Unfortunately, among all the knowledge I possessed, there was no such thing as a “Murim Dumplings” recipe.

Maybe 81st-round Yu Joonghyuk, the cooking expert, or 999th-round Yu Joonghyuk, who had experience actually making Murim Dumplings, would’ve known the recipe…

“I like Murim Dumplings too.”

“You’ve eaten them before?”

For the first time, curiosity flickered in Jaeheon’s eyes.

I was surprised that this man was even capable of curiosity, and nodded as hard as I could.

“No.”

Jaeheon looked at me like I was insane.

“How can you like a food you’ve never eaten?”

“It’s not like you have to actually eat something to like it.”

“What?”

I’d never tasted Murim Dumplings, but I’d drawn “Murim Dumpling eating scenes” more times than I could count.

In Murim, in Journey to the West, in all the times I’d sketched Kim Dokja or Yu Joonghyuk eating Murim Dumplings, I’d eaten hundreds of imaginary Murim Dumplings in my head.

With my eyes closed, I launched into a long-winded rant about the flavor of Murim Dumplings that appeared in Massacre Method and Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint.

By the time I finished, I honestly felt full, like I’d just polished off a whole tray of dumplings.

When I opened my eyes, Jaeheon was staring at me in disbelief.

“You really do ramble like someone who’s actually eaten them.”

“The most perfect ‘Murim Dumplings’ are the ones you haven’t eaten yet, don’t you think?”

More importantly, right in front of me was someone who had experienced those Murim Dumplings for real through my descriptions.

I poked Yu Joonghyuk’s head.

“When it comes to taste, this guy knows better than I do. For the record, his favorite food is also ‘Murim Dumplings’.”

Jaeheon glared at Yu Joonghyuk, as if he couldn’t believe that, then said,

“So what?”

“I’ll make it so you can eat them again. Those ‘Murim Dumplings’.”

The ‘Murim Dumplings’ of Jaeheon’s world had perished, but this side’s world hadn’t ended yet.

And fortunately, over in <First Murim>, the recipe for those ‘Murim Dumplings’ had been passed down intact.

But Jaeheon’s reaction was strange.

“I don’t believe a word that comes out of someone like you.”

“Why not? I can really let you eat real Murim Dumplings. Just thinking about it makes your mouth water, doesn’t it? With chicken broth, plus a bowl of thin wheat noodles on the side—”

“And in return, you’re going to ask for something.”

“No, I don’t plan to ask for anything. I’ll just take you to the place where the ‘Murim Dumplings’ are.”

“You don’t mean you want me to protect you until we get there?”

This was why I disliked protagonist-types.

Their instincts were razor sharp.

“Is that not okay?”

“Even if I could eat ‘Murim Dumplings’ again…”

Jaeheon paused, then continued.

“The ‘Murim Dumplings’ I ate that day no longer exist.”

If Bae Hueseong were here, he would’ve sneered, “What an incredible dumpling philosophy.” But right now, my ‘Demon King of Salvation’ factor was a bit on the low side.

“You must’ve really liked those Murim Dumplings.”

Jaeheon gave me an even crazier look than before.

In my head, sparks crackled as [The Fourth Wall] spoke up.

「T H I S I S N O T A S T O R Y A B O U T D U M P L I N G S」

I pictured the ‘Demon King of Salvation’ watching me from beyond the wall with a hopeless expression.

'I know that too.'

Jaeheon turned his head to stare into the void. Just as Yu Joonghyuk would steal glances at the sky of the <Star Stream> whenever he got the chance, Jaeheon stared into the emptiness whenever he could. As if there were someone in there he longed for.

I remembered bits and pieces of his story.

Just as the readers and I had been summoned into the <Star Stream>, he had been summoned into Twist of a Fantasy as its protagonist.

Just as we had carved our way through scenarios, he had climbed a tree-like tower and reached its very end.

But I didn’t know what he’d felt at the top of that tower, nor what he had become afterward.

Big Bro Fortuitous’s novel had ended there in vague, abstract prose, without describing that part in detail.

After hesitating a moment, I asked,

“Would it be all right if I asked what those dumplings tasted like?”

Jaeheon silently glanced at me, then looked up at the sky again.

A sky with no stars watching us.

How long had he been staring into that distant emptiness? His sword let out a low, humming cry. Somehow it sounded sad — and, in a way, grief-stricken.

In the end, Jaeheon didn’t answer.

*

While traveling with Jaeheon, I bombarded him with more questions than I could count.

At first he didn’t answer any of them, but sometimes, when he felt like it, he’d respond.

