Lee Jihye still remembered the day she first met Kim Dokja.

Inside the dark Chungmuro Station tunnel, a man with a pale face had appeared like a ghost between the Specter Zone.

「"Who the hell are you guys? You don't know this zone is our hunting ground?"」

Right. That had been her first meeting with Kim Dokja.

「"…Did you people perhaps just take care of the specters?"」

Lee Jihye stared blankly down at the tale fragment crawling along the tunnel floor as it continued talking.

"Hey, ahjussi. It's cold in a place like this."

She bent over and picked up the tale fragment. This fragment was the reason she had visited this "worldline."

[You have acquired tale fragment, "First Meeting with the Sea Admiral".]

Confirming the name of the tale fragment, Lee Jihye gave a faint smile.

"So even this becomes a tale."

She was a little pleased.

That this meeting had remained as a record. That the time she had spent living with him now made up a part of that damn ahjussi.

"Hmm. Looks like there's nothing else here."

After collecting the fragment, Lee Jihye looked around a few more times, then activated the "Kim Dokja tracker" that Lee Seolhwa had made.

[No "Kim Dokja fragment" exists in this worldline.]

The mission she had been given in <Kim Dokja Company> was to collect the Kim Dokja crumbs scattered across the worldlines.

At first she had been with the others, but after a large number of "Kim Dokja fragments" were found in the "41st round," only Lee Jihye had wandered the other worldlines collecting tale fragments.

And so, for several months.

At last, the target number of "fragments" had almost been collected.

"I finally get to go home. Bi Yu! Send me back!"

A moment later, a "fwash" sounded in her head and a portal swirled open, sucking her in.

[You have reached the target dimension.]

"Up we go."

The transfer was instantaneous.

When she had first begun traveling the worldlines, she hadn't been able to go back and forth this quickly. Maybe Bi Yu's ability had grown in the meantime.

Crawling out of the portal, Lee Jihye took a breath and shouted at the top of her lungs.

"I'm back―!"

But despite her shout, her companions were nowhere to be seen.

Feeling a little hurt, Lee Jihye trudged along, looking for the others.

"I said I'm back! Where did everyone go!"

The moment she opened the transfer room and turned the corridor on the other side.

"Ah, Jihye, you're back?"

"Seolhwa unnie!"

She ran into Lee Seolhwa, who for some reason looked tired.

Lee Seolhwa immediately grabbed Lee Jihye's wrist, muttered something under her breath, then nodded.

"Healthy. Tale balance is stable too. I was really worried, you know."

"What do you mean, worried. Where's ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) everyone else?"

"Huh? Jihye noona!"

When she turned around, Lee Gilyoung and Shin Yuseung were just coming out of a room.

"Unnie!"

Shin Yuseung, who had run over, suddenly hugged Lee Jihye.

"Oh my, you've grown a lot, our little kid."

She ruffled Shin Yuseung's hair. Watching the two of them get along so well, Lee Gilyoung made a gagging sound.

"What about Sangah unnie?"

Shin Yuseung lifted her head a little and answered.

"She's in the observation room. We were just on our way there together."

"Is Master there too?"

"The pitch-black guy is in the closed-door training room."

"Again? What does Master even have left to train."

"He says he's recovering from internal injuries."

"Master got internal injuries?"

"He had a bout with someone on myth-grade."

Myth-grade constellation.

Lee Jihye's expression stiffened ever so slightly.

"Which myth-grade?"

By now, there were hardly any constellations left who could be a threat to <Kim Dokja Company>.

But if the opponent was "myth-grade," the story was a little different.

"Odin. And the tale-grade riffraff of <Asgard>."

Lee Jihye's mouth fell open.

"What, has Master really lost his mind?"

"That bastard is just as strong as he's crazy, you know."

"No, that's only if the conditions are the same! That's their worldline. What about the plausibility backlash?"

"That's why he got hurt like that."

"Did Sooyoung unnie just sit by and let that happen?"

At the mention of Han Sooyoung's name, her companions' expressions noticeably darkened.

Watching them carefully, Lee Jihye cautiously asked.

"Why do you all look like that? Why did Master fight Odin? Did that ahjussi show up or something?"

Lee Gilyoung and Shin Yuseung looked at each other.

Lee Jihye pressed them.

"Wait. For real?"

