Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, Vol. 2, page 15
[I’m all alone.]
As if I’d become Junghyeok Yu, as if I’d lived Junghyeok Yu’s life… My chest felt tight.
“…All alone?”
[I……]
“Do you know what we went through to make it up here? And you think you’re what?”
[I……]
The skin on my palm was torn from the repeated impact of our blades. Blood flowed and flesh was rent. I swung my sword again and again like a madman. I gnashed my teeth until they cracked.
“How dare you say you’re alone! When you got yourself killed like a dumbass in the Cinema Dungeon! When you were blubbering over your sister’s dead body! And when you croaked after being betrayed by the Prophet! Even when you had a child for the first time with your loved one…!”
Though I was reciting events from Junghyeok’s life, my mind was thinking of different memories. Memories from my own life. Memories of TWSA, word by word.
“When that child died, and you lost yourself!”
The memories of my complicated family life and getting beaten up by bullies in my teens.
“When you fought the demon king and faced off against the returnees!”
The nightmare of my military service, the relentless harassment I endured from my superiors.
“When you helped the otherworlders and battled the reincarnated! When you finally stood before the constellations!”
Struggling to get a job, desperately sucking up to the higher-ups to keep that job, living day to day just to survive…
“As I watched you struggle to push on…!”
…but knowing that on the commute home, I’d get to read my favorite novel.
“I also…!”
My sword hand was trembling. I got way too carried away. Damn it. All I had to do was stall for time. I struggled to control my breathing and looked up. But…something was off.
Did I imagine that?
For a brief moment, light had returned to Junghyeok’s pupils.
[You……]
Sometimes, even if you can read someone’s mind, you’re unable to truly understand them. My heart sank when I saw Junghyeok’s expression.
[“The Fourth Wall” is unstable due to excessive immersion.]
Junghyeok’s eyes were looking directly at me.
[Who…are you?]
“What?”
[Are you…?]
I was taken aback by the sudden changes in his thoughts. Did he regain consciousness because of what I said? Was that possible? I was a bit thrown off. I hadn’t been counting on this to happen.
[The Cinema Master Simulation panics.]
[The Cinema Master Simulation reinforces his control over character Junghyeok Yu!]
“Argh…!”
Junghyeok’s eyes glazed over again.
I knew it. I’d gotten hopeful for a moment, but it was impossible for him to break out of mind control on his own. There was a reason why I called him a sunfish. I was just thankful that he hadn’t already killed himself. The blue aether surrounding his sword began to shake.
[Character Junghyeok Yu’s “Sky Breaking Weapon Aura” has leveled up.]
Even as all this was going on, his stigma “Carryover” was strengthening his abilities. It was all thanks to his damn main character perks.
Bzzzzt!
“White Star Weapon Aura” was pushed back little by little as it collided with Junghyeok’s aura. I wasn’t sure if this was due to my skill’s limitation or the gap between our talents. I glanced over at Gilyeong. Only the whites of his eyes were visible, and his nose was bleeding. It was almost time.
“Hey, Junghyeok.”
After today, Junghyeok would become incredibly strong.
“Remember when I asked if I could hit you just once?” I said, pushing back his blade with all my energy.
Due to the unbridgeable gulf between our natural abilities, Junghyeok would grow into a monster over the next few years that I couldn’t hope to match.
But not now. Not at this moment.
“Well, you definitely said I could.”
If I fought with everything I had, even for a brief moment, I just might be able to…
[Blade of Faith has been activated!]
[Unbreakable Faith’s special effect has been activated.]
[The element of the aether has been changed to fire.]
…overpower this damn monster.
Fwooosh!
The aether blade.
Fully unleashed aether surged toward an opening in his stance. He flinched at the sheer force of my sudden attack and took several quick steps backward. He must’ve instinctively sensed that something was different. But it was too late.
[Stigma “Song of the Sword” has been activated.]
“Song of the Sword” was a top-tier combat buff bestowed by Chungmugong.
[Your sword becomes infused with a verse written by Chungmugong.]
I got a power-up based on the passage chosen at random, so it could be a bit unpredictable. However, it could give me the edge I needed right now.
A rain of arrows and a barrage of gunfire…
Luckily, the verse I got this time was from Chungmugong’s wartime diary. An incredible amount of magic power was drained from me, and the aether flaring around the blade of my sword instantly coalesced into a single point. I swung it straight at Junghyeok’s direction.
…fell upon the battlefield with the fury of a thunderstorm.
Fiery aether shaped like arrows rained down on Junghyeok. I could only sustain it for a brief moment due to my limited magic power, but that was enough.
“Arrrgh!”
Junghyeok’s body was covered in red-hot wounds from all the arrows.
This damn world, where everything had a coin value and the constellations determined how the future unfolded, still needed Junghyeok Yu in it.
So I will save you today.
He was immobilized by the flames engulfing his whole body. Due to his “Fire Resistance” skill, he wouldn’t sustain any serious damage, but this would be enough to incapacitate him. I turned my gaze to the Cinema Master, who was sitting on the bench at the edge of the garden.
