"Take the other one?"

Just as I was about to shout what that was supposed to mean―

"Reader, over there―"

Gyeong Sein's voice.

We all looked at the red sorghum field at the same time. Standing there was someone we knew.

"Why―"

Maybe I had anticipated it. But I hadn't been sure.

「There was someone other than me who had made a contract with the 'Tiger Who Eats Rice Cakes'.」

As always, understanding came to me a little slowly.

Only then did I feel like I understood why the constellation 'Tiger Who Eats Rice Cakes' had squandered such excessive plausibility here.

「There had been two incarnations whom the 'Tiger Who Eats Rice Cakes' had invited to the 'Twelve Zodiac Ball'.」

"Hyeonwoo!"

At the center of the red sorghum field, Ye Hyeonwoo's whole body was shining brightly.

I immediately dashed into the sorghum field. [Wind's Path] pressed the sorghum flat.

Tiger fur scattered in the air.

Ye Hyeonwoo held out a hand as a sign not to come any closer.

"Hyeonwoo."

As if he knew what I was going to say, Ye Hyeonwoo nodded.

"I know it could be a trap."

Smart Ye Hyeonwoo already knew. He knew and still chose it.

As I was about to ask why, once again, Ye Hyeonwoo answered first.

"When I'm with you, I can't become the person I want to be."

Ye Hyeonwoo turned his gaze past me, to my back. Over there, the party, their faces flustered, were watching us.

Killer King asked,

"Seventh Apostle. Are you really thinking of making that choice."

Normally, he would have said something in reply, but today's Ye Hyeonwoo was a little different. His expression looked a bit like a bitter smile and a bit like his face was twisting in sadness.

Within the cluster of light, his feet slowly began to scatter.

The summoning was proceeding through the authority of the 'Tiger Who Eats Rice Cakes'.

As if he'd made up his mind about something at the last moment, Ye Hyeonwoo's eyes turned to me.

"The truth is, I'm the kind of person who doesn't get attached to people easily. You already know that."

I did know.

Even Gong Pildu, who had been his partner, had felt that way about him.

"But for the first time, I started to understand what it meant to get attached to someone."

Now half gone, Ye Hyeonwoo was smiling.

"Now I'm afraid. I don't want to see another precious person die. But I will see it. Because we've come into that kind of world. So―"

I realized what he was going to say.

"Kim Dokja will be me."

I understood the reason he wanted to become Kim Dokja. Precisely because of that, I had to stop him.

But Ye Hyeonwoo was already almost gone.

The moment Killer King, horrified, ran toward Ye Hyeonwoo, someone else moved first.

Along with a chilling sensation, when I looked up, Yu Joonghyuk, spewing pitch-black fighting spirit, was right in front of me.

Yu Joonghyuk's palm reached toward the neck of the vanishing Ye Hyeonwoo.

[Marionette of the Oldest Dream.]

The 'Tiger Who Eats Rice Cakes' mantra came through. A voice carrying a faintly ominous laughter.

[I shall grant you as well the pain that fell in the sorghum field.]

A small blast sounded before my eyes, and soon a thick smoke welled up.

Startled, the party covered their mouths and backed away. But Yu Joonghyuk and I were both inside the dispersal radius of the smoke.

[You have been exposed to 'Deadly Poison Fog'.]

Deadly Poison Fog.

It was a relief. Even though it was a lethal poison, at this level I could endure it for a while.

"Yu Joonghyuk!"

I called Yu Joonghyuk's name within the fog. But I couldn't see him.

My intuition was sounding an alarm. This fog definitely wasn't the end of it.

"Yu Joong―"

Within the fog, something shone brightly. Floating right in the spot where the tiger and Ye Hyeonwoo had vanished, an endlessly beautiful, glittering object.

I immediately recognized what it was.

With dazed eyes, Yu Joonghyuk was reaching out his hand toward that object.

"Yu Joonghyuk! No!"

['Mysterious Fragment' begins its story.]

The world was dyed in brilliant light.

「Kim Dokja Fragment.」

Goddamn it.

It seemed the 'Tiger Who Eats Rice Cakes' knew what had happened back at the 'Washington Dome'.

And what had happened to Yu Joonghyuk after he came into contact with the 'Kim Dokja Fragment' there.

I must not /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ let Yu Joonghyuk have that thing. If I did, he'd become the 'Black Beast' again.

I had to absorb that fragment before Yu Joonghyuk did.

"Yu Joonghyuk!"

But Yu Joonghyuk's hand touched the fragment first. With a flash of dazzling light, the scenery of the world rippled.

And in the next moment, a message came.

[You have entered the 'Snowfield'.]

The last time the 'Snowfield' had opened was when I met Kim Dokja.

