856 Episode 46 Big Joke (7)

Cheon Inho started turning the pages one by one. Even though it was his first story, he turned the pages easily.

It couldn't be otherwise.

Because the story contained all the scenarios he had experienced.

The more he read, the more strange the feeling he had. Even though he knew that he had no choice but to read this story to the end, he felt like he would never be able to turn back once he finished it.

The Dokkaebi King seemed to know that fact as well.

"I wonder if I have a choice."

Cheon Inho answered with his characteristically squinted eyes. And then he began to read the story with his eyes even narrowed.

In the story, a man he knew well appeared.

A man who had been his rival throughout his life in this world. Only to kill him, to accomplish what he could not, Cheon Inho lived this life.

"Yoo Joonghyuk."

He wanted to mock his splendid justice, and he also wanted to prove that he could see the end of this world without such a noble life.

"That's funny. How many worlds have you led to destruction just to see the ending you want?"

He turned the pages with trembling hands. Cheon Inho’s shoulders quietly shook as he watched the 'Supreme King' he knew speak, act, and live there.

—Next time, it wouldn't be bad to have the Ten Evils as colleagues.

Because of Yoo Joonghyuk's words, he revived the Ten Evils and brought them in as his colleagues. He tried to prove that what was possible in the next round was possible in this round as well. He joined hands with the Constellations, deceived and betrayed them. He endured life while enduring plausible nicknames like 'Evil Sophist' and 'The One Who Deceived the Stars.'

It's okay to be a coward.

It was okay to be called evil.

Because that was him. He thought that if he could survive to the end and achieve the final victory, it wouldn’t matter, if he could prove himself that way, it would be good.

But what is this?

"Am I in this story?"

In front of the story with the seven-letter title, Cheon Inho felt like all his past stories were crumbling from the corners.

He didn’t need to hear the explanation from the Dokkaebi King. Because the moment he turned the page, his name appeared there.

Cheon Inho laughed.

Is this really 'me'?

What do you know about me?

How could you describe me like that, knowing who I am and what I’m thinking?

'Choose.'

Will you share food and become a hero? Or will you monopolize food all by yourself and become a villain?」

"Ah, hahaha."

Is such a sloppy villain really 'me'? He turned the page over and over again, thinking that.

Finally, his eyes stopped at one sentence.

The guy couldn't finish his words. That was because Jung Heewon, who appeared from behind, pierced Cheon Inho's face from the crown down.」

Cheon Inho read his own death over and over again. It was a proper and accurate death.

Cheon Inho, who had been reading that sentence over and over with eyes full of disbelief, slowly raised his head.

"Is this all there is to my story?

"This is not me."

"I am here."

The Dokkaebi King spread his index and middle fingers toward the empty space. Then, a cigarette magically appeared between them.

The Dokkaebi King silently lit the cigarette and spoke.

The Dokkaebi King added, glancing at the book in Cheon Inho's hand.

"I decide how I will exist."

The Dokkaebi King looked down at Cheon Inho for a moment as if he felt sorry for him.

"Of course, I know everything."

"You're asking the obvious. My parents—"

Cheon Inho stopped talking until that point. Why on earth couldn't he? The words that seemed like they would flow out like a stream of water stopped inside him.

Following that, a shiver ran through his head like lightning.

And after a while, a single sentence appeared on a wall far away.

Was that his thought? Or was it a setting someone had just made up?

Cheon Inho pursed his lips in confusion.

"I don't have parents. Because I was an orphan."

"Did you know?"

"Because someone made me like that?"

"Who is that?"

Cheon Inho and the Dokkaebi King were silent for a moment. The two beings who lived different stories but were described in the same story stared at the darkness of the universe where the stars had gone out for a moment.

"Who is Kim Dokja?"

"Is he the 'main character' of this story?"

"What's the reason?"

"Why isn't the Supreme King the main character? How many times has that guy regressed?"

"He acted so great to me, and then he regressed so many times before he finally got to the end?"

The Dokkaebi King did not answer.

Cheon Inho started to giggle. His laughter sounded sad, resigned, and filled with terrifying anger. Then, at one moment, Cheon Inho's laughter suddenly stopped.

"I have decided on a wish."

Cheon Inho stood up, holding the page he was reading tightly.

"I will end this universe."

"I will take revenge on the being who designed this universe, on that guy named Kim Dokja, and on the 'Oldest Dream' that dreams of this universe."

"Didn't you say you would grant me anything?"

"Is it okay to be just that?"

"Do you think I came all this way to know this truth?"

"I once had a similar conversation with Hermes."

"He said that even if I reached the 'end of everything', I would never be able to see the scenery of the world I wanted. Because—"

The pages of the book were torn slightly by Cheon Inho's forceful hands.

"I'm not 'Supreme King Yoo Joonghyuk'."

A tale flowed out from the torn pages of the book.

A story not written in 'Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint'.

It was Cheon Inho's own tale.

During the conquest of <Olympus>, Cheon Inho accidentally connected to the joint network created by <Olympus>.

There, he came face to face with the artificial intelligence that controlled the network built by <Olympus>—or perhaps a new intelligence, as it were—Hermes, the true form of the 'Master of Skywalk'.

Hermes told him about the true nature of the 'Revelation'. In this world, there is a huge 'wall' with all the sentences written on it, and all the Revelation flows out from that 'wall'.

