Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint Novel MTL - Chapter 615

Chapter 615

615 Episode 12 □□ (6)

Han Sooyoung was utterly bewildered by what was happening before her.

«What is this?»

Her gaze fell upon Cheon Inho, who had fallen to the ground before her.

A relentless stream of blood poured from the chest of the man impaled by ‘Unbreakable Faith’.

It was a fatal injury.

There was far too much blood pooling on the floor. It was a wound beyond saving, regardless of any immediate intervention, be it the ‘Spirit of Elaine Forest’ or anything else.

«You, why on earth did you…»

The author of ORV from a different world line, who wore the face of Cheon Inho.

Han Sooyoung understood his motivations and his desperate wish to save the readers.

«I… told you I would handle it.»

This world was the <Star Stream>.
Once a scenario begins, sacrifice becomes an inevitability.

Since the outcome of ‘Destruction’ was predetermined, Han Sooyoung had resolved to bring about a swift conclusion with the fewest possible losses.

She knew it would be harsh on the characters.

Yet, it was an episode that would spiral into a greater tragedy if left unchecked, and attempting to alter the ending risked catastrophe across every world line.

Once more, Han Sooyoung had taken on the role of the villain.

She had engineered an ending meant to cause the least amount of pain.

Her plan was to retrieve the souls of the possessors entangled in the scenario without losing a single one, and to find a way to send them all back to their original world line.

Everything had proceeded smoothly until the man before her had intervened.

「 If you are a writer, you would know. 」

His final words reverberated incessantly inside her skull.

「 You’re not trying to finish the story, you’re giving up. 」

Han Sooyoung gasped, feeling the weight of probability.

Why had he said those words, and then thrown himself in her path?

「 Did I ask you to convince me? 」

She had never intended to kill him. If that were her goal, she would have done it immediately.

And yet, as if walking the path of a preordained tragedy, ‘Unbreakable Faith’ had pierced his heart.

「 Are you ready to be persuaded? 」

She had tried repeatedly to alter her sword’s trajectory, but her muscles refused to obey. It was as if the world itself was insisting on his death.

‘It can’t be.’

It reminded her of the achromatic vista she had witnessed earlier.

What if that was this man’s ‘skill’?

What if he possessed an ability that required him to pay a price in probability to manifest the events he desired? What if he had sacrificed himself as that cost?

「 Han Sooyoung knew someone who had sacrificed himself in this way. 」

A wave of dizziness overwhelmed Han Sooyoung. She staggered and dropped to her knees beside the fallen Cheon Inho.

She desperately wanted to ask him before he was gone. Why had he done this?

At that moment, a clicking sound came from Cheon Inho’s pocket as his hand slipped out. Clutched in his grasp was a lollipop of a vaguely familiar shape.

Like someone discovering an incomprehensible phrase scribbled in a margin, Han Sooyoung stared down at the candy.

She slowly reached out her hand.

A shower of sparks erupted with a ‘Tsutsutsu’ sound. Narratives began to flow from the lollipop he held.

A Story?
That was impossible. The third main scenario was only just concluding.

Unless he was a special case like her, no incarnation should have acquired a story yet-

「 «Why aren’t you getting ready? Did you forget where we’re supposed to go today?» 」

Something inexplicable occurred.

That was unmistakably her voice. Those were her words.

But why did this man possess a story connected to her?

「 «Is this pizza?» 」

「 «It’s chicken, you idiot.» 」

「 Today was the first day of <Kim Dokja’s Company>’s outing. 」

The voices that emerged were all familiar. They were voices she recognized. These were sentences she knew.

「 «It’s freezing, do we really have to eat at the Han River?» 」

Her confusion only deepened.

「 «Kim Dokja.» 」

「 Huh? 」

「 «You don’t read it much these days.» 」

Memories surfaced with vivid clarity.

She distinctly remembered having that conversation with Kim Dokja.

「 «Oh, right. I should read it.» 」

An outing to the Han River on some forgotten day.
Huddled together with her companions, she had spoken to Kim Dokja about TWSA. She had asked him something about Ways of Survival.

「 «But Kim Dokja.» 」

「 «Yeah?» 」

「 «That kind of thing isn’t in the 3rd turn of Ways of Survival.» 」

Kim Dokja had been unable to reply.

「 «Hey. Who are you, really?» 」

Her heart began to pound, her breath growing short. She had felt something was off about him from the very beginning.

Just who was this Cheon Inho?

