Together with the blizzard, frigid winds rage, shaking the cabin's windows and knocking on its door.
The cold wind knocks, begging to be let in, asking to play, but the owner of the house will never open up.
Even as he tries to ignore Dongjanggun's visit, a chilling cold gradually seeps in, surpassing even the warmth of the firewood blazing in the hearth.
The man worries whether he can endure with the remaining firewood until this seemingly eternal blizzard ceases, yet he does not stop reading the fairytale book, alternating between a hopeful voice and the voice of a wicked villain for his children.
Look at that, brothers. It's Snow White.
She's truly beautiful.
More beautiful than the rumors.
Shall we help her? Shall we help her?
She's crying, poor thing.
She fell and hurt her knee, how pitiful.
Alright, let's all go help her!
"And so, Snow White defeated the wicked queen with the seven dwarves and lived happily ever after."
Clap, clap, clap.
The siblings always loved the story of the princess defeating the wicked queen with the dwarves and bringing peace.
To the siblings, the blizzard that keeps them from playing outside is a bad guy, and the ants that pop out of the wooden floor when they spill crumbs are bad guys too, so they delight in declaring they will become Snow White and scold everyone.
"I want to meet seven dwarves too! This one's my Dwarf Number One! When can I meet Number Two?"
"Why am I Dwarf Number One? You're the dwarf!"
The man's daughter, who had named her brother "Dwarf Number One," was always cheerful.
The hopeful sight of his children quarreling, calling each other dwarves and whatnot, was the only hope that sustained the man through this desolate life so exhausting he felt he might collapse at any moment.
"I'll buy you another wooden doll soon."
"Really, Dad? You promised!"
"Don't you worry, my daughter. Have you ever seen your father break a promise?"
"Never!"
"Dad, what about me?"
When he promises a new doll for his daughter, his son is on the verge of sulking, feeling slighted.
The man strokes his son's head with the hand attached to his one remaining arm—a hand missing several of its fingers.
"Don't worry. I'll buy you something different too. Dad always keeps his promises. So you must keep yours too, yes? Now off to bed with you. It's late."
Okaaay.
Knowing nothing of the world's rough tempests, the daughter trades questions and answers with "Dwarf Number One," listens to the fairytale that ends happily, then lies down in one bed and drifts off to fall into a warm, colorful dreamland entirely different from the cold, desolate reality.
Beneath the night sky lit by the faint glow of a dim star risen in the heavens—a star seemingly about to gutter out yet straining with its last strength to illuminate the world—they meet seven dwarves in their dreams and set off for a world of joyful, boundless adventures.
The man's children do not know. Because the man never tells them.
Though they do not know now, they will soon enough learn the true ending of the reality that had inspired that fairytale's motif.
"Snow White, who joined hands with seven demons, slew the stepmother queen, the black mage, and became the Snow Queen who spread across the world nothing but the suffering she had endured."
By the time Hansel realized the true ending of that story and the tyranny of the queen who reigned over this world, he also realized that after his death, he had been reincarnated—or perhaps possessed—into the Hansel of a world where all stories were mixed together.
"This place is better."
Those muttered words Hansel spoke upon realizing that truth were an assessment that this world—where demons flaunted their power and warmth had vanished from people's hearts—was better than the world of his previous life.