Alice Kuonji

Because Alice Kuonji's father had united with her mother, a witch, he too passed away not long after her mother's death.

Perhaps because of that, or perhaps due to inheritance disputes, the current Kuonji conglomerate had a rather poor relationship with Alice. After all, Alice legally did possess inheritance rights to a portion of the Kuonji conglomerate's shares.

That portion of shares was currently being held in trust by one of Alice's worthless uncles. Since Alice detested mundane trifles, she had never gone to claim them.

In reality, Alice Kuonji did not look entirely Asian as Hirokazu Koyama had depicted her in the game's character art. Her mother was descended from Yumina, a mage-witch from the British Isles. Tracing it back to its roots, Alice's bloodline contained a considerable Celtic component.

So, although Alice had jet-black short hair that looked as smooth and soft as fine silk, her facial features were far more defined than those of a purely Japanese person.

Aoko and Alice were somewhat alike in this regard. Aoko had once asked her deadbeat father about it, and he said that the old mage's wife—Aoko's grandmother—might have had some European magus blood...

She had died too early for the details to be known, and he had never met his own mother either.

The Aozaki sisters' looks could be said to combine the finest traits of Europeans and East Asians. Their skin was not only fair but delicate, and their features were not as flat as those of the Japanese. Aoko was quite satisfied with this. Even standing beside a beautiful girl like Alice, each had her own charms, and they looked remarkably well-matched.

Aoko believed that the reason her looks, figure, and talent for magecraft surpassed those of the original Aoko from the original timeline was not merely European ancestry. There were other reasons. The "transmigrator" factor might have played a part, but that was not all. Still, she was in no hurry to figure it out. She believed that one day, she would uncover every secret about herself.

Aoko valued Alice, her roommate, greatly. She secretly planned that once she had mastered her arts, she would find an opportunity to personally reason with that so-called "uncle" and reclaim Alice's shares. How could a delicate "fairy-tale princess" like her worry about making a living every day?

In daily life, Aoko stubbornly called Alice Kuonji "Alice," rather than "Alice." This was because Aoko greatly disliked the Japanese pronunciation of Alice's name. Alice did not mind this behavior. After all, she had been born in Britain rather than Japan. Even in terms of identity, Alice likely felt a deeper attachment to Britain.

On her first day moving into the Kuonji residence, Aoko conquered Alice's taste buds with an exquisite, elegant afternoon tea. She had spent a fortune on the most authentic Lapsang Souchong tea, paired with carefully toasted savory finger sandwiches, classic English scones with clotted cream and jam, and finally a puff pastry cake for dessert. It gave Alice the most authentic old British Union Jack Low Tea.

Such thoughtful service even made Alice, the landlady, feel somewhat embarrassed about her new apprentice. As she sampled the afternoon tea, she privately wondered which of them had actually been born in Britain.

Before Aoko came to the Kuonji residence, Alice had basically relied on delivery from high-end restaurants to solve her everyday meal problems. She knew absolutely nothing about cooking, and her refrigerator was normally stocked with nothing but fruit and beverages. Since she had no servants, most household chores were handled by the PLOY her mother had left her.

Aside from the PLOY designed purely for combat, Alice possessed quite a few PLOY that combined special functions with the ability to help her manage household chores. When she was bored, Robin would even chat with her to ease her loneliness. They truly were exemplary familiars.

In the course of teaching magecraft, Alice was undoubtedly a far stricter teacher than the old mage of the Aozaki family.

Aoko's grandfather was like a university professor. Whether his students understood or not, he simply maintained his own pace and pushed the curriculum forward. Alice, meanwhile, was like the harshest high school teacher. She monitored every aspect of Aoko's progress, then set all manner of goals beyond Aoko's current magecraft level to force her to improve.

Aoko was no novice in magecraft, but because she had not devoted all her energy to it, Alice believed there were still many areas where her magecraft needed improvement.

Compared with the original Aoko Aozaki, the current, upgraded Aoko possessed far greater quality and quantity of Magic Circuits. This allowed her to perform and use all kinds of exceptionally complex magecraft rituals.

However, just like the original Aoko, her extraordinarily high magical energy circulation efficiency allowed her magecraft bullets to reach the highest level of rotation and output speed within her circuits, producing destructive effects like a "light cannon" or a "Gatling gun."

Touko and Alice were quite disdainful of Aoko's barbaric method of using magical energy, but they had no choice but to acknowledge Aoko's talent for destruction and admire her destructive efficiency.

Aoko herself was neither proud nor self-deprecating about her talent for destruction. She knew perfectly well that it was precisely the structure and characteristics of her Magic Circuits, along with her unique understanding of destructive tendencies, that had allowed her to stand out in the sisters' competition for inheritance rights.

Sometimes, life was simply like that. Aoko's unparalleled talent for efficiency and destruction had not made her indulge in it. On the contrary, she believed it was merely the basic hardware required for her to master the Fifth Magic. The parts that truly required her to devote herself fully to study and training were the otherworldly knowledge bestowed by the fragment hidden deep within her soul.

For this reason, Aoko completed the study tasks Alice assigned her in daily life very well, but she did not do even the slightest bit extra beyond that. When she studied and practiced Magic Network arcana, she did not deliberately avoid Alice's gaze, but neither did she offer any unnecessary explanation. After all, Magic Network arcana did not need to follow the principle of keeping mysteries from spreading.

Aoko and Alice were both very satisfied with each other. They lived together in the Kuonji residence in a relationship that was intimate yet faintly distant. They spent two years in that comfortable arrangement, during which Aoko occasionally wrote many letters to Touko at the Clock Tower.

Whether out of shyness or stubbornness, Touko did not write back often. But judging from the contents of her replies, she seemed to be preparing to make a move against one of the two people Aoko had warned her about in advance.

The reason was that she was about to leave the Clock Tower. Touko's recent research results had become somewhat dangerous, and the people at the Clock Tower seemed to want to place her under a Sealing Designation. Leading them was her teacher, Lord Barueyereeta.

Knowing she would soon have to flee, Touko decided to strike first. She would take out an easy target, then return to Japan, attack head-on, beat up her little brat of a sister, and rightfully reclaim the family's inheritance rights.