Kim Dokja wasn't a good person.
He knows what he's training them for. He's calculated the risk. He knows every possibility and has factored in all of the details he has been given.
He knows exactly who is going to kill him. Who is meant to. And he knows that it will be soon. There is no better time for them to push for fate then in the next coming up scenario.
He's making it easier for his people, his companions, to kill him. And with the look Han Sooyoung is giving him, she may have an idea of what he is doing. There's no point in stopping him.
Kim Dokja wasn't a good person.
Standing to the side as he watches everyone train in the patterns he's drilled into their heads, he knows they will be the ones to kill him. He knows it's Yoo Joonghyuk who will be the one to lay the last blow.
He knew then just as he knows now. Spiraling horns and black cracks on his face. He has fulfilled the condition. He has become the demon king.
And now his most beloved people will have to fight him. Will have to wear him down with the exact strategies he put in their heads and will lead to his death.
Kim Dokja wasn't a good person.
He knew that much.
o0o
[You have gained notoriety in the 'Demon Realm']
His heart stops.
His brain stutters.
He freezes in place with his sword loosely in his hand.
He stands in place above his fresh kill and just reads that one line. Over and over and over again. It doesn't go away nor does it change in any way. Yoo Joonghyuk has only ever gotten that message because of one person. A person who's supposed to be dead. A person he killed himself. There's no way he could be alive. No one should be able to survive being removed from the scenarios. There was no way for it to be possible.
He still got the message.
He nearly collapsed right there, his legs weak and knees wobbly. He's alive. Kim Dokja, his Kim Dokja, is alive. That guy made it out. It takes him a little bit to gather his bearings. He hasn't actually been thrown off balance, but Joonghyuk gathers himself like he had. He walks away from the finished scenario he was participating in a daze. He's supposed to go on to the next one. He doesn't.
Instead, he gets a new window popping up in front of his face.
[The Constellation 'Demon-like Judge of Fire' is interested in your thoughts.]
o0o
Dokja pushed open the door to where the incarnations are supposed to wait, the vestige of the constellation's unfiltered gaze frays at the ends of his ironclad nerves. He's still grinning sheepishly at Bihyunh when he shuffles into the room and lets the door close behind him.
Turning around to get a grasp on who exactly is sat waiting in this room, his scammer grin on display, he gauges who here could be useful to him. There's many things to be done, since he has gained this privilege. He's interrupted by his own name being called out in a familiar gruff voice.
"Kim Dokja?"
Freezing at the sudden call, Dokja slowly turns to his left to find You Joonghyuk sitting on one of the couches. He's... He looks fine. The protagonist has his usual outfit -does he ever wash that?- with one legs crossed over the other one.
He looks surprised, his eyes blown a little wider than usual and his lips parted slightly. It's-
Dokja looks away, but walks towards his companion. He probably has quite some explaining to do. Not that he's going to actually explain anything. If this sunfish bastard wants to know anything, he'll have to ask about it.
Dokja is too afraid he would just spout off whatever is on his mind and give away too much.
o0o
"Sit." The protagonist growled out, his mouth set in a hard line and his eyebrows twitching inward. Oh he really is upset. Dokja is forced into the chair, the dining table laid before him. He's sat to one of the sides at about half way. The table has six chairs on each side. Joonghyuk makes another demand. "Stay there."
Dokja watches him go, his gaze tracking every move made to the kitchen. When the bastard is far enough away, a feral grin splits across the readers face and he immediately jerks out of his chair to silently start running off. Like hell he was going to listen when he had better thing to do than eat. Like plan. Making plans for upcoming scenarios is very important.
He nods to himself as he keeps his pace, whisping in and out of shadows and sheltered areas to make sure anyone tracking him would have a hard time.
The same... He might not be wrong.'
"NO!" The scream startled Dokja, loud and shrill enough to make his ears hurt. That one word echoes in the theater long after it was said. He didn't jump in his chair, not at all shut up-
When he turns his head to the kids, he finds them near sobbing. Even Jihye has water in her eyes, no matter how much she's trying to keep them from falling. It wasn't Gilyoung that had yelled, but he can't tell very much past that until he gets a good look at a heaving Shin Yoosung. He smiles at her sweetly in an attempt to get her to calm down. That was loud. "Yoosung-ie, it's okay. Why did you yell?"
