I logged back in once gym class ended. I didn’t know how much longer I could avoid it without others growing suspicious. My lips curled into a frown when I caught sight of the player in my class, Gray, who had chosen to continue streaming while everyone was changing clothes.

There was nothing I could do about it, but it irritated me that Gray had exposed Rose, Lily, and Colette’s defenseless appearances to the world.

Skipping had dodged one trouble and landed me in hot water with another. Letty’s gaze on me had strengthened twofold after gym class ended. Not once did her gaze let up throughout the day and classes couldn’t end soon enough. In the back of the mind, I dreaded how my fellow Terrans might interpret Colette’s actions.

“Alice!”

“Yes!”

I straightened in my seat from Colette’s stern tone.

“Come with me.”

“...Understood.”

Colette hauled me off as soon as school ended. It never crossed my mind that Colette might take me to Saint Freya Academy’s botanical garden. Several gardeners nodded in acknowledgment to her. Apparently she had been to these gardens several times.

Colette sat down on a metal bench that was surrounded by several, blooming flowers. She signaled for me to join her, so I sat down on the bench by her side.

“Whenever I have a bad day, I visit these gardens to cheer up. My mood can’t help but improve when I am surrounded by cute, colorful flowers.”

“It is beautiful.”

“Right?”

Letty gently smiled at my praise. I wasn’t just saying that to please her. Saint Freya’s flower garden was one of the most beautiful gardens I had ever seen. Bright, vibrant flowers shone with life. The air was fresh and a sweet, soothing scent had enveloped me as soon as I entered.

“I always take anyone who spends the night with Lily here the next day.”

I remained silent, not quite sure how to respond. Colette’s next words clarified exactly what she meant.

“I know that you didn’t attend gym class because you wanted to hide the bite marks Lily left on you.”

“Y-You are wrong!”

“You don’t need to deny it to protect Lily’s honor. This isn’t the first time I have had this conversation and if I made you unbutton the collar of your blouse, I am certain they would be there.”

Colette had put me in checkmate. Just like she said, the bite marks were still present at the base of my neck.

“It was scary, wasn’t it?”

“Sure I was scared, but—”

Lily had Maxwell’s Cursed Mark. Even if I was scared at being pushed down and bitten, that paled in comparison to the fear I felt when I realized Lily didn’t have much longer to live.

“It hurt, didn’t it?”

“Yes it hurt, but…”

Lily had Maxwell’s Cursed Mark. I couldn’t imagine the amount of mental anguish she would go through once she realized that she had the infamous Cursed Mark.

“You thought she was your friend, but then she attacked you.”

“What are you saying, Colette? Lily IS my friend.”

Sure, I experienced something scary and painful, but that didn’t mean I stopped wanting to be friends with Lily. Something was odd. Colette spoke kindly and gently like usual, but it was as if  there were barbs hidden in her words.

“How can you stay friends after that happened between you?”

“Lily had a nightmare. She only bit me by accident.”

Colette looked at me in disbelief. It was like our conversation was traveling along two parallel lines.

“Aren’t you disgusted? You are both girls!”

“...Huh?”

“Two girls shouldn’t engage in that kind of activity. Don’t you agree, Alice?”

I scratched my cheek in embarrassment. I had never put much thought into it in the past, but…

“It should be fine if they love each other.”

“Love?”

Letty stretched out the word love in a mocking voice like how an older sister might scoff at a younger sister who said the tooth fairy had delivered her money. It was the type of voice I never thought I would hear from the angelic Letty.

“There is no such thing as love in this world.”

“You are wrong! Love exists everywhere in this world.”

“Ha! What you call love is nothing more than lust or companionship.”

Luckily, I did my homework after Lily asked me to teach her about love.

“Love is the feeling a mother has for her daughter, the care a gardener gives to the plants they tend, and the force that binds a happy couple together in marriage.”

“All illusions. Societal obligations, occupational obligations, and contractual obligations are the only reason people behave that way.”

According to her words, her parents were nothing more than people who were obligated to take care of her. Somehow, that caused a sharp pain in my heart.

“...Aren’t you lonely living that way, Colette?”

“Me? Why would I be lonely?”

She didn’t understand my train of thought. For the first time, I felt like Colette and I lived in different worlds.

“Somehow, I just thought that way.”

“There is no need to be sad. I am quite happy with how things are right now. I visit this garden quite frequently–”

“Alone?”

“Yes, alone. I value the peace and tranquility of the garden. Bringing someone else would ruin that.”

Letty puffed out her chest with a confident expression. I was so painfully familiar with acting tough like Colette that I took damage when I saw her do it.

“Colette… that is exactly what a lonely person would say.”

“You are just saying that because you haven’t seen my special place here.”

Colette grabbed my hand and pulled me along a secret garden path. We traveled through a natural maze of large hedges to a small meadow tucked away from the rest of the world. Wild flowers of all different types filled the meadow.

“This place is like my own little world when I want to step away from civilization and be surrounded by nature.”

A gentle breeze traveled through the meadow, causing my twin tails to sway. Something about the meadow was magical. Colette laid down on the flowerbed and I joined her. The vast open sky was blue and without a cloud in sight.

I glanced at Colette who had a gentle smile on her face. It was as if time had stopped in this one little corner of the world. All of the worries that urgently clamored for my attention grew quiet amid this peaceful place. Tension drained from my body.

For the first time since I was marked as a player, I allowed myself to relax and let my worries go.

We peacefully laid on the flowerbeds. Speaking up would destroy the sacred tranquility of this place. I saw why she hesitated to bring another person here. This peace wasn’t something you could enjoy with a noisy companion.

An immeasurable amount of time passed. It could have been only moments, or it could have been hours. The change was so subtle at first that I thought I imagined it.