The timing of the Revelation's disappearance was after the death of the Supreme King Yoo Joonghyuk. As if there was no need for any more sentences in the world where he disappeared.

Hermes's reasoning was correct. The result was the book he was holding in his hands right now.

Cheon Inho laughed while holding the end of the world that Hermes had wanted to see so much in his hand.

"I can't admit it."

Instead of answering, Cheon Inho looked at the huge wall they had turned away from.

The 'Final Wall' where all the Revelation was written.

"What is beyond that 'wall'? I will go beyond the wall."

The Dokkaebi King let out a deep sigh and said.

"Is that what you decided? Or is it what is written on the 'Final Wall'?"

Cheon Inho pulled out the sword at his waist with one arm. As the [Black Heavenly Sword] with its pitch-black blade let out a strange cry, the Dokkaebi King's expression hardened.

The Dokkaebi King waved his hand lightly as if he had already read all of his stories. Then, Cheon Inho's knees magically gave up with a 'thud'.

Cheon Inho's specialty was 'information warfare'.

Based on a tactical strategy. So it was natural that he couldn't use any force against the 'Dokkaebi King' he was seeing for the first time.

However, at that moment, with a slap, the 'Dokkaebi King's' finger was cut off.

When the Dokkaebi King hurriedly looked around, Cheon Inho was already gone. When he turned around, Cheon Inho was dragging his knees and had reached the 'Final Wall'. It was the application of the ability of the Ten Evils, Ye Hyunwoo, the 'Disappearing One'.

"You didn't see it properly. How did I clear the 'Final Chapter'?"

A golden light flowed out from Cheon Inho's half-opened eyes.

New Intelligence. The sum of big data created by <Olympus>. Hermes's exclusive attribute, which collects all the data in this world and makes a kind of [Future Simulation] based on the data possible. Cheon Inho repeated countless 'simulations' using the data collected by 'new intelligence'. Just like Yoo Joonghyuk repeated regressions, he also repeated simulations a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand times in order to clear 'just once'.

In this way, Cheon Inho found the only way to clear the final chapter, and was now here.

"I don't need to fight you. Because what I want—"

Cheon Inho's palm met the wall with a sound of tsutsutsu.

"It's beyond this."

With sparks flying fiercely, Cheon Inho felt the wall pushing him away. If this continued, his entire body would be burned black. Even though he knew this fact well, Cheon Inho did not take his hand off the wall.

"Wall. I."

Because, he was the best 'instigator' in this world.

"The sentence written on the last wall."

With that declaration, Cheon Inho felt his body being sucked into the wall. The Dokkaebi King's screams faded away, and his body, which had turned into a story, instantly seeped into the wall.

When he came to his senses again, he realized that he had entered the wall. His heart pounded, and he was out of breath with an unknown joy.

"I have come, Supreme King."

He would finally be able to meet Yoo Joonghyuk again. Or maybe he would be able to meet the being who dreamed of this damned world.

"Oldest Dream!"

But no one answered his voice. He slowly blinked his eyes and saw the surrounding scenery.

The endless snowfield spread out before his eyes.

Cheon Inho hesitated and carefully took a step. He took one step, then two.

There were no footprints left. As if he wasn’t even worthy of leaving footprints in this world.

Cheon Inho quietly looked down at the snowfield and began to laugh.

"Is there really no one?"

A world of nothingness. Trapped in the margins beyond the walls where time and space do not exist, he walked through the world. He walked for a long time.

He walked for a day, two days.

Three days, four days. A week.

A month, two months.

A year. Two years. No, maybe,

In fact, isn’t all of this a mirage? This is a world between sentences. A place where a hundred or a thousand years can pass with a single sentence.

Thinking like that, Cheon Inho,

Was the Dokkaebi King right? Was this really his fate? Was this the end given to him, this terrible journey of quietly dying without being written down anywhere or remembered by anyone, just wandering around in search of a margin where he could be buried?

"Why."

Cheon Inho opened his eyes and looked up at the sky. In the midst of his deep sense of humiliation, Cheon Inho tried to say something for the last time.

"Isn't it me?"

But that was all he could say, and after saying those words, he realized that maybe that was really his desire.

Maybe he wanted to be the main character. Maybe that's why he wanted to meet the Supreme King again and make fun of this world. Maybe he wanted someone to dream of him as a villain.

So in fact.

The sky of the white night. It was then that a star twinkled in the distance.

The twinkling star exploded in a dazzling manner and scattered throughout the universe. How big must the star have been that the explosion could be seen from here?

But since it was so far away, that star must have exploded a long time ago.

He was already seeing the end of a star that no longer existed in the world. With that thought in mind, he vaguely reached out to the sky, and saw a few meteors flying from the direction where the star had exploded.

One of the meteors was flying straight towards Cheon Inho.

Cheon Inho was startled and took a step back. With a light noise, the meteor crashed not far from the snowfield.

Cheon Inho hurriedly approached the place where the meteor had fallen.

There was a small cradle there.

Cheon Inho knelt down and put his hand into the cradle.

Cheon Inho slowly picked up the baby. Then the baby looked at him. He only received a glance, but at that moment, Cheon Inho felt his blurry self become clearer.

Only then did Cheon Inho realize who this baby was, and what he could give him.

Cheon Inho smiled and called the baby’s name.

"Your name is Kim Dokja."

The baby smiled brightly.

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