The blast of a ship’s horn echoed through the air.
From the massive ship floating above the branch building, a strange, haunting song began to play.
This marked the beginning—gleeful and mad—of the Snark Hunt.
As the sailors sang, they infiltrated the Organization’s facility, and we responded with an onslaught of counterattacks to drive back the hunt.
“Captain! Are you sure Alice is in this world?”
“But of course, my buddy. She’s waiting for us there—desperately, no doubt.”
“I’m thrilled! Absolutely thrilled... I bet she has black hair this ti. If so, she’s mine!”
Alice. Where is Alice?!
Shouts and outstretched hands, desperate for Alice, reached greedily forward.
Black hands from the gates of hell themselves clawed toward her.
-------
“...Carol?”
My thoughts couldn't keep up with what I was hearing.
Carol?
And all those thousands of invaders shared the sa soul signature as her?
That’s like... a horde of doppelgängers in motion.
“Stay sharp.”
A small bee flew toward as I stood frozen.
Jas crushed it with his gauntlet.
They’ve already made it this far?
Outside, I saw an enemy commanding a swarm of bees attacking our agents.
I imdiately summoned a fire-controlling entity and incinerated both the enemy and their swarm.
“It’s done. That wasn’t just any normal bee—
If you got stung, you’d better get dical treatnt fast.”
Noticing they had so injuries, I opened a mirror and sent the agents to the infirmary.
Jas gave a short but sincere “Thank you,” then turned to the comms device and contacted the agents in other zones.
The voice coming from the equipnt sounded urgent.
“We’re engaging the invaders, but there are too many! Full elimination is impossible!”
“We should activate the containnt walls, but there’s a system error—they’re not working.
Your team should try to drop the barriers manually from the central system.
We’ll look further into what’s going on here.”
“Understood!”
Jas imdiately began operating the systems around him, bringing down the containnt walls.
“That seals off the path to the central hub. If this isn’t just a simple raid, we need to identify the true cause.”
“Yeah... There’s no way enemies like these showed up out of nowhere.”
They must’ve used mirrors—just like I do—to create portals.
There’s no other explanation.
So our top priority should be locating the portals they ca through.
“But what does it even an that their souls match Carol’s?”
“Don’t ask . I have ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) no clue...”
Jas was just as thrown off as I was.
There wasn’t enough info to even form a proper theory.
Craaaaack—!
We didn’t even have ti to talk before the containnt wall began to splinter.
Jas increased the output on his gauntlet and backed off, and I stepped back with him.
The invaders were here.
BANG!
The barrier shattered—and a monster with a pig’s head stepped through.
“Sniff sniff... were you grilling barbecue in here? Slls delicious! Oh? Well, look who it is—Alice!”
He knew who I was.
And right behind him, another creature ca through the broken wall.
“Keeruk keeruk. What a stroke of luck.”
A grotesque mix of human and blue bird.
The sudden appearance of these two bizarre creatures felt surreal.
No connection between them whatsoever.
If anything, they just shared animal traits.
“You two know ?”
“Know you? Of course! I’m Lewis Carol!”
“Sa here! Too bad you’re not the black-haired one—what a disappointnt.”
Lewis Carol...?
The claim was absurd. I was speechless.
But the Organization’s soul scan said it was true—
which only made it more disturbing.
While I hesitated, they each pulled sothing out—
and hurled it at .
Chains?
Clang! A chain wrapped around my wrist.
Then they started pulling.
I understood their goal imdiately.
Their target... was .
They were trying to kidnap .
But I wasn’t weak enough to be dragged off by so rusty chains.
Clang!
With a sharp chop, I snapped the chain and glared at them.
“You really thought this would be enough?”
The monsters recoiled in shock at my strength.
“What the hell?! She’s not just so ordinary girl!”
“Fascinating! Occasionally, we get one of these kinds!”
They acted like this wasn’t their first ti.
So who had they targeted before?
Why?
And why try to kidnap ?
I was just about to ask—when I noticed the blood on their hands.
“You killed soone.”
“What, gonna cry about it?”
“You’re clearly not human.
So I won’t even bother giving you a chance to be forgiven.”
No need for a summoned creature.
I leapt forward and kicked the pig-headed freak square in the skull.
CRACK—!
His head went flying, a fountain of blood spurting in its place.
