Faust was a man full of desire. With endless desire, he wished to achieve everything spiritual and intellectual.
One day, he thought his soul resembled God’s, and therefore, he could satisfy everything.
Faust grabs a book and mystically reads aloud the spirit’s diagram.
A reddish fla flickers, and a spirit appears from within the fla.
The appearing Earth Spirit.
However, it was a being with terrifying power, and Faust did not resemble it, only falling down from its powerful force.
He spoke.
Earth Spirit: You resemble the spirit you understand, not !
The Earth Spirit disappears just like that.
Faust sits down helplessly, muttering.
Faust: I don’t resemble you? I don’t even resemble you! Then who do I resemble!
Faust despaired.
ㅡ(From the play Faust)ㅡ
…
Lewis Carroll, gradually losing vitality, continued to tell Jack O’Lantern her story.
“All Lewis Carrolls experiences the sa despair. We are rely motifs, so the real Alice Pleasance Liddell we desire only exists in the original world. The condition phistopheles brought back from death with was also to et Alice Pleasance Liddell. However, I decided not to dwell on such things. Rather than longing for the original Alice Liddell, let’s cherish and love our own Alice. Even if we can’t break free from that unfulfilled love and beco Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (real na), let’s beco Lewis Carroll (pen na)…”
Lewis Carroll speaks in a voice as if about to burst into tears from overwhelming emotions.
“But the existence called Snark Hunt was a great shock to . While longing for the original Alice, yet driven mad by love, the sight of myself searching for my own Alice by traversing parallel worlds overlapped with my own.”
Carroll suddenly shouted.
Her agony of despair at not being able to beco the original surges.
“I thought I was special! That’s why I wanted to prove it! I… am different! I don’t think of Alice as a substitute, but I truly love her! I thought my true love could prevent what would happen to Alice in this world! But this is the result. I acted boldly as if I was doing sothing great, but in the end, I was just an ordinary person!”
Her anger and sadness echo in the air.
It was truly a story with no answer.
All the Lewis Carrolls who cannot et the original child, and wander around searching for another Alice out of that sadness and obsession.
Indeed, they were living in hell.
Among them, there was a person who had run all the way to hell believing that her actions would bring about good results, and now she was crying so sadly.
Jack O’Lantern listened in silence, then spoke.
“I already knew you were ordinary. Seeing monsters that kill people overflowing in the world and becoming exhausted, and even killing people yourself, you tried to act okay… but you were just a person whose heart was being eaten away.”
“…Yes, I am ordinary.”
“Right. Isn’t the world a bit of a shithole for ordinary people?”
“What?”
Carroll asks back at Jack O’Lantern’s nonsensical words.
Jack O’Lantern smiled, finding her foolish face, even while sad, quite amusing.
“Being pushed around here and there by the world, it must have been full of things you disliked. You open your eyes, and so devil bastard tells you to handle Alice. But then so monsters are killing people. And even though you endured it for Alice’s sake, in the end you couldn’t stop the girl from eting an ending she didn’t want!”
“I don’t really understand what you’re talking about…”
“Just think simply. You’re tired of the world’s absurdity. Your obsession with Alice must have worsened because of that. So, let tell you my story, Carroll!”
“Jack O’Lantern… you…”
It was quite unusual for Jack O’Lantern to offer comfort by telling his story.
He always just joked around.
He would tease children who were teasing him in return, and even got his head cut off by the queen while making a joke.
His old stories, which he only told when boasting…
Despite her fading existence, she focused on Jack O’Lantern’s story, not her lingering attachnt to Alice.
Like an innocent child.
“In my past life, I was a famous eccentric. I lived my life playing strange pranks and telling jokes and scams. That was my joy! Nevertheless, I was a genuinely bad guy who cleverly cute the line and saved my own skin! I hated the world too. Because they were all guys who didn’t know humor…”
Jack O’Lantern recalled his past.
In his mory, unlike the modern era, the underdeveloped and bleak village of the past ca to mind vividly.
“I went around nitpicking at everything. My pleasure was to nitpick at the annoying things in the world. I was hated for that. One day, the higher-ups announced a foolish policy directly, and everyone was in a situation where they couldn’t object. I strangely nitpicked at what I didn’t like in front of the person involved. Very wittily! Just enough not to die! His face turned red like a tomato, and all the residents saw it and laughed. From then on, the world started to look different to . The shitty things in the world started to look like joke material! Carroll, do you rember what I said?”
