Chapter 14 — Your Name Is Alice, So I Was Imagining a Girl in a Blue Dress with a White Apron
At Shigeto’s instruction, after a short countdown, the scenery around him changed again.
“Where are we?”
He had ordered the Omega Blade to teleport him to the Sage Alice, but there was no sign of her. He was in a long, dark hallway. Lamps hanging from the low ceiling cast a dim light around him. The walls were lined with countless doors. It was too dark to see far, giving the impression that the hallway continued forever, with an infinite number of doors.
“This is where Alice is,” Navi explained.
“I know that, but can’t you teleport me beside her?” Technically, he hadn’t ordered the sword to do that, but he couldn’t help but be unsatisfied with the result.
“This is a pocket dimension that rejects teleportation. You have permission to come this far, but you can’t teleport any farther.”
“So what, am I supposed to check all of these doors one by one?”
“If that is too much trouble, you could destroy the dimension altogether. It is little more than a transient bubble on the surface of the world, after all. Your power is overwhelmingly greater, so the Sages have no choice but to scurry around in the dark, hiding.”
“If I go inside, will I still be able to use the Omega Blade?”
“Yes. This dimension is still built on the framework of the greater world. It will only provide some moderate advantages to the owner.”
“I guess I’ll go test it out, then.” Shigeto didn’t have much of an objective. His desire to defeat the Sages was just an extension of his actions from before getting the Omega Blade. It may have been safer to test the weapon out more carefully, but he had grown apathetic. He had begun to stop caring whether he lived or died.
Opening a random door, Shigeto stepped inside. It was bright, so much so that it felt like he was outside, and when he looked up, he in fact saw the sun hanging in a blue sky. Turning around, he saw the door through which he entered was nowhere to be seen, replaced by an expansive meadow.
“We’re not actually outside, are we?”
“Correct. We are still within the space created by the Sage Alice. This is her ability. Each Sage has their own special skills that are unique to them.”
There was a gate in front of them. The gate had a large arch and walls on either side of it. Though he had walked through a door to get here, there was another entrance in front of him. The gate was ornately decorated. Spotless walls as white as chalk stretched out seemingly forever.
“Can the Omega Blade tell where she is? Actually, never mind. I’ll just go in and find out for myself.”
The walls and gate didn’t seem like they were trying to keep anyone out, so it didn’t seem like Alice was hiding.
Shigeto passed through the gate. The world inside was full of vivid colors. Trees with colors that seemed unnatural grew inside along with enormous colorful mushrooms. A wide path made of stone stretched straight ahead, leading to a beautiful white castle in the distance. The path was lined by small houses that looked like they’d been pulled right out of a fairy tale, and cheerful music filled the air. Anthropomorphized animals danced along to it on the path.
“It looks like a theme park in here.” Rather than a city, it gave the impression of an amusement park.
“This was all created through the Sage Alice’s Another Kingdom skill.”
“Looks like she’s probably in that castle.”
“Shall I check for you?”
“No, it’s fine. I’m not in a hurry or anything.”
Shigeto began walking down the path. As he walked, he realized he could hear more than just the pleasant music. There were screams mixed in with it. It seemed he wasn’t the only one here.
Looking around, he found the other humans right away. Dangling from the trees, being trampled on by the dancing animals, and being burned alive in the houses.
“Looks like she’s as bad as the rest of the Sages,” Shigeto commented.
Nearby was a cute bear walking along on two feet, but its face was drenched in blood. It looked like it was carrying balloons, but they were in fact freshly severed human heads. It was marching around, proudly displaying long, thin branches with human heads impaled on the ends of them.
“Dammit! What is this place?! What is going on here?!”
A man came running by, a panda skipping along happily behind him, wielding something like a machete. The man noticed Shigeto walking casually down the path and changed directions, running towards him. “Help! Please, help—”
But before he could make it to Shigeto, the panda lunged forward, burying his machete in the man’s skull. As the man fell to the ground, the panda jumped on top of him and continued hacking away.
