CHAPTER 9
The Story of a Perfectly Normal Girl: Alize Lovell
I couldn’t stand injustice when I was young.
For me, Alize Lovell, everything needed to be proper. It was the only thing I cared about.
I thought that the world could be enriched through logic, reason, and correctness.
As a child, I was always at the center of my group of friends and the first to speak out against wrongdoing. It didn’t matter what gender or race they were—human, dwarf, or prum.
I began seeing myself as superior to others. I don’t mean I was arrogant or boastful or anything. But I thought I had the right to do whatever I saw fit.
When anyone tried to get in my way, I made them sit down. Whenever I saw something wrong, I tried to fix it. I began to champion justice and righteousness.
Until one day, I hurt somebody. A boy who had been bullying one of my close friends.
The first time I saw blood, I felt myself getting farther from justice. The grown-ups were angrier with me than with the bully. Even my friend seemed scared of me and didn’t talk to me much after that.
It was then that I felt things starting to change. The more I talked about logic, reason, and facts, the more I distanced myself from people. The more I tried to make everything right, the lonelier I became.
For the first time, I began doubting the values I had taken for granted until then.
What was “right”?
What was “justice”?
None of the grown-ups I asked could give me a straight answer. Not even my parents.
And so, like the naive child I was, I thought to ask the gods for advice.
All they did was smirk. “Justice?” they said. “Hah. Who knows…?”
They found my struggle amusing, just like they do now.
I was angry at them. So I left the city.
I went on a journey in anger.
I searched for my answer in anger.
I found nothing in anger.
And before long…I cried in anger.
But I couldn’t turn back after everything I’d said and done.
One day, the rain fell so hard, I could almost forget my tears.
That was when I met her.
“What’s wrong, little one?”
A goddess of justice.
Lady Astrea.
“Lyra! Kaguya!”
Astrea threw open the front door and ran out into the front yard of Stardust Garden. The two girls were there, receiving treatment from their fellow familia members. They had crawled all the way from the front lines before collapsing in the garden.
“Gah, couldn’t you have given us enough time to do our hair, at least?” asked Lyra. “We ain’t exactly presentable right now…”
Her indomitable quips couldn’t hide the blood running down from her eardrums, and her forced smile was almost painful to look at. Seated on the grass, she looked battered beyond belief, as though she had just run through a bomb-strewn battlefield.
Her heart laden with grief, Astrea turned to the Amazon girl looking after the pair. “How are they, Iska?” she asked.
“Of the two, I think Lyra got off the lightest,” replied Iska, wiping the sweat from her brow. “I gave them all the potions I could scrounge up; I just wish we had some decent supplies.”
She looked over Kaguya, lying on the ground as Marieux tended to her with magical healing and even more potions. Her silky black hair lay strewn across her face, and she had not regained consciousness, even now.
“Lyra…what happened?” asked Astrea.
“We ran into that dipshit god and Hera’s chick; she whooped our asses. They let us get away, but we don’t have a damn thing to show for it otherwise…”
“Erebus and Alfia…” said Astrea. All around her, the other girls gasped. Lyra and Kaguya had run headfirst into the enemy general and his Level 7 powerhouse. It was a wonder they’d come back at all.
“And that ain’t the only bit of bad news,” said Lyra. “In fact, this one’s the real clincher. Turns out that bastard’s after Leon.”
“!!”
This time, even Astrea could not conceal her shock. Of course, Lyu had told them all about how, prior to the Great Conflict, the evil god had appeared many times before her in the guise of Eren.
It was often the case that gods, loyal only to their own interests, appeared before mortals to test them and their curious ways. Not for science or even pleasure, but an altogether separate motivation that only an eternal being truly understood.
And now, it had happened to Lyu.
Astrea wanted to know more. What exactly had the dark god talked to her about? But before she could ask, the human girl Noin came running in, bearing Raul’s message.
“We’ve just gotten word from Loki Familia!” she said. “The city is under attack in all districts! Finn wants us to head to the northwest to break the enemy line!”
“Northwest?” repeated Lyra. “But that’s where we got our asses handed to us! You don’t think…?”
As if to answer her awful premonition, the far-eastern girl stirred from her slumber at last.
“That must be where Leon is,” she said, digging her fingers into the lawn and sitting herself up. “That bastard won’t rest until he’s had his fun.”
“Kaguya!” cried Astrea.
“Sit yourself back down, you walking corpse!” came Marieux’s concerned voice. “I’ve only just healed you up. Any sudden movement is only going to make things worse!”
“Don’t worry about me, Marieux,” Kaguya replied, climbing shakily to her feet. “I’ll do a lot better fighting out there than staying cooped up around here.”
The girl wore a ferocious grin, but the sheen of sweat was impossible to hide.
“I’d listen to the doc if I were you.” Lyra chuckled before adopting a more serious frown. “But I get your point. Let’s all go get Leon together. Let’s bring our girl back home.”
She glanced around at the other girls, who all nodded. Finally, she turned to her goddess.
“You’re not gonna try to stop us, are you?” she asked.
“As you wish,” Astrea replied. “But allow me to pray for your safe return instead.”
While the girls all steadily collected their nerves, Kaguya inquired as to the status of their missing member.
“Where’s our captain, Neze?”
“She went to her room to rest,” the werewolf girl said. “She’s been working so hard lately. But she’s probably in there thinking.”
The ears atop her head twitched, and she turned her focus to the main building.
“Thinking about justice. She’s trying to come up with an answer for all of us.”
