824 Episode 41 Sophistry (8)

The message coming into my head was not easy to understand.

The events that had happened up until then were buzzing around in my head. Words came to mind without any order.

Yoo Jonghyuk. Wild. Red Blood Dragon. Mannyeonhwari. Earth Void. 3 months of time.

The scenery swirling and scattering. Sentences breaking apart like lies.

It didn't feel real at all.

Did I really change the past? Or was I just seeing an illusion?

If I had changed the past, would my actions have affected the ending?

It was a long time before I realized that the phone was ringing. The sender is 'me'.

—Hey.

Who have I acted out so far? Are the lines I've spoken really mine?

Am I Kim Dokja? Or Lee Hakhyun? Or neither.

I am.

The 'One Who Deceived the Stars, the Evil Sophist, the villain of the Geumho Subway, the leader of the Iron Guard, the Rival of the King, the one who saw the end of the world line, the one who arrived at the Final Wall, the Recorder of Fear-

—Youngest!

I suddenly came to my senses.

"Ah—"

My mind cleared up and the confusion subsided. As my choked breath was released, I felt a little tearful.

—Yeah, good job.

I muttered in a dazed state.

"Yoo Jonghyuk. What happened to Yoo Jonghyuk?"

—What are you talking about? Where's Yoo Jonghyuk?

"Yoo Jonghyuk from the 40th Round. That guy was there."

—I know what you saw, but come to your senses. It's all over. The story is over.

Those words touched something inside me.

"No. Nothing is over yet."

Yoo Jonghyuk and I were there. We survived for three months in that damned room.

I saved him.

I was there.

—That Round was over.

I didn't want to admit it. If I reached out right now, I felt like all those moments would come back to me. The feeling of dismantling Mannyeonhwari still lingered in my fingertips.

—That Yoo Jonghyuk came to this Round with you.

I hesitated and looked down at my smartphone.

Was it okay to think that way?

Just like I told Yoo Jonghyuk, was I entitled to hear the same story?

Am I worthy of that?

"No, I—"

—You're the Youngest. Come to your senses quickly. Up ahead…

The phone was disconnected again. It seemed like we had entered a no-communication zone again.

I looked aRound and saw the faintly shining subway lights.

I felt nauseous again. I repeatedly creaked while holding the subway handrail.

The Fear was definitely over.

But why was I still in the 'Subway on the way home from work'?

The reason was clear.

This 'train' has not yet reached its destination.

All 'Fear' affects the interpreter when successfully interpreted. Just as one story naturally blends into another story.

We will have to wait and see whether it is positive or negative, but for now, my body felt lighter. My field of vision also broadened.

I savored that feeling for a moment and then suddenly looked around. There was someone who had collapsed in the seat across from me.

"Hey."

It was Anna Croft.

She seemed to have fallen like me, as she was slowly opening her eyes.

"Ah, ah... Cheon Inho. No..."

"It's okay."

Anna Croft's eyes widened.

I put my hand on her shoulder for a moment and calmed her down. If my thoughts were right, she must have been going through the same confusion as I was.

What kind of memories did Anna Croft see?

Did she get sucked into the 40th Round’s memories like me?

Anna Croft, who had been catching her breath for a moment, looked up at me. Her voice was trembling.

"A message saying that the interpretation failed has appeared."

The interpretation failed.

It was a different message from what I had seen.

"But since the one who got on the train with me succeeded in interpreting, it’ll give you another chance…"

Anna Croft’s eyes widened as she spoke.

"Cheon Inho, you—"

"Yes. I succeeded in interpreting."

"I owe you something."

It felt strange to hear similar words from Anna Croft after Yoo Jonghyuk.

Well, I didn’t mean to, but I would appreciate it if she thought of this as a debt. There was one thing I was curious about.

"What did you see in the Fear?"

Judging from the fact that Anna wasn’t in the 40th Round’s story I entered, she probably wasn’t involved in the same story as me.

So what kind of memories did she encounter?

"I don’t know. I don’t remember."

"Nothing?"

"Yes. Nothing. I remember hearing that I was unqualified."

Unqualified?

"I also remember seeing a message saying that the breakdown interpretation failed after that."

I thought for a moment and nodded.

Maybe this is the difference between those who succeed in interpreting Fear and those who fail. Those who cannot interpret Fear in their own way do not have memories of enduring that Fear.

"Do you remember what you said before you entered the Fear?"

I recalled what Anna had said to me just before the subway lights began to flicker madly.

"When you asked who I was, you said that I was one of Yoo Jonghyuk's closest colleagues. What did you mean by that?"

"I said that?"

