[Episode 93] - Three Questions (1)
For the first time since coming here, I felt as though I had seen magic that truly seemed like magic. I had clearly stepped out onto the terrace connected to my bedroom, and yet the terrace that should have been there had vanished without a trace, replaced all of a sudden by the night sea.
When I turned around, my bedroom was still there, but in front of me spread a night sea I had never seen before. As I shook my head and looked back and forth between the sea and my room, Snow White stared at me as if to ask what I was doing.
“What’s so fascinating? It’s not as if this is your first time seeing magic like this, is it?”
...It is my first time, actually.
The only magic I could use amounted to basic things, like a mirror CCTV through Ainsel, or turning mana into candy. To begin with, it was hard to use, and it exhausted me when I did, so I barely used it at all.
As I stood there blankly, gazing at the night sea, the sound of children’s laughter came from a cabin far in the distance. Rather than laughter, it sounded more like children getting angry and fighting among themselves, but their voices were warm and harmonious.
Was that the cabin of the dwarf “Brownie”? It was my first time seeing it in person, but it didn’t differ much from the illustration in the game, so I could recognize it easily. How many dwarves were in that cabin right now?
When I kept glancing toward the cabin, Snow White glared at me as if she found that displeasing. She tapped the table with her finger, making it abundantly clear that she was in a foul mood.
Could she be glaring like that because she thought I might do something to those dwarves? Feeling as though I was being needlessly suspected, I quickly sat down across from Snow White and put on the most harmless smile I could.
When I looked at Snow White with a docile smile, as if to say, “I won’t do whatever it is you’re thinking,” Snow White let out a deep sigh, narrowed her eyes, and tapped the table.
“To be honest, after I returned to the cabin yesterday, I thought a lot.”
“...?”
“About whether it might be best to just keep from getting involved with you like this.”
“......”
“...I really did think that. I wondered if I should simply avoid you because I didn’t want to get involved with you.”
Did she hate talking to me that much? As she said that, Snow White was looking at me with her brow furrowed, wearing an expression of utter disgust. I didn’t know what to say, so I merely opened and closed my lips—
“But after hearing the story about you that Titania told me, my thoughts changed a little.”
“Titania did...? What did she say...?”
When I asked, Snow White looked at me with a sly grin.
“Who knows? What do you think she said?”
Come to think of it, last night, in the ballroom lounge, Titania had muttered in dissatisfaction that she still hadn’t told me everything. Don’t tell me what she hadn’t finished talking about back then was me?
“Well, it wasn’t a story of any particular value, but it was amusing. The things Titania told me about you were quite the spectacle. Actions and words that the ‘Vivian’ I know would never do or say. As I listened to those stories, a thought occurred to me.”
For a moment, a brief silence settled over us. Snow White let out a soundless sigh, propped her chin on her hand, and looked up at me with only her eyes. She stared into my eyes with an expression that said she still wasn’t certain.
“Are you truly the ‘Vivian’ I know?”
“......”
...I had to tell her that I wasn’t.
I had to say that I was not the Vivian she knew. In order to clear up Snow White’s misunderstanding of me, I had to say, “I’m not the Vivian you know.” But would it end with just that?
If I said I wasn’t, would Snow White simply say, “Oh, I see. You’re not the Vivian I know? I was mistaken. I’m sorry for everything until now,” and let it pass? No, no matter how I thought about it, that didn’t seem likely.
Because Snow White truly loathed and hated “Vivian.”
From our very first meeting, when I had been disguised as Princess Fiona, Snow White had not even tried to properly judge what kind of person I was. She had simply been certain from the start and driven me into the role of “Vivian.”
And it had been the same during the hunting competition. Whenever Snow White saw me, she couldn’t control the rage boiling inside her and collapsed under it herself. To my eyes, her feelings toward Vivian seemed to paralyze her reason.
In other words, the Snow White I had seen until now loathed, hated, and despised Vivian so much that the moment she saw Vivian, she could no longer make calm judgments. To the point that this conversation we were having now felt like a miracle.
Could I end this misunderstanding with a single sentence to such a Snow White, with the words, “I’m not Vivian”? Were the emotions inside Snow White’s heart truly something that could be ended by one sentence like that?
‘...Absolutely not.’
Then what on earth was I supposed to do? Was there really a way to untangle this knotted mess of a misunderstanding while also loosening the hardened knot in Snow White’s heart? And could I really help Snow White?
‘What am I supposed to do...?’
Out of frustration, I ran a hand down my forearm, and somehow my whole body felt sticky. Was it the salt carried by the sea breeze clinging to my skin? Or was it because I couldn’t see any solution to this situation?
As I lowered my head with a bitter expression, Snow White tapped the table with her finger, telling me to look at her. When I raised my head, Snow White continued calmly.
“...Then, before we talk, there’s something I need to tell you first.”
“...What is it?”
“Honestly, what I can tell you is extremely limited. It’s not that there are things I can’t say, but there are several things I don’t want to say. On top of that, I don’t have much time either, so I’d like to keep this conversation short. So...”
