I realized what I was looking at now.[Grand Myth, Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, begins to speak!]It was the ‘after-the-ending story’ not yet known to the world.A landscape that could exist only inside a reader’s mind was finally unfolding before my eyes.The first sentence of the story went like this:「Han Sooyoung blinked blankly.」***Han Sooyoung blinked blankly.What on earth had happened?「This is a story for one reader alone.」Before her eyes, the very letters she had just been thinking floated up and bobbed in the air. Han Sooyoung retraced what had happened moments earlier.Yoo Joonghyuk had finished his long journey through the universe and returned; the myths they thought lost had come back.The System had revived.had gathered once more.They stood before Kim Dokja’s hospital room door, which they had visited every day for the last four years.Together, they opened the door.She remembered up to that point.So what in the world was this now?Out of nowhere, Han Sooyoung had been thrown into the middle of a Snowfield.Before and behind her stretched nothing but a boundless expanse of snow.She remembered visiting a similar place once, during a ‘group regression’ with Yoo Joonghyuk, but she couldn’t tell if this was the same.“Where are we now?”Jung Heewon’s voice.When she turned, their companions who had come to the ward with them were sprawled on the ground.“Whoa—what the—snow, suddenly?”Startled, Lee Jihye stood, dusting off her butt; Lee Gilyoung’s eyes sharpened as he scanned the surroundings.Shin Yuseung asked,“Where’s the Reader Ajusshi?”“I don’t know. I came to and I was just… here.”“Could this be another scenario?”It had already been years since the scenarios ended.And now a new scenario opening?Yoo Sangah, who had been clenching and unclenching her fist, added a word. A lotus fragrance drifted from her white knuckles.“My skills are back.”Han Sooyoung felt it too.Like in the days when she ran scenarios in the field, all five senses across her body were sharpening back to life.Having already made a circuit of the area, Yoo Joonghyuk landed out of thin air, snow whirling.“I sense nothing. No enemies nearby.”Had the power of Transcendents returned? A faint golden radiance haloed Yoo Joonghyuk’s body.Han Sooyoung threw him a sidelong glare.“You seem awfully pleased.”“Unni, Bi-Yu isn’t here.”At Shin Yuseung’s words, the party looked around. Of those who had gone up to the ward together, only Bi-Yu was missing.What had happened?She had been with them right up to the door opening.Crackle—Sparks leapt in the air then.[Congratulations.]A quiet System message.Han Sooyoung pressed her lips tight, hiding the goosebumps on her arms.[You have cleared all ‘scenarios.’][You are qualified to confirm the ■■ of everything.]With the message, two portals swirled open before their eyes.Lee Gilyoung asked,“Huh? Portals?”“Gilyoung-ah. Back up.”Stepping forward to shield the kids, Lee Hyunsung took point and examined the portal mouths. Beyond each portal, a scene churned and wavered.What flickered looked like the hospital room they knew.The difference was that in only one of the two rooms did a human silhouette show.Flustered, Lee Hyunsung muttered,“That silhouette…”“No way.”As Lee Gilyoung, face gone vacant, started toward the portal—[Baat!]Bi-Yu, who had vanished, popped into the air. She yanked Lee Gilyoung’s head back and blurted, urgent:[Baaat! Don’t just jump in—listen to me first! There’s a problem!]“A problem?”With everyone’s attention on her, Bi-Yu sighed lightly. Then, gazing at the portals with oddly melancholy eyes, she dropped a bombshell.[The universe’s ‘ending’ split in two.]...After a while, once they’d heard Bi-Yu’s account, the party just stared, dazed. Han Sooyoung was the first to speak.“So to summarize what just happened.”Looking up at the snow falling from the sky, Han Sooyoung began:“One: Yoo Joonghyuk spread the novel I wrote across the universe.”She retraced the day she first started writing Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint.Remembering and recording old myths together with her companions, she wrote a story mourning Kim Dokja.Yoo Joonghyuk, receiving the story, crossed worldlines and finally succeeded in delivering it to the ‘Kim Dokja fragments’ of other worlds.“Two: The ‘Kim Dokja’ fragments scattered across the universe began to read our story, and they imagined an ending I ‘didn’t write.’”Their efforts had safely reached the end of the universe. The ‘Kim Dokja fragments’ read the story she wrote and recovered the memories they had lost.“Three: The portals before us are that ‘ending.’”As the Oldest Dream, the Kim Dokja fragments scattered across worldlines imagined the ending of Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint.Up to this point there had been no problem—indeed, everything was as planned.The problem was this:“Why are there two ‘endings’?”With a low sigh, Bi-Yu answered.[Because the ‘endings’ they imagined are two.]She pointed to the first portal.[One is the ending where Ajusshi returns.]In the portal’s ward, a shadow resembling Kim Dokja wavered.[The other is the ending where Ajusshi does not return.]She pointed to the other portal this time.It was clearly the same ward as the first—but on the bed, no shadow of Kim Dokja could be seen.For a long while, no one spoke.“Why…”Han Sooyoung murmured.“How… is that possible?”How could they imagine ‘two endings’ after reading all that story?Even knowing the answer, Han Sooyoung had to ask. And the expected answer came.