For a moment, a chill brushed the back of my neck.

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

It started with ‘Successor of the Eternal Name’.

[Tale, ‘Recorder of Vanished Things’ is expressing sorrow.]
[Tale, ‘One Who Rewrites Fate’ is staring at fate.]

The tales I possessed were reacting to that ‘existence’. They were warning me.

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

They were telling me to erase the existence in front of my eyes.

[Tale, ‘Successor of the Eternal Name’ is saying that that name is meant for only one person.]

That if I left that existence alone, it would become a threat to me.

But I shook my head.

「If you can’t control a tale, you end up living exactly as the tale says.」

More than anything, I knew who that ‘Kim Dokja’ was.

“Gu Seonah.”

The moment I called her name, fierce thunder struck from the sky.

Had someone in the distance pulled on too much Plausibility again.

From the sky, cracked as if it would break at any moment, pitch-black darkness was flowing out.

[The scenario’s Plausibility bindings are weakening.]

Anyway, it was a good thing for me.

[The world system is turning its gaze toward an area of Plausibility collision.]

As the bindings of the world system weakened, I could feel the restraints on my way of speaking loosen. If it was now, I’d be able to have a free conversation with Gu Seonah.

“Gu Seonah. Let’s stop this now.”

Gu Seonah. I recalled once more the information I knew about her. Maybe some clue still remained inside me that could persuade her.

Her ID was strawberry1137.
Reader level was 46.
Number of complete reads was 8.

Judging from the ID, she was probably someone who liked strawberries. 1137 might be some kind of anniversary.

For example, March 7th of 2011 or something like that.

I shook my head. That alone wasn’t enough. I needed more information about her.

[You are using ‘Reader Comment List’ on the relevant person.]

+

* You can spend coins to check the comments this reader has written.

* Number of comments you can currently check for free: 3.

+

Because it felt sleazy to read other people’s comments, I hadn’t used this skill often. But right now, there was no other way.

As I activated the skill, the comments she had left floated up before my eyes one after another.

+

No, how does this make sense. No matter what, how can you split the reader in half? This is really the author’s fault here. Seriously.
―(Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, Episode 516)

+

He came back, right? He really came back, right? He did, didn’t he? He smiled so brightly! Sooyoung smiled brightly like an idiot!
―(Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, Episode 551)

+

Recently I told my crush about this novel.. He said it’s fun.. I’m happy...
―(Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, Episode 551)

+

Somehow, it didn’t feel real.

I recalled Gu Seonah I’d seen at Chungmuro. A face faintly full of venom and strong eyes. Someone who didn’t easily trust people.

The Gu Seonah inside an internet comment window was different from the Gu Seonah I knew. Her comments were lively, her joy and sorrow vivid, and you couldn’t feel even the slightest shadow.

I read and reread the last comment she had written. Then a conversation suddenly came to mind.

Strictly speaking, it wasn’t my memory, but the memory of the Smoke Human ‘Kim Gyeongsik’ that I had absorbed.

In the memory, the two of them were sitting on the platform at Chungmuro, chatting quietly.

Because the memory was damaged, I couldn’t hear most of the conversation well, but at least a few words from Gu Seonah came through clearly.

「“I have someone I have to find.”」

The expression on Gu Seonah’s face as she said that was also vivid.

「“If I’ve possessed this world, then that bastard will definitely be here too.”」

Maybe this was the reason I couldn’t turn my back on her.

Her life was not here. So I had an obligation to send her back wholly to her own world. I had kept thinking that way.

“Gu Seonah. Just what have you done.”

When our eyes met, Gu Seonah’s face looked far more like ‘Kim Dokja’ than before.

She tilted her head slightly with a faint smile.

Her gaze dropped to the ground. There lay the limp corpses of incarnations.

I hadn’t spoken with them directly before, but they were faces everyone knew.

Students of Class A.

[Constellation, ‘Tiger Who Eats Rice Cakes’ is retching and crying out in pain!]

They were the terminal incarnations of <Twelve Zodiac>.

[Constellation, ‘Pig Who Lives in the Brick House’ is breaking the brick house in pain!]
[Constellation, ‘Rat Who Eats Nails’ is biting its nails and having a seizure!]

The constellations’ screams echoed in my ears.

