Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 1333 Was it not for his own sake?
When fate arrives.

An "revelation" that could not be ignored, resisted, or even defied suddenly, like a gentle tide, gradually engulfed the entire battlefield of Suarez, surging into the minds of every living being who was fighting, roaring, and immersed in hatred and fear.

Time seemed to have been paused by an invisible hand. The battlefield, which had been filled with the clashing of metal, battle cries, curses, and the dying screams of the previous moment, instantly fell into an eerie silence. The soldiers' weapons, raised high, froze in mid-air, the muscles in their arms trembling slightly from the sudden stop, and the blood on their blades congealed, ready to drip. The insurgents' charge halted abruptly, the dust they had kicked up still lingering, frozen in mid-air, like a cruel painting frozen in time.

The distorted, hateful face froze, replaced by a deeper, more intense shock.

They saw it.

It was neither an illusion nor a dream, but their destiny.

Their original destiny.

A soldier from the 17th Army Corps, about to let a bullet pierce his opponent's abdomen, stopped abruptly, his finger already on the trigger. A golden field of wheat flashed before his eyes, and a woman in an apron stood on the edge of the field, smiling and waving at him. That was his wife, far away in his hometown. If it weren't for this war, he should have been home during the autumn harvest, sharing the joy of the bountiful harvest. A rebel soldier, his face covered in blood and looking like a madman, hadn't even finished his furious battle cry when he heard the clear cry of a baby. His rough hands no longer caressed his sword, but were clumsily and gently stroking the tender cheek of a newborn baby. That was his unborn child. If it weren't for this war, he should have been in the workshop hammering the first nail into his child's cradle.

In the city, an elderly civilian woman shivered behind the ruins, pressed against the cold, rough bricks. Dust covered her graying hair, but the familiar scent of herbs filled her nostrils. She seemed to see herself sitting in a sun-drenched courtyard, using her wrinkled yet nimble hands to bandage the wounds of her neighbor's child after a fall. A young officer lay dying in a dimly lit alley, and for some reason, the quiet afternoon in the college library flashed through his mind. Sunlight streamed through the stained glass windows, casting dappled shadows on the engineering drawings he was studying. If it weren't for this war, perhaps he would have become a promising young engineer.

When does life truly begin to diverge? Is it when one ambitiously declares they will amass a lifelong fortune for themselves and their family on a distant continent? Perhaps insatiable greed is fate's punishment. Is it when a sudden war destroys one's homeland and workshops, and one takes up arms in hatred? Perhaps uncontrollable hatred is a symbol of fate's capriciousness. These "possibilities," ruthlessly torn apart by fate, are laid bare before mortals by Saint Charlotte's power. Perhaps she herself doesn't see it that way, but for living beings, witnessing fate firsthand is already a divine power and a magnificent feat.

Moreover, the fate they witnessed was not only the altered past, but also the future they were meant to go to.

The soldier of the Seventeenth Army, having witnessed his defeat and capture, and after years of wasting away in a foreign land, finally returned home. He left with lofty ambitions, but returned with only a wounded heart, a broken leg, and half a hand. From then on, on rainy, overcast days, he would silently gaze at the streets outside his window, feeling an endless emptiness and sorrow. Whenever the children of his hometown pestered him to tell stories of the war, he would tirelessly emphasize to them that it wasn't a grand, epic tale, but merely one of slaughter, hatred, and blind obedience. "If only that war had never happened," he said sadly.

The rebel soldiers, seeing themselves following a great ideal, fought tirelessly and finally achieved a glorious victory, liberating their homeland. Victory flags were raised atop the crumbling city walls, and the crowd cheered, but the ruins remained a stark reminder. Those things lost in the flames would never be reborn, just as memories sunk to the bottom of water never resurface. Sometimes he thought he should forget the past and embrace a new future, but he would toss and turn at night, unable to sleep, the wounds of the past throbbing. Finally, he had to admit with dismay that he lacked the ability to move on from the past and could only place the hope of inheriting the future on the shoulders of the young. But when the young men told him they would fight to the death against those greedy and vicious Westerners, like their elders, he gently patted their heads. "What you are to inherit is not this," he said with relief. "If only that war had never happened."

Kadora also witnessed that in the final siege, everyone had to exert their utmost strength, and thus, even the young soldiers were forced, or rather, voluntarily, onto this brutal battlefield. At this moment, this usually taciturn but mostly perceptive girl, huddled in the ruins of a half-dead fortress, saw her future, however not a comforting one.

She saw the battle was critical, the enemy's counterattack caught her off guard, and she should have been struck in the heart by a stray bullet, but at the last moment a familiar figure pushed her away, and she took the fatal shot; she saw that person lying dying in her arms, and for the second time in her life she cried so miserably, the first time probably when the war broke out and her parents and relatives died in the flames, the memory of the raging fire and the heart-wrenching cries resurfaced, more real than the coldest dream; she saw the war end, and she refused Medien's request to bury that person's ashes in the Church of Heaven, but instead, as a nun, she built a church for the goddess alone in the post-war city of Suarez, and buried him in the church's cemetery; she saw after the war, everything seemed... Almost nothing had changed. People had gained freedom, but oppression and exploitation, violence and killing still existed. Even the Church of the Night, now without its deity, remained the most influential religion in the Ansers region. Even the Gray Hill Eagle was powerless to change it. Under his protection, although the members of the Church of the Night always disliked the goddess's church, they did not take action, allowing Kadora to live peacefully. She saw herself living peacefully for many years, busy with prayer, preaching, holding services, and helping the poor, doing what a proper believer of the goddess should do. The war of the past seemed to have no effect on her, but occasionally, when she passed by the cemetery and saw that gray tombstone, the no-longer-young girl would still be stunned for a moment, as if she had fallen into a dream from long ago...

