Alright — here’s a faithful, uncensored English translation of the passage you provided, fully adapted into natural English while keeping names, pronouns, and terms consistent with the ORV cheat sheet.We exchanged tense glances.The eerie creak of hinges echoed out. The door opened, but no one came out to greet us.Beyond this threshold could be a terrified family—or a neighbor with a knife, waiting to hurt us.Or maybe—“W-who’s there?”A nervous child’s voice. We immediately pushed the door wide open.Beyond the open doorway stood a shabby-looking boy. Short, plump, with round cheeks.The big mole on the bridge of his nose stood out. At best, he looked around thirteen or fourteen.“Ah, ahhh.”Startled at the sight of us, the boy stumbled back.Jung Heewon raised her hands gently toward him.“Hey, it’s okay. We don’t mean you any harm.”Then she whispered quietly to me,“I think he goes to the same school as my younger sibling.”“How do you know?”“The mole… I remember seeing him on my sibling’s SNS.”Apparently she recognized him by the mole on his nose.Maybe he heard her, because the boy’s eyes widened. Tears welled up instantly. He glanced nervously behind him, then asked us,“D-do you know me? Who are you?”“Where are the adults? Are you alone here?”“All the adults are…”The mole-faced boy sniffled and took a few hesitant steps closer. Perhaps pitying him, Jung Heewon bent at the waist to look him in the eye.The whole time I watched that scene, I felt not even a shred of agitation. Was it because I was Lee Hakhyeon—or because I was Cheon Inho?「How did this kid even survive the first scenario?」When there were about five steps left between us, I opened my mouth.“Kid.”The boy looked up at me.I narrowed my eyes kindly and asked,“Could you… not do that?”Before I even finished speaking, the boy lunged into Jung Heewon’s arms. I reflexively pulled her back and stepped forward.Thunk— The kitchen knife the boy drove in was thankfully stopped by my External Reinforcement Suit.The boy yelped, terrified, and landed on his backside as the knife clattered to the floor.“Ah, ahhh! I-I didn’t mean it! They made me! They told me to do it!”So it was a trap.Jung Heewon asked,“Inho-ssi, are you okay?”“I’m fine. What about you, Heewon-ssi?”“Why’d you stop me?”I glanced at her right hand, already resting on the knife’s hilt, and answered,“Because at least we should hear him out.”If I hadn’t stopped her, that boy would have been cut down right there.The boy seemed to realize that belatedly; still sitting on the floor, he scrambled backwards on his rear in fright.I smiled like a harmless conman, bending slightly toward him.“So then—who told you to do something like this?”The truth was, I didn’t even need to ask.No matter how I looked at him, he didn’t seem like someone who’d been ordered around.More precisely—“Shoot! Hurry!”The boy barked, and gunshots rang out.Bang! Bang!Warning shots. Concrete fragments rained down from the ceiling.Three other boys and girls appeared at his side.Two of them held guns.Military-issue K-2 rifles.The mole-faced boy puffed up proudly.“See that? They’re real guns. Move and we’ll shoot. Drop everything you’ve got and turn around.”His smooth, practiced threats made me chuckle. The boy scowled and snapped,“I’ll count to five.”Five counts.And I had four questions.“One.”Where had these kids come from?“Two.”Even setting me aside, how had Jung Heewon failed to sense them?[The region is currently under the effect of a ‘Soundproofing Formation (遮音陣法)’.]A soundproofing formation. I see.So the second question was solved.“Three.”How had these kids managed to set up such a trap—“Four.”—and how many people had they killed up to now?“Five. Just kill them.”I triggered [Agitation], transforming Thought into Heracles’ Shield.[Special skill, ‘Area Defense’, has been activated!]The K-2 muzzles all flared at once, set to automatic fire.Tatatatatat!This was the same Area Defense that had withstood Gong Pildu’s [Mini Turrets]. Did they really think a few ordinary bullets could get through?Bullets ricocheted off the shield and tore apart the house instead. The kids shrieked and stopped firing in panic.I dashed forward and seized their guns. They weren’t particularly strong, so subduing them wasn’t hard.As the tide turned, the mole-faced boy shouted,“Now! Do it!”A chill shot down the back of my neck.Swish!Something sliced through the air toward me. Not quite as fast as a bullet, but brimming with dangerous energy.A throwing weapon.I twisted my head reflexively, dodging it. The projectile grazed my cheek with a sharp ping and embedded itself in the wall, vibrating violently.It was a chopstick charged with magic.I turned my head to see a fifth boy, holding a cutlery jar.The boy wore a skull mask.A skull mask?Apparently he hadn’t expected me to dodge. He froze, eyes trembling with unease.The mole-faced boy snarled,“You can’t even hit with that?”“Sorry.”“Throw again!”“…There’s a cooldown.”That seemed to press his buttons; the mole-faced boy cursed furiously, then lashed out, kicking and punching the skull-masked boy in the stomach and face.Still unsatisfied, he turned back toward me.“You’re pretty good, mister. But this time you picked the wrong opponent. Do you even know who we are?”At his words, the others’ fearful expressions began to change.As if his declaration itself were some kind of area defense protecting them.“That’s right!”