rlaehrwk37: These days, I like old stories best.+Crackle—With that sound, Shin Yooseung’s eyes snapped open.The last thing ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) she’d seen was the dungeon scattering into light.Her chest dropped.Something had gone wrong—hadn’t it?What about Mister?She blinked several times, but all she could see was darkness.[Connection lost.]Yooseung sighed softly and reached up to remove the interface goggles.The white circular capsule came into view, characters spinning furiously around it.[Correcting connection error for “Round 41.”][Searching for new access point.]“Hey! We crashed because of you!”Turning beside her, she found Lee Gilyoung yanking off his own goggles in irritation. Yooseung narrowed her eyes.“What nonsense. It was you.”“You overloaded your abilities! Su-yeong-noona told us not to spam skills inside Round 41! And why did you even log in with me in the first place?”Yooseung shrugged nonchalantly.“Who’s the one who kept firing off indirect messages? Bet that’s what broke plausibility.”“That’s—”“And seriously, who comes up with a modifier like Insidious Strategist?”Flushing red, Gilyoung bristled.“Shut up and just call Seolhwa-noona. We need this fixed!”“You do it. I could’ve talked to Mister a little longer, but you made us crash.”“I told you, that guy’s not Dokja-hyung.”“He is. He’s Reader-Mister reborn.”“He didn’t remember a thing, though.”They bickered for several minutes until Lee Seolhwa’s voice came from the speaker above the capsule.—You broke it again? I’ll fix it, so stop fighting and go outside for a while.At the disembodied voice, both kids answered in unison, “Okay.”—And didn’t I tell you not to log in together? The capsule’s still unstable—if you both connect at once…Before she could finish, the two bolted out of the room.As they walked down the long corridor, Gilyoung asked,“Sang-ah-noona?”“Room 3. Still logged in.”Through the glass door marked 3, Yoo Sang-ah sat in front of the same capsule, goggles covering her eyes.Her face was hidden, but her lips were moving rapidly, as if talking to someone.“She should really eat something first,” Yooseung murmured, worried.It had been thirty-six hours since Yoo Sang-ah last disconnected. The screen before her projected what she was seeing—The ruined Gwanghwamun.The collapsed National Palace Museum.A lobby engulfed in flame.Incarnations dashing frantically through the wreckage while a handsome one shouted orders.Beside him moved a familiar figure, scouting the area quietly.Recognizing the face, Gilyoung said, “Think Su-yeong-noona’s okay?”“…”“She dove in directly, remember? She’s already burned through a ton of plausibility.”Unlike the others—who could only interfere with Round 41 through Seolhwa’s Myth-Interface—Han Su-yeong had actually entered that round herself.Technically, she’d sent part of her memory through an avatar. That let her act with far more freedom than the rest of .—Don’t ever connect directly, got it? Round 41 isn’t like the other timelines. I’m the only one going in. You saw what happened to the constellations that descended early, right? No possessions either. Save your plausibility. I’ll find Kim Dokja somehow—just watch from here.Only a writer like Han Su-yeong could do that.She had thrust her own avatar into the scenario once more—diving back into the inferno to bring Kim Dokja home.—Don’t come after me. If you miss me that much, just watch like the constellations do, okay?They understood her reasons.But that didn’t mean the others could sit still.Yoo Sang-ah and Lee Gilyoung had made back-line contracts with Round 41’s incarnations, and Shin Yooseung had intervened through possession. All for the same cause.Gilyoung spoke casually. “You possessed someone, right?”Among them, only Yooseung could use the Broken-Film Theory to inhabit a Round 41 character.“How was it?”He didn’t specify—but she knew exactly what he meant.“You saw it too.”“Seeing and living it are different.”“You already know the answer.”There were a thousand ways to reply.Star Stream was still Star Stream.Scenarios more horrifying than anything they’d faced before raged everywhere.Those damned constellations and dokkaebis mocked human desire and made sport of death.So many people had died.Yooseung understood better than anyone why Han Su-yeong forbade them to go.It was a world she never wanted to return to.And yet—“I missed it,” she said.Gilyoung pondered, then asked, “What if I just secretly descend into Round 41?”“Are you suicidal? Our plausibility’s already unstable.”They were incarnations who had cleared the Final Scenario.Their true rank surpassed even the highest stars.If they descended into an early scenario of another worldline, the backlash would be catastrophic.“Dokja-hyung takes the recoil and just goes bzzzt a few times.”“That’s because he’s Mister.”Even for someone as resistant as Kim Dokja, it would be nearly impossible. Gilyoung grumbled.“Tch, I just want a little fun.”“Fun? You call this fun?”Yooseung frowned, bristling. Gilyoung shot back,“You looked like you were having fun.”