Her expression seemed as if she could not understand that she had said that herself.

"It is true that you were once Yoo Jonghyuk's colleague, but... colleague? Wait a minute. That can't be... colleague...?"

Her red eyes filled with suspicion spun around fiercely for a moment.

The eyes of the Great Demon.

She had activated [Past Sight]. But the next moment, her... pupils became cloudy and light sparks flew out.

"Huh, what is this."

I thought I knew what had happened.

"Why [Past Sight]..."

The 40th Round where Yoo Jonghyuk, Cheon Inho, and Anna lived was now a 'record' that she could not read.

I wonder if it had something to do with my new interpretation of the Fear.

I couldn't tell if it was good news or not.

Of course, that wasn't the only thing I couldn't tell if it was good news or not.

"It's okay. You don't have to force yourself to see it. There's a bigger problem."

I looked around cautiously and said.

This wasn't the '3807' cabin that Anna and I had ridden in.

The bloody corpses of the incarnations were lying everywhere.

In other words, this cabin had already been hit by a 'Crime Zone' and someone had killed them all. Maybe the 'Final Passenger' had already been chosen by now.

The last one left would probably be Cheok Jungyeong.

Anna's voice trembled in surprise.

"Oh my god. If this happens..."

"It'll be okay. We approached Fear in a different way than others."

We didn’t use the 'Crime Zone', so our punishment will be different. That’s the rule of this 'Fear'.

The moment I thought that far, the door in front of me slowly opened. The car in front wasn’t the passenger car.

"Ah."

Han Sooyoung’s record flashed through my mind. If my thoughts were correct, this place was right in front of me…

I exchanged glances with Anna Croft and slowly stepped toward the doorway.

The moment I stepped inside the door, space swallowed us up.

A room painted pitch black. When I looked closely, what I thought was a pitch black wall was actually a window. A dark, terrifying universe was reflected beyond the window.

Several old monitors were installed in the room. A tall man was standing in front of the monitor that was emitting soft light.

That man must be the 'Engineer'.

My eyes met with the Engineer who slowly turned aRound. No, to be exact, I felt that way.

A shape with no mouth, nose, or eyes. A large question mark was floating above the Engineer’s face. The question mark was staring at me.

The moment I heard his voice, I felt a strange sense of foreboding.

A fragment of a story stabbed my head with a tingle.

At that moment, I felt Anna’s body standing right next to me stiffen.

The dot on the question mark grew longer on both sides as if smiling, and then twitched like lips.

On the old monitor, the three months that Yoo Jonghyuk and I had experienced were occasionally flowing out.

I watched the screen with the Engineer for a moment.

I had something I wanted to ask.

"Did what I experienced really happen?"

Seon. A term for a sleep that is not deep.

"Then I dreamed?"

"I don't know, but dreams are dreams and reality is reality. They are not the same."

"Yes?"

I was speechless for a moment. I thought I understood what he was talking about.

The Engineer looked at me for a moment and added.

"The Oldest Dream."

The Engineer flinched at my answer.

I thought for a moment and then added.

"For someone who dreams all their life, that dream is also reality."

The Engineer laughed heartily as if my answer was interesting.

It was clear who he was talking about.

I took a deep breath and opened my mouth.

"Chief. Could it be that you are…"

I thought.

Just as <Kim Dokja Company> did, Asmodeus did, the Mass Producer did, and Uriel did, there might be 'more' similar cases.

Even though they saw their own 'end', the Constellations still weren't satisfied with the ending.

I slowly looked aRound the engine room. After thinking about it several times, there was only one person who could come on this 'train'.

A star who was once Kim Dokja's nemesis, and a star who drove the train for <Kim Dokja Company> at the last moment.

His modifier was—

Watching him place his finger on the question mark's lips, I hesitated and asked.

"Are you okay?"

The engine manager seemed to understand the meaning of my question and was silent for a moment before nodding.

I wonder if a constellation that has fallen in love with a story can never leave its side even after the story ends.

I looked at the great Lokapala of <Veda> who once shone brighter than anyone else for a moment and asked.

"What are you going to do with me now?"

Destination.

It seems that the 'Subway Home from Work' was a kind of means of transportation in this 'Fear'.

I thought for a moment and then opened my mouth.

"Where I want to go."

The place I wanted to go was a place that couldn't be reached by 'public transportation'. It wasn't a place that could be reached by running fast.

It took time to get there. It took a story. I had to go through terrible hardships and overcome several deaths.

A place that even Kim Dokja, who had endured such a long time, couldn't go to in the end.

The Engineer looked at me and nodded as if he knew my destination.

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