Forgetting even the fact that you are reading sentences. Being sucked into the story, where I become the protagonist and the protagonist becomes me.

[Your ‘Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint’ has reached a certain level.]

There is a phrase that refers to the magical moment anyone can experience while reading a book.

[You are reaching the realm of secondary experience.]

Secondary experience. Going beyond the wall of paper {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} and sentences, and recognizing another person’s experience as if it were your own.

[Void Veil is looking at you.]

I just had to turn one more page. I had a hunch that beyond this, the next story I so desperately wanted to see was waiting.

【■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ YOU CAN NOT CROSS 】

At that moment, something grabbed the back of my neck. Just a bit further and I would be there. The story I wanted was right over there.

Then something inside me answered.

【Your Majesty. Just for a moment. It is not like I am really crossing over.】

【NO ONE CAN GO AGAINST PLAUSIBILITY】

Something inside me spoke once more.

【For the sake of the great ‘Record’, please turn a blind eye just this once.】

For a brief instant, time seemed to freeze. It felt as if a very distant, far-off part of the universe slowly nodded its head.

A single page slowly turned. Thick and heavy to the point that it took my breath away. When I barely managed to turn that page, I finally found the one sentence I had been searching for.

「Yu Joonghyuk, who was sitting cross-legged, recalled a memory from long ago for the first time in a while.」

I began to read the sentence.

*

Yu Joonghyuk, who was sitting cross-legged, recalled a memory from long ago for the first time in a while.

It was the journey to get Kim Dokja back. The memory of drifting through the universe together with Bi Yu. The story of the time when they scattered their tale to every corner of the universe, carrying Han Sooyoung’s novel.

Worn down by the arduous journey, Yu Joonghyuk gradually became exhausted, and to forget the fact that he was exhausted, he moved even harder.

He had to move.

[Captain, let’s just rest here for a bit.]

Together with Bi Yu, he sat down on a strange bench in a strange neighborhood on a strange planet, and looked up at a familiar sky.

As he looked at the sky like that, the road they had walked suddenly felt very unfamiliar to Yu Joonghyuk.

Would they really be able to meet Kim Dokja again at the end of this road. Was that pasty guy really alive somewhere, living together with them.

[Sometimes you have to rest too.]

Yu Joonghyuk thought about the stars that did not speak to him. He reminisced about his vanished sponsoring star, and imagined another version of himself who had reached his ■■—‘Secret Schemer’.

Would a moment like that of ‘Secret Schemer’ come for him as well.

At the end of this long and painful life, would some kind of salvation exist.

Yu Joonghyuk could hardly imagine it. Just like Kim Dokja’s face, which had become blurry now, his ■■ felt far away.

Would he know once this journey ended.

Why he had been born into this world, why he had lived, and why he was still living.

[Captain. Have you ever thought about it?]

At Bi Yu’s question, Yu Joonghyuk answered half a beat late.

“What.”

[The thought that maybe there is a happy universe somewhere where none of this tragedy ever happened.]

A happy universe. Yu Joonghyuk thought for a moment about that bizarre phrase, then spoke.

“If all those tragedies had not happened, we would not exist as we are now either.”

Bi Yu pouted as if that was not what she had meant to ask, then added.

[Still, you can sometimes imagine a different world.]

“What kind of world are you talking about?”

[In that world, there are no scenarios, and the stars don’t talk to you. But even in that world, there are tragedies.]

“……”

[The greatest tragedy in that world is oversleeping and being late for school.]

Yu Joonghyuk silently listened to Bi Yu’s words.

[And then for lunch that day, the cafeteria serves disgusting school food. You spend the money that was supposed to be for buying school supplies at a PC room and your parents catch you.]

Yu Joonghyuk tried picturing the world Bi Yu was narrating.

But he could not quite picture such a world.

Because he had never gone to school properly, had never eaten lunch while worrying about its taste, and had never had parents at all.

“You are the dokkaebi king now. Why do you miss things like that?”

[Why? Am I not allowed to miss them?]

Hearing that counter-question, Yu Joonghyuk traced back his old memories. A face suddenly came to mind.

A girl who often smiled innocently. A child who always followed him, calling him captain.

“You were Shin Yuseung of the 41st round.”

[Well, if you trace it back to the origin, yes.]

“Do you still resent me?”

Yu Joonghyuk remembered Shin Yuseung, the ‘Catastrophe of Floods’. Shin Yuseung who had come to the past in order to change the future, and who had been disappointed in him. Shin Yuseung who had tried to kill him.

