Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint Novel MTL - Chapter 650

Chapter 650

A total of three people answered Yoo Jonghyuk’s summons.

They were Lee Seolhwa, Shin Yoosoung, and Lee Gilyoung.

“You sooty bastard! Where have you been all this time?”

The moment he stepped into the conference room, Lee Gilyoung pointed an accusing finger.

Yoo Jonghyuk glanced down at Lee Gilyoung and muttered as he turned away.

“This kid is starting to remind me of Kim Namwoon.”

“Hey! What did you just say?!”

Shin Yoosoung shot a sharp look at Lee Gilyoung, who was protesting loudly.

“Be quiet.”

Lee Gilyoung cried out in frustration, while Shin Yoosoung scolded him. Lee Seolhwa observed the two bickering and asked with a sigh.

“But where were you?”

“Another timeline.”

“Which one?”

“I went outside the <Star Stream>.”

Outside the <Star Stream>.

None of them had ever heard of such a place.

“A place like that exists?”

“It’s accessible from here.”

This world was ‘a world without Kim Dokja’.

As a result, the influence of the Oldest Dream and the constraints of the <Star Stream> were weaker here.

Yoo Jonghyuk’s brow furrowed briefly, as if pondering a difficult issue, before he asked,

“Where are Han Sooyoung and Yoo Sangah?”

“They’re in the 41st regression turn.”

“What about Lee Jihye?”

“She’s in a different worldline. There are fragments of Kim Dokja that I couldn’t gather.”

“There’s no need to collect any more fragments, correct?”

“Of course not.”

<Kim Dokja Company> had been journeying through various worldlines, gathering the fragments that remained as stories unable to be reincarnated.

Each member had their designated area, and the product of this collection was the ‘Story Connector’.

A device that fused the stories Kim Dokja left behind, used to track the real Kim Dokja.

Naturally, the term ‘real Kim Dokja’ was somewhat vague. No one knew what constituted the real Kim Dokja.

What was certain, however, was that the ‘main essence’—the core of Kim Dokja—lay in the direction this story connector was leading them.

“We should recall Lee Jihye. It isn’t safe to remain outside a worldline for too long.”

Among the members of <Kim Dokja Company>, Lee Jihye was particularly independent.

Her emotions often fluctuated, and she possessed a strong restless spirit.

“She’s grown up now. She must be processing her thoughts.”

Yoo Jonghyuk was silent for a moment, thinking about Lee Jihye.

Fragments of Kim Dokja were scattered across countless worldlines, some of which were still undergoing scenarios.

Lee Jihye was likely observing one of those worlds.

Her unmet goals. The friend she couldn’t save. The constellations.

Yet, Yoo Jonghyuk understood all too well the fate that awaited any constellation consumed by such regrets.

“We should trace the worldline Lee Jihye traveled to, just in case.”

“Understood.”

“What about Lee Hyunsung and Jung Heewon?”

“They didn’t come through.”

At Lee Seolhwa’s words, Yoo Jonghyuk, Shin Yoosoung, and the arguing Lee Gilyoung all fell silent.

Jung Heewon and Lee Hyunsung.

The sword and shield of <Kim Dokja Company>.

The two who had always protected the group had not made the same choice this time.

“I don’t believe they selected another portal.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Can’t we observe the possibilities of every worldline from here?”

In other words, if Jung Heewon and Lee Hyunsung had entered the ‘World with Kim Dokja’, that fact would be observable here.

Yet, no such scenario possibility had been detected.

“The two of them haven’t made a choice yet.”

Everyone in <Kim Dokja Company> had declined the ‘world where Kim Dokja returned’.

Perhaps they all sensed it instinctively.

This world couldn’t be happy so easily. The ‘simple happiness’ that had tempted them before had always been a trap. They didn’t even know if the happiness they sought awaited them at the end of this path.

But they continued forward, finally arriving here.

Jung Heewon and Lee Hyunsung must have grown weary along the way.

“What about the others?”

“It’s unclear. Some constellations might come. They may have already arrived.”

The list of constellations likely to cross through that portal to aid <Kim Dokja Company> was predictable.

However, Yoo Jonghyuk expected no assistance from them.

“Do not trust the constellations. They are merely drawn to fleeting stories, flitting around like moths to a flame.”

“But without them, we would never have witnessed the ending.”

“What is the status of the 41st turn?”

Lee Seolhwa silently presented the scenario record and access log.

It detailed everything that had occurred from the beginning of the 41st turn’s scenario up to the present, along with the access records of Kim Dokja’s Company.

Yoo Jonghyuk read through everything meticulously, his expression turning cold.

“This is pitiful. There was a chance to conclude that worldline. Why wasn’t there more direct involvement?”

When she indicated a specific part of the scenario record, a screen materialized above the text. Cheon Inho’s face appeared on the display.

Yoo Jonghyuk’s eyes widened slightly.

“This person is—”

“Who does he resemble?”

Yoo Jonghyuk didn’t answer Lee Seolhwa’s question. He simply stared at the face for a long time, as if sifting through weathered memories.

The screen then shifted to show the Yoo Jonghyuk from the 41st turn.

A being who despised constellations and dreamed of the <Star Stream>’s destruction.

The one who had sent Shin Yoosoung to the past in the 41st turn to become a disaster.

