[The forgotten ending can be unlocked in the ‘Final Library’.]
[When you unlock the ending, you can use the regression-exclusive ‘time stratum’.]

The message I heard in my head wasn’t easy to understand.

Everything that had happened up until now buzzed and drifted around in my head. Words floated up in no order.

Yoo Joonghyuk. Wilderness. Red-Blood Dragon. Ten-Thousand-Year Fire Carp. Earth Hollow. Three months.

Scenery scattering as it swirled apart. Sentences shattering like a lie.

None of it felt real.

「So all of that really was just a ‘horror’?」

Did I really change the past? Or had I only seen an illusion?

If I changed the past, did my actions affect the ending?

[The aftereffects of the ■■-grade horror are surging in.]

It was a long while before I realized a phone was ringing.

The caller was ‘me.’

—Hey.

Who was I acting as all this time? Were the lines I’d spoken really mine?

Was I Kim Dokja? Or Lee Hakhyun? Or neither of those?

I was

The One Who Deceived the StarsEvil SophistVillain of Geumho StationHead of the Ironhead GangRival of the Tyrant KingStayer in the Time StratumAnchored at the End of the WorldlineArrived Before the Final WallRecorder of Horror

—Maknae!

My mind snapped bright in an instant.

“Ah—”

My head cleared, and the confusion settled down. When the breath that had been jammed in my throat finally loosened, it felt like tears even formed a little.

—Yeah. Good job.

With a hazy consciousness, I muttered,

“Yoo Joonghyuk. What happened to Yoo Joonghyuk?”

—What are you talking about? Where the hell is Yoo Joonghyuk?

“The 40th regression’s Yoo Joonghyuk. He was there.”

—I know what you saw, but get a grip. It’s all a story that already ended.

A story that already ended. Those words poked something inside me.

“No. Nothing’s ended yet.”

Yoo Joonghyuk and I were there. We survived while wandering that damned Hollow for three whole months.

I saved him.

I was there.

—That regression is over.

I didn’t want to admit it. It felt like if I reached out right now, every one of those moments would come back to life. The sensation of carving up the Ten-Thousand-Year Fire Carp still lingered at my fingertips.

—That Yoo Joonghyuk came to this regression with you.

I froze and looked down at my smartphone.

Was it okay to think that way?

Like I’d told Yoo Joonghyuk, was I allowed to hear the same story too? Did I even have the right?

“No, I—”

—More importantly, maknae. Get your head on straight. Up ahead…

The call cut off again. It looked like we’d entered another no-service zone.

When I looked around, I saw the subway’s underground lights glowing dimly.

The retching surged up again.

Gripping a subway strap, I gagged and choked over and over.

[Your incarnation body has awakened from ‘Dozing Off on the Commute Home’.]

The horror definitely ended.

Then why was I still inside the ‘subway on the way home from work’?

The reason was obvious.

[You have unlocked Chapter 1 of the ■■-grade horror, ‘Evil Sophist’.]

This ‘train’ still hadn’t reached its destination.

[You have interpreted the ‘uninterpretable horror’.]
[Interpretation suggestion: A companion separated into life and death]
[A blessing from the horror takes root within you.]

When you succeed at interpreting a horror, every ‘horror’ affects the interpreter. Like one story naturally blending into another story.

Whether that would be positive or negative, I’d have to wait and see, but for now, my body felt lighter. My vision felt wider too.

「Like my ‘fable’ of seeing the world just leapt up a step.」

I savored that feeling for a moment, then suddenly looked around.

There was someone collapsed on the seat across from me.

“Hey.”

It was Anna Croft.

Like me, she seemed to have been pulled into a doze; she was opening her eyes faintly.

“Ah, ah… Che, Cheon Inho. No…”

“It’s okay.”

Anna Croft’s eyes went wide.

I rested my hand on her shoulder for a moment and calmed her down. If my guess was right, she was going through the same confusion I was.

What kind of memories had Anna Croft glimpsed?

Did she, like me, get sucked into the 40th regression’s memories?

After taking a moment to steady her breathing, Anna Croft looked up at me. Her voice was trembling.

“A message popped up saying I failed the interpretation.”

Failed the interpretation.

It was different from what I’d seen.

“But it said that since someone who rode this train with me succeeded, it would give me one more chance too…”

As she spoke that far, Anna Croft’s eyes grew huge.

“Don’t tell me, Cheon Inho—you…”

“Yes. I succeeded.”

“I’m in your debt.”

Hearing something similar from Anna Croft right after Yoo Joonghyuk made me feel weird.

Well, it wasn’t intentional, but if she wanted to think of it as a debt, I’d gladly take it.

There was one thing I was curious about.

“What did you see in the horror?”

Since Anna hadn’t been inside the 40th regression fable I entered, she wouldn’t have been put into the same fable as me.

Then what memory had she faced?

“I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

“Nothing at all?”

“Yes. Nothing. I do remember hearing the words ‘You’re not qualified,’ though.”

Not qualified?

“And I remember seeing the message that I failed the interpretation right after that.”

I thought for a moment, then nodded.

Maybe that was the difference between someone who succeeded at interpreting a horror and someone who failed.

If you couldn’t interpret the horror in your own way, you couldn’t keep the memories of enduring that horror.

“Do you remember saying something strange before we entered the horror?”

I recalled what Anna had said to me right before the subway lights started flickering like they’d gone insane.

“When I asked who I was, you said this. That you were one of Yoo Joonghyuk’s closest companions. What did you mean by that?”

“I said that?”

She looked like she couldn’t understand she’d ever said something like that herself.

“It’s true that you were Yoo Joonghyuk’s companion once, but… companion? Wait. That can’t be… companion…?”