“Can you tell how much time has passed?”

“A day.”

“Wow, it felt like three days. How are you measuring time, anyway?”

“I’m doing 3,600 stabs per second.”

“Could you maybe stab a little slower?”

Jaeheon stared at me blankly, then went right back to stabbing.

“Where did you used to live?”

I continued to fire questions at him. Where he had lived, whether his world had scenarios, whether it had a system, how long he had lived.

Some of his answers were things I already knew. Some were things even I didn’t.

On the one hand, I was doing this to try and win him over a little. On the other, I was doing it for myself.

[Your incarnation body is becoming unstable.]

If I didn’t keep talking to someone, I felt like I’d lose consciousness at any moment.

My incarnation body was nearly at its limit.

In the end, Jaeheon finally spoke up when the number of my questions had surpassed even Yu Joonghyuk’s regression count.

“How long are you planning to yap like that?”

“Until you answer.”

“These stories have nothing to do with you.”

“I still want to hear them.”

“I have nothing to tell someone who’s about to die.”

“Precisely because I’m about to die, I’d like to hear one last interesting story.”

Jaeheon’s lips twitched in annoyance.

“It’s not an especially interesting story.”

I knew that already. Big Bro Fortuitous’s novel hadn’t been popular.

But that didn’t matter.

“I read a story about someone who regressed 1,863 times. It can’t be more boring than that.”

“Regression?”

For a moment I thought, Ah, crap. This man absolutely loathed the word “regression”.

For a very simple reason.

In Jaeheon’s world, all of his companions had regressed — except for him.

“There were ‘regressors’ in my world too.”

“Really?”

I feigned ignorance, and Jaeheon added in a harsh voice,

“But none of them did it 1,863 times.”

“That’s not exactly a normal number.”

“If someone regressed that many times, he must be an utter failure.”

“That’s not true.”

The words slipped out before I could stop them.

Jaeheon narrowed his eyes at me.

“All regressors are cowards.”

“Not all of them.”

“Regressors abandon the present and run away. They go back to the past to steal other people’s achievements, steal items, steal history.”

“There are also people who fought and fought to protect the present, and only regressed when they had no other choice.”

I had no idea why I’d suddenly become Yu Joonghyuk’s defense attorney, but my argument clearly pissed Jaeheon off.

“There’s no such person. All regressors are people so obsessed with the past that they can’t look the present in the eye.”

“At least one of them is different.”

“One?”

“And from where I’m standing, you don’t look all that different from a regressor yourself.”

“What do you mean?”

A murderous aura spilled off his whole body.

“You’re longing for the taste of Murim Dumplings, aren’t you.”

For the first time, Jaeheon looked like he’d taken a hit. The aura he’d been radiating dissolved like magic.

“I…”

“No one moves forward without ever looking back. Sometimes, being a regressor isn’t such a bad thing.”

Jaeheon said nothing for a long time, then slowly drew his sword.

His dark blade stabbed into the air. Stab, stab, stab again. I didn’t know how many times he stabbed.

Finally, he spoke.

“Like I said, my story isn’t going to be entertaining.”

“I’d be fine with a story of you stabbing for a million years straight.”

“Only a million years?”

“So how long has it been?”

“……”

“That long, huh. Not exactly the kind of timespan a sane person could endure.”

“So you think I look sane.”

“The way you’re saying that is honestly kind of terrifying.”

Jaeheon gave a brief chuckle. It was the first smile I’d ever seen on his face. He looked a little more human.

“Why are you so curious about my story?”

“I was hoping I could steal the secret of your strength.”

“And you think you ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ can copy it just by hearing it?”

I knew full well I couldn’t.

Even if he had spent a million years stabbing, it wasn’t like I could reproduce that time.

But I had [Bookmark].

If I heard his story and understood him, even just a little, I might really be able to steal ‘his power’.

Just as Kim Dokja had stolen the powers of other characters.

“Who knows. Maybe your story will trigger some grand enlightenment.”

Of course, in all the time I’d been talking to him, I hadn’t received a single message saying my “understanding has increased”.

He might simply be someone my mediocre brain was incapable of understanding.

Even so, I thought it was worth the attempt.

“Why do you want to become strong?”

“Well, I’ve got to knock all those stars out of the sky.”

“And after that?”

“I’m going to see the end of this world.”

Jaeheon looked at me, then sheathed his sword.

“How predictable.”

“Do you need some special reason to become stronger?”

“For some kinds of strength, yes.”

A sinister light flickered in his pupils. Inside them, I could see a rotating Möbius strip.