Carroll answered, fumbling through her mories.
“Did you say the world was one big joke…?”
“Yes! Hahaha! In the end, I got my neck cut off for nitpicking at the queen who always implented shitty policies, but I don’t regret it!”
His way of thinking was still far from Carroll’s, but Carroll found a common ground with him in what he said.
There was a ti when he too suffered from the absurdity of the world.
And a ti when he wandered in loneliness.
He told Carroll about his past, how he, without power or strength, had brightened the dark reality by treating the world as a joke and nitpicking.
“Carroll… It might not resonate well with you, but the way ordinary people deal with the world is truly diverse. Even if you compromise and fight… don’t hate.”
Jack O’Lantern wiped her tears.
The ssage he conveyed was one.
No matter what situation you are in, don’t despair, but look at the world in a different way.
Lewis Carroll, while trying to break away from her obsession with the original Alice, eventually directed that obsession towards another Alice.
That was born from the sadness of a world where she couldn’t et the original Alice.
If you want to stop despairing, you need to break free from obsession and see the world differently.
Even if Carroll’s existence is being consud as material to transcend Alice.
Even if she is now on a ti limit, he is telling her to break free from it.
Clang-!
The Little Prince, who had dealt with most of the Snark Hunts, cos running.
Lewis Carroll tried to ring the bell to call for a Snark Hunt, but she didn’t have the energy to do so anymore.
Jack O’Lantern stepped forward for her.
Carroll told him to run away.
He was by no ans strong enough to handle a tale devil.
“Burn!”
The lantern’s fla was powerful, but it wasn’t enough for the Little Prince.
The Little Prince’s thorny rose pierces Jack O’Lantern.
“Lewis Carroll! You said you wanted Alice because of love! But what kind of love is that?! If you have a value you pursue, make it clear!”
Even as Jack O’Lantern’s body is shattered by the Little Prince, he doesn’t back down.
Why are you going this far… Lewis Carroll cried out.
“You said you’re an author! You have a greater profession than a re joke-teller like . If so, think about why you held the pen!”
“Jack O’Lantern!”
Lewis Carroll shouts his na.
At that mont, the Little Prince pierced Jack O’Lantern’s head.
Simultaneously, Jack O’Lantern caused an explosion with maximum firepower and collapsed.
As the Little Prince steps back from the flas. He, almost in tatters, speaks to Lewis Carroll.
“I am… just a supporting actor… That’s why that guy nad phistopheles didn’t pay any attention to … Did you say this world is a story? I’m probably the kind of being that those who listen and watch don’t even care about…”
Jack O’Lantern handed over his lantern, which contained his power, to Lewis Carroll.
His body is losing strength. He is dying.
“But you’re an author… Won’t you make even this supporting character’s sacrifice… and words aningful…? So, think about it, let go of the obsession and the sadness of despair… and consider the true value you pursued…”
His eyes lose their light as he leaves his last words.
“You know why I’m doing this, don’t you…? Those left behind are easily lonely… My dear friend…”
Lewis Carroll recalled.
A mory of Professor Dodgson, which she couldn’t help but recall countless tis before falling asleep, even knowing it wasn’t her own.
There, the original Alice smiles at Dodgson.
Whining, nagging, smiling lovingly. She was a child with a pure, untainted innocence.
He loved that purity, and to protect her childlike innocence, he sat by the river with Alice’s sisters and beca a storyteller, telling warm stories…
She loved Alice Liddell.
But Dodgson, before that, loved her innocence…
The innocence of children.
That was why he beca a fairy tale writer.
Crackle…!
The lantern’s fla burns.
The Little Prince rushed through the flas.
The children’s story writer Lewis Carroll picked up her pen and shouted.
Fairy Tale Writer: Get out of the way…!
…
phistopheles: (With a laughing tone) Can you answer my question? Tell . You little candle in the wind. What is the reason you can move forward? (Reaches out to kill Shin Ha-rim imdiately after)
Shin Ha-rim thought as she looked at the slowly approaching hand.
About the question phistopheles posed.
Shin Ha-rim recalled the keyword “faith”.
Faith.
What does she believe in?
Believe in God?
No, this world is a creation.