[Cinema Master Simulation is extremely wary of you.]
This was my only chance. I began running. From a distance, I could see the Cinema Master’s stunned face.
However…
[Character Junghyeok Yu has activated “Revive” Lv.2!]
He was already coming after me.
“Revive.” It was a downright cheat skill that let you instantly recover back to full health no matter how much damage you had taken, once per day.
I couldn’t believe he already had this skill, too.
Zoom!
No matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t outrun Junghyeok, who was using “Phoenix Walk.” I was steps away from the Cinema Master when Junghyeok’s blade blocked mine. Now, I only had one last card to play.
I yelled with all my might, “Gilyeong!”
With that, a huge crack appeared in the rooftop garden’s ceiling. The black dome covering the whole area was beginning to shatter. Both Junghyeok, who had been charging after me, and the Cinema Master, who had been controlling him, looked up at the ceiling in astonishment.
The barrier around a hidden scenario zone had been breached. Ordinarily, this would be impossible. But if an “extraordinary” being was involved, it was a different story.
In the distance, Gilyeong was crying out, his nose bleeding uncontrollably.
“A-ah…! Ughhh…!”
Through the cracks in the dome, forelegs of a colossal insect appeared. More of the dome broke apart like shattering glass, and the ceiling was split in half. The Cinema Master screamed. A monster powerful enough to break through the boundary of a scenario zone. A gargantuan Monarch Species Insect that resembled a praying mantis. It was a monster that had been summoned to fight another monster.
[Level-6 Monarch Species Insect Titanoptera has appeared.]
I got goosebumps just looking at its fearsome form. This was the monster I had spotted facing off against a plague rhinoceros. It had been summoned all this way by Gilyeong’s “Interspecies Communication.”
“Heh, heh-heh… Titano…,” the boy was laughing.
Titano? No way… It sure looked like the insect we’d encountered in the movie, but it couldn’t be.
Crick, crrrick!
The mantis’s massive scythes flew toward the Cinema Master. Junghyeok stepped in to block it.
[Character Junghyeok Yu has activated “Protective Aura” Lv.5!]
With the sound of a tremendous explosion, the two clashed, and Junghyeok’s body was pressed down into the floor of the rooftop by the force of the attack. And yet, he held his ground.
…Seriously, what a monster. He’s holding his own against a level-6 monarch species insect? When he’s already a mess physically and mentally? And he wasn’t just hanging on; he was even fighting back.
Krrrrrr!
A flurry of sword strikes. I couldn’t believe it, but Junghyeok was going toe-to-toe with the monstrous insect. I almost wondered if he had been going easy on me when we were fighting earlier. The Cinema Master seemed to have regained his relaxed, smug composure. Junghyeok was powerful. The Cinema Master was probably thinking that he could come out on top no matter what as long as he had the Regressor under his control.
But you’re wrong.
You should’ve kept your eyes on me.
I ran toward the Cinema Master. “Interspecies Communication” wouldn’t last very long. Gilyeong had given his all to buy me this precious time, and I wasn’t going to waste it.
[“Blade of Faith” has been activated!]
The Cinema Master finally noticed me and yelled something in my direction.
The Cinema Master Simulation.
According to TWSA, this dungeon boss was a masterpiece painstakingly created by a constellation. However, he had deteriorated over a long period of time and was now serving as a boss of a mere hidden dungeon… Still, not just anyone could penetrate Junghyeok Yu’s “Mental Barrier.”
A monster favored by a constellation. The Cinema Master was no easy foe.
[The Cinema Master Simulation has activated “Simulacre”!]
A skill that caused more severe delusions than a specter’s Illusory Prison.
The space around me became distorted, and all sorts of phantasms appeared. Illusions of monsters that were indistinguishable from the real things: ground rats, grolls, plague rhinoceroses, and a T. rex… Every type of monster I had encountered came charging toward me. They tore at my flesh with their savage fangs and claws, but I didn’t stop. I wasn’t scared. They weren’t real. They didn’t exist. They were all…
…figments from a novel.
Time slowed when Blade of Faith was a hair’s breadth away from the Cinema Master’s neck.
[The Cinema Master Simulation attempts to activate “Mind Control.”]
“Mind Control” was a high-level mind-altering skill that had been used on Junghyeok Yu. But I wasn’t afraid of it because I had “The Fourth Wall.” Then an unexpected thing happened when Simulation got into my head.
[The Cinema Master Simulation panics.]
In the deep, dark abyss of the psyche, pages of TWSA swirled about.
[Wh-what?! It. Can’t. Be! This…is…!]
Countless bits of text floated in the dark void, glowing with a faint light. They were the stories I had read in TWSA.
[Exclusive skill “The Fourth Wall” has been activated.]
I could see the face of the Cinema Master, who was trying to invade my mind, change as he saw what was inside. He turned pale at the sight of the countless lines of text surrounding him.
