Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 1086: Who are you waiting for?

"No...ability?"

Xino looked at the young man under the altar in confusion, and saw that his eyes were as deep as the night, peaceful and tranquil.

"Yeah." Linger nodded gently and said, "I don't know how you usually view me. You seem to think that as long as I come forward, I will definitely be able to help Alice get over her worries and return to her previous self. But the reality is that I have no ability to do this at all, because whether Alice can cheer up again depends only on her own will, not on anyone's enlightenment. Let me ask you, Xino, what do you think caused Alice to isolate herself at that time? Was it just the past she saw in the archives?"

Shino hesitated for a moment before replying, "Is it because of the destruction of the old world of Eden and the eternal sleep of the goddess? Alice may think that these two things were caused by her, so she feels guilty and blames herself, and even wants to escape?"

Her tone was uncertain. If time could go back to one day ago and she was asked the same question again, the girl would definitely give an extremely conclusive answer. And she believed that not only herself, but others must think so too. But now it was Lingge who was asking. This young man seemed to have a keen intuition and the ability to see through everything. He could always accurately touch the core of the problem. In front of him, Xino did not dare to say that he had found the correct answer.

"This is what you don't understand, the ingenuity of human emotion, it is like the Difference Engine described by Charles Babbage, an incredibly precise, delicate, and fragile machine."

Ling said: "Memory is the cornerstone of this machine and the driving force that keeps it running. Once the memory is lost, the emotion is like a primrose petal in the wind, helpless. So before discussing this issue, you should not ignore that Alice is first of all a person who has lost her memory, or in other words, she has closed those memories herself and is unwilling to face them. This is the essence of her being able to always maintain a distant bystander position with the world instead of going deeper. Just imagine, for a person who has lost her memory, talking about her past is nothing more than describing a stranger's story to her, or playing some specious images - you want her to immediately substitute her new identity, be sad for the destruction of the old world, be in pain for the departure of Her Majesty the Goddess, and paranoidly blame all the faults on herself, which is like asking a person with amnesia to have an unparalleled sense of substitution and immersion in all strangers' stories, and these two things are exactly what Alice lacks."

Xinuo thought thoughtfully: "You mean, Alice didn't really believe those records? But if she didn't believe them, why did she react like that in the end?"

When she left the control center with a cold face, even Xino, who had only been in the team for a short time, felt that something was wrong, not to mention the other companions.

"Because someone wants her to believe, and that person happens to be the person Alice trusts the most - or in other words, the source of her confidence and the root of her escape from reality." Linger said softly: "That is Themis in the heaven."

When Xino heard this, his pupils shrank slightly, and he vaguely felt that he seemed to have grasped something.

"Alice once mentioned to me her life on Earth. Although in my opinion, that is not a normal life at all - playing games, surfing the Internet, eating, sleeping, other memories do not exist at all. Even if they exist, they are in a very vague state, as if they were implanted by someone. Everything she came into contact with was arranged by Themis in the heavens, and even the only person she could come into contact with was Themis in the heavens. All normal lives will inevitably feel anxious and uneasy in the face of such a situation, not to mention that Alice only lost her memory, not that she has no emotions, and she does not lack channels to understand the outside world. But she still stays in that small room, peacefully being the genius player she imagined, and never exploring the ideas of the outside world. Why is that?"

He looked at Xino who was gradually stunned, and said softly, word by word, "Because from that time on, Alice has regarded the world as a game, not only the Mirror Star world, but also the Earth world. And Themis in the Celestial Realm is the NPC that runs through Alice's gaming career. She guided and helped Alice as a mysterious person on Earth, and continued to guide and help her as the narrator of the game console on the Mirror Star. For Alice, who has never been able to integrate into these two worlds, she may be the only one who is most trustworthy in her few short memories. , even more trustworthy than our companions who are within reach. This trust is not expressed verbally, but in action: Alice has never doubted the origin of the game console, nor the identity of the narrator. She follows all the instructions of the game console without thinking, and chooses to believe all the prompts of the narrator. The game console asked her to develop a game, and she did it; the narrator told her who the Girl King was, and she believed it; even when Themis in the heavens told Alice that you are also the Girl King, her first reaction was not surprise, but joy, which is enough to explain everything. "

"I even suspect that if Themis had not chosen to tell the truth, but continued to deceive Alice, packaging her memories and past as the background story and main plot of the game, and letting her fight against the Witch Society as a game player, that guy would have been happy to accept it. But contrary to expectations, Themis chose the most direct, sharpest, and most impactful approach - she tried to make Alice believe that this was reality, not a game."

"I think you should know what this means to Alice, right?"

Linger looked at Xino deeply. The young knight subconsciously clenched her fists, and then loosened them powerlessly after a while. She whispered, "I'm afraid it's no less than... the collapse of faith, right?"

The difference is that Alice does not believe in gods, but in games, or in other words, in a position that allows her to stay out of the world and look at it from a distance. But their essence is the same, the more fanatical the belief is, the more painful its collapse will be.

"So, what Alice faced at that time was not the question of whether what she had done in the past was right, but the question of whether she should believe in Themis in the heavens."

Lingge sighed helplessly at this point. That sigh contained too many complex meanings: "To believe that this is reality means to admit the past, to admit that those naive and fragile fantasies led to the demise of the old world, the betrayal of the sisters, and the eternal sleep of the goddess. But at the same time, if you don't believe that this is reality, it means to deny the past, deny those fragmentary and blurred fragments of your memory, deny the expectations and hopes of the goddess, and deny the original intention of Themis in the heaven to guide and help you all the way... Her fantasy was worn away, but she had not yet learned how to accept reality, so she was caught between the two and suffered unbearably."