A faint something appeared from one of the nearby flowers. It floated up in the air, nearly invisible to my eyes. The Witch Mark on my chest heated up as I focused on it and my smartphone buzzed in the pocket of my track pants. The nearly invisible figure revealed itself in full clarity.

I gasped. It was a girl with clear, butterfly-like wings in a clean white dress. She was as small as a little hummingbird. The tiny girl stretched out her arms as if she had just woken up. This was a Lesser Spirit that dwelled in the flowers below.

A second flower glowed, resulting in a second Lesser Spirit flying into the sky above the meadow. Then a third, and a fourth. I quickly lost track of just how many Lesser Spirits there were from the flowers in this meadow.

This meadow must be a natural Spirit Garden, an incredibly rare spot where spirits naturally gather. Most girls formed contracts with Spirits in man-made Spirit Gardens because of how difficult it was to find a Spirit out in nature.

The Hexennacht app on my phone had been buzzing nonstop now, no doubt telling me of all the contracts I could form with these Lesser Spirits. They were the weakest type of Spirits, so I would only be the weakest Magical Girl at Rank D, but that was still a much better starting point than a Rank F Pilot or a Rank F Artificial Saint Valkyrie.

I stretched out my hand to the sky filled with Lesser Spirits. With the press of a button, that power could be mine. A contract with a Lesser Spirit would instantly leapfrog me into the top 10% of all players.

I let my hand fall to the ground. While I chose to play as a female character in Violent Evergarden to keep the option of being a Magical Girl open, I wasn’t prepared to abandon Terra.

Each of the Lesser Spirits had bright smiles on their faces. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I got the feeling it was whimsical chatter. Several Lesser Spirits floated gathered around us, but it was primarily Colette who enjoyed their attention.

I took a glance at her, but she remained gazing up at the blue sky with a peaceful expression on her face. She couldn’t see the group of Lesser Spirits crowding her at all. Several of them laid down beside her, while others were sitting on her chest chatting.

I had seen something like this in the video game version of Violent Evergarden. One of the main heroines, Claire Ivythorne, had a constitution that made her loved by Spirits. She had naturally been able to see them ever since she was very little and she was one of the youngest ever to become a Magical Girl.

Those that were loved by Spirits would always be able to see them, but Colette was different. No matter how much the Lesser Spirits tried to interact with her, nothing reached her. Without a heart that loved others, it would be impossible to interact with Spirits.

Letty’s heart did not hold a shred of love towards anyone, not even her own family. Hundreds of Lesser Spirits gathered around to show Colette their love and affection, and yet she was oblivious to it. My heart grew heavy. The bright, cheerful Lesser Spirits frolicking around Colette should have been a warm scene, but I found it far too sad.

— ❀❁✿ —

Colette and I split up after it started to get late. I sent Lily a text asking her if I could spend the night again, to which she replied back with a very excited yes. I logged out to reset my growing hunger and give me a chance to have dinner with Dad.

“Hey Al, what do you want for your pizza? The usual Meat Lovers?”

“Of course!”

It was a little awkward knowing Dad was a fan of Alice, but thankfully things had mostly returned to normal between the two of us. We never talked much, preferring the comfortable silence between us. Mom and Sariel had trained us to be very good listeners and to be quiet.

Dad had chosen to take a week off from work. He never gave me a reason, but I knew he was worried about how Sariel and I would handle having the fate of the world decided by Violent Evergarden players. He was the solid rock that protected us. He was always there when we needed him.

Dad was my role model. I wanted to be just like him, but I had taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way. Dependable was not a word I associated with myself.

“Everything is going to be okay, Al. The world’s brightest minds are working to clear Violent Evergarden.”

Dad mistook the source of my distress and tried to reassure me. I chuckled to myself and switched gears in my mind. I had my own set of worries on the approach our world was taking to clear Violent Evergarden.

“The Witch Hunt Organization is acquiring power at all costs. That is the main trend players are following, but more rank B and below players will not help us clear Violent Evergarden.”

“It is less about clearing Violent Evergarden and more about saving lives. An untold number of people die in every demon invasion. One more warrior on the battlefield will greatly decrease the loss of life.”

Dad parroted WHO’s rhetoric. Everyone acted like we would be saved if we defeated the Demon King and reached the true ending in the game, but I couldn’t help but wonder if that was truly the case.

Did Camellia Maxwell, the main character of Violent Evergarden, live a happily ever after life with her 7 lovers in the Magical Girl route after defeating the final boss of the Demons?

“Mmm…”

I gave a non-commital grunt to Dad’s words and we both silently agreed to drop the subject. Of course, Dad chose my least favorite subject to bring up after the silence continued for too long.

“How goes the job search?”

“Ugh.”

“That bad, huh?”

“You have no idea. It is not like companies aren’t interested in me, but I keep failing at the interview steps.”

I couldn’t handle the pressure and my social skills were in the negative. I was never able to talk to the interviewers as naturally as I could talk to Rose, Lily, or Colette.

“Interviewing sure has changed from my days. It used to be one interview in person and you were done. Now these companies are stringing you out for five or six interviews only to reject you in the end.”

“I am a software engineer. My software skills should stand for themselves. Why do I have to talk to people to get a job?”

It was nice, I decided, to repeat the same old conversations. Even with the world changing every day, some things remained the same. Our light banter continued for a while. We watched the second season of our favorite tv series together, before cleaning up and parting ways for the night.

The fate of the world might not depend on Alfonse Lockengard’s every move, but my time as Al was just as important to me as my time as Alice Phantasmagloria. It would be a mistake if I prioritized one life to the point where I completely neglected the other.

I made a note in my mind that I needed to try to have more meals with Dad before logging into Violent Evergarden for the night.