“With enough will, anyone can become strong. But strength itself betrays that will. Once you become as strong as you say you want to be, you may not want to see the end of this world anymore.”

As I listened, I thought of the constellations in that sky.

Grade of Great Person, Narrative, Myth. Those beings had accumulated unimaginable time to become stars.

They must have had moments like mine.

Perhaps Jaeheon had as well.

“I’ve never thought that far.”

“You’ll have to now. The enemies you want to fight have all asked themselves that question.”

“Well, yeah. People don’t come out of the bathroom feeling the same way they did going in.”

Jaeheon grimaced, clearly displeased with my metaphor.

“Right now, I doubt you could even get into that bathroom.”

“That’s…”

“It’s not too late. Leave that guy behind and walk away.”

His gaze fell on the sleeping Yu Joonghyuk.

So he did know the state I was in.

“You are not someone who can hold out for an entire week.”

“I know.”

“If you cling to him, you’ll die.”

My incarnation body was on the verge of shattering.

Holding together my Narrative as it collapsed in real time, I replied,

“I appreciate the advice, but I can’t leave.”

“Why not?”

If I ran off on my own in search of a ‘Main Scenario’, I’d probably find a way somehow.

But then Yu Joonghyuk would be left alone in this void. And I highly doubted the man in front of me would save him.

“Because he’s my companion.”

“You know he’s a regressor.”

“……”

“Once he regresses, he won’t even remember you.”

“He might not. Or he might.”

I thought of Yu Joonghyuk. From the 0th round to the 1,864th. His will that had persisted through countless regressions.

“For all we know, after, say, 1,863 regressions, he might remember me again.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Or he might grow stronger than you at the end of a long regression and come back to end this entire goddamn world.”

I pictured the ‘Secretive Plotter’, somewhere beyond this universe, stacking up an epilogue unrelated to this story.

Then I looked down again at the collapsed Yu Joonghyuk.

“And he’s not going to regress anymore. Even if he does, he has no world to go back to. This world is his last.”

On the floating stone, Yu Joonghyuk curled up like he was cold.

As I covered him with my coat, Jaeheon muttered under his breath,

“A regressor who doesn’t regress…”

He didn’t speak to me again after that. He stared into the void like before, but his expression was somehow different from earlier. Maybe he was thinking of Murim Dumplings he’d once shared with a long-ago companion.

So as not to interrupt his regression, I held my breath and stayed quiet.

*

Yu Joonghyuk woke up on the morning of the sixth day. The first thing he noticed upon waking was the scent of finely ground herbal medicine tickling the tip of his nose.

'A Summoning Pill.'

The exact price could vary depending on the market, but a single Summoning Pill was an elixir worth at least a hundred thousand coins. Someone had fed it to him. Whoever that someone was, it was obvious.

'Kim Dokja.'

He saw Kim Dokja curled up asleep on a nearby floating stone.

Yu Joonghyuk stared at him for a moment, then snapped back to his senses and grabbed his spear.

A few steps away, a naked man was watching them from atop a broken meteorite.

Jaeheon, was it.

Keeping his guard up against Jaeheon, Yu Joonghyuk hoisted the fallen Kim Dokja onto his back. A worn-out, exhausted incarnation body.

Judging by his condition, he needed his Narrative repaired immediately or he’d be in danger.

Yu Joonghyuk ran through all nearby locations with a ‘Narrative Repairer’ in his mind, then started walking.

Behind him, Jaeheon’s voice rang out.

“Where are you going?”

“To a place where he can be saved.”

Yu Joonghyuk already understood what that meant. He could feel the presence of distant stars pressing in from far, far away. The only reason they hadn’t drawn closer was clearly because of the ‘Jaeheon’ in front of them.

Even those terrifying nebula lackeys seemed reluctant to approach this man.

That didn’t mean they could just stay here and do nothing forever.

“We won’t die.”

Right now, Yu Joonghyuk’s condition was at its best. Having survived a brush with death, his incarnation body had grown even stronger, and his skills had increased in proficiency.

A frontal clash might be dangerous, but if it was just a matter of fleeing with Kim Dokja in tow, he could manage.

But then Jaeheon said something strange.

“I mean I’ll be the one to kill you.”

“…What?”

So he was dangerous.

Yu Joonghyuk instinctively raised his fighting spirit, and Jaeheon continued,

“If you want to leave, then leave him. Do that, and I’ll let you go.”

“What are you talking about?”

With his usual blank expression, Jaeheon glanced at Kim Dokja and replied in his blunt voice,

“I’ve taken a bit of interest in this ‘Murim Dumplings’ he keeps talking about.”