Chapter 156: The Awakening of Shame

That night, Jeanne Decker opened her eyes.

‘Mmm?’ She propped herself up from the bed, her groggy mind a complete blank.

For a moment, she couldn’t even recall where she was.

Several seconds passed before she gradually remembered.

She had just been rescued from the execution grounds and brought to a secret base belonging to an organization called ‘The Tea Party’.

Then, she had met the witch who had saved her three times—a witch who turned out to be Duchess Alice Liddell. And then…

‘Ah!’ A dazed sound escaped her lips.

At this point, she finally recalled the earth-shattering act she had committed not long ago, and she sobered up completely.

Blood rushed to her face, making it feel as if it would burst into flames. Unbeknownst to her, that lost sense of shame had returned!

She quickly felt her body, only to find she was still properly clothed, albeit only in her underwear and the cotton lining of her armor.

This surprised her greatly, for in that bewildering memory, it seemed she had stripped off all her clothes…

‘You’re awake,’ Alice Liddell’s voice sounded beside her.

Jeanne Decker abruptly turned her head, seeing a fully dressed Alice Liddell sitting in a chair, watching her with an expressionless face.

The sight of her made the previous memory surface even more vividly. Jeanne Decker suddenly grabbed the bed covers and buried her face in them.

‘Are you finally feeling shy now?’ Alice Liddell sighed helplessly. ‘It seems you’ve finally returned to normal.’

Jeanne Decker had fallen unconscious after everything was done, and Alice Liddell’s drunken haze quickly passed. She got up, reluctantly dressed herself, and performed some simple cleanup.

She didn’t have much for Jeanne Decker to wear, as all of Jeanne Decker’s clothes had been lost before the execution.

Since Alice Liddell had already seen everything, she had no reservations about helping Jeanne Decker get dressed again.

However, the biggest issue remained Jeanne Decker’s mental state. Alice Liddell had pondered for quite some time on how to return the soul fragment.

After all, she wasn’t the one who had extracted the fragment; only the Mad Hatter possessed the ability to directly make the fragment return on its own.

Finally, recalling that soul crystals could apparently be consumed directly, she tried placing the fragment into Jeanne Decker’s mouth.

Then, Jeanne Decker woke up. Judging by her reaction, the method seemed to have worked.

‘I can’t believe you actually did that,’ Alice Liddell couldn’t help but exclaim.

‘I…’ Jeanne Decker cautiously peeked at her from behind the blanket, answering softly, ‘I never expected it to become so terrifying. I didn’t even feel like myself anymore.’

‘That was the Mad Hatter’s ability, wasn’t it? What did you let him take from you?’ Alice Liddell asked seriously.

‘He only said he would help me shed some ideological burdens so I could face my true self,’ Jeanne Decker honestly replied.

‘What ideological burdens? You threw away your integrity, big sister! You were completely fooled by that devil, weren’t you?’ Alice Liddell grumbled inwardly.

‘No… why would you do such a thing?’ Alice Liddell frowned.

What had happened was irreversible, but now that she had calmed down, she felt she should at least understand the full story. Jeanne Decker doing something like that was unimaginable to her before.

This bizarre turn of events felt like a cruel joke of fate.

There had to be some underlying cause that led to this twisted outcome, and Alice Liddell was determined to find out.

‘It’s not like your demands weren’t too difficult to fulfill. At that moment, Mr. Mad Hatter told me that repaying kindness required concrete actions, and he said he could help me, so I…’

This time, Alice Liddell suddenly felt both annoyed and amused. ‘My request was merely that you not discriminate against me because I’m a witch, not that you should forcefully ‘push’ me!’

‘What?’ Jeanne Decker’s eyes widened. ‘How could I possibly discriminate against you in my current situation? You were the one who kept making those kinds of demands, weren’t you? And didn’t you start this whole thing?’

‘This scoundrel witch,’ she thought, ‘started it and then kept pressing me with her kindness, and now she won’t even admit it!?’

But Alice Liddell was utterly bewildered. ‘What kind of despicable woman is this? Forcing someone to do such inexplicable things and then pushing the blame onto them?’

‘When did I start such a thing?’ Alice Liddell recalled with suspicion. ‘Was it just because I kissed you once? So you wanted to get revenge on me like that?’

‘Don’t try to gloss over what happened next!’ This made Jeanne Decker a little angry. ‘Didn’t you also take me to that inn while I was unconscious and… and do *that*?’

As she remembered that day’s events, her voice involuntarily softened.

‘What nonsense are you talking about? I threw you on the bed, applied some medicine, and then I left!’ Alice Liddell exclaimed, standing up abruptly.

‘Don’t try to fool me!’ Jeanne Decker glared at Alice Liddell and shouted, ‘That inn specializes in *those kinds* of things! The proprietress told me herself! Otherwise, why would you specifically lure me to such a place?’

‘What?!’ Alice Liddell was stunned. She had never realized that the reason for that strange inn’s peculiarity was this.

‘I…’ she answered dazedly. ‘It was just because our actions were too suspicious, and that was the only inn willing to accommodate us.’

‘Accommodate?’ This time, it was Jeanne Decker who was stunned.

The two silently met each other’s gaze, recalling everything that had transpired between them, and began to re-evaluate their conversations from the beginning.

In the awkward silence, their expressions grew increasingly subtle, as they finally realized one thing: from that day on, a strange misunderstanding had arisen between them.

This led to numerous cognitive discrepancies in their conversations, yet neither of them was fully aware of it.

Step by step, errors accumulated, and the misunderstanding began to snowball, ultimately distorting both their fates.

‘Aaaah…’ After finally realizing the outrageous thing she had done, Jeanne Decker’s mind malfunctioned like damaged machinery.

‘J-Jeanne Decker?’ Alice Liddell cautiously called out to her, seeing her state. ‘Are you alright?’

‘It’s nothing. I’m very calm.’ Jeanne Decker forced an ugly smile at Alice Liddell. ‘Do you happen to have a dagger?’

‘What do you want it for?’ Alice Liddell asked, surprised.

‘I want to commit seppuku to atone for my sins and start over,’ Jeanne Decker replied, slowly rising, her eyes vacant.

‘Calm down, hey!’ Alice Liddell quickly held her down.

‘Um, can we pretend nothing ever happened?’ Jeanne Decker looked at Alice Liddell, on the verge of tears.

‘Er…’ Alice Liddell looked at her with some difficulty, calmly advising, ‘Deceiving yourself won’t work.’

‘Nooooooo!!!!’ Jeanne Decker clutched her head and squatted down.

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