888 Episode 48 Avatar (11)

I saw Lee Hyunsung's shoulders flinch at my words.

He must be angry. I know that those words might make him feel bad.

Nevertheless, it was something that had to be said.

"I will solve the 'problem' of this worldline."

Because that was the 'scenario' I had received.

The problem of the worldline.

The moment I saw the story that Lee Hyunsung was telling, I could instinctively know. The secret they were hiding was the 'problem' I was looking for.

And in order to dig up that problem, I needed to dig into their sensitive parts as much as possible.

"What do you know?"

A lofty wave of story rose from Lee Hyunsung's entire body. When I directly faced his story that defeated the 'star dregs', the pressure was truly enormous. This was the power of the Steel Sword Emperor who had reached the final scenario.

If I were to fight one-on-one right now, would I be able to defeat Lee Hyunsung?

If we only consider my specs, I'm not that disadvantaged. I have a mythical story, and a 'giant snow flower' that has yet to be named.

But I wasn't sure. It wasn't simply because Lee Hyunsung's story was so powerful.

I don't know why, but the moment I confronted his anger, I felt as if I was encountering a world. I felt the emotions of that world so clearly that I could touch them. A world that was strong, noble, sad, and for some reason, resented me.

This world...

"I understand."

As soon as Lee Seolhwa stopped me, the pressure of the story that had been weighing me disappeared as if it had been washed away.

"I'll take you to the captain."

"Seolhwa-ssi."

Lee Seolhwa nodded to Lee Hyunsung as if telling him to stay still. Lee Hyunsung, who had been biting his lips nervously, quickly stepped aside.

"Follow me."

I followed Lee Seolhwa to the base. We walked along the path where the rain was falling steadily. Even though it was a path that would take only 10 seconds to reach if we ran, Lee Seolhwa's pace was leisurely. It was as if she was deliberately killing time.

"How have you been over the past two years?"

I wondered if she was asking to lighten the mood.

I smiled and asked back.

"Isn't it too late to ask me?"

"I'm sorry."

Looking at Lee Seolhwa smiling brightly, I thought for a moment about what to say.

First of all, I wasn't 'Kim Dokja who visited here two years ago'.

So what should I say as Kim Dokja's representative?

I've had a lot going on. I've seen the end of the scenarios, I've become a god of the universe, and then my existence was torn to pieces, and now I stand before you as one of those torn pieces. There is… I can express all that history, but I barely managed to find a sentence that can explain nothing.

"There was a lot going on."

"We are like that too."

I nodded to Lee Seolhwa’s words.

"Yes, it seems so."

Lee Seolhwa’s steps slowed down even more.

Now the base was right in front of us.

"Have you had a separate conversation with the captain?"

"She asked me to watch the end of this world together."

Lee Seolhwa paused for a moment at my words.

"The captain has been waiting for you all along."

"Me?"

"Too long."

Waited too long?

Lee Seolhwa stood tall at the entrance of the base. Her gaze, blankly staring at the entrance, was somewhat lonely.

"I’ll ask you one last time. Do you really want to meet the 'real Han Sooyoung'?"

I let out a light sigh.

"I don’t know why you keep wasting time. Aren’t you a part of Han Sooyoung anyway?"

"…"

“Lee Hyunsung, Kim Namwoon, Lee Jihye. Everyone already knows that they are Han Sooyoung's avatars."

I had seen Han Sooyoung recreate <Kim Dokja Company> with her avatars before.

But Han Sooyoung of the 1,863rd round could do even more.

In short, she could inject all the avatars with different stories and make them into one 'being'.

"Stop acting, Han Sooyoung."

"I know what you're thinking, but I'm not Han Sooyoung."

"You're Han Sooyoung's avatar."

Lee Seolhwa's eyebrows furrowed at my assertion.

"Yes, that's right. I am her avatar."

At the same time as Lee Seolhwa answered, a light spark flew from the entrance of the base.

I observed the spark for a moment, then looked around at the surrounding incarnations and asked.

"Is there anyone here who is not an avatar?"

I thought that there was no way that they were all [avatars].

Even if it was Han Sooyoung, would it be possible to operate this many avatars simultaneously?

Instead of asking, I could have checked it myself. After all, avatars have the characteristic of 'bleeding stories, not blood'.

However, not all avatars are like that, and avatars that have received a certain amount of memories bleed.

In other words, with my current abilities, there was no way to distinguish who was an avatar and who was not.

"Is that important?"

"It is important. I need to know why Han Sooyoung did this."

"What are you going to do when you find out?"

"Yes?"

"If you find out why the captain recreated us as avatars, will you take responsibility for this world with the captain?"

I couldn't answer.

"Why did Han Sooyoung make you avatars?"

"Just because you're Kim Dokja's avatar, doesn't mean you understand everything about Kim Dokja."

"You don't know?"

"Well, I don't know."

"Please call Han Sooyoung's true body. She can manifest through you whenever she wants."

"It's not that simple. We're not simple [avatars]."

You're not simple [avatars]?

"Do you really want to know the truth of this world? The captain doesn't want you to know."

Lee Seolhwa's voice was earnest as she said those words.

"You can just pretend not to know and stay in this world. If the captain hid something, there must be a reason for it."

I shook my head.

"That's not my way."

"Some secrets make you responsible just by knowing them. Are you still curious?"

I nodded.

Lee Seolhwa took a deep breath and said.

"From now on, get your mind straight. This 'base' is not where you thought it was."

With those words, Lee Seolhwa grabbed my wrist.

"Don't believe what you see in front of you. Don't be fooled by the sentence right in front of you. Believe the 'story' you think, the 'story' you believe."

