Chapter 95
After coming to the Garden, I had plenty of suspicions, but the farther I went, the more they turned into certainty.
A wand whose magic had filled for no reason, a world resembling the fairy tales Alice liked, and chocolate unlike anything found in the Abyss.
The soldiers' claim that the 'reward' the Queen had given the knights was chocolate was enough to erase my last remaining doubt.
'...It's her.'
No one else would do something like this.
It's not some Abyssal One connected to that woman. It's the woman herself. There was no other way to explain it.
But... if that's true...?
That crazy woman was alive in the Abyss, commanded dozens of S-rank or stronger Abyssal Ones, and had combat power beyond even that, since she had already subdued those Abyssal Ones once.
...She had grown even stronger than when she had operated as Alice.
'Th-this crazy bitch...'
What she had accomplished wasn't simply building a country and playing at being a nation.
How much blood must have been spilled beneath the fact that she had become the ruler of Abyssal Ones, who had to invade other dimensions to survive?
And if she was the owner of this crazy Garden who went around collecting hearts to harvest roses, then just how much more...
-Sway...
'...I should have finished her off then.'
I had effectively sent the monster away from Earth to a higher dimension, only to scatter it across even more dimensions.
If I had somehow managed to move my body back then and finish her off.
If I couldn't walk, I should have crawled onto her body and strangled her.
Then countless lives in other dimensions might not have been sacrificed to that crazy woman's game...
[Alice. Are you all right? You look pale, unlike Alice.]
'...I was imagining something unpleasant for a moment.'
[You mean the doppelganger? Chocolate... It's a snack known to be Alice's favorite. Perhaps it really is connected to this Garden.]
'...Alice is certain now. That woman called the Queen is probably Alice's doppelganger.'
-Crack
It was a desperate situation.
Even when she was a magical girl, that crazy woman had beaten S-rank Abyssal Ones by herself. In the Abyss, she had grown even stronger and commanded dozens of S-rank Abyssal Ones beneath her. If those forces ever invaded Earth, Earth would be instantly annihi...
'...Why isn't she coming?'
-Freeze
The thought that had been stretching out stopped there.
I knew why Abyssal Ones didn't destroy dimensions. They had to keep draining their energy.
But... wasn't that woman in a slightly different situation?
She had barely escaped to the Abyss while on the verge of death because of me. By ordinary logic, it would be natural for her to want to return to Earth and take revenge on me.
But had I ever heard anything about the 'Garden' on Earth? I had never heard anything about card Abyssal Ones appearing, and the only person who had ever mentioned the Garden was the knight I met.
Yet it hadn't felt as though that knight had invaded with Earth as his target. He had seemed like one of the countless Abyssal Ones who went out hunting as usual.
Something was strange. That crazy woman was so impossible to predict that she might have simply started a new life in the Abyss without harboring any particular desire for revenge. But she would still know about Earth, wouldn't she?
She hadn't sent soldiers specifically to attack, nor had she come herself. A subordinate had come, but he seemed not to know that Earth was Earth.
'...Momo. I have a hypothesis.'
A hypothesis suddenly occurred to me.
'In the Abyss... is it impossible to choose which dimension you go to when leaving for another dimension?'
It was a hypothesis that could resolve all the questions so far... and a horrifying hypothesis that made the despair of our current situation even worse.
The hypothesis that even that crazy woman couldn't reach Earth.
[You said the Abyss invades hundreds or thousands of dimensions. That is a reasonable hypothesis. It would mean that, while there is only one passage from Earth to the Abyss, from the Abyss's perspective, there are hundreds or thousands of passages leading out to other dimensions.]
'...Then what about us?'
[There must be a way. If it comes to that, Momo will cooperate so that we can spend the rest of our lives in another dimension similar to Earth, even if it isn't Earth itself.]
'...I'll take the sentiment.'
I swallowed the words '...for now.' If there truly was no way to return to Earth, I would have to grasp even that thread of hope.
* * *
Kidnapping an Abyssal One wasn't a difficult process. In the Abyss, it was strange... no, it was probably because of that Han Serin woman's presence that my magic was overflowing, and thanks to that, I could use Stellar Shift without much strain as long as the calculations held up.
<Mph! Mmph!>
"Now, shut up. I'll give you a choice. Option 1. Answer my questions obediently. Option 2. Get torn apart from head to toe into sixteen pieces. There are plenty of cards besides you."
-Nod nod nod nod!
...What could I expect from Abyssal Ones? Just like the card soldier I'd interrogated before, these creatures put their own safety before their loyalty.
Ultimately, the card soldiers had entered the Garden because they didn't want to die in the Abyss outside it and wanted to live a stable life. Their own safety was naturally their highest priority.
I interrogated about two card soldiers this way. Based on the information I obtained, that was an appropriate number who could be written off as deserters or victims of unfortunate accidents and disappear without anyone caring.
They were only playing at being soldiers, but their true nature was that of Abyssal Ones. There was no genuine comradeship between them. They refrained from pointing their swords at one another only because of the Garden's rules; if a rule appeared saying that anyone who stabbed their senior to death the next day would be promoted directly to that rank, they would stab him at once.
And the result I obtained that way was... a despairing result that matched my prediction.
"...Sigh."
[We'll have to think it over.]
It was exactly as Momo and I had hypothesized.
The Abyss was a vast dimension connected to hundreds or thousands of other dimensions. Even Abyssal Ones with territories found it difficult to single out and travel to a specific dimension from the Abyss.
