Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 228 Is this the first rain of winter?
When Olvera came to her senses, she found herself standing in an empty hall.

The old bricks and stones have worn away traces of the past, and darkness once spread like a dirty quagmire, soaking here for a long time, giving it a rotten stench that lingers faintly; cold mosses grow in the mottled cracks in the rocks, and these tiny creatures that do not need light to survive rely on eating sand and dust in the cracks in the walls to survive, with their roots extending to corners that the naked eye cannot see, lush and flourishing like a forest in primitive times; a few transparent spider silks hang from the ceiling, but there is no figure of their owner crawling, as if those ugly reptiles were also discouraged by the loneliness deposited in the castle, and hurried away after spitting out the last silk, and today you can still see the path they walked, winding towards a corner of death.

In the rotten and smelly soil, under the mottled and cracked bricks, in the winding rock crevices, and even in the corners of the walls where the moisture from ancient times lingers lingers...it is a scene of death.

The princess stood there blankly, holding a thick book in her left hand and a black lantern in her right hand. Her long platinum hair cascading like a waterfall brought some precious brightness to the cold and silent hall. In her hazy and dazed eyes, two open doors were reflected. At the end of the doors was light, a world she had always dreamed of and longed for for endless years. But for some reason, it was so bright that it made her a little uneasy.

"Ah!" A relieved voice came from behind: "It's finally over. It was such a long process to complete the game. It was only about five hours, but why did I feel like I played for fifty hours?"

"Maybe it's because you're still not sensitive enough to the scale of time."

"Hey, I'm not as good as you say."

"I'm not complimenting you."

……

What followed was the sound of footsteps, one after another, walking towards him, the sound of soles of shoes stepping on stone bricks, echoing emptyly in the hall.

Olvera's lips opened and closed several times, but she didn't say a word. Was it because she didn't know what to say, or because she didn't know how to say it? Alice, who was always rough, naturally didn't notice the princess's abnormal mood. She stretched and said casually, "But if you have anything to say, let's talk outside. The atmosphere here is very gloomy. I don't want to stay any longer."

Alice couldn't stand such unfounded slander, and immediately glared at the two guys fiercely: "If you can talk, keep talking. If you say two more words, my anger will be full, and I promise not to give you a sword from the sky."

"Baa!" the lamb agreed.

But if it wasn't a dream, why did this castle still exist? In my memory, it should have been destroyed by the ancient sacred tree that my teacher transformed into after his death, and it became fragmented; and it collapsed after I eliminated the guardian of the corridor at the bottom, like a flower bud withering in the frost. The loud rumbling sound of the bricks, floors, walls, ceilings, towers... when they collapsed and sank still echoes in my ears.

It turns out that it was not a dream.

"Let's go." Alice walked in front and waved to her companions to follow: "Don't stay here too long. If you stay any longer, I feel like moss is growing in my bones."

Alice told a joke that wasn't funny at the end. After all, if Olvera didn't want to leave, why did she work so hard to complete the game before? Moreover, she was now shouldering the expectations of her deceased teacher...

The goblin Shemi, who was sitting on Metien's head, casually replied, "Are you sure it's not growing in your brain?"

When Avella heard this, her long eyelashes trembled slightly, and she murmured, "Can I... leave here?"

Olvera opened her hazy eyes, and between her heavy and sleepy eyebrows, she re-examined the appearance of the castle. Those ferocious and brutal shadow beasts, the guardians who symbolized her past memories, the heroic weapons that helped her defeat the powerful enemies, the powerful but unpredictable ruler, the teacher who reappeared in front of her after many years, the gentle words, the awareness of sacrifice, the deepest despair, the most ardent hope... everything was not a dream.

"Hey, Olvera!" Alice, who was walking in front, greeted her casually, as if she was greeting guests at home: "What's the matter? Why are you staring at us? Do you have something to say to us?"

Which ones are real and which ones are false?
The princess, who had been away from the world for too long, gradually became confused.

"Of course, we have already completed the game and destroyed the curse that trapped you in the castle. You destroyed it with your own hands. Look, the castle is not as dark as before, and the shadow beasts guarding you have all disappeared. No one can stop you from leaving here, unless you don't want to leave - haha, I'm kidding."

I say familiar because I have seen them many times in the game, and even said a lot of true things to them, so we can be considered friends; I say unfamiliar because when I saw them in the game, they all looked like weird "pixel men", so when I see them in person now, I actually have a trance feeling and lose my mind for a moment.

"What guarantees can you make? You have no credibility!" "Mee mee!"

Olvera seemed to be awakened by these voices and returned to this world. She slowly turned around, raised her head, blinked, and saw their appearance from the depths of the gathering and separating starlight. It was very familiar, but also very strange.

I originally thought that this is what dreams feel like.

"Okay, okay, be quiet, stop arguing." Metien was already used to such a noisy routine, and stepped out to mediate very skillfully: "Shemi, don't always say bad things about Sister Alice, she's just a bit straightforward, not a bad person; Sister Alice, don't always argue with Shemi, she's still young and doesn't understand, she was just joking."

