613 Episode 12 □□ (4)

I now realize what I am looking at.

It is a story after the ending that is not yet known to the world.

The scenery, which was possible only in the readers’ heads, was finally unfolding in front of my eyes.

The first sentence of the story was:

Han Sooyoung blinked blankly.

What the hell happened?

In front of her eyes, the sentence she had just thought of was floating around. Han Sooyoung recalled the events that had happened just a moment ago.

Yoo Jonghyuk returned from a long space trip, and their stories, which were thought to have disappeared, had returned.

The system has been revived.

<Kim Dokja’s Company> has reunited.

They stood in front of Kim Dokja's hospital room, which they had visited every day for the past four years.

Everyone opened the door to the hospital room.

I remember going there.

So what the hell is this all about now?

Han Sooyoung was thrown into the middle of the snowfield out of nowhere.

What you can see from the front and back is a far-flung snowfield.

One day, when she was doing a 'group regression' with Yoo Jonghyuk, she visited a place similar to this.

The memory came back, but she couldn't tell if this was the place.

"Where are you again?"

Jung Heewon’s voice.

When she looked back, the people who visited the hospital room with her spread out on the floor.

"Wow. What. It's snowing all of a sudden."

Surprised, Lee Jihye stood up, rubbing her buttocks, and Lee Gilyoung explored his surroundings, his fierce eyes shining.

Shin Yoosung asked.

"What about Kim Dokja?"

"I don't know. I was suddenly here when I woke up."

"Could it be another scenario?"

Several years have passed since the end of the scenario.

But a new scenario began again?

Yoo Sangah, who repeatedly clenched and opened her fist, added.

She smelled lotus flowers from her white fists.

"My skills are back."

Han Sooyoung was also realizing it.

Just like the days when she was actively performing scenarios, her five senses were sharp and reviving.

After already looking around, Yoo Jonghyuk landed in the air, blowing a blizzard.

"I don't feel anything. There are no enemies around."

Has the power of the Transcendental Seat returned? A faint golden glow radiated from Yoo Jonghyuk’s body.

Han Sooyoung glared at Yoo Jonghyuk secretly.

"How can you look excited?"

"Noona, Biyoo isn’t there."

At Shin Yoosung’s words, her companions looked around. Of the people who came up together to the hospital room, only Biyoo disappeared.

How did it happen?

They were definitely together until they opened the door to the hospital room.

Tsutsutsutsut.

It was then that sparks flew out of the air.

A system message was heard.

Han Sooyoung hid the goose bumps on her arm and tightly shut her mouth.

With the message, two portals appeared swirling in front of his eyes. Lee Gilyoung asked.

"Huh? A portal?"

"GilYoung-ah. Step back."

Lee Hyunsung, who stepped forward as if protecting the children, took the lead and inspected the entrance to the portal. Beyond the two portals, the landscape swirled and shook.

The shaky landscape resembled the hospital room they knew.

The difference is that a person's shadow is reflected only in one of the two hospital rooms.

Lee Hyunsung muttered in embarrassment.

"That shadow..."

"No way."

The moment Lee Gilyoung approached the portal with a bewildered face.

Biyoo that had disappeared into thin air appeared. Biyoo pulled Lee Gilyoung's hair and hurriedly spoke to him.

"Problem?"

Biyoo, who caught the attention of the party, sighed lightly. And somehow, after looking at the portal with materialistic eyes, she said something shocking.

…

After a while, after hearing the story of the parable, the party looked blank. The first to react was Han Sooyoung.

"So, to sum up what happened now, it would be something like this."

Han Sooyoung looked up at the snow pouring from the sky and started talking.

"One. Yoo Jonghyuk spread the novel I wrote to the universe."

Han Sooyoung recalled the memory of the day she first wrote 'The Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint'.

Together with her party, she remembered and recorded her old stories, and she wrote a story of mourning for Kim Dokja.

Yoo Jonghyuk, who received the story, crossed the world line and finally succeeded in telling the story to the fragments of Kim Dokja in another world.

"Two. The fragments of 'Kim Dokja' scattered throughout the universe began to read our story, and they even imagined an ending that I did not write."

The efforts of the party reached the end of the universe safely. Kim Dokja's fragments have recovered the story she wrote and the memories they had lost.

"Third, the portal in front of us is the ending."

The fragments of Kim Dokja scattered along the world line are the Oldest Dreams' who imagined the ending of 『Omniscient reader's viewpoint』.

Up until this point, there had been no problems, rather, it was as planned.

The problem is this.

"Why are there two endings?"

Biyoo let out a low sigh and replied.

Biyoo pointed to the first portal.

In the hospital room in the portal, a shadow resembling Kim Dokja was waving.

She said, this time pointing to the other portal.

It was obviously the same hospital room as the first one, but there was no shadow of Kim Dokja on the bed.

The companions did not speak for a long time.

"Why..."

Han Sooyoung muttered.

"How could that be?"

How can you imagine 'two endings' after reading all the stories?

Despite knowing the answer, Han Sooyoung had to ask. Then the answer she expected came back.

