Swooooosh-!

A small house falls across the sky.

Thud!

It crashes down into the land of illusion.

It has fallen here many times, worn and weathered.

Bang! Suddenly, the door bursts open, and a girl with a sword walks out, muttering.

“Another fun hunting time, I see.”

…

POV Switch – Alice

The inside of the facility was dark.

The long, narrow corridor made it difficult to know where we were, making it feel even more secretive.

And here and there, between the corridors, we saw people who had become illusions.

They didn’t seem to react to us particularly.

It seemed to be the nature of the changed people.

However, as it doesn’t always have to be that way, there were also aggressive illusions.

A dinosaur-like illusion blocked our path.

“Battle!”

While I was thinking about whether to punch it and get rid of it, I thought it would be good to let the kids fight so they could adapt to their changed forms.

Suho, who had become a Dullahan, raised his newly transformed shield and was already stepping forward in front of us.

Suho had always fought opponents bigger than himself.

So, even with a shield, he mainly protected the children as a tanker who faked or deflected attacks, focusing on evasion.

But this time.

Whoosh-! Clang!

“Oh!”

The tail swung by the dinosaur illusion was easily blocked by Suho’s shield.

Suho also let out an exclamation of surprise, not really expecting it to work.

He’s become much sturdier!

Or so I wanted to say, but Suho’s head fell.

Kyeong-min caught it and quickly put it back on.

The scene was chilling, as if it were a metaphor for Suho as a tanker, the position with the most life-threatening risk.

Anyway, we have to attack while Suho is blocking, but Kyeong-min’s arms have turned into wings, so he can hold a book but not open it.

“Wait, how am I supposed to fight when my arms are wings!”

“Since you’re a Tengu, can’t you use some kind of magic?”

“They have arms too!”

Hmm, now that I think about it, Tengus had fans shaped like maple leaves, so they did have arms.

“Should I step in if you need time to adjust?”

Kyeong-min shook his head as if he didn’t want me to step in.

I smiled and stepped back again.

“There’s something I want to test for a moment.”

Instead of opening the grimoire he had, Kyeong-min devised a way to open it automatically.

That was to replace the book with a scroll.

It was hard to say how that was possible, but the legendary Tengu were said to be skilled in magic, so it couldn’t have been completely without influence.

“Something came out!”

A strong wind came out of the unfolded scroll and pushed away the dinosaur illusion.

It seems like he can adjust the output, so if he practices a little more, he’ll be able to keep the enemy in check in a different way than the chains.

“Besides pulling, I can push too. I have more options!”

“I’m more comfortable overall because I’ve become more solid, too? But my head keeps falling off.”

“Then how are you standing?”

“It’s hard to explain. It’s like I’m not restricted by my field of vision.”

That’s a pretty helpful trait.

However, since it is easy to fall, he should take extra care of his head.

“Eun-jeong is just playing around.”

“No, I’m not! Here, take this!”

Pyororong~

“Oh… healing!”

Eun-jeong fluttered around.

There was a tradition that fairies followed travelers, playing pranks or bestowing helpful blessings.

Eun-jeong, who is the most afraid of us and hates to confront anything, but follows the adventure if there are friends to face it together, seems to have her psychology clearly reflected.

With this, Eun-jeong has speed increase, purification, and healing abilities.

Considering the characteristics of a fairy, it seems like she can also bestow blessings related to luck.

It’s hard to confirm, so I’ll have to test it more.

Next is Ha-rim.

Ha-rim transformed into a Dragonkin, highlighting her extraordinary nature.

Usually, even if Ha-rim had to fight alone, she had the capacity to overcome it somehow.

But when she was with the kids, she borrowed the power of tools to deal direct damage, or she answered the quiz-like crises like a monster.

It was difficult to deal direct damage as the opponent got stronger, but this time…

Thud-!

The dinosaur illusion fell with one punch from her.

The children and Ha-rim were surprised and opened their mouths.

I stroked Ha-rim and gave her a warning.

“Don’t hurt them too much. They’re people after all.”

