Ji Eunyu once said to me:

“Writer, your sentences are very clean. There’s no excess.”

When I first heard that, I didn’t think it was a compliment.

“I just… don’t have confidence in long sentences.”

A writer who couldn’t do elegant descriptions, nor surge forward with sweeping complex sentences.

Even so, Ji Eunyu praised my awkward lines with her graceful way of speaking.

“No, that’s not it. Do you know how hard it is to choose only the necessary words? Sometimes, a sentence becomes much better just by removing a few unnecessary words or particles. But that’s harder than you think.”

Ji Eunyu said:

Cut it.

Even if it seems necessary, cut it. Think about it, then cut it again. Look again, and cut more. Just cut it anyway. A good sentence stands on that firm empty space.

A wonderful piece of advice.

But anyone who has written even a little knows it’s not easy to remove something. Even removing a single particle, a single comma, is hard.

Probably because erasing something you spent time writing is painful.

And the empty space created by deleting a sentence feels different from a space that was originally empty. As if the ghost of the erased sentence lingers faintly above the blank.

Sometimes, while deleting lines, I wondered:

Perhaps it’s not that I don’t want to erase the sentence. Maybe the sentence itself is begging me not to erase it.

Just like right now.

[Tale Fragment, ‘House That Is Not a Brick House’, rejects your touch!]

The moment I touched the tale fragment, sparks burst. A shock like a stopped heartbeat slammed into my chest, and I drooled like someone electrocuted.

“What are you thinking?!”

“It’s sparking! Stop!”

Gyeong Sein and Uncle Dansoo rushed over to support me.

But I couldn’t stop. No matter how I thought about it, this was the only method.

“I’ve found the brick.”

“What? Really?”

The distant explosions were getting closer. “Wolf Who Likes Red Hoods” was smashing every building in his path as he charged forward.

And in front of him, barely ahead, was Red Riding Hood Yu Joonghyuk.

“Kim Dokja—!”

There was no time.

I grabbed the tale fragment again.

The tale fragment was speaking:

“I am not a brick house.”

Only now did I truly understand how hard Ji Eunyu’s job had been.

Changing something already written is not easy. What is written is read, and what is read is remembered by those who read it. Memory becomes the foundation of reality.

Therefore, rewriting a story is the same as rewriting reality.

Tztztztztz—

I never imagined it would be this hard to alter even a single tale fragment.

Every time the fragment trembled in my hand, sparks shot out.

[Your ‘Fourth Tale’ has fully blossomed.]

That was when the message appeared.

[Tale, ‘One Who Rewrites Fate’, begins its story.]

“One Who Rewrites Fate.”

This was the new tale I obtained together with the Demon King of Salvation.

[Your understanding of the tale, ‘One Who Rewrites Fate’, is low.]

[You gain a slight resistance to plausibility backlash.]

To my surprise, the tale granted a degree of immunity to plausibility backlash.

As the sparks became tolerable, [Sentence Reinforcement] shone once again.

[Lower Skill, ‘Sentence Reinforcement’, activates.]

[You receive the effect of the tale, ‘Recorder of Things That Will Vanish’.]

[Your trait ‘Tale Repair’ blossoms!]

The fragment’s violent resistance gradually weakened.

[Target is a ‘low-grade tale fragment’.]

[Would you like to modify this tale fragment?]

As I placed my hand completely over it, the lines written within the tale came into sharp focus. The years layered on the story since its creation flowed vividly into me.

“I am not a brick house.”

I looked back at the inn “Crane and Fox.”

I had thought it strange from the beginning.

Killer King and the others had insisted this house wasn’t a brick house. Probably because the tale itself kept insisting so.

But at least to me—

[The tale fragment has failed to persuade you.]

This house was a brick house.

The tale fragment trembled.

Still gripping it tightly, I reached toward the sentences rising in my mind.

Kim Dokja had said there was no scenario that could not be cleared.

“Destruction Method” had said this world was made of tales.

Clutching the fragment, I persuaded it—or rather, I [Agitated] it.

“You are…”

I stripped away the history layered onto it. I removed the words written on the fragment. Removed “not,” removed “am not,” removed the gap between the words.

Removing, removing, removing—until only one clean sentence remained.

Revealing the original, unstained form of the tale fragment beneath years of distortion.

“…a brick house.”

In the next moment, the fragment melted in a bright flash.

From the melting fragment emerged the shining raw core of the tale.

“I am a brick house.”

The core spoke:

“I am a brick house.”

I nodded and quietly pressed the fragment into the wall.

[Tale Fragment, ‘Brick House’, begins its story.]

This world was made of tales. And tales were made of tale fragments.

The smallest particle capable of changing the world.

The moment that particle embedded itself into the wall, reality changed.

