A Road with No End in Sight (2)

"Lady Alice...!"

"Oh, Menou!"

As Alice gazed blankly at the view outside, Menou appeared from the right side of the passage, looking relieved.

"I'm so glad... I was worried you might have been sent somewhere different from me, Lady Alice."

"You're such a worrier, Menou... By the way, there's something I've been wondering about."

Noticing something strangely off about Menou, Alice approached with a suspicious look. Then she stared closely at Menou's face, as if examining it.

"I-is something wrong with my face?"

"It's not that it's strange, exactly... I don't know how to put it. It feels like something's missing."

Menou was dressed as usual, just as before the Dark Dragon sent them here. She wore a surcoat that could pass for formal attire, along with navy trousers to match. Nothing about Menou's appearance seemed different. The only thing missing was the hat Menou always wore to hide her horns.

"...Your horns are gone!"

After inspecting Menou from head to toe, Alice finally noticed what was wrong. The horns Menou always hid beneath her hat were no longer on her head. Alice pointed at Menou and cried out in astonishment.

"I-is something wrong with my face?"

Menou touched her own head, asking, "My horns are gone?" as if she couldn't believe it. After running her hands over her head several times, Menou looked more shocked than ever and exclaimed, "My horns... they're gone?!"

"Impossible... My horns, which even the Demon King-sama praised as magnificent, are gone?! C-could it be... Lady Alice, are yours gone too?!"

At that, Alice realized that the magic-suppressing cloth was the only part of her outfit that hadn't been left behind. Alice reached beneath the ribbon at the back of her head, where her drooping horns should have been, but all she felt was her hand patting her glossy, jewel-like red hair. There was no sign of anything horn-shaped.

"M-my horns are gone!"

Once she realized her horns were gone, Alice wasn't saddened like Menou. Instead, she beamed, shouted, "Yay!" and jumped up and down with joy.

Menou briefly looked troubled by how delighted Alice was that the horns considered the hallmark of demons had disappeared, wondering if Alice had hated being a demon that much, but—

"Now, even if I marry Kagami-san, no one can complain about it!"

At Alice's remark, Menou's expression turned complicated—troubled, yet somehow fond. Menou murmured, "That's right," looking deeply moved.

"But without your horns, Menou, you look like some kind of noble. I always had mine hidden by my ribbon, so I don't think my appearance has changed at all."

"Nobility... I'm somewhat displeased to be lumped together with such lowborn people, but I'll take it as a compliment. And if we're saying that, Lady Alice, you look like the heiress to a fabulously wealthy family... no, an angel? Ngh... you can only be a goddess."

"Are your eyes all right, Menou?"

Sighing at Menou's words, which came right after Menou had said Alice's appearance hadn't changed, Alice decided there was no point standing around and started walking down the passage to the left.

"But where are we? This must be the next stage, but... why did we wake up in a place like that?"

"How should I know? I don't know why we woke up in separate rooms, either. And we still haven't found everyone else... I wonder where they are."

They walked down the passage for several minutes, but there was nothing but identical doors and furnishings, and no sign of an exit. Bored by how little the scenery changed, Alice began walking along while gazing through the glass at the view outside.

Then, as if she had suddenly noticed something, Alice stopped, placed her hand against the glass, and stared blankly at the scene beyond it.

"What do you make of this view?"

"I've never seen most of this stuff before, so honestly, I don't know how to describe it. Steel boxes, horse-drawn carriages, vehicles that travel through the sky... Even the feel of the city is completely unfamiliar to me."

"Then why do you look so conflicted?"

"...Even though I know I've never seen it before, I feel like I know it. Those vehicles, the atmosphere of this city... It's as if I've seen something similar somewhere. It's a strange feeling."

"I see. You wouldn't feel that way without observing the world closely... That's wonderful."

"...Menou?"

Sensing something strange in the air, Alice hurriedly turned around. But Menou, who should have been there, was nowhere to be seen. Instead, a slender man in clothes that looked like a white coat stood right behind Alice, smiling at her.

The man's long, asymmetrical black hair covered half his face. Despite his suspicious air, his face was so gentle that merely looking at him felt calming. Perhaps because of that, his expression was difficult to read, and Alice instinctively tensed up, on guard.

"Of course you know it. This is Japan, the country you lived in, and the place that served as the basis for Hexaldoria."

Then the slender man casually spoke the name of a country that had existed in myth and should no longer exist.