“Are you… Kim Dokja?”I repeated Ye Hyunwoo’s question in my head.Well, if it was sharp-witted Ye Hyunwoo, it wouldn’t have been hard to notice.He was probably thinking something like this:“It’s possible another incarnation posed as Kim Dokja—the same way ‘Kim Dokja’s Representative’ does.”And he’d pointed to me as the culprit.“I’m not sure what you mean.”I shrugged. Just in case, I was ready to trigger [Agitation] at any time—but unexpectedly, Ye Hyunwoo didn’t use [Lie Detection].“I see.”He only nodded with a calm face.I was wondering at this uncharacteristic looseness from him when a creak sounded from the back stalls.“Told you—wasn’t him.”With that familiar voice, an old man with a long-stem pipe stepped out. Almost at the same time, the door of the next stall opened and the Iron-Club Woman poked her head out.“That’s strange. My intuition insisted it was that guy.”“That intuition of yours is wrong every time.”“What are you talking about? I’m the one who figured out the ‘Secretive Plotter’ is Yoo Joonghyuk from another worldline.”“At first you said he was a future Kim Dokja. Think I forgot how you quietly switched it?”The two chatting were readers who’d cleared the Theater Dungeon with me.The Long-Pipe Elder and the Iron-Club Woman.If memory served, the Long-Pipe Elder had read ORV six times, the Iron-Club Woman eight.With an apologetic smile, Ye Hyunwoo said, “Sorry. These two insisted on meeting you alone, Inho-ssi.”As if waiting for his cue, the pipe-smoking elder offered his hand first.“Nice to meet you. I’m Kim Gyeongsik. Remember the message I sent you before?”“I do. But your manner of speaking’s different from back then.”This was the man who’d sent me a whisper in the Theater Dungeon lobby.I was sure he’d used honorifics at the time.Scratching the back of his head, Kim Gyeongsik added, “Ah, I talk like an old man when I’m being an old man in here.”Not exactly what I’d call “normal.”Pushing past Kim Gyeongsik, the Iron-Club Woman introduced herself too.“I’m Gu Seona. Not my real name—the one I use here.”Simple self-intro. For some reason she reminded me of Jung Heewon.“Pleasure. I’m Cheon Inho.”“Cheon Inho…? Wow, you got that trash build this strong?”Trash build, huh.With a light sigh, Gu Seona said, “We really should’ve recruited you at the theater. You’re the only one of us who made it to the rooftop, right?”“I did, but I wasn’t the one who beat the boss.”“Then who did? You? The Kim Dokja you said you saw? Or…?”“I passed out right after, so I didn’t see clearly.”“Seriously? Not lying?”Sensing she was about to get relentless, Ye Hyunwoo cut in at just the right moment.“Seona-ssi, don’t push Inho-ssi too hard. He’s not the type to lie.”“So he understands—this one’s just a menace,” Kim Gyeongsik said.Gu Seona frowned. “What? It’s not like I asked for state secrets. We can share intel within the same Apostles’ Association, can’t we?”Same association.Looked like these two were members of the “7 Apostles’ Association,” just like Ye Hyunwoo.And me? I’d somehow ended up an Apostle too. I’d given Ye Hyunwoo the association’s countersign at the start; it’d be awkward to deny it now.With a small sigh, Ye Hyunwoo said, “Sharing intel is good, but that’s not why I gathered you here in advance.”True. We could exchange greetings down on the Chungmuro platform anytime.If he’d arranged this little meeting ahead of time, he had another agenda.And that “other agenda” was probably—“Because of the next scenario?” I asked.“Yes. Exactly.”Called it.Looking at me, then at Kim Gyeongsik and Gu Seona in turn, Ye Hyunwoo asked, “You all know what the Fourth Main Scenario is, right?”“Capture the Flag, isn’t it?”Barring upheaval in the flow of the main scenarios, the next one was set.Flag Conquest.Using Seoul’s subway stations as bases, we’d wage war to capture each other’s stations and flags.The opening act of the full-scale group competition that would lead into the “Absolute Throne War.”Ye Hyunwoo spoke again. “Everyone here is among the ‘strongest’ readers around Chungmuro.”I looked over Kim Gyeongsik and Gu Seona once more.Both were suppressing their auras, but even at a glance, their overall stats looked higher than Dansoo ahjussi’s or Gyeong Sein’s.Gu Seona asked, “There are incarnations stronger than us, though, right? I’m not confident I can beat Gong Pildu one-on-one yet. Same with Lee Jihye or Jung Heewon—we won’t know till we fight.”“As you know, in this world, information is part of combat power,” said Ye Hyunwoo.