「Do you think there is anything as lonely as knowing all of the future?」
—Prophet, Anna Croft
*

If you were told to choose, from her childhood memories, a scene that could become the opening of a novel, Han Sooyoung had no choice but to recall that scene.

“Get a grip.”

The one who said that was the “uncle” who used to take care of the young Han Sooyoung.

The only one who called him uncle was the young Han Sooyoung. Her father called him a “handyman”, and her mother called him a “live-in helper”.

“No one will protect you.”

At 8 a.m., he would make Han Sooyoung’s breakfast. He was someone with very good cooking skills, so Han Sooyoung had never once skipped the breakfast he made.

“Is this food from your country, Uncle?”

“Something like that.”

Han Sooyoung asked while looking back and forth between the pad thai and banh mi he had made.

“Pad thai is Thai food, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“And banh mi is Vietnamese food.”

“That’s right.”

Han Sooyoung didn’t press him any further. Just from looking at it, you couldn’t tell. Maybe Uncle’s mom was Thai, and his dad was Vietnamese.

Just like how her mom was an actress, and her dad was a member of the National Assembly.

Uncle had other strange habits too, like this: after running the washing machine, he would stand alone in the living room and do some odd movements.

“What’s that?”

“The Hundred-Step Divine Fist.”

Uncle answered in a tone like an AI translator and repeated the bizarre movements.

“If you want to survive, you need to be proficient in a variety of martial arts.”

In reality, besides the Hundred-Step Divine Fist, he knew a variety of martial arts.

Han Sooyoung asked while copying Uncle’s stance.

“But is there any reason we’d ever use this? Our country’s public safety is pretty good.”

“If you learn it, someday it’ll all have a use.”

Uncle was someone who firmly believed that an apocalypse would someday come to this world.

“A new world needs new rules.”

In now-faint memories, Han Sooyoung diligently copied Uncle’s movements. After repeating the movements for a while and even finishing dinner, Uncle always left work with the same goodbye.

“No matter what happens, don’t give up.”

Han Sooyoung thought that goodbye was pretty funny. If she’d known it wouldn’t be long before Uncle would be replaced by an aunt, she would’ve talked with Uncle a lot more.

“Han Sooyoung.”

Uncle, holding Han Sooyoung’s small head, said this after a long silence.

“The apocalypse is coming.”

“You always say that.”

“It’s really going to come.”

“Yeah, yeah. I got it.”

“No matter what happens, don’t give up.”

What had she said to Uncle as her last words? The memories after that weren’t clear. Since it was from when she was very young, maybe that was only natural.

Still, if she tried to trace back the past, there were a few things she remembered.

On the last day Uncle worked, a few valuables in the house disappeared. Right before he got caught by the police, he used the Hundred-Step Divine Fist he had taught her. A rumor that he went to prison. A rumor that he escaped from prison. Even a rumor that he threatened to expose her father’s secrets, her father who had been a member of the National Assembly, and was forcibly deported to his homeland.

In the end, what country had Uncle been from?

Once, she asked her mother about Uncle when her mother came to see her on the weekend.

Her mother tilted her head at Han Sooyoung’s question for a moment, then asked back like this.

“What in the world are you talking about?”

Han Sooyoung frowned and talked about Uncle. About the breakfasts he made her, about the Hundred-Step Divine Fist he taught her, about the apocalypse that would soon arrive.

Her mother took Han Sooyoung to a psychiatrist. The doctor, who would readily prescribe propofol to her mother whenever she asked, listened to Han Sooyoung’s entire story and said in admiration.

“It looks like your daughter has developed an imaginary friend.”

That couldn’t be true. Uncle definitely existed. He made her breakfast. He told her about a dog-like monster, a monster with long horns, and a dragon that led the world to its epilogue.

He also talked about the stars. Whenever he talked about the stars, Uncle would look up at the sky with deep eyes.

None of that could have been fake. No one could fail to remember a person like that. And yet, as if everyone had taken propofol as a group, no one remembered Uncle.

The only one who remembered him was the young Han Sooyoung, and because of that, Uncle remained as an imaginary friend Han Sooyoung had created.

Not long after that, Han Sooyoung began writing a novel.

When she fell asleep and woke up, ideas would well up along with deep fatigue. Han Sooyoung moved everything that came to mind into a novel.

In the novel was the apocalypse Uncle had talked about. The protagonist of that world was a regressor. A regressor who fought alone in the face of the world’s ruin.

“What was your uncle’s name?”

At the psychiatrist’s question, Han Sooyoung couldn’t answer properly. Instead, Han Sooyoung gave the closest name she could remember.

“Yoo Junhyeon.”

Yoo Junhyeon gathered comrades in endless regressions, and lived, and struggled.

He didn’t give up.

If Uncle wasn’t only her imagination—if Uncle was really living somewhere in this world—what then?

If, in truth, his homeland wasn’t this world, but another world?

In a sense, that novel was written for Han Sooyoung to overcome her childhood.

Each time Yoo Junhyeon’s regressions repeated, the Uncle in her memories grew faint. Childhood memories were dyed gray, and Han Sooyoung gradually became an adult.

Then one day, while she was writing that novel.

—Isn’t this plagiarism of ‘Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World’?

She ended up reading one strange comment.

*

When she snapped to her senses with a “hot,” Han Sooyoung realized that all of it had been a dream.

