p“It’s almost finished. The boundary between reality and dream has become ambiguous. We should be able to summon that which we prepared in the dream.”

It would be normal to rejoice at the only good news, but the children knew.

How heavy the price of the time Little Red Riding Hood had bought.

Even while believing we could bring back the dead devils and the people swept away by the storm as illusions, we couldn’t help but feel heartbroken.

“Is there anything we can do to help?”

Ha-rim asks with a very serious expression.

“Of course there is. Perhaps you all are the most important.”

“Really?”

“Instead, it’s incredibly dangerous. You’ll have to be especially… really especially careful.”

The task the children would perform was a kind of guide.

A guide to lead Dorothy.

It’s vague, but once “that” is summoned, they’ll roughly get the gist.

“And you’ll need to know about that child.

“Are you saying we should become friends?”

Friends…?

That would be the most efficient, but it’s questionable whether Dorothy, who is fully intent on killing us right now, can become a friend.

She’s a genocidal maniac of 8 billion who can wipe out an entire area with a single gesture.

“Will it work out like that? Anyway, what we need to do is guide Dorothy’s actions.”

“Guide her actions?”

I’ll explain that bit by bit.

Just a little more, just a little more and it’ll be over, so please.

“Alice! Dorothy is approaching.”

Damn it. To be chased already, even though I deliberately hid far away and in an inconspicuous place.

The storm she was riding, reflected in the mirror, was large enough to swallow everything on Earth.

It seems her power has increased a lot as her level rose, like in an RPG game, but I have no idea how many she’s killed.

I just need to buy a little time.

But this time, it will be difficult to stall for time with conversation like last time.

In that case… am I forced to ask, even knowing full well what the outcome will be?

“…Please. Peter Pan.”

…

POV Switch – Peter Pan

“Huh?”

Dorothy noticed she was in a place separate from where she had originally been.

I deliberately made it look similar to the outside environment, but she’s quick-witted.

After looking around, she spotted me and smiled brightly.

“This is Neverland.”

So she knew.

The fear that clenches my heart.

It seems the claim that she looped several times and killed the devils wasn’t a lie.

First, let’s do a light test.

I changed the structure of Neverland.

My plan was to trap Dorothy in a maze to definitely buy time.

The fluidly moving land of Neverland.

Thwack!

Dorothy, standing on it, suddenly slammed her knife into the ground, stopping the movement.

“If you plan to buy time by trapping me in a maze, I’ll just smash Neverland to pieces.”

“Stop it. Good grief, how crude.”

Tricks don’t work, huh.

Her crudeness is one thing she shares with Alice.

But her nature seems to be the exact opposite.

I greeted Dorothy as she walks towards me.

“Nice to meet you, Dorothy. You cheeky little brat.”

“Hello, Peter Pan.”

“Hahaha! It seems the me from the last loop didn’t scold you for not using honorifics!”

“He did, but I ignored him. It’s a bit strange to use honorifics with a game character, isn’t it?”

Game character, she says.

Does she really think so?

Or does she want to believe so?

I suppose I’ll never know.

Dorothy looked bored, as if my reaction wasn’t new to her.

Her face was still beaming with a smile, but that much was clear.

“I’m bored, so can I kill you now?”

“Would that be alright? Why don’t you stop it, this damn massacre.”

“Really. Calling it a massacre is too much. This world is nothing but an illusion, you know.”

“You say that so easily, even with the word kill on your lips.”

“Strange. Peter Pan was usually easy to talk to. You seem to have changed a lot too.”

“Easy to talk to, you say…”

I looked back at my past self and briefly thought about the conversations I might have had with Dorothy.

Various things come to mind, but I suppose this is the only topic one would share with others.

I threw that topic directly at Dorothy.

“Did you need Neverland too?”

“…”

Dorothy just smiled brightly and didn’t answer.

I judged there was meaning in that silence and decided to delve deeper.

“I heard everything. That you’re turning back time. Why? Why are you turning back time?”