Tztztztztz—

The wooden interior of the inn rippled like waves. The old wooden walls transformed into solid, tightly packed, orange-colored bricks.

Everyone stared with their mouths open.

Cha Yerin closed her eyes as if listening to the tale, while Gyeong Sein and Uncle Dansoo touched the brick walls with wonder.

“It—it’s a brick house! It really became a brick house!”

“How in the world—”

Killer King nodded as if he had expected this. Ye Hyeonwoo, startled, turned to me as if to ask how I had done it.

“The Recycling Center is a world made of old tales.”

The background of this Event Scenario was “The Three Little Pigs.”

For the tale to be reproduced, a brick house had to exist.

But this world had no bricks.

“So of course the ‘brick’ would also be made [N O V E L I G H T] of a tale.”

From the start, what we needed wasn’t a physical brick—but the tale of a brick.

“Close the door!”

The wolf pack was already at the doorstep. Yu Joonghyuk was not inside yet.

As I shut the brick house door, I shouted:

“Yu Joonghyuk! The chimney!”

Through the narrowing door gap, I saw the child Yu Joonghyuk nod.

Slam—

Something slammed repeatedly into the brick house the moment the door closed. Then something like a flying squirrel ran across the roof.

A moment later, the child Yu Joonghyuk shot out of the fireplace beneath the chimney, covered in soot.

“Kim Dokja—!”

Ignoring Yu Joonghyuk’s outrage, I yelled to the others:

“Boil water in the hearth! Quickly!”

“The Three Little Pigs” was only beginning.

Soon the cauldron in the chimney hearth began to bubble.

[The constellation, ‘Rat Who Eats Fingernails’, looks forward to what comes next.]

[The constellation, ‘Primordial Cow’, is delighted by this rare reenactment.]

[The constellation, ‘Pig Who Died First’, says their heart is pounding for the first time in a while.]

Outside, a fierce whirlwind was blasting against us. The wolves were inhaling with all their might.

[As if this pathetic house can stop me—!]

In the original, the wolf blew down the first pig’s straw house. Then the second pig’s wooden house. But the youngest pig’s brick house was different.

Kugugugugugu—

A violent gust slammed the house. Then a second, third, fourth time.

The wind speed was high enough to make the brick house tremble dangerously.

Each time it shook, I whispered to the tale fragment:

“You are a brick house.”

“I am a brick house.”

[Tale Fragment, ‘Brick House’, becomes sturdier.]

[The constellation, ‘Wolf Who Likes Red Hoods’, is shocked!]

I could feel the agitation of the wolves beyond the wall.

[How did they build a brick house?!]

Only now were they realizing something was wrong.

[Impossible… that tale should have been impossible to find.]

I had expected this.

Surely, in the normal scenario path, the “Brick House” tale fragment was not meant to be obtained this way.

What I had used was essentially a loophole.

Just like when Kim Dokja impersonated the Revolutionary in the “Revolutionary Scenario.”

Technically, I had modified the “House That Is Not a Brick House” to turn it into a “Brick House.”

[A few constellations ask if that method was really possible.]

[A constellation who has not yet revealed their modifier nods at your solution.]

A constellation who had not revealed their modifier.

As far as I knew, only one constellation had ever sent messages in that form: the Demon King of Salvation.

But the Demon King of Salvation could not send indirect messages right now.

So who was it?

Perhaps the sender, like the Demon King of Salvation, was…

Dududududu—

Something ran across the brick roof. As expected, the wolf incarnations had begun to move.

The “Wolf Who Likes Red Hoods” shouted:

[Stop, you idiots! Don’t move recklessly!]

But the wolves did not stop.

[Evaluating reenactment conditions for ‘Stageification’ in this area.]

For a tale’s “Stageification” to occur, several conditions related to the tale and the stage had to be fulfilled.

For example, <Kim Dokja Company>’s “Springtime of the Demon Realm” required Kim Dokja, the core members of <Kim Dokja Company>, and Surya’s carriage.

So what about “The Three Little Pigs”?

[Tale Fragment, ‘Leader of the Wolves’, begins its story.]

First: the villain of the tale, the Wolf.

[Tale Fragment, ‘Brick House’, begins its story.]

Second: the key object of the tale, the Brick House.

The last required element was the protagonist: the Youngest Pig.

Unfortunately, there was no youngest pig here.

[Tale Fragment, ‘One Who Was Born Last’, begins its story.]

Instead, there was me—Kim Dokja, the “youngest.”

[Tale Fragment, ‘Man Who Eats Eight Meals a Day’, begins its story.]

And for some reason, there was someone else who possessed a tale fragment suitable to replace the Pig.

The child Yu Joonghyuk frowned as if about to protest—

[Stageification conditions have been imperfectly fulfilled.]

[Tale, ‘The Three Little Pigs’, begins its story.]

Stageification had begun.