[The Consellation 'Demon-like Judge of Fire' says...]
[The Constellation 'Demon-like Judge of Fire' disagrees with how incarnation 'Kim Dokja' views himself.]
"Ahjussi isn't- Ahjussi-" She's crying hard. Hiccups are bubbling up in her chest and it's just making it worse. Dropping his smile, grimacing instead, Dokja leans up and over Joonghyuk to grab her under her arms and bring her to him. She's going to hyperventilate herself into passing out if he doesn't stop this soon.
[The Constellation 'Prisoner of the Golden Headband' says incarnation 'Kim Dokja' is not the same.]
"Ah-ah, it's okay. It'll be okay. There's no need to cry." He leans back into his seat, this time with a lapful of sobbing child. He rubs her back to soothe her as he hums to her. She just cries harder, bit fat tears rolling down her face and neck. They're starting to soak the collar of her shirt.
Around him there are so many eyes. So many eyes looking at him, watching his every move. He's ignoring just how many other people in the room have water in their eyes or tears on their cheeks. It's better this way, if he acts like he can't see. Like he can't hear. It's easier with the kids, it's easier with a distraction.
"Come on, settle down a little." He just smiles at her, wiping at her red blotched cheeks. She closes her eyes and leans into his hands, a couple more hiccups coming every so often but she's starting to calm down.
The other kids, are not.
They start to head their way as well, Gilyoung purposefully stepping on Joonghyuk as he scrambles to make his way to Dokja. Yoo Mia is also making her way over, but she curls up with her brother instead.
The adults of the room are leaning towards each other and whispering, talking about the implications that can be taken from the memory they were shown. They don't say anything outright, worried that either one of the kids or Dokja may overhear while they talk.
"That's not very..." Heewon chews around the rest of the sentence in her mouth, running through her vocabulary to try and articulate her feeling on what they've been shown. It's not really anything new. The room has been shown memory after memory, but there was something extra to this one.
It felt like the prequal to the memory they were shown when Jihye killing her friend scene had played. It's... it's not a great feeling being able to pull together a time line of what the childhood of Kim Dokja was like.
He is now back to two kids in his lap and half the space. Gilyoung is blubbering as he cries, tugging at Dokja's arm and crowding into Yoosung's space. They don't argue or squabble they have been, just settling into his space.
[The Constellation 'Secretive Plotter' frowns at incarnation 'Kim Dokja']
They're trying to talk to him, he's sure, but with their cracking voices and being interrupted by hiccups it's hard to parse out an actual sentence.
"Kim Dokja." Joonghyuk is pressed up so close that the reader can feel his voice vibrating in his own chest. Grimacing at the grave tone, Dokja leans away from the protagonist a little before turning to him.
His face is stormy and he doesn't say anything else, so Dokja just rubs the backs of Gilyoung and Yoosung. He hums to them, letting them slowly become calmer and calmer in his lap. He really does appreciate that they're comfortable enough to find comfort in him, but he would really like his personal space back.
Yoo Mia is the first to move back to the chair the kids had been sharing. She sort of just- gets up from her brothers lap and grabs onto Shin Yoosung's sleeve. She tugs at her while mumbling something about a new plan. Gilyoung hesitates with a death grip on Dokja's forearm, it's obvious he doesn't want to move.
He gets up anyway. The kids squish back into their own crowded seat, Jihye sniffling a little before leaning in and whispering to the little ones. The screen, that had momentarily stopped, continues on.
[10 seconds left until the scenario ends.]
Dokja lifts his leg to ready himself for a kick, aiming for this assholes balls. His goal is maximum pain here, as this bastard deserves.
'The world is destroyed.'
[You have met all the conditions to clear this scenario.]
[You have been rewarded 300 coins.]
[The Constellation 'Monarch of the Small Fries' is satisfied.]
[You have been sponsored 100 coins.]
The thugs crawl towards Chulsoo where he has passed out, asking how Dokja could have done this.
'And now I have to adjust here, in this new life I've been given.'
Dokja picks the woman back up alongside the bags of food. He turns to the group of men once more, eyeing each of them as they hobble around. Having proven his superiority, he doesn't bother with politeness.
