Chapter 217 – Volume 44 – The World of Grown-Up Girls (2)
“Ah…”
Eventually, Petra and Wendy collided.
Wendy still wants to convince Petra, so she tries to convey something through the Marchen Battle.
But the moment Petra branded her Wendy a traitor, Belle began to antagonize her Wendy as well.
In fact, when it came to a situation where she had to deal with two people, Wendy became desperate to stop.
“Sister…!”
Then Lily got into a fight.
To prevent Belle from interfering with Petra and Wendy’s battle of Marchen, she started to deal with her Belle herself.
“It bothers me.”
“If you don’t like that, beat me and go.”
Lily said while conducting her own Marchen.
Belle was dumbfounded when Lily, who had never been able to fight properly before, said that.
“…What?”
But Bell, who was so careless, frowned at Lily’s completely changed skills.
No matter how much she practiced as an adult, the improvement in her skills was too great.
She even seemed to be dealing with skills almost equal to her own.
“Here, with the Marchen effect, the token card is turned into a deck…!”
And Lily used a pretty unusual deck management system.
I had cards similar to those used by Wendy and Rachel, but I had a separate card called Token that I couldn’t use.
She used the method of bringing tokens into the game through card effects.
There is a token deck with the length of those you respect and want to follow.
By following it according to the situation, her options are vastly increased, even if her peak performance is low.
And those multiple options were too lethal for Bell’s style of limiting and causing damage.
“Okay…Now I just have to trust my sister.”
Around the time Lily completely subdued Bell with her Marchen Battle.
Wendy was still unable to convince Petra.
To be precise, she was only concentrating on her Marchen Battle to do her best and let her own heart reach her Petra.
“Petra, please. I will always be by your side!”
“Lie, you will eventually become an adult and leave. Until now, everyone except Bell had left like that…!”
Petra was lonely.
No matter how many friends you make, they all disappear as adults.
I have to live as a child for the rest of my life, but everyone grows up and becomes an adult.
So I made everyone scared, so I couldn’t run away.
Kill them when they become adults, and let them live as children even out of fear.
I’m sure I’ll be able to stay with my kids a little longer.
“Even if you don’t do that, I will be with Petra.”
“Lies, lies, lies. All adults are liars. Do you know how many adults have decided to come back but haven’t come back?”
“I am still a child.”
“But you want to become an adult. That’s why you’re doing this now!”
As Wendy saw Petra pouring out her anger and resentment like that, she realized that the Petra she was looking at was just a shell of her.
Wendy has been yearning for her Petra, who she never wanted to be a grown-up, and who she didn’t want to be.
But she was actually just a little kid, who wanted to be an adult more than anyone else, Petra.
“Hey, Petra. I don’t want to be an adult.”
“In that case, stop everything now. You can go back I haven’t become an adult yet, so I’ll be able to get it back.”
Petra still liked her recent time with Wendy.
She wants to go back to that time and live like that for the rest of her life.
But Wendy thought that nothing would change after all.
“Even if you do that, Petra, you will never be happy.”
“…What?”
“That’s not what you really want.”
“What are you talking about…!”
“Are you the traitor to Neverland?”
A child who wants to become an adult more than anyone else in Neverland.
If you only think with your mindset, there’s probably no one closer to being a traitor than Petra.
Wendy dug into that fundamental part and started digging into it.
“Shut up…!”
Petra couldn’t even look at Wendy properly anymore, and she poured all her firepower into it.
As if she wasn’t worth listening to anymore…
No, she was saying with her card exactly what she didn’t want to hear.
“I mean, I want to live my whole life as a child.”
But now I have something more valuable than that.
The friends she made in Neverland were Wendy’s greatest treasure.
And Wendy was a grown-up person who could help even if she gave up her heart if there was something that her treasure, her friend, was suffering from because she didn’t have it.
“But, right now, I want more than that.”
“Keugh!?”
Obviously Petra must have been much stronger than Wendy.
Now, little by little, Petra started to be pushed back.
As Petra grows more impatient, it ends with Petra’s defeat in the end.
“I-I…”
“It’s the first time I’ve seen it, Petra being defeated.”
“What the hell do you want…!”
“I want Petra to be happy.”
“If that’s the case, I’d rather be like I’ve been doing before…”
“It can’t be like that. It just diverts your attention from the problem.”