“Umm~ Because Dorothy is a hero. She saves everyone.”

It sounds like she’s just making it up, but it doesn’t really matter.

What’s important is time.

I latched onto her words and continued the conversation.

“Is it for justice?”

One clear point is that Dorothy is aware that by turning back time, the world is being maintained without reaching the singularity.

Even if she seems to have an empty head, she’s definitely aware of that much.

“Huh? Is there a reason? Just seeing the ending and doing it again, seeing the ending and doing it again, this place is huge so I wander around too.”

But it’s strange.

Even though Dorothy is aware of all that, her actions weren’t particularly based on some trivial sense of justice.

She’s saving the world without reason, as if truly trying to see the ending of a game.

Looking at our current conversation, while she treats the humans who have become illusions as monsters, she also knows they weren’t originally like that.

It doesn’t seem like she’s acting for others at all.

If not a sense of justice, then what is Dorothy’s reason for continuously turning back time?

What makes her repeat it?

“And because tale devils are added very, veeery occasionally. It’s fun.”

“You firmly believe this world is a game, don’t you?”

“You, who once entered a game, why do you deny this one?”

“!”

Dorothy’s remark, delivered with a shrug and a smug look, felt like it pierced my heart.

Hah, good grief. Bullseye.

“Yes. Perhaps this world is nothing but a game. But what changes? There’s no change in what I pursue.”

I saw countless people suffering in a world I had dismissed as just a game.

People torn apart like paper, and all sorts of darkness born from human interaction.

Screams and blood. The drugs people turned to in order to forget.

Even though I had entered a game, I came to a conclusion.

It’s a game, but it’s also reality.

“I want peace! I want a Neverland where no one suffers!”

I shouted at Dorothy as if declaring it.

Dorothy, still with that unreadable smile, offers her observation.

“Hmm~ that sentiment hasn’t changed. Peace, huh… But if evil monsters exist in the world, you have no choice but to fight, right?”

With those words, Dorothy leaped towards me with her knife.

Damn it, so it’s finally coming!

“Hook!”

Just before Dorothy’s blade reached me, a hook hand shot out from thin air and pulled me.

The blade narrowly missed.

I never thought I could dodge it on my own in the first place.

“Illusion.”

Immediately after, I create an illusion.

Visual disturbance using the spell Tinkerbell.

It was used to poison opponents, but I judged it better to focus on one thing rather than a petty trick that wouldn’t work anyway.

I create an even more elaborate illusion.

“Is it this one~?”

Approaching Dorothy, who had cut down one of the illusions, I unleashed a barrage of fire.

Sparks flew and bullets poured out.

Dorothy, unconcerned by the hail of bullets, swung her blade.

Before I could react, Hook pulled me again, and I barely dodged.

“You monstrous bitch!”

I concentrate my firepower.

Hundreds of weapons emerged from the walls of Neverland.

Cannons, pistols, machine guns, it doesn’t matter.

Focused on one point.

Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat!!!!

A deafening roar with a torrent of bullets.

It possesses a power on a different level from the guns used when humans wage war against each other.

Even Alice would have taken heavy damage from this firepower.

“Are you done?”

Dorothy unleashed a slash towards the center of Neverland.

That alone shook Neverland.

The weapons that had been pouring out firepower shattered from the impact, and only the nearly destroyed walls of Neverland, barely withstanding the attack, remained.

Dorothy, taking advantage of the gap in firepower, clicked her shoes together and teleported.

When I realized Dorothy was behind me, I hastily called for Hook.

However, Dorothy, who had cut down Hook before cutting me, followed up with a slash that severed my arm.

“Shit!”

Red blood gushes out.

Dangerous. To think it won’t regenerate.

“There’s no need to struggle to create a utopia.”

Dorothy said so, gently and softly.

“Because this place is already a land of fantasy where anything is possible!”

Nonsense… Far from a land of fantasy, there’s only a world shredded by storms.

