WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 44: Someone’s Something
──────
“Miss Alice.”
“...”
At my brief call, the girl looked up at me.
Reflected in her tear-filled blue eyes was my smiling clown mask.
“What happened here today is a secret.”
“A secret...”
It was best if as little as possible of today’s events got out.
Setting aside word of my exploits spreading, there was nothing to gain from Alice’s ability becoming known outside.
Especially if word of the [Black Queen] got around, the Cult would start paying attention as well.
And that bastard would surely be among them.
It would complicate things in all sorts of ways.
‘At least until Alice gets used to her ability, it needs to stay hidden.’
Nightmare Transformation.
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to call it the strongest ability in this world.
Once Alice could control her nightmares, I’d have an ally no different from a nuclear weapon.
‘Well... it won’t happen in a day or two.’
Of course, that was a distant prospect.
For now, there were more urgent matters in front of us.
The priority was getting her strong enough to look after herself.
“I’ll explain the details later. Just the two of us. Without anyone else knowing.”
“Just the two of us... without anyone else knowing...”
Alice repeated my words under her breath as if savoring them.
I tilted my head and asked for confirmation.
“You understand?”
“...Yes.”
With vacant eyes, the girl nodded as though she understood.
I patted her head in approval.
I rather liked how obedient she was being.
“Good girl.”
“Yes...”
Crack, rumble-!
As we exchanged a few words, vibrations shook the high ceiling.
The source of the noise was outside the barrier surrounding the hunting ground.
Had the faculty finally found a solution?
Cracks began spreading across the pitch-black curtain overhead.
“Nice timing.”
Crack, crackle-!
The ceiling had split enough.
Before long, the barrier shattered into pieces.
Blue sky showed through the scattering shadows.
“...”
When I looked down at my arms, Alice had already lost consciousness.
It was probably closer to fainting than sleep.
‘Well... the aftermath of her rampage must have left her exhausted.’
I laid her slender body beside Ranne.
It was about time for the faculty to rush in.
I lay down beside the two of them as well.
The students would be rescued without any trouble now.
To avoid suspicion, I needed to pretend I’d fainted too.
[Viktor.]
“Your Highness.”
Carmilla had already returned to bat form.
She landed on my chest, then wriggled back into my front pocket.
Tiny hands patted me.
[You worked hard today as well.]
“Call it the fate of one who saves the world. More importantly, thank you for helping with my personal affairs, Your Highness.”
[Don’t say such things. If it concerns you, Viktor, then it is no different from my own affair.]
“That’s reassuring.”
After that, I quietly closed my eyes.
I could hear the faculty shouting in the distance.
I let my consciousness drift, intending to get some sleep.
‘It’s been a long day.’
And so, the first practical training of our first year came to an end.
* * *
Alice felt as though she’d had a short nightmare.
No... was nightmare really the right word?
Unlike her usual ones, it had been a calm, warm dream.
-You’ve had a hard time for so long.
-You did well. You really did.
It felt as though the cold breath inside her had melted away.
As though a cozy warmth had wrapped around her body.
She seemed to have fallen asleep more easily and comfortably than usual.
Then.
“...”
Alice opened her eyes in an unfamiliar bed.
Everything was white.
‘Where am I...?’
She was sure she had lost consciousness in the forest.
The ceiling was unfamiliar. So was the scenery.
The girl looked around for a moment.
As confusion took hold, a voice soon came from in front of her.
“Miss Alice.”
“...”
The boy in the mask.
Viktor sat on the sofa across from her.
As if he had been waiting for Alice to wake, he rose from his seat.
“Are you feeling better?”
The voice she had heard in her dream.
Only then did Alice pull her hazy mind together.
‘...It wasn’t a dream.’
Reality rushed in, stealing her breath.
As her blue eyes darted about, the boy chuckled and explained the situation.
“This is the academy infirmary. It’s rather grand to call it a mere infirmary, though.”
“How did...?”
“After Miss Alice lost consciousness, the faculty dispelled the barrier and managed to enter. The other students trapped inside were rescued safely as well. Fortunately, no one was seriously injured.”
“...”
“They’re all resting in this building now.”
Alice listened blankly.
Before long, she realized someone was holding her hand.
A girl had fallen asleep bent over the hospital bed, holding Alice’s hand.
“...Lady Kihano?”
Ranne Kihano.
Her golden hair looked as though it had been woven from melted sunlight.
Alice looked down at her in surprise, feeling the warmth filling her palm.
“She stayed by your side the whole time. She nursed you all night and only just fell asleep.”