“I—”Could you even call it fun?Guilt bit into her lips, yet she couldn’t deny it either.“Come on, it was fun going back into a scenario. Admit it.”Thrown again into that horrific world, performing life-or-death scenarios under the gaze of the constellations—She hadn’t wanted to experience it again. But when she did, her heart had pounded, blood rushing hot through her veins.Maybe that was the kind of people they had become.Both turned toward the [Industrial Zone] window. The cool wind blew through, tossing their hair.Gilyoung spoke first.“Sometimes it doesn’t feel real.”“Yeah.”Outside lay a blank white landscape—a world half-finished, as if someone had stopped painting midway.Staring into that incomplete scenery, Yooseung recalled the moment they’d entered this place.We finally thought we could get Kim Dokja back.At last, had reached the end of the story. They opened the door of the hospital room——and beyond it waited two endings.One world where Kim Dokja existed,and one where he didn’t.Standing before the fork, they chose the latter.It had been a trap, of course.Instinctively, they knew.Just like in that subway long ago, Kim Dokja had probably left them a sweet illusion while he wandered alone beyond the farthest scenario.Even Kim Dokja himself might never have guessed they’d pick that option.The latter world—a world without Kim Dokja—was not a proper one.A world untouched by his gaze.A dream even The Oldest Dream had never dreamed.“It’s already been half a year,” Gilyoung murmured.Half a year since then—time enough for countless events.Each member of had begun their own plan to bring him back.—From here, we can access every worldline.The first to discover that was Yoo Sang-ah, the third to cross over.Wielding the power of the Guardian of the Mandala, she stretched her Threads of Connection through countless worlds, searching for fragments of Kim Dokja’s soul.But the multiverse was vast, and his scattered pieces too many.So they decided to collect the fragments that had not yet reincarnated.Some lay in worlds they knew. Others, in worlds they’d never seen.Each fragment was a trace of where he had once been.Yoo Sang-ah had said:—Even if we gather them all, it won’t bring back the Dokja we knew.Gathering footprints doesn’t bring back the one who left them. They all understood that.Lee Jihye had answered:—But if we don’t, then what else do we have left?Even if it was only a way to mourn him, even if the Kim Dokja they knew would never return—They wanted to keep believing, just as they once waited for Yoo Joonghyuk to return from the stars.So they kept collecting the fable-fragments.Piece by piece, the cluster grew, until it began to drift of its own accord—pulled somewhere, as if by gravity.Tracing its course, they finally found a single worldline.Round 41.A world unrecorded in Annihilation Method—like Yoo Joonghyuk’s Round 0, a missing chapter.Instinct told them—Maybe Kim Dokja was there.“The dark guy contacted us yet?”“Not yet. And stop calling Joonghyuk-ajusshi that. It’s rude.”Yooseung stared vacantly out the window.She kept staring, again and again—as if a white coat might flutter somewhere in that pale horizon.Gilyoung asked, “Do you think we can really find him?”“We already found one, didn’t we?”“That’s not him.”“Then who is Mister?”“He’s…”What is Kim Dokja?They both knew the answer—or thought they did.They knew what he liked, what he hated, what foods he couldn’t eat; his height, age, weight; the expressions he made when he looked at them.But if you gathered all of that, would it make Kim Dokja?If you collected every memory of him, perfectly intact—would that truly be Kim Dokja?Once, Seolhwa had asked:—Do you remember what you had for lunch a week ago?Yooseung shook her head. Seolhwa continued:—Me neither. So does that mean I’m not Lee Seolhwa anymore?The question had stunned her—echoing the forbidden doubt that always lingered in her mind.Maybe the Kim Dokja she knew no longer existed.Just as the Yooseung from a year, two years, three years ago no longer did.They had existed once—but now lived only inside the story.She didn’t want to think complicated thoughts.Yet whenever she thought of him, she couldn’t help it.What is Kim Dokja?There’s still a story I haven’t finished reading. I’ll be right back.He’d left that note. So she already knew Gilyoung’s answer.“He’s someone who loves stories.”Satisfied with his own reply, Gilyoung nodded repeatedly and added,“He likes my stories best.”“He likes mine more.”“No, mine.”They began arguing again.Yooseung thought,In this world, conflict becomes story—and story is what Kim Dokja loves most.If he truly loves stories, then he must be watching them now.Whatever form he’s taken—if he’s watching this story,then Shin Yooseung will reclaim her star.They’d been bickering for some time when a voice rang out over the facility intercom.—He’s back.They both froze, breath caught.No way.It couldn’t be Kim Dokja. Which meant—A beep, a hand gripping the mic.—Gather up. We need to talk.Yoo Joonghyuk had returned.

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