WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 40: Alice’s Nightmare (5)
──────
A memory from long ago.
A basement without a single ray of light.
Alice leaned against the hard iron bars, crying quietly.
“Sniff, sob...”
She was covered in wounds.
Large tears ran down her gaunt cheeks.
Even as she cried, Alice didn’t know why she was crying.
“Ugh, sniff...”
It had been an ordinary day, no different from usual.
So why were her emotions such a mess today?
“Alice.”
As she covered her mouth and sobbed, she suddenly sensed someone behind her.
At the same time, a gentle hand stroked her head.
When she looked up, a girl who looked exactly like her stood there.
“S-Sis...”
Alice pursed her lips as if she’d been caught.
Her sister paid it no mind and crouched in front of her.
She gently held out a hand.
Then she wiped the tears from Alice’s tear-streaked face.
Dark wet spots appeared one after another on her white sleeve.
“You’ve ruined that pretty face of yours.”
It was a teasing remark.
The girl didn’t ask Alice anything.
Why she was crying.
Why she looked so sad.
Why she had been hurting herself.
“Alice.”
She didn’t need to ask.
Her sister didn’t look much different from Alice herself.
A body covered in wounds, clean white clothes, surgical scars on her arms...
She was a wreck.
The sisters were alike.
There was only one difference between them...
“You held on well today too. Good job, little sister.”
“S-Sis... It stings when you rub your cheek against mine...”
“Oh, sorry. That’s where you’re hurt. Are you okay? Does it hurt a lot?”
“Mmm... I-I’m okay.”
Her sister didn’t cry.
Alice had never once seen her cry.
Instead, she always wore a bright smile.
“That’s a relief! The wound isn’t too deep.”
A basement without a single ray of light.
Cold iron bars.
Even in a place like that, her sister’s smile shone.
That was why Alice often relied on her.
“Sniff, Sis...”
“Oh dear, our little clingy Alice! Do you like your sister that much?”
Alice timidly opened her arms, and her sister noticed before pulling her into a tight hug.
Whenever Alice was held in those arms, she could forget hell for a little while.
Clingy.
Maybe she was.
She had been that age, after all.
The age when a girl threw tantrums and clung to people.
“Sis, Sis...”
“That’s right. Good girl, my little sister. My Alice.”
Looking back on it now, her sister probably could never have been clingy with anyone.
She had become the one who indulged others far too soon.
Alice had always been a burden to her sister.
“I’m scared...”
She was scared.
She didn’t want to hurt.
She wanted to get out of this place.
But Alice was utterly powerless before the iron bars.
The girl had no power. There was nothing she could do.
“Ugh, sniff...”
“It’s okay. Everything will be okay.”
Perhaps that was why Alice cried so easily.
Tears didn’t demand anything in return.
Crying was the only thing she could do without restraint.
“Now, take a deep breath. Take a deep breath with me.”
“Sniff, huu...”
Every day, she was broken, trampled on, and driven to despair.
It was too cruel a life for young girls to endure.
That made her think.
Why did everything have to be like this?
Why did only she, only they, have to live this way?
The older she got, the more of a mess life became. The harder she struggled, the deeper she sank.
“Sis...”
Did any of this have meaning?
If life was nothing but becoming a mess and sinking deeper, was there any reason to keep dragging herself along?
Alice trembled.
“Alice.”
Whenever that happened, her sister took her hand.
A touch that wasn’t cold.
“It’s okay... Things will definitely get better.”
She told Alice that though things were hard now, Alice would blossom someday.
That hand had given her courage time and again.
That hand had kept her alive time and again.
That hand promised a future, even when she was sad and hurting.
Without it, Alice might have died long ago.
“...Really?”
“Of course. Have you ever seen your sister lie?”
“How? In what way...?”
“Hmm... For example, maybe a prince on a white horse will come rescue you...”
“...”
“You might meet someone who’ll save you someday, if you keep living.”
“You always say things like that. That someday things will get better, that I should believe they will...”
“Do I? Still, that’s how you can keep living.”
Her sister smiled softly.
By then, Alice had stopped crying too.
“You always have to believe tomorrow will be better.”
“...”
Belief.
Her sister especially liked that word.
The thing that kept people alive.
The thing that made people human.
“But...”
It was something Alice couldn’t understand.
Belief alone.
Could something like that change anything?
It was no more than an extension of thought, a corner of optimism, or perhaps a sense of obligation.
Could something like that really change the world, or people?
“Who knows? I don’t know.”
“...”
“You just... just believe.”
“That’s how you find the strength to endure today.”
Her sister added with a gentle smile.
A girl who looked exactly like Alice.
Yet a girl who differed from her in so many ways.
“So...”
Believe.
“You can definitely be happy.”
Their hands clasped tightly.
Alice couldn’t pull her hand away.
Without understanding what it meant, she only nodded a few times.
“That’s my little sister! You listen so well.”