He would never forget the look in her eyes.

[No. I can hardly recall the memories of that time.]

The girl who had been reborn as a dokkaebi, burying both her resentment and her hatred, spoke.

Looking at Bi Yu like that, Yu Joonghyuk felt an emotion he could not name.

If so, where had Shin Yuseung’s 41st round gone now. If all the hatred and resentment had disappeared, what would fill the space they left behind.

As if to read Yu Joonghyuk’s question, Bi Yu spoke.

[It is not so bad to have blanks in your memories. You can fill those blanks with other imaginations.]

“In the 41st round, I did something irreversible.”

[Maybe you did. But even in that round, it could not have been only bad things.]

As if tracing the remnants of the vanished 41st round, Bi Yu muttered.

[So you imagine as pleasantly as possible. You tell yourself that actually, in the 41st round, there was an incredibly cool adventure. It is just that you, I, and everyone else forgot it.]

“……”

[Who knows? Maybe in that round, I went to school. Maybe you came to my graduation ceremony.]

Of course, there was no way something like that could have happened, but Bi Yu went on anyway.

[Maybe in that round, there was also Mister Reader.]

“Impossible.”

[I am just imagining it. Because imagining it is fun.]

Yu Joonghyuk thought about his 41st-round self.

He did not know what his 41st-round self had been like, or what he had felt.

Why had he sent Shin Yuseung to the past. What tragedy had he faced that made him think that method was the only answer.

[There you go again, getting all serious. I told you to imagine something fun! Don’t you ever have thoughts like that, Captain?]

Yu Joonghyuk looked silently out at the street. The sun was setting, hovering on the verge of sinking. He could see students going home from school, walking along the brook where the sunset broke into pieces.

“I do not.”

[You must have had a life you dreamed of, Captain.]

A life he dreamed of. If he had had such a thing, his life would have turned out differently once the scenarios ended.

[Well, if you had, you would not have been living unemployed and jobless. You really are pitiful, Captain.]

“I am neither unemployed nor jobless.”

[Right. That is how you imagine it.]

“It is not imagination. I always trained with my sword.”

[What were you planning to do with your sword training?]

What had he been planning to do by training with his sword. Yu Joonghyuk had no answer for that.

Up there in the sky, the constellation he would cut down no longer existed. Even if he trained with his sword, there was no one who would acknowledge him.

[Were you trying to become a kendo athlete like Heewon or something?]

“I had no such intention.”

[Then you are just a jobless guy who is good with a sword.]

Why had he trained with his sword.

After thinking deeply for a long while, Yu Joonghyuk was just barely about to give an answer.

“I—”

From down along the brook, the voices of boys and girls could be heard. One girl shouted, “Let’s go to the PC room!” and another boy frowned. Then a lanky, pale boy put the frowning boy in a headlock.

“Ah! I said let’s go!”

The moment he heard the boy’s voice, Yu Joonghyuk sprang to his feet.

[Captain?]

Yu Joonghyuk began to walk down the slope. Legs that had been moving slowly went faster and faster. Forgetting even that he was running out of breath, he ran toward the boy and grabbed his shoulder.

The boy frowned and turned to look at him.

“Who are you?”

“Mister, what are you doing?”

A boy who looked curt grabbed Yu Joonghyuk’s arm, and a small girl standing as if to protect the boy furrowed her brow at Yu Joonghyuk in a threatening way.

Yu Joonghyuk quickly let go.

“My apologies. I mistook you for someone else.”

The boys and girls grumbled under their breath and set off down the road again.

Watching their backs, somehow unfamiliar yet familiar, Yu Joonghyuk suddenly imagined such a thing.

「Maybe that boy.」

Just like Bi Yu, maybe that boy too was Kim Dokja, who had been reborn after his reincarnations, having forgotten all the tragedies.

Yu Joonghyuk looked at the boy and girl beside him. The curt boy who somehow gave off a similar air to himself, and the girl with a beauty mark near her eye, like Han Sooyoung.

Of course, those kids were neither Yu Joonghyuk nor Han Sooyoung. Even as he knew that, Yu Joonghyuk could not shake the strange feeling.

What if, somewhere in this universe, such a story really did exist.

Bi Yu’s soft, laughing voice tickled his ears.

[See. You have stories you imagine too, Captain.]

Slowly opening his eyes, Yu Joonghyuk awakened from the turbulence of his memories.

White steam rose from all over his cross-legged body. The wounds he had received in his fierce battle with Odin had turned pitch-black.

‘I overdid it.’

