“It’s a valley!”

Eun-jeong expresses her joy by swinging a branch she picked up somewhere.

It seems that even if she’s not good at swimming, she enjoys playing in the water.

She immediately approached the valley water and splashed around, but for some reason, she stopped and came back to me.

Soon after, Suho jumped into the valley water.

Splash!

“Uwa! It’s cold!”

Suho, twisting his body dynamically as soon as he entered the water, ran away.

Kyeong-min and Eun-jeong, who had been watching with their arms crossed as if expecting it, snickered and said.

“It’s colder because it’s a chilly day. It’s cold even in summer, so how much more so on a day like this?”

“Whose idea was it to come to the valley!”

“It can’t be helped. Alice said she wanted to enjoy various things, so we should do something.”

That’s right.

It was me who suggested coming to the valley even in this weather.

I know it’s an unreasonable request, but I wanted to play with the children as much as possible.

“Put on your swimsuit!”

Eun-jeong, who had been watching from behind, pushed a swimsuit at me.

This kid must have finally lost her mind.

I said firmly.

“I will never wear it.”

“Why!!!!!!!!!!!!”

“…Why are you getting angry?”

To begin with, that thing was yours so the size didn’t fit at all.

Mainly the chest area.

After lightly subduing Eun-jeong, who was trying to put a swimsuit on me without thinking, I went for a splash.

It’s cold.

“We came to play in the water, but if we can’t play in the water, what are we supposed to do?”

“There’s nothing we can do. Let’s just prepare the meal.”

Saying so, I quickly took out the ingredients I had bought in advance.

Budae jjigae and ramen noodles. For dessert, though it wasn’t in season, I had even gone to the trouble of paying extra for a watermelon, which was now chilling in the stream.

Just looking at the bubbling stew made it feel like we had already had fun, even without playing.

Indeed, the saying that half of life’s joy comes from eating is true.

We sat around chatting, and when the noodles were cooked, we opened the pot lid.

Steaming hot ramen noodles were ladled into individual bowls, and we slurped them down with sausages.

“…”

“Ah, Alice finds it spicy. But she’s trying to act like it’s not spicy because of her pride!”

“Do you have to point it out every time you know?”

Eventually, you get used to spicy food.

When my body changed, things that weren’t supposed to be spicy became spicy, and I was shocked by it.

However, after eating it every time, I regained my spicy tolerance.

A tolerance where Shin Ramyun feels moderately spicy.

Truly a devilish palate…!

Slurp.

“Delicious! It would have been even tastier with cheese.”

“Hey. It’s already a hodgepodge, if you add cheese, it’ll taste like nothing.”

“Said the amateur who doesn’t even know the taste.”

“What?”

“I should have known when you didn’t add New Jinmyeon and Bunmoja!”

“The basic taste is good!”

While Suho, who insisted on the original, and Eun-jeong, who wanted to add everything, were bickering.

I quietly added a spoonful of sugar to the Budae Jjigae.

I hope I didn’t get caught.

Indeed, everything goes down smoothly with a bit of sweetness.

After finishing the meal, we patted our full stomachs and leaned against a nearby tree.

“My stomach is so full.”

Eun-jeong rolled around on the mat after finishing her meal.

Then, when I asked if she wasn’t going to eat the watermelon, she said she had a separate stomach for dessert and ran to the stream to roll the watermelon over.

How can such a small body eat so much?

Crunch, crunch.

Slicing the watermelon and distributing it to everyone, we continued to chat comfortably, still leaning against the tree.

The gradually darkening sky and the cool breeze felt somehow sorrowful and beautiful.

“It’s been a while since I said this, but we’ve really been through a lot.”

As I brought up the topic.

Everyone agreed, saying, “That’s right.”

It wasn’t just a lot.

They chimed in.

“Everything we’ve done so far feels like a dream.”

Those days when we broke away from the ordinary, fighting, fleeing, and confronting terrifying things.

How densely packed an adventure had we experienced in that period?

Even if it’s just one, your head will be filled with wild adventure stories that you can tell until you grow old and return to the dust.

“Yes, it feels like a dream.”

Ah, a dream. What a romantic yet scary metaphor.

Lost in sentiment, I threw another remark at the children.

“Are you guys still scared of anything?”

“Why do you ask?”

“It’s just… All fears will eventually have to be faced. But it seems like you guys don’t feel any fear when you’re with me.”

The children giggled at my words.

I tilted my head in puzzlement at that.

“Of course there is. Fear is something that can appear even when it wasn’t there. But… isn’t it funny to think about defeating such things together?”

“Huhuhu… Now that I hear it, that’s true.”

At this moment, only Ha-rim did not smile.

Instead, she was looking at me with anxious eyes.

He spoke gently to Ha-rim, who was fidgeting and saying nothing.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk. Even I find it awkward to talk about what I’m most afraid of.”