“Sorry. Usually, the enemies we face often don’t get hurt even if we hit them with all our might.”

We identified our abilities and moved forward defeating the aggressive illusions that rushed at us in order to get used to them.

As we adapted to some extent and went deeper, we realized that the illusions attacking us had clearly decreased.

The number was actually larger, but they were all just staring blankly at us.

“They look lethargic.”

These were officials of the Institution, and many of them were suffering from lethargy.

I was convinced that it was the result of that being projected.

Seeing them so lethargic was heartbreaking.

It was like watching a fire that was going out.

The cause is the abuse of memory erasers without facing fear, but the head of the Institution who I talked to said that wasn’t the only reason.

Another reason similar to memory erasers.

I felt like I could find out the reason in the deepest part.

After a long time, we faced another door.

Next to it was an illusion that looked more listless than any illusion we had seen so far.

It looked at me, its eyes cloudy, and handed over a card key as if throwing it.

“…”

This illusion is…

“Card key!”

Ha-rim, who always puts keys and junk in her bag no matter what, reacted first.

She picked up the card key as if snatching it and held it up to the identification door lock of the door.

Bip! The door opened with a sound.

We immediately went inside the door.

Is this the deepest part?

“Look at this, the number is huge.”

What do you mean the number is huge?

I looked at where Eun-jeong was pointing.

A square machine was displaying a number of about 8 billion.

The number was constantly changing.

Hmm, is it a meaningful number?

8074235615 ㅡ 7842555120

“Oh. The number has decreased.”

“I think this looks more important?”

I found a button that looked more important than the number.

Anyone could tell that it was important by the way it was sparkling.

A button that shines in rainbow colors that children can never resist.

As if possessed, I pressed the button, and a video started playing on the large monitor in the center.

What appeared in the video was the head of the Institution who had talked to me.

“Good to see you, Alice. The fact that you came here must mean that day has come.”

As expected, the head of the Institution knew about this situation.

“Before talking about this situation, there is something I need to explain.”

At his gesture, another video titled Document No. 1 started playing next to the screen.

What is it that you have even prepared the document for?

Document No. 1 – Angels and Demons.

[Angels.

From the time that anomalous monsters began to appear, they rose to the sky and left us.

But the demons remained.

It wasn’t for us.

Angels and demons existed from the beginning, but anomalous monsters suddenly appeared one day.

Therefore, it was speculated that the demons did not want to acknowledge the monsters that deviated from the rules.

Around the time when powerful individuals among the anomalous monsters rampaged.

The demons waged war to eliminate the monsters.

The demons succeeded in reducing the number of monsters, but they left only corpses behind, with no survivors.]

Rattle.

Simple photo data passes by, and it immediately moves on to the next video.

Document No. 2 – Singularity

In the video, a woman wearing a witch’s dress draws complex calculation formulas and shows a graph.

Her graph showed the current point in time as the flat part of the graph.

Then, she emphasized the part that bends exponentially and rises so high that it seems to penetrate the blackboard.

[Singularity.

It is the point at which irregularity increases rapidly.

It has been found that even the anomalous phenomena, including the ruler-class entities that are happening right now, are only a flat phenomenon just before the singularity.

The increase in numerical value has exceeded 1,000,000 times and measurement was impossible.

Seeing this, the Institution knew that the singularity was a future that they could never handle.]

Document No. 3 – Mephistopheles

[And Mephistopheles appeared before the head of that Institution.

Even though all the demons should have died, he appeared casually, claiming that he came from a higher world.

He knew the Institution very well, as if he had belonged to it.

He proposed a way to continue the world beyond this singularity.]

When the document video ended, the head of the Institution in the video finally opened his mouth.

“The proposal Mephistopheles made was this. As long as we don’t reach the singularity, it’s okay. He said that if we just keep going around in circles without reaching it, the world will continue. We accepted it and started the loop.”

The part about the singularity was shocking, but they created a loop?

How?

“The way to create the loop was to use this phenomenon that was bound to happen in the future that he observed with the girl he brought.”