“Mmm... Sis, my cheek hurts...”
Someday.
Light would reach even that cursed life.
* * *
Her consciousness had drifted away for a moment.
Had her life flashed before her eyes?
The days Alice had spent with her sister passed through her mind.
“...”
When she raised her head, armor filled her vision.
A scarlet knight stood above her.
It was easily over ten meters tall.
Beyond its helmet, writhing tentacles looked down at the girl.
“Ah...”
A short gasp escaped her.
She couldn’t even think of moving a finger.
A dreadful pressure bore down on her body.
<...sbmal elttil roop ,hA>
Then the calamity moved.
It raised its sword high enough to touch the ceiling.
Dark crimson energy condensed around it, warping her vision.
‘I’m going to die.’
She tried to move too late, but her body wouldn’t obey.
There was no way she could escape from this distance.
Swaaaak-!
A slash fell toward her head.
Alice squeezed her eyes shut.
Yet the attack never reached her.
“Miss Alice!”
Someone urgently leaped in front of her.
A platinum spear swung through the air, scattering Starlight in every direction.
‘Kihano Style Spearmanship Secret Art’
-Night Sky-
A brilliant flash.
The unleashed technique collided head-on with the Red Knight’s attack.
Kwoooooong-!
The explosive sound was enough to make heaven and earth feel overturned.
Their golden and black hair fluttered in the rushing backlash.
Then someone grabbed the frozen Alice and took off running.
“Run!”
“L-Lady Kihano?!”
It was Ranne.
Only then did Alice come to her senses and begin running through the forest.
Mutant corpses littered the area, along with rotting undergrowth.
It looked less like a forest and more like hell.
“Miss Alice! Are you hurt anywhere?”
“I-I’m fine! But Lady Kihano, you got hurt helping m-me...”
Ranne ran ahead of her.
She looked terrible.
Her right arm was in tatters, blood ran from a deep gash on her forehead, her breathing was unnaturally rough, and cold sweat poured down her as though something was seriously wrong...
Even at a glance, she was clearly not all right.
“Haa, haa...”
She could have dodged it herself, but she had stepped in to protect Alice.
She had taken that monstrous attack head-on.
It was a miracle she hadn’t died.
Perhaps that was what one should expect from the second-ranked student of Class A.
“Cough...!”
But.
That was all.
<.dog a tuohtiw gnik a fo stcejbuS>
It was her limit.
Ranne had no way to resist any longer.
If her body had been intact, perhaps she could have held on by striking and retreating...
<.doG erofeb pihsrow dna esiR>
<.sgniht givil lla ot htaed stnarg eH roF>
But she was already wrecked.
There was nothing she could do with a body in that condition.
All she could do was flee alongside Alice while buying a few more seconds of life.
Her legs buckled.
“Ghk, huu...”
“Lady Kihano! W-What do we do? The blood won’t stop...!”
Alice, pale as death, hurriedly supported Ranne.
Naturally, the two of them slowed down.
The Red Knight followed behind them.
Boom, boom, boom, boom-!
Heavy footsteps filled their ears.
The ground shook as though there were an earthquake.
It walked leisurely, as if it saw no reason to hurry.
Still, with its long strides, it looked as though it would catch them in only a few steps.
“...”
It was time to make a decision.
Ranne, who had been sagging against Alice, suddenly opened her eyes wide.
As if this wouldn’t do, she shook off Alice’s support.
Pahk-.
“L-Lady Kihano...?”
Alice stopped, stunned.
Holding her spear, Ranne looked back down the path they had come.
“Haa, haa... Go on ahead. I’ll buy you some time, even if it’s only for a moment.”
“W-What?! What are you saying? There’s no way you can beat something like that...!”
“If we keep going like this, we’ll both be caught. It’s more rational for one person to stay behind.”
“But you’re badly hurt! It won’t make any difference if you stay b-behind!”
“Go.”
Ranne was stubborn.
She looked as if she had already prepared herself to die.
“This barrier... I’m sure we aren’t the only group trapped inside it. Other groups must have been caught up in it too. Join them. Then you should be able to hold out somehow until the professors arrive.”
“But, Lady Kihano...!”
“I’m already done for! There’s no way for both of us to escape. In a situation like this, the injured person should stay behind. Besides, that thing is an opponent even Sir Viktor couldn’t react to before getting taken down! It’s not something people at our level can handle!”
Her voice was clear despite her exhaustion and injuries.
Ranne took a deep breath and gripped her spear.
Faint Starlight drifted around her.
“Go! Even I can only hold out for a few minutes at most.”
“Ugh, ngh...”
Alice felt like she was about to burst into tears.
‘How can she...?’
Step, step-
Her gaze followed Ranne’s back as she walked forward.
The girl chose sacrifice as if it were only natural.
She raised her spear and shouted at the top of her lungs, making her presence known.
“Come, knight steeped in wicked energy!”
Footnotes:
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