“Even the soldiers can’t touch us! Your friends are all dead now!”So—where had these kids really come from?Time to answer my first question.The mole-faced boy smirked, pulling out a string of knots from his waistband.The same kind Jung Heewon had taken from the sniper in the high-rise earlier.The difference was, that sniper had three knots. This boy had five.Sensing Jung Heewon’s approach, I spoke.“These kids… they’re Gaebang.”I couldn’t tell if she heard me. She just brushed past.The mole-faced boy crowed,“That’s right. We’re Gaebang. Do you know who I am? I’m a Dangju-class of Gaebang! You’re already dead—”“Move.”Shoving him aside like he was in the way, Jung Heewon walked straight toward the skull-masked boy.“Jung Eunho.”The moment I heard her voice, my blood ran cold.Was this really the Jung Heewon I knew? Could she make such a deadly expression?“Take off the mask. You’re Eunho, aren’t you?”The other kids reacted first.Panic spread over their faces as they muttered to each other.“W-who is she?”“She knows Eunho?”The skull-masked boy stood frozen, staring at her.As if he couldn’t believe it, he tilted his head slightly, hand trembling on the cutlery jar.Through the mask, his eyes wavered violently with turmoil. At last, his hand rose slowly, removing the mask.And there—“…Noona.”—was a boy who looked strikingly like Jung Heewon.+rlaehrwk37: Oh, shit.rlaehrwk99: No way, seriously?+A miraculous reunion of siblings who’d survived hell on earth.[Constellation, ‘Maritime War God’, nods at the tearful reunion.][Constellation, ‘Demon-like Judge of Fire’, watches with a conflicted expression.][Constellation, ‘Abyssal Black Flame Dragon’, mutters that the mole kid still needs a beating.]Normally, this was where the melodrama should play out. The siblings would burst into tears, embrace each other, and shed years of resentment, rediscovering true family love.But Jung Heewon’s family was a little different.“What the hell happened to you?”Despite her sharp demand, Jung Eunho only lowered his head in silence.I studied the skull mask in his hand.「The butcher who haunted the scenarios like a ghost, hunting the enemies who killed his comrades, always wore a skull mask.」So then—did that mean Jung Heewon’s younger brother was the Butcher of Madness?It was plausible in theory.The Butcher of Madness was one of the few incarnations with the Crouching One’s trait that Kim Dokja had mentioned.Jung Heewon herself had the Crouching One, so it wasn’t strange if her brother did too.Then let’s test it directly.[Skill ‘Character List’ is currently updating.][You cannot use this skill at the moment.]…Seriously? Now, of all times?“Who told you to do this? Spit it out.”Her chilling gaze fell on the mole-faced boy, now tied up hand and foot and thrashing on the floor.Moved by the siblings’ reunion, his pudgy face was streaming with tears and snot.“Noona.”Glancing coldly at him, Jung Eunho asked,“Why did you come here? To check if # Nоvеlight # I was dead?”“What?”“Just go back. This isn’t a place for you.”Slowly lifting his head, his face showed both faint rebellion and hollow despair.“This isn’t like when you ran away after beating Dad with his wooden sword. Do you still think you’re the boss of our house?”“Hey, what are you—”Stunned by his explosive words, Jung Heewon suddenly turned toward me.“No, Inho-ssi, this is… it’s not what you think—”I smiled and shook my head.I could already guess the gist.Of course, a child shouldn’t strike their parents.But if someone like Jung Heewon had done it, there must have been a reason.With a sigh, she asked,“So. Where is Dad now?”“Dad’s…”After hesitating, Jung Eunho exhaled.“He’s in Gaebang.”“Gaebang?”“That’s the name of the group I belong to.”“That’s strange. He’s not the type to join just any organization. What about the army? The apartment residents? Dad was a soldier—he had subordinates, didn’t he?”At the word army, a shadow flickered in Eunho’s eyes.“They all got captured by Gaebang.”“Dad’s not the kind of man to go down easy.”“The old Dad wouldn’t have.”The old Dad. Something about the nuance felt off. And his next words were even stranger.“Dad’s as good as dead. He’s not our dad anymore.”Not their dad?“When the world ended, he suddenly changed into someone else.”“What do you mean? Did he hit you again?”“No. Not like that.”Eunho sighed—just like his sister.“Dad just… went insane.”“Insane?”In that instant, I understood what had happened to their family.Eunho turned his gaze toward the window. Reflected in his eyes was the wrecked apartment complex.The scars of scenarios that had reduced this world to ruins.But maybe it hadn’t been the scenarios that destroyed Jung Heewon’s family.“He kept muttering—‘The novel became reality,’ ‘This can’t be happening’… all sorts of nonsense. I thought he’d just lost his mind for a bit.”The scenarios were cruel, but at least they were courteous.Like guests who rang the doorbell, they introduced themselves, told us what would happen next, and explained what we had to do.But some guests weren’t courteous.They entered this world with no knock, no doorbell.“And when I met him again after the scenario started, Dad abandoned me. He ran away alone. I chased after him, crying, and I can’t forget what he said.”On the cracked balcony glass, my reflection overlapped with the faint image of a boy’s face.The boy in the skull mask.“He asked me who I was.”A boy who, in an instant, had lost his family—their whole shared history.“He said from now on he had to find Kim Dokja.”…It seemed Jung Heewon’s father had been possessed by the Reader.

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