Why was the ‘second Kim Dokja’ here? I didn’t hesitate for long.

The ‘snowfield’ was Yoo Joonghyuk’s inner self.

Maybe not just me or ‘the Kim Dokja of the snowfield’—maybe every Kim Dokja had their own way of entering this space.

“Hello.”

I started with a greeting. Right, you had to greet people. Speak as gently as possible—simple, but polite. Because they said the ‘second’ was a sad bastard.

Why was I thinking so many useless thoughts?

Because if I didn’t think like this, it felt like I’d go insane. The hairs all over my body were standing on end through every pore, and the chill crawling up my spine wouldn’t stop. My legs trembled so badly it felt like they’d give out and I’d drop to my knees at any moment.

「The being before my eyes is the master of the exalted ‘Terror Order’.」

The thought that I had to kneel dominated my mind. It felt like tens of thousands of plankton were squirming inside my frontal lobe. I wanted to sit respectfully in front of him and swear an oath.

I will obey. O great King of Terror who defines terror. One born in the gap between understanding and incomprehension. One who loves existence and nonexistence. One who loves light and darkness. And—

Squeeze.

What cut off the branches of thought that were spreading out into a total mess was the sensation of a small hand. When I lowered my head, Giyeon’s small hand was holding mine.

I stared blankly at him, then gripped his hand just as tightly. Each other’s trembling traveled through our big and small hands. His fear protected me.

Thank you, Giyeon.

I muttered inwardly, took a light breath, and then slowly opened my mouth.

“You probably already know who I am, but…”

Looking at the second Kim Dokja’s head, I was only now realizing what it meant to face a transcendent being without [Fourth Wall].

[Exclusive Skill, ‘Agitation Lv.???’, activates!]

“I’m the youngest Kim Dokja.”

After I [Agitated] myself, the trembling throughout my body began to settle, little by little.

I am Kim Dokja. Kim Dokja with [Fourth Wall]. No matter what’s in front of me, it can’t hurt me.

As I repeated that to myself over and over, the random thoughts boiling in my head gradually sank down.

I kept talking.

“Ah, of course, you’re Kim Dokja too. Should I call you my second… older brother?”

The second Kim Dokja didn’t answer at all. Regret came late.

Damn it. I should’ve asked the first one more about the second’s preferences.

That was when the second Kim Dokja’s eyes flashed for an instant like the compound eyes of an insect.

「How?」

Goosebumps ran over me, but I forced myself not to show it. Instead, I smiled and took up his words.

“So when you say ‘How?’, you mean, ‘How are you going to persuade me not to start the end,’ right?”

The second Kim Dokja moved his head without a word. Thank god, at least this much communication worked. If that was the case, there was still a chance.

For a moment I considered using [Agitation], but if I failed and provoked the second’s anger, the odds were high that everything would be ruined.

So I decided to approach it the proper way first.

“I’m going to appeal to your sympathy.”

As if he didn’t understand what that word meant, the second Kim Dokja tilted his head.

“You said you hate sad things.”

When I became one with Cheon Inho’s soul, I had witnessed everything that had happened through Cheon Inho’s eyes.

The second Kim Dokja had said it in clear words. That he hated sad things.

I reached out my hand toward the snow falling from the sky and said,

“If you start the end here, sorrow in this universe increases.”

I could feel the fables tangling around my fingertips. There were voices there, screaming desperately, as if they didn’t want to melt away and disappear like this.

「“You think I’m going to die here? You think I’m going to die in a shithole like this?”」

「“Save me! Please save me. Please—”」

Most of them were voices I didn’t know. But not all of them were.

「“Kim Dokja. Where are you.”」

A familiar low voice.

Even without asking who it was, there were scenes that flickered through my mind.

Killer King Cha Sungwoo and the other readers.

「“Dokja. Please help.”」

Gyeong Sein.

「“Friend. Are you safe.”」

That single-armed man.

「“Author.”」

「“Over here!”」

Ms. Jieunyu and Ms. Yerin.

「“Pildu! Take the other side!”」

「“Everyone, hold them back! We have to defend Gwanghwamun no matter what!”」

「“This side will be blocked by the Inho faction!”」

Ye Hyeonwoo. Gong Pildu. And Bang Cheolsu.

