Our Beloved White Rabbit
Noah found herself thinking back to the day she first met Alice.
Hey. It's over.
Alice had appeared before her without warning, having just slain the One-Eyed Luga-lac. She stood tall before the fallen beast, looking at Noah and her party with quiet composure. She had taken countless wounds fighting the Luga-lac, yet she gave no sign of pain — blood simply dripped from her ruined shoulder as if it were nothing at all.
At the time, Noah had found it strange that none of it showed on her face. The way Alice fought without sparing her own body had troubled her.
Looking back now, it was a terribly sad story.
Alice had no reason to spare herself. There was no one left who would take care of her if she fell.
I've got some medicine. Want me to put it on?
Yeah.
Alice's wounds hadn't been limited to her shoulder. Beneath her clothes, across her stomach and legs and everywhere else, there had been countless small scars. If Alice truly had come from the future, those scars were almost certainly marks of glory earned in that future world — the kind of wounds Noah herself would have remembered one by one and worn with pride.
Had Alice forgotten every memory those scars held?
Noah's heart ached for her. And yet Alice, alone and cast into the past, had not been so unhappy in this world. Even without her memories, she had met Noah, learned this world all over again, and blended into it so naturally that she had made friends. In the end, she had risen as Antico's hero — as Hunter Alice.
If things had simply continued that way, Alice might well have lived a happy life.
Images of the past flowed through Noah's mind once more. Alice emerging from the hunter exam soaked in Pienos blood. Receiving her hunter card and lifting the paper skyward with a blank face that somehow still radiated joy. Unable to take her eyes off the old man Matillo as he hammered away alone inside his workshop. Returning from Matillo's commission with burns covering her body after killing a Kakari. Being dragged around by Noah on easy request after easy request, looking thoroughly miserable. Her first party hunt, taking down a Kometras… showing off her mastery of every kind of weapon… meeting a supporter… and finally saying goodbye with a single embrace.
They had blessed each other's paths that day. But fate, it seemed, was a cruel and spiteful thing.
Did Alice know? Did she know that the ground beneath her feet was her own destroyed nation? What sin could a girl that kind have possibly committed, to lose everything and then be forced to face it all over again in this place? What kind of monster must have appeared, for a country to fall even with a hero who had slain top-tier monsters? How much suffering must she have endured, for even her memories to vanish?
An emotion unlike anything Noah had ever felt surged through her — a fury rising on Alice's behalf. Noah blinked. Tears welled up behind her goggles. She tried to push the sadness down, tried to think of anything else, but she couldn't stop Alice's face from rising in her mind. Among all the fleeting hunter connections that had come and gone, Alice had lodged herself deep in Noah's heart. There was no keeping her out.
Desperate to unburden herself of these feelings, Noah hurried back toward the outpost. Chiara and Marco, trailing behind her, were exhausted from the forced march, but the thought of delivering the news to the prince as soon as possible kept them walking. When they finally reached the outpost, only one day remained before the decisive battle.
Marco and Chiara, simply glad to have arrived, cried out with relief.
"Finally…!"
"Woooah—!"
But Noah was unchanged. She felt almost no joy — only urgency. She turned to Chiara.
"…Can you take my gear for me?"
Chiara blinked.
"Huh? What's going on? Is something wrong?"
"…There's something I need to talk about first."
Noah's voice was low. Chiara shrugged and agreed without hesitation. Noah thanked her good-hearted friend, handed over her pack, and sprinted into the outpost.
Marco and Chiara watched her go, muttering to each other.
"Must really need the bathroom."
"Yeah, looks like it."
Whatever they said, Noah was already running. She pulled off her mask and stuffed it into her pocket, shoved her goggles up onto her forehead and gripped them in one hand. There was no guarantee Alice was even here, but she searched the outpost anyway.
At first she had considered saying nothing. She had worried that telling Alice would shatter the happiness she had found. But as she walked, thought after thought had piled up, and Noah had made up her mind. Alice needed to know. That was what Noah believed.
She finally found her beyond the wooden palisade, where the wasteland that held Disastro stretched into the distance. Alice was leaning against the fence, staring blankly out at nothing.
"Alice—!"
"…Noah?"
Alice turned. Noah staggered up beside her, gasping for breath, hands braced on her knees. Her heart felt ready to burst. Where should she even begin?
She gathered herself and straightened up.
"…Alice."
"Yeah."
"Don't freak out, okay? Just listen."
Noah hesitated.
"…Your memories. Are they still gone?"
Alice shook her head.
"…Yeah."
Noah exhaled twice, trying to steady her nerves, then looked Alice straight in the eyes.
"…How has it been so far?"
"…Huh?"
"Since you first met me. Up until now."
Alice frowned, as if struggling to parse the meaning behind the question, and rubbed her chin. After a brief silence, she spoke.
"It was good."
"Yeah?"
