《—As you stared blankly at the animals disappearing while screaming, ‘Kyaa! Kyaa!’ you suddenly realized someone was approaching you making bustling noises. It was the rabbit you had first found.》

At the voice’s words, the party looked around.

Then, they saw that the rabbit mask from earlier had somehow appeared.

As the party stared blankly at the rabbit mask, the voice from the air continued.

《The rabbit pointed at you and shouted, “Hey, you housemaid! What are you doing out here? Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of gloves and a fan!”》

《The rabbit seems to be mistaking you for his housemaid.》

《If you want to follow the rabbit’s instructions, head to his house. If you want to clear up the rabbit’s misunderstanding, try to persuade him.》

“What is this saying?”

Dorothea was dumbfounded.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ asks if he can cut it since it’s giving orders out of nowhere!]

“Go ahead.”

It was a permission given without much thought.

The witch was really going all out when there were no ordinary people watching.

Slash!

The Tin Knight’s sword slashed at the rabbit mask.

But without touching the black mask, it just passed through. As if he had cut a mirage.

It was the same phenomenon that occurred in the white space at the very beginning.

《The rabbit pointed at you and shouted, ‘What insolence is this towards your master!? I’ll have to punish you severely later, but for now, the fan and gloves are urgent, so fetch them quickly!’》

《If you want to follow the rabbit’s instructions, head to his house. If you want to clear up the rabbit’s misunderstanding, try to persuade him.》

Dorothea frowned.

The voice repeating what it had said before somehow felt like it was saying, “What are you going to do about it?”

“This voice, could it be Gale… No, if it were her, she wouldn’t beat around the bush like this. Is there perhaps someone else?”

“Hmm, in a typical game book, all the content is written in the book itself, and the reader just changes the order of reading. But the game book created by the Witch of the North was said to change the content of the pages entirely based on the reader’s choices, so it wouldn’t be strange if there was some kind of intelligence managing that.”

“Like an artificial soul? Are you trying to force our actions by showing something that can’t be cut because we keep ignoring the plot?”

Dorothea seemed displeased, but since she couldn’t even touch the opponent, there was no other way.

It was just as she was about to reluctantly follow one of the choices.

The Tin Knight looked alternately at the sword in his hand and the intact rabbit, then made a somewhat blank expression.

If one asked what expression a being without facial muscles could make, one could only answer that the blue will-o’-wisp-like eye light had changed into two straight lines.

“Um, Sir Knight?”

As if instinctively sensing something ominous, Adelaide tried to stop the knight, but it was too late.

Slash!

Light drew a trajectory.

The trajectory became a crack, and then the crack widened.

The rabbit mask between the cracks was also split in two.

“…”

The party was speechless.

《…》

Somehow, the voice in the air also seemed to have lost its words.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ nods, saying that as expected, if you cut it, it gets cut!]

Only the Tin Knight puffed out his chest, as if satisfied with what he had done.

Dorothea asked, “…What did you just do?”

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says that if you use spiritual sight, you can cut even ghosts!]

Dorothea blinked a couple of times, then said, “Ah, I see,” and just let it go.

Since knights who handled mana often cut things like spirits that necromancers deal with, she seemed to understand it as something similar.

However, unlike Dorothea who had no expertise in martial arts, Adelaide, who had some experience with swordsmanship, vaguely realized how high-level that attack was.

To use Sophia’s metaphor, it was similar to a character inside a page cutting part of the page itself.

The voice was silent for a long time.

Instead, the surrounding scenery began to change little by little.

The puddle disappeared, the open space where the animals had been frolicking disappeared, and the remnants of the rabbit mask disappeared.

Stone walls in the shape of a cross suddenly rose from the empty ground surrounding the party, and one of the branching paths extending in all directions collapsed with a rumble.

In the center of the crossroads was an altar with four plates, and in front of each plate was written the following:

Caterpillar’s Tobacco

Hatter’s Hat

Turtle’s Soup

There was also writing on the altar itself, which read as follows:

Those who offer the correct tribute to the altar shall gain a path to a new journey.

Those who demand a path without offering tribute shall pay with their lives as much as the lacking offering.

After the party finished reading these words, a voice was heard from the air.

《Due to the unjust death》

[The ‘Tin Knight’ argues that pointing and ordering around someone you don’t even know well is a capital offense that doesn’t deserve to be called unjust!]

《Because of the rabbit’s curse》

“Are you making this up? There wasn’t even a hint of a curse.”

《You were transferred before the altar of curses.》

“Wouldn’t the word ‘transfer’ be incorrect since the surrounding environment changed rather than us moving? Ah, unless it’s a theatrical expression.”

《To move to the next space beyond the altar, offer the sacrifice the altar demands. If you demand a path without gathering the sacrifice, you will pay the price in blood.》

《If you want to find the caterpillar, go left. If you want to find the hatter, go back. If you want to find the turtle, go right.》

“Everyone, doesn’t Mr. Voice seem pitiful? Why don’t we just go along with it…?”

Despite the words of the party who knew nothing about formalism, the voice showed no particular reaction.

But this was not because it had nothing to say.

Rather, it was an expression of confidence.

Since the structure was “A path appears when you offer a sacrifice,” rather than “The door opens when you offer a sacrifice,” it couldn’t be solved with the Key of Opium.

There was no gatekeeper or anything to guard it, so the solution of defeating the gatekeeper was also impossible.

