Han Sooyoung couldn’t make sense of what had just happened before her eyes.‘What the hell is this.’She looked down at Cheon Inho, collapsed at her feet.Blood was pouring ceaselessly from the chest that had been run through by ‘Unbroken Conviction.’It was a wound beyond repair.Too much blood had already spread across the floor. Whether by the ‘Essence of the Elain Forest’ or anything else—no measure taken now could possibly bring him back.“You—why on earth.”The writer of ORV from another worldline, wearing Cheon Inho’s face.Han Sooyoung understood his cause, his desire to save the readers.“I told you… I’d make it work somehow.”This world was .Once a scenario begins, someone’s sacrifice is inevitable.‘Destruction’ was a fixed outcome, and that was why Han Sooyoung had chosen to bring things to a swift conclusion with minimal sacrifice.She knew it could be cruel to the characters.But if she left things as they were, this would be a round in which the tragedy grew larger; try to change the ending the wrong way, and you could trigger a catastrophe across every worldline.So once again Han Sooyoung made herself the villain.She drafted a roadmap to the ending with the least pain.Along the way, she planned to retrieve, with as little loss as possible, the souls of the possessed who had been drawn into the scenario, and send them back to their original worldlines.Everything had gone smoothly—until the man before her appeared.「You know this as a writer yourself, don’t you.」In her head, the words he’d left behind replayed and replayed.「What you’re doing isn’t ending the story. It’s giving up on it.」With a muffled ringing in her ears, Han Sooyoung drew a ragged breath.Why had he left those words and leapt in front of her?「I told you to try persuading her, right?」She hadn’t meant to kill him. If she had, she would have taken his head long ago.And yet, as though laying the rails for a fixed tragedy, ‘Unbroken Conviction’ pierced his chest.「Are you ready to be persuaded?」She tried several times to alter the sword’s path mid-swing, but her muscles refused to obey. As if the world itself were enforcing his death.‘No way.’The achromatic landscape that had unfolded earlier came to mind.What if that had been his ‘skill’?A skill that demanded plausibility as a price to create the event you wanted—if such a thing existed? And if, as the price for that plausibility, he had offered himself?「Han Sooyoung {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} knew someone who had been sacrificing themself in just this way.」Swaying on a wave of dizziness, Han Sooyoung slowly bent over the fallen Cheon Inho.She wanted to ask him before he died. Why he had done such a thing.Just then, Cheon Inho’s hand slipped out of his pocket with a soft thump. In his grasp was a lollipop of a shape she somehow recognized.Like someone who’d stumbled on an inexplicable sentence in the most random place, Han Sooyoung simply stared at the candy.She reached out, slowly.With a crackle, sparks jumped. A fable was spilling out from the lollipop he held.‘A fable?’Impossible. They had only just finished the third Main Scenario.Unless it was a special case like hers, no incarnation should have a ‘fable’ already—「“What are you doing, why aren’t you getting ready? Did you forget where we’re going today?”」Something she couldn’t comprehend was happening.It was unmistakably her words. Her voice.But why would this man have a fable related to her?「“Is this pizza?”」「“It’s chicken, idiot.”」「Today was the first outing for .」The voices flowing out were familiar. All of them voices she knew. Sentences she knew.「“Do we really have to eat at the Han River when it’s this cold?”」Her head grew more and more confused.「“Kim Dokja.”」「“Yeah?”」「“You haven’t been reading that much lately.”」A memory rose in her mind, vivid as day.She had certainly had that conversation with Kim Dokja.「“Ah, right. I should read it.”」An outing at the Han River, from some time ago.Huddled together with the party, she had talked with Kim Dokja about the ‘Annihilation Method.’ She’d asked him something about it, and—「“But, Kim Dokja.”」「“Yeah?”」「“In the third round of the Annihilation Method, there’s no such thing.”」Kim Dokja hadn’t been able to answer.「“Hey. Who the hell are you?”」Her heart slowly turned cold, her breath caught. She’d thought something was off from the very first time she saw him.Who on earth was this ‘Cheon Inho’?She knew he was the writer of ORV from another worldline, but too many things were off to dismiss it at that.