“How much time has...?”
“An entire day.”
“A day...”
Alice silently looked down at Ranne.
Golden hair was strewn across the white bed.
Viktor stroked Ranne’s head as if pleased by her devotion.
Feeling the warmth in her hand, Alice hesitated at the unfamiliar sensation before speaking.
“How is Lady Kihano...?”
“She’s fine. She’s naturally very sturdy, and I poured healing potion over her. She also underwent a full examination after arriving at the academy infirmary. I heard there’s nothing wrong with her.”
“Th-that’s a relief...”
Alice let out a sigh of relief without realizing it.
She had been secretly worried something might have gone wrong.
-Miss Alice.
-I’ll buy you some time, even if only for a moment.
Perhaps Ranne’s retreating figure, the back that had protected her, still lingered in her mind.
As Alice tightly held Ranne’s hand, her eyes met the boy’s warm gaze.
“Miss Alice.”
“...”
He called to her in a gentle voice.
An indescribable feeling pressed heavily against Alice’s heart.
Alice flinched, then soon parted her trembling lips to answer.
“...Yes.”
“What happened yesterday, the part involving the nightmares, is known only to the two of us. It needs to stay that way. You remember, right? What I told you was a secret.”
She remembered.
A secret just between them.
How could she forget?
Alice quietly nodded.
“Good.”
After a brief smile, the boy walked over to the bed.
The white mask came close enough to fill Alice’s vision.
It was still a chilling sight, yet for some reason, she wasn’t afraid.
Her heart settled.
“Miss Alice. I have a proposal for you.”
A proposal.
Something the boy had casually mentioned yesterday.
This conversation was a continuation of that.
“You saw it yesterday, didn’t you? I have the power to help you. I can erase nightmares, and through that, I can suppress your rampage.”
“...”
She revisited memories that lingered like a dream.
The dreadful horde of nightmares pouring down upon her.
Yet Viktor had swept them away single-handedly with his scythe.
He had confronted and shattered the rule that they were beings that could not be killed.
-Miss Alice.
-There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.
It was a miracle.
At least, that was what the boy seemed like to her.
“I’ll help you. Stay with me and learn how to control your Nightmare Transformation.”
The words that he would help her.
What he offered was so fantastical.
Put another way, it was a wish Alice had never dared to imagine.
“You’ll tame that unruly disaster and make it your own. If you succeed in controlling your Nightmare Transformation, you’ll no longer be tormented by nightmares. You won’t have to live every day caught up in anxiety and obsession, either.”
“...”
“You’ll be able to live an ordinary life, like the other children.”
Controlling Nightmare Transformation was something she had never even imagined.
She had believed no one could possibly do such a thing.
But...
“I’ll give you that life.”
The boy before her made that promise as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
A possibility that seemed hopeless, and Alice’s future.
All Alice could do was stare blankly.
It was about her, yet it felt as though she were hearing about a different world.
“There is a price, of course. This isn’t simply help. It’s a proposal.”
“...”
“Be my friend. Whenever I ask for help, you must come to me before anything else. No matter the situation, you must take my side, and no matter the situation, you must lend me your strength. Naturally, I intend to do the same for you. In short, we’ll be each other’s absolute ally.”
“An absolute... ally...”
“In return, I’ll promise you a better life.”
“...”
“What do you think? Does that interest you?”
After hearing the boy’s whole proposal, only one thought came to Alice’s mind.
‘Why...?’
Why?
That single short word caught in Alice’s throat.
‘Why would you do this much for me...?’
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why would he do so much for her?
As if saving her from her rampage weren’t enough, he was now offering to help her control it.
He would teach her how to overcome the nightmares and give her an ordinary life too...
‘Why?’
Alice couldn’t understand.
Even the terms he presented as her price mostly required him to make sacrifices.
He was so strong that she didn’t think her pathetic power could possibly help him.
It was closer to a condition meant to protect her.
‘Why do you...?’
Alice was frail, but she wasn’t stupid.
She could understand the shape of the proposal well enough.
It was an offer in which she alone stood to gain.
‘I...’
The girl couldn’t understand.
Alice, Alice.
A child who should never have been born.
That was what she had always believed herself to be.
Help from others, or a better life, had never existed in her world.
She believed she was not meant to receive such things.
-Then how about this? Let’s be close from now on.
And yet.
She had thought that, she truly had...
-Miss Alice.
-You’ve been through so much.
The boy crossed the boundary Alice had drawn with such ease.
That was why Alice found Viktor difficult.
He was someone she couldn’t understand.
‘He’s strange.’