"Take me to the group."
He's taken further into the station. Inside, many people are gathered and are sitting in circles, standing, or lying on newspapers with dirty blankets. When the Cheoldu group's return is noticed, everyone can immediately see how injured they are.
People crowd around them in an attempt to help, while Dokja assists the woman from the convenience store down the stairs and into the station proper.
"Dokja?"
"Ah." Sangah looks away from the screen with embarrassment, fiddling with her hands at the sound of her own voice. She hums a little before looking back towards Kim Dokja despite her flushed face. "We had been waiting in the station for a while. We were- We were worried you wouldn't, uh, make it back to us."
It was obvious she was dancing around saying that they thought he had died. Which would have been an understandable assumption considering how long it had taken him to kill the ichthyosaur. Four days. They had been waiting to see if he was alive for four days.
"I can imagine waiting must have been horrible." Jung Heewon speaks up, and when the reader turns to look at them, she is leaning against Sangah to give her a side hug.
Dokja turns back around, firmly ignoring the burning line that connect the protagonist to him.
He looks up, recognizing the voice. Sangah, alongside Hyunsung and Gilyoung, emerges from the crows. She seems surprised to see him, calling out once more. "My god- Dokja! Kim Dokja!"
Gilyoung then sprints through the crowd, crashing into Dokja with a tight and desperate hug. Sangah and Hyunsung run up behind the kid. They're clearly relieved and overjoyed to see him after losing him on the bridge a few days earlier.
"Dokja! You're okay!" Sangah continues while Hyunsung happily calls out Dokja's name. "You're okay!"
"I'm so sorry about what happened. I left you behind." Hyunsung remarks with remorse, somehow resembling a kicked puppy.
"It's okay. You had no choice." Dokja replies. It's the truth, after all. There isn't anything Hyunsung could have done.
Still, Hyunsung keeps talking. "Thank god, Yoo Joonghyuk was right."
That makes Dokja pause, tilting his head and looking at the soldier with interest. He takes out a chocolate bar from his stash he got from the convenience store, forking it over to Gilyoung. "Yoo Joonghyuk?"
"Oh, he uh, he said you were probably still alive." Hyunsung replies sheepishly.
"Where is Yoo Joonghyuk?"
"Well, he's not here right now." Hyunsung answers nervously. "Yoo Joonghyuk left the station yesterday."
As he says this, a scene of Yoo Joonghyuk walking off down the train tracks plays. His black coat trails behind him like a robe of a god of death, and it's clear that anyone accompanying him would have only been in the way.
'Ah... I get it now.' Dokja ponders, putting the pieces together in his head.
'The Cheoldu group members should have died at the hands of Joonghyuk, but it seems they're still alive because he left the station in a hurry. Yoo Joonghyuk's a regressor who relives his life over and over again, but he rarely ever makes changes like these...'
"You made me wait." The protagonist starts, grumbling and sounding petulant, he continues in the same way. "There wasn't enough time to do everything I wanted to do."
He doesn't sound angry, not in his usual murderous way. It more sounds like he's... pouting if you would believe it. Dokja looks at him incredulously, side-eyeing him. Does Joonghyuk really care that much about what he thinks of him?
Laughable, honestly. The reader snorts and turns back to the screen.
[The Constellation 'Demon-like Judge of Fire' begs to know what you are thinking.]
You already know too much about that , Uriel. This much is enough.
Dokja, sighing at the angel, just waves her notification window away. Suddenly, more pop up windows fill the space in front of his face. Groaning, he ex's out of most of them.
[The Constellation 'Secretive Plotter' is interested in how incarnation 'Kim Dokja' thinks.]
Okay, that's enough of that. The reader ex's out of the rest of them with the wave of his hand. "Will you give it a rest?"
[The Constellation...]
[The Constellation...]
[The Constellation...]
Nevermind, that just made it worse. He ignores them to continue watching.
Dokja looks off into the station where the Cheoldu group members moving through are causing people to flinch away as they pass, clearly afraid of them.
'He's in his third round right now, and has been reborn as a monster who monopolize everything. He must've left without a backward glance to achieve his goal...'
"...but he's still someone who'd tie up any loose ends." Dokja ponders out loud, continuing the thought with a mumble. He wonders why the regressor is being so impatient this time around.
