Rest had solved a simple riddle and opened the box, but before he knew it, he found himself standing at a bus stop in some rural Japanese town.
Sitting on the bench at the bus stop was a high school girl in a sailor uniform, sipping some kind of juice through a straw and staring straight at him.
"You... are— No, wait, more importantly, where is this...?!"
『You don't have to be so surprised. Here, want to sit down?』
The mysterious high school girl patted the spot next to her on the bench.
『If you don't mind something half-finished, I can give you this too. It's strawberry milk.』
"That's... that's fine, but... wait? Who exactly are you...? Did I come back to Japan?"
『Hmm, not exactly? Well, it's going to be a long story, so seriously, just sit down. It's hard to talk to you when you're standing there like that.』
"............"
Despite his bewilderment, Rest observed the girl on the bench.
She was a young girl wearing a short-sleeved sailor uniform. Probably around high school age.
Her hair was dyed brown and had a wavy, permed look to it, and in her right hand she held a carton of strawberry milk.
(I can't use magic...! )
When he tried to examine the girl with magic... Rest realized that the mana had vanished from his body.
He couldn't feel the endless wellspring of power, the inexhaustible source of infinite mana. He had lost the ability to use magic.
(This might be a pretty bad situation, but... I don't exactly have a choice, do I? )
"............"
For now... he didn't sense any hostility from the girl.
Rest kept his guard up but sat down on the bench beside her.
"Fine, fine, that works. Can you tell me your name?"
"............"
"Oh, playing it all mysterious and demanding I go first? How very samurai of you. I don't mind, though~?"
When Rest remained silent, the girl burst into giggles for some reason.
"My name's Sanada Shoko. As you can see, I'm a fresh, peppy high school student~!"
"...High school students don't call themselves peppy."
As he fired back that retort... he realized something almost immediately.
Sanada Shoko.
Wasn't that the alias the queen dowager had supposedly used in this land?
"Oh, so you can talk! You were silent for so long, I thought you might be one of those people who can't speak."
"I was talking just a moment ago... More importantly, where is this place?"
"Before you go asking that, isn't there something you should be telling me first?"
"............"
The girl who had introduced herself as Sanada Shoko leaned in, peering at Rest's face with a meaningfully knowing look.
About to ask what she meant, Rest choked on his words.
Come to think of it... he hadn't introduced himself yet. She had given her name, so it would only be rude not to return the courtesy.
"I'm... ○○○○."
The moment the name left his lips, his eyes went wide with shock.
He had meant to say "Rest," but what actually came out was the name he had used back in Japan.
"Oh, ○○-kun, huh? Then can I call you Uppi or something?"
"No… I don't want that."
"Then it's Uppi! Anyway, about this place—"
The girl who called herself Sanada Shoko ignored Rest's protest and steamrolled the conversation along.
"This is, like, inside Frederica Aiwood's memories, y'know?"
"Inside… her memories?"
"They call it Zanryuushinen or something? I dunno the details."
Zanryuushinen. Residual thoughts, then.
In other words, the girl standing before him calling herself Sanada Shoko was the very memories and personality of Frederica Aiwood, the queen dowager.
"I… figured the queen dowager was a reincarnated person from Japan, but this isn't what I imagined."
Within the Kingdom of Aiwood, the queen dowager was a historical great figure, for better or worse.
She had rallied countless nobles to overthrow a tyrant and rebuild the Kingdom of Aiwood — an extraordinary feat — and she was also the one who raised the hopeless prince, Rodele.
He had imagined either a beloved, brilliant woman or a scheming villainess pulling strings from the shadows.
"I was picturing someone like Hōjō Masako or Queen Elizabeth, honestly…"
"I was created based on Frederica's past-life memories, so the real me is way cooler and more sophisticated, just so you know."
"…I see."
"So… what about you? What are you doing here? If you managed to find your way to me, that means you went into the villa and opened the box, right?"
Shoko leaned in toward Rest with keen interest.
The bench wasn't very wide to begin with, and with her closing the distance like that, he could catch glimpses of a pink bra and a deep cleavage through the gap in her sailor uniform.
"H-Hey… could you not get so close?"
"Tell me about yourself too. Then I'll tell you about me."
Shoko put on a mischievous grin and said something like that.