The bluebird spread its wings, trying to absorb sothing from —
“Not gonna work on !”
That one was too weak.
Unless you’re on par with a Story’s Demon, your special powers don’t work on .
Before the freak could even react, I broke its leg with a kick—
and Jas finished it off with a clean blow to the head from his gauntlet.
“Each individual seems to have different abilities.”
“Might be too much for regular agents to handle.”
We brought them down quickly, but they didn’t help narrow down who this enemy was.
They claid to be Lewis Carol, knew who I was, and tried to abduct .
And they talked like they knew another Alice.
THUD—!
No way. More?!
KRA-KOOM!!!
“There! Big-boobed Alice spotted! Jackpot!”
“T-That’s not Alice! She’s got boobs—kids don’t have those!”
“Where, where? Hey little one, want so bread? Want so bread?”
A bowling ball head.
A grotesque man-sized baby.
And a third one, chomping on a loaf of bread.
Another bunch of freaks with no apparent connection.
“So... you guys know too.”
“All Lewis Carols know Alice!”
“Get her!!”
“I’ll feed you the biggest, juiciest bread!!”
More monsters charged at .
Suppressing my rising irritation, I pulled a blade from the mirror.
Then I summoned the Beast of Gévaudan to crush them in my place.
“Ea-t bi-rth-day ca-ke.”
“Feed it to yourself, why don’t you.”
I shoved my sword through the one trying to stuff bread in my mouth and tore his head open.
Phew... I was just about to catch my breath—
Screeeeeeech!
“...Sigh.”
Now a giant insect-like monster ca skittering through the broken wall to chase down.
“It’s Alice! Alice is here!”
Then a blocky humanoid appeared, cackling grotesquely.
“Kehehehe! You’re a perfect match for !”
“This never ends!!”
“This is bad. We retreat, now.”
“Then I’ll make a wall they can’t get through.”
Before another freak could show up, I summoned a new creature from the mirror—
Nurikabe.
A Japanese yokai that takes the form of a wall to block or crush travelers.
If nothing else, it’ll give us solid defense.
This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.
As soon as it was summoned, Nurikabe blocked the broken wall, and to silence the noisy shouting, I used the Gap Woman yokai to slash from afar.
Gap Woman can unleash powerful attacks through even the smallest openings.
It worked well—blood started leaking from the bottom of the wall.
Finally... a mont to catch my breath.
“To think we’d be outnumbered by this invading group...”
At this rate, there was no way we could carry out our original goal of investigating for information.
We’d just end up running from these freaks the whole ti.
Even if I tried using [Lizard Bill], it wouldn’t activate unless these things were biologically similar to the Dominators’ minions.
We’d need to co up with another creature—one that could wipe them all out at once.
“Hold on. A call’s coming through.”
While I was still thinking, Jas received a signal on his communicator.
A woman’s aged voice ca through the receiver.
“Agent Jas. Is that you?”
“That voice... Is that the Witch’s Doll Unit?”
Witch’s dolls? What the hell is that now?
“Yes. The situation isn’t looking good. If even the cleaning squads can’t push them back, then we’re in no position to move freely either.”
“I see. Then how about you leave it to us? We’ve got Alice on our side.”
“Very well. Sending coordinates now.”
Jas ended the call and, noticing my curious expression, gave a quick explanation.
The Witch’s Doll Unit specializes in dealing with curses.
They believed this entire incident might’ve been caused by so kind of ritual curse.
“Every curse ritual has a focal point—a conduit. They said they found a place where unusual power is gathering.
Here, these are the coordinates.”
“Got it. I’ll open a mirror.”
I confird the coordinates and opened a mirror portal to that location.
After stepping through, I found myself in a room that didn’t look like any part of the Organization.
Clearly, even the space itself had been affected by the curse—
the root of the incident might very well be here.
Maybe we’d be able to resolve this soon.
Inside the room were three strange statues:
—A bat statue labeled Bad Bat
—A rabbit statue holding a knife, labeled Cute and Brave Rabbit
—A beaver statue holding a Bible, blindfolded, labeled Blind Black Priest Beaver
What kind of puzzle was this supposed to be?
These might be the diums creating the portal.
Maybe I just need to smash all of them?
“Alright, let’s start breaking stuff!”
“Alice? Are you in there?”