“You’re thinking long term,” she said.“I am.”Even if readers were weaker than the characters for now, they would inevitably gorge on fortuitous encounters and grow stronger.Besides, they had proven their survivability by living through the third scenario.Out of those, the four with the strongest overall potential—“You want us to pick a ‘representative’ among us?” Gu Seona said.Ye Hyunwoo nodded. “Yes. More precisely…”There was a reason he’d brought this up somewhere without any named characters.“We’re going to pick a ‘king.’”He intended to elect a leader for the readers, here and now.***To jump to the conclusion: we did not reach a neat agreement. There were several reasons, but Gu Seona’s answer was the most decisive.“You know that if we elect a representative, they’ll be able to force other members, right?”“I know.”“No matter if we’re in the same association, handing the role to someone else feels sketchy. Honestly, we barely know each other. We’re not enemies, but we’re not at the point where we’ll bet our lives on each other either.”Ask the other readers and they’d probably say much the same.In short, the feeling was:If there’s going to be a representative, I want it to be me.“Let’s just compete fairly. As long as we don’t harm each other, whichever one of us becomes the station’s representative—by any method—we acknowledge them.”Surprisingly, Ye Hyunwoo accepted that without a fight, and we returned to the platform in heavy silence.If we were already at this level of nerves, the fourth scenario wouldn’t be easy.When the platform neared, Ye Hyunwoo, walking beside me, spoke in a low voice.“Inho-ssi.”“Yes?”“You said earlier you’re not Kim Dokja.”I wondered where that came from—when I saw an unreadable smile on his face.“I hope you keep not being Kim Dokja.”A chill slid down my heart.As expected, he was almost certain that the ‘Kim Dokja’ who appeared on the rooftop had been me.I answered with a brazen grin. “Of course. I am absolutely not Kim Dokja.”He watched me quietly, then said, “Hearing you say that… you sound exactly like the real Kim Dokja.”“Come on, I’m Cheon Inho. I’ve got too much villain-face to be the protagonist.”“Right. Please keep it that way. Otherwise… I might end up in a bit of trouble.”Trouble?I was about to ask what he meant when, a few steps ahead, my eyes met those of Literature Girl 64, who was carrying mole-dog meat.“Ah.”She gave me her usual cool look and asked, “You’re not hurt, are you.”Literature Girl 64.A reader who had read my short stories—me, the author Lee Hakhyeon.Looking at her, soot smudged across her cheeks from the hard fighting, I could understand why Han Sooyoung had been so desperate to find Kim Dokja.If Literature Girl 64 were in danger, I’d save her no matter what it took.Because she was proof that I had once survived as Lee Hakhyeon.“Thanks to you. How’s Killer King?” I asked.“From the way he’s starting to mutter in his sleep, he’ll wake soon. More importantly… your vibe has changed a little.”“Huh?”She peered into my face for a long moment, then shook her head and walked past.“My mistake.”What had changed?Had my face gotten a bit more handsome?I leaned toward the subway screen door to check my reflection.A sudden throb hammered my head—and a strange memory surfaced.“Sometimes when I take selfies in the bathroom, I think I’m not that bad-looking.”…What?That sentence hadn’t come from my thoughts.I stood there blankly, touching my face in the reflection. It was definitely the usual narrow-eyed Cheon Inho.But… did I actually look a bit more handsome? Just my imagination?“They say the new scenario’s coming soon, yeah?”Snatches of conversation drifted by from passing incarnations.“What scenario?”“Electing a station rep, apparently.”Rumors about the scenario had begun to spread.[20 minutes remain until the start of the Main Scenario.]As soon as we returned to Chungmuro Station, Ye Hyunwoo called everyone to the center of the platform.The number of survivors at Chungmuro was around a hundred.One by one, I used [Reader Comment Overview] on all of them to tally how many readers were still alive.Twelve.Far fewer than I’d seen in the Theater Dungeon lobby.I didn’t need to ask what had happened to the ones who weren’t here.“Inho-ssi.”Gyeong Sein and Dansoo ahjussi had noticed it too; they stood with faces heavy with grief.“Don’t worry. It’ll be okay.”What would be okay?If you die here and turn into a little Kim Dokja, get dragged into “Kim Dokja’s Representative’s” theater—was that okay?