[...So that’s what she says?]
“If you were going to tell me not to judge it by the first sentence, you shouldn’t have started with the first sentence of a chain letter...”
What an unbelievable woman.
Still, she had gone to the trouble of writing it. It felt unpleasant, as though she were playing with me, but I unfolded it again and started reading.
............
“It’s really just a chain letter?!”
I had thought the content after the first sentence would be legitimate, so I read it carefully, but it was nothing but a chain letter from beginning to end.
When I went back to the side I had folded earlier, I found another folded section beneath the sentence telling me to read to the end, so I unfolded it.
<However, in order not to be deceived by the world, one must also develop the ability to infer ten after seeing only one.>
“Isn’t this woman fucking insane?”
<Alice doesn’t say things like that.>
“Isn’t she writing this in real time while watching me and composing it?”
<There are no eavesdropping or camera devices, so you may rest assured. No matter how much Aia likes someone, she would never do something so cowardly.>
“...”
What the actual fuck was wrong with this woman?
It wasn’t as though new sentences were being created in real time, either. They had been written like this from the beginning. I hadn’t felt as if the sentences were changing in real time within my field of vision. I couldn’t sense any particular magic in the letter, either.
“...A letter prank this elaborate really shows dedication. I don’t even have the energy to get angry.”
[...Are letters usually like this?]
“As if.”
[Then do people who do this exist sometimes, even if not often?]
“I said, as if.”
It didn’t even happen occasionally. This woman was uniquely insane.
What did she think a letter was, anyway?
“...There can’t be anything else now.”
[Maybe there’s something else if you turn it over?]
“Don’t tell me she twisted it around one more time...”
<It isn’t over until we say it’s over.>
“...”
I wasn’t even angry anymore.
By this point, though, I was beginning to feel competitive. It was only natural that I couldn’t help being curious about what awaited me at the end of this godforsaken prank.
When I searched carefully, I found another folded section on this side as well. When I unfolded it...
<Now it’s over. The End. The Eeeend.>
“For fuck’s sake.”
<The fact that you’ve read this far means Alice played along nicely with Aia’s game, doesn’t it? Now for the real letter. I believe Alice learned this in elementary-school science class. Light a candle or a lighter and hold the paper up to the light. If you didn’t even graduate elementary school, I regret to inform you of that.>
“I did graduate...”
<Well, if Alice, who uses magic related to celestial bodies, hadn’t even graduated elementary school, that would be shocking in its own way. For the record, Aia did graduate.>
Compulsory education, after all.
...No, why was I responding to every single one of these?
[...You seem to be secretly enjoying this.]
“Shut up. Bring me a lighter.”
[What if this is bait too?]
“Then I’ll just take the bait. I can’t not look after coming this far.”
I felt like I was being played exactly as Aia intended, but I still couldn’t decide not to look just because I assumed it would be another prank.
I made a flame with the lighter I used when smoking and held the letter over it. Writing appeared.
<Hold it over the main body where the chain letter was, not here.>
“...Would it really have hurt her to write it here?”
It was irritating, but I held it over the main body again. If it was disappointing this time, she had better really watch out. If she thought Alice’s concept meant I would never get angry, I would show her that she was mistaken...
<Thank you for your hard work. I will always support you. From your fan, Aia.>
“...”
[The last part is normal, at least?]
“This can’t be the end. There must be some more bait somewhere.”
[That’s paranoia.]
“Do I look like I could avoid becoming paranoid? I’ve been baited several times now. This can’t be the end.”
<Ah. I didn’t write that it was the end. It is the end. This time, it’s not ‘Eeeend,’ but actually the end.>
“...That’s what she says.”
[So this is what letters are like. Human letters are strange.]
“No, they aren’t.”
...I had wondered whether there might be something special after all that elaborate baiting, but what an anticlimactic ending.
