Chapter 12
[S#.61 Blood-Soaked Street (Night)]
Meat chunks wearing school uniforms are strewn everywhere, enough to trip over.
Trump cards, crowns, corpses drenched in red, and corpses torn apart.
At the center of that backdrop, Alice sits collapsed on the ground.
Alice: I don't want to... Please, stop now...
The girl mutters to herself.
Shackles are fastened around her ankles.
The chain is connected to something in front of her.
-Kieeeeeeeek!!!
A grotesque cry rings out.
The girl's face turns deathly pale.
Alice: Ah... Because of me, all of this... It's all because of me...
Alice: Someone like me should have died from the very beginning.
A shadow falls over the girl.
As if she has given up, the girl does not resist.
She stares at the player beyond the camera.
Alice: Run.
A close-up of her trembling blue eyes.
Shadows writhe within her pupils.
Alice: Before I... become a monster.
Crunch. The girl dies without being able to finish her sentence.
Her upper body is torn apart, leaving only the lower half sprawled on the ground.
Afterward, the academy collapses.
The screen zooms out, and blurred subtitles appear.
[Save me.]
Nightmare.
The video ends.
***
“S-sorry for spying on you...!”
The girl lies face-down on the ground, apologizing over and over.
Her distinctive combination of black hair and blue eyes was striking.
A girl I had encountered countless times in the original illustrations, character PVs, and cutscenes.
The supporting character I cherished most.
‘Alice.’
It was a familiar face, but I had no time to express my joy at seeing her.
Because the girl in front of me suddenly began to whimper.
The sound of her sniffling and swallowing her tears.
“Ugh, um... S-sorry. I-I didn't mean to do it on purpose...”
Tears glistened around her eyes.
This was exactly how she had looked in the original.
Even though I hadn't said anything, the girl shrank back in fear before I could do anything.
Alice, the loner.
“Please forgive me...”
“······.”
Something was strange.
Even if I had suddenly appeared from behind her, she seemed excessively frightened.
I knew that Alice was a crybaby in the original, but...
Was she really this bad?
Bad enough to have a meltdown just from running into another person?
I was feeling both bewildered and puzzled when—
“I don't want to sprint around the field at full speed for five hours while standing on my head...”
“Huh?”
“Sniff... I don't want to spin on my head and shout ‘three, two, one, go, shoot’ while everyone crashes into each other in that weird game, either...”
“What?”
“I don't want to move around by doing forward rolls all day, either...”
“······.”
They were truly bizarre sentences.
A chill ran down my spine.
‘This is...’
The Reverse Sprint game.
The Top Blade game.
The Sonic game.
‘······That's me, isn't it?’
They were the games I had played excitedly with my classmates until yesterday.
Though technically, I had only taken on the role of referee...
As I stood there blankly for a moment, the bat in my breast pocket began to wriggle.
[It seems she saw you bullying those children.]
“No...”
[I told you to take it easy on them. It would be strange if she weren't frightened after seeing something like that.]
“······.”
I had nothing to say.
Alice showed no sign of calming down.
I couldn't bring myself to approach her carelessly, so I just scratched my head.
Perhaps she had grown curious, because the princess cautiously poked her head out.
[But... this is strange.]
‘What do you mean?’
[That child... Alice, was it? She definitely hasn't appeared in the classroom these past several days, yet she seems to know everything that happened inside, doesn't she?]
‘It's probably thanks to her ability.’
Alice's ability.
Nightmare (惡夢).
One of hundreds of variations.
A Dream of a Strange Form (異形一夢),
‘Though only within a limited range, she can see the world through the eyes of a target of her choosing.’
The original game's third calamity route.
Whenever the story veered toward this ending, there were more sacrifices than I could count.
Alice, running rampant.
The seed of calamity that had bloomed into a flower.
The girl knew the location and circumstances of everyone in the surrounding area.
Thus, hiding and escaping were impossible in the story.
Everyone was murdered at an absurd speed.
One of the most difficult stages in the original game.
‘She may look this frail right now, but...’
I sank into thought by myself.
After all, she was the calamity responsible for perhaps the most brutal episode in the original.
