Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 1401 Have you stopped thinking?

When the Sky-Thailand tore through the clouds and descended upon the Mikkelsen Corridor with an extraordinary presence, what Perecker saw through the panoramic window was a scorched earth, utterly ravaged by war and on the verge of death. Time seemed to stand still there. It should have been afternoon, but the sky was as dark as dusk, thick smoke and dust greedily devouring the sunlight, with only a few distorted beams of light leaking through the gaps, weakly illuminating the scarred earth.

The war had clearly been going on for quite some time. The Axis Third and Fifth Armies, stationed in the Mikkelsen Corridor, had received orders from their command headquarters several days earlier to launch an organized and premeditated raid in order to coordinate with and support reinforcements and achieve more significant results in the increasingly stalemate.

Although they did not know that the so-called reinforcements were actually only one person, nor did they know when or even if she would arrive, with just one order, millions of people would have to embark on a path to death in fear and trepidation, with no room for turning back. This is the essence of war.

The steel bridge spanning the canyon and connecting the two sides of the corridor has been blown up. The massive bridge deck twisted and fell into the deep valley, leaving only the lonely piers standing, riddled with bullet holes. The imperial outpost, located on a high point, is now nothing but ruins. An imperial flag, torn apart by artillery fire, flutters helplessly in the embers, threatening to turn to ashes at any moment. Further away, the steel fortress built to block the swarms of steam-powered vehicles has now been forcibly torn open in several places, exposing charred concrete blocks and twisted steel bars, as if it had been gnawed by a giant beast.

Looking down from the sky, the scene is numbing and suffocating. The mountains that once defined the borders now resemble the ripped chest of a behemoth, exposing its rocky ribs. The twilight light, refracted by thick smoke and dust, presents a morbid, purplish-red glow, as if the sky itself is festering, dripping with pus-like afterglow. Everything visible to the naked eye is a struggle, a slaughter, and an endless death. Perhaps the battlefield itself is a colossal monster undergoing a grand and agonizing demise. The smoke is its heavy breathing, the intermittent explosions its feeble heartbeat, and the scattered flashes of gunfire are the final, meaningless twitches of its nerve endings.

An eerie, deathly silence reigned, but this was neither the beginning nor the end; it was a stalemate. The large-scale fighting may have ended, but sporadic, desperate battles continued. Perec could see isolated Imperial troops still holding out in their fortresses, shouting slogans of loyalty from afar; she could also see small Axis units moving and weaving through the ruins, the muzzle flashes of their guns particularly glaring in the dim light. The explosions were no longer continuous, but each solitary boom signified the clearing of another area, or the reaping of another group of lives.

The massive fuselage of the Thai Air Force hovered silently in the air, like an ominous shadow cast upon the land below, soaked in blood and fire. Only the continuous, low hum of its engines could be heard, like a requiem for this grand funeral. It had crossed the sea to begin this battle and bring it to a close, but victory itself was not solace, but a poison that lured souls deeper into its clutches.

Death, loneliness, despair, and love; elimination, evolution, life, and hate; slaughter, suffering, fire, and purification...

In the cockpit, Pereira's fingers clenched unconsciously, the spasms resonating with her faint heartbeat. It was clearly inappropriate, yet she couldn't help but fall into memories, and the point where her memories ended was right where they had been. It was as if her pain, her anger, all the regrets and torments of her life that she couldn't forget were nothing more than trivial stories in the eyes of onlookers, stories that could start and end at any time, even easier than this war.

At that time, she was not yet a witch, had never killed anyone with her own hands, and did not understand what loss meant in the world, yet she already possessed the name "Perec".

……

The conversation at that time is still vivid in my mind.

"Use your power on him, Perec. Infect him with multiple diseases. I need to observe the specific mechanisms by which the Wood Elf race's adaptability operates in their bodies, recording every fluctuation of magic and every abnormal change in physiological indicators. This is the first step in the analysis."

"You mean... you want me to kill him?"

“Killing anyone was not my intention, but if he couldn’t take it and eventually died, it was an unavoidable part of the experiment.”

"But...but...I...I can't do it, I can't do it..."

"Can't do it? Why? After two years of learning and training, you should have already mastered your abilities. Releasing disease agents to infect others is not a difficult thing for you."

"It's not a question of whether it can be done, teacher, he... he's still alive..."

"He's still alive, of course. If he were dead, we wouldn't need him as a test subject. Or are you afraid?"

"Um……"

"When I rescued you, you were about to die by a soldier's sword or become a sacrifice for cultists, but at that time there was no fear in your eyes, only peace. Why should someone who doesn't even care about their own life and death be concerned about the life and death of others?"

"That's not how it is, teacher..."

"Only those who are mediocre, pedantic, and ignorant would use so-called humanity to limit their steps in seeking the truth; in reality, it is nothing but cowardice. What is needed on the path to truth and the root is pure and absolute reason, not weak and superfluous humanity. Perec, I call you by this name, do you know what it means?"

"..."

"Plke, in the language of the Moria, means a pure and immortal soul. In the scrolls left behind by the first great shaman, Keples, he hypothesized that if a mortal could endure a hundred trials of the world, constantly eliminating the weak and superfluous, he could obtain a flawless soul, evolving from a mortal into a true holy spirit. However, people are foolish, often burdened by worldly affairs, indulging in wealth or vanity. They merely doubt or resist things they cannot understand. Only an absolute truth can guide them onto this path of evolution. Pereke, I once firmly believed that your power contained fragments of truth. Once pieced together, it could create the realm envisioned by the great shaman Keples. All impure, defiled, and insignificant things would be eliminated, while all pure, flawless, and great things would endure forever. This world is constantly changing; elimination and survival are the essence of life. Even today, do you still not understand this?"