She knew he was supposed to be an author of ORV from another world line, but there were far too many oddities to dismiss.

「 «If you have ‘Avatar’, isn’t there a very simple way to check?» 」

Han Sooyoung’s fingertips trembled as she reached for the lemon candy.

「 «The person who will read my novel… is not you.» 」

Narratives gushed forth like blood from a fatal wound.

It was a story unknown even to Han Sooyoung, the author of ‘Ways of Survival’.

「 He walked toward his origin like that. 」

It was a tale existing between the lines of her own sentences, one that no one had ever read.

Few people can recall the moment they were first born.

For me, it was no different.

「 Kim Dokja. 」

But people called me by that name, and so I introduced myself that way as well.

Alone and son.

I bore the name given by my father. I lived up to that name.

I had always done everything alone: eating alone, working alone, sleeping alone.

Or had I?

The first time I was not ‘alone’, I was met with strange words.

「 «Hey. Who are you?» 」

A colleague I had always trusted, the person I believed might understand me better than anyone in the world.

It was not true.

She overpowered me with ease, pinning me to the cold floor.

She and the others began to call me ‘Avatar’.

I couldn’t comprehend it.

We had just been eating together, laughing and talking only moments before. Why were they suddenly saying this?

The reason was simple.

I could not properly recall a single novel.

Thinking it a trivial misunderstanding, I replied with my usual smile.

「 «Han Sooyoung. Sorry, I don’t really remember. I haven’t been reading Ways of Survival lately…» 」

The woman’s dagger sliced through the air, and blood bloomed from my shoulder.

My other colleagues criticized her.
*He’s not a fake.* They defended me, saying avatars do not bleed.

Still, she would not relent.

「 «If I cut your throat, I’ll know for sure. Because an avatar will keep moving even with its throat slit.» 」

The moment our eyes met, seeing her absolute confidence, a chill ran down my spine.

And I thought.

「 Perhaps, I might not truly be Kim Dokja. 」

My memory of that day is hazy.
I only recall that the wound was excruciating.
Even though it was shallow, the bleeding would not stop.
It just kept falling.
Only these facts remain in a vague recollection.

「 «Dokja-ssi, are you okay?» 」

Even after that day, my companions continued to call me ‘Kim Dokja’.

But whenever I heard the name, I felt a growing distance from it.

「 «I think he’s just exhausted and lost his memory. Don’t worry too much.» 」

While they offered comfort, I was consumed by confusion.

「 What have I forgotten? 」

I could not say.
Those who lose their memories do not remember what is lost.
But from the instant I realized I had ‘forgotten something’, I knew something was wrong.

My health declined each day, and my vivid memories faded away somewhere.

My fear grew.

「 «Yoo Sangah-ssi, I am not a fake.» 」

「 «Yes. I know.» 」

My colleague held my hand with a warm smile, but that smile felt unfamiliar to me.
It was not meant for me; it seemed accidentally placed upon the empty space where the ‘real Kim Dokja’ was supposed to be.

I slept for longer periods, often listening to my companions through a hazy, dreamlike state.

「 «Dokja-ssi, can you try to sit up? If you stay lying down, your back will suffer.» 」

「 «Would you like to do some light exercises with me?» 」

「 «Do you think that would be alright?» 」

The party members did not interrogate or accuse me.
Instead, they merely discussed a possibility.

「 «Heewon-ssi, have you heard about Sooyoung’s plan?» 」

「 «If Dokja-ssi’s memories were truly divided, and if there is a real Dokja-ssi out there…» 」

「 «Do you believe that’s possible?» 」

The colleague who first suspected me also came to my room. Her visits usually came late at night.
In my languid state of consciousness, I often felt a hand pulling the blanket over me.
She would stare at me for a long time in the darkness, then quietly vanish from the room by dawn.

「 «Here’s food, Kim Dokja.» 」

Sometimes, when I awoke, there was someone who had brought me a meal.

As I ate ravenously, driven by a profound hunger, a thought occurred to me.
I must have eaten this very dish numerous times during the scenarios.
Why could I not remember it?

「 «Someone once told me this.» 」

A man glared at me with a sullen expression and spoke.

「 «Every human being has amnesia.» 」

After saying that, the man stared at the clock in my room for a long time.
I watched the clock with him. I watched the second hand move, then the minute hand.

「 «You don’t have to be anything. It only matters what you choose to be.» 」

I don’t know if his words affected me or not. However, the next day, I awoke and said something strange to the group.

