A fresh spread of tea cakes appeared on the table. Come to think of it, I hadn't even realized Alice kept food in her house. Well, of course she did. I'd just always associated her with being perpetually hungry... Wait a second. If I recalled correctly, Alice shouldn't actually need food or sleep. Does that mean her usual "starving" routine was just an act to mess with me?
Even if eating fell within the realm of personal preference, this girl put away an incredible amount of food...
"Now then... how far did I get?"
"The part where the Evil God appeared."
"Ah, right. The leader of the villains called it the 'Great Evil God of Despair,' but that thing didn't have anything like a will. It was simply an existence meant to destroy the world."
"..."
I see. It wasn't a sentient being with an agenda. It was a kind of living disaster that existed solely to end the world from the moment it manifested.
"The moment it appeared, it tried to 'shroud the hearts of people all over the world in darkness and lure them into despair.' Honestly, it was a disgrace to final bosses everywhere, relying on mental attacks like that. I really wanted to tell the guy to quit the cheap tricks and fight me head-on."
"You’re being pretty casual about it, but shrouding the hearts of everyone on the planet in darkness... that sounds terrifying."
"It was. I guess you could imagine it like Isis-san's magic power of death spreading across the entire world. Though, in terms of raw power, Isis-san is many times stronger..."
A total mental assault. If Isis-san’s magic power of death was something that forcibly imposed the fear of dying on others, then the Evil God’s power was like a compulsory injection of despair into every human soul. Just hearing about it was overwhelming.
"In reality, it was pretty bad. It wasn't just my heart—my entire field of vision was painted black. It felt like I was drifting in a void of nothingness. If it had gone on like that, the hearts of everyone in the world would have simply died."
"How did you... how did you beat a monster like that?"
"Human hearts aren't so simple that they turn pitch black the moment they're faced with despair. In fact, it's precisely because there is despair that we try to resist it. At that moment, the hearts of everyone in the world were connected as one by the Evil God's power. And that... was my opening."
"..."
The playful mask Alice had maintained until now vanished. Her expression turned dead serious as she continued her tale. I could feel it; the lightheartedness was over. The core of her story began here.
"I took the tiny wishes in the hearts of people everywhere—that flicker of hope for the future—and I wove them all together using the power of Hecatoncheir. I pulled all that emotion into my own body. To defeat the Great Evil God of Despair, to protect the people I loved... I wove the world together."
"..."
"To skip to the end... I won. I defeated the Evil God and saved the world. People even started calling me the 'Hero of Hope.'"
"...Alice."
Something felt wrong. This was supposed to be a happy ending. Alice had gathered the world's hope and triumphed over the ultimate darkness. It was the perfect conclusion to a grand epic, yet she looked profoundly miserable.
"And then they all lived happily ever after, and peace returned to the world... It would have been nice if it had actually ended there."
As if reading my mind, Alice let out a self-deprecating laugh.
"I noticed the change immediately. No matter how many days I went without eating, no matter how many days I went without sleeping... I never got tired. I realized something was wrong with me."
"!"
"My original body couldn't withstand the massive energy required to weave the world's hopes together. That's why... I evolved. No, I transformed. I became a monster even more terrifying than the Evil God."
"..."
Alice, the hero who had saved humanity, had unwittingly become something beyond it. I finally understood why she had called herself a "former human." In that moment, she had shattered the limits of mortality. In a world where only humans existed, she had become an anomaly that no longer fit within the framework of life.
"It's not like I was persecuted for it or anything. Honestly, they couldn't have if they tried. By that point, I was so powerful that the entire world couldn't have laid a finger on me even if they'd all banded together."
"I see..."
"Yeah. But my partner—my best friend—just laughed at me while I was moping. She said, 'You idiot, do you think you've become a god just because you got a little extra power? Don't be ridiculous.' She treated me exactly the same as she always had. My sister and my other comrades were the same. They laughed and told me that no matter what I became, I was still me. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world."
Alice’s friend, her sister... they didn't care if she was a god or a monster. To them, Alice was just Alice. Looking at her face now, I could tell those words had been her salvation.
"But... my real despair started after that."
"...What?"
The air in the room seemed to grow heavy. Alice’s voice became strained and painful. She looked down for a moment, and when she raised her head again, she was wearing a smile that looked like it was about to shatter into tears.
"From the moment my body transformed... I stopped aging."
"No... Alice..."
"That's right. Just as you're thinking, Kaito-san. While the people I loved most in the world grew old and gray... I stayed exactly like this. Day after day, year after year, forever."
"..."
I finally understood. I understood the true nature of the despair she had lived through. The story I had heard so far was about a girl who had protected everything she held dear. The story that followed was about her losing it all.
"My mother died. Then my father died. The cruel passage of time snatched my precious people away from me one by one. Over and over, I had to experience the deaths of those I loved. When my younger sister—the most precious person in the entire world—grew old and passed away while worrying about me, I cried until I had no tears left."
"..."
How much grief could one heart hold? To fight so hard to save those people, only to be forced to watch every single one of them die... What kind of toll had that taken on her soul?
"I used to think I was invincible. As long as there were people behind me I wanted to protect, I believed my heart would never break. I thought I could grow as strong as I needed to be to win against any opponent. And for a while, that was true."
"..."
"As long as they were there, my heart never buckled once. But after I lost them... my heart shattered. It broke so easily, it was almost laughable."
I couldn't find any words. I knew the pain of being left behind, if only a little. When I lost my parents, the world had felt hollow and empty. Alice must have felt that a thousand times over.
At the same time, I finally had the answer to my question. I understood why Alice had shown such raw, terrifying fury toward Eden-san. She was terrified of losing what was precious to her. Because she had already watched so much slip through her fingers, she couldn't handle the thought of it happening again.
"When someone precious dies, a cold, dark hole opens up in your heart where they used to be. That hole might get smaller over time, but it never goes away. You just carry that emptiness with you forever."
"...Alice."
"I couldn't stand being the only one left. I didn't have the strength to keep carrying everyone's deaths on my shoulders. I thought that once they were all gone... I wouldn't be able to go on living."
"!"
The agony in her voice and the tears shimmering in her eyes told me her words weren't an exaggeration. But if that was how she felt, why was she here now? What had happened to change her mind?
"In the end, only my best friend was left. She was incredible, really. Just because she didn't want to leave me alone, she managed to outlive everyone else by a huge margin. But even she eventually reached her limit."
"..."
"She knew that if she left me all alone, I'd give up and end my own life. She saw it coming. That’s why, on her deathbed... she placed a 'curse' on me."
"A curse?"
"Yes. A kind, cruel curse that binds my heart to this day. An irresistible curse known as 'my best friend's final wish.' I can still remember our last conversation as if it happened yesterday."
Savoring every word, her voice trembling with the weight of a tragic fate, Alice began to recount the final memories of the friend who had stayed by her side until the very end.
Dear Mother, Father—Alice’s past, the source of the pain that haunted her, was finally clear. And with it came the answer to the strange intensity I'd felt from her before. Her rage at that moment... perhaps it had been a cry of grief.