“Help…me…”
“Haah…haah…haah…”
Alice Campbell ran. She ran through the white gloom, a desperate look on her face.
“Master!”
The tears welling in her eyes were not of anger, no. They were tears of fear.
“No! No, no, no, no, no!”
She couldn’t let it happen again.
She couldn’t allow herself to be left behind again.
“Master! You can’t do this to me again!”
She had to find him. Because he was the only one who truly—
“Tree! Tree-tree-treeEEEEEEE!”
At that moment, something came flying out of the ground. A mandrake. A creature formed from plant material, save for the eyes, nose, and mouth, which were eerily human. Though its sudden appearance took Alice by surprise, she nonetheless evaded its attack with unparalleled finesse.
“Stay out of my way!”
Springing backward, Alice reached over her shoulder and drew her bow, loosing an arrow at the foe. The projectile whistled through the air and shattered the enemy’s head. On shot, one kill. But fiends had no fear. And so…
“G…g-g-grow… G-g-g-groooow…”
“Seed…seeeeeeeed…”
A whole horde of Mandrakes descended on Alice.
“Master!”
However, even when faced with this dire situation, Alice did not crack. She would not die. She would claim her happiness and live by the side of the man she sought.
“Rrgh!”
Alice felled the attacking mandrakes with her bow, turning each into rotting puddles of molten flesh. But the fiends did not relent, and soon the tide turned against her.
“Khh!”
Just then, an attack came from Alice’s blind spot, and the girl failed to notice the mandrake’s fist until it was too late. The crushing blow toppled her.
“U-urgh…”
Her eyes filled with tears. Was she really going to die here when there was so much still to do?
“Mas…ter…”
The words came before she summoned them.
“Help…me…”
He had ignored those words once before.
But this time…
“Why are you here?”
As soon as she heard those words, a gunshot rang out and blew the enemy away.
Leon Crossheart looked down at Alice, at her sprawled form. Her pretty white hair and delicate features looked as if they’d each been dragged through the mud, and her protective face mask dangled from one ear. Through it, he could see a large bruise on one cheek.
Seeing this, Leon was filled with an indescribable rage. Guided by his emotions, he laid waste to the rest of the fiends. Yet even that did not calm his heart. If anything, it only made the flame burn brighter. He grabbed Alice by the scruff of the neck, pulled her to her feet, and yelled…
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?! Do you have a death wish?!”
Alice shrank back, and with watery eyes, she answered, “…My mother was the only one I had.”
The voice that issued from her lips seemed ready to crack.
“The other villagers killed my father after he fell sick, or so I was told. Everyone there hated us. I had no friends or allies at all.”
As she spoke, Leon’s head began to cool.
“But I was happy there. As long as I had my mother, I could make it through anything. I could smile, no matter what came. But…she’s not here anymore.”
Her green, misty eyes gripped Leon by the heart and refused to let go. Leon saw something vaguely familiar when he looked at her. Eyes filled with a mixture of hatred and gratitude. A maelstrom of emotion, battling it out inside. It reminded Leon of something. A village that he once visited with Claire and Rheinhardt, back when they were still alive.
“It was you, Master. You killed my mother.”
He remembered her now. A young girl who looked very similar to the one before him. Could it really be?
“…My mother fell ill too. As the days went by, she gradually lost her mind to the sickness. I couldn’t bear to look at her, and so…I thought it would be better to end it. But…I couldn’t do it. Not by myself.”
Leon thought back to that remote village. To the events that unfolded there.
A giant, cackling fiend, and an innocent child about to fall into its clutches.
Leon showed up in the nick of time and slew the beast, but when he took the girl in his arms, she neither smiled nor cried. All she said was, “Mother…”
“It was you who reached out to us, Master, when no one else would. That’s why you’re a hero to me. You’re all I have left in the world. So, please…”
Tears streaming, lips trembling, the young girl reached out her arms and extended a heartfelt plea.
“…don’t just throw me away!”
Leon couldn’t even move.
He recalled how after the event, he’d left the poor girl with an orphanage at a nearby town and then forgotten about her completely. There was only one way to deal with orphaned children, and that was to put them in an institution designed to take them in. Once it was over, Leon could forget about her. Out of sight, out of mind. Remembering her would only bring heartache.
Faced with just one of the many things he had chosen to forget, Leon thought.
She sees the world in simple shades, like all who live in emptiness. Like me. She’s lived with nothing, as I did, and she sees me as her salvation, just as I saw Master and Rheina as mine.
Finally, he accepted it. Leon couldn’t make her go away at all. She was the same as him. He, too, had decided that the only place for him was by Claire and Rheinhardt’s side, and he wouldn’t take no for an answer.
Leon and Alice understood each other. Leon was Alice’s salvation, and she was his.
“I…”
Before he knew it, he was speaking.
“I won’t protect you. I can’t.”
“That’s okay. As long as I can stay by your side.”
“I…I betrayed your trust.”
“That’s okay. I can take any betrayal so long as I’m with you.”
He could fight it no longer. And in his heart, Leon felt a trace of relief. He reached out to take her hand.
Four years of hell. Four years of solitude. And the one salvation that could wash it all away… But at the very last second, he stopped. For if there was one thing more powerful than Leon’s hope, it was his despair.
He turned his back, and in a weak voice, he spoke. He couldn’t make the choice, so he selected an option that wasn’t there. To neither accept his fate nor deny it.
“…If you want to follow me, go right ahead. I won’t stop you.”
Then, dragging his left leg behind him, he set off. The girl caught up and walked alongside him.
“Erm, Master? Can I ask you a question?”
“…What is it?”
“What kind of person is Emilia?”
“…Looking for dirt, are you? A little leverage to hold over her?”
“I don’t like the way she treats you,” Alice retorted. “I want to save you from her.”
Her eyes were fierce. Leon ignored them.