Hyunsung is curious about what he meant, but Dokja just waves him off anf says that he's thinking out loud.
[The Constellation 'Secretive Plotter' is pleased that you are talking out loud.]
Of course he is.
"Come to think of it, there's one person who's missing." Dokja muses, sounding not at all concerned int he slightest.
"Oh, Mr. Han-" Sangah starts, her feet shuffling where she stands, before she is interrupted by a yell.
"Everyone out of the way!"
A few moments later, Dokja and his group are surrounded by a bunch of thugs wielding bats, pipes and other improvised weapons. Among them, the reader notices an unpleasantly familiar figure.
He stands as his biggest reminder of the mundane life that used to be. Dokja hates it.
"Y-you!" Myungoh shouts out while pointing a shaky finger at him. "Get him out of here! He's the worst of the worst! Downright evil, in fact! He shouldn't be here!"
Right. As says the man who had basically kidnapped a woman and ran for it only a few days ago.
The entire time Myungoh is complaining and trying to convince everyone that Dokja deserves to be thrown out with the trash, Dokja's entire party looks varying shades of deadpan to exhausted. They are clearly very unimpressed with the sniveling man.
"Yeah, it doesn't get better seeing it for a second time." Dokja mumbles, grimacing at the downright embarrassing scene. Myungoh is essentially a toddler having a tantrum in the middle of the train station.
Yoo Joonghyuk hums out something that sounds like agreement, he leans onto the reader again. What is it with this bastard and crushing him! Dokja tries to push against him to lift some of the weight, but all that he gets out of that is more of the protagonist's weight on him.
Sighing, Dokja just relents to his sentence of being crushed, wheezing when all of the weight is crushing him down instead of being against his arms.
Han Sooyoung snickers at him, her haunted look from earlier is completely gone and she looks to be doing better. That witch laughed at him.
That witch laughed at him.
Leaning over so he has a good reach, Dokja gently places his hand on Sooyoung's shoulder with as serious of a look as he can manage. He can't look like he's scheming anything or else she would catch on.
She looks at him weirdly, equally as serious as he must look. It's odd not seeing her smile. Just to get rid of that face she's making, he suddenly smiles at her and pushes her with all of the strength he has recovered.
"HEY!" Sooyoung yelps as she's shoved out of her chair, trying to grab onto Dokja's arm and drag him down with her. He jolts back in time to avoid getting grabbed.
Laughing at her, the reader turns to the screen again. The kids are laughing along with him. It's a warm feeling.
Someone approaches and pats Myungoh on the shoulder. "Haha, come on, Han. You should play nice. We're all survivors, after all."
The tall man, clearly the one with the power in the group, continues to speak. "Pleased to meet you. You must be the new guy. Mind telling me your name?"
Making the sleaziest grin known to man, and that is saying a lot, he introduces himself as Cheon Inho.
'Cheon Inho?'
'I've heard that name somewhere before.' Dokja thinks while reaching out his hand to shak Inho's. He replies with his name, just to be polite. "Kim Dokja."
'He has a constellation sponsor... and is probably the leader of this group. IT seems that the Cheoldu group works under him as well. He's probably going to make me pay for beating them half to death.'
Dokja grips the thorn in his hand tighter just in case as Inho continues talking. "The others who came with you told me that you fought the monsters and saved my men."
That takes Dokja off guard, freezing him in his spot as he takes another look at the man in front of him. '...what?'
"Everyone gather around!" Inho calls out with merriment. "This brave new member here has gathered food for us!"
The crowd of hungry civilians begin to gather around Dokja, calling out to him upon noticing the bags of food in his hands. Inho just makes another sleazy smile. "Welcome to Geumho station, Kim Dokja."
'What the-?' He forces a smile, the corner of his mouth ticked up in irritation. He looks like he really wants to punch someone. 'I see now. So this is how it's going to be, is it?'
[The Constellation 'Secretive Plotter' is excited.]
Sooyoung climbs back into her recliner, cursing Dokja as she does so. She looks at him with narrowed eyes. Good, she should have never gotten so comfortable in the first place.
He sticks his tongue out at her.