It was common sense that the greater the power one possessed, the more power it took to transport it.
The more powerful an Abyssal One was, the more energy it needed to cross dimensions. Apparently, they weren't simply seen rarely because there were so few of them.
But a powerful entity that already required so much energy also wanted to target a specific dimension? Before energy, it needed 'coordinates.'
If one could identify the coordinates indicating the desired dimension, opening a passage leading there was entirely possible. Without them, it was practically madness.
Just as the planets in the universe moved endlessly, coordinates changed in real time rather than remaining fixed once identified. It was impossible to obtain the coordinates of a desired dimension by grinding up weak Abyssal Ones, either.
They said the only way to reach a desired dimension without coordinates was for the person who wanted to go there to jump into passages personally until the desired dimension appeared. That would at least drop them into one of the countless dimensions connected to the Abyss, and if it wasn't the one they wanted, they could return and try again.
...Naturally, it was insane. Doing something like that in the Abyss, where energy was both life and currency, was no different from opening a random loot box costing a hundred million per pull with no odds given. And it was an all-or-nothing box, where anything but the jackpot meant complete failure.
And...
'...If it were her, she'd do it and then some.'
The Han Serin I knew was someone who couldn't be judged by common sense.
A crazy woman who could undertake even this insanity without hesitation. A crazy woman who could build a country in the Abyss to support her search for a way back to Earth, then grow it to an enormous scale...
...was my younger sister.
* * *
-Whirr...
"..."
"Senior... did something happen?"
Black Rose's condition grew worse with every passing day.
Even I was getting worn out from maintaining my transformation, so how could a rookie like her hold out? It was visibly clear that she had already reached her limit simply by remaining transformed.
-Crack
...Should I tell her?
At present, there was no way to return to Earth.
If the information I'd obtained was true, and if that was indeed why Han Serin had been unable to return to Earth...
-Squeeze
"...Miss Black Rose. What if..."
"Yes?"
"............Never mind."
"Yes..."
In the end, the question that had begun to leave my open mouth never came out.
If we couldn't return to Earth, would she consider going to another dimension instead?
"..."
It was a truly cruel question.
It wasn't a matter of changing one's nationality, but one's dimension. There was no guarantee another world would even look like Earth. It could be a city filled with the sorts of aliens that only appeared in movies.
Beyond language and culture, it could be a place where the species itself was entirely different. Asking whether she wanted to live somewhere literally in another dimension... Honestly, if I were her, I'd probably rather die unless the environment beyond it was extraordinarily good.
'...This was my choice.'
I hugged my knees while staring at the lamp Momo had made, which cast a gentle orange light.
It was all my choice.
If I wanted to survive, I could live on my own well enough. I was the one who had come in with Han Serin because I wanted to find her.
I was also the one who had brought Black Rose. More precisely...
'...What if it had been that woman?'
Her rank was higher than Black Rose's, so she would have held out a little better. That didn't mean I could expect meaningful combat power from her in the Abyss, but a B-rank support-type magical girl would have been very helpful in many ways.
If I had been truly serious and cold-blooded about conquering the Abyss, bringing Mia would have been the right choice.
But why?
At the moment when I had to choose between someone I could definitely save and someone with little chance of survival, why had I chosen to save that woman without hesitation?
Statistically, choosing the other option would have given me a better chance of saving them both.
'...She'll be all right.'
Now that I had some breathing room in the Abyss, I found myself thinking about Earth.
I had said that I would return, at least. But that couldn't be helped. If I had wept and thrown a fit about dying there, the people left behind would only have worried more. I had merely needed to disappear with the dignity of Alice.
Earth wouldn't collapse overnight just because I was gone, but Aia had thrown her wand at me, so the two strongest combat forces among the S-rank magical girls had suddenly been removed. It probably wouldn't happen very soon, but if even one more S-rank Abyssal One appeared in the meantime, it might be quicker to start preparing to emigrate.
"...Let's get some sleep."
"Yes... Good night."
"...Sleep well, Miss Black Rose."
-Rustle
The long hair reaching down to my waist, which had become as familiar as my own body over the years, felt uncomfortable today.
-Trill...
'...I can't sleep.'
Apparently my insomnia had flared up again.
I fell asleep for a moment, woke up, fell asleep, and woke up again over and over before finally losing my patience and sitting up.
Still, enough time had passed during that interval that Black Rose seemed to have fallen asleep.
-Slip
"...Momo. Everything all right?"
[We seem to have chosen a good location for the hideout. Still, long tails are bound to get caught, so let's watch for the right time and prepare to move.]
"I think so too... By the way... the Abyss's night sky..."
---------------Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
"Ghk?!"
At that moment, an ear-splitting ringing came from somewhere beyond us.
It was a cry devoid of any sense of life. A horrifying ringing, as if death itself had taken form and envied the living.
That ringing was echoing from somewhere in the Garden.
'What on earth is that sou...'
At the moment when the sound, which pierced through even covered ears, made me want to dig them out...
"Oh my. Jabberwock. Why are you crying so sorrowfully? Did your toy break?"
-Chill
A small voice carried to me on the wind.
Unlike the horrifying voice echoing through the Garden, it was an ordinary human voice, a melodious voice that most people would describe as pleasant.
"All right. This is the end of today's walk. Let's go inside and rest. If you're feeling down, forcing yourself to take a walk will only make you more depressed."
...And it was the voice I had been using while talking with Momo just moments ago.