...?
Had I gone to hell?
No, wait, people in hell probably weren't there because they were ugly...
As her mind recovered from its brief crash, Alice realized her earlier judgment had been too hasty and tried to figure out where she was.
More than a dozen strange-looking people stood in a circle around her, two of them carrying Beast Hide Lanterns.
None of them were particularly tall, and their deformities were not limited to their faces. If those missing arms or with calves twisted into bizarre shapes might have been injured, then one person's hand had been replaced by a ball of flesh. Combined with their facial features, Alice believed this was some kind of developmental deformity.
These people...
As she frowned in thought, the crowd surrounding Alice suddenly parted. An elderly man clad in dark brown animal hide walked through the passage they made and came to stand before her.
His gray-white hair hung down in a messy tangle, and his face was etched with ravines carved by time. Alice stared fixedly at his face, only murmuring in a daze when he reached her:
"It's actually... normal?"
—This old man had normal, undeformed facial features.
The old man glanced back because of Alice's words, then looked at her and solemnly recited in an extremely strange accent:
"Chernobyl."
Alice jumped to her feet in shock, glaring fiercely at the old man in brown animal hide. More than ten seconds later, she finally Let Out a Breath and ordered as she steadied her breathing:
"Say that again."
Thus, the old man in dark brown animal hide repeated that name, which should not have appeared here, in that strange accent:
"Chernobyl."
Alice Didn't Know what language it was, but considering where that place name had originally been located, Alice Guessed it