A wave of heat flooded the Witch Mark on my chest and the world went white. When my eyes regained focus, I found myself sitting in my room at my desk.

“I-I’m back.”

I couldn’t believe it. No matter how much my mind screamed that magic didn’t exist, there was no other explanation for how I traveled to and from the world of Evergarden. I ignored the Hexennacht app on my computer and turned to the body length mirror in my room.

Relief flooded through my body at the familiar sight of a man in his early twenties with dark brown hair and brown eyes. Yes, this was how things were supposed to be. A tinge of confusion tainted my excitement as I examined myself closer.

“I feel… fine?”

I had not slept for over a day and yet I was perfectly okay. There were no bags under my eyes from my long night. The last time I ate was 18 hours ago, but I was not hungry in the slightest. I didn’t have to use the bathroom either.

I shelved the problem and made my way downstairs. Since Emerald Coast’s time was in sync with my own, I didn’t find it a surprise to find my dad, David Lockengard, sitting in front of the television with a sandwich.

“What is the latest?”

I rummaged through the fridge and grabbed a Dr. Sippers. For a minute, I had the illusion that this was just the same as any other typical day.

“Can you believe it? Over 5% of the players have already been eliminated. Most of the eliminated players are the ones who did not join the Witch Hunt Organization. Those morons…”

I laughed helplessly to myself, being one of those morons. I shut the fridge door and made my way to Dad with my drink.

“Mmm, I take it they decided to skip the Academy and rush straight to forming a contract?”

The beginning of any game, also known as the ‘Start Dash,’ was often the most important time of the game. Since Violent Evergarden’s resources were limited, every player was competing for the same spirits and treasures.

The quickest way to gain power was to form a contract with a spirit and become a Magical Girl. This was normally a long process that required gaining a spirit’s favor, but Violent Evergarden players could immediately skip this process and form a contract with the power of the game system.

“That is right. I can’t believe so many would abandon Terra to live in Evergarden. These are the people we expect to save the world?”

“If nobody chose to become a Magical Girl, then clearing Violent Evergarden would be impossible.”

Dad groaned at my words. I left him to his devices and went back to my room with my cold drink.

Players quickly discovered that becoming a Magical Girl turned them into full time residents of Evergarden. They lost the ability to return to Terra. That alone was a deal breaker for me. I couldn’t imagine leaving my family behind.

Without money or connections, I had no realistic way to gain power in Evergarden. My game knowledge was practically useless because of how far away I was from the main stage of the game. At the moment, I had no choice but to dutifully attend Saint Freya Academy as a student.

I locked my room up and pulled out my phone. Just like other players had reported, the Hexennacht app was installed on my phone as well. I navigated through the menus to the login button.

Only a few minutes had passed since I last logged out. If I delayed any longer, my friends might question why I was taking so long in the bathroom. I held a cool Dr. Sippers can in one hand while I pressed the login button with my other hand.

— ❀❁✿ —

“Hello world~”

I muttered cheerfully to myself as I exited the bathroom stall. I technically didn’t need to wash my hands, but did so out of habit. I turned on the faucet and wet my hands. The bathroom sinks in Evergarden were slightly different from the one’s back home.

There was a strange panel with an indented handprint on it rather than a soap dispenser by the faucet. Not knowing any better, I placed my hand on it. A foreign sensation washed through my body. I didn’t know what had happened until I subconsciously glanced at my reflection in the mirror.

The girl had brilliant blonde hair that sparkled under the bathroom’s lighting. Her smooth, white skin would make anyone jealous and her sky blue eyes twinkled with an unmatched luster. If Rosabella Dawnkeeper was a princess of a lost kingdom, then this girl was the princess of the sun kingdom.

“Oh crap.”

The heavy makeup, brown hair dye, and colored contacts I had used to hide Alice’s radiant appearance had somehow been cleared away by that magical sensation. I panicked and darted back into the bathroom stall without even turning off the faucet.

I quickly logged out and logged back in. As my investigations had predicted, my appearance returned to its original state. Luckily no one had caught sight of Alice’s true appearance. I shut off the running faucet and sighed.

“Loading from a saved state, huh?”

Witch Hunters theorized that the character data used to login to Violent Evergarden existed outside of either world. Most actions like eating or drinking were not enough to modify the original character data. Small cuts and bruises also did not carry over.

The reason my stomach didn’t feel full despite having just eaten and the reason my desperate urge to pee had disappeared while I was logged out was for this very reason.

In Violent Evergarden game terms, only individuals with a high rank of existence could permanently modify character data. This process was akin to how the final boss, the Demon King, was completely invulnerable to all existences whose rank was below her own.

Logging into Violent Evergarden was like projecting a copy of the character into Violent Evergarden. When a user logged out, the projection ended and the original character data remained unchanged. Spirits, Demons, Valkyries, and Pilots were the only ones who could damage a player enough to permanently harm their original character data due to their high rank of existence.

I ended my musing and returned to my friends in the cafeteria. Thankfully, none of them questioned my absence. We soon left to go to a Karaoke store.

Warmth filled my chest as I watched my friends happily chatter on the way. I couldn’t remember the last time I had spent an afternoon outside with others rather than being holed up in my room.

Despite everything that hung in the balance, I enjoyed myself. I was hanging out with my friends, not because I thought it was something necessary to save the world, but because I wanted to be with them. It was a miracle that a shadowy loner like me had found a bright, joyful place to call my own in this world.

Lily insisted on paying for Karaoke since it was her idea. Her stubbornness eventually won us over. While Rosabella came from a wealthy family and Colette didn’t mind splitting the bill, my limited starting funds cried in relief.