It was also impossible to obtain the sacrifice carelessly. If they didn’t bring the correct sacrifice properly, their companions would have to pay with their lives.

This time, there was no choice but to diligently follow the options—

“I request a path.”

Crunch!

Immediately after Sophia uttered those words, one of the plates suddenly transformed into a terrifying monster’s mouth and chomped off Sophia’s head.

The body that had lost everything above the neck swayed and then fell to the ground with a thud.

The plate made a gulping motion as if swallowing something with satisfaction, then returned to its original form.

The only difference was that the plate that had eaten So/phia was now emitting a faint light.

The voice was silent for a moment, but then spoke.

《As the price for demanding a path without offering the correct sacrifice, you lost your life.》

《The remaining three of you must choose.》

《If you want to find the caterpillar, go left. If you want to find the hatter, go back. If you want to find the turtle, go right.》

“Ah, I request a path once more.”

Crunch!

Foolishly ignoring the options again resulted in another precious life being lost.

Now, only three remained.

《…?》

What’s this, why are there three?

The voice stopped as if it had seen something that shouldn’t have happened.

“Heave-ho.”

Sophia, who had clearly just died from having her head eaten, somehow calmly got up.

Yet the plate monster, as if feeling no sense of incongruity, diligently chewed and swallowed what was in its mouth, then turned into a glowing plate as if satisfied.

《Those who offer the correct—》

“I request a path.”

Crunch!

The process that had already been repeated was repeated again, and the plate glowed.

As a result of the four companions sacrificing their lives three times, four survived.

While the voice was petrified in the face of this miraculous equation, several heavy rocks rose from the deep bottom with a rumbling sound, creating stepping stones.

The party began to walk across the stepping stones.

How far did they go like this?

They arrived at a place that looked like some kind of courtroom.

Chatter chatter. Bustle bustle.

In the audience seats were various animals and people dressed in attire that made it difficult to tell if they were clowns or soldiers, on thrones set higher than these sat a king and queen dressed solemnly, and in the center stood a white girl wearing an upside-down top hat.

The girl in black, Dorothea, asked, “What are you doing there?”

The girl in white, Gale, answered, “Since you all messed up the story so badly, the book forcibly put me in a role. Originally, I was supposed to encounter you as a guardian somewhere else, not here.”

Just as Dorothea was about to retort, asking what nonsense that was, the king sitting on the throne spoke, “Hatter! You are standing there in place of the rabbit who was late for the trial! Refrain from unnecessary words!”

“How fussy.”

Gale shrugged her shoulders, then answered the king with somewhat exaggerated gestures, “I apologize, Your Great Majesty. I haven’t been assigned this role for long, so I’m not yet familiar with my duties. What should I do?”

“Read the indictment there!”

“Hmm, ah, this?”

Gale casually picked up a piece of parchment nearby and began to read its contents, “Ahem, the defendant Dorothea Aschengard and three others have… But why are the king and queen together? Isn’t it usually king and queen consort, or queen and prince consort?”

“Hatter!”

“Ah, yes. Dorothea et cetera stole and ate the tart baked by the queen herself. Was it delicious?”

“Want me to shove something straight out of the oven into your mouth? What nonsense are you talking about?”

The audience murmured, “She says she didn’t eat it?”

“Then who ate it?”

“N-not me! I’m innocent!”

“Not me either! The only crime I’ve committed is shaving an eagle’s head while it was sleeping!”

“They’re starting to turn on each other.”

“I don’t want to participate in a trial that uses these people as jurors.”

[The ‘Tin Knight’ asks if we can’t just start by cutting off the king’s head!]

As if to settle the chaos that had broken out, the king shouted, “Everyone, be quiet! Hatter! If the indictment is over, we shall begin the judgment!”

“Uh, no. I haven’t finished reading yet.”

“What?”

Gale continued speaking while unrolling the parchment that was rolled up like a long scroll, “Dorothea etc—“

“I’m really going to kill you.”

“Dorothea and her merry companions killed the mouse and then resurrected its corpse to disguise its death.”

Silence.

Suddenly, quiet fell over the courtroom.

“Dorothea and her merry companions also killed the rabbit and left its corpse in the field.”

Not only the animals and people in the audience, but even the two on the throne looked at Dorothea as if they were seeing something unbelievable, but Dorothea was confident.

“Dorothea and her merry companions sacrificed their companion’s life without a moment’s hesitation to advance on their path. And they did it three times.”

“Death penalty! It’s the death penalty! Off with their heads immediately!”

As if there was nothing more to hear, the queen shouted.

Soldiers began to swarm out from the entrance among the audience seats.

More precisely, they were about to swarm out.

Boom!

Dorothea suddenly threw a curse bomb at their feet just as they were about to rush out.

Dozens of soldiers were wiped out en masse without even having a chance to scatter.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ exclaims that this is the textbook example of spawn killing!]

Adelaide was sincerely grateful that Dorothea cared about her reputation in the outside world.

If she had acted like this in the outside world, she would have become a calamity that would treat ordinary magic beasts as trivial.

While everyone was frozen, the king shouted, “Hatter! Defeat those insolent and wicked ones!!”

As if responding to the king, a voice was also heard from the sky.

《To collect the price for the crimes you’ve committed, the labyrinth’s guardian blocks your path.》

《If you defeat the guardian, it’s a Normal Ending. If you lose to the guardian, it’s a Bad Ending.》

“Ha!”

Dorothea’s eyes twisted as if finding it laughable.

***

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