Alice slumped weakly against the back of her chair.
Almost instantly, she realized that the two lines of pinyin had not been written by the same person. If the first half was a warning left behind by her past self, then the second half was nothing less than an utterly vicious joke.
—That belated "Happy Birthday," together with the Uniqueness she had reclaimed on her birthday, formed a single "gift."
It had first given her the Uniqueness, turning her into a true Mythical Creature and forcing her into a position where she had no choice but to become a god, before showing her that warning.
At that moment, she seemed no different from all those people in the past. She was a toy of the Key of Light, a toy of Fate.
The irony of the scene did not seem to end there. Alice closed her eyes as signs of the Winner potion's digestion and the sensation of the Misfortune Mage ritual's completion arrived together, adding an even deeper layer of irony to it.
—The chosen "Winner," and the bestowed "turning point."
Everything in her life had clearly been arranged!
Alice could not describe how she felt at that moment, but she understood that she probably would never again look at humans as though they were toys—otherwise, she would remember this birthday present.
In the end, the Key of Light and Amon were still different. Amon did not completely disregard her feelings. To Amon, she at least counted as a pet, while to the Key of Light, she was a toy in every sense of the word.
"Alice?" Klein's worried voice rang out.
Only then did Alice remember the current situation. She gave Klein a forced smile and said, sounding both like she was talking to herself and trying to