Lucky One?

"Huanhuan, if you were transported into Lord of Mysteries, you'd definitely be a naturally born Monster!"

The young girl called Huanhuan looked over in confusion—black bobbed hair, dark brown eyes, classic Asian features, a heavy backpack, an oversized tracksuit, and something seemingly printed over her chest... What was it? She couldn't see clearly, but her memories told her it should be a school emblem.

Huanhuan—let's call her Huanhuan for now—looked around again. Thick white fog obscured the surroundings, and the girl speaking to her was the only clear presence.

At this moment, the girl stood beside her, linking arms with her and talking animatedly. They seemed to be... Right, on a street!

Huanhuan blinked her eyes and looked at the white fog permeating the area. As her memories became clearer, the dense fog seemed to gradually disperse and thin out. The surroundings remained blurry, but she could at least make out some things.

They were standing on a street, and she wore clothes identical in style and color to the other girl's. They should be classmates, perhaps even close friends. This thought entered Huanhuan's mind, and she seemed to understand something. A cool sensation flashed through her mind—but it wasn't enough.

Those things of varying heights, scattered along both sides of the street, with signs hanging above them... Those were shops.

The four-wheeled iron boxes that occasionally passed by them, making sharp sounds... Those were cars.

What else?

Lord of Mysteries... Monsters... They seemed to be concepts from a book the girl in front of her liked. The protagonist was called... What was his name again? Hiss—A stabbing pain in her head interrupted Huanhuan's train of thought, and she decided to think in another direction.

What had just happened? Why was she here? This place was—Why was the girl in front of her gradually becoming terrified?

"Huanhuan—!" Time passed unconsciously amid Huanhuan's thoughts. She only had time to see the girl's increasingly frightened expression and hear that piercing scream—then came intense pain.

"!" Huanhuan abruptly sat up and lowered her head in confusion, looking at her uninjured body. A vague realization dawned in her mind—everything just now seemed to have been a dream.

...Then who was she?

Huanhuan—perhaps she was Huanhuan. She was about to lower her head and examine herself carefully when her heart suddenly trembled. Following that instinct, she raised her head and looked in one direction. There stood someone almost merged with the darkness, staring at her warily.

"...Who are you?"

The voice that left her mouth startled Huanhuan. The language she had blurted out was not the same one she had heard in her dream—and the person before her replied in that same language.

"Do you remember what happened?"

...It was a male voice. Huanhuan blinked thoughtfully, her mind instinctively following his words—What had happened? Or rather, what had this body experienced?

The terrified man backed away, but accidentally stepped on some pebbles and fell to the ground, striking his head against a sharp rock.

A beautiful, sparkling crystal slowly seeped out from the breathless man's body. As though drawn to it, she stepped forward and picked it up—then, while examining it closely, stepped on something and fell over as well.

The crystal flew from her hand as she fell—then happened to land in her open mouth.

And then? Or even earlier than that?

A faint stabbing pain came from her head, and an inexplicable premonition told her—Don't think any further.

So she gave up trying to remember and looked at the wary man before her—if his voice matched his gender.

"I remember a man dying in front of me. A beautiful, sparkling crystal appeared on his body, and I went over to pick it up for a closer look..."

"And then?"

"Then I fell down."

"You fell down...?"

"Yes. That crystal fell out. I think it fell into my mouth..."

"..."

"Did I eat something I wasn't supposed to?"

The man did not answer her, but the scene around them began to shatter. She abruptly sat up again—what had just happened was another dream.

She looked around in confusion. This time, it was no longer complete darkness. It was a small room, and she was lying on a bed. The man from her dream was looking at her with a complicated expression.

This man wore a police uniform, with three silver six-pointed stars on his epaulets. He looked around thirty, with a high nose bridge and deep gray eyes.

Beside him stood another man with black hair and green eyes. He carried himself casually and frivolously, his hair was disheveled, and two silver six-pointed stars rested on his shoulders. Unlike his companion's complicated expression, which she could not understand, this man's expression was much clearer—undisguised astonishment.

"Why are you looking at me like that? And that dream..."

Perhaps noticing the confusion on the girl's face, the casually postured man gave her a gentle smile and said slowly, "All right, it seems we need to explain the current situation first... First of all, what's your name?"

Her name? The girl's expression became blank. She tried to remember, but aside from that cry of "Huanhuan," she had no clues... Wait.

A strange scene flowed before her eyes—a girl chasing a talking white rabbit carrying a pocket watch, falling into a rabbit hole. Along with the scene came a faint impulse, and she almost instinctively blurted out, "Alice Kingsley."

"It's like this, Miss Alice. Have you heard of... Beyonders?"

"...Beyonders?"

"Yes."

"...I don't remember."

"Hm?"

"I don't remember... Aside from what I just told you, I don't remember anything."

The black-haired, green-eyed man exchanged a glance with the gray-eyed man. They seemed to communicate something through their eyes, or perhaps they did not. In any case, the black-haired, green-eyed man looked at Alice again.

"Hmm... All right, then I'll start by introducing Beyonders to you."

"So that means I'm now... a Sequence 7 Lucky One of the Monster Pathway?"

After the two officers' explanation, Alice finally understood Beyonders, Pathways, and Sequences, and asked the two men for confirmation.

"That's right. We didn't expect something like this to happen either..."

As he spoke, the black-haired, green-eyed gentleman's expression visibly twisted again. An ordinary person had swallowed a Sequence 7 Beyonder Characteristic by mistake, yet not only was she fine, she had even become a Beyonder. Although she seemed to have lost her memory, they had already examined her—both her body and spirituality were very "normal." It was impossible to believe that she had actually swallowed a Sequence 7 Beyonder Characteristic whole... Was this what it meant to be a Lucky One?

Of course, it was possible that Alice had hidden problems—for instance, they had not discovered her amnesia before. But regardless, the fact that she had survived and become a Beyonder was clearly luck beyond all reason.

Alice Kingsley was actually the name of the female lead of Alice in Wonderland. Alice, who had accidentally fallen into a rabbit hole, had something in common with a protagonist who had stumbled into the Supernatural World. Choosing this name and setting this Sequence also established the tone of the story—Alice was merely a "Lucky One" who had wandered into the Supernatural World. She was neither powerful nor wise. She even possessed an innocence and naivety that the original wandering girl would not have had, having spent more than a decade studying in the peaceful Modern Society. Perhaps she also had the recklessness that lucky children tended to possess—meaning that compared to rational thought, she trusted her intuitive judgments more. Perhaps as the story progressed, Alice would be stained by the Fate Pathway's common ailment—acting like a fortune-telling charlatan. She would also gradually realize that this world was neither peaceful nor beautiful, that the world of Beyonders concealed countless dangers and horrors, and that everything in fairy tales was a lie. But those were matters for much later. If you want to see that but lack the patience to wait, then this is not a work suited to you. Let's not hurt each other.