Kim Dokja, who left footprints in the snow, liked to drink tea, and gave off a gentle yet strangely chilly feeling.

"Kim Dokja?"

But no matter where I looked, Kim Dokja was nowhere to be seen.

The scenery of the Snowfield that I remembered was also gone. The only thing visible was pitch-black darkness.

"Yu Joonghyuk?"

[Exclusive skill, '□□' has been activated.]

[Exclusive skill, '□□' resists the laws of the Recycling Center.]

Only then did a fact suddenly come to mind.

Come to think of it, the first time I had entered the 'Snowfield' hadn't been when I met Kim Dokja.

Strictly speaking, it had been when I narrated Kim Cheolyang's "next action" at Geumho Station.

Back when I was still allowed to use the ability to narrate the empty spaces of the story.

But as far as I remembered, this skill had originally only activated in special situations.

「'□□' is a skill that activates only in a 'crisis of survival'.」

Did that mean this was a crisis of survival right now?

In that case, what sentence should I write.

Should I persuade Yu Joonghyuk to throw away the 'Kim Dokja Fragment'? Or use additional plausibility and―

[You cannot write a sentence.]

I can't write?

Why on earth―

"Kyaaaaah!"

Right in front of my eyes, someone's head exploded. While I stupidly stared at the fountain of blood spurting out, the scenery around me slowly changed.

「Thick smoke rose from place to place. Within the gunpowder smoke of the battlefield, a dense stench of blood could be felt.」

It wasn't a sentence I had written. Swept along by the torrent of sentences that came unilaterally, I suddenly found myself standing in the middle of a battlefield.

There was the smell of flesh burning.

When I came to my senses, both of my arms were blackened, charred by the flames.

What the hell was this. Why had I suddenly ended up like this?

With a chilling feeling, I lifted my head, and in the sky, even more terrifying things were floating.

[Nebula <Asgard>'s constellations bare hostility toward you.]

I felt as if my mind were going hazy.

[Nebula <Veda>'s constellations mock your thrashing.]

I was definitely inside the "Recycling Center." And those guys could never enter the Center.

Then why.

[Nebula <Olympus>'s constellations watch over your final moments.]

Was I really seeing those damn stars above my head right now.

Maybe it was just my imagination, but even the sun shining in the air seemed larger.

No, it wasn't an illusion.

The sun was gradually getting closer.

I could see the corona of the blazing sun. Beyond that corona, a transcendental existence of an unfathomable class was staring at Earth.

[Constellation, 'Midday Sun' burns everything on the ground!]

A solar wind blew. The blazing flames covered every living thing on the surface.

Right in front of me, someone was burning alive in real time, reaching out a hand to me.

"Save―"

I'm going to die.

[You cannot change this 'story'.]

Along with the magma erupting, I grabbed his hand.

[You have died.]

Without even knowing why I had to die like that, I died.

And when I opened my eyes again, I was running down a dim road.

[Constellation, 'Master of the Ledger of Life and Death' spews quiet rage.]

I could feel a giant class writhing behind my back. Just as I felt my feet sinking deep into the ground with every step, hands rose up from the soil and kept grabbing my ankles.

Kyaaaaak!

「The smell of death rose up from everywhere. The smell of those who had already died and could no longer come back to life. All souls who had lost their tales reached out to grasp the story of the living.」

Instinctively, I realized where I was.

[Catch him.]

A cold voice came from behind me.

For some reason, there was a book in my hand that I'd never seen before.

「Ledger of Life and Death」

Ledger of Life and Death?

Something flashed through my mind for a moment.

「King Yeomra's Ledger of Life and Death.」

The apocalyptic record on which the "lifespan" of every person in the world was written.

Right now, I was running away while holding that record.

[He is the one whose "name" is written three times in the Ledger of Life and Death. Capture him at all costs.]

Damn it, I had no idea what was going on.

Either way, I could not die here. I ran and ran again.

But soon, a cliff appeared.

[You cannot write a sentence.]

I couldn't write a sentence this time either.

[You cannot change this 'story'.]

Along with the feeling of a sharp dagger piercing through the skin of my stomach, I plunged down a sheer cliff of a thousand fathoms.

[You have died.]

When I opened my eyes again, I was sitting in a chair.

I wondered what it was this time, but what do you know, I couldn't move my body at all. Someone had bound my body to the chair.

Chains made of nothing less than "tale metal."

I was wondering who on earth would do something so horrific when―

"Have you come to your senses?"

When I lifted my head, Anna Croft's face was in front of me.

I hastily tried to say something. But my mouth was sealed.

"Tell me the secret."

Yes. I'll tell you. I'll tell you, so please, just take this off.

"Everything you're hiding."