He showed a photo instead of a document video, and the scene contained in it revealed the phenomenon that we are currently facing.

“Observed future. The phenomenon of the whole world turning into a fantasy. It is a phenomenon derived from a ruler-class entity. The ruler’s alias is phantom pain. It is a phenomenon in which the whole world turns into fantasy, with real-world entities turning into things that do not exist. However, it does not simply change, but rises like fantasy, our imagination, legends, and stories, but eventually disappears like illusions, so the world that has become fantasy also disappears quietly.”

Things that have become fantasy gradually collapse and disappear like old legends are forgotten.

It is truly a illusion collapse.

The children listening to the story in the video become agitated by the quite shocking fact.

“Uh, does that mean?”

“Are we terminally ill?”

“Huh.”

As he said, if we do not resolve this phenomenon within the time limit, everything will collapse and disappear.

The sudden countdown made my mind dizzy.

But how are we supposed to use this phenomenon?

As if hearing my question, he immediately told me a related story.

“The way to exploit this phenomenon is Oz. Using a powerful reality bending device, we can turn back time.”

Oz. It’s a topic that keeps coming up.

I heard a lot about it from Ariel too.

And I know that it wasn’t simply made with the advanced technology of the Institution.

That was a fact I knew.

But… turn back time?

Like the agents who abused memory erasers without facing fear, this was the reason why even the head of the Institution had to suffer from lethargy.

They didn’t face the horror of the singularity and just kept turning back time.

Then came the limit.

“Oz is a powerful reality-bending device, a biodevice made with the corpses of all demons. However, Mephistopheles tried to do something without agreement using Oz, and we tried to reclaim Oz.”

They tried to reclaim Oz.

An event that occurred separately from what Mephistopheles had proposed.

Perhaps the head of the Institution had some inkling of what was going on separately.

And that may be related to me.

If not, there would be no reason to tell me these truths.

“During the reclamation process, Oz disappeared and there was no way to get it back. Except for one exception.”

The fact that it disappeared meant that Oz could also act as a living organism rather than just a machine.

I suddenly wondered why this bioweapon was named “Oz”.

If that is a fusion made with the corpses of all demons, then why did they bother to give it the name “Oz”?

The answer came immediately after.

“The reason why this weapon made with the corpses of demons was named Oz is because the tale-devil that can find it contextually has been decided.”

We could tell from his words, even though the name was not mentioned.

The name of the tale-devil that will be mentioned next.

“The tale-devil who summons Oz and makes a wish to turn back time. The one Mephistopheles calls his prototype. Dorothy. Alice. You are the variable that appeared on this carousel. We have high hopes for you. We are regretting that we were satisfied with repeating even though it was not the correct answer. And we cannot stop the carousel that we created ourselves. Please stop Dorothy from turning back time. Please break the shackles of us who are helplessly trapped.”

…

POV Switch – 3rd person

Kugugugugugu!!!!

“What… is this!”

The city is torn apart by the storm.

Even the people who had become illusions there are finely chopped and can’t be found.

Pinocchio realized that this phenomenon wasn’t just happening in front of her.

This storm is happening all over the world.

Someone walked up to Pinocchio, who had temporarily lost her composure and was just watching the large-scale event, from behind.

With a broad smile.

“Hi?”

The girl who came on the storm speaks in a familiar way.

Although the voice was young and childlike, the calmness contained within it felt disjointed.

As soon as Pinocchio put the girl in her eyes, she felt her mind freeze.

Fear.

Pinocchio wondered why this emotion was emerging.

Even though she couldn’t find any related memories in her quickly revolving memory, she reached an absurd conclusion.

“That’s really rare. You look very different this time. A girl, huh?”

Pinocchio takes a deep breath and finally opens her mouth.

“…I’ve never seen you… but I remember. You killed me… didn’t you?”

Pinocchio had been killed by this girl so many times.

The appearance of Dorothy, who was shrouded in mystery!

As always, if you spot any mistakes, feel free to let me know—and I hope you enjoyed the read!

—Chip