「Because it is impossible to record everything, stories exist at last.
Things that could not be told vanish outside the scenario, and they sometimes appear in the universe by borrowing an unfamiliar form.
Things commonly called the deities of other worlds, Outer Gods (External Gods).
However, since no name can contain their sorrow, recorders collectively call them Terror (Horror).」
― Recorder of Terror

*

A snowflake fell on his face and melted warmly. At that soft sensation, Lee Gilyoung opened his eyes.

"Brother."

The moment he opened his eyes, a pure-white snowfield spread out. At the end of the snowfield stood the person the boy had longed for. A person who lightly waved those slender arms. A person a lonely smile suited so well.

As always, he broke into a grin, then disappeared into the white flurries as pale as his face.

"Dokja!"

A name he thought he would never be able to call again. Lee Gilyoung shouted that name at the top of his lungs.

"Kim Dokja!"

Memories rose up.

「He came here to find Kim Dokja.」

In order to meet that person again, in order to reunite in a complete form, the party chose a single ending.

In a gray ruin with nothing in it, they gathered his fragments. They accepted the tragedy of participating in the scenario once more.

They went to the Recycling Center.

"Dokja! Dokja!"

When he first saw him, Lee Gilyoung denied that he was Kim Dokja. He thought that simply sharing a part of the memories did not make it right to call him "Kim Dokja."

「To Lee Gilyoung, Kim Dokja was the protagonist and a god.」

The Kim Dokja he remembered was an omniscient man. A person who knew anything and always made choices that shattered people's expectations.

A person who, in the tragedy of a subway where everyone killed each other, could place a single grasshopper into the hands of a boy who was nothing special.

Kim Dokja was that kind of person.

「That was why the 'that man' of the 41st regression was far too weak to become Kim Dokja.」

He resembled Kim Dokja in face and in the way he spoke, but no matter how you looked at him, he was a sloppy human who couldn't protect anything by himself.

Afraid he might die, Lee Gilyoung constantly watched him from the shadow of the scenario.

The more he watched, the more he was different from Kim Dokja.

Not even knowing he would die, he saved people, and he even fought for humans who had no value in keeping alive, and though he couldn't do anything about the scenario right in front of his eyes, he measured a distant future with his eyes alone.

That isn't Dokja.

Even as he repeated that to himself, Lee Gilyoung kept watching his story. He watched him push through the scenario little by little, and he watched the number of people who followed him increase one by one.

As he watched his story, which traced a strangely different trajectory from the path <Kim Dokja Company> had walked, Lee Gilyoung sometimes found himself thinking something.

「Was Dokja originally a strong person?」

In his memories, Kim Dokja was a complete human being from the start.

A person who held all the world's records in his hands.

But was Kim Dokja really that kind of person? In truth, wasn't that just an illusion he had made?

Maybe even Dokja wanted to run away every single time.

Maybe he didn't want to fight.

He must have been afraid of death.

Carving out a new road no one had ever walked might, in fact, have been harder for him than anyone.

「"Just wait a little."」

And yet, Kim Dokja always fought while carrying the party's fantasies on his back.

He was the omniscient Kim Dokja.

The Kim Dokja who always had to sacrifice himself alone.

Lee Gilyoung hated the Kim Dokja who tried to shoulder everything alone. He hoped he wouldn't sacrifice himself. He hoped he wouldn't be left alone. And yet.

Or because of that,

「"Because I'm going to write that sentence now."」

When the man made the exact same choice as that "Kim Dokja," Lee Gilyoung could finally do nothing but acknowledge it.

"Don't go! Don't do it!"

That person is Kim Dokja.

"Please! Don't do it!"

The Kim Dokja he was searching for was always the Kim Dokja who left him behind. Within that irony, Lee Gilyoung shouted again and again at Kim Dokja's vanishing back.

[Fable, 'Demon King of Salvation' begins the story again.]

That story must not be allowed to be recorded. He must not be allowed to let Kim Dokja die one more time.

Just as he reached his hand toward him again.

[You worked hard. Go back now.]

The reply that came back was not Kim Dokja's.

It was the old man who had brought Lee Gilyoung to the 'Recycling Center.'

"No."

Lee Gilyoung snapped back with a growl. He still hadn't done what he had to do. He still hadn't saved the brother of this world.

But the manager of the Recycling Center— the 'Mass Production Maker'— shook his head.

[His story with you has already ended.]

"What kind of bullshit is that."

Their story hadn't ended.

Kim Dokja was still his protagonist and this world's god.

[Didn't Han Sooyoung already finish the story where he was the protagonist?]

The moment he heard that, Han Sooyoung suddenly came to mind. Right. Han Sooyoung was there. If it was her, it might be possible. If it was her, she might be able to change all these records.

But this time as well, the Mass Production Maker shook his head.

['Another story' has already begun.]

Lee Gilyoung wanted to ask what that meant.

He was still here.

<Kim Dokja Company> was still searching for Kim Dokja. So the story wasn't over. Their roles continued.

[Do you still not know anything?]

As if Lee Gilyoung was pitiful, the Mass Production Maker reached out and touched his cheek.

[No, maybe it's better if you keep not knowing.]

When he opened his eyes again, he saw the pure-white snowfield. Looking closely, it was the ceiling of a hospital room.

He felt something slide down near the corner of his eye. A hand that felt oddly indifferent wiped away his tears.

"Idiot. You're awake?"

When he turned his head, Shin Yoosung was looking at him. Lee Gilyoung stared up at the girl with blank eyes. The two children looked at each other and kept looking for a long while.

Lee Gilyoung said,

"We failed."

This time too, the two children couldn't save Kim Dokja.
*

For once, <Kim Dokja Company> gathered in one place.

"Gilyoung. Don't you have something to say to everyone?"