There was no God.
Then believe in Alice?
No. If she believes that Alice will save them like a god, that would be what that devil intended.
Then what should she believe in?
If they are just creations, what do they believe in?
phistopheles: Tiout. If God existed, he would have saved those who endlessly try. But your adventure in a creation… That’s all the value it had. Because it’s a story that can disappear if the author lifts a finger.
The mont phistopheles tried to kill her.
Shin Ha-rim opened her mouth to answer phistopheles’ question, even as her neck was being strangled.
At that sight, phistopheles montarily loosened his grip.
“We, who were made based on the real world, are just fake humans in a creation… right?”
phistopheles: (Eyes narrowing) Yes.
“That’s the basis.”
phistopheles: What…?
“Even if we are fakes, if we are based on the original, then we… resemble the real thing!”
Not the original, but a fake, yet conversely, the fake resembles the original.
Shin Ha-rim shouted with conviction, as if that was the answer.
phistopheles: (Eyes widening) Ha! What an unimaginable reason. (Sarcastically.) It was the best faith you could have, a re candle in the wind?
Shin Ha-rim recalled the tale devils that had attacked them.
They were the end result of despairing in their respective stories and eting tragic ends.
Like a book that t a bad ending.
They too, as a story, could have t such an end.
But the tale devils of their world helped them.
They were the footprints of their adventure, and the plausibility that pushed aside these ominous possibilities and allowed them to confront the devil.
A hopeful narrative steadily built up mont by mont.
Shin Ha-rim believed not in Alice or God, but in their own hopeful footprints.
It’s true that a bad ending might co, but they had walked through shining monts.
Does God save those who try?
Does he guide them to a righteous and hopeful path?
The path they have walked is too difficult to despair. It’s already sufficiently similar to the original world phistopheles spoke of.
“We have faithfully overco adversity until now! It’s not us who needs to prove sothing, it’s you!”
Resemble.
This was truly an abstract word.
A word that borrows its essence like the image in a mirror, even if it’s not the real thing.
Shin Ha-rim and the children affird their hopeful footprints, and because they resembled the humans of the original world, they asserted that they too had the right to overco this and move forward.
It was phistopheles’ role to shatter that faith.
phistopheles, who had mocked them by posing a question with no answer, was now being asked to prove sothing in reverse by Shin Ha-rim, who had walked a hopeful narrative.
phistopheles: (Frowning for the first ti) Do you think such sophistry will work! Fine, I’ll prove it! That you are worthless!
phistopheles finally extended the hand that had hesitated to take Shin Ha-rim’s head.
If this continued, Shin Ha-rim’s footprints would be cut off, and she would et a despairing end.
In a world without God, who could help them?
Crackle.
phistopheles’ hand burns as soon as it is cut off.
Fairy Tale Writer: Don’t touch the children.
Lewis Carroll, burning her own body, appeared before them.
And following her were knights in armor.
They were once Snark Hunters, but now they were Knights of the Lantern, transford by following Lewis Carroll, who had realized the value she pursued.
Fairy Tale Writer: I’ve made my decision. Rather than et Alice, I’ve decided to open a path for the children.
phistopheles: (Angrily) Lewis Carroll… Are you going to burn that insignificant life?
Fairy Tale Writer: My na is Lewis Carroll. I am a writer of stories for children, and a lantern that illuminates the darkness of reality!
Lewis Carroll, who had been obsessed with her love for Alice, was no more.
Instead, only the knight and children’s story writer Lewis Carroll, who protected the pure childlike innocence of children, remained.
She shouted loudly like a creator who shook the heavens and the earth.
Fairy Tale Writer: As an author of children’s stories, I command you! Get out of the way of the children, you evil spirit of this play!
phistopheles: Ha! Good. Co at then. You fake Faust! You’ll eventually stop and die while coveting the new world of freedom!
“This seems… quite an enjoyable situation!”
The awakened Dorothy and Lewis Carroll, burning her own soul, clashed with phistopheles.
Lewis Carroll’s lantern pointed sowhere in the darkness.
Shin Ha-rim and the children followed the lantern and headed for the final staircase.
And as they quickly descended, the Alice they longed for was standing there.
Fairy tale writer Lewis Carroll!
As always, if you spot any mistakes, feel free to let know—and I hope you enjoyed the read!
—Chi
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