Sparks burst as the screen tore open with a long, jagged rip.[Critical error detected in ‘The Primordial Theater’!]Beyond the shredded screen, the black tide of the universe heaved and shimmered—an abyssal portal to nowhere.I turned one last time toward the seats.There—rising to her feet and looking at me—was rlaehrwk37.The first reader who had cheered for me.Uncle Dansu’s daughter.No Jiyoon.“I’ll come back for you.”Leaving Asmodeus’s furious roar behind, I leapt with Yu Joonghyuk into the tear in the screen.[Temporary error in ‘Scenario’ detected!]Space and time twisted; my body felt as if it were being taken apart cell by cell.Still, I didn’t let go of Yu Joonghyuk’s collar.The thought struck me—it was almost funny.The 41st-round Yu Joonghyuk, and the 49% Kim Dokja.Was there ever a worse pairing than this?“Don’t you dare die, you bastard.”Vision reeled; then came the jarring impact of a body slamming into something solid.The dimensional shift was over.Pain lanced through every bone as I forced myself upright, gripping the ground.“Yu Joonghyuk.”He still didn’t answer.What the hell had he been through to still not wake up?“You’ve been out long enough, haven’t you?”I sucked in a shaky breath and looked around.We’d escaped the theater—good.But of all the places to land...A biting chill seeped into my limbs. My breath frosted instantly.Wherever I looked, there was nothing but endless black void.[You are currently outside the scenario area.]A world where no star shone on us.Between the darkness that swallowed everything, I could feel the gaze of unknown divinities peering down.I lifted my head, sneering at the heavens that mocked our unrecorded fate.[You have been expelled from the Scenario.]Of course.We had fallen into the Great Hall.Amid the boundless void, someone was calling my name.[Scenario exit penalty commencing.]***Han Sooyoung breathed heavily, taking stock of her ruined body.Her lungs burned as if filled with scalding water. Blood poured from the hole in her abdomen; her left optic nerve was damaged, her vision collapsing to one side. Her right shoulder was completely shattered, her kneecap driven deep.It was a miracle her heart was still beating.When was the last time she’d been this badly injured?Probably back in the 1,865th round—when she and Yu Joonghyuk hunted the Iron-Blooded Dragon, waiting, exhausted, for Lee Seolhwa to arrive.“Kind of unfair, isn’t it.”When she looked up, it was as if she could see that night’s sky again.Lying side by side on the dragon’s severed tail, Yu Joonghyuk had said it in that same insufferably calm voice.“I told you the item was yours.”“That’s not what I meant.”With a small sigh, Han Sooyoung had added,“I just wonder who’ll ever know we fought like this.”She regretted saying it the moment it left her mouth—too unlike her usual self.She quickly shook her head.“Forget it. What’s the point telling you something like that—”“So that’s why you write, then?”His offhand remark startled her.She had never told anyone but Kim Dokja that she was secretly recording everything.But somehow, Yu Joonghyuk had already known.“You can’t write everything down.”The record of the 1,865th round was incomplete.She had been using [Avatar] in real time, losing her memories as she fought, and her companions were in similar shape.They fought with all they had to clear the scenario with minimal sacrifice, and in return, each of them lost a piece of their narrative.Endless repetition of recording and erasure.To find Kim Dokja, they had kept becoming someone else.“There’s no need to write everything.”Spoken by the man who had remembered more and forgotten more than anyone.Han Sooyoung answered as if resisting him.“But the truly important things—”“When you repeat regressions long enough, there are memories even I forget.”Rare words from Yu Joonghyuk, who almost never spoke of himself.Han Sooyoung found herself listening intently.“And not every past memory is helpful in the next round.”She understood what he meant.After countless regressions, there must have been memories he wanted to lose.Memories that tortured his emotions or clouded his judgment.“Sometimes losing a memory lets me find a better way the next time.”Maybe one day, Yu Joonghyuk had decided to erase whatever held him back—for the sake of clearing the scenario, not realizing how precious those memories were.“Don’t you ever want to get them back?”He’d thought for a moment before replying,“Just because a memory’s gone doesn’t mean the place it occupied is gone too. And there’s someone with a better memory than me.”She didn’t need to ask who.“You’re writing for him, aren’t you?”“…Yeah.”“Do you really think he’d blame you for not writing everything?”Back then, she couldn’t answer.Now, the question had come back to her.“If it were Kim Dokja…”Han Sooyoung thought of him.The man who loved stories more than anyone else.He’d be guessing her unwritten passages, connecting events, reconstructing the web of meaning.One day he’d probably scold her for it.Why’d you write this like that? Isn’t this just plagiarism of Annihilation Method?He’d grumble forever—and then he’d read even the parts she never wrote.He’d fill in what she should have said, with a story even better than hers, written in his own words.