Warning

"So, you divined that all the coincidences you experienced had been arranged?" Above the Gray Fog, having finished listening to Klein's account, Alice recalled again the fear that had already subsided.

She quickly realized why Klein had come to find her—when it came to coincidences, what could be more coincidental than the process by which she became a Beyonder? Let alone...

Alice suddenly realized that, even though she desperately wanted to find her memories and past, she had never considered divining clues in this regard, even after realizing that this matter was far from simple.

If she... The scream that abruptly exploded within her spirituality stopped her thoughts. She realized that divining this concealed immense danger—and that also meant the coincidences surrounding her and those surrounding Klein did not share the same source.

Alice gathered her thoughts. Looking at Klein, who was waiting for her to think, she said softly, "The other party's target probably isn't you."

"Not me?" Klein was extremely surprised. In fact, before calling Alice over, he had already considered several possibilities, one of which was related to his transmigration. Yet now Alice was telling him he had been a little self-important. The feeling was rather subtle.

"Wait, how did you know it wasn't me?"

"Because the captain... Ah, wait." Alice, who had blurted it out, suddenly realized that this was a place where she would not be watched for telling the truth. Once again, she became confused about this place's origins. "What is this place?"

Klein's expression answered that he didn't know either.

"...Fine." Alice sighed helplessly, frowning as she organized her words. "Let me think about how to explain it to you..."

"I first noticed something wrong with the captain... Um, starting from some day three years ago, I don't know how to describe that feeling. Like shadows or transparent threads—in short, some invisible yet omnipresent thing had wrapped around the captain. Its master used it to guide the captain's Fate, gradually leaving only one possibility in his future: death."

"So the person who arranged all this was targeting the captain?" Klein asked. "Why didn't you tell anyone, yet..."

"Because I had a premonition that if I said it out loud outside, I'd be discovered!" Alice explained her reasoning with a frown. "But I don't think the person behind it was necessarily targeting the captain..."

"Then what was it?" Klein pressed on.

"I don't know. Uh, it's just how I feel—intuition, you understand?" Alice tried to explain her unusual way of reasoning to Klein—most of the time, she searched for evidence with the answer already in mind rather than inferring an answer from evidence.

Reason told Klein that this was an extremely imprecise line of reasoning, but a Beyonder's intuition was sometimes more than mere intuition. He decided to place a certain degree of trust in it. After all, Dunn truly did not look like someone with an enemy harboring such deep hatred that they would secretly scheme for years just to make him die without a trace...

"Oh, right." Looking at the silent Klein, Alice felt she should still remind him. "I don't know why saying it here won't let the person behind this discover it, but you'd better be careful of this place... Have you ever considered that you're like the person in your metaphor right now—the one who secretly slipped into a castle, while the guards are still hiding somewhere?"

Klein stiffened slightly. Though he wasn't like Leonard, smug over his own special nature and thinking himself the Protagonist of the Era, he wasn't actually all that wary of the Castle of Origin either... At times, he even relied on it somewhat.

Alice sighed helplessly and asked Klein, "Do you still remember how I became a Beyonder?"

"Ahem." Klein coughed softly to control his expression.

"Fine, looks like you remember." Alice did not mind at all; after all, she was used to seeing it. "What do you think it resembles?"

"Hm?" Klein looked at Alice in confusion, not understanding why she had brought this up.

"That unlucky courier—I mean, that dead Lucky One—had an utterly unremarkable history. He was practically like a courier specially selected just to deliver this Beyonder Characteristic right before my eyes!" Alice described the feeling she had always had. "But have you ever considered who the sender was?"

"...Was it related to the truth of your transmigration? That girl?" Klein asked somewhat uncertainly. Until Now, he still couldn't forget Alice's first words—the girl who had told her, "You're simply a Naturally Born Monster."

"I Don't Know," Alice replied. "But that isn't the most terrifying part. In fact, until today, I had never considered divining this, even though I cared about it greatly—guess why it never occurred to me?"

"Your spirituality was warning you?" Klein made a reasonable guess. It was the most likely answer for a Beyonder, but it also made him even more afraid—what kind of existence would make even attempting a divination impossible?

"Every bit of Fate's Gift has its price secretly marked." Alice spoke softly, but even as she warned Klein, she still had not realized that her reliance on intuition and luck was likewise proof that she accepted "Fate's Gift" with perfect peace of mind.

Even so, Alice gave Klein one final warning. "Not just the guards, but the castle's true owner as well... You sit in the Castle Owner's seat, dressed as the Castle Owner. Justice and The Hanged Man both see you as the castle's owner. If one day the Castle Owner replaced you, would they know?"

This chapter was rather short... I'm not feeling well, so I couldn't keep writing today. The previous chapter was actually written yesterday... In short, that's it. Let me rest for a while.