[Constellation, ‘Tiger Who Eats Rice Cakes’ is falling into a berserk state.]
[Constellation, ‘Pig Who Lives in the Brick House’ is falling into a berserk state.]
[Constellation, ‘Rat Who Eats Nails’ is falling into a berserk state.]

Gu Seonah had become even more like ‘Kim Dokja’ than before.

The incarnations hanging limp like the dead.

The constellations writhing in agony.

“I just made it easy for them, that’s all.”

Gu Seonah was speaking.

“You know it too. These guys barely have any ‘reader’ ego left in them anymore. So I just carved out only that part.”

“Then the readers―”

She smiled brightly and pointed at herself with her thumb. A fierce and ominous energy was surging from her entire body.

[Tale, ‘Master of the Twelve Zodiac’ is roaring!]

She had absorbed the ‘Kim Dokja fragments’ the constellations of <Twelve Zodiac> had.

“Why are you looking at me like that? They were the ones who tormented us. You must have struggled because of these guys too.”

Right. I had struggled because of them too.

Especially when I met ‘Tiger Who Eats Rice Cakes’ in the <Twelve Zodiac> scenario, I had almost died.

But it wasn’t as if they had been hostile to me from the beginning.

‘Tiger Who Eats Rice Cakes’, ‘Pig Who Lives in the Brick House’, ‘Rat Who Eats Nails’—all the same.

At Geumho Station, at Chungmuro Station, even during the ‘Backstage Choice’.

They were the first stars to cheer me on. Maybe that was why I had been reluctant all this time to truly face them head-on.

Even if they now barely had any ‘reader’ spirit left, even if only a 1 percent fragment of their spirit remained, that was fine. If it was for that 1 percent, I could throw my body out there over and over to save them.

And yet.

“I only did what you did. We’re the same.”

Watching Gu Seonah calmly spread her arms, I unconsciously took a step back.

“So let’s stop and become one, Kim Dokja.”

Up until now, I had believed there was at least some minimum line. I had wanted to believe she, at the very least, wouldn’t touch the same ‘readers’.

But that line, she crossed like it was a joke.

“You sound just like something Nirvana would say.”

It was only one step.

With just that one step, Gu Seonah came right up to in front of my nose and her white hand reached out toward my neck.

I reflexively swung ‘Unbreakable Conviction’ and knocked her hand away. Even though it was a clash between hand and sword, a sharp metallic sound rang out.

Her entire hand was shining like a pure white fingernail.

I recognized what tale it was.

The tale of ‘Rat Who Eats Nails’―「Nails Cornered to Extremity」.

A tale that reinforced a part of the flesh to a hardness close to a holy relic.

Grinding my teeth, I swung my sword. Fingernails and sword collided several times, and the magic meeting at their points of contact canceled out and turned into a roar. Judging from the level of recoil, the amount of magic power we each had, and our physical abilities, were about the same.

Gu Seonah smiled faintly.

“I’m the one who’s going to kill the Great Demonfolk. You, just exit here.”

“Why are you doing something like this.”

“I’m not the one who started this. You’re the one who started it.”

“You’ve never even listened to my side of the story! You didn’t even ask what happened between me and Mister Kim Gyeongsik, or what scene you saw!”

The fingernails of Gu Seonah, which had been fiercely clashing against mine, paused for the first time.

“Kim Gyeongsik.”

I nodded.

I finally had a chance to speak.

That what she’d seen that day was a misunderstanding, that while it was true I had absorbed Mister Kim Gyeongsik’s spirit, I had by no means killed him.

That was how I was going to explain it.

“I’d forgotten. Did you really think I was doing all this just over some random mister?”

Not because of Kim Gyeongsik?

Then just why did Gu Seonah harbor such intense hostility toward me.

With another bursting crack, the two of us retreated three or four steps at the same time.

Gu Seonah gazed at me quietly with clear eyes. Then she soon furrowed her brow as if displeased.

“Do you really not know?”

“What are you talking about?”

“After you turned everything into this mess, you just went and forgot all by yourself?”

Gu Seonah let out a strange laugh, then raised her hand into the air. Soon, a ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ finger snap was heard.

My chest turned cold.

She had activated the specialty of the spirit she’d absorbed, ‘Christina Page’.

[Character ‘Gu Seonah’ is activating ‘Daily Corpse Lv.10’!]

[Daily Corpse] was a skill that, as soon as it was activated, separated the spirit from the body.

But I had a countermeasure.