I had never seen Anna Croft like that before. Anna Croft's eyes, soaked in madness. She pulled a long spike out of her bosom and brought it toward my heart.

"If you don't."

No, wait.

"You will suffer a pain more cruel than death."

The first spike was driven in right next to my heart. Along with the sensation of something cold and heavy piercing through my chest, I felt like I might faint at any moment.

Anna Croft immediately took out the second spike.

"Talk."

And drove it in.

"Talk."

Then she took out a third spike,

"Talk."

and drove it in again.

And then―

[You cannot write a sentence.]

[You cannot change this 'story'.]

……

[You have died.]

I was starting to feel like I was going insane. No person could keep their sanity if they suddenly died three times in a row like this.

Was death a joke.

How could a human die like this over and over again.

"You."

And just as I was thinking that, when I opened my eyes again, I was in the middle of getting my cheeks slapped by someone.

One hit, two hits, three hits, four hits.

The blows, infused with inner power, felt like they were going to knock my mind out. No, my mind must really have gone out, because blood was already pouring from my seven orifices.

"I have no need for a trash disciple."

Wait a second.

[You cannot write a sentence.]

[You cannot change this 'story'.]

Please, just listen to me―

[You have died.]

Like that, I died five, six, seven more times.

Something was wrong.

Why on earth was I going through this pain.

What had I done wrong to end up in this state.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in pitch-black darkness.

But it wasn't the same darkness as before. It was a much denser, lonelier darkness. A darkness in which the order of time itself seemed to twist.

In that darkness, I was thrusting.

Once, twice, three times.

After thrusting, I repeated slashing.

Once, twice, three times.

A tedious task of repeating thrust and slash in rhythm.

I kept doing it.

In the lonely darkness where no one else existed, I kept thrusting and slashing, imagining unseen, fictitious enemies. Ten thousand times, a hundred thousand times, a million times…… training that went on as if I intended to tear the darkness itself apart.

How many times had I thrust and slashed like that.

When I came to myself, I had forgotten time, forgotten my body, and at last, forgotten myself.

「Perhaps that talent had not been an innate talent.」

I felt the impurities of my mind being drained away and the excess hanging off my soul being stripped.

「It was a talent reached by a single person who, over a very long time, had shaved down his own soul.」

I reached a point where I could stab without actually stabbing, and cut without actually cutting.

「Transcendence.」

An enormous realization crashed over me.

I realized what that realization was.

This was the very sensation of transcendence that Yu Joonghyuk had talked about.

But something must have gone wrong, because a hot fever rose from the back of my head. The fever then flashed my consciousness white and dragged me into ecstasy.

[You cannot write a sentence.]

Uh, wait.

[You cannot change this 'story'.]

No, that's not right―

[You have ascended to the Immortal Realm.]

[You have died.]

I was so dumbfounded I had nothing left to say.

And only now could I clearly explain what kind of situation I was in.

「Right now, I was going through Yu Joonghyuk's 'regression path'.」

Pitch-black despair pressed down on my shoulders at every moment.

An ending of death no matter what I did.

A hell from which I could not escape, no matter what I tried.

It was painful and agonizing, but even so, I carved my way through that hell and carved my way through again.

I could carve my way through.

Because I knew that his eternity was not truly eternal.

There is no such thing as an 「eternal and immortal hellscape」.

Someday, this hell will end.

And at the end of that hell, Yu Joonghyuk will reach his own ending.

So―

「This world has an ending.」

After I had died so many times, lived so many times, and run so many times―

Just when I began to feel that even knowing there was an end, I truly couldn't go any farther, I felt the surroundings slowly grow brighter. At last, I had escaped the hell path.

「There was the Snowfield.」

The scenery of a pure white Snowfield. For a while, I watched the barren end of the world, where light snowflakes were drifting.

Then I saw something whitish moving in the distance. Without thinking, I waved my hand and started to approach, then stopped for a moment.

Until now, there had only ever been three things that could move within this 'Snowfield'.

Me, Kim Dokja, and Han Sooyoung.

Then what was that.

On the Snowfield, a single small living thing was curled up. As I approached, it became the figure of a child. A child squatting on the Snowfield, which had been burned white. The moment I met that child's dead eyes, I realized who he was.

「There was a man who had to live a long story in order to save one person.」

Until now, I had thought the 'Snowfield' was Kim Dokja's space.

「The one who lives in the invisible space between the lines is not the reader.」

Snowfield.

A grave of existences that could not be recorded.

「There is only one being who can 'live through' those spaces between the lines.」

A place where every story is written, and yet, perhaps, nothing is written.

This Snowfield is,

"Yu Joonghyuk."

From the very beginning, it had been one person's world.