The people who had endured the scenarios together were, without fail, holding their places.

It looked like the gate of the Terror Order had already opened in the scenario regions as well. Maybe a whole pack of Outer Gods on the level of ‘natural disaster class’ had crossed over to the Korean Peninsula.

The Bureau might buy [N O V E L I G H T] a little time using plausibility as an excuse, but even that would have its limits.

In the end, those bastards turned everything into a scenario.

Meaning, if I failed to persuade the second Kim Dokja right now, the 41st turn ended here.

“You’ve already been through plenty of sad things.”

「…….」

“You know it too, don’t you? You’ve been watching all of it, haven’t you.”

The second Kim Dokja was also ‘Kim Dokja’. So he must have been reading my story here.

“They may not be <Kim Dokja Company>, the people you love. But—”

The moment I mentioned <Kim Dokja Company>, I didn’t miss the faint change that appeared on the second Kim Dokja’s face.

“It’s not only <Kim Dokja Company> that you love. That’s why you made this ‘Terror Order’, right? Isn’t it?”

The second Kim Dokja listened to my words in silence.

“Wasn’t it that you wanted to lock everything that’s being forgotten away in the ‘time stratum’?”

The ‘Terror Order’ was the ‘vast sorrow’ collected by the ‘second Kim Dokja’.

It was also clear why those collected fables became ‘terror’.

In this <Star Stream>, ‘terror’ became important material for fables. War. Famine. Death. Murder… once something was recognized as ‘terror’, it didn’t vanish easily from the subconscious, and it was etched deeply like a brand.

The second Kim Dokja had turned what was forgotten in the passing years into ‘terror’ and preserved it inside a gigantic jar of formalin called the ‘time stratum’.

「Everything deserves to be remembered.」

Even though it was just a line like a light flutter of wings, it carried powerful persuasive force.

Inside the fables, the Outer Gods who had finally returned to the scenarios were howling.

【Ooooooooooo!】

They were taking revenge on the world that had forgotten them. Even if they were still nothing but nameless terror, they were savoring themselves—recorded in a story—to the fullest.

Even if that was the form of the ‘end’.

“It doesn’t have to be recorded like this.”

I said, as if protesting.

“It doesn’t have to be the end.”

The second Kim Dokja weakly shook his head. With a flutter of wings, his body floated up into the air. Fine dust flowing from his entire body became fables and clung to me. Those fables said,

「It has to be the end.」

Maybe that was the answer the second Kim Dokja had reached after watching the <Star Stream> for a very long time.

The second Kim Dokja saying those words looked terribly sad.

「If I don’t start the end now, even greater sorrow will be born in this universe.」

I didn’t know what ‘greater sorrow’ meant to him.

Suddenly, Cheon Inho’s words flashed through my mind. Cheon Inho had said,

“There are things that are protected only if this world is destroyed.”

<Kim Dokja Company>, and Han Sooyoung from when I first met her, had said something similar. That if this worldline didn’t perish, another universe might perish instead. I understood their justification, at least a little.

“King of Terror. No, ‘Watcher of Light and Darkness’. Aren’t you more than anyone else ‘Kim Dokja who likes happy endings’?”

Even so, I still thought.

Was ‘destruction’ really the only ending for this worldline?

[A fable, ‘The Gap Between Truth and Falsehood’, shines brightly.]

Was there no way for this world not to perish—and also to protect the other universes?

“I’ll stop it. I’ll stop it so that even if this world doesn’t perish, greater sorrow won’t happen.”

「…….」

“Just like you did, one day.”

The modifier of the ‘second Kim Dokja’ was ‘Watcher of Light and Darkness’.

He had fought the ‘Holy-Demon War’, and through a third choice that was neither absolute good nor absolute evil, he had gained that modifier.

Because he chose a path no one had taken, he was here now.

“Second… older brother. Please stop the end.”

The second Kim Dokja still didn’t answer. The moment his gaze rippled once more like compound eyes, the wings on his back spread wide. Dust began to pour from those wings. Instinctively, I knew I couldn’t let it touch me, but there was nowhere to dodge.