Her red eyes, now filled with suspicion, spun fiercely for an instant.

The eyes of a great demon.

She’d activated [Past Vision]. But the next moment, her eyes dulled, and a light spark snapped.

“Ugh—what is this?”

I thought I knew what had happened.

“Why won’t [Past Vision]…”

The 40th regression that Yoo Joonghyuk, Cheon Inho, and Anna had lived through had now become a ‘record’ she could no longer read.

Was that connected to how I reinterpreted the horror?

I couldn’t tell if that was good news or not.

Of course, that wasn’t the only thing I couldn’t tell was good news or not.

“Forget it. You don’t have to force it. More importantly, we’ve got a problem.”

I spoke while turning like I was on guard.

This wasn’t the ‘3807’ car that Anna and I had boarded.

Bodies of blood-soaked incarnations were strewn everywhere.

In other words, in this car, the ‘Crime Zone’ had already broken out, and someone had killed them all. Maybe by now, the ‘final passenger’ had already been decided.

It was probably Cheok Jungyeong.

Anna’s shocked voice trembled.

“My God. If it’s come to this…”

“It’ll be fine. We approached the horror in a different way than the others.”

Since we hadn’t used the ‘Crime Zone,’ our judgment would be handed down differently.

Because that was the rule of this ‘horror.’

The moment I finished thinking that, ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) the door ahead slowly opened.

The next car wasn’t a passenger car.

“Ah.”

A record of Han Sooyoung flashed through my head. If I was right, then up ahead was…

「The engine room.」

After exchanging a look with Anna Croft, I slowly stepped toward the doorway.

The instant I stepped through, space swallowed us.

A room painted pitch-black. Looking closer, what I’d thought were black walls were windows. Beyond the windows was the dim universe of horror.

Several old-style monitors were installed in the room. In front of the monitors, where a faint light leaked out, stood a tall man.

That man was probably the ‘conductor.’

The conductor slowly turned, and our eyes met.

No—more precisely, it felt like they did.

A face where I couldn’t make out a mouth, or a nose, or eyes. A huge question mark floated over the conductor’s face.

That question mark was staring at me blankly.

【Welcome.】

The moment I heard his voice, I felt a strange sense of déjà vu.

A fragment of a fable, prickling and stabbing at my head.

「Foolish human, ignorant of how lofty the throne of a god truly is.」

At that moment, I felt Anna’s body, standing right beside me, go stiff.

【That friend will be like that for a while. She doesn’t have the qualifications to hear my voice.】

The dot of the question mark stretched out to both sides like it was smiling, then puckered like lips.

【That aside, it’s been a long time since someone fell into a ‘doze’ for three whole months. Thanks to you, I enjoyed myself for a while too.】

On the old monitors, the three months Yoo Joonghyuk and I had lived through played in scattered fragments.

I watched those screens with the conductor for a moment.

There was something I wanted to ask.

“Was what I experienced something that really happened?”

【Didn’t I just tell you? You fell into a ‘doze’.】

A doze. A sleep you couldn’t sink deeply into.

“Then did I have a dream?”

【Well. How different do you think a dream and reality are?】

“I don’t know. But a dream is a dream, and reality is reality. They aren’t the same.”

【And who decides that?】

“Huh?”

【If this entire universe is someone’s dream, and everyone inside that dream lives without knowing that fact, is it a dream, or is it reality?】

For a moment, I couldn’t speak. A beat later, I felt like I understood what he was saying.

The conductor looked at me for a moment, then added,

【Most of this universe is made that way. The one who decides whether it’s dream or reality isn’t us.】

“The oldest dream.”

At my answer, the conductor flinched and shut his mouth.

I thought a little, then added,

“To someone who spends their whole life doing nothing but dreaming, that dream would be reality too.”

The conductor laughed, like my answer was interesting.

【A very long time ago, I once saw a man who spoke like you.】

It was obvious who he meant.

I took a shallow breath and opened my mouth.

“Conductor. Could it be that you are…”

I thought.

<Kim Dokja Company> had been like that, and Asmodeus had been like that, and the mass-production maker had been like that, and Uriel had been like that—so maybe there could be ‘more cases like that.’

Stars who saw their own ‘grain,’ and still couldn’t be satisfied with the end.

I slowly turned around the engine room.

No matter how many times I thought about it, there was only one person who could drive a ‘train’ like this.

A star who had once been Kim Dokja’s nemesis, and a star who, in the final moment, drove the train for <Kim Dokja Company>.

His modifier was—

【Shh. Right now, I am the ‘Conductor of Horror’.】

Watching him put a finger to the lips of that question mark, I hesitated, then asked,

“Are you okay?”

The conductor fell silent as if weighing what I meant, then nodded.

【I am satisfied with my role. Driving a train is my specialty.】

When a star falls in love with a story, does it become unable to leave that story’s side even after it ends?

I looked at the great Lokapala of <Vedas>, who had once shone brighter than anyone, then asked,

“What are you going to do with me now?”

【This is the ‘subway on the way home from work’. If you have awakened from your doze, then now you must arrive at your destination.】

Destination.

【It is my job to take you to your destination. Where is it you wish to go?】

So the ‘subway on the way home from work’ was some kind of means of transport within this ‘horror realm.’

I thought for a moment, then spoke.

“The place I want to go is.”

The place I wanted to go was a place you couldn’t reach by ‘public transit.’ It wasn’t a place you could arrive at just by running fast.

To head there, you needed time. You needed a story. You had to pass through dreadful adversity, and cross over death several times.

A place even Kim Dokja, after enduring that grueling time, ultimately couldn’t reach.

【I see.】

The conductor looked at me, then nodded like he understood my destination.

【You wish to go to the ‘Big House’.】