Yu Joonghyuk reviewed the last battle. Receiving Odin’s spear, cutting down the tale-grade constellations of <Asgard>, colliding his incarnated body with Void Veil, and being swept up in the backlash of plausibility.

If ‘Monarch Slayer’ Jaehwan had not helped him, he would have been swept away by the torrent of plausibility and been unable to return.

‘Monarch Slayer.’

Yu Joonghyuk thought about Jaehwan. He could not feel any trace of Jaehwan anywhere nearby. Since he was an inherently unpredictable guy, he might be roaming around various places of <Star Stream> again.

‘I wasted too much plausibility. This was not where I was supposed to use it.’

Originally, he had planned to save and save this plausibility and then explode it at an important moment.

If he had not sensed Kim Dokja’s presence at the ‘Washington Dome’, he would never have made such a dangerous choice.

「Kim Dokja.」

The moment he thought of that name, Yu Joonghyuk suddenly felt a familiar sensation.

The feeling of someone watching him. Yu Joonghyuk knew what this feeling was.

The unique skill of that loudmouthed guy, who would appear like magic whenever and wherever he thought of him.

Yu Joonghyuk reflexively looked up at the air.

*

The moment Yu Joonghyuk looked at me, I freaked out and switched the screen.

Shit, that scared me.

It really was that ‘Yu Joonghyuk’.

I could not believe it. I could not understand how something like this was possible. Still, if I had to somehow explain it, my current situation was as follows.

「I crossed the ‘Wall of World-lines’ with [Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint].」

The voice of another world-line had reached my ears, and following that voice, I crossed the wall of world-lines and came all the way here—to the place where ‘Yu Joonghyuk of <Kim Dokja Company>’ was.

I did not know what the hell was going on, but the mere fact that this was really happening made my heart pound.

What if, just as I had observed Yu Joonghyuk, I could also observe the other members of <Kim Dokja Company>.

No, beyond observation—

「“Mister Reader.”」

What if I could convey my ‘story’ to them.

「“Mister Reader.”」

If I followed this voice, could I meet the rest of my companions.

I focused my mind once more. Then slowly, my vision cleared and a new scene unfolded.

In the hazy surroundings, somehow familiar voices could be heard.

“Unni, why isn’t this coming on?”

“Mm. Bi Yu definitely said we could watch with this.”

“Isn’t the relay device broken?”

“Hey! Lee Gilyoung! Don’t kick that with your foot!”

“The pitch-black guy did it like this before and it worked.”

“Master, seriously. Unni, what area is this thing broadcasting?”

“They said it was <Gourmet Association>.”

“Should I go rough up the <Gourmet Association> kids a bit?”

“Ah, it’s on! The screen is on!”

And a moment later.

“Mister! It’s Mister!”

“He really looks exactly like Mister Reader.”

“But the situation doesn’t look good……”

“No, why is Mister passed out even there? Seriously, shouldn’t someone go?”

“Constellations outside can’t intervene in the Recycling Center.”

“But we can’t just leave him like that!”

I opened my eyes with a start. I saw the familiar backs of heads, all huddled together in front of a small display.

Without realizing it, I reached out my hand toward them…

…A hand?

I could feel my whole body.

What on earth was going on.

Struggling to move my stiff neck, I checked my hands and feet.

Hands and feet that were so small I could hardly believe they were mine.

Just then, a woman with beautiful brown hair turned to look at me.

Her face looked even more like Ji Eunyu’s in person.

“Little Mister Reader, you woke up?”

Being suddenly lifted into the air, I deeply empathized with how the Ape King must have felt in Ji Eunyu’s arms.

“Me too, me too, I want to hold him!”

“He woke up?”

Two children ran over. Watching that scene, I felt an indescribable emotion well up.

“Shall we watch together?”

With that gentle voice, the screen the companions had been watching came into view. On the screen were the unconscious me and Ji Eunyu urgently driving the carriage. And Cha Yerin was visible as well.

「“Ms. Yerin. Do you know how to drive by any chance?”」

「“I’m a minor.”」

Amid a scene that had no sense of reality at all, I finally realized what had happened to me.

[Tale, ‘Successor of the Eternal Name’ is reacting.]

[Tale, ‘Successor of the Eternal Name’ licks its lips at the ‘Kim Dokja fragment’ you have possessed.]

Small hands. Small feet. A small body that could not even get up by itself.

There was no doubt about it.

[Exclusive skill, ‘Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint: Stage 3’ is in effect.]

I had become the ‘little Kim Dokja’ raised by <Kim Dokja Company>.