Shigeto passed by, paying no mind to the tragedy happening around him. “It seems if you’re not afraid, there’s no issue passing through.”
“We’re just at the entrance, so I am sure things will get more serious farther in.”
As they kept walking, they came to an arched bridge. Canals divided the place into different areas, with bridges used to connect them.
Upon crossing the bridge, the atmosphere changed dramatically. The density of trees increased to the point where it was hard to see anything. He had walked into a forest. The thick canopy blocked most of the light, creating a dark, ominous atmosphere. But the path continued on to the castle, so he continued.
He could still hear screams. He no longer saw cute, stuffed animal-like creatures, but actual wild beasts. Huge wolves, deer, and bears were eating people. The animals here were actively hunting humans down. As they noticed Shigeto’s presence, they bared their fangs and approached.
“Omega Blade, reflect their attacks.”
The weapon was set to defend him automatically, but he gave it clear instructions anyway.
A wolf lunged at him but slammed into an invisible wall. It then began to twist and warp, breaking bones all over its body. It seemed to have survived the ordeal, but Shigeto didn’t care any more than that. Leaving the deformed wolf behind, he continued onward.
Other beasts attacked him one after another, but they all met the same fate. Long before their fangs or claws could reach him, they struck an invisible wall and received fatal injuries in turn.
“This is pretty easy.”
“Yes, the Omega Blade can render any attack powerless.”
“It almost makes me feel a little guilty.”
“Soon you will grow accustomed to it, and it will be second nature to you.”
“Despite being a sword, there’s really no need to swing it around in battle, is there?”
“Correct. Just possessing it is enough to automatically win any fight. As such, winning or losing becomes irrelevant. What is needed is the wielder’s ingenuity in how to use that nigh-omnipotent power to reach their goals.”
“Right now, I have no idea what I want to do. I figured I’d think about it after killing the Sages.”
“In truth, there is no need for you to personally go and hunt down each Sage one by one.”
“I don’t really want to skip that step, though. It feels better for me to do it myself.”
There were plenty of ways for him to kill the Sages indirectly with the Omega Blade. For example, he could use it to create subordinates to go hunt them down. However, Shigeto intended to watch each and every Sage die himself. He felt like he wouldn’t really feel accomplished unless he did that.
Passing through the forest, he came upon another bridge. Crossing over it, he ended up in a place that looked like a graveyard. Stone crosses were planted in the rough, churned earth. A cross wasn’t a religious symbol in this world, so as a place made by Alice, that must have meant Alice came from another world.
Apparently, the idea of this area was to have the dead come and greet visitors. Skeletons and thoroughly rotting zombies milled about. But however strong they might have been, nothing they did worked against Shigeto. As they approached, they were thrown away. The broken bodies of the undead were then forced back together, rising to attack again, but none of them ever got any closer. The invisible barrier was keeping them all at bay.
“How strong are these things?”
“They appear reasonably powerful. They are the remains of those who came here to slay the Sage Alice. There are even Heroes among them. In terms you would understand, they appear about ten times as strong as Ragna was.”
“Heroes, huh? I used to think they were so strong...” At this point, he couldn’t consider that level of power as being anything but hopelessly insufficient.
Passing through the graveyard, he came upon a large castle. That would be the last obstacle for him. Once he approached the bridge, the undead stopped chasing him. Apparently they could only act within the graveyard. The bridge connected to a large castle gate.
“Omega Blade, open the gate.” He didn’t know whether the gate was actually locked, but the idea of pushing the doors open himself seemed like too much of a pain.
The gate opened, revealing a luxurious interior. The place shone, gold and white. The amusement park earlier and this castle must have been built from Alice’s imagination. So this must have been what she imagined when she thought of a luxurious castle.
Shigeto stepped into the entrance hall. Climbing the large staircase in front of him, he instructed the Omega Blade to open the large set of doors blocking his path. They opened up into what seemed to be a throne room. It was adorned with just as much gold as the rest of the castle. Directly in front of the door was a platform holding a throne, upon which a young girl in a pink dress sat, looking down at Shigeto.