「 «I want to help find the ‘real Kim Dokja’ too.» 」

「 Dokja-ssi, you mustn’t say that. What is this talk of real or fake? You are-» 」

Of course, I did not suddenly believe in the existence of a ‘true original’.
I simply wanted to know.
If the ‘real Kim Dok-ja’ did not exist, then the fact of my own reality would be proven naturally.
The notion that I was an [Avatar], or the delusion that the real Kim Dokja was still dreaming on a subway in the final scenario without leaving—all these nonsensical ideas would naturally fade from my companions’ minds.

「 «Please, let me join the plan.» 」

Thus, I joined <Kim Dokja’s Company>’s journey to recover their lost ‘Kim Dokja’.

I accompanied my companions.
We crossed into the world line of the 1865th round.
I did not accomplish much, but I observed my companions throughout the scenario.
Watching my colleagues endure hellish scenarios from the very start, I was often struck by an indescribable emotion.

「 «Wow, you used it that way?» 」

My colleagues executed the scenarios in silence.
As they progressed, each of them found fragments of the ‘Kim Dokja’ they were searching for.

「 «This recipe was something Ahjussi taught me.» 」

In every moment for them, there was a ‘Kim Dokja’ I had no memory of.

「 Did he really do all of this alone? 」

Witnessing their story, I came to a certain realization.

「 This was not my story. 」

It was not for me to decide whether I was real or fake.

「 Dokja-ssi, are you okay? I’ll be right behind you. Let us handle this.» 」

They offered me sympathy.

「 «This time, it’s our turn.» 」

They took care of me.

「 «Now it’s our turn to pay you back.» 」

Perhaps even that was something I did not deserve.

After so many years, the party finally reached the end of the world.
I had a premonition, and for the first time, I voiced my thoughts.

「 «The other me might not want this. The story… should end here…» 」

It was my final struggle, my last plea.
Please, don’t open it.

When I begged her not to open that door—the last car of the subway—the woman answered.

「 «Let’s meet the other you and ask him ourselves.» 」

In that moment, I understood my role in this story.

「 «If this is the story you all want…» 」

Finally, the last compartment was opened, and I was confronted by the sight I had most feared.

「 There was Kim Dokja, the one the party had been searching for. 」

He was a Kim Dokja who had become like a child.
A Kim Dokja who, like me, was losing his memories. But the instant I saw him, I knew.

「 That Kim Dokja is the real Kim Dokja. 」

「 «Ah… Ah, I…» 」

Like a satellite pulled by the gravity of a star, my body was drawn toward Kim Dokja.
The memories I held were shattering, being sucked into the Kim Dokja before me.
Feeling my body disintegrate, I thought.

Then who was I?

「 Dokja-ssi! 」

I was Kim Dokja.

「 «Kim Dokja!» 」

But I was not the Kim Dokja this world desired.

「 «Kim Dok…!» 」

In the final moment before my consciousness vanished, I wished.

「 If I could be born again. 」

If I am, as my companions said, merely the real Kim Dokja’s delusion.

「 Then at the very least, I hope it is not as Kim Dokja. 」

I imagined a universe impossibly distant from this one, and an unknown being born within it.
A creature unrecognized by anyone in <Kim Dokja’s Company>, one with no connection to the scenarios.

「 I want to have my own story, too. 」

There was a sound of something exploding, and in the next moment, my consciousness shattered and scattered into the void.

Yet, the largest fragment that formed my core did not fully dissipate. It became a meteor.
The meteor embarked on a long, long voyage. It crossed over the edges of world lines again and again, flowing into the far side of the universe, a place unknown to anyone.

How long did I journey like that?

Eventually, the meteor stopped.

「 There was a planet that looked exactly as I had imagined. 」

The meteor fell toward the planet, breaking into ever smaller pieces of soul.
And it entered the body of a baby who had just been born on the outskirts of that world.

「 «Why isn’t my baby crying?» 」

Hearing the voice, I summoned the last of my strength and let out a weary cry.
Then, someone held me tightly.

「 «Oh, he cried!» 」

I was gently swaddled in a blanket and placed on a bed.
Perhaps it was because all my memories were gone.
Or maybe the long journey had simply exhausted me. I fell into a deep sleep almost immediately.

And when I awoke again, the people around me called me by a name I had never heard before.

「 «Lee Hakhyun. Your name is Lee Hakhyun.» 」

Finally, my wish had been granted.