[What a remarkable ability. From your explanation, I can't understand why she is the bottom-ranked student in the lowest class.]
‘It's not quite that simple. Its duration is short, and the targets it can be applied to are limited. To share their vision, she must hold affection for them, and they must hold affection for her as well. There is also a condition that they must have made physical contact at least once in reality.’
Of course, even those restrictions become meaningless after she awakens as [Queen].
A power capable of threatening not only the academy, but the peace of the entire continent.
That was the potential Alice possessed.
[I understand that she watched the classroom these past several days. If so, whose eyes was she using? It was only the first day of school. Did she even have time to fulfill all those troublesome conditions?]
‘It was probably Professor Jaber.’
[That stiff child?]
‘Yes. The two of them are connected. Jaber is the dean's adopted daughter, while Alice was a student the dean recruited in the past. They must have met many times because of that.’
[Recruited... But how does Victor know all this?]
‘I can read people's hearts a little.’
[Really?!]
‘No.’
The bat wriggled at my brief joke.
She pounded my chest in displeasure, but continued to glance at Alice, who was still lying face-down.
[······Indeed, that aura is not particularly agreeable.]
‘You can feel it? As expected of a pureblood, perhaps.’
[It's not as though I can read the source of her power.]
‘I recommend that you don't try. Reading it carelessly could leave aftereffects.’
Perhaps it was an instinctive response.
Carmilla seemed to be wary of Alice.
As a pureblood vampire, she probably sensed far more information than I did.
I gently calmed the princess down.
‘Well... there is no reason for us to be hostile toward her.’
After saying that, I took a step toward Alice.
I held out my hand, as if telling her to take it and stand up.
I spoke in as gentle a voice as possible.
“Shall we calm down first? I understand that you were very startled.”
“······Huh?”
Perhaps she hadn't expected such a kind response.
The girl blinked blankly at the hand extended toward her.
What did she really take me for?
If someone fell down, helping them was only natural.
But I swallowed even that complaint, since it might provoke her.
“I'm sorry for suddenly appearing. I was rude. I suppose I acted before thinking because I thought someone was watching me.”
“Ah, yes...?”
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
“Y-yes... Th-thank you.”
When I apologized first, a question mark seemed to appear above the girl's head.
Alice hesitated, but eventually accepted my help and got to her feet.
Her tears had stopped, but her eyes were still rimmed with red.
I rummaged through my robe and held something out as if performing a magic trick.
“Ta-da. Wipe your tears with this.”
“······A handkerchief and a balloon flower?”
“The flower is a gift.”
“Ah, um... I'll accept it gratefully.”
Despite her trembling voice, Alice accepted both items.
I raised both hands to emphasize my harmlessness.
“Please don't be so wary. I have absolutely no intention of harming you.”
“S-sorry... I was so startled that, um, I just...”
“It's all right. I am very favorably disposed toward Miss Alice.”
“What? How did you know my name...?”
“May I ask why you were in a place like that?”
“Ah, well...”
Thank goodness.
I had made a minor slip, but the momentum of the conversation carried us past it.
Though still fidgety, Alice answered in a trembling voice.
“I-I lost something, so I was looking for it... Then I happened to see someone passing by, and I-I hid behind the tree without thinking...”
“You hid behind the tree?”
“Yes...”
She was terribly frightened.
Alice seemed awkward around people, constantly sneaking glances at me to gauge my reaction.
She was, in a word, the sort of sight that stirred one's protective instincts.
“S-sorry... I'm just a little afraid of people...”
“I see.”
“That's why I've been skipping the academy for the past several days...”
Alice falls into corruption right after becoming a third-year student.
As the status window had shown me, I had two years to spare.
To prevent the Nightmare from consuming her, the first thing I needed to prepare was...
‘First, I need to earn her favor.’
I had to lower Alice's guard before I could access her Nightmare.
It was an indispensable step in preventing the manifestation of Nightmare <Wonderland>.
However, the problem was...
‘If she's this terrified, there won't even be a chance to win her favor...’
How should I win her over?
While I was pondering that for a moment—
‘Ah.’