If she was only going to write something that simple, couldn’t she have written just that in the letter from the start? It wasn’t as though she were some attention seeker baiting people for pointless attention on the internet.
“...Jeez. I worried for nothing. Let’s just go to sleep.”
For a woman ranked first in S-rank, she was truly unpredictable.
...As someone playing a concept-obsessed character just as much as Aia, I felt a little like I was calling the kettle black, but what could I do when it was true?
A woman ranked first in S-rank had sent a letter to her colleague, repeated this sort of bait several times, and finally said nothing more than a clichéd line of support.
‘Magical girls really are all nuts.’
That’s probably why they became magical girls. If they were normal, they never would have done something like this.
...Me included.
“Sigh.”
When I let out a deep sigh and closed my eyes, my aching eyes finally began to rest from reading the letters. I had done quite a lot today. I had even gone all the way to the company and gone through the trouble of bringing the box home.
I had ultimately asked Mia for help, but given my personality, asking someone else to do something like that had itself taken considerable effort.
Even if it was fake, I had read every letter you sent, so be satisfied with that much.
Normally, I would have thrown them all away, but I had said on the broadcast that I would read them, so I really did.
* * *
[Mmm... Alice must be too sleepy to have heard properly. How many did you say? ( -᷄ω-᷅ )]
[Yes... About thirty letters arrived through the post office this morning alone. And the posts on the site have also increased explosively. It seems many people posted them during the night. I came in to work and am currently deleting the prank posts, but judging by the ratio, it looks like about thirty posts have been added as well.]
[A lot of people who like Alice have come looking for her. The shoot is tomorrow, right? I’m counting on you until then.₍ᐢ•༝•⑅ᐢ₎ദ⸒⸒]
[Yes. I’ve made arrangements so you can come and pick them up today... Hmm... but this time, I don’t think one box will be enough. You should prepare yourself for at least four boxes about the size of yesterday’s... Will that be all right? If necessary, I can drive you home immediately.]
[Alice will think about it too. Thank you for being so considerate, Miss Sapphire.]
[It’s only natural. It’s my job. Then, have a good day.]
“...Tokkaengi. My eyes must be puffy. I can’t make out the numbers.”
[Can you at least see it as fifty?]
“No... She said there were thirty more in a single day. On both sides.”
[Unless my eyes have gone strange too, that sounds normal. Tomorrow is the day of the shoot, so noon tomorrow is effectively the deadline. In that case, the most will probably come in today and tomorrow morning. Aren’t letters usually delivered in the morning?]
“...Ugh. I really hate this.”
I had gone to all that trouble dealing with things yesterday, only for them to multiply several times over today. It looked like I was going to spend the entire day staring at my monitor and reading posts.
[...Oh, Sejin.]
“Whenever you say that, it usually means an Abyss One has appeared... Why are we being dispatched first thing in the morning...?”
[Uh... It can’t be helped, right...?]
“...Life is really hard.”
When I transformed while rubbing my eyes, my hair suddenly grew long, and I heard it settle onto the bed.
Before heading out, I looked in the mirror and saw that even as Alice, my eyes still looked a little dazed, showing that I hadn’t fully woken up. I lightly slapped both cheeks with my palms to clear my head. I didn’t hit them hard on purpose. It would be troublesome if they left marks.
“Ahem, ahem. Mm. Good.”
[You’re always bad at morning dispatches.]
“Shut up. Everyone is bad in the morning.”
How many people could be perfectly composed in an emergency that had dragged them out of bed? There were probably superhumans like that somewhere, but aside from being a magical girl, I was an ordinary person. The urge to sleep wasn’t one of humanity’s three primal urges for nothing...
...But now that I thought about it, wasn’t it actually rare for me to sleep well in the first place because of my insomnia?
“...I’m heading out for now!”
-Fwoosh!
An Abyss One had appeared first thing in the morning. Whoever it was, they were going to pay dearly for taking away my chance to lie around comfortably in bed for the first time in ages.