The instant the dust touched me, my vision blurred and my heart pounded hard.

When I opened my eyes again, I saw Kim Dokja’s back.

A white coat, a pale face. That distinctive grin. Kim Dokja exactly as I had written him, exactly as I remembered him.

Without realizing it, I walked toward him.

Looking closely, he was standing among people. The people he loved. <Kim Dokja Company>.

「That was the scenery ■■■ had wanted to see for a long time.」

That’s right. I wanted to see that scenery. I wanted to write it into the ending of this world. I wanted to see everyone I had made unhappy become happy again. I—

[Exclusive Skill, ‘Fourth Wall’, is restored!]

Along with the feeling of my stomach turning inside out, a violent cough burst out. As the dust left my body, the illusion hanging before my eyes shattered completely.

[‘Butterfly Dream’ is deactivated!]

With a hair’s breadth, [Fourth Wall] had been restored and the authority of the ‘second Kim Dokja’ had been broken.

When I lifted my head, the second Kim Dokja was up in the air about ten meters, spreading his wings and arms wide as he scattered dust over the world.

The dust he scattered rose up into the sky, like snow falling in reverse.

In that instant, I realized an important fact.

This was Yoo Joonghyuk’s ‘inner world’.

What was in front of my eyes right now was the soul of the ‘second Kim Dokja’.

Then where was his main body right now?

「“Ah… what is that?”」

The fables fluttering through the air answered my question.

A storm of fables was blowing—joy, trembling, ecstasy, delight, all kinds of positive emotions mixed together.

Inside that storm, an incarnation murmured.

「“An angel?”」

The fable that touched my fingertips was vividly reenacted. The scene of the scenario was right before my eyes. The ‘King of Terror’, who had finally escaped the ‘Terror Order’, had revealed himself before the people.

The incarnations approached the second Kim Dokja as if possessed, and inhaled the dust he scattered. And—

Ooooooooooo!

People became ‘terror’.

「“Don’t let the dust touch you! If you get hit by that, you turn into a monster!”」

「“Avoid it! Everyone, run!”」

In real time, the Terror Order was expanding. And that was the second Kim Dokja’s answer to my question.

「That only this ‘end’ is the one and only way to resolve the conflicts of this universe.」

An opponent you couldn’t reason with.

Then this was as far as I could expect brotherly feelings.

I took a deep breath and leaped toward the air.

“I know why your soul is in this ‘snowfield’.”

This was a place not bound by plausibility constraints. As long as his soul hid here, he could protect it from the plausibility backlash outside.

“But you’re not the only one who isn’t bound by plausibility constraints.”

Of course, even if I wasn’t bound, with my strength right now, it was impossible to stop him.

But I was ‘Kim Dokja’.

And like every ‘Kim Dokja’, ‘Kim Dokja’ never fights with only his own strength.

[Exclusive Skill, ‘Bookmark’, activates!]

Without hesitation, I called the person I had already assigned to my Bookmark. No matter how I thought about it, the only person who could handle that ‘Kim Dokja’ in this situation was this ‘being’.

[Activation time: 3 minutes]

[This is a character you cannot handle at your current status!]

A character who normally couldn’t be summoned with [Bookmark].

But not long ago, at the ‘Recycling Center’, I had met this person, and though only a trace, I had gained understanding of him.

[Because your understanding of the character is low, the character’s level is too high, so only part of the skill will activate.]

A powerhouse so strong that even in the ‘snowfield’, which wasn’t bound by plausibility constraints, constraints still applied.

[Because the character’s level is too high, the skill level cannot be fully reproduced.]

I could feel the second, startled, looking down at me. He knew what Bookmark I had pulled out.

「He is the boy who respects Kim Dokja more than anyone else in this universe.」

But it was already too late.

At least as long as the opponent was an ‘insect’, even now, I was confident I wouldn’t lose—even if I was Kim Dokja.

[Bookmark No. 3, ‘Insect King Lee Gilyoung’, has been activated!]

Without hesitation, I reached out my hand toward the second Kim Dokja.

[Exclusive Skill, ‘Taming Lv.???’, activates!]