Countless readers read the story and imagined the ending.

One is the ending in which 'Kim Dokja' returns.

And the other is the ending where 'Kim Dokja' cannot return.

Biyoo was right.

Even though so many people have read and imagined the story, they can only see the endings right in front of them. Even the word miracle is not enough.

Jung Heewon opened her mouth.

"It's been hard getting here."

She said again, shaking her head.

"I wonder if I should have done this much."

Two endings were given to them.

At least one of them had an obvious happy ending.

Jung Heewon looked up.

"I'm going to the first portal."

She looked at her companions as if to confirm her choice.

"Does anyone else find it strange that if we go to the first one, we see Dokja-ssi again... ?"

"Is the Kim Dokja in there the 'Kim Dokja' that we remember?"

"You don't know?"

Biyoo said, then thought for a while and added.

"Good, now that we’re in agreement."

Jung Heewon gestured to others, as if afraid to continue thinking about it.

"What are you all waiting for? We can meet Dokja-ssi again and the Dokja-ssi we remember is on the other side."

Shin Yoosoung looked up with tears in her eyes. Lee Gilyoung, Lee Hyunsung and Lee Seolhwa.... Everyone seemed to have made up their minds.

"I'm not going."

Han Sooyoung said.

Jung Heewon narrowed her eyes and looked at Han Sooyoung: "You, what...?"

"The first portal must be a trap, it's too strange."

"It's not a trap..."

"Have you forgotten what happened on the subway?"

Han Sooyoung's words made Jung Heewon stop.

"At that time, it was also like that. We were deceived by a fake Kim Dokja."

Han Sooyoung's words changed the facial expressions of the group.

As she said, they had been tricked by Kim Dokja's avatar once before.

On the subway ride and back from the stage, he left his avatar with 49% of his memories in the hands of his peers and set out on his journey as the 'Oldest Dream'.

"What are you going to do if you go through the first portal and it ends up being an incomplete Kim Dokja again, are you going to believe that this time it is Kim Dokja?"

"Do not talk to me like that, will you?"

Jung Heewon spoke in a voice that sounded as if she was holding back anger.

"I have said it before, no matter how much you remember, it is still you, and even if you repeat it again, it is still your choice."

"You're saying it again..."

"What if you are wrong?"

"What?"

"What if you choose the second portal, and you never get to see Dokja-ssi?"

"That's not going to happen."

"Han Sooyoung."

Jung Heewon let out a deep sigh, and then spoke in a determined tone:

"We aren't going to find him. We cannot have '100% Kim Dokja'."

Han Sooyoung's expression hardened.

"No one can have everything from another human being."

Han Sooyoung pursed her lips in a small smile. She had a little tic.

Who doesn't know, who doesn't understand such an obvious statement?

"I can't admit it."

Han Sooyoung's clenched fists trembled.

"How dare he read everything I wrote, and not come back?"

"Hey, you..."

Han Sooyoung said, shaking off Jung Heewon's grip on her shoulder.

"If you want to go to the first portal, it is your choice."

Han Sooyoung knew.

The choice she was making, perhaps, was the worst.

But she had always lived like this.

No matter how many dozens or hundreds of times she was asked to choose, she made the same decision over and over again.

Taking a slow step, Han Sooyoung said.

"If he didn't come back, there must be a reason why he didn't. I need to know why."

She stepped forward.

"I'm going to find him and bring him back one way or another. I am sick of playing this game of numbers, whether it's 49% or 51%, I need 100% or nothing."

And she took another step.

"And I'm going to go after each and every one of you, 'Kim Dokja’s fragments,' who imagined that shitty ending, and I'm going to torture you until you come up with a 'proper ending'."

"Han Sooyoung! What the hell...?"

"What I am saying is."

Han Sooyoung looked back.

The story she had lived, the story that had accompanied her, was there.

From the first scenario to the last, she and her life together with everyone.

Her companions, whom she would not change for anything.

That is why she understands her happiness.

"Take care of yourselves."

She smiled and walked through the portal. The letters swirled in the air and soon she merged with them.

Perhaps her assumptions were wrong.

Maybe readers weren't imagining a tragic ending, maybe something had gone really wrong and Kim Dokja hadn't come back because she hadn't been lucky.

In any case, Han Sooyoung was not worried.

She would write again.

She's a writer and writing is her job.

As long as there is someone who reads it, she can write forever.

Now that she has regained the power of the system, she can write again and convince the 'fragments of Kim Dokja'.

None of the fragments of Kim Dokja scattered across all world lines will imagine an unhappy ending.

When Han Sooyoung woke up, she realized that she found herself in front of a hospital room’s door.

As she raised her field of vision, she heard a voice beside her.

"How long are you going to be standing there?"

When she turned around, she saw Yoo Joonghyuk standing by the closed door of the hospital room.

"What? When did you arrive?"

"When you were still talking nonsense."

Something moved on Yoo Joonghyuk's shoulder, and Biyoo poked her head out.

Han Sooyoung opened her mouth in a daze.

She wasn't alone.

These two had crossed the portal with her.