"Meeting you, and everything since we met again… every single moment. I liked all of it."
Alice gazed into the distance. Noah chewed her lip, then finally said it.
"Don't you want to know about your past?"
At those words, Alice's eyes went wide. She stared at Noah in open shock.
"…My past?"
"Yeah."
Alice's eyes rolled thoughtfully. The way she wrestled with the idea of learning her own past was heartbreaking. Noah waited for her answer. At last, Alice finished deliberating and nodded.
"Okay. Tell me."
"…You sure?"
"Yeah."
Alice looked at her with calm, steady eyes. Noah could feel the resolve in them — the resolve to face her own past. She began carefully.
"Remember how I said this place might be Cartadia? That's why I took the prince's named commission."
"Mm, yeah. You did."
"…I went and confirmed it this time."
"So it was Cartadia?"
Noah managed a weak smile.
"This place is Cartadia's future. Roughly two hundred years from now."
"…I see."
"And you… you were a hunter of this destroyed Cartadia. A hunter from two hundred years in the future."
Alice asked, "How did you know?"
"I found a statue. One built to honor a hunter named you."
A shattered statue, and the inscription remaining beneath it.
"It was wrecked, but there was writing. It said something like: It is a pity that no statue can capture hair white as a beautiful snowfield, and eyes like cherry blossoms in bloom."
It was a description of Alice, plain as day. And yet the statue was so thoroughly destroyed that one could barely recognize it as her — which somehow felt like a perfect reflection of the Alice standing here now. Not a single scrap of her future glory remained. There was no one left to praise her. She was nothing more than a story in the records now. A record from the future, delivering the truth to someone from the past.
"Our beloved white rabbit, the hunter of unparalleled renown — that's how it was written. You must have been truly loved by so many people."
"I see."
None of those people who had loved Alice were here. It was a wretched story. They had all become nothing more than handfuls of sand in this wasteland. Alice simply nodded along as she listened, offering quiet acknowledgments. Noah wondered if she felt nothing at all — until she spotted a tiny crack.
"Alice."
"Yeah? What is it?"
"…You're crying. Are you okay?"
Tears were welling at the corners of Alice's eyes and falling in drops.
"…So I am."
Alice rubbed her eyes, trying to wipe the tears away, but it was a useless effort.
"I thought I wouldn't feel anything."
One tear became two, then fell in a steady stream. The blank mask of Alice's face fractured. She looked at Noah with eyes gone red and raw.
"It's pretty sad."
Noah couldn't find a single word to say. All she could do was pull Alice into her arms.
With nothing left to do before the day of the final battle, I spent the remaining time staring blankly out at the wasteland. My body was already honed, my weapons fully maintained — settling my mind was the best thing I could do. It let me reaffirm what I was about to fight.
That was when Noah found me.
"Alice—!"
"…Noah?"
She came running up in a breathless rush. She must have returned from the reconnaissance the prince had ordered — the mission to uncover the truth of this land. I had already expected she might come back knowing about my past.
"…Your memories. Are they still gone?"
A question like that confirmed my prediction exactly.
"Don't you want to know about your past?"
Honestly, I hadn't expected her to actually find out. I kept up the amnesiac act the way I always had — it was part of the protagonist concept, after all. So when Noah offered to tell me about my past, I almost laughed to myself. I already knew this hunter's history.
Still, I couldn't look uninterested. I wanted to hear what Noah had pieced together, and I was curious how she'd figured it out.
"This place is Cartadia's future. Roughly two hundred years from now."
"…I see."
"And you… you were a hunter of this destroyed Cartadia. A hunter from two hundred years in the future."
I hadn't known the exact figure of two hundred years. And honestly, I didn't feel the slightest bit sad. Of course I didn't — I already knew. I knew just how tragic this hunter's story was. Hearing it secondhand only left me with a faintly complicated feeling.
"Our beloved white rabbit, the hunter of unparalleled renown — that's how it was written. You must have been truly loved by so many people."
Beloved white rabbit. A pretty embarrassing, pretty cute nickname. Enough that they'd put it right there in stone — she really had been loved by everyone.
And then, suddenly, that woman's emotions surged up and seized control of me. Listening to Noah's words, tears started welling up and spilling over on their own. My chest tightened. My breath caught. A sorrow I hadn't chosen was born inside me and flooded every corner of my heart.
That woman had wanted this much to reclaim her world. She had been loved by so many — and so she owed it to them to give that love back.
And within that sorrow that wasn't mine, my own anger began to rise. Even if this was a destroyed Cartadia, it was still the land she had lived on. The resting place of everyone the rabbit had once loved. And now some monster from antiquity was trampling through it as it pleased.
That is not a place for something unclean like you to wander.
I opened my eyes wide in Noah's arms. My heart was ready now. I had found one more solid reason to kill Disastro.
For the sake of our white rabbit princess — I would slay Disastro and bring peace to the land where everyone had died.