「“If that’s an ‘Avatar,’ there’s a very easy way to check.”」With trembling fingers, Han Sooyoung reached for the lemon candy.「“You’re not the one who gets to read my novel.”」Like a wound breaking open and bleeding, the fable flowed.It was a story that even Han Sooyoung, who had written the ‘Annihilation Method,’ did not know.「And so, he walked toward his own origin.」A story that existed in the interlines of a sentence she herself had written—one no one had ever read.***Almost no one remembers the moment they were born.He was no exception.「Kim Dokja.」Only, people called him that, and he introduced himself that way too.Kim (family name). Dok (alone). Ja (son).Bearing the name his father had given him, he lived a life to match it.He ate alone, worked alone, slept alone.He had always done everything alone.Maybe that was why.When, for the first time, he wasn’t ‘alone,’ he heard something strange.「“Hey. Who the hell are you?”」Words from a companion he had trusted all along.From the person he thought might understand him better than anyone else in the world.She easily subdued him and threw him onto the cold floor.Then she told the others he was an ‘Avatar.’He couldn’t understand it.Hadn’t they just been eating together, laughing and chatting? Why say that to him out of the blue?The reason was simple.Because he hadn’t remembered a particular novel properly.Thinking it a trivial misunderstanding, he smiled as usual and said,「“Han Sooyoung. I’m sorry, but I really don’t remember well. I haven’t been reading the ‘Annihilation Method’ lately either…”」The woman’s dagger flashed through the air, and blood burst from his shoulder.His companions reproached the woman.They defended him, saying he wasn’t a fake. That Avatars didn’t bleed.Even so, the woman did not retreat.「“Cut off his head and you’ll know. Avatars keep moving even if you sever the neck.”」The moment his eyes met the woman’s, so full of certainty, he got goosebumps.And he thought,「Maybe I really am not ‘Kim Dokja.’」The memories of that day aren’t clear.Only that the wound hurt quite a bit.That despite being shallow, the bleeding wouldn’t stop.That he collapsed as he was.Those are the only facts that surface in fragments.「“Mr. Reader, are you okay?”」Even after that day, the party kept calling him ‘Kim Dokja.’But every time he heard the name, he felt himself growing farther from it.「“You just lost some memories because you’re exhausted. Please don’t worry too much.”」All through their consolation, he was confused.「What on earth have I forgotten?」He couldn’t know.People who have forgotten can’t remember what they’ve forgotten.But from the moment he realized he had ‘forgotten something,’ he began to change.With each passing day his complexion worsened, and even vivid memories seemed to leak away.He grew more and more afraid.「“Yoo Sangah-ssi, I’m not a fake.”」「“Yes, I know.”」A companion took his hand with a warm smile. But for some reason, that smile felt unfamiliar.It felt less like it was meant for him, and more like it had been set by chance on the empty seat where the ‘real Kim Dokja’ had once been.He slept longer and longer, and often heard the party’s voices in a foggy half-dream.「“Mr. Reader, can you sit up for a moment? If you keep lying down, your back will get wrecked.”」「“How about doing some manual therapy exercises with me.”」「“Is Ajusshi going to be okay like this? I’ll bring some fable packs.”」They didn’t interrogate him or corner him.They only spoke of a certain possibility.「“Heewon-ssi, did you hear Sooyoung-ssi’s plan?”」「“If Mr. Reader’s memories really split, and there really is a ‘real Mr. Reader’ elsewhere…”」「“Unni, do you think that’s possible?”」The companion who had first doubted him visited his hospital room as well. She came mostly in the deep of night.In the drowsy dark, he sometimes felt a hand drawing the comforter up.She would watch him for a long time in the dark, then slip quietly out of the room around daybreak.「“Food’s here. Kim Dokja.”」Sometimes, when he opened his eyes, a companion had brought him a meal.Wolfing it down in a savage hunger, he thought,Surely he must have eaten something like this a few times while progressing through the scenarios.So why didn’t he remember?「“Someone once said this.”」A man glared at him with a blunt face and said,「“Every human is amnesic.”」After saying that, the man stared at the clock on the hospital wall for a long time.He stared at the clock with the man. Watched the second hand move, then the minute hand.「“You don’t need to be something. What matters is what you want to become.”」He didn’t know if those words affected him. But the next day, when he woke, he said something strange to the party.