Players were only allocated enough to cover a few meals. I needed to find some way to earn money before I ended up penniless. The four of us entered the karaoke room and spread out on the sofas. Lily sat down on the center sofa with a smug smile at her successful plan.

“Since Lily paid, it is only fair that Lily gets to choose the order everyone sings in. Letty, you are first.”

“I knew you were up to no good when you insisted on paying for us.”

“Is that a no?”

“It can’t be helped. I’ll sing.”

Colette shrugged her shoulders in defeat. As Lily’s childhood friend, she had spoiled the little devil more than anyone else. Colette chose a childish, silly song that might appear in a kids show called Fluff Fluff Paradise.

Colette was a very cute singer because she fell into a big panic whenever she made a mistake. Everything spiraled rapidly out of control until she regained her composure.

As expected of the angel Colette. Her voice healed away all my worries and cares. My angel’s face was bright red from embarrassment by the time she finished. We gave her a big round of applause for her unparalleled healing performance.

“Next up is Rose.”

“By Rose, might you mean me?”

“Yup. Lily likes to give her friends nicknames. Letty is Letty, Rosabella is Rose, and Alice is… err… umm… Lily is still working on that one.”

“I’m surprised. My family calls me Rose too.”

Rosabella, or Rose, selected a popular song, My Dream of You. As one might expect from someone as beautiful as Rose, she sang flawlessly. I wouldn’t be surprised if she was a singer in addition to being some lost countries’ princess.

“Alice–”

“W-Wait, Lily. You go first!”

I interrupted Lily in a panic before she could finish nominating me. This wasn’t Terra. I had never heard of any of these songs before. I desperately searched the song list for any song I might recognize.

“Heh. Don’t regret your decision. Lily’s song will be a tough act to follow.”

Heavy metal spewed from the speakers and I finally realized why Lily wanted us to come here. Lily’s petite form swayed from side to side as she sang her heart out with a gigantic smile on her face.

Lily did not make cute mistakes like Colette or have a flawless performance like Rose. Even so, her singing blew the other two out of the water. Her song gripped my heart and refused to let go. At that moment, Lily had relinquished all of her worries and enjoyed herself from the bottom of her heart.

She put everything into her song without worrying about the mistakes she made along the way. I couldn’t avert my eyes. Heat flooded my cheeks. I only recognized that my heart was pounding in the silence that followed Lily’s song.

A wave of helplessness stirred my heart. I had thought I was safe from developing a crush on Lily because of her petite body, but I was wrong. It was time I admitted it. I was one of those easy heroines who was deeply moved by simple acts of kindness.

“Alice, it is your turn.”

I nervously gulped as I selected the only song in the list that I recognized. It was the song that played during the final battle against the Demon King in Violent Evergarden. It happened to be my second favorite song in the soundtrack and I occasionally sang along to it. Of course, that was when I was a man. My ‘practice’ likely didn’t carry over to this form.

“D-Don’t make fun of me if I am bad.”

“We won’t, we won’t.”

Lily promised with a mischievous smile that said she definitely was planning on it. I picked up the microphone and stood in front of the screen. My palms were slick with sweat and a familiar pang of nervousness went through me.

It was like I was back in Terra, standing in front of a group of interviewers. My mind would blank out in those moments and everything would be over before I knew it. A rejection always came a few days later. My excuses were already prepared by that point.

I didn’t really want the job. I wasn’t trying my best, so it was okay to fail. It was not the right job for me.

As I began to make up similar excuses for my upcoming failure, Lily’s song echoed through my head. I had chosen to cover myself up in layers of armor so that nobody could hurt me, but in return my voice would never reach anyone either.

My hoodie, track pants, and makeup were an extension of the armor I wore around my heart so that nobody could see the ‘real’ me. This cheerful character I played was the same.

“...Alice?”

“...”

If I truly wanted to change, if I wanted to be friends in more than name only, if I wanted to stand side-by-side with the amazing people in this room, then I needed to drop my armor, if only for a single song.

Lily had already demonstrated how to do this. I looked at my friends one by one. Letty gave me a warm nod. Rose’s bright presence spoke of her confidence in me. Lily’s excited look told me how much she wanted to listen to my song.

I turned my attention back to the screen and the song began to play. As the word appeared on the screen, I opened my mouth and sang.

— ❀❁✿ —

I leaned back heavily in my chair. A still cold Dr. Sippers sat on a coaster at my desk, despite the hours that had passed. My experiment was a success. The cold state of the Dr. Sippers can was preserved while I was logged into Evergarden. Even so, I didn’t care about that right now.

My hands covered my face and a deep sense of exhaustion filled my heart. Disbelief, confusion, and happiness churned around inside me.

“Nobody made fun of me.”

I sang with my heart on my sleeve and was greeted by a warm applause. I had made several mistakes, but nobody blamed me for those failures. It had been less than a day, but those three had somehow wormed their way deep into my heart.

“Man, this childish crush of mine is only going to get worse, isn’t it?”

Even in the safe space of my home in Terra, I couldn’t stop thinking about the bright time I spent with those girls. It was bad to the point where I wished to hurry up and return to their sides. Logically, I knew there was no reason to return.

Our Karaoke room had expired and everyone went their separate ways. I needed to catch up on reviewing other player’s footage and gather information on Violent Evergarden so I would be better equipped to save the world. Additionally, Dad would question my absence if I didn’t eat dinner with him.

I found my finger drifting to the login button. I gazed at the false appearance of Alice Phantasmagloria and muttered an excuse to nobody in particular.

“It can’t be helped.”

My vision went pure white.