"It was nice, to be able to fight like this." Dokja hesitates to mutter, watching the conniving bug on the screen try to use people against him.
"Like what, hyung?" Gilyoung pipes up, leaning forward so he can have a clear view of Dokja around the girls. His eyes are lit up again, nothing like the dull and shiny look they had earlier when he was crying. That's good, he must be feeling better.
Humming, the reader tilts his head as he looks at the kid trying to figure out a way to explain his thoughts. He starts with a very simple fact. "I'm not very strong-"
"That's not true! You beat those guys up earlier!" The kid immediately denies what Dokja has deemed a simple fact, kicking up a fuss. The boy huffs when the reader holds up a finger to get Gilyoung to let him finish.
This kid really has no chill.
"Gilyoung-ah, I'm not very strong. Sure, I may have upgraded coin stats, but I don't have any skills or weapons of note." It's insane to him that he has to actually explain what he means when he says he isn't strong. He's always been considered weak- "When fighting, I like something that requires strategy more than brute force."
Dokja uses his thumb to point at Joonghyuk, who is just watching him talk to Gilyoung like a creep, and continues his train of thought. "That's this guys thing. I don't have enough strength to do that."
"But..." Gilyoung seems conflicted, probably unwilling to admit that Dokja could be anything but the most powerful person he knew. "Hyung, aren't you strong enough to be kind now?"
Dokja pauses, taking a look at the kid with new lenses. That...
"Yeah! Ahjussi saved that Unnie!" Yoosung chirps in, pointing her finger behind her at Jung Heewon who is sat behind Dokja. Reaching over, he lowers her hand and scolds her a little.
"Pointing isn't polite, yoosung-ie." He's not quite willing to continue this conversation. He hasn't really been given a chance to stop and really think about himself recently, so the image he has in his head is still a wimpy office worker. He likes that he doesn't have much time to think about other things.
[The Constellation 'Demon-like Judge of Fire' says she thinks incarnation 'Kim Dokja' is strong enough to be kind!]
Uh oh, the kids have gotten Uriel in on it now. The screen continues playing.
'This will be quite the fun game we play here, Leader Inho.' His forced smile morphs into a grin, the feral look is back at he borderline bears his teeth at the man in front of him.
Later, Hyunsung explains the station's situation to Dokja while Sangah checks on the woman sitting nearby. There are only 87 people in the station, including Dokja, which is fewer than he had been expecting.
"Only those who were in the cabin and those who were near the station survived." Hyunsung is glum and downcast as he talks, a heaviness to his words. "Nobody talks about it, but since everyone cleared the first scenario..."
'Everyone here survived by killing others. Everyone here is a murderer.'
"Right now, Geumho station is divided into the Major group and the Minor group." Hyunsung continues, looking out at the crowd.
The Major Group.
He glances over at Myungoh posturing for the thugs and spouting hot air. "Just trust me! The chairman is doing what he can. We'll be rescued soon."
"As expected of the young master of Hangyeong Corporation!" One of the thugs remarks, seemingly Myungoh's new groupie.
The Minor Group.
On the other side of the station, a mother cradles her young child who whimpers about being hungry. They're dirty, covered in drying blood and other unmentionable things he doesn't want to think about.
She attempts to soothe them in a hug. "Just hang on a little longer. We'll be rescued soon."
It does seem to do a little, though the effect has to be diminished from how long the mother must have said that same thing. It's a familiar sight.
A feeling twists in Dokja's chest and he turns away quickly.
Meanwhile, others are talking amongst themselves, reassuring each other that things will get better and the government is doing what they can.
'Even when a hundred murderers gather, they divide themselves into the strong and the weak. That's what humans are like. Did everyone think there was no other way?'
It's a harsh truth that many people had to come to terms with very very quickly. It must have been new to the lot of them.
Inho puts his hand on Myungoh's shoulder once more. "He's right everyone. Don't lose hope. We'll leave this place." With that last sentence he looks over his shoulder at Dokja's group.
"The distribution of food is decided by the Major group. But, since we're running low, we've been assigning people to go scavenge for food." Hyunsung's voice buts back in, pulling Dokja's attention from the events happening around them. "Heewon's a part of our group and she was assigned too."
"Who's Heewon?" Dokja questions.
"The woman you saved. Her name