“No matter what happens, I’ll protect you two.”I didn’t even know what I was saying as I gripped their shoulders hard and thought:Whatever happens, I will protect at least these people.“We’ll begin the emergency meeting now.”Ye Hyunwoo got right to the point. The gist was simple.We’d all worked hard to get through the scenarios so far. From here on out, we were entering true “group survival.”And to do that, we first had to choose a representative for this area.His smooth speech flowed on and on, then he paused to take a breath, glanced around, and abruptly changed the tone of his voice.“But before we get into the main topic, there’s something I need to confess to you all.”I realized who he was looking at. He was looking at the readers.[The incarnation, ‘Ye Hyunwoo,’ activates ‘Lie Detection.’]“I am an ‘Apostle.’”At the unexpected declaration, a few readers gasped.Most incarnations, not knowing what “Apostle” meant, only looked puzzled.“An Apostle?”“It means I know this world’s future.”[‘Lie Detection’ confirms the statement is true.]The platform erupted into chaos.“W-what do you mean by that?”“How can you know the future?”Ye Hyunwoo answered, “Those who’ve been with me since the beginning of the scenario know. How I’ve been carrying out each stage.”Some incarnations nodded—the Building Owners Union who had gone through the Chungmuro scenarios alongside him.“It’s true he was odd. He was catching bugs the moment things started.”“Yeah. We’d all be dead in Scenario Two without him. Right, Pildu-sir?”From the center of the platform, stroking Max, Gong Pildu said, “Hyunwoo did great things. The boy definitely knows information from the future.”At even Gong Pildu’s endorsement, people murmured at one another.How could that boy know the future? What was an Apostle? And so on.Exactly the confusion Ye Hyunwoo intended.To the panicking crowd, he spoke evenly: “The reason I know the future is simple. I read the Revelation.”“Revelation?”“Revelation is a book that contains this world’s story.”[‘Lie Detection’ confirms the statement is true.]As if to sweep aside their confusion, he walked slowly toward the center of the platform.“I’ve wrestled with whether to share this information. But now—I think I must.”I caught on to his design.Right now, this world was the 41st iteration of the “Law of Extermination.”This was a world entirely different from the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint we knew.Because of the readers, the world had twisted; as the price of that distortion, some scenarios had become harder than even the third iteration.So Ye Hyunwoo had decided—“I can’t keep watching innocent people die.”—to recreate the method used by the villains and prophets of Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint.“I will share everything I know from the Revelation and save all of you. I will protect you—no matter what.”[‘Lie Detection’ confirms the statement is true.]To reveal the existence of “Apostles” to the world—and to reveal what the Revelation really was.[The Constellation, ‘Bald Militia Leader’ is shocked by the existence of the ‘Revelation.’][The Constellation, ‘Two-Timing Expert’ doubts such a record could exist.][The Constellation, ‘Mouse Who Eats Fingernails’ hums darkly.][The Constellation, ‘King Heungmu’ looks intrigued.][The Constellation, ‘Last Hero of Hwangsanbeol’ shows eyes that say the inevitable has come.][The Constellation, ‘Abyssal Black Flame Dragon’ reports this fact to .]……[The Administration Bureau begins deliberating on probability compliance.]With this, the constellations who had grown bored and drifted would turn their gaze back to the peninsula’s story.And with this, this world would grow a little closer to the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint we knew.“Allow me to introduce myself again. My name is Ye Hyunwoo. I have read the Revelation fifty times, and I remember almost all of it.”And in this new world of Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, the role Ye Hyunwoo wanted was obvious.[‘Representative Election’ begins in 1 minute.]From a distance, Ye Hyunwoo was looking my way.“I hope you keep not being Kim Dokja.”Only now did I understand why he’d said that.“I want to become the representative of Chungmuro Station.”What he wanted now… was to become this world’s “Kim Dokja.”

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