I understand why Ariel didn’t try to gather everyone to fight.

Even if six ants gather, they can’t catch a lion.

“Don’t be disappointed! When I summon Oz, you’ll see it again soon.”

“You’re lying… I doubt you want to see it again!”

“?”

“Wasn’t Oz a being that grants wishes?”

The name Oz comes from the fairy tale “The Wizard of Oz,” where Dorothy’s adventure is written.

Strictly speaking, it’s the wizard who grants wishes, but in context, Oz and the wizard should be considered synonymous.

Using Oz, a powerful reality-altering device, means making a wish.

Making a wish to continuously turn back time?

No, that’s not it.

If one has a proper brain, they wouldn’t continuously make such a purposeless wish, not even once.

Time turning back is secondary.

If so, the content of Dorothy’s wish is something else.

I don’t know what it is.

But at least the reason Dorothy is repeating this phenomenon is…!

“What are you trying to say?”

“Aren’t you repeating it because your wish isn’t being granted?”

“…”

“It’s quite amusing, isn’t it? Winding a cuckoo doll’s spring continuously doesn’t bring it back to life.”

Then.

For the first time, the corners of Dorothy’s mouth turned down.

That was so funny I burst out laughing.

So that girl too was doing something foolish to achieve what she wanted.

I clutched my arm, from which blood was gushing, and stood up.

“Planning to continue?”

“You… are really strong…!”

Even with that much power, there are things that cannot be achieved.

The yearning I had kept in a corner of my heart, that perhaps if I had Alice’s power I could achieve it, cooled and disappeared.

Instead, something else bloomed.

“I want Neverland. Yes… I wanted a utopia without pain, evil, or fear. But Alice and the children judged that to be wrong.”

A question arose.

What is a utopia?

Does such a place even exist?

Can it be created?

Shin Ha-rim, one of Alice’s children, said that a utopia, like heaven, can be valuable just by pursuing it.

Conversely, is a utopia worthless once reached?

I came to a conclusion.

There is no utopia.

Unless one is a god, it cannot be created.

If so, what should I pursue?

“…”

The place I fell into was a war game.

At first, I was just bewildered, and soon died from a bombing.

I lay low like a dead rat for a while, but because I wanted to return home, I wandered around aiming for the end of the war, which I presumed was the game’s clear condition.

My initial resolve shattered all too easily.

The brutality and horror of war were not something an ordinary person like me could handle.

Nevertheless, the thing called time constrained me and forced me to act.

It was around the time when, after several deaths, my goal was no longer to return home, but to end the war.

In a village devastated by war, I picked up Wendy.

It wasn’t my decision.

It was because of my comrades who pitied her, left all alone.

She boosted our morale with her characteristic cheerfulness.

She even fired a gun and was physically fit, and soon acted like a soldier.

She seemed to like me, and at the same time, she wanted to follow me.

I liked Wendy too.

It felt as if our mutual feelings could make sprouts grow even in a field of frost.

I didn’t know at the time.

That somewhere, she was broken.

When I thought the war had ended, another war broke out.

Wendy died then.

I died too, and time turned back.

Let’s do better next time.

I ended the war, and then ended the war that broke out again.

But next time, as if by fate, war broke out, and both Wendy and I died in the process.

Over and over, and over again.

Ah, the name of the game itself is [Eternal War], I realized that war continues forever.

Even if I moved to stop the war, I was fated to fight eternally.

Perhaps I could end it next time, I thought, intoxicated by that addictive hope, as I proceeded to the next war.

I intended to leave Wendy behind.

But she always followed me.

This was her illness.

The anxiety and fear born from losing something precious once, she tried to relieve by being by my side.

Even though I knew this, because of that desire to become someone special, I killed her over and over again.

The relentless brutality of war.

Wendy’s corpses piling up.

Numbed by sorrow and anger, I lost my mind, and to stop the war, I put allies, enemies, and everything else to sleep through drugs and sorcery.