"Huh? How could this be!"

A startled voice interrupted her thoughts about the future, filled with the panic and disbelief typical of a teenager. The girl turned around and met Mitch's gaze, but a blush immediately spread across his face—a blush that was hard to describe as either shame or something else. Without thinking, he turned his head away, avoiding her gaze, and cried out guiltily, "No, I, I didn't see anything, Kadora!"

This unintentional admission amused Cardora, and the heaviness in her heart from witnessing the future eased considerably. She had no intention of investigating what Mitch had seen on the future's path of fate; she simply rested her head against the wall riddled with bullet holes and sword marks, slightly raising her head. Her neck appeared slender and fragile in the shadows, and her gaze, peering through the half-collapsed ceiling, fell upon an endless gray world, low-hanging clouds, lifeless. She whispered, "Mitch."

"Hmm?" The boy's voice was muffled, clearly still regretting his earlier lapse in composure.

"If only there hadn't been this war..."

"……Um."

……

If only this war had never happened...

In the past, people wouldn't have shared such a unified thought. Even though everyone knew that war only brought slaughter, destruction, and endless emptiness, those who hadn't witnessed it firsthand wouldn't care; they were more concerned with the wealth, benefits, and status they gained from the war. A single order from those in high positions could send countless people to the battlefield, while those in lower positions would spontaneously respond to this feast without being conscripted. The machine of war was so vast that it required a unified will from both top to bottom to operate. Therefore, we can say that in this respect, the thinking of ordinary people seems to be more unified.

But what if they could see it? Like seeing their own fate of destruction in war, or their own survival in war, reflected in a cold mirror—that feeling is more impactful than any form of preaching. The emptier and more sorrowful the image reflected in the mirror, the more it highlights how absurd and cruel their actions are. The blood-stained weapons in their hands become incredibly heavy, and the faces marked as enemies suddenly become so familiar, as if they have appeared in their memories before—they are clearly another version of themselves, another living person who could have an ordinary life and a happy future.

Just as a flame, after burning brightly, will eventually be extinguished, the hatred in the hearts of mortals is nothing more than a temporary surge of loneliness and helplessness. Once it loses its support, it will dissipate, and a great sense of bewilderment and indescribable sorrow will gradually replace the will to fight.

Bang!

Weapons slipped from trembling hands, crashing onto the blood-soaked ground with a crisp yet deafening sound. Then came a second, a third… the sounds of weapons hitting the ground echoed like a chain reaction across the deathly silent battlefield. The beastly roars vanished, replaced only by heavy breathing and suppressed, uncontrollable sobs. The soldiers exchanged glances, their eyes darting away, unable to meet each other's gaze. Their eyes no longer held hatred, but rather an overwhelming sense of bewilderment, numbness, and a weariness that seemed to originate from the depths of their souls.

Saint Charlotte's gaze calmly swept across the silent and deathly battlefield below. Her gaze seemed to possess a power that transcended reality and pierced through the very essence of existence, penetrating flesh and blood to directly illuminate the souls of every living being, leaving them nowhere to hide. Finally, her gaze slowly rose and settled upon the still magnificent figure that symbolized another primordial power in the universe.

“Carabosse,” she said softly, “now you see, mortals can be changed.”

"What is change?" The voice of the Goddess of Darkness remained supremely cold and unmoved: "I only see their fear. When their fate is unknown, they fear, and therefore want to rebel; when their fate is known, they still fear, and therefore choose to submit. If you consider this process as a kind of change, then isn't the process of time flowing from the past to the future, life moving from existence to extinction, and matter moving from birth to annihilation also a kind of change?"

That's just the inherent law of the world.

Saint Charlotte sighed softly upon hearing this. Although she didn't think she could persuade Carapos, his attitude still left her somewhat disappointed: "You always think of mortals as too stubborn, Carapos."

“The same goes for the other way around,” Carabos said coldly. “You always think too highly of mortals, Saint Charlotte.”

The two men gazed at each other from afar, falling silent in unison. A solemn atmosphere enveloped the entire battlefield. If they couldn't persuade each other, battle became the only way to resolve the issue. This battle would no longer allow for any wishful thinking or hesitation, for both sides knew that their time was running out.

Carabosse must end this battle before Hino resolves the Dyson Sphere and returns to the battlefield; she does not want the knights of the Gostaff family to become the biggest variable and interfere with this predetermined ending. Similarly, Saint Charlotte must end the battle before Linger's faith power is completely exhausted, because... she still wants to save that young man.

I want to save him no matter what.

Will this feeling help her achieve victory? Saint Charlotte didn't know, but at least for this moment, she did not lack the courage and will to fight.

……

Lin Ge saw nothing.

His eyes remained clear, yet they reflected no illusory light or shadow.

When the threads of fate begin to appear, and everyone sees their past or future, only his eyes are empty, as if nothing exists.

If his death was inevitable because he burned his own faith and spared no effort to help Saint Charlotte regain her full royal power, then the absence of a future could be explained. But why can't he even see his past? People without a future are common, but those without a past seem to exist only in absurd jokes. But if this is just a small joke fate played on this young man, it seems unsettlingly ironic.

Nevertheless, young people don't care about these things, as if they are just trivial memories in life, not worth remembering or recalling at such times.

He just prayed.

Such devotion, yet not for oneself.

Give me some cats