Thinking back, it had been that way since they first met.
The boy had always been kind to Alice.
-You said we were in the same class.
-We happened to meet like this, so how could I not help you?
When they first met, he had helped her even though they had never known each other.
He found her older sister’s necklace, which she had nearly lost.
-Hehe.
Alice’s ability, One Dream, Another Form.
He had even felt enough affection for her that their signals could connect.
-We said we’d be close, didn’t we? You remember, right?
-Since we’re becoming close anyway, I wanted to introduce you to another friend of mine.
Perhaps he had worried about Alice always being alone, because he introduced her to Ranne, his friend.
-Miss Alice.
-I can help you.
In this incident, he had even fought for her himself.
He tore away Alice’s nightmares and saved her when she had nearly been swallowed by them.
‘All of this...’
All of this had happened in less than a month.
Everything she had received from the boy in less than a month.
Alice couldn’t understand it.
‘What on earth...’
At first, she thought he was simply another one of her misfortunes.
On the seventieth floor of Purgatory, when she glimpsed the boy’s secret.
Alice thought she had stepped into a hell she could never escape.
She believed he would kill or torment her to keep her quiet.
That was why she had feared Viktor’s existence so much...
‘It wasn’t like that.’
He was different from what she thought.
Alice had trembled in fear, but Viktor had always been kind to her.
His inexplicable kindness had piled up within her heart, layer by layer.
‘I don’t know...’
Now she understood nothing.
What the boy was.
Whether he was the misfortune that had come to her, or good fortune.
She had reached the point where she could no longer distinguish even that simple boundary.
‘I just...’
Her life had changed far too abruptly, and the sudden light and hope startled her so much that she couldn’t possibly believe this moment.
Even after opening her bleary eyes and sitting up, life didn’t hurt.
The muscles that had always felt heavy, the headaches that habitually throbbed, the nightmares whispering in her ears, none of them tormented her anymore...
‘It’s strange.’
Tears welled in her eyes.
She had never felt like this in her life.
It was like being left in an empty, quiet world.
The feeling was unfamiliar and frightening, yet so comfortable that she couldn’t hold back her tears.
‘What am I supposed to see you as...?’
That question.
And what did you see me as?
What did you see in me that made you so devoted to someone who was nothing?
A kindness no one in the world besides her older sister had ever given her.
How could you offer it so easily...?
She wanted to know.
She was afraid.
And once again, her heart fluttered.
The girl couldn’t stop the tears flowing down her face.
“Yes...”
She could only nod.
“I’ll do it. I want to...”
Words she had never uttered in her life.
For the first time, the girl spoke them to someone other than her older sister.
“Please help me.”
Her voice trembled miserably, but that alone made the boy smile.
A warm palm rested against Alice’s cheek.
Fingers gently wiped away her tears.
The boy answered briefly.
“Gladly.”
In that moment that remained like a miracle, Alice tightly gripped the boy’s sleeve.
After that.
Until exhaustion overtook her and she fell asleep again, she did not let go of that sleeve.
* * *
A few hours later.
Everyone had fallen asleep, leaving me as the only one awake in the hospital room.
“...”
Alice slept peacefully.
Perhaps because her Nightmare Transformation’s progression had fallen considerably, Alice looked much more at ease.
Ranne was asleep beside her with her head on the bed.
I stroked both of them once before perching on the window frame in the corner of the room.
‘The cleanup’s done...’
With a light gesture, I opened my status window.
Everything was over, so it was time for settlement.
A flood of accumulated quest completion messages appeared.
Ding-!
[You have cleared the Emergency Quest!]
-Title: Welcome to Wonderland
-Details: Stop the Nightmare Transformation of the rampaging ‘Alice (Alice).’
[You have astonishingly completed the quest without killing the host!]
-A special reward will be awarded. Please check your inventory.
Ding-!
[You have completed a Hidden Quest.]
-Title: Queen Slayer
-Details: Defeat the boss monsters who rule Wonderland, the ‘Queen of Hearts (Heart Queen),’ ‘Red Queen (Red Queen),’ and ‘White Queen (White Queen).’
[You have wiped out the queens with an outstanding performance!]
-A special reward will be awarded. Please check your status window.
Ding-!
[You have cleared the Sub Quest!]
-Title: If You’re Going to Do It, Do It Right!
-Details: Place third or higher in the practical training.
[You have taken first place in the practical training with an outstanding performance!]
-In addition to the existing reward, an extra reward has been provided.
“Then shall we check the rewards?”
It was settlement time.
Footnotes:
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