The clock tower's chimes reverberated through the night sky—the Night Party was starting right on schedule tonight.
"Aren't you going?" Alice asked, glancing at Raishin.
"I'm technically still missing after that whole incident with the principal," Raishin replied softly, his gaze fixed intently on Magnus, who stood surrounded by his team in the distance.
"Besides…this is the whole reason I came to Britain."
Raishin had come to Britain, to this academy, for one purpose only: to avenge his little sister…and his clan.
He ran a hand through his hair, shifting his attention to the hollow center where Alice stood.
Turn this place into the underworld, enter it, and find a certain soul.
Could something like this really be done? It sounded like something straight out of a fairy tale.
Ding-ding-ding—
A serene chime resonated in both their hearts, as if the night itself had drawn closed a veil of shadows.
A cat bell fell to the ground, and an indescribable ripple spread outward from Alice's feet.
Alice's fairy-tale magic had begun.
The fairy-tale witch was reshaping reality, etching one spell after another upon the Fool's Sanctuary.
At the same time, Shouko's figure suddenly appeared within the hollow.
Komurasaki's face looked a bit uneasy as she carefully set down what looked like a water tank. Inside, a tiny lump of flesh wobbled—like an underdeveloped, malformed fetus.
The sight of this creepy thing made Yaya shrink back nervously.
A cap was gently removed, and a green, oily liquid slowly transformed into a mist, dispersing into the vast underground cavern.
"So this is 'Seiryu'?" Alice asked softly, putting the bottle away.
"That's right." Shouko's eyepatch had already shifted into a lens, and she was carefully observing the team of automata.
She was…deeply interested in something like bringing the dead back to life.
"Hotaru should have already told you why the team 'exists,' and how they are 'alive'," Magnus said, his gaze beneath the mask calm and gentle.
The automata all looked at Magnus, and finally, Hotaru spoke on behalf of them all. "Master, we are truly happy to be of service to you."
"All this time…I've been in your care."
At Magnus's somewhat choked-up words, Hotaru herself grew too overwhelmed to speak. "We are unworthy…!"
"Well then…" Alice lifted her hand gently, looking up at the pitch-black ceiling.
"Make this place…my world, Snark."
Oil emerging with the night as its film manifested within the darkness of the great underground hollow.
The barrier deployed; Flat Snark was forcefully overlaying the world of fairy tales onto reality.
The 'sympathy' magecraft etched by Edward began to glow.
This underground place, filled with countless lost souls, began to transform. The concept of the underworld was slowly replacing the 'Fool's Sanctuary.' As the visibly dense magical fog spread, the artificial souls within the Fool's Sanctuary grew restless.
One after another, translucent, faintly visible figures began to appear in everyone's field of vision.
Are these…souls?
The underworld's concept made it possible to perceive the dead with the naked eye, but the living were affected as well.
Alice suddenly felt a chilling dread seep into her body—a cold that could erode the soul.
"Don't wander, don't move recklessly," Edward's vast magical energy enveloped everyone as he spoke with resonant authority. "Unless you truly wish to cross into the realm of the dead."
After everyone had drawn closer to him, his gaze slowly shifted to Alice.
The solid barrier known as reality normally hindered such magecraft, but the world of fairy tales had torn that barrier open.
"Give that to me."
Alice turned and reached out to Magnus, asking for the small vial Raishin had thrown to him earlier.
It contained Nadeshiko's ashes.
Within the ashes lingered the fragrance of a soul—enough to serve as a medium for calling that soul back.
Now that they were within the underworld, all that remained was to find Nadeshiko's soul.
"…Here." Magnus took a deep breath and stepped forward.
Even the top-ranked student was somewhat tense within the underworld. He gently placed the glass vial into Alice's hand.
He looked at the hundreds of millions of souls around them. "How will we find Nadeshiko?"
The Fool's Sanctuary now held not only artificial souls, but countless true deceased, drawn here as well.
"Data analysis."
"Data…analysis?" Magnus's eyes widened; the unfamiliar concept left him puzzled.
"Mhm."
Alice poured a bit of the ashes into her palm and also took out a portion of Nadeshiko's bodily tissue she had obtained earlier.
"Trimmau."
Alice suddenly raised her right hand. As if following the gesture of an orchestra conductor, Trimmau raised her right hand as well.
Smooth, pale skin transformed into silvery-white liquid. Trimmau's right hand instantly vaporized, gathered in mid-air, and reliquefied, forming several numerical dials floating in the air.
The reason Trimmau was revered as the El-Melloi's supreme mystic code wasn't solely due to its excellence as a combat asset.
It was also an ultra-high-performance analytical engine.
Numbers and symbols flickered and changed incessantly across the dials, almost too fast to follow.
Alice gently scattered the ashes. The lingering fragrance of the soul caused some of the dead in the distance to let out silent screams.
The numerical dials shifted rapidly, cycling through images of the organs from Nadeshiko housed within the team, with Nadeshiko's own face flashing among them.
Before long, the shifting stopped.
The mercury-based dials seemed to have reached a conclusion.
Alice moved her right hand, pointing southeast. A faint, hazy green mist became visible in the air.
The pure, faintly outlined figure of a girl appeared in the distance. Her eyes were closed as if in slumber, and her intangible black hair drifted lightly around her.
At the same time, Shouko and the six automata of the team began a precision procedure on the cellular level.
The lump of flesh in the tank began to change, as if tracing Nadeshiko's outline, gradually taking on a more human form.
But it wasn't complete—not yet, with the organs still not in place.
Shouko straightened up and looked toward Magnus with a questioning gaze.
He closed his eyes and gave a silent nod.
Magical energy spilled from Shouko, instantly enveloping the team. The automata split open on the spot, spraying blood and foam.
Exposed brains, vividly colored internal organs, eyeballs, and nerve bundles.
One by one, Shouko assembled the organs into Nadeshiko's body.
Nadeshiko's soul drifted from afar toward the body—slowly, gently.
The soul accepted the body; the body received the soul.
But this was still only a fabrication—a false underworld, false deceased, false souls.
It wasn't enough to constitute a true living being.
A visage of mystery manifested in the air—a giant skeleton directing a silent roar toward Nadeshiko.
Within Nadeshiko, the long-forgotten spark of life emerged, as if by fairy-tale magic.
Even surrounded by false existence, that spark of life was genuine.
As if triggering a chain reaction, the true underworld rejected Nadeshiko's life-filled soul, and the false soul within her gradually became real.
And so, a living being capable of existing in reality was born.
The girl lay in Shouko's arms, breathing steadily.
As if lost in a dream sweet as candy, a faint smile graced Nadeshiko's lips.
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T/N: Honkai: Star Rail fanfic up!
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T/N: While I am an inexperienced Translator, I have a Patreon! While it may seem empty as of now, webnovel will get 3 Chapters Every Day, and advanced chapters will be uploaded on Patreon.
It may not seem worth it now, but maybe in the future. Who knows!
[email protected]/AspenTL
If you guys wanna check it out.