She was the Sage Alice, making this the end of her tasteless amusement park.
“Oh? It’s been a while since someone made it this far.”
Shigeto stepped up to the throne, looking up at her. “Your name is Alice, so I was imagining a girl in a blue dress with a white apron.”
“The girl from Alice in Wonderland wasn’t a princess, was she?” Clearly, this Sage thought of herself as a princess. “So, what do you want? You’re not here ’cause you want to kill a Sage, are you? People come here every once in a while to do that, but what did I do wrong? I guess there are some people who don’t like me inviting random people in here and want me to stop too. But I think that’s not too big a price to pay for my protection. If I wasn’t here, a whole lot more people would be dying, you know?”
“Why are you Sages always doing these kinds of things? Summoning people and forcing them to become new Sages, creating countries and forcing people to play as adventurers...”
“Uhh, ’cause we’re bored? We can’t stand being Sages if we don’t do stuff like this. In the end, we all end up messing with people for our entertainment. No matter what we try, we always end up going there. That’s where the most fun is.”
Many people might get furious after hearing something like that from a Sage. But Shigeto’s only thought was Ah, I see. He couldn’t help but feel she might be right about people who obtained power that set them apart from everyone else.
“Anyway,” he said, “I came here to kill a Sage. Do you feel like fighting?”
“Sure, let’s do it. But before I fight, I have to let my royal guard try!” As she spoke, a dark shadow spread across the floor, from which a person crawled out.
“Royal guard? I can take more than one at a time, if you like.”
“Hmm. Then maybe I’ll do four. Not that they’re anything stupid like Four Heavenly Kings or something.” Four knights had now appeared in front of her.
“Are these knights particularly impressive or something?”
“Not really. All they have is an attack with perfect accuracy that ignores defense and inflicts certain death, infinite magical energy, and immortality. I’ve never seen someone beat them, though.”
“I see.”
“Okay, if you can beat them, I’ll fight you. Go!”
One of the knights lunged at Shigeto. Whatever it was trying to do, before it could accomplish anything, it was split in two.
“Huh?”
“Didn’t seem like perfect accuracy to me. I guess certain death beats out immortality as well.” It had likely tried to attack him with its sword. The Omega Blade had reflected that attack right back at it. The perfect accuracy, certain death attack had been enough to defeat the knight’s immortality.
The other knights were crushed, incinerated, and wrenched apart in turn. Their movements were faster than the eye could follow. Shigeto didn’t have any idea what they were trying to do, but he didn’t need to know. Any attack they launched at him was automatically sent right back at them.
“Okay, I beat four of them. Now it’s your turn.”
Alice’s face was twisted in shock. Shigeto couldn’t help but feel a kind of dark satisfaction. Seeing someone who was so sure of their own invincibility suddenly freeze as they felt powerless sent a shiver of delight through him.
“O-Oh, you’re pretty good! But this place was made with my power, Another Kingdom! It’s a world that belongs to me alone! As long as we’re in here, I’m invincible!”
The ground suddenly disappeared. A pitch black void opened up under them. She must have intended to throw him out of the pocket dimension. Shigeto wasn’t sure if this counted as an attack, so it probably wouldn’t get reflected. Instead, he mentally instructed the Omega Blade to suspend him in the air.
The ceiling collapsed, but the stone crumbled to dust and fell harmlessly into the void below. Furniture, pillars, and weapons followed, all rushing to slam into Shigeto, but they were held back by the invisible barrier around him. Gravestones, earth, trees, water, corpses, beasts, stuffed animals, every little thing that made up Alice’s world tried to crush him. But none of them could so much as scratch him.
Before he knew it, there was nothing left. Shigeto and Navi floated alone in an empty void.
“Did she run away?”
“Looks like it,” Navi replied.
“She talked awfully big just to run away in the end.”
“Shall we pursue her? I can tell you where she went.”
Shigeto thought for a moment. “No. We’ll leave her for later.”
Remembering her terrified face at the end, Shigeto was starting to realize how to best use this power to entertain himself.
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