「I’m the ‘Kim Dokja’ who doesn’t fall under hypnosis.」

However, the moment I activated [Agitation], I realized something was off.

The target she’d activated [Daily Corpse] on wasn’t me.

“I’ll make you remember.”

[Character ‘Gu Seonah’ is activating ‘Hypnosis Agitation Lv.10’.]

At the same time, incarnations started trudging out from all over the bushes.

They were all familiar faces.

Lee Hyunsung, Lee Jihye, Kim Namwoon, and even Shin Yuseung.

Maybe because of the influence of [Daily Corpse], the four of their eyes were empty.

At Gu Seonah’s jerk of the chin, Lee Hyunsung moved.

[Character ‘Lee Hyunsung’ is activating ‘Shatter Mount Tai Lv.9’!]

Lee Hyunsung’s massive fist slammed down on the ground. As if there had been an earthquake, the dirt floor flipped and a ringing filled my ears.

While my senses were disturbed, Lee Jihye and Kim Namwoon charged through the dust.

Kagagang!

Gripping ‘Unbreakable Conviction’ and ‘Execution Sword’ as a pair, I blocked the two people’s attacks. From the heavy impact, my palms tingled with pain.

The one who appeared right after was Shin Yuseung. The pack of 8th-grade sea species, ‘small conches’, controlled by the child, began their ensemble.

[Starting ‘Conch Ensemble’!]

But the ensemble of conches surged up in a completely different direction from me and produced dissonance.

Gu Seonah frowned and spoke.

“Shin Yuseung, do it properly.”

Watching Shin Yuseung’s shoulders flinch and tremble, a bizarre dissonance also rose up inside my heart.

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

I’d wanted to save even a bit of strength in preparation for the final battle. But now I had to admit it.

Gu Seonah was strong. Strong enough that, if she could control such powerful characters so freely, we might have to place her above even ‘higher-grade demonfolk’.

That was how many ‘Kim Dokja fragments’ she had gathered.

[Tale, ‘Successor of the Eternal Name’ is starting the story as if it’s been waiting.]

Power I would have been wary of using before. But now that the world system’s gaze was turned elsewhere, it should be fine.

[Through the effect of the tale, ‘Successor of the Eternal Name’, one of the tales of ‘Demon King of Salvation’ is awakening.]
[You have temporarily gained the right to use the tale, ‘Bug Massacre’.]

The tale, 「Bug Massacre」.

It was a tale the ‘Demon King of Salvation’ obtained after defeating the demon count ‘Tentatio’ on the dark star.

「A tale that exerts overwhelming power when the opponent is a ‘weaker party’ than oneself.」

Of course, Lee Hyunsung was far too strong to apply this ‘tale’ to. Kim Namwoon and Lee Jihye, and maybe even Shin Yuseung, were incarnations who, in terms of immediate performance, were more than capable of overwhelming me.

But there was one thing in which they could never surpass me.

「That was the ‘stature’ of the tale.」

I drew in a breath and exploded, all at once, the stature I had been holding back until now.

[Constellation, ‘Demon King of Salvation (Proxy)’ is revealing his own stature!]

In the wave of stature that was momentarily unleashed, the movements of Lee Hyunsung and the others faltered.

I didn’t miss that opening and activated a skill.

[Exclusive skill, ‘Agitation Lv.10’ is activating!]

To be honest, I didn’t want to use this skill on people I knew. But right now, there was no other option.

I placed a hand on the shoulder of Lee Hyunsung as he charged in.

[Exclusive skill, ‘Agitation’ is resonating with ‘Bug Massacre’.]

Suddenly, a thought came to me.

Maybe the one dreaming wasn’t only the ‘Oldest Dream’.

「This world is a massive [Agitation]. Every existence is merely moving from one dream to another.」

Yu Joonghyuk, Cheon Inho, Asmodeus, Gu Seonah, or Ye Hyeonwoo. They all had their own dreams. They too were fighting to bring the characters into their own dreams.

Probably, I was the same.

[Exclusive skill, ‘Agitation’ is exerting overwhelming influence on incarnations with a lower stature than you!]

But as always, there was something you absolutely had to do first before you could dream a new dream.

“Hyunsung.”

To wake from the ‘old dream’.

“Do you happen to remember the sound of the wake-up trumpet?”

Lee Hyunsung’s shoulders began to tremble like crazy.