Chapter 69
Victor stood before Jersian.
A few minutes earlier.
As soon as the boy arrived at the scene, he headed straight for Alice.
Then he immediately cut down the vampires surrounding her.
The white-covered clown mask gazed calmly at the girl.
“Miss Alice.”
“V-Victor···? You came!”
“Please take care of the people from the cathedral.”
“Huh?”
Thump-.
After making only that brief request, a hand shoved the girl by the shoulder.
Alice was teleported after receiving a [Wall Pierce] check.
The girl ended up sprawled in a corridor.
“Wh-what···?”
As she looked around, she soon realized she was indoors.
It was the cathedral building Victor had just torn through.
More precisely, its basement, where the kidnapped people had been imprisoned.
The villagers who had just been freed were hiding there, murmuring among themselves.
‘The villagers···? Did Lord Victor free them?’
There seemed to be at least 300 of them.
Only then did Alice grasp the situation.
His words about taking care of the people from the cathedral.
‘Of course.’
If they stayed gathered here, they would only become targets for the ghouls again.
There had been a reason Victor had looked at the girl.
‘Someone needs to lead them.’
They needed someone to take command of the situation.
Someone to shake off the approaching horde of ghouls and evacuate them safely.
Victor had entrusted Alice with that role.
‘He entrusted it to me.’
The girl steadied her shaken heart.
She was briefly worried about Carmilla, but pushed the thought from her mind.
Victor’s arrival at the scene meant his plan must be proceeding properly.
Alice trusted the boy.
That alone was enough for her to act immediately.
“E-everyone! Please listen to me···!”
Alice drew everyone’s attention.
Cutting through the commotion, her frail voice rang out.
“I-I’m a member of the Slayers! M-my name is Un-Unnieon! I’m a subordinate of C-Captain Garuric, who just saved you!”
“Sl-Slayers···?”
“That was the person from earlier! The one who got us out of the basement···!”
“He even treated the people who had turned into ghouls!”
“The same organization? D-did they come to rescue us?”
“Come to think of it, they were both wearing similar masks······.”
Fortunately.
Perhaps Victor had given them some advance notice, because the people listened quietly to the girl.
In that sense, giving the organization’s name as the Slayers had been the right choice.
Alice carefully relayed the situation.
‘First, we have to get out of the cathedral.’
That was Victor’s instruction.
Somehow get everyone out safely and evacuate them beyond the cathedral.
‘But··· there are too many. There must be at least 300.’
The horde of ghouls still prowled outside.
They could not solve this by simply sending the unarmed people outside.
Alice fell into deep thought.
‘The problem is what happens after we leave the cathedral. We’ll definitely be pursued, but we can’t just leave this many people standing in the middle of the street.’
They needed a refuge.
A place where they could evade the pursuers’ eyes and hold out if they were discovered.
They would have to endure inside until at least the situation outside was resolved.
If so, the immediate question was whether there was a building nearby that could accommodate this many people.
‘Ah··· the grain warehouse!’
As she sketched a map in her mind, Alice quickly thought of a building that fit the conditions.
The grain warehouse.
It was nearby, too.
Less than 500 meters from the cathedral.
Alice plotted a route to escape there.
“Everyone! From now on, you have to fo-follow me! Look after one another so no one gets left behind···!”
She acted swiftly.
She positioned playing cards around them to help with the evacuation.
Thus, Alice took the lead and started down the road toward the grain warehouse.
Whenever the ghouls tightened their encirclement, the trump soldiers held them off.
-Grrr···!
-Kreeek, kreeeek!
-Woof! Grr, woof!
Perhaps it was because of the commotion.
The ghouls in the vicinity focused their attention on them.
They tried to move as quietly as possible, but with so many people, that was difficult.
The farther they went, the harder it became to shake the feeling that they were being surrounded.
‘No.’
A chill ran down her spine.
The trump soldiers were gradually being pushed back by the sheer numbers bearing down on them.
‘At this rate··· people will start getting hurt soon.’
The people who were following her, trusting her.
Since the sturdier men were taking the lead, they could knock away ghouls with clubs whenever they approached, but even that would become difficult if their numbers increased further.
Alice was growing anxious.
‘There are still about five minutes until we arrive···.’
Only 500 meters.
Even with so many people in tow, it was a distance that should take twenty minutes at most.
A route she would normally walk without a second thought now seemed impossibly far away.
Soon, ghouls were lying in ambush even in the winding alleys.
-W-what the···!
-Be careful over there! They’re popping out one by one from the alleyways too!
-Let’s each cover a direction and keep watch! At this rate, we’ll all be eaten!
The people began to grow restless.
They had run into an obstacle.
Alice clenched her fists as she calculated the distance remaining.
‘I have to find a way.’
They lacked firepower.
There were not enough soldiers to break through this encirclement.
