Kim Dokja didn’t speak for a moment in response to my words. A strange feeling came over me.Had there ever been a time when Kim Dokja felt so unfamiliar?He had always been the familiar protagonist.The one who represented the readers, who defeated villains, who toyed with enemies through overwhelming information, who sacrificed himself to protect his companions.The man who gathered five fables to become a constellation, who collected the beginning, rise, turn, and conclusion of the “grand fables” to see the end of the scenario.The man who chose eternity to protect the world, and became the “Oldest Dream.”He was speaking now.“Can you dream whenever you want to dream?”For a moment, I was speechless.Could anyone dream only when they wanted to?When I shook my head, Kim Dokja said,“It’s the same for me.”The phrase resurfaced in my mind—“an omniscient ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) yet powerless god.” The words Kim Dokja once used to describe the young “Oldest Dream.”“I am not someone who only dreams the dreams I want. I simply dream all the dreams of the universe.”As he said this, Kim Dokja turned his head and gazed out at the snowy plain.I too was looking at the same landscape.For an instant, I was afraid.Was Kim Dokja really seeing the same landscape as me?How many countless years must have passed for Kim Dokja since the day he first became the “Oldest Dream”?The Kim Dokja before my eyes—was he truly the Kim Dokja I remembered?“You don’t need to bear that burden.”I was speaking without realizing it.“That’s why Han Sooyoung wrote the novel, isn’t it? To let everyone dream the dream you dreamed. To release you from this eternity.”Kim Dokja nodded gently.“But right now, I’m the only one looking at this ‘world.’”This world.He must surely mean the 41st regression of the Annihilation Method.Kim Dokja asked me,“Do you think it’s better for this world to disappear?”In the world of , fables that no one reads vanish.Like an incarnation dying alone, abandoned by the gaze of any star.“I…”It wasn’t an easy question to answer.If a world is destined for tragedy, is it better that it never began?After much thought, I gave my answer.“If it were really just fiction, I wouldn’t know. But it’s a world that truly exists. If it’s a world fated for ruin, where the total weight of sorrow outweighs joy—”“Better if it doesn’t exist?”I couldn’t bring myself to nod.Even if the end was tragedy, surely that world also held many forms of joy and sorrow.Someone might still find their own happiness in that perishing world.I knew. I knew it well.But there was still something I had to say.“Someone died. Because of this story, people have died.”Readers who once stood outside the story had been dragged into it. Even now, I couldn’t forget the faces of Jeong Jaewoo and Master Sergeant Jeong Munho as they died.Then Kim Dokja replied,“But someone may have lived because of this story.”It felt like a bucket of cold water had been dumped over my head.The Kim Dokja speaking those words was without doubt someone on the “lived” side.He had survived because he read Han Sooyoung’s Annihilation Method.“Still, should this story never have begun?”I couldn’t answer.No one could.To a boy who had grown up through that misfortune, who could say, “It should have been you who died”?I thought of Han Sooyoung in the 1,863rd regression, the one who wrote Annihilation Method.The Dokkaebi King had said: even if she didn’t write it, the story would still begin. But he never said how it would begin.And Han Sooyoung knew of a story in which “Kim Dokja” could most certainly survive.She wrote it, and Kim Dokja read it. Yoo Joonghyuk lived it. The three of them met.A world where the beginning, the middle, and the end locked together. A circular universe where one could not say which existed first.Before this inevitable chain of cause and effect biting its own tail, I could no longer tell where to start in judging right and wrong.When I lifted my head, I saw Kim Dokja’s face.“Some stories are sad, some are fun. There are stories that make your chest ache, and stories where you can’t bear to wait for the next chapter.”Like stories embroidered across the distant sky that only he could see, Kim Dokja gazed endlessly upward.“Are sad stories bad, and happy stories good? What about stories that are both sad and happy? Is a story meaningless if its destruction is already determined?”I listened blankly to his words.“If a universe is born as a tragedy from the beginning, would it have been better never to exist?”At last I began to understand a little of what Kim Dokja was saying.Perhaps it was not only the story of .The universe I had lived in was the same.No one in the world knew the birth or end of the universe. Even in a world without scenarios, people suffered. They died in wars or famines, hated and killed one another. People rejoiced and grieved, despaired and sought hope.And all met their own end.What difference was there between that universe and this one? To whom could we hold accountable for the sin of the universe’s birth? Was it even possible to demand such an account?As if in answer, Kim Dokja said,“We are all within ruin. Life and death are nothing but stories within it. Like a brief starlight flashing in the vast universe.”I knew what he meant.But I was too much an ordinary human to accept it.I feared death. I hated sorrow. I feared losing someone. That was why I wanted to run away.From the coming destruction. From the truth that this universe, , everything—nothing is eternal.