Before I could even ask what that meant, my vision was enveloped in darkness. I wondered what was going on.

"Seolhwa-ssi?"

I spoke to Lee Seolhwa. Lee Seolhwa's hand appeared in the dim light floating in the air. Lee Seolhwa's body had completely disappeared, leaving only the wrist that was holding me.

I flinched and stepped back, seeing the blood dripping on the floor. I instinctively thought that I had to get out of here. However, the moment I looked back, I couldn't see the entrance I had just entered.

"Seolhwa-ssi!"

The voice echoed hollowly in the darkness.

A moment later, a voice was heard in the darkness.

"Save me."

It was Lee Seolhwa's voice.

"Save me."

At the same time, a piece of advice came to mind.

Don't believe what you see before your eyes.

"Please save me."

I felt something grabbing my ankle. I saw hands filling the floor. Hands crawling like insects were holding my ankle.

"Please save me."

I gradually became unable to tell whose voice it was. Nevertheless, I knew the owners of those wrists.

"Pleasesavemepleasesavemepleasesavemepleasesavemepleasesavemepleasesavemepleasesavemepleasesaveme."

Some wrists belonged to Kim Namwoon, and some belonged to Lee Jihye. There were also wrists that looked like those of an archangel or a demon king.

I felt like I would go crazy if I stayed still, so I started running. And the next moment.

"Avoid!"

A huge magic wave flew from the front. I felt someone covering my body as if covering it.

A large man looked down at me.

"Lee Hyunsung?"

Lee Hyunsung, who had raised his body while protecting me, dripped blood from his mouth. The blood he had been possessed flowed into the large hole in his chest.

"I'm sorry, Captain."

Lee Hyunsung's head burst open.

When I reached out, Lee Hyunsung's body turned into stories and scattered.

And the sentence before my eyes came to mind.

The scene before my eyes changed.

All I could see was the vast ocean.

I heard something exploding in the distance. The tsunami of the ocean was coming.

"Eeeeeeeee! I can't stand it anymore!"

"I told you not to touch Poseidon!"

The voices that resembled Lee Jihye and Kim Namwoon crashed like waves, and soon everything in front of me was swept away by the sea.

With no time to catch my breath, the scene changed once again.

"What the hell is that?"

When I raised my head, I saw a huge meteorite falling. Beyond the meteorite, the constellations were grinning. And the voices of the incarnations despairing.

"How can I deal with something like that—"

Then the Earth was shattered into pieces.

I couldn't come to my senses from the tragedy that was raging.

Why on earth are these things inside the base?

Every time I took a deep breath, the pain and screams of the dying incarnations flowed into me.

The pain felt like my head was going to burst. Inside, I muttered.

"I am Kim Dokja."

I protected my mind with the strengthened [Fourth Wall].

Even in the midst of all this, the scenery before my eyes continued to change.

A monster that awoke from the deep sea attacked the Korean Peninsula.

Ignoring the probability, <First Murim> collapsed due to the strong Zeus.

All of humanity died after accidentally summoning the 'Otherworldly Deity' to fight against the giant nebula.

They planned to overthrow the giant nebula from within, but instead she was captured and subjected to terrible torture.

It was strange.

If all of these are Han Sooyoung's memories, then why do these memories exist?

Isn't she Yoo Joonghyuk?

For a moment, I vaguely thought I knew the answer.

This was a 'regression' that only she could do.

…

As I watched the vivid destruction pouring down before my eyes, I thought about the origin of all this destruction.

These records were all records of 'worlds that could have existed'. All of this destruction had occurred entirely within her.

'Future Prediction Stigmata' surpassing Hermes's 'Big Data System' or Anna Croft's [Future Sight].

I knew that if such an ability was activated, the user would certainly pay a huge price, but I never thought that the way the stigma was implemented would be like this.

I had completely overlooked how vivid a representation was needed to measure the future with a mere 'thought experiment'.

A fantasy world where you can't feel even the slightest difference from reality. Sitting in the twisted tunnel of her mind, Han Sooyoung wrote and erased countless worlds to protect just one reality.

She wrote characters dying in front of her eyes over and over again. She wrote, erased, wrote, and erased.

I couldn't know how her mind had changed during that time. I couldn't know what it was like to live a life sacrificing countless fictional stories to complete just one story.

The writer, leaning on that one psychological breakwater, endlessly destroyed, destroyed, and destroyed the world again.

One day, she might have thought this.

How is this secret country that remains in her memory different from the 1,863 regressions that Yoo Joonghyuk has lived through? How is it different from the 'Ways of Survival' that was once a novel?

My breathing became more and more suffocated.

I wanted to know what had driven her this far.

At the end of this false ending, I wanted to ask what the real ending she had been looking for was.

At that moment...

A landscape unfolded. It was a landscape where destruction had not yet come.

A rooftop of a base where a cool night breeze blew. A man was standing on the edge of that rooftop. The moment I saw his fluttering white coat, I realized.

This was not a 'hypothesis.'

"Han Sooyoung."

The Kim Dokja I remember.

The Kim Dokja who had crossed the worldline like me and visited the 1,863rd round that day was speaking.

"What kind of story do you want to write in the future?"

Han Sooyoung asked back.

"What kind of story do you want to read?"

Kim Dokja seemed to think for a moment.

As I watched Kim Dokja, surrounded by the desolate night scenery, I suddenly thought I knew what he was going to say. Perhaps there was no sin in that answer. Nevertheless,

"I wish there was a story where no one dies."

Kim Dokja may not have said that answer.