In that situation, Alice had no choice but to make up her mind.
‘A way···.’
There was only one thing she could try now.
The crown floating above her head.
Her transparent blue eyes trembled faintly.
Alice hesitated, then bit down hard on her lip.
‘Let’s do it.’
This was not a place where she could retreat.
Here, she had to overexert herself if necessary and fulfill her role.
The girl gently lowered her eyelids.
And so, she sank into a hazy consciousness.
-Miss Alice.
-Please take care of the people from the cathedral.
Words whispered like a mere fragment.
Yet they were enough to push the girl forward.
‘I don’t want to disappoint him.’
The role he had entrusted to her as though it were only natural.
She wanted to carry it out and show him she could do it, as though it were only natural.
Because he had trusted her.
Because she did not want to disappoint him.
‘I can do this.’
Kuuuuuu-!
The black crown began to writhe violently.
In fact, she had succeeded several times when practicing with Victor.
Though her success rate had been less than ten percent.
‘I can’t make a mistake this time.’
A situation that had driven her to the extreme.
Such a do-or-die predicament instead pushed the girl’s mental strength to its limit.
Dreams slowly blossomed from her fingertips, and white cracks spread around the crown.
‘Stay calm. Recall the memories of practicing with Lord Victor···.’
The Alice of the past could never have imagined this.
Normally, the moment she encountered an obstacle, she would have cowered in terror.
Rather than face the nightmare, she would have looked around for somewhere to hide.
But not anymore.
-Miss Alice.
-Learn how to control your nightmare transformation by staying with me.
Someone had taught her how to stand and fight.
Someone had held her close, tightly embracing her.
Someone had promised that even if she fell into the mire, he would come to rescue her.
-If you succeed in controlling your nightmare transformation, you won’t suffer from nightmares anymore.
-You’ll be able to live an ordinary daily life like the other children.
-I will give you that kind of life.
He alone had told her that.
He alone had held her hand.
And so, Alice tightly clasped that white hand.
Dark-red mist swept fiercely past her cascading black hair.
“Wake up···!”
Shrrrriiiik-!
A sound rang out like cards turning over one after another.
Before long, white soldiers sprang from the writhing mist.
<[♠̶̲̰̞̳̭̬̞̯̃̿͛͢͞]>
<[♥҈̧̜̮̫͖̫͉̳̰̀́́̒̄̑͊͝]>
<[♣҉͉̰̤̖̝͉҇͌͋̍̑͢ͅ]>
Playing cards.
Of these, the four queens,
and the two jokers,
were excluded, leaving
48 cards.
The soldiers, who had numbered only nine, multiplied several times over.
The nightmare, far beyond its limit, seemed ready to break free of control at any moment.
Pitch-black shadows crackled and bulged as though about to transform into a grotesque form.
“Wake up···!”
But the queen’s cry did not permit it.
A voice that neither trembled nor wept.
The girl’s voice awakened the nightmare.
The consciousnesses that had been tugging against each other tipped toward awakening.
On the front where nightmare and dream mingled, a slender sword was swung.
“Wake up!”
Alice.
The girl who had always been at the mercy of nightmares.
But today, at last, the dream did not become a nightmare.
<[♠]>
<[♥]>
<[♣]>
A scene spreading pure white.
Thk-.
The chaotic cards aligned all at once.
They knelt properly and paid their respects before their sovereign.
“······.”
Whoooosh-.
The queen’s insignia fluttered, pitch-black.
Alice.
The alias the world had given her long ago.
Because she embraced the night, they named her after its pitch-black light.
“It’s an order.”
The Black Queen (Black Queen).
Sovereign who ruled over all dreams.
“Protect the people.”
A clear command.
The queen’s voice served as the final blow, completely driving the nightmare out of the soldiers.
Afterward, the playing cards scattered in all directions and helped evacuate the people.
The horde of ghouls that had tightened its encirclement was mercilessly cut down.
-The way is open! Everyone, hurry inside the grain warehouse···!
-We’ve arrived! Don’t push one another; move slowly!
-Let the strong men stay until the end, and have the elderly and children go in first!
The path was cleanly cleared.
The surging crowd kept order and safely entered the grain warehouse.
They had evacuated everyone without leaving a single person behind.
“Haa···.”
Alice was the last to enter.
Only after closing the door and giving the soldiers a few more orders could she collapse.
The mental strength she had poured out in such a short time, along with the power being steadily consumed as the soldiers moved.
It felt as though her consciousness might cut out at any moment.
‘Not yet···.’
But she gritted her teeth and endured.
Though she staggered for a moment, the girl gazed into the distance beyond the window.
The plaza where Victor and Carmilla, the two of them, would still be fighting.
Alice murmured with a faint breath.
“Lord Victor······.”
Please.
Praying that the two of them would be safe as well.