1003 Episode 61 Prisoner of the Golden Headband (3)

I had to do something. I couldn't let Dansu ahjussi be lost like this.

My story was looking at me.

The story was right. To defeat Snowfield, I, too, could not turn a blind eye to everything forever. I clearly need Dansu ahjussi's power. But.

I grabbed Dansu ahjussi's hand.

I felt as if space-time were distorting. All the stories, traits, and skills within me overlapped and swirled violently.

What I needed right now was just a fleeting moment of space.

When I opened my eyes again, I was standing in an unfamiliar place. No, perhaps it wasn't an unfamiliar place. Because I knew where this was.

A stage where old lights flickered. Amidst the flickering strange lights, I saw the back of Dansu ahjussi not far away.

"Ahjussi."

"Friend."

Ahjussi turned to me with a welcoming smile, then looked around and spoke.

"It's fascinating. Is this a space my friend created?"

"No, this isn't it."

"Ah."

Dansu ahjussi let out a low sigh, as if realizing something just then.

"I see."

I stood side by side with Dansu ahjussi and looked around.

"Does my friend remember that, too?"

"Yes."

We were standing in a flower garden. However, it was not a simply beautiful scene. 'Red Spider Lilies of Death' were scattering in the wind.

This was a flower garden that bloomed from the breath of a Grade 5 Disaster Species.

"You saved me when I was on the verge of death here."

I, too, remembered this place well.

The only difference from then was that Dansu ahjussi's stories were scattering like dust under every petal of the red spider lilies blooming on the ground.

The blank space, barely stopped by the power of skill [□□], was where Dansu ahjussi's stories were scattering.

As I reached out my hand toward the empty space, a few petals wrapped around my fingertips and soon began to whisper their own story.

The first thing I saw was the figure of a woman. Dansu ahjussi looked into the woman's face beside me and said,

"She is my wife."

Ahjussi's wife, who was said to have passed away hit by a meteor, was a very beautiful person.

"She was someone who shouldn't have left like that."

I could feel his memories as if I had become ahjussi himself.

The day he first met his wife, the day he proposed to her, the day they promised a lifetime together and built a simple family.

His personal memories were scattering before me like lush flower petals.

"It's Jiyoon."

At the tip of the petal ahjussi pointed to, young Jiyoon was crying.

A child whose speech was as hesitant as Biyoo. A girl smiling shyly with her mouth smeared with tomato sauce.

"She's caused me so much trouble since she was little."

Listening to ahjussi's low laughter, I silently read and reread his entire history.

"That must be when you first saw that story."

The Dansu ahjussi in my memory was reading a book on his smartphone.

『Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint』.

The story Jiyoon loved.

In order to get close to his daughter, ahjussi searched the Internet for unfamiliar terms and read the book diligently.

Ahjussi told me he hadn't finished reading the novel. But I know. He had read the whole book. And he read that one time more diligently than anyone else. He read it truly hard to understand his only daughter.

"It was a story too difficult for me to understand. That is why I said I couldn't read it properly."

Saying that, ahjussi smiled bitterly.

"It wasn't just that story that was difficult, though."

The last flower petal held our story within it.

'Geumho Station' with ahjussi. The Star Gem Dungeon of 'Gwanghwamun'. The 'Recycling Center'. And all the way to this world beyond the 'Missing Bush'.

Watching the flowing story, ahjussi said:

"My friend must hate me."

"Why do you think that?"

"Because I couldn't trust my friend and wait for him."

Ahjussi wore a look of regret regarding his deal with Snowfield.

I spoke as if to comfort him:

"You had no choice. If I were you, I would have done the same."

Ahjussi smiled weakly. The speed at which the scattering petals shattered was gradually increasing. In the distance, I could see the space covered in spider lilies slowly shrinking. I urgently grabbed ahjussi's wrist.

Dansu ahjussi's soul was already on the verge of collapse.

The man, who had become the 'King of Immortality', had lived with such a soul for a very long time.

I bit my lip tightly.

Hasn't he lived a life deserving of reward more than anyone else in this world?

Is the ending I am pursuing valuable enough to justify sacrificing his entire history?

"You don't have to help me."

There is no such thing as an ending where sacrificing anyone is worthwhile.

"You have done enough, ahjussi. You can go to Snowfield. You may accept what he promised you."