Tstststst.

As faint sparks lit up the surroundings, the incarnation bodies of her comrades facing death came into view.

[Exclusive skill, ‘Special Preservation’, is being activated.]

More precisely, they were her comrades’ incarnation bodies fixed in the state right before death.

Kim Namwoon with both arms torn off. Lee Hyunsung with a huge hole in his stomach. Lee Jihye with fatal injuries to major organs. Lee Seolhwa, burned to the point you couldn’t recognize her and barely clinging to life. And even Shin Yoosung, who had taken a strong impact to the head and whose life signs had weakened.

And besides them, every comrade in <Han Sooyoung Corporation> was encased in pale flasks, preserved like specimens.

As if time had stopped right before death.

With hollow eyes, Han Sooyoung examined those comrades and thought about “uncle” once again.

Maybe the existence called “uncle” was a memory that had been retroactively reassembled as she became an adult—maybe it was a memory created after she met Yoo Joonghyuk.

Because stories flow toward “empty spaces”.

“Why isn’t it Yoo Junhyeon, but Yoo Joonghyuk.”

The Yoo Junhyeon in her memories said.

「“No matter what happens, don’t give up.”」

“In a situation like this, how am I supposed to not give up.”

Muttering in a tone that made it unclear who she was talking to, Han Sooyoung slowly began tapping the keyboard.

「Lee Hyunsung thought. Training was needed. Painful and harsh training was needed to stop the thoughts that kept continuing.」

「Shin Yoosung asked worriedly. “But is it really okay to just leave that man alone?”」

「Lee Jihye frowned. “Then what are we going to do? Seolhwa took him.”」

「Kim Namwoon shook his head. “I never liked that bastard to begin with.”」

「Lee Seolhwa shouted. “Dokja, where are you!”」

From her fingertips, every action of [Avatar] was being created. The sentences she created rode the fable links extending from her and flowed straight into the comrades preserved in the flasks.

The [Avatar] story she wrote would someday become her comrades’ memories. So that when they revived far in the future, they could remember this moment together.

This was her world for seeing the ending without losing anyone.

「Avatar World」.

Han Sooyoung felt like she knew why she had dreamed about “uncle” now.

Maybe the Uncle in her memories had been the first avatar she ever made. A solid avatar that soothed her loneliness and protected her childhood.

Her fingertips started aching little by little. Along with a faint chill, the whole area around her swam. It had been happening often lately.

Reflected on a fragment of flask glass, she saw herself. A body that had become much smaller than before.

[Your incarnation body has reached its limit.]

Her body and mind were both at the limit now.

Her fables had lost their center point and were scattering little by little.

But she had to endure. At least until this story ended, until the scenario ended.

Tststst.

Instinctively, Han Sooyoung reached into her clothes. What was clenched in her hand was a small notebook.

A record left for her by Kim Dokja, who had once /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ visited the 1,863rd round.

「“Don’t throw it away, and look through it whenever you have time.”」

Han Sooyoung read it.

She didn’t know why, but whenever she was reading that notebook, the backlash threatening her would calm down.

But starting some time ago, even that effect had been weakening little by little.

A faint flame flicked off the notebook’s surface, scorched by Plausibility sparks.

“That bastard.”

A half-sleepy mutter.

“I really didn’t plagiarize.”

Then, with a thud, the notebook slipped from her hand. Han Sooyoung started nodding off.

Next, signs of the Backlash of Plausibility began to appear throughout her body. The world she had maintained for so long was collapsing.

Just then, along with the sound of a door opening somewhere, she heard someone’s voice.

“I know.”

In her hazy consciousness, Han Sooyoung looked up at the man entering through the door.

She couldn’t tell whether this was a dream or not. Maybe she had created another “imaginary friend” again. In this world where nothing was left except her and her avatars, unable to endure the terrible loneliness, she had made another “uncle”.

As if understanding her heart, Uncle nodded.

“It’s enough now.”

Holding the half-collapsed Han Sooyoung and laying her down, Uncle said.

“From now on, I’ll write.”

Uncle began the story.

Like when she was a child, Han Sooyoung leaned back into a soft sofa and listened to Uncle’s story. Even though she knew she couldn’t do this, even though she knew this world would collapse if she didn’t write, Han Sooyoung couldn’t help but listen.

Maybe it was because she had been writing stories for far too long. Maybe, even just for a moment, listening to someone else’s story, a story made by someone else, she wanted to become a reader too.

It was the story of one reader.

The story of a reader who loved novels more than anyone. A story where he met the characters of the novel he loved, and met the author who wrote the novel he loved. A story where they went on adventures together.

The story of a man who, because he loved that story too much, became that story itself.

“That story.”

Han Sooyoung asked.

“Is it okay to tell it to me?”

Uncle thought for a moment, then answered.

“Yes.”

With her eyes closed, Han Sooyoung kept listening to the story.

As the story continued, the backlash gradually vanished.

That day, Han Sooyoung had a dream.

It was a dream of meeting a man she had wanted to meet for a long time.

*

When she opened her eyes the next day, Han Sooyoung was looking at me.

“Kim Dokja. You know what you did, right?”

On top of the devastated world where all the avatars had disappeared, she said to me with an expression that dressed up no lies.

“I won’t become tls123.”