"To be precise, it was a 'really big fragment' of hyung."

"A really big fragment?"

"A fragment with the tale of 『Demon King of Salvation』."

"If it's that much, isn't it basically ahjussi?"

"It's not one hundred percent of hyung."

At Lee Gilyoung's answer, Shin Yuseung glared at him.

Watching the little war between the two, Lee Jihye patted both their shoulders and spoke.

"Lee Gilyoung. After wandering all over the place collecting ahjussi's fragments, I started thinking about something."

"About what."

"In the end, no human can ever be a one-hundred-percent existence."

At that solemn declaration, Shin Yuseung suddenly lifted her head, and Lee Seolhwa muttered "Oh my" and covered her mouth.

Looking at the blank-faced Lee Gilyoung, Lee Jihye spoke in a triumphant voice.

"What. Are you impressed by your noona's insight?"

"It's amazing that you even had a thought like that."

"Want to hang upside down again after so long? Anyway, what I mean is―"

"You're saying we should accept him even if the hyung who came back isn't one hundred percent."

"Mm…"

"You think I'm an idiot? I know that much too. It's just―"

From the start, no human could ever be "one hundred percent." Humans always live losing something and forgetting something.

What Lee Gilyoung was afraid of was something else.

"If the hyung we barely got back has forgotten noona."

"Huh?"

"Could you still say that? Could you confidently say it's fine even if he's not a one-hundred-percent hyung?"

Lee Jihye stared quietly into Lee Gilyoung's eyes. Then she looked at Shin Yuseung, then back to Lee Seolhwa.

"Of course that won't do. Ahjussi obviously has to remember me."

"What, just now you were―"

"It'd be unfair. I'm stuck here like this without even being able to go on MT, and if that guy forgot me―"

"Noona, you didn't even get into college."

"Drop it. Ahjussi remembers me, so you don't have to worry about that."

"How do you know that, noona?"

"You'll be shocked when you see what I brought back."

With a meaningful expression, Lee Jihye stuck her hand into her backpack.

But what was this.

The Kim Dokja fragments she had definitely put into her backpack weren't touching her hand.

That made no sense.

She had definitely gone all over the worldlines and collected a whole bunch―

"Eh?"

The moment the startled Lee Jihye let her backpack fall to the floor with a thud, something darted out from inside.

Lee Jihye's eyes widened.

"My god."

Shin Yuseung screamed.

"Ahjussi!"

A little kid-sized doll of a little Kim Dokja was looking up at the group.

The first to move were Shin Yuseung and Lee Gilyoung.

"Where do you think you're going!"

"Move, Shin Yuseung!"

Little Kim Dokja nimbly dodged between the two kids and scampered off somewhere.

"Get him!"

The group hurriedly chased after little Kim Dokja.

How long did they run like that.

"Ah."

The place little Kim Dokja headed for was the observation room where Yoo Sangah was.

Squeak, came the sound of the door opening.

Little Kim Dokja's and Yoo Sangah's eyes met as she was checking the monitors in the observation room.

Startled, Yoo Sangah looked down at little Kim Dokja with her mouth open. In response to her, little Kim Dokja raised both his hands. Yoo Sangah looked down at little Kim Dokja like that, then soon gave a wry smile and asked.

"Did you want to see me that much?"

Reaching out her hands, Yoo Sangah carefully picked little Kim Dokja up and set him on the table.

With the difference in height of their gazes gone, little Kim Dokja's eyes turned toward the monitors of the observation room.

The story of the "41st round" was coming out from there.

A man wearing a mask was speaking on the monitor.

―I’m planning to steal the tale of 「Three Little Pigs」.

Between the area the mask hadn't quite covered, the man's shining eyes and pale skin.

By now, the rest of the group had arrived as well and were looking at the screen.

Yoo Sangah waved her hand.

"Jihye, you're back?"

"Yes, unnie. But is that…"

Yoo Sangah looked at the man shouting beyond the screen.

The man sweeping away the storm and negotiating with the wolf.

"It's him, right? It's ahjussi, the Reader?"

The man hiding his companions in the brick house and resisting the scenario in a way no one could ever have imagined.

Yoo Sangah watched that man's story.

―Let's create a tale that will last forever.

Even if she wrote several volumes, it wouldn't be enough to say exactly who he was.