Wait.
Just as I was about to take action, I heard a voice from beyond the wall.
Carol? She’s behind that wall?
Then who the hell has been commanding the branch?
Who gave authorization to the control room?
This is starting to stink...
“I’m trapped! Please help!”
“You want to bust this wall open?”
“Uhh, maybe don’t. If you hit the wrong spot, I might end up in five pieces.”
What kind of situation is she in...?
“So now what? There’s nothing here but these weird-ass statues.”
“Statues? Can you describe them for ?”
I told her about the three statues in front of .
Carol thought deeply for a mont, then muttered quietly like she’d figured sothing out.
“Ends in a B... No way. Snark Hunt? Is that what this is...?”
“Huh?”
“Is there a number nearby? There should be another clue.”
“Hm? Yeah—there’s a note here that says ‘3’.”
“Then destroy the Beaver statue.”
I did as she instructed and smashed the beaver statue.
Imdiately, the wall crumbled and Carol tumbled out of her prison.
“Kyaah!”
“You okay? Don’t know how you figured it out, but I’m glad you’re safe.”
“Ow ow ow... It was simple. I just matched the number of words starting with B.”
Black Bible Beaver.
Now that she ntioned it, all the other statues had words starting with B too.
Wait a second—those freaks that attacked us...
I thought they were random, but they all had sothing in common.
The bee monster (Bee).
The pig-headed one ntioned barbecue (BBQ).
Then the Blue Bird.
After that—Baby. Bread. Bowling Ball...
Holy hell.
They all start with B!
...So what?
What’s the point of that?
“I’ve never heard of anything like this either. I’m sorry... I’ve been useless. I even lost control of the command systems...”
“Who could’ve predicted this?
Anyway, let tell you what we’re dealing with.”
As I recounted everything, Carol’s expression grew more and more serious.
Can’t bla her—this whole thing is absurd.
“So they really did all start with B words... And they called themselves Lewis Carol?”
“The soul scan confird it. Honestly... I thought you might’ve been the one behind all this.”
“What...!”
Her expression turned genuinely hurt.
I instantly felt terrible.
Was the betrayed look really necessary?
“...Sorry.”
“It’s fine... It’s a situation that warrants suspicion.
And I did screw up.
Right after Alice turned down, I heard a bell...
Then sothing hit from behind—and I woke up here.”
A bell... Bell again?
Another damn word ga?
I’m getting sick of this.
“Agent Jas. So the reason you ca here was...”
“We received intel from the Witch’s Doll Unit that this might be a curse.
We ca to destroy the conduit. But weren’t you the one who authorized the soul scan?”
“Eh? No. That wasn’t .
Also—wasn’t there an issue with the defense system?”
“Hm. The containnt walls wouldn’t activate.”
“...What about the external defense system?”
Wait—there’s another defense system?!
I never heard any missiles go off.
Was soone sabotaging the system?
Only soone familiar with the Organization could do that...
“Seems like it never activated.”
Woooooooooooooooom—
“!”
A deafening noise blasted through us.
It was coming from outside.
And it was so loud—it had to be intentionally directed at us.
Which also ant we were close to the branch’s outer wall.
Covering her ears, Carol shouted urgently:
“This whole scenario was designed to look like a curse!
The so-called conduit was planted—to lure us here!”
“In other words... this is a trap?”
No sooner had the words left my mouth—
The ground shook.
And then I heard it again.
The sound of a bell.
Ding-a-ling— Ding-a-ling—!
BOOOOOOM!
Gunfire—no, explosions.
The walls burst apart like they’d been hit by a warhead, revealing the outside.
These walls aren’t weak.
What kind of firepower could reduce them to rubble?!
Cold air and black dust rushed in as our visibility cleared—
and there, we saw it.
A massive ship floating in the sky.
“Found you.”
RUMMMMMMBLE—!
Ding-ling!
The ship was charging straight at us!
“MOVE!”
KRAAAAAASH!
The ship slamd into the building head-on.
I grabbed Carol and Jas, pulled them close, and braced for impact.
Amid the dust cloud, I heard the familiar sound again—
The soft jingle of a bell.
A man with a bell strapped to his head.
I could feel it—
this was the one.
The one behind it all.
“Luring in a child who loves riddles...
Always works.
Pleased to et you, Alice.”
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