“…”

Ha-rim didn’t answer.

Ah, this child, really.

Being too quick-witted can also be a problem.

“Still, I’m curious. What is it, Alice?”

At Eun-jeong’s question, I hesitated before opening my mouth.

“…That you all are just a dream. That when I open my eyes, my affection and emotions for you all will scatter, and I’ll wake up unable to even shed a tear, that’s what I’m most afraid of. That’s why, before I experienced such cruelty. I liked the death I faced for your sake. Because to me, it was the most meaningful end.”

Before becoming the devil Alice, I had definitely died.

However, I couldn’t accept an ending where the children died in vain, even though I was forced to watch by my senior’s threats.

So I went through the stage curtain and stood on stage again.

But I was so disappointed.

The present with the children is definitely happy, but if I had to choose an end… Would that time have been better?

“Alice…?”

The children, noticing my strange atmosphere, all looked at me at once.

I slowly looked at their faces and reminisced to myself.

…

“…Alice, do you have a moment?”

“Huh?”

“I have something I want to tell you, just you.”

After the tea party ended, Dorothy called me separately to talk.

I naturally nodded, and Dorothy also smiled brightly.

“First, thank you for breaking my loop. Thanks to you, even if it’s not real, I was able to find comfort in small values.”

Dorothy ultimately couldn’t return to the world where her real parents existed, nor could she save them.

Here, although slightly different from the original, she was living with her surviving parents and somehow finding solace.

Hiding her sadness and somehow smiling.

Personally, I was just sad that I couldn’t offer a more ideal solution.

“I wanted to bring you a more ideal ending, but it’s just bitter that this is the best I could do.”

“Alice, you’re kind. That gentle heart of yours might be your role.”

“Role?”

The word “role” bothered me, so I asked again, and Dorothy, still smiling, told me.

“We’re all in a giant role-playing game. I played the role of Dorothy as Dorothy, and it’s the same for you.”

“Are you saying I played the role of Alice?”

“Yes. Both mind and strength. Do you like that role?”

“…Compared to my former self, I like it much more.”

Dorothy closed her eyes for a moment, as if lost in thought at my answer.

And then she opened her eyes again and spoke calmly.

“Then… Do you know the ending of Alice’s story?”

It’s a sudden story.

But it was something I had been vaguely concerned about.

The thing that always, always torments me.

I wonder if the reason the Red King is the strongest among the strange beings is also because of this.

“Alice wakes up… from a dream.”

Alice’s ending always ends with her waking up from a dream.

I was afraid that the ending of the fairy tale would affect me, so I had been avoiding it, but now…

“You’ll hate that. Illusions are fleeting, worthless. But you’re Alice who faces fear. This world, which could be nothing more than a dream in an instant… In a world without God, where no one saves you from such an ending, you will face it.”

“…Face fear.”

“Before we start the story in earnest, there’s something you need to know first.”

“…”

“I’ll apologize in advance. I lied. The arrival of the singularity is within 7 days. And just before it arrives, the gates of hell will open.”

Dorothy told me in advance what would happen to me.

When I heard that, I couldn’t help but feel sad.

“There are no more enemies. The walls you need to overcome and break down are also gone now.”

Enemies. The things blocking me were gone now.

The Rulers are also quiet, and the tale devils have all become comrades.

The only thing left is the phenomenon called the singularity, and Dorothy likened the singularity to a story, just as Carol did.

“It’s time to see the ending of this game. It might be sudden, as it progresses the moment the gates of hell open.”

If the singularity I’ve been hearing about so far isn’t a metaphor, but literally means the “end” of the story.

If it’s something so grand that defeating enemies alone can’t stop it, what should I do?

Dorothy speaks to me, who is lost in thought.

“Go back to your children. Enjoy the last play.”

“…”

“I am Alice’s prototype.”

“…”

“Based on Mephistopheles’ actions, I can guess. He’ll probably do to you what he experimented on me. He’ll show you all sorts of terrifying possibilities he saw in hell… I just ran away from those things and repeated like a Ferris wheel… But I believe you’ll come up with a different answer.”

Dorothy denied that the world was an illusion, and said that all sorts of terrifying things shouldn’t be reality.

What she had been running from like a Ferris wheel, turning time back, was partly because of her own wishes, but the trigger that made her extremely pursue illusions seemed to be related to something she saw in hell.

It’s a very meaningful remark, but I didn’t have the leisure to think about such things.

I missed my children.

…

“Kids…”

“Huh?”

“The time will come when I have to make a choice soon. But I can’t trust myself. I’m really stupid, even if I don’t want to admit it.”

“Alice…?”

I looked at the children’s faces again and forced a smile.

“If I can’t make a choice, or if I’m about to make the wrong choice… Can you help me?”

Just before the world reaches the singularity (end).

The worlds overlap.

The gates of hell open completely.

The Gates of Hell opens!

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

—Chi