Yoo Sangah wasn't someone who could write that book. The only person who could decide the contents of that book was the man himself.

Instead, Yoo Sangah could at least read the title of that book.

"Yeah. It's Mr. Reader."

"Of course. Who else but ahjussi would pull that kind of stunt. Shouldn't we help him? If he dies like that―"

"Not right now. We don't have spare plausibility."

"Damn it, it's all that pitch-black bastard's fault! That guy had a bout with Odin and…"

"What about the constellations of our worldline? Can't we try contacting them?"

"Yuseung, it's not a situation where we can just freely exchange contact yet―"

Just then, little Kim Dokja, held in Yoo Sangah's arms, flinched his shoulders.

At the same time, a fierce gale began to blow beyond the screen.

The Great Hall opened above the sky.

Beyond it, an "otherworldly divinity" was being summoned.

"What the."

But when they confirmed which "otherworldly divinity" had been summoned, the group's expressions turned strange.

"That… that's the one, right?"

*

The storm battered the brick house.

Every time the wind crashed against the wall, the house looked like it might be uprooted entirely.

The power of the "otherworldly divinity" was stronger than I had expected.

[Constellation, "Pig Who Died First" breaks out in a cold sweat.]

Even the pig constellations supporting the tale seemed to be having a hard time.

Gyeong Sein asked.

"What kind of bastard did you summon, anyway?"

I recalled what I had said to the wolf constellation.

To break through this situation, I had asked him to "designate summon" the "otherworldly divinity" I wanted.

"In my opinion―"

"The tale is weakening!"

Uncle Dansoo shouted urgently.

[Tale, "Three Little Pigs" grows quieter.]

That couldn't be.

If this tale collapsed, the constellations would lose their origin tale. For those bastards who were at best "great-personage-level," the "origin tale" was the tale that decided their very status. To keep their places, they would never give up, not until the very, very end.

And yet, if the tale had weakened…

["Stageification" reproduction conditions are incomplete.]

Damn it, so it was that after all.

From the start, it had been a flawed stageification.

To fully reproduce this stage, a "youngest pig" who could stand against the "wolf" was necessary.

But we had filled the "youngest pig" condition with a workaround.

[Tale fragment, "The One Born Last" begins its story.]

One was my tale fragment, that of Kim Dokja the "youngest."

[Tale fragment, "Man Who Eats Eight Meals a Day" begins its story.]

The other was Yu Joonghyuk's tale fragment.

"Kim Dokja."

But for some time now, little Yu Joonghyuk's expression had been odd.

"I'm hungry."

What?

[Tale fragment, "Man Who Eats Eight Meals a Day" complains of hunger.]

Wait a second. The reason the 「Stageification」 had become unstable, could it be…?

"Everyone! Food! Bring food!"

"Huh? Food, all of a sudden―"

"Hurry! We have to feed this brat!"

No wonder little Yu Joonghyuk's cheeks had looked noticeably hollow. A guy who needed to eat eight meals a day hadn't properly eaten even one, so he had ended up like this.

The saving grace was that this place was an inn.

"Food! Give us food! Owner!"

At Gyeong Sein's urging, the crane owner quickly brought out dishes.

Freshly boiled soup. Just-steamed sweet potatoes and potatoes. Bread with jam spread on it, and so on. At a glance, they all looked quite delicious.

I shouted to Gyeong Sein.

"Feed him! Feed him all eight meals at once!"

"Huh? Is it okay to feed him that much?"

"Hurry!"

Little Yu Joonghyuk couldn't use his hands, since he was supplying magic power to the "brick house."

Scooping soup in a rush, Gyeong Sein brought the spoon to little Yu Joonghyuk.

"Here, say ah. Ah!"

Little Yu Joonghyuk snapped his head away.

"I don't want it."

"Huh? Why not? You said you were hungry."

Tilting her head, Gyeong Sein sniffed the soup.

"There's no poison in it! Look! They're tasty foods I can eat too…"

I couldn't understand it.

Yu Joonghyuk was refusing the food.

Why?

[Tale, "Successor of the Eternal Name" clicks its tongue.]

A belated throb went through my head.

Damn it, come to think of it, Yu Joonghyuk had "that setting."

Frowning, Yu Joonghyuk looked up at me and declared.

"I don't eat food made by other people."