“I…”I couldn’t answer right away.I was certainly not that “Cheon Inho.” The way I thought was different, the things I liked and hated were different.My soul was different.But could I really say I had nothing to do with that “Cheon Inho”?I possessed his body, and before I possessed it, I wrote sentences about him.I was the one who created “the villain Cheon Inho” with my own hands.Even if Han Sooyoung wrote the first draft, I had plenty of chances to change those sentences.If that’s the case, then maybe I—“You’re a different person. Why are you hesitating like that?”Jung Heewon knit her brows, as if she couldn’t understand.“No matter how I look at it, you’re not the same. I saw that other world too.”“……”“Your personality’s different, and your looks… This Cheon Inho is better-looking.”I had no idea what she was trying to say.“You said it yourself. ‘Another world.’ Then that means it’s a world that might as well not exist here, right? Like a world inside a novel.”A world inside a novel.“I only asked because I wanted to hear the set answer. That’s all. So tell me. Inho—are you the same person as the Cheon Inho from that world?”I snapped back to my senses.She had offered me her hand first. Not taking it would be rude.“I’m different from him. At least, that’s what I believe.”“Right?”But was that really enough?Was that alone something she could accept and move on from?“The Cheon Inho I believe in is the one standing in front of me.”As if she were [inciting] herself, Jung Heewon spoke.“So you too.”She took a step closer and drove the tip of her blade into the floor.“Think of the person in front of you as ‘Jung Heewon.’ Not the ‘Jung Heewon’ from the ‘future’ you know.”Only then did I realize why she had brought this up.「The Jung Heewon before my eyes is not the Jung Heewon of Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint.」The Jung Heewon who had been Kim Dokja’s sword.The Jung Heewon who had killed Cheon Inho.The one and only incarnation of the ‘demonic Judge of Fire,’ the guardian of .That Jung Heewon wasn’t here.Just as I was not “Cheon Inho,” she also wasn’t the “Jung Heewon” from the tales the disciples kept spouting.「In the 41st regression, there exists only a single Jung Heewon.」I nodded, sincerely.Jung Heewon smiled.“You’ll save me again, even if I fall off a bridge?”“As many times as it takes.”Letting out a small breath, she bent down to pick up a canteen from the floor and took a light sip.“This isn’t like me—talking about complicated stuff. Honestly, I don’t want to think hard right now. I like things simple.”It was true: the Jung Heewon I knew wasn’t one for speeches like this.In that sense, perhaps I had already met a Jung Heewon different from the main story.“I just want to cut down what’s in front of me, stab what I have to, and survive somehow. That’s all I want.”“For now, that’s more than enough. Just… do it by my side.”At that, she tilted her head at a faint angle and looked at me.“I might stab you by mistake.”“Then I’ll die.”Maybe she thought I was joking, because she laughed.“That won’t do. Help me so I don’t stab the wrong person.”“Of course. But—”Glancing slowly around the restaurant, I asked the question I’d been wanting to ask.“You didn’t already send one off, did you?”There was one more person in the restaurant besides us.More precisely, at Jung Heewon’s feet.***The man was still alive.Aside from looking like a homeless vagrant, there was nothing remarkable about him.Then again, at a time when everyone was essentially homeless, that hardly meant anything.“Is that the sniper you caught? There really was a sniper?”“There was.”The man, trussed up from head to toe, let out intermittent groans like he was trapped in a nightmare.“The gun was a toy, though.”I checked the man’s [Character Index].He didn’t have any impressive stats or traits, but one skill stood out.[Bullet Enhancement].A skill that boosts toy bullets to near live-round force. He must have been aiming at us with that.After I slapped his cheeks a few times, he flinched awake and started begging in a wail.“P-Please don’t kill me! Please!”“Which group are you with?”I slammed the pot on the floor down beside his skull with a bang and asked.Time to switch into the villain “Cheon Inho” mode for a moment. One way or another, he had tried to snipe us.I was wondering if I should at least pretend to torture him when he blurted out, almost convulsing,“B-Beggars’—the Beggars’ Sect!”That was easier than expected.But… the Beggars’ Sect?Reading my expression, Jung Heewon asked,“You know that group?”I tilted my head in a so-so way.There isn’t a web novelist alive who doesn’t know the Gae Bang (Beggars’ Sect).It’s the name of a faction that shows up all the time in wuxia—one of the “Nine Schools and One Gang.”The Beggars’ Sect is the “one gang” among those.At least, that’s how it is in your usual wuxia settings.The problem was, the “Beggars’ Sect” doesn’t appear in the ORV I know.“Where’s your group based?”“W-Well…”Steel whispered—shrrk—as Jung Heewon drew her blade at my side.“I-It’s too spread out to give a precise location! But the main stronghold is around Seoul Station!”“Who’s your group’s leader?”“Lord Cheon Gae!”Beggars’ Sect. Cheon Gae. Seoul Station.The first two were never described in detail in ORV, but Seoul Station was different.If my memory was right, Kim Dokja had made exactly one remark about it.