“From the symptoms, it mirrors selective amnesia. After the car crash, your memories shattered like glass and scattered into the dark.”

The silver-haired girl sat on the sofa, watching the black-clad girl across from her. The clock ticked like rain on eaves; it was near six.

“A-amnesia? Didn’t I… transmigrate?”

“A soul can’t leap light-years out of nothing. After the amnesia, you forgot the past. You forgot your name. Under the alias Snake-Charmer, you joined a gang.”

“B-but… in my memories, there were never girls with colored hair! And no magic that convenient… Girls as pretty as you only exist in stories!”

“That’s because your old planet sits in the Outer Ring. Life-force there is thin as winter sap. Nature can’t bless everyone with colors or magic.”

“O-Outer Ring…?”

“Mm. Your star map is blank. No memory of how the systems fit together.”

Dixue nodded and hugged Yue Liuyi to her chest, like gathering a soft moon. “Then it all tracks. Little Rose’s amnesia spell failed because you were already amnesiac. Under double amnesia, you recalled your earlier life, and forgot the gang.”

“Eh!??? I—I…”

Yin Mu reeled, black as a shadow cut from night. If Dixue was right, she hadn’t transmigrated at all. She had lived years as someone else.

“I see…”

Listening to LittleSnow, Yue Liuyi understood in a breath. In the Outer Ring, many worlds are islands in space. They barely speak, and magic is a rumor.

But…

“LittleSnow, it could happen… but if Yin Mu was from the Outer Ring, how did she reach Dreamwood Star? Those worlds are far, like stars behind fog!”

“There are many causes… but the likeliest is…”

“Is…?”

“Mm…”

The silver-haired girl shook her head, her face turning grave like a winter lake. “Interstellar traffickers. They go to remote worlds, seize the girls they fancy, then sell them.”

“What!?”

“They raid the Outer Ring from time to time, luring humans away. Locally, vanished girls are called ‘spirited away’… gone like mist at sunrise.”

“Th-there’s really something that cruel?”

“Mm. Little Moon, remember Ailuna?”

“Oh!”

Yue Liuyi drew a sharp breath, realization blooming like a lantern. That pink-haired girl was taken by traffickers and lost her memory.

Back then, an Evil Deity hungry for war pushed the traffickers. Now it’s profit, cold as coin, in human lives.

“This vast universe holds secret beauty like hidden springs, and also dealings in shadow. Minors sell high. With Yin Mu’s looks, she’d stand out in the Ring.”

Dixue spoke softly, gaze on the black-clad girl, steady as snowfall. To her, the girl was still unblemished. That purity had cost countless sacrifices.

As the stolen one, Yin Mu sat frozen, frost on a branch.

To her, it felt like a dream, thin as mist, unreal under the lamplight.

But reality lay bare before her. She had never seen colored hair, nor magic like a spark caught in the palm.

“C-can I ask! In your world, do you have atomic bombs and airplanes? Do you have novel sites and anime?”

“We do. But atomic bombs are ages old—dangerous and wild. Now the strongest is magi-fusion weaponry. It can erase a planet in a heartbeat.”

“A—a whole planet!?”

“Mm… we’ll discuss details later. Yin Mu, stay here first. We’ll find a way to send you back to your home system.”

“B-back… I can still go back?”

“If we find the interstellar coordinates, we can hire an exploration crew to take you home… but it costs a mountain of money.”

Yue Liuyi gave a wry smile, like a wilted petal. The Outer Ring has no magic. Even if she returned, who would believe she’d touched another world?

Like in Spirited Away, life would settle to calm again, as if waking from a brief golden dream. Not the worst fate.

But Yin Mu shook her head, then sprang to her feet, voice firm as steel on stone.

“N-no, I’m not going back!”

“Huh?”

“I hate the real, three-dimensional world! People there are a mess and so boring! No one’s as cute as in stories! Even if I’m not the heroine, it’s fine! You Queens are so beautiful—please let me serve you forever!”

“Eh? That…”

“I can draw manga, and I can write novels! I’ll earn money for you, my Queens. Please take me in!”

“Uh, about that…”

Yin Mu was truly pitiful, but Yue Liuyi still stole a glance at Dixue’s eyes, like checking the wind before a leap.

And Dixue was already watching Yue Liuyi.

“Eh? LittleSnow?”

“I can’t do anything about you, Little Moon… If you want to keep her, keep her. We already have many stars in our sky; one more won’t tip it.”

The silver-haired girl sighed, a little sour as vinegar, a little sweet as plum.

“R-really okay?”

“You already acted first and told me later, didn’t you? What can I do… The World Tree Maiden’s love is wide as the forest.”

“Hehe, thanks, LittleSnow~”

“No need to thank me, Little Moon. The one you should thank is…”

“My Queen! Thank you! Please treat me as your maid, and give me your orders!”

“Oh-ho…? Then become a plush little mop first. Scrub the floor till it gleams like a lake…”

Facing the black-clad girl, Dixue’s smile turned sly, a fox under moonlight.

…

…

And so, Yin Mu officially joined the Moon Post Bookstore.

She could speak the common tongue, strangely enough, but letters on a page were thorns. Publishing a novel seemed out of reach.

But she could clean rooms and handle odd jobs, steady as a broom in honest hands.

Her room sat on the bookstore’s second floor. It was much smaller than the other girls’ bedrooms, a sparrow’s nest beside doves.

But the black-clad girl was content. Walls didn’t matter. What mattered was a daily life shared with several adorable girls, like tea around a hearth.

To Yue Liuyi and Dixue, this routine was ordinary as sunrise. To Yin Mu, it was like sighting a New Land, bright with salt winds and wonder.

Yes. That taste of life told her she stood in a different world, dawn breaking on a new shore. Here, she could do so much more.

“Can I… have a miracle too? An ability?”

She opened a notebook. That was the first line she wrote, ink like a small vow on snow.