The members of Astrea Familia all thought of their leader. A girl who bowed her head when the townsfolk threw rocks at her. A girl who showed her brightest smile when the doubt in her heart was greatest.
Right now, she was alone, grappling with justice somewhere far out of reach.
“I see,” said Kaguya. “Well, we can’t leave her there. Without our leader, we’re nothing but a rowdy mob!”
Kaguya dashed off through the front doors of the home, with Lyra and all the rest of Astrea Familia at her back.
After meeting Lady Astrea, I started to learn about the nature of justice.
But I never got an answer. Even she never taught me that.
And in time, I came to feel that the only real answer was that there wasn’t one.
One day, for what seemed like no reason, Lady Astrea said these words aloud:
“It is simple for us gods to show our children the justice they seek.”
“All we have to do is use our arcanum.”
“With a wave of our finger, we can bring happiness to all our children.”
“There will be no good or evil, just happy, smiling people.”
“But that isn’t right.”
“That is not justice for this world.”
If earth became a paradise where all our desires were fulfilled, we would have no reason to keep improving. Satisfaction brings peace, which in turn leads to stagnation. A poison that kills the world—that could never be what justice is.
The nature of justice…is to keep moving on. To keep asking questions, even when you think you’ve found the most beautiful star in the sky.
That applies to right now, too. Leon, Orario—they’re all waiting for me to answer their questions about evil.
Sometimes I feel like the weight of justice will crush me.
Sometimes I feel like evil has it better than us.
They can have it all. Follow every pleasure, indulge every urge, and never struggle with contradictions.
Evil is instinctual. It tells us everything we’re wired to believe is right.
So then, is justice the opposite of that? Something rational?
To always have to suffer because of the difference between our hopes and reality?
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
I don’t know.
But I have to answer, I have to. I have to.
My answer is…
“Alize! The enemy’s here! Leon’s in trouble! Open up! Hurry! Open uuuuup!!”
Lyra pounded on the door to Alize’s room with both fists, screaming through to the other side like a child anxiously calling for their parent. Astrea and the other girls stood in the hallway behind her.
Then Kaguya stepped up. “Sorry, Captain, but you leave us no choice! I’m going to have to break down this door if you don’t come out!”
But just as she placed her hand to her sword, ready to draw it, there was a creak, and the door swung open.
“!!”
There stood Alize, eyes closed and head downcast, without saying a word.
“Alize…” muttered Astrea.
There was an almost holy air around her, like a hermit who had just spent fifty years in the mountains and achieved enlightenment. The other girls couldn’t help but treat her with reverence and awe.
“Captain,” said Lyra, “does this mean…?”
“…you know the answer?” finished Kaguya.
Alize slowly opened her eyes, lifted her chin, and looked toward each of her friends in turn. They all held their breath as they awaited her next words.
Finally, she parted her lips.
“Nope.”
“““““““““What?!”””””””””
The solemn atmosphere shattered into a million pieces.
“Sorry, girls. I tried my best! I tried so hard, my stomach started growling, but I couldn’t think of anything!”
There wasn’t a hint of shame in her words. All that contemplation in ascetic solitude was just for show apparently.
Meanwhile, each of the girls looked like pigeons that had just been shot out of the sky.
“………”
Lyra looks like she’s seen the world’s biggest idiot, thought Astrea, a bead of sweat dripping down her neck as she watched the prum’s face twitch.
Kaguya, meanwhile, seemed frozen in time for a moment, before suddenly coming to and taking a determined step toward Alize.
“Captain! Now isn’t the time to be joking around! We have to—!”
“I’m not joking around,” Alize said. “It’s just that the answer is something it’ll take our whole lives to find! For now, we have to keep making mistakes and getting lost!”
““!””
This was the solution she had come to just now, something she was proud to share with her comrades. Lyra, Kaguya, and all the rest of the girls couldn’t believe their ears.
“So I can’t give you an answer now! It’s not just ’cause I’m dumb—it’s impossible!!”
This, in itself, was Alize’s answer. To admit that she was foolish and ignorant, and that was why she searched. To be a traveler, looking to the stars above and picking out the ones that truly shone.
Alize proudly placed her hand to her chest.
“So, girls! I want to stick with you all while we keep on trying to work out what the heck this justice thing is all about! Wink!”
“““““““““Grrr!”””””””””
Alize’s jovial punctuation earned her the ire of her entire group and an array of ill-fitting smiles. All save Astrea, of course, whose expression was better described as a kind of hopeless endearment.
“All right, let’s go find Leon, then! I need to go tell her all about my perfect imperfection! Onwaaard!!”
With that, Alize took off down the hallway, leaving the stupefied girls of Astrea Familia in the dust. Lyra was so exhausted by her behavior that she completely forgot what she’d been in such a hurry for.
“Who made her the captain?” she asked aloud. “And why did we ever agree to follow her?”
Standing beside her, Kaguya grinned and answered.
“Because she’s Alize Lovell,” she said.
“Aw, crap. You know what? You’re damn right!”
On Lyra’s face was a smile, and all the fear and worry was banished from her eyes.
“C’mon, girls!” she bellowed. “Let’s go!”
“““““““Yeah!!”””””””
Lyra took off after her rambunctious captain, followed by the rest of Astrea Familia, and brought up at the rear by Kaguya.
“Well then, wish us luck, Lady Astrea,” she said.
“Yes, good luck,” replied Astrea. “And remember to always believe in yourselves.”
After all of her children had departed, Astrea dropped her smile. For a while, she stayed still, taking in the silence of the mansion and reforging her courage.
“And so shall I,” she said at last.
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