When Ariel quietly followed Johan out onto the balcony,
Yuna and Lobelia were sitting side by side, observing the whole scene unfold.
“That’s unexpected.”
“What is?”
“Well…”
“You thought I’d interfere?”
“I wouldn’t say no.”
“Puhihihi!”
Yuna laughed as if she found Lobelia’s somewhat uncomfortable question amusing.
“I do have some awareness, you know.”
“Hmm.”
Lobelia nodded as if nothing was wrong, but in truth, she had never felt so flustered.
Then what have I been doing all this time?
Even now, she could vividly remember the hellish time she endured on the way to the Damus territory.
Even if Yuna said they were just “pretending to be in a relationship”, her feelings were so obvious that even Ariel could tell they weren’t entirely innocent.
“We can’t keep fighting all the time, right? When it’s a scene so obviously meant for the main couple, we should show a little consideration.”
“That’s…”
“And besides, I’m confident.”
Lobelia shuddered.
It was overwhelming confidence.
“If we go all the way to the end…. I’ll win.”
And that was absolute conviction.
***
After the banquet ended.
As everyone returned to their rooms to rest from the fatigue of travel—
“Um, Johan. I’d like to take a short walk. Could you show me around the garden?”
Ariel quietly approached and whispered to me.
Was there still something she felt unsatisfied about?
We’d spent quite a while together, though…
Then again, considering the difference in stamina between her and me, maybe it was only natural.
“Our family’s garden… well, it’s really just the rosemary flowerbed I planted. Would that be all right?”
“To be honest, the place doesn’t really matter. Hehe.”
“Ahem… Understood.”
It wasn’t the garden that mattered.
It was being with me that mattered.
Thankfully, I wasn’t dense enough not to pick up on that.
And so, Ariel and I once again had some time alone together.
The two of us quietly slipped out of the banquet hall.
I was a little conscious of the eyes around us, but it wasn’t really a problem.
We made our way to the garden in the backyard.
“It smells wonderful. I think it’s actually nicer because there’s only one kind of plant here.”
“Thank you for saying that.”
I appreciated that she was trying to be considerate, but somehow I couldn’t help feeling a bit bitter.
I never thought this space was worthy of that much praise.
“Johan, may I ask you something?”
Ariel gently brushed her fingers across the rosemary blossoms as she spoke.
“Why did you choose rosemary, of all things?”
“Well…”
“Oh, was that a difficult question? It’s just… every time I saw you looking at the flowerbed, your expression seemed complicated.”
“I suppose it’s only fair to be honest. We’re not strangers anymore, after all.”
“Eh… H-Hearing you say that so plainly is kind of embarrassing.”
She really is consistently adorable.
“You might not like what you’re about to hear.”
“I still want to hear it. Like you said, we’re not strangers anymore.”
Even with her face flushed red, Ariel spoke calmly.
I let out a quiet laugh.
“Rosemary was my ex-fiancée’s favorite flower.”
“……”
“Not exactly a pleasant story, is it?”
“It’s… complicated, I guess.”
“And… huh?”
Just as I was about to tell Ariel about my past—
My vision suddenly wavered.
And in the next moment, I had the illusion that the space around me was… writhing.
Something began to overlap in front of my eyes.
***
“Ugh…”
I opened my eyes with a pounding headache.
Blinding sunlight.
Birds chirping.
And an uncomfortable posture.
“Did I fall asleep right at the banquet?”
As I gathered my senses, I realized my head was resting on a table.
Seriously? I’m the son of this house. Someone could’ve at least carried me to a room.
“Hmm?”
But as soon as I lifted my head, I realized something very wrong.
First of all, I was outside.
And looking around, this wasn’t any place I recognized.
But most importantly…
“Oh! Friend! You’re awake! Let’s continue the tea party!”
“……”
There was a talking rabbit in front of me.
A rabbit. Talking.
Not a beastkin. A real rabbit.
“Euhe! Ehehehe! So tasty!”
Its eyes were rolling around in an utterly illogical way. There was no doubt this thing wasn’t sane.
“…Can I ask you something?”
I lifted the teacup in front of me and spoke.
Given how little I understood of this situation, the only possible source of information… was this talking rabbit.
“Ah! I know what you’re going to say! You want to know what kind of tea leaves we used today, right?”
“No…”
“Same as yesterday! Euhehehe!”
“Right. Got it.”