Everyone thought that Lingge was the only person who could help her, but even this young man seemed so weak before Alice faced the most important decision in her life. The emotional side could not understand, and the rational side was difficult to replace. If she adhered to the emotional side, she might as well take deception as the truth; if she adhered to the rational side, it would be tantamount to uncovering the abyss, and the young man chose the former.

A clumsy excuse, at least temporarily allowed her to get over her worries and return to her former self.

“But these are all false.”

Xinuo suddenly said: "I don't know how long it will last, and once it is broken, the consequences may be even more serious."

The young man didn't say anything, but just lowered his eyelids slightly, which was an attitude of tacit agreement.

Of course, Xinuo did not mean to blame anyone. On the contrary, she admired young people for being able to make decisions.

"If it were me, I would have backed off long ago." She laughed self-deprecatingly. "Helping others make decisions has always been the most difficult thing in the world, especially when your decision is likely to affect her future life, or even the fate of the entire universe and civilization. I want to apologize to you, Lingge. I just said you were irresponsible, but only now do I realize that the responsibility you bear may be much heavier than we imagined."

Her expression was full of sincerity in her apology. She bowed her head to the young man and gently stroked her chest with her left hand, performing the etiquette of a knight's apology. However, she suddenly realized that the strange association she had just made, linking Lingge with her father, was actually very appropriate. Because they were both the kind of people who took on many responsibilities but were not understood by others. Moreover, the responsibilities they took on often did not come from their personal wishes, but were influenced by various factors around them, and had to go to that step. If possible, wouldn't her father want to be a qualified heir, a qualified husband, and a qualified father? It's just that he is not qualified to dream like that.

Similarly, if possible, the young man in front of him might just want to stay in the small city where he was born, with his sister, guarding the church left by his adoptive father, and living a stable life? Slightly different from Xinuo's father, the young man actually had a lot of choices in this process. His relatives, his friends, and even his enemies were willing to leave him a bright way out. Even if it came to this point, he could still withdraw from it and watch from the sidelines.

But he didn't do that, which means that my attitude towards him is completely prejudiced. He is a great and upright man.

"You too."

When Xinuo suddenly heard the young man say this, she looked up in surprise and met a pair of calm and gentle golden eyes: "You are also that kind of person, Xinuo. You always bear a lot of responsibilities, but never mention it to outsiders, because you know in your heart that all responsibilities in this world are nothing more than people's own will. If you never hesitate, you don't need to regret it. What we can gain from it is far more than what we lose. Don't you think so, Xinuo?"

He stared at the girl on the bench quietly. Shino was stunned for a while, then he realized what was happening and couldn't help but burst out laughing: "You mean, we are the same people?"

"Yes." The young man nodded firmly and seriously.

"Then, this is worth celebrating." The girl tried her best to suppress the curve of her mouth, and slowly raised her left hand to the young man, her five slender white fingers clenched into a fist. She had clearly been practicing martial arts and riding since she was a child, but miraculously, there was not even a callus on her fingers, and they were still as smooth as jade under the moonlight. She raised her heroic eyebrows and looked at him with a smile: "We are all people who bear responsibilities, and only we know how heavy this responsibility is - but perhaps through this method, we can weigh it?"

The young man looked at her fist, then raised his left hand. She didn't know if it was an illusion, but Xino seemed to see the corners of his mouth outlined in the moonlight, revealing a sincere, relaxed and calm smile, as if he had finally found a companion to share the baggage on a long journey, and half of the weight on his shoulders was removed, and the whole person suddenly came alive. He slowly closed his five fingers together, clenched them into a fist, and then stretched them out and gently touched Xino's fist. The warm touch at that moment suddenly gave the girl a strange feeling in her heart.

It was true that she had never had such close contact with other opposite sexes, but it was not entirely true to say that the atmosphere was ambiguous. The eyes of both of them were so clear, just like the cool moonlight in the prayer hall.

Xino was surprised by the sudden idea that came to his mind, so he smiled silently, retracted his hand, stood up from the bench, and said to Lingge: "I still remember your promise, and I will always remember it, Mr. Lingge. Since we are all responsible people, we should understand our own position and our unshirkable mission. So, this time I can give in, and I will pray in the Tianxin Church that Alice will bring us the victory we desire. But next time, and all the moments in the future when I need to step onto the battlefield, I will uphold the will of the knight and fulfill my duties. That is the admonition given to me by the pioneer Baron Vince, the white knight Hibton, the paranoid Reynard, and the glorious ancestors of the Gustaf family-"

"Fight for justice and win for justice."

After saying this, her tense expression suddenly relaxed. Without waiting for Lingge's answer, she turned around and waved her hand: "If there is nothing else, I will go back first. I have to apologize to everyone. It is very uneducated to leave the table abruptly because of a momentary anger."

Linger stood there without moving, quietly watching the girl's back walk away, until she reached the end of the moonlight and stopped in front of the half-closed door. He suddenly opened his mouth and said, "I will pray too."

Pray for Alice's victory, and to keep winning.

Only in this way can she get the happy ending she wants.

The young man's voice echoed in the silent church, hitting the cold electronic screens of each game console, reflecting a cold light. Xinuo did not respond, but after a brief pause, he still reached out his hand, pushed open the door of the church, and then walked out into the dim night.

Soon, the sound of horse hooves was heard outside the church. Brandy seemed to be worried about his master and kept guarding outside.

And if I stay in this church, who can I wait for?

Lingge turned around, looked up, and his eyes fell on the statue of the goddess.

The cold moonlight shone in from the window, dividing the church into two. Two pairs of eyes looked at each other across the boundary between light and shadow, both equally calm, deep, and revealing a hint of compassion.

Gloria still remembers that Ling'er's final form in the game is [Elf King].

But he forgot that at the beginning, he should have been——

Mercy of Relief Ling.

Give me some meow