“…No way.”
Wendy picks up Petra’s Marchen cards from the floor one by one.
Then, similar to when Petra made Neverland at the beginning of Volume 1, the intense light of the card begins to radiate out.
Wendy hugged the light like her mother, and she was creating one of her cards in the air.
“I had no dreams other than not wanting to be an adult. That’s why I’ve never pictured a proper future until now. That’s why I stayed as a child.”
“Wendy…?”
“That’s why I think it’s fortunate, because I can help people I like.”
Surprisingly, the adult Petra was hidden in the made Marchen card.
Making Petra an adult, that was Wendy’s new dream.
Petra has her own merchen ruined, though she is no longer an adult.
By following Wendy’s Marchen, she was able to become an adult without her own Marchen.
Realizing Wendy’s wish, Petra let out a blank laugh.
“You think I can become an adult with just this?”
“Yes, it won’t be that easy. But now, Petra, only when you become an adult will I become an adult too. 」
Unlike Belle, who has always been by her side, she’s not the status quo, although she’s given a new path.
She never changed that she would always be by my side.
For the first time, Petra started shaking.
“As expected, the conversation might not have been enough yet.”
“…What?”
“Let’s talk again. With our Marchen Battle.”
Although Marchen Battle was a tool for fighting.
Before that, it was also a way of talking about revealing oneself and getting to know each other.
Wendy knew that very well, she said, believing that it was more accurate to communicate with cards than with words.
“…There are conditions.”
“Condition?”
“If I win, give up everything and just stay by my side as a child for the rest of your life.”
“…Okay, instead, if I win, I’ll apologize to everyone I tried to kill. Don’t kill anyone in the future.”
“…Uh.”
Like a mother soothing her child, Wendy caressed her downcast Petra.
Before long, the two of them widened their distance again with serious expressions.
She drew a card containing her own beliefs.
“It’s so amazing. In the past, each and every one of Petra’s cards looked cool and scary.”
It looks like she’s just crying now.
It looks like a desperate not to hurt me anymore, so I want to hug and cry with you right now.
Our poor Petra.
“I’m not fighting to get sympathy. I will fight to achieve my goal, to protect Neverland…!”
“Yes, that is Petra. It’s my turn, Draw, Marchen effect activated!」
Originally, the children’s card gave up on the ending of Marchen, so it’s only for profit in the middle.
However, the changed Wendy’s card has a completely different form from the Marchen cards she has seen so far.
It may be somewhere that is neither an adult nor a child.
“I’m adding Sub Marchen to Petra’s Marchen Field!”
Through a special system called Sub Marchen, it creates a Marchen with an ending for Petra.
And Wendy proceeds with the Marchen, and finally Petra achieves the Marchen.
The opponent reached the end of Sub Marchen, that was the condition for achieving the ending of Wendy’s Marchen.
“Huh!?”
“Petra? It’s okay?”
“Okay, it’s okay.”
However, as this Marchen battle progressed, strange things happened.
Petra’s appearance, which had remained the same even after a long time had passed, was starting to age little by little.
As the submarchen of becoming an adult progressed, Wendy and Petra slowly began to become adults.
「Using a dead frog, I will choose one face down from your hand and discard it. If the card is an event card, show your hand. I can choose one and let it go.”
“But if it’s a character card, you can summon that character card right?”
There is a risk of giving the opponent an advantage, but the return is certain.
However, the deck Wendy is using now has a very high event rate.
It is safe to say that she has almost no penalty…
「Character card, the girl I love.」
“What…!?”
As if she had predicted that kind of behavior, Wendy’s character card popped out of her hand.
A card that would normally have difficult summoning conditions popped out onto the field at once.
「It’s my turn. When the effect of the girl I love is activated, both players draw 5 cards. In addition, I declare preparations with the girl I love, and draw 2 cards instead of 1 with the card effect.”
Wendy, who drew 7 more of her cards in one breath, pushed Marchen in her one breath.
Each time, the image of Petra becoming more feminine is illuminated.
The traces of the little boy before the battle are gradually fading.
“Okay, conditions met. Marchen progress!」
“Ah…!”
The match that started to be pushed back like that was settled in the blink of an eye.
After losing her battle, Petra’s heart trembled greatly.