"..."

So, make your choice.

Is it to drift aimlessly like an ordinary person in this world, content with fleeting emotions, or to embark on a path of understanding the unknown and creating a world, exploring the essence of elimination and evolution? Is it to remain powerless and inactive, pursued by fate, or to become a valuable person willing to be used? Is it to let him live, or to personally inject the seeds of death into him? Is it to persist in what can no longer be persisted in, or to abandon what has never been abandoned? In a single thought, in a single moment, in a single heart.

Fate was turned upside down.

"Sorry……"

At that moment, the girl looked up blankly at the unconscious boy on the lab table and murmured repeatedly, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

She repeated herself over and over in a voice trembling with sobs, as if it could ease her pain, while placing her hand on the boy's brow, as if closing his eyes and soothing all his anxieties. Then she looked up, like a young animal forced to face a cruel reality after losing its parents, anxiously, bewildered, and pleading for forgiveness, at the expressionless man—the man who could have been her teacher, the man who saved her life and gave her a name, the man who was once a high priest of the Moria people but was exiled by his tribe for violating forbidden research, the man whose unwavering and even frighteningly steadfast pursuit of his ideals, the man named Metatron… and uttered those words.

"I'm sorry, teacher," she cried, "I can't do it anymore!"

Yes, she ultimately refused.

Was it because she couldn't bring herself to take the life of an innocent person? Was it because she couldn't allow herself to abandon the only glimmer of humanity she possessed? Was it because she didn't want to succumb to the power she had always considered a curse? Or was it that she hadn't thought of anything at all, but simply felt she couldn't do it, and therefore refused? Time was so distant, and memories so long, she remembered nothing, except for the man's face... which showed no disappointment.

Of course, there was no anger, or rather, no emotion that Perec could have predicted, only an unfathomable calm, as if the girl's rejection was already expected, or perhaps, he had never held any expectations of her in the first place, so of course he wouldn't be disappointed. But if he hadn't held any expectations, why had he explained so much to her? The thought of that possibility made Perec's teeth chatter and her whole body turn cold with fear.

"I understand."

He finally said, his voice so flat it betrayed no emotion, as if stating an objective fact, "Then, you can go back now."

Go back? Go back where? Continue wandering, being chased, struggling to survive, eventually giving up, accepting your fate, or hoping for a second hero to save you from the nightmare, only to see the hero's true colors, feeling disappointed in your own naivety and the cruelty of the world, and deciding to leave... Is this cycle repeating itself?

Pereira didn't know, and instinctively didn't want to make a decision. She just stood there, frozen in place, seemingly incapacitated. The man said nothing more; he turned and walked to the lab table to continue his experiment. The girl must have witnessed the entire experiment and its results, but miraculously, she had no recollection of it. When she came to her senses, she found herself still in the same room, as if it had all been a dream.

I wish it were really a dream.

After all, how could such an absurd thing possibly happen in this world?

Clinging to a sliver of hope, the girl didn't leave, and the man didn't drive her away. Instead, he continued to regularly bring her food, water, clothes, and books. The girl became convinced of her suspicions—it was all just a dream, and reality couldn't be so cruel. After that, she studied desperately, hoping one day to gain her teacher's approval and be able to help him. Until one day, the man brought her back to a familiar laboratory and instructed her to unleash the plague on the subjects on the experimental table…

The one lying on the lab table wasn't the weak wood elf boy, but another unfamiliar girl. This single difference jolted Perec awake, making her realize she wasn't dreaming, but experiencing a cruel, or rather, malicious, cycle. She suddenly broke down in that instant, not knowing how she had managed to pull through. The only thing she was certain of was that even in her breakdown, she still refused the teacher's request.

After that, the same thing repeated itself endlessly. She studied desperately, grew desperately, and tried desperately to become a useful person, but all her efforts seemed to be for nothing more than entering that laboratory, hearing that man ask a question she could no longer remember, and then giving the same answer no matter how many times she gave it. Had she been abandoned? But the teacher didn't seem to want her to leave; she lacked nothing for herself there, including the most important thing: shelter. Was she still being looked up to? But each time she heard a rejection, the man's face never showed disappointment, as if these exchanges were merely routine, not worth investing much emotion in.

Such contradictions often tormented Perec, the overwhelming emotions agonizing every inch of her body and mind. She was willing to give anything for an answer. But answers that could be obtained through sacrifice are not real, because ultimately, all the unsolved mysteries of the world can only be understood by oneself.

Suddenly one day, she finally understood. Perhaps she had always been a sample her teacher was observing; her struggles, her pain, her remaining humanity were merely insignificant fluctuations in an experiment. What kind of experiment was it? Ah, her teacher seemed to have mentioned something about the truth of the world: eliminating all impurities, filth, and insignificance, and preserving all that is pure, flawless, and great, just as the world is sick, and it needs to be cured.

Yes, she was sick from the very beginning, suffering from the most serious, stubborn, and incurable disease in the world. The teacher's actions were simply to find out whether, in this endlessly repetitive and incredibly long period of time, you would overcome the stubborn disease in your heart and complete your evolution, or succumb to it and be eliminated by the world.

Evolution, elimination, disease and death, living and surrendering—this is the essence of life.

From that day on, from the moment she realized this fact, the girl named Perec stopped thinking.

Useless, indistinguishable, meaningless...

No longer needed.

Give me some cats