That’s when I realized—
I was in deep trouble.
Just because something speaks a language doesn’t mean you can actually communicate with it.
“Hey! Dormouse! What kind of tea leaves did we use yesterday and today?”
The crazy rabbit turned and shouted at the furry lump beside it.
What I had assumed was just a cushion twitched in response.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only guest at this tea party.
But finally, I was starting to understand what was going on.
“Dormouse says he doesn’t know!”
“Yeah… figured.”
A tea party.
A mad rabbit.
A dormouse.
I recognized this setup.
This was straight out of a story I knew all too well.
Yes—
“Just eat it, Mad Hatter.”
“Shall I?”
—Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Judging from all this, it looked like I’d been assigned the role of the Mad Hatter.
I still had no idea how this had happened, but at least one thing was clear:
“Can you pass me some of those cookies?”
First things first, I needed to fill my stomach.
***
“Get it? Euhehehe!”
“Yeah, that’s a really funny story.”
“Right? I knew you’d get it!”
I humored the incomprehensible humor of the crazy rabbit while quietly filling up on tea and cookies.
That’s when—
“P-Please, someone help!”
Someone burst out of the forest.
Ah.
So it’s finally time for the main character to make her entrance?
This long, boring stretch of time was finally coming to an end, and it felt like a breakthrough was just around the corner.
With growing anticipation, I waited—
And sure enough, someone burst through the bushes.
Snow-white hair.
Rabbit ears poking up from her head.
“J-Johan?”
“Ariel…?”
A teary-eyed Ariel appeared.
What on earth had happened to make her look so distraught?
Honestly, I’d never seen her like this before. It was nothing short of bewildering.
I had thought the situation was strange, but maybe it was far more dangerous than I realized.
Ariel reached out to me, like something out of a horror movie.
“Johan! Help—”
“Got you at last!”
“Eek?!”
And just like in a horror movie, she suddenly fell forward right in front of me.
“Whoa!”
“Ah, sorry! That was instinct.”
The one who had tackled Ariel and now sat on top of her was a little girl with golden hair.
A curious, mischievous smile. The kind that probably gave her parents no end of trouble.
There was no mistaking it.
“You two must be tired from all that running around. Instead of all this fuss, how about sitting down for some tea?”
The main character of this story Alice.
It felt like the gears that had been stuck were finally starting to turn.
***
Thankfully, the tea table we gathered around was quite large.
There was the crazy Rabbit who introduced himself as the March Hare, and the Dormouse who somehow remained fast asleep through all the commotion.
And with Alice, Ariel, and me, we made a group of five.
“Johan, do you know her?”
“Well, I doubt she knows who I am. It’s probably a one-sided familiarity on my part.”
“She’s such a rude child.”
“Kids that age are usually like that, aren’t they?”
“That may be true, but something about her is definitely suspicious. I mean, I opened my eyes and suddenly found myself in the middle of a forest… and when I came to my senses, I was being chased.”
“Now that you mention it, how did you end up being chased?”
“I don’t know. That kid just suddenly lunged at me. I tried to stop her with magic and abilities, but nothing worked.”
“Aha.”
So there was a reason Ariel had been running for her life.
“A story ‘correction’, huh.”
After all, Alice was the main character of this story.
It wouldn’t be strange for the main character Alice to have some kind of special correction on her side.
The current situation already suggests as much.
Isn’t it all too sudden? I’ve never even heard of a phenomenon like this.
So then, it makes sense that we can’t predict what’s going to happen.
If there’s even one clue to go on…
“Let’s just wait and see.”
“You’re really calm, Johan.”
“Maybe because the scale of things that happen to me is always about this big.”
This might be an unusual situation for Ariel, where magic didn’t work,
But for me, being completely powerless was the usual.
More than that, I’ve never faced an incident I could overcome with force.
If it hadn’t been for someone else’s help or a negotiation, I’d have been done for long ago.
To me, this situation wasn’t much different from the ones before.
“Still… Johan, look. The rabbit is talking.”
“Let’s not discriminate against rabbits. Try to get along.”
“Johan, that’s a problematic comment against beastkin. That thing’s just an animal.”
“Even so, the fact remains that we can communicate.”
“Well, that’s…”
Ariel pursed her lips, then glared sharply at the March Hare, who was chatting away with Alice.
“Euhe! Euhehe! The ground used to be up in the sky, I tell you!”
“I knew it! This rabbit’s out of his mind! I knew it!”