Snow White rummaged around under the table, took out a single bundle of red thread, and looked at me. When I stared blankly at it, wondering what on earth it was, Snow White frowned as if to ask if I really didn’t know.
“...Why don’t you know this? It’s a witches’ pastime, and a simple spell. Three Questions.”
“Three Questions?”
“...Yes, Three Questions. We tie ourselves together with this thread and, just as the name says, ask and answer three times. You can’t lie, and you only get one chance to refuse. In other words, you must answer truthfully twice. Simple, isn’t it?”
“What happens if you lie...?”
“The red thread that’s been enchanted will cut off the part it’s tied around.”
“What?!”
You said it was a witches’ pastime?! Is it because it’s a spell?! What kind of pastime is that cruel?! When I jumped up from my chair in shock, Snow White snickered, as if to say I wasn’t a child, so why would I believe that?
“You believed that? What are you, a child...?”
“You, you...!”
“Anyway, if someone lies, the red thread snaps and tells the other person that they lied. And if the red thread snaps, the Three Questions end right there. If you lie and the red thread breaks, I’ll throw you out of here immediately.”
“What if it breaks because you lied?”
“That won’t happen, so don’t worry.”
In other words, the red thread was a lie detector.
A question-and-answer with three questions and one veto. Honestly, it was a shame there were so few questions, but considering the merit that even Snow White couldn’t lie, it seemed like a fairly decent pastime.
At the very least, I felt relieved that Snow White didn’t seem to intend to deceive me in this conversation. I nodded and held out one hand to Snow White. Come to think of it, where were we supposed to tie the red thread?
Just in case, I cautiously held out my pinky—
“What is this perverted thing you’re trying to do?”
“Huh?”
“Are you doing this perverted thing because you really don’t know? Do you truly not know what it means to tie red thread around each other’s pinkies, and that’s why you’re holding out your pinky to me?”
“O-of course I know that much. I was just...”
“Then why are you holding out your pinky? Are you asking to form a bond with me? Are you saying you want to be connected to me by the red thread of fate? I’m genuinely not sorry at all, but I’ll firmly refuse. So fold that pinky right now before I cut it off.”
“That’s not what I meant... It’s just that when you think of red thread, tying it around the pinky is the standard, isn’t it?”
“Where did you get that standard from...! Haah... Really, I can’t understand you.”
At Snow White’s vicious denunciation, I had no choice but to quietly fold my pinky back. I had only done it as a half-joke, but Snow White furrowed her brow hard, as though my action were truly disgusting.
‘She really does hate me terribly... I was only trying to lighten the mood a little...’
Far from lightening it, I had made the atmosphere even sharper.
As I let out a deep sigh, I noticed the red thread that had somehow been tied around my wrist. When I raised my head and looked at Snow White, red thread was tied around the princess’s wrist as well, connecting the two of us.
As if the red thread around her wrist felt uncomfortable, Snow White shook her wrist sharply and looked at it in irritation. Or perhaps it wasn’t that it was uncomfortable—maybe she simply hated being connected to me that much.
“Then, you ask the first question.”
“Uh, huh? Me first...?”
“? You said you had something to say to me. So you go first.”
...If I said at this point that I hadn’t thought of what question to ask, would Snow White get angry? Or would she try to kill me? Maybe both. But wasn’t conversation originally like that?
Who starts a conversation after preparing questions in advance? As you talk to each other, it slowly continues onward—that is true conversation. I had never done anything like these Three Questions before, so I was genuinely at a loss.
‘Even if she suddenly tells me to ask something...’
What should I ask first? Why she turned Aurora into a Leanan Sidhe? Or, following Ainsel’s deduction, should I ask how she crossed over from another world? Or what the real Vivian had done to her that made her hate her this much?
What on earth should I ask first...!
As I groaned inwardly and agonized over it—
“Three.”
“?! Wh-what are you doing right now?!”
Snow White let out a deep sigh, raised three fingers, and began counting down as she folded them one by one. A witch. There was a witch here. How could she do something so cruel as count down in front of a person who was thinking?
“Two.”
“Uh, uh...! So...! That’s...!”
“One.”
“So...!”
In the end, with my thoughts still unorganized, a foolish question popped out. No, to begin with, if you started counting down and pressuring someone while they were trying to organize their thoughts, anyone would end up asking the wrong question.
So this was absolutely not my fault.
“H-how old are you...?”
“......”
Today, for the first time...
I learned what kind of expression Titania would make if she truly felt “disgust.” After all, Snow White and Titania had the exact same face. Surely, if Titania made a disgusted expression, she would definitely look like that.
Was that why? Seeing Titania’s face looking at me with an expression that truly said “disgusting” made my chest ache so much I felt like I might cry. As I sat there, unable to do anything, Snow White let out a deep sigh and answered me.
“...If you have no intention of doing this properly, would you please go back?”
“C-could you give me another chance to ask...?”
*