[Could. It. Be? You. Are…… Aaah!]
And that was it. Oddly, Simulation looked like he was in awe. When Blade of Faith was about to cut his neck, his body dissipated like fog. Like an evil spirit touched by holy light and punished for the profane atrocities it had committed. The Cinema Master was extinguished as though he had never existed.
I looked down at my hands in puzzlement.
What just happened?
[You are the first to defeat the Cinema Master Simulation!]
[You have received 9,000 coins as a reward!]
[The condition for clearing the hidden scenario has been met!]
[You have received 4,000 coins as a reward!]
More messages followed. When I turned around, Junghyeok slumped over as he was released from the Cinema Master’s “Mind Control.” Luckily, he didn’t die. Having overused “Interspecies Communication,” Gilyeong was in a similar state.
“Dokja…”
I ran to catch the boy’s limp body. Exhausted, he was breathing heavily in my arms.
[The barrier surrounding the Cinema Dungeon has been lifted.]
The barrier covering the dome had vanished, and I saw the monarch species insect looking down at me. I gulped nervously, wondering if we needed to run away, but surprisingly, the insect turned around as if it had lost interest in us. I let out a weary deep breath of relief. It was over.
“……Are you okay?”
Huiwon and Jihye staggered toward me, leaning on each other for support.
“I’m fine. What about you, Huiwon?”
“I’m okay. Jihye is, too, thank goodness.”
Jihye looked like she had been beaten badly by Junghyeok. Her cheeks were swollen, so she couldn’t speak.
[The third main scenario is about to end.]
It looked like things were wrapping up down in Chungmuro Station as well. When I looked around, I could see that the sun was rising. If Hyeonseong had seen this spectacular view, he might’ve begun reciting “Pray for the Nation.”
“Ah… Seoul is…,” moaned Huiwon.
Under the dim light of early dawn, the view of the ruined city sprawled out before our eyes. The occasional sounds of explosions in the distance broke the silence. There was no more poisonous fog. There were dead bodies of plague rhinos crushed by collapsed buildings. We also saw some people fighting each other. I guessed they were from the groups that had finished the scenario before us. All those sights formed a citywide diorama contained within a vast dome.
A far bigger barrier could be seen now that the smaller barrier surrounding this dungeon had been broken. Currently, Seoul was contained in this transparent dome.
“It’s true…… Seoul is destroyed.”
I had been well aware of that, but actually seeing it with my own eyes hit different. Looking at the collapsed buildings, I wondered if Mino Soft, where I’d used to work, was among them.
I felt Gilyeong squirming in my arms.
“Are you up now?”
He nodded weakly and pointed up at the sky. A meteor shower was falling over the ruined city.
The meteor shower was an omen of an upcoming main scenario. But there were more shooting stars than before. That meant a “hall” would open soon. The meteors were probably falling all over the world. Huiwon looked amazed.
“They’re so damn beautiful…”
But she couldn’t have known what terrible nightmares those beautiful shooting stars would bring upon the people unfortunate enough to be near where they landed.
Far greater disasters were approaching.
Gilyeong cupped his hands in prayer and mumbled softly. Huiwon and Jihye were also silent for a while. Perhaps they were making wishes.
I couldn’t help but notice how funny this was. Making wishes upon seeds of calamity… Humans were probably the only beings in the universe who did such a thing.
A moment later, Gilyeong opened his eyes and looked up at me.
“Aren’t you going to make a wish?”
I looked down at him for a bit and answered, “I did.”
“What was it?”
“You’re not supposed to say it out loud or it won’t come true,” Huiwon interjected.
I looked at her, then at Junghyeok, who was unconscious, then back at the destruction of Seoul. Then I opened my mouth.
“I wished that I could see the epilogue of a certain novel.”
Gilyeong stared at me in confusion.
I looked up at the sky without a word.
Faint cracks were appearing in the skies of Seoul.
By the time the sun came up, the Goblins would have devised a fresh new hell for us.
1
[Main Scenario #3 - Emergency Defense has ended.]
[You have received 1,000 coins as a reward.]
I thought the next main scenario wouldn’t start until midday. But less than ten minutes after the previous one ended, we were hit with a message.
[The fourth main scenario is about to begin!]
Damn. The third scenario just finished, but already…
I went to Jihye right away.
“You stay here with Junghyeok.”
“…Are you sure that’ll be okay?”
“You won’t be any help down there anyway. Besides, there’s no telling what Junghyeok will do once he wakes up.”
Jihye nodded, looking at her mentor, who was still unconscious.
“Just let me know when he comes to so I can smack him again.”
I headed downstairs with Huiwon right away. Gilyeong had fallen asleep while counting the shooting stars, so I decided to carry him on my back.
What was previously a dungeon was now an ordinary cinema, and the reward items on the fifth floor had turned back to mundane stage props, as if everything that had happened yesterday was just a dream. It was then that I heard Bihyeong’s voice.