Then she stared at me again and muttered,
“…Is that what you call communicating?”
“That last bit was a poor example. Yeah, he’s just an animal. Still, let’s try to treat living things with a little kindness.”
“Okaaay…”
Ariel looked unconvinced.
Well, you couldn’t blame her. It’s not easy to take in a situation like this without hesitation.
“Ariel, I think we’re inside a fairy tale.”
“A fairy tale?”
“Yes. That girl is the main character, and it seems you and I have become part of her story.”
“…It’s all so sudden, I don’t really get it. But can I ask just one thing?”
“We’ve still got plenty of time, so ask as many as you’d like.”
“Is it… a bad ending kind of fairy tale?”
“No, it’s not.”
“Then that’s good enough.”
As far as I can recall, it wasn’t.
And considering there’s a sequel, it must’ve ended happily…at least for now.
First, I decided to share my plan with Ariel.
Rather than acting alone, it would be better to have her cooperation. Here, we’d need to work together.
“So basically, what you’re saying is that we’ve fallen into a fairy tale world, and we have to lead Alice, the main character, to the story’s ending?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I do think it’s something worth testing.”
If it’s following a cliché, then that’s how it would go. If it’s a twist on the cliché, it might be the opposite.
But with no real clues right now, the best option was to keep an eye on Alice, the main character of the story.
Still…
“What are you doing here, big brother? Are you friends with this lunatic?”
“According to the setting, I am.”
“Ah! The way you talk…..you’re clearly just as crazy! Got it!”
Yeah… tagging along with this Alice probably wasn’t going to be a normal experience.
***
We began a conversation with Alice to gather some information.
“I’m Alice!”
“This is Ariel, and I’m… just the Mad Hatter.”
“Got it! Big sister Ariel! I look forward to working with you!”
“U-Uh, sure…”
Alice reached out to Ariel with a beaming, sunny smile.
Ariel looked at me uncertainly, then shook Alice’s hand.
As soon as the handshake ended, she whispered in my ear.
“Were we supposed to use fake names?”
“It probably doesn’t matter. The March Hare called me the Mad Hatter, so I just went with it.”
If I gave my real name and the March Hare suddenly had a breakdown or said something strange, it’d be too late to take it back.
Besides, I was already being lumped in with him—
I really didn’t want to be seen as another lunatic who didn’t even remember his own name.
“By the way, Alice…how did you end up here?”
“Oh! Well, it’s like this. I saw someone as beautiful as big sister Ariel for the first time in my life, you know? And it was clear at a glance she wasn’t from our village. So I just kind of followed her, like I was in a trance, and before I knew it, I was here!”
“…Johan, Alice is really polite, isn’t she?”
“Is that so?”
A complete reversal from the evaluation she gave just five minutes ago.
Well, they say even whales dance when praised. So Ariel wouldn’t be an exception.
“Anyway, where exactly are we? I didn’t know there was a place like this behind the mountain.”
“That’s just it. We don’t know either.”
“Huh? Ah… I get it now. I guess it makes sense that you wouldn’t know, big brother.”
Alice glanced at me for a moment, then turned to the March Hare, who was noisily licking a plate beside us, and gave a small nod of understanding.
That little reaction somehow manages to hurt a guy’s feelings.
“Johan, let me try talking to her.”
“I’d really appreciate that.”
In the end, I had no choice but to let Ariel take the lead in the conversation.
Given how Alice saw things, no matter what I said, she’d probably just see me as a pitiful lunatic.
“What the Hatter meant was, we were somewhere else, but when we came to, we found ourselves here.”
“So that means you too, big sister Ariel?”
“Yeah. The Hatter and I….we were in the same place originally.”
“Then what about that rabbit whose eyes are spinning in different directions?”
“Not him.”
“Oh, I see.”
Ariel firmly shook her head.
Even the way she referred to him was dripping with disdain.
Does she really want to avoid being associated with him that badly?
Not that I want to be tied to him either… but still, I kind of feel bad for the March Hare.
“So, what’s the relationship between you two?”
“Uh… w-we’re engaged. We’re getting married soon.”
Ariel scratched her cheek, looking a bit embarrassed as she answered.
And then Alice replied,
“So you’re not normal either, huh? Ugh, I took you seriously for nothing.”
…Yeah, something tells me this journey is going to be rough.
***
TN: I have no idea what’s happening as well…
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