「“I want to help you search for the ‘real Kim Dokja’ as well.”」「“Mr. Reader. Please don’t say it like that. There’s no such thing as real or fake. You are—”」Of course it wasn’t that he truly believed there was a ‘real one.’He simply wanted to know.If the ‘real Kim Dokja’ did not exist, then the fact that he was ‘real’ would naturally be proven.The talk that he might be an [Avatar], the talk that the ‘real Kim Dokja’ was still wandering worldlines, never having stepped off the ‘subway’ of the final scenario—Those absurd delusions would naturally vanish from their minds.「“Please include me in the plan.”」The journey of to regain the lost ‘Kim Dokja.’In that way, together with his companions, he crossed into the 1,865th worldline.Group regression, ‘Squid Harvest.’He didn’t accomplish anything great, but he watched his companions steadily carry out the scenarios.Watching them run scenarios like hell from the very beginning, he often felt something he couldn’t name.「“Wow, that’s the method Mr. Reader used.”」The companions worked in silence.As each scenario flowed, they each found the ‘Kim Dokja’ they were seeking.「“Ajusshi taught me this recipe.”」In every one of their moments, there was a ‘Kim Dokja’ he did not remember.「“Hyung… did he do all of this alone?”」Watching their stories, he naturally came to realize something.「This was not his story.」Whether he was real or fake—that wasn’t his decision to make.「“Mr. Reader. Are you okay? Stay back for a bit. Leave this to us.”」He was pitied.「“We can handle it ourselves this time.”」He was cared for.「“It’s our turn to give back.”」But even that, perhaps, wasn’t something that rightfully belonged to him.So a few years passed, and at last the party stood before the end of the world.He felt a certain premonition, and for the first time, spoke his true feelings.「“Another me might not want this. That story… it ended there…”」It was his last flailing—and a plea.Please don’t open it.Don’t open that door, the last car of the subway.Then the woman answered,「“Let’s go ask the other you.”」In that moment, he understood his role in this story.「“If this is the story you want…”」At last, the last car of the subway opened, and he came face-to-face with the sight he had feared most.「There was the Kim Dokja the party had been searching for.」Kim Dokja turned into a child.Kim Dokja, like him, losing his memories. But the moment he saw that Kim Dokja, he understood.That Kim Dokja was the ‘real Kim Dokja.’「“Ah… ah, I…”」Like a satellite pulled by a star’s gravity, his body moved toward Kim Dokja. The memories he had carried shattered into pieces and were drawn toward the Kim Dokja before his eyes.As he felt his body vanish, he thought,Then who was I?「“Mr. Reader!”」He was Kim Dokja.「“Kim Dokja!”」But he wasn’t the Kim Dokja this world wanted.「“Kim Dok…!”」In the final instant before his consciousness disappeared, he thought,「If I could be born again」A delusion as if he were the ‘real Kim Dokja,’ just like the party said.「I’d rather not be Kim Dokja.」He imagined a universe so far away it could never be reached in this world, and a nameless being born there.A life that no one in would recognize, with no relation whatsoever to Kim Dokja.「I want to have my own story.」There was the sound of something exploding, and in the next moment his consciousness shattered into fragments and scattered across the cosmos.But the largest shard, the core of his being, did not completely disperse in the end. It became a meteor.The meteor began a very long voyage. Crossing beyond the fringes of the worldlines again and again, it drifted toward the far side of a universe no one knew.How long did it travel like that?The meteor stopped.「There was a planet there, exactly as he had imagined it.」The meteor fell toward the planet and broke into even smaller pieces of soul. Then it entered the body of a newborn baby on the planet’s outskirts.「“Why isn’t our baby crying?”」A muffled voice reached him. He mustered the last of his strength and let out a weary wail.Someone gathered him up in a warm embrace.「“Oh thank heavens. He’s alive!”」Wrapped snugly in a swaddling cloth, he was laid upon a bed.Was it because he had lost all his memories?Or because the long voyage had exhausted him? He fell into a deep sleep at once.And when he awoke again, people called him by a name he had never heard before.「“Lee Hakhyeon. Your name is Lee Hakhyeon.”」His wish had finally come true.

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