That's it.
Having thought of something, I immediately pulled a crystal orb from inside my robe.
A portable crystal orb provided to students during their stay at the academy.
“May I ask what you lost?”
“Ah, well... It was a necklace...”
“I see.”
Tap, tap-.
I tapped the small screen several times.
After selecting several people, I sent them a brief message.
“Don't worry, Miss Alice.”
“Yes...?”
“Victor and his friends will help you.”
All right.
Bread shuttles, assemble.
***
A little while later.
Alice's necklace was safely found among the bushes.
“I found it.”
“Ah...!”
When I held out the necklace, the girl's face lit up.
Her anxious blue eyes sparkled for the first time.
Alice drew closer with a delighted expression.
“Th-thank you...!”
“You're welcome.”
The necklace had been found in only thirty minutes.
Besides Alice and me, seven people had helped with the search.
Through the bushes, I could see the shuttles sitting there with exhausted eyes.
“B-but... I never told you what the necklace looked like or anything. H-how did you find it?”
“Who knows?”
A necklace set with a blue crystal.
I gave her a vague answer.
After all, I had seen it countless times while playing the original game.
It was an item that would later become the key to an episode.
“It's a secret.”
It was a rather suspicious way to brush her off, but Alice didn't seem to care.
She was simply happy to have recovered something precious to her.
“How can I ever thank you...?”
“It's all right. I only helped because I wanted to.”
“E-even so...”
“You said we're in the same class. Now that fate has brought us together, how could I not help you?”
Alice continued to gauge my reaction.
She repeatedly lowered her head.
“Even so, I have to repay you somehow...”
“Then how about this? Be friends with me from now on.”
“Huh...?”
“The semester has only just begun. I didn't have any classmates I was close with, either, so I was just thinking that I needed someone to spend the semester with.”
“B-be friends... Is that really all it takes?”
“Yes. Or do you dislike me, Miss Alice?”
“N-no...! That's not what I meant...”
“I'm only joking.”
The words passed lightly between us.
Compared to when we first met, the atmosphere had eased considerably.
Afterward, Alice thanked me several more times before finally leaving.
“Thank you again!”
“See you tomorrow, Miss Alice.”
“Ah... Th-thank you, everyone else!”
Bow, bow-.
Alice even greeted the exhausted shuttles.
She didn't need to go that far, but she really was a thoughtful child.
I watched her retreating back with satisfaction.
“Hmm...”
For a first meeting, this had gone pretty well, hadn't it?
She still seemed wary, but I thought this counted as decent progress.
“All right. Everyone, time to clock out.”
I said this to the exhausted shuttles.
It had been a very rewarding day.
***
That night.
I quietly slipped out of the dormitory.
[Mmm... Victor, where are you going at this hour...?]
Carmilla mumbled with bleary eyes.
She rubbed her drowsy cheek against the school uniform pocket.
I stepped lightly so she could sleep more comfortably.
“The Freshman Welcome Exam is in two days, you know?”
[That's right...]
“There's something I want to obtain before the academy schedule begins in earnest.”
[Something you want to obtain...?]
“A special item.”
It was something I always stockpiled early whenever I played through the game.
“It's in the academy's underground dungeon.”
[A dungeon...? There's a dungeon beneath the academy?]
“Yes. It's managed by the academy.”
[Mmm...?]
Carmilla tilted her head, as if puzzled by my answer.
[That's strange. If the academy manages it, the faculty should have guards stationed there, and the procedures would be complicated in all sorts of ways... Did you get permission? And at this hour?]
“Of course not.”
She was right.
A student trying to enter the dungeon alone had to go through countless procedures.
Permission from the professor in charge, at least a second-year student, and a class ranking of fiftieth or higher.
Besides, there was only one passage leading to the dungeon.
Even that could not be entered without a special key.
They had thoroughly blocked unauthorized students from getting in.
[How are you planning to enter...?]
“There are ways.”
As if.
I had broken through this place barehanded hundreds of times.
“Princess.”
I smiled behind my mask.
“Have you ever heard of wall clipping?”
Once again.
It was time for some bug play.