Even though I put an end to the eternal war, her image lingers, never returning.

“You are my utopia.”

No… Wendy, I couldn’t become a utopia.

Rather, my side was closer to hell, with all the evils of the world gathered there.

…But I realized one thing.

If I kept fighting wars, the wars that would happen elsewhere would be fought by me.

Therefore, if Wendy wasn’t by my side, it meant Wendy could live happily.

If I wanted Wendy to be at peace, she shouldn’t have been by my side.

I gave her the bouquet of flowers she liked, and finally conveyed the words I should have said then, but couldn’t.

You must not come to me.

And leave the empty village to pursue your own worth in a new place.

I will bear all the terrifying things you will experience, so in a peaceful place, not by my side…

Even if I say this in my heart, the dead Wendy does not return.

But shaking off sorrow and regret, I spoke purely to the Wendy in my heart.

“Live peacefully.”

As the story was re-established in my mind, Neverland began to collapse.

No. It’s different.

Neverland isn’t collapsing, it’s being absorbed by me.

Because I’ve accepted it.

That I can neither create nor become a utopia.

Dorothy backed away.

That’s not important right now.

I need to find an answer.

If I can’t become a utopia, what can I become?

I, who dived into evil to end war, have instead become a calamity that attracts evil.

I cannot become peace.

Then what if it’s not by my side?

If I gather all evil and bring it to myself, wouldn’t that be the best outcome for others!

Having finished my thoughts, I shouted.

“I become evil!”

That is indeed a choice befitting a devil!

I have regarded war as evil.

Surprisingly, I have called both allies and enemies evil.

But what about me? Why am I not evil?

Ah, I finally realize it.

With blood on my hands, I’ve been shamelessly acting alone!

The resentment of comrades and enemies.

Every night, all the shadows that tormented me when I tried to sleep, I feel them synchronizing with me.

The things I fought, the things I killed. The comrades who saved me.

Selfishly, I apologize to the evils I turned away from, claiming they weren’t me. Instead, follow me!

…

If the Neverland of Good does not exist, then I will gather all the evil in the world and create relative good!!!

POV Switch – 3rd Person

Peter Pan absorbed Neverland and became it.

His powerful fire-powered weapons revealed themselves, emitting immense power.

Dorothy muttered with a smile.

“You look strong.”

Therefore, Dorothy decided to try using a powerful technique.

The Marvelous Land of Oz.

In Oz, anything can happen.

Ferris wheel, turn. Turn like a storm.

For this worthless illusion that is nothing but beauty!

Slice!

With a slash that cleaves through space itself, Peter Pan’s Neverland of Evil crumbles in vain.

“It’s… no use… this time either…”

Peter Pan mutters as he falls.

His body crumbles and scatters into the sky.

“Alice… I’ve sent the materials… You should be able to activate it now…”

Boom—!

The colossal body falls, and Dorothy stared blankly at his crumbling form.

Dorothy, who had killed without hesitation and left until now, just watched, as if lost in thought.

After a moment, Dorothy raised the corners of her mouth, which had slightly drooped, and decided to go find Alice.

Since there would be no more hindrances.

Thump.

Something fell in front of Dorothy’s eyes.

A smartphone? And it was unlocked, with some message displayed on the screen.

“Hmm?”

The content of the message was this.

[Let’s all look at the moon together.]

When Dorothy looked up at the sky, she saw a red moon completely filling it.

-…Dorothy. That arrow wasn’t aimed only at you.

Dorothy recalled what Little Red Riding Hood had said to her.

What was that moon shot for?

The question was quickly resolved.

All the illusions remaining on the ground were being sucked into the moon.

It seemed they were being moved to a separate space.

“I see.”

I have to kill monsters to summon Oz.

In other words, if they’re sent somewhere else, I’ll have to follow.

“…I guess I have no choice but to go. Alice.”

Though I was planning to find you anyway.

Noooo, Peter Pan, you too!

Bro this is so peak

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

—Chip