“There is no story that doesn’t end.”Unlike me, Kim Dokja accepted and understood that truth. To him, the world was only a story.Just a story.Whether joyful or sorrowful, all of it was only story to him.He had read stories, and was reading them still. That was how he existed.Perhaps for a span of time far beyond anything I could imagine.“Are you… really the Kim Dokja I know?”Maybe I wanted Kim Dokja to lie to me.I wanted him to still be the protagonist of this story.To smile that familiar grin, to promise he would somehow solve it all.To tell me: let’s see the end of this scenario together.“If that’s what you think of me.”My stomach lurched. Was it dizziness? Though Kim Dokja stood distinctly on the snowy plain, somehow he appeared blurred.I felt the darkness buried deep in my mind writhing awake.I staggered, and asked,“Why did I come here? Why… why did the other readers, why did I?”Kim Dokja did not answer.He only gazed at me with that same sorrowful smile as the first time.I couldn’t put it into words, but the moment I saw it, I knew.My question was one Kim Dokja could not answer.“You can’t tell me?”There could be many reasons. Perhaps plausibility. Perhaps the peculiarity of this space.From the start, there was something strange about this “snowfield.”Whenever I came here, I felt as if I had stepped inside a fairy tale.And because fairy tales had their own manner of speech, I too would end up speaking like a character in one.A world where precise conversation could not exist. A place where everything was metaphor and symbol.I remembered now that this “snowfield” was a metaphor for the “between the lines.”Nothing written, yet all truth revealed.Kim Dokja said,“Every story I know is a story you also know.”“…The one before me now isn’t really you, is it?”Kim Dokja smiled silently.Thinking on it, it was nonsense.Kim Dokja was the “Oldest Dream,” scattered into fragments of the universe.Even if he had returned, how could I, a mere being, truly face and converse with something of that magnitude?Kim Dokja must be meeting me through some loophole.In a vague voice, Kim Dokja answered,“We are the ones who create fables, but at the same time, fables are writing us. The answer you seek—you will know once you complete your fable.”“What answer did you find? You already read all of Annihilation Method, didn’t you?”“I both read it all, and did not read it all.”I stared, dumbfounded.All stories were already written, and were being written simultaneously.If that was Kim Dokja’s answer, then perhaps I too still had something left to say.“Earlier, you asked me if a story with predetermined destruction is meaningless.”Kim Dokja nodded. I looked down at the snow by his feet and said,“I don’t know the answer to your question yet. But at least I know one thing.”Three Ways to Survive had written the tragedy of the 41st regression. That this world would end in misfortune, one of the most horrific among Yoo Joonghyuk’s countless regressions.“I will stop this world’s destruction.”I thought of the readers who had entered this world. Uncle Dansu, Gyeong Sain, Killer King, Literature Girl64, Ye Hyunwoo, Gu Seona, and Kim Kyungsik.“I’ll see this world’s ending.”At the same time, I thought of Jeong Huiwon, who lost her father, and Yoo Joonghyuk, whose suffering had eroded even his pain after endless regressions.“Even if it means changing more worldlines, I’ll struggle to the very end.”I understood the heart of Han Sooyoung, who had no choice but to write Annihilation Method to save Kim Dokja.Perhaps my choice would bring greater tragedy to the larger universe. Some would condemn me, point fingers. And maybe they would be right.But I was not the “Oldest Dream,” and so I could not dream of or worry over such vast universes.All I could see was the world before my eyes. The people reading this story, the people living it.Just, the fragile happiness flickering before me.“Cheon Inho.”Kim Dokja spoke.“No… Hak Hyeon.”Unconsciously, I raised my head.Kim Dokja was there.The Kim Dokja I knew.The man who loved stories more than anyone else was speaking to me.“Whatever it is, this time, you make it a story where you’re happy.”***[Exiting from the “Snowfield.”]When I opened my eyes, what I saw first was the sky of Seoul Station. And there were several changes for me.[ has noticed your existence.][Your skill “□□” is now subject to plausibility restrictions.][Until your qualifications are fulfilled, some functions of the skill will be sealed.][The “Last Wall” has recorded the “Losses” you have collected.][Current collected Losses: 2][The “Last Wall” acknowledges your achievements.][Your exclusive skill is evolving!][Each time the number of collected “Losses” increases, you will gain additional benefits.]……[You have accomplished an achievement that does not exist.][A new fable of yours is being created.]Feeling the fullness of fable power welling up, I lifted my gaze to the night sky above Seoul Station.Stars and darkness mingled across the night sky. Watching that scattering of light, I found my mouth open without realizing it.This world was written, and not yet written.The starlight above had traveled billions of light-years to reach here.The most brilliant star among them may already have perished long ago. The brightest star of this moment—its light may not yet have reached me.Starlight that surely exists, but is not yet recorded in this sky.Like Kim Dokja said, perhaps the end of this universe was already determined.And yet, this story had only just begun, and I still had sentences left to write.Therefore, I would write them.[Fable, “The Recorder of Vanishing Things,” has been born.]“This world has not perished yet.”Despite all that had happened, I still loved stories.

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