The moment I saw the look on his face, I realized it. A person who distorts everything into good intentions and embraces everything with broad tolerance. Such a person does not exist.

"Just because I saved you doesn't mean you need to sacrifice yourself. You—"

There is only someone who, even amidst tragedy, desperately strives and struggles to avoid turning a blind eye to the world's small acts of kindness and to preserve his humanity.

"Friend, don't get the wrong idea."

At that moment, for the first time, ahjussi's tone resembled Kim Dokja.

"I didn't choose you simply because I like you."

"Huh?"

Dansu ahjussi said, looking up somewhere with a hazy expression.

"Couldn't you dream the same dream that he can dream?"

A landscape I didn't even know myself flashed through ahjussi's now-blinded eyes.

"I only made a selfish choice for myself and my daughter. I only wish for a happier ending, hoping that you become Kim Dokja."

Watching ahjussi speak like that, I didn't know what to say. But I had to say something.

"I."

I thought of ahjussi's daughter. Noh Jiyoon. rlaehrwk37. I thought of my reader, who might still be watching this story from the Theater of Asmodeus.

"Can you really do it?"

"I will make sure you and Jiyoon meet."

I had to say that. But strangely, no voice came out until the very end.

Ahjussi just smiled quietly, as if to say it was okay if I didn't say anything.

"I like my friend's story."

"…"

"I wanted to hear more of my friend's story. I was always curious about what kind of person he was and what he liked."

If we had met somewhere other than this world, would we have been able to share more stories? As a writer and a reader. As a reader and a reader. Or as a friend. Just as one person to another.

"My name is Noh Kyunghwan."

"I know."

"What is my friend's name? I definitely heard it before, but strangely, I can't remember it."

I tried to tell him my name. But I, too, could not know my own name.

■■■.

Perhaps it is because that name—that story—is not mine now.

Dansu ahjussi added in a heavy tone, as if he understood all these facts.

"Once you become 'the one and only Kim Dokja', what happens to my friend? Can my friend return to being my original friend?"

I could not answer.

Dansu ahjussi stared at me silently and added.

"I am sorry for entrusting so many stories to my friend."

Now, more than half of his soul was shattered. There was little space left for us. Through the scattering petals, I thought I heard Jiyoon's voice calling for her father for a moment.

"Even after reading that book, I still don't really know who Kim Dokja is. However, I do know a little bit about the kind of person the 'Kim Dokja' my daughter liked was."

Stories are passed from books to people, and from people to people. It is the story that plunges us into tragedy, but it is also the story that ultimately lifts us up from this tragedy.

Dansu ahjussi extended his one remaining hand to me. I slowly took that hand. Dansu ahjussi, who had entrusted me with all his stories and his 'Kim Dokja'—a man named Noh Kyunghwan was speaking to me.

"My friend will surely become a 'good Kim Dokja'."

With a face kinder than any Kim Dokja I knew.

"I will watch over my friend's story."

Snowfield gazed at his brother, enveloped in a beam of light. Lee Dansu had not kept his promise. He had ultimately chosen to be absorbed by his brother as a 'Kim Dokja Fragment'.

Perhaps all stories were destined to unfold that way. Now, it didn't matter. After all, he had achieved his goal. Even if his brother were to wake up again, he could not stop what was already happening.

Gooooo!

A pitch-black figure was about to reveal itself from the sky, which was more than half open. The moment he had long awaited was arriving.

A long-held dream. The moment when all of <Kim Dokja Company> would gather.

Shin Yoosoung, held in his arms, was trembling slightly. Holding the girl's small body, Snowfield gazed endlessly up at the sky.

And the next moment.

"Stop."

A voice as cold as if the world were freezing was heard. Snowfield frowned and turned his head.

His brother was speaking with his hand on his shoulder.

"At least not here."

The powerful force of [Incite] rippled over his voice. The power of the villain who had once raised him, capable of overturning the laws of the world.

"Because those people deserve a happy ending."

Snowfield straightened his back and glared at his brother.

"By what right do you say such things?"

Then ■■■ looked at Snowfield.

The one who had lost his name was speaking his own name.

"Because I am Kim Dokja."

There stood Kim Dokja, who had finally fully accepted that fact. Kim Dokja, who had come to terms with the stories embedded in that name and all the karma. Kim Dokja, who had clearly accepted the life he was to live, and that world of distant eternity and finality.

Thus, Snowfield realized.