Saint Xia Liya also pulled the lamb's rope and whispered, "Don't be naughty, lamb, give in to Alice more."

Alice, who felt that she was being treated differently, protested indignantly as she walked: "What do you mean she is still young and ignorant? Are there 200-year-old children in this world? It's obviously a 200-year-old grandmother! And Xiaoxia, you said the wrong thing just now. It's not the sheep that is tolerating me. It's obviously me who has been tolerating it, okay? Otherwise, it would have been made into flavored lamb pie. I think the sauce of the pie stand on Sherrill Street is not bad. I'll take you to try it next time..." "Among the traveler goblins, 200 years old is of course a child. If you insist on saying she is an old grandmother, then tell it to your eldest sister if you have the guts, Lululu!"

"BAA Baa baa!"

"That pie stand Sister Alice mentioned is really delicious."

"Well, I'm looking forward to it."

……

They chatted and walked past Ovilla noisily. When each of them passed by the princess, they would smile and say to her, "Hurry up." But the princess always stood where she was, not catching up with their pace, quietly listening to their laughter and conversation that gradually faded away, and suddenly felt envious from the bottom of her heart.

so good.

In that unimaginably vast world, being able to live in such a calm and peaceful manner, standing on the extended earth you will chase the horizon at the end, being under the vast sky you will long for the distant skyline, seeing the boundless ocean you will imagine the sea level on the other side... without any confusion, without any hesitation, free and unrestrained, what an enviable thing it is.

And if someone is trapped in a dark cage for a long time, with only books, lanterns and candles as company, and knows nothing about the changes in the outside world, when her parents, teachers and her former country are buried deep in the dust, there will be no people or scenery she knows in that world. Suddenly one day she knows that she can leave the cage and will no longer be bound by anything. So when she steps out of the darkness, what she sees is a familiar world or a strange world?
It must be so strange that it makes it difficult to even breathe, right?
The princess of Beman thought she had been ready to regain her freedom, but she didn't know that freedom is not as simple as leaving one place and going to another. It means whether you have the courage to abandon some familiar things and face other unfamiliar things. If you can't do this, you will feel an indescribable panic like she is now, staying where you are and not daring to move forward.

"What's wrong?" someone suddenly asked. It was the person who had been silent and had not left.

"Nothing." Olvera shook her head slowly, a smile appeared on her face, it was an extremely forced, pale smile, and she replied softly in a voice filled with sea water and darkness: "I just..."

“If you’re scared,” he added, interrupting Olvera, his tone calm: “Just look at me.”

Aoweila was stunned for a moment, and after she reacted, the hazy starlight in her eyes gradually dispersed and became brighter. She nodded obediently: "Yes."

So, Lingge walked in front, while Olvera walked behind. Looking at his back, it was like looking at a world that was familiar to her in the past, without any strange feeling at all. They walked through the empty hall, walked by the cold wall, walked along the stone path in front of the door... and finally walked through the two huge open iron doors, leaving the castle and entering a larger world.

call--

When she walked out of the castle, the cold wind howled, blowing the white-gold hair wildly. Every strand of hair scratched Ovella's cheek, bringing a distant call. Ling said calmly: "Now, look up."

Olvera followed his words and subconsciously raised her head, and saw the sky, the earth, and the forests covering the mountains. The bright light flowed through the spacious courtyard and into her narrow eyes. It was not so dazzling because there were still dark clouds gathering above her head, swallowing up too much light and making the sky look gloomy and bleak. But the princess' pupils still shrank subconsciously. She clearly saw that the depths of the dark clouds were torn open by a sudden cold wind, and a huge crack seemed to have existed there since the creation of the world, presenting a more distant and lonely scene.

Something fell from the clouds and hit the princess' face, the ground in the courtyard, and the old stone bricks that were mottled by the wear and tear of the years... tick-tick, echoing softly.

As they slowly flowed down her cheeks, as if drawing two tear marks under the princess' eyes, Olvera suddenly realized: the outside world -

so cold.

……

In a house on Sherrill Street in Rostin City, a man who was writing furiously at his desk suddenly heard a strange sound. He temporarily broke away from his creative immersion and looked up. He was surprised to see raindrops of all sizes falling from the gray sky, hitting the branches and leaves of the trees on the roadside, making a rustling sound; the fallen dead leaves swayed in the dense rain, flying all over the sky like colorful butterflies; ripples spread in circles in the canals on the street, and insects that looked like mantises and orchids lay on the floating water lilies, hiding from the sudden rain on the grass leaves above their heads; and by the windows along the street, the rainwater that had accumulated in a short while was flowing down from the edges of the window frames, drawing tortuous traces like small streams, gradually wetting and blurring the transparent glass...

He was so absorbed in reading that he even forgot what he was going to write. In other words, no matter what he planned to write on the paper, it would not be more worthy of the attention of the citizens of this city than the rain before him.

Because this is the first rain since the beginning of winter.

That’s right, it doesn’t snow in Rustin in the winter.

But it will rain.

　Give me some meow
　　
　
(End of this chapter)