[Constellation, ‘Lotus Blooming Under the Moonlight,’ says you should stop there and come back.][Constellation, ‘The Insidious Schemer,’ worries for you.]Han Sooyoung slowly stood up.She couldn’t fight anymore.She could tell instinctively—her Seolhwa was too damaged.Not only was normal scenario progress impossible, but she wouldn’t recover without long rest.So it was right to withdraw from this world now—to give up her stubborn obsession and retrace the path with her companions.Maybe she’d even find a way back through the first portal Kim Dokja had prepared.Crackle.When she reached into her pocket, a faint spark leapt.In her hand lay a lemon candy—Kim Dokja’s gift.Han Sooyoung stared at it, unwrapped it, and placed it in her mouth.The sweet tang spread across her tongue, and in that moment, she understood.Why Kim Dokja had come to this world.Why this world needed to exist.“Sometimes losing a memory lets you find a better way.”And at the same time—why she had to come here too.Han Sooyoung looked up at the night sky.The swirling Great Hall.The stars were gone, hidden somewhere, yet she could still imagine her own.A writer for one person.Feeling the gaze of that star.A prisoner serving her sentence upon the blank page.Han Sooyoung thought of the last sentence she would write.***How the hell were we supposed to get back to the original scenario?No matter how hard I thought, I couldn’t find a way.This was probably that bastard Representative Kim Dokja’s petty revenge.The problem was, his pettiness might end up killing us both.The cold bit through my flesh; sweat trickled down my spine despite the chill. My heart pounded as if about to burst.Crackle.The sense that I might vanish at any moment.All I could do was clench my lips and hold my breath.[You are currently outside the boundaries of the Scenario.][Your physical body is in extreme danger.]I knew these signs well.It had been like this the first time Kim Dokja was thrown into the Demon Realm.—Damn it! Ten minutes, no, fifteen—just hang on, okay?A miracle, perhaps—Bi Hyung’s voice echoed faintly from afar.—I’ll get the channel open somehow! Just hold on—Then it cut off, and the cold returned.In flickering consciousness, I looked toward Yu Joonghyuk.If I was this bad, what about him?[‘Otherworldly Narrative’ is protecting this Incarnation.]A small mercy, maybe.About to ascend to the Absolute Throne, Yu Joonghyuk was still linked to an “otherworldly divinity.”That divine link was sharing his penalty for leaving the Scenario.How many minutes passed, I couldn’t tell.[Temporary channel established.]A faint message resonated in my mind.Bi Hyung again?Hope flickered.If I could just get any sub-scenario—then like Kim Dokja in the Demon Realm, I could stabilize my existence.[Constellations of the Nebula are watching you.]…Asgard?[The Nebula offers you a sub-scenario if you join as one of its incarnations.]I blinked in disbelief.[Accepting will bind you to Asgard’s command for the next 200 years.]I gaped, forgetting even the pain of the cold biting into my bones.And that wasn’t the only offer.[Constellations of the Nebula are watching you.][The Nebula offers you a sub-scenario if you become one of its incarnations.][Accepting will bind you as a slave incarnation to Olympus for the next 50 years.]A hollow laugh escaped me.Only now did I truly understand Kim Dokja’s hatred of the constellations.“I refuse.”In my arrogance of having read the whole story, I had forgotten what they really were.This was what the constellations were—creatures who toyed with incarnations’ lives for amusement, using any means or excuse.[Constellations of take offense at your refusal.][Constellations of sigh at your folly.]A chill worse than ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ before surged through me—the penalty for rejecting them, maybe.Clutching my trembling shoulders, I invoked [Incite].Just until Bi Hyung returned. I just needed to hold on.“I am Kim Dokja…”Maybe it was the sparks scattering violently, but [Incite] didn’t activate properly.Instead, in the darkness behind my closed eyes, Kim Dokja’s memories surfaced.“Two years turned out longer than I thought.”I didn’t know when this memory was from.Memories not found in Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint.Someone in that memory said,“Soon the time I’ve spent with you will be longer than with the Kim Dokja I knew.”I clung to those fragments, gnawing on them to endure the cold.“What’ll happen to me when the real ‘me’ comes back?”In those memories, I was both happy and miserable.“Just because there’s another ‘me’ doesn’t mean this ‘me’ disappears.”“You can trust him on that—there are 1,864 more of him, after all.”The reason I was happy was Kim Dokja.The reason I was miserable—also Kim Dokja.Reaching toward the hazy memories, I whispered,“I…”Someone shook my shoulder.Warmth spread slowly through my body; the cold receded.The storm of memories subsided.When I opened my eyes, someone was looking at me.“You okay?”I stared blankly up at her.A dream?I shook my head several times—but no, it wasn’t.Through the small hand gripping my shoulder, I felt a familiar flow of narrative—warm, gentle prose, written by someone who loved this world.“Han Sooyoung.”She gazed down at me in silence.“You…”Just as I had read her Seolhwa, she had read mine.After a long hesitation, she spoke.“…Kim Dokja?”I understood the faint hope and despair in her question.So my answer had already been decided.“It’s been a while, Han Sooyoung.”

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.