“The 41st turn must end. That is its intended fate.”

“…That could be changed.”

It was Shin Yoosoung who spoke.

“Dokja-ssi and we have altered the story countless times. Without those 1,863 changes, we wouldn’t be here now.”

“You know the consequence. Altering the 41st turn will cause further divergence in the worldlines.”

Saving a few lives in the present could birth another world that existed only as a possibility. A world where greater death and tragedy were assured.

“The rule that that world must know misery is—”

“That is the world I originated from.”

Everyone was silent.

No one present could dispute Yoo Jonghyuk’s words.

He had endured the scenarios longer than anyone in this world, and he understood its tragedies better than anyone.

“Ending it quickly is preferable. Only then can a larger catastrophe be averted. If the worldline diverges further here, the universe’s balance will shatter. This universe has already spawned too many derivative worldlines.”

“But whether we interfere or not, more worldlines are created because of your regressions.”

Yoo Jonghyuk’s regressions.

Each of his regressions gave birth to a new ‘worldline’.

That was the foundational tragedy and absolute rule of this <Star Stream>.

Yoo Jonghyuk, however, shook his head.

“That guy’s 42nd regression doesn’t exist.”

“What? How can you know that?”

“If he continued to regress, then the subsequent worldline should exist. Just as it did for the Secretive Plotter.”

Secretive Plotter.

After 1,863 regressions, Yoo Jonghyuk had discovered the being behind it all.

If the Yoo Jonghyuk of the 41st turn had continued regressing after sending Shin Yoosoung to the past, he would have been reborn as an absolute god like the Secretive Plotter.

“However, his next worldline is nowhere to be found.”

The worldline that should have continued from Yoo Jonghyuk’s 41st regression was absent from the universe.

Instead, the worldline of ‘Ways of Survival’, derived from Shin Yoosoung’s journey to the past in the 41st turn, persisted.

“Then what became of the Yoo Jonghyuk from the 41st turn?”

“My conclusion is this. The ‘me’ of the 41st turn chose to stop regressing.”

“But how? I can’t believe he completed the scenarios in the 41st turn.”

“Impossible. The record of failure is too apparent.”

He recalled the words of Shin Yoosoung from the 41st turn, who had descended as the Disaster of Floods.

“I, in the 41st turn, fell into deep despair during the scenario and realized the end was unattainable. That is why I sent Shin Yoosoung to the past.”

The 41st turn’s Yoo Jonghyuk attempted to reach the end by sacrificing his companions, but ultimately failed, realizing he could never achieve his goal.

So, he sent Shin Yoosoung to his past self before his resolve eroded further.

That was how ‘Ways of Survival’ began.

“Then it makes even less sense. If the man from the 41st turn didn’t reach the end, how did he halt his regressions?”

“I don’t know that either.”

Yoo Jonghyuk paused in thought, then looked toward the window.

“Perhaps that is why Kim Dokja is there.”

A person who loved stories more than anyone in this universe was there to discover this forgotten worldline and witness its conclusion.

“However, there is a way to theorize.”

The group looked at him, surprised.

Upon reflection, it was a logical assumption.

He might have been the only one who could know the secret of why Yoo Jonghyuk no longer regressed.

“I will go to the 41st turn myself.”

He was a regressor who had seen the end of the scenarios.

The strongest incarnation on Earth, who cleared the 1,864th and 1,865th turns, and defeated even mythical constellations.

Because he was ‘Yoo Jonghyuk’, the party had no choice but to trust his words.

But there was one problem.

“Jonghyuk-ssi, you cannot go to that world.”

“Why?”

Lee Seolhwa let out a soft sigh and smiled faintly at Yoo Jonghyuk.

His muscles were far more defined than before. An immense power naturally radiated from his form.

“Jonghyuk-ssi, you are too powerful.”

Yoo Jonghyuk’s mere existence now consumed an enormous amount of probability.

The 41st turn was still in its early scenarios.

The descent of even a Great-grade constellation would trigger a storm of probability; if Yoo Jonghyuk were to descend into the 41st turn, it would cause a global catastrophic backlash.

As a result, Yoo Jonghyuk himself would not escape annihilation. Yoo Jonghyuk nodded, as if he already knew.

“I have no intention of leaving this task to Han Sooyoung indefinitely.”

“Jonghyuk-ssi, you and Sooyoung-ssi are already doing everything you can—”

“Did someone doing their best make such a feeble error? She let the chance to finish the 41st turn slip away.”

The video feed still in the device began playing in real time.

“Tell me you received it properly.”

The roof of the theater dungeon. Han Sooyoung glanced back at the collapsed forms of the 41st turn’s Yoo Jonghyuk and Cheon Inho before disappearing across the landscape.

“Inform Han Sooyoung and Yoo Sangah they have one task.”

As if he had seen enough, Yoo Jonghyuk turned from the log and walked toward the large window behind him.

“Create the conditions necessary for my descent.”

Standing tall before the vast window, Yoo Jonghyuk gazed outside with his characteristic intensity.

His companions watched his back in silence.

Perhaps it was due to the pure white expanse beyond the window.

His figure resembled a single character written on a vast, blank sheet of paper.

“I will retrieve Kim Dokja myself.”