[Because the fragments of Ajusshi scattered through the worldlines aren’t the ‘Reader’ Ajusshi we remember.]Countless readers read the story and imagined the ending.One ending where ‘Kim Dokja’ returns.And another where ‘Kim Dokja’ cannot return.[Even after reading the same story, what they imagine is their freedom. The fact that it condensed into just two endings is already a miracle.]Bi-Yu was right.So many people had read and imagined—and yet there were only two endings before them. Even “miracle” felt too small a word.Jung Heewon spoke.“We’ve come a long way to get here.”She lowered her head.“Maybe this is enough.”Two endings had been given to them.At least one of the two was unmistakably a happy ending.Jung Heewon raised her head.“I’m going through the first portal.”As if to add conviction to her choice, she looked around at her companions.“Nobody’s thinking nonsense, right? If we go through the first, we can see the Reader again. Bi-Yu, right?”[Probably.]“The Reader in there—that is the ‘Kim Dokja’ we remember, right?”[I don’t know that.]“You don’t know?”[I’m not the Oldest Dream.]After saying so, Bi-Yu thought for a moment and added:[But since he’s an ‘Ajusshi’ invoked by Ajusshi’s fragments, he should be the Ajusshi we remember.]“Good enough.”As if afraid to think further, Jung Heewon urged the others.“What are you hesitating for? Are you not going in? We can see the Reader again. The Reader we remember is beyond that.”With tears welling up, Shin Yuseung lifted her face. Lee Gilyoung, Lee Hyunsung, Lee Seolhwa… all of them wore the look of a decision made.And then—“I’m not going.”Han Sooyoung spoke.Jung Heewon narrowed her eyes at her.“You—what do you—”“The first portal is obviously a trap. It just looks wrong.”“Bi-Yu said it isn’t.”“Did you already forget what happened on the subway?”At Han Sooyoung’s words, Jung Heewon halted.“It was the same then. We were fooled by Kim Dokja and brought out a fake.”Her companions’ faces changed at that.As she said, they had once been fooled by Kim Dokja’s [Avatar].On the subway ride back after the scenario ended, Kim Dokja had left an avatar holding 49% of his memories with them and set off on the journey of the Oldest Dream.“What are you going to do if you go through the first portal and find another under-spec Kim Dokja like back then? Will you believe he’s Kim Dokja again this time?”“Don’t say it like that.”Jung Heewon’s reply strained with suppressed anger.“I said it then too—no matter how much memory he has, the Reader is the Reader. Even if it repeated the same way again, that too would be the Reader’s choice.”“What a frustrating—”“And what if you’re wrong?”“What?”“What if you choose the second portal and we truly never meet the Reader again?”“That won’t happen.”“Han Sooyoung.”After a long exhale, Jung Heewon spoke in a resolute tone.“We can’t have ‘all the Kim Dokjas.’”Han Sooyoung’s face hardened.“No one can have the entirety of another human being.”Han Sooyoung’s lips twitched. A mutter, small as a breath.Who didn’t know that? Did they think she didn’t know something so obvious?“I refuse.”Her clenched fist trembled faintly.“How dare he not come back after reading what I wrote?”“Hey, you—”Shrugging off Jung Heewon’s hand on her shoulder, Han Sooyoung said,“If you want to take the first portal, do as you like.”She knew, too.Her choice was probably the worst choice. But this was how she had always lived. If she had to choose tens, hundreds of times, she would choose the same way every time.Stepping forward slowly, Han Sooyoung said,“If Kim Dokja didn’t come back, then he had his reasons. I’m going to find out what they are.”Another step.“I’m going to grab that bastard and drag him back, one way or another. Forty-nine percent, fifty-one percent—I’m tired of those number games. From now on, it has to be one hundred percent.”Another step.“And those ‘Kim Dokja fragments’ who imagined that kind of ending—I’m going to visit every last one and torment them until they come up with the proper ‘ending.’”“Han Sooyoung! What on earth—”“What I’m saying is…”Han Sooyoung looked back.There stood the history she had lived, the ones who had lived it with her. From the first scenario to the last, those who shared her life…Her companions, beyond price.Thus Han Sooyoung understood their happiness.“Everyone, be well.”Smiling, she stepped into the portal. Letters whirled in the air, and soon she was swallowed and dissolved among them.Perhaps her premise was wrong.Perhaps the readers hadn’t imagined a tragic ending; perhaps, truly, something had gone wrong, and by mischance Kim Dokja simply could not return.Either way, Han Sooyoung did not worry.She would write again.She was an author; writing was her work. As long as someone would read, she could write forever.Now that the System’s power had returned, she would write anew and persuade the ‘Kim Dokja fragments.’Among the Kim Dokja fragments scattered through the worldlines, she would leave none any room to imagine an unhappy ending.When she came to, Han Sooyoung realized she was standing before the hospital room door. As she lifted her head blankly, a voice came from beside her.“How long do you plan to stand there?”Startled, she turned. Yoo Joonghyuk stood by the closed door.“What the—when did you get here?”“When you were babbling nonsense for ages.”Something wriggled on Yoo Joonghyuk’s shoulder; then Bi-Yu poked her head out.[Baat.]Han Sooyoung’s mouth fell open.She wasn’t alone.These two had come through the portal with her.

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