「Even that’s cute compared to the ones at Chungmuro… or at Seoul Station.」That was the only line in all of ORV that mentioned “Seoul Station.”I tried to recall any other notes, but nothing came to mind.Because I’d only left it as a mention without ever building out the details.In other words, it was something Han Sooyoung never passed on to me.I thought for a moment, then decided to fish for more information.“Why were you monitoring us?”“L-Lord Cheon Gae ordered us to watch that route to expand our branch’s influence! That’s all, I swear! We had no intention to harm you!”Judging by his face, he seemed to be telling the truth. I hesitated, then glanced at the cords at his waist.Three knots hanging from his belt.Well, look at that.Staring at those knots, I asked,“Can you swear?”***Only after he repeatedly swore an [Oath of Existence] did we let him go.The terms were simple:「No matter what happens, do not report anything about us to your leader.」As he left, he kept bowing our way, repeating his thanks.[You are currently under contracts of ‘Oath of Existence’ with multiple targets.][The more targets bound by an ‘Oath of Existence,’ the weaker the Oath’s force becomes.]A penalty I hadn’t known about.So that’s why the main story didn’t use [Oath of Existence] very often.Watching his back recede, Jung Heewon asked,“Are you sure it’s okay to let him go?”[The constellation ‘Abyssal Black Flame Dragon’ is shocked by your doormat antics.]That damned “pushover,” again.“Do you think my judgment was wrong?”“I think it’s just like you.”“I did have a reason to spare him.”Chances were, that group had already gained access to [Group Chat].Meaning, the moment he was caught by Heewon, he likely passed info to nearby members.In other words, one way or another, information about us had already reached them.“They’re not an ordinary group. Their internal pecking order is already in place.”“Pecking order?”I explained the knots tied at his waist.In wuxia, the Beggars’ Sect is a “beggars’ gang.”They show rank with the “knots” at their belt: ordinary members have one knot; a branch master has three; a hall master has five, and so on.“He had three knots. That means he was at the branch-master level.”“What’s a branch master?”“Uh… in company terms, think assistant manager or manager.”“Not that high, then?”“Right. But the important thing is, they have ranks.”As far as I knew, the Beggars’ Sect had up to nine knots in total.He was three knots, which meant there were six levels above him.It was astounding that they’d formed a group that large this early in the scenarios.“Maybe someone who likes wuxia started it?”“Could be that, or—”It could be a constellation related to the martial world.Either way, they weren’t someone we’d benefit from antagonizing right now.Above all, if even “Kim Dokja” had compared them to Chungmuro, then we had to assume power on the level of the Ten Evils at minimum.Sure, we had Jung Heewon—but her true strength shines more against monsters than humans.“What if they bring a whole crew? He swore, but you never know.”“If they come, all the better.”“Huh?”I had extended goodwill.If they still came to attack us, that would make it an unmistakable act of war.“Then we can kill without restraint.”I wondered if that was too grim, but Heewon actually smiled.“I like the sound of that.”It felt like we had just formed a rather savage duo.I answered with a wry smile.“Then let’s head out too. You said Yoo Joonghyuk went north?”“Right—there’s one thing I didn’t tell you.”She scratched her cheek and added,“That Yoo Joonghyuk guy said one more thing before he left.”I could believe it. He looks cool on the outside, but he’s the type to linger.“‘The current Cheon Inho can’t be acknowledged as Cheon Inho. But—’”“But?”“‘If he recruits one /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ person as a companion, I’ll consider acknowledging him as “Cheon Inho.”’”Not “I acknowledge,” but “I’ll consider acknowledging”—what the hell was that supposed to mean?“‘The Maniac Butcher’… he said you’d know who that is.”“The Maniac Butcher?”A sentence flashed in my mind.There was an incarnation in ORV with that epithet.「Even ‘the Maniac Butcher,’ one of the Top 100 of Ways of Survival, ultimately evolved from ‘the One Who Crouches.’」Yet, surprisingly, that person was mentioned only once and then forgotten. Whether they lived or died afterward, not even a line.One of the “Top 100 of Ways of Survival,” and still…So this, too, must have been something Han Sooyoung never passed along.And now Yoo Joonghyuk was looking for that “Maniac Butcher”…Things were getting interesting.“You know them?”“Well, I’ve heard of them.”I was about to say they weren’t someone I knew, when a faint pain throbbed in my head again.[A new skill is activating.]A new skill?「‘The Maniac Butcher’ was born at ‘Seoul Station’ that day.」A thought rose, bracketed in unmistakable quotation marks.Since when had this started?Goosebumps crept slowly up my forearms.This wasn’t a sentence I recalled “specially,” nor was it one that originally appeared in ORV.It wasn’t a “setting” I had devised, nor a line I would write later.[Exclusive Skill, ‘Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World’ is activating.]It was the story Kim Dokja loved more than anyone else.They were the sentences of Ways of Survival.

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