At Yoo Sangah's words, Lee Gilyoung was called out of his seat. The boy endured the party's eyes on him, then let out a long, heavy sigh.

"Um, can we do it later? Right now my arms and legs are really numb, and my throat kind of hurts, too...."

It wasn't a lie. From the probability backlash, Lee Gilyoung's incarnation body had suffered large and small damage all over.

Fortunately, his supporting constellation Abaddon had borne some of the backlash, otherwise it could have been a wound that might even kill him.

But this time, he couldn't get away with the excuse that he was hurting.

"You're not the only one who got hurt this time."

At Yoo Sangah's cold voice, which he hadn't heard in a long time, Lee Gilyoung hunched his shoulders and examined the party.

Yoo Sangah, Lee Seolhwa, Shin Yoosung, and that black bastard.... He didn't see anyone in particular who looked hurt.

Did she mean their hearts were hurt?

"Come on, just forgive him. The kid caused a little trouble, that's all."

Someone was coming in through the hospital room door as it opened.

Startled, Shin Yoosung sprang up and supported the staggering figure.

"Sis, how can you come out already?"

"Why not. I'm fine. I'm all better."

"Better, my ass! Seolhwa said earlier you need to rest—"

Lee Gilyoung opened his eyes wide in shock.

Lee Jihye was waving her right hand with her entire body wrapped up in bandages.

"Sis?"

"What."

"No, those bandages, what are they even for."

"What about them."

You could wrap bandages. But the problem was that she had bandages wrapped all over her body, and more precisely, the very fact that she was "wrapped in bandages" was itself the problem.

In this world, there were countless ways to heal wounds. There were medicines where, if you took just a single pill and fell asleep, your injuries would be completely healed the next day, and there were ointments where, if you just smeared a little, new flesh would sprout right away.

Even though such items existed, Lee Jihye was wrapped in bandages. That meant an injury that couldn't be treated without even bandages.

"Why are you all staring like that. I'm really fine. I'm totally fine, I said?"

Even as she said that, it looked like raising both arms was hard for her. After straining for a moment and receiving Shin Yoosung's support, Lee Jihye plopped down into a chair and continued.

"Don't give the kid such a hard time. Kids can cause trouble sometimes. That's how they grow up."

Only then did Lee Gilyoung realize why Lee Jihye was so badly hurt. Without realizing it, cold sweat formed on his hands. He bit down hard on «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» his lip.

Normally, he would have snapped, "Yeah, then who told you to come rescue me?" but this time he absolutely couldn't say something like that. Even at a glance, Lee Jihye's wounds looked truly serious.

"Sis...."

At Lee Gilyoung's uncharacteristic attitude, Lee Jihye giggled.

"Hey, it's really nothing. It's just that it didn't go well, trying to fight for the first time in a while."

"......Which bastard did that to you?"

"Why? If you find out, are you gonna get revenge or something?"

"Tell me."

"The spear that draws the border of the sea."

"Poseidon."

Lee Gilyoung ground his teeth.

Lee Jihye let out a light cough, rubbed her nose, and laughed.

"Hey, but isn't it pretty good if I fought Poseidon this much? He's still one of <Olympus>'s three chief-god ranks."

"......"

"I locked him down with my [Ghost Fleet], you know? I fired a few hundred shots per second while running Seolhwa ragged, and that old geezer's face went pale—"

Lee Gilyoung couldn't bring himself to lift his lowered head.

He wanted to ask. Why did you come to save me to that extent?

He wanted to say it. It would've been fine even if you didn't come. I would've survived and come back somehow.

You didn't need to get hurt like this.

"Gilyoung, I know what you're thinking."

Lee Jihye spoke to Lee Gilyoung like that. With the hand wrapped up in bandages, she gripped the shoulder of the boy who had grown so much now, and said,

"I was just like you, too."

In place of the prideful boy, Lee Jihye looked at the party. Then, with a back that didn't bend well, she creaked and bowed her head.

"So I'm sorry."

Seeing Lee Jihye apologize in his place, something Lee Gilyoung had forced himself to endure inside finally burst.

Staggering as he stood, Lee Gilyoung dropped to his knees on the floor with a thud.

"I was wrong. I'm sorry for making you worry. I'm really, really sorry."

Lee Seolhwa sat the children down as she stopped them from apologizing over and over.

"Both of you, calm down. Drink one cup each of this."

No one there blamed the children. Not Yoo Sangah, not Lee Seolhwa, and not Yoo Joonghyuk.

In truth, all of them knew. If they were in the children's position, every one of them would have done the same thing.

"As long as you're alive, that's enough."

The one who said that was Yoo Joonghyuk.

Just the fact that Yoo Joonghyuk had said it left the remaining party looking quite surprised.

Yoo Joonghyuk furrowed his brow and added,

"So stop with the unnecessary talk here. I'd like to hear why we gathered soon."

Yoo Sangah nodded.

In truth, they hadn't gathered just to call the children and lecture them. There was something far more important.

"There are two pieces of news."

"Say it."

"One is news about Heewon and Hyunsung."

Jung Heewon and Lee Hyunsung. At those familiar names they hadn't heard in a long time, the children swallowed hard.

"It looks like the two of them finally made up their minds."

Made up their minds.

At Yoo Sangah's phrasing, the party's expressions brightened.

The first to speak was Shin Yoosung.

"Did Mr. Hyunsung and Ms. Heewon come here too?"

"Where are they? The two of them—"

But no matter how they looked around, the two of them weren't there. Even when they raised their senses, even when they honed their perception, they couldn't feel the two of them at all.

"Ah."

With Shin Yoosung's sigh, the party realized.

Just as they had chosen their 'ending,' the other two had chosen their own 'ending' as well.

Yoo Sangah nodded and said,

"The two of them went to a 'different ending' from us."