Chapter 1 - Chapter 1: The Author, The Reader, The Fool[1]

The ravings were the first to break through.

Amon. He was trying to unstabilize my mental state to invade.

They echoed with the sly, giggling madness of a parasite that had finally breached the walls of the asylum. Klein Moretti, in the irradiated ruins of Chernobyl, felt the phantom of the Blasphemer's monocle try to latch onto his very spirit, to use his connection as a bridge to the most sacred, impossible place.

Sefirah Castle. 

But he was prepared for this.

As Amon's phantom surged, a cold, silent, and absolute darkness intervened.

The monocled King of Angels, be it "His" avatar or true body, opened "His" mouth and said a name:

"Evernight."

The Goddess. Through the authority of Death, she manipulated the God of Glory, she blocked the Blasphemer's path. The world began to graft . This was the resurrection he had planned.

But something went wrong.

His spirit, instead of being pulled "above the gray fog" to his throne of "The Fool" was thrown sideways. The connection to his castle of stacked-up luck didn't sever, but it stretched thin, like a spider's silk pulled taut across an ocean.

The gray fog, his ultimate protection, swirled around his spirit, but it was all that was left. It desperately shielded his mind from the chaotic, truths of Cosmos now screaming at him from the outside.

A single, horrific line of knowledge, not from Amon, but from the void itself, imprinted on his mind:

[■■ is looking at you.]

Then, the ravings, the Goddess, and the world of Chernobyl dissolved into blinding, absolute white.

***

Kim Dokja's consciousness was a wreck.

He was inside the Outer God.

He was watching the 'Secretive Plotter' —an entity he now knew to be the 1863rd Yoo Joonghyuk—clash with the other Yoo Joonghyuk. It was a paradox of rage and regression that threatened to tear the very concept of the 'Ways of Survival' apart.

He had been saved, pulled from the Island of Reincarnators by the Plotter himself. He was adrift, his Fables screaming, his body a patchwork of borrowed 'Stories'.

Then, the world stopped.

It was not the slow, dreadful pause of a scenario's judgment. It was a full stop. A universal 'Error'.

The last thing Kim Dokja saw was the Secretive Plotter's white coat vanishing. Not into darkness, but into a sterile, featureless white.

***

Kim Hajin was about to be erased.

Orden's magic power was on a scale that defied the 'settings' he had written.

'Damn it, Co-author, you really overdid this boss,' he thought, his mind racing. He saw an ominous explosion of Orden's magical energy destroying everything.

He had no choice.

"Hey, Jin Sahyuk!" He yelled Jin Sahyuk's name.

Jin Sahyuk frowned and retorted, "What now?"

"Can you make a bunker with Reality Manipulation?"

"…Bunker?"

"Yeah, something that can withstand a nuclear bomb…."

She didn't know what he was talking about, but happened to have something like that.

"Bunker? I think I have one."

Sahyuk took out a card. It was the 8-star card she obtained along with [Infinite Communication]

 "But what do you need a bunker for so suddenly?"

"…!"

Kim Hajin's eyes widened, and he quickly snatched the card out of her hand.

He activated it immediately, then said with a smile, "I saw the future with my unique skill."

He poured all his remaining magic power, all the 'Luck' he could muster, into the [8-star Card]. 

[Miracle Bunker] [8-star] Effective Good

 —Constructs 'Miracle Bunker' in the designated area for 48 hours.

 —This bunker can ignore one, huge impact.

 ○Forceful Summon – You can forcefully summon up to 30 allies who are in danger.

○ Advantageous Time Flow – 10 seconds inside the bunker is equivalent to 1 second outside.

He threw it.

The card didn't stop Orden's attack. It met it.

The world didn't just explode. It became a 'white-out'. The catastrophic boom from Orden's attack was a soundless void.

Kim Hajin's smartwatch, his connection to the Co-author, flashed a single, frantic message on its cracked screen.

Then, white.

Silence.

A deep, profound, and unnatural silence.

Kim Hajin's first coherent thought was, 'I'm not dead.' His second was, 'Where is this?'

He pushed himself up. He was no longer on the scarred battlefields of Africa. He was in a room. Or perhaps, it wasn't a room. It was just... white. He rejoiced, his companions were safe.

An infinite, seamless, shadowless expanse that stretched in every direction. It reminded him of the waiting rooms in the Tower of Wish, but cleaner. More absolute.

Hajin thought about how clean the [Miracle Bunker]  is.

But there were no trace of his companions where'd they go?

He instinctively checked his gear. His Stigma was pulsing faintly on his arm. He felt the cold, familiar weightless of the Desert Eagle in his inventory. His smartwatch was dead.

He was not alone.

Two other men were in the void with him.

One was dressed in what looked like a tattered white coat, vaguely modern, but he looked like he'd been through hell. He was pale, with dark hair, and an intense, calculating look in his eyes. He looked... Korean.

The other was... odder. He wore a formal, old-fashioned suit. A white shirt, a black bowtie, a vest. He looked like a 19th-century gentleman, or perhaps a magician. He was pushing himself up, one hand going to tap his glabella—the space between his eyebrows—in a strange, rhythmic gesture.

Kim Hajin's anxiety, a familiar companion, spiked.

'Variables. Unknowns. This is bad. This is a setting I never wrote.' He needed information. Now.

He focused his gaze on the man in the tattered coat and activated his Gift.

[Observation and Reading]

A blue window, familiar and comforting, popped into his vision.

[Target: Kim Dokja]

And that was it.

The rest of the window was blank. Hajin squinted, trying to force it. 'Work, damn you!'

Suddenly, his skill didn't just fail; it recoiled. He felt a sharp, stabbing pain behind his eyes, as if he had tried to read a book made of solid iron. It was a sensation of absolute, unyielding rejection.

[Failed to read target!]

[A powerful 'Status' is rejecting observation!]

Hajin recoiled, clutching his head. "Argh..." A 'Status'? What kind of status could block his Gift?

He gritted his teeth, the pain fading, and turned his [Observation] on the other man, the one in the suit.

[Target: Klein Moretti]

[???: ???]

[???: ???]

[Skill: ???]

[Overall: ???]

[...Information is obscured by an unknown interference.]

Gray fog obscured the information.

This was different. Not a rejection, but... censorship. As if he was trying to look at a document where every important word had been redacted with a thick, gray marker. Nothing like this had ever happened before.

***

Kim Dokja's mind was moving at a million miles an hour.

'A white room. A classic 'beginning' or 'afterlife' trope. Am I dead? No... the Plotter saved me.'

He saw the other two. One looked like a modern-day hunter or mercenary, armed and wary, with a surprisingly handsome face. The other... Kim Dokja frowned. He looked like a character straight out of a 19th-century European novel.

'They aren't from my scenario. They can't be. Who are they?'

His hand moved automatically.

"[Character List]." 

It was the skill that had defined his survival.

[The exclusive skill 'Character List' is activated.]

[The applicable individual is not a 'Character' in 'Ways of Survival'.] 

He tried it on the man with the gun. The same message. He tried it on the man in the suit. The same message.

Kim Dokja's blood ran cold.

This was, quite literally, his worst-case scenario. Worse than facing a Returnee. Worse than a Demon King. His greatest advantage, his omniscience of the 'Ways of Survival', was completely and utterly useless. These people were not 'Characters'.

Kim Dokja couldn't understand who are they? Not characters?

Then he looked at the man in the suit again, and something even stranger happened. His vision blurred. A gray, swirling mist seemed to cover the man, and Kim Dokja felt a sudden, sharp headache.

His [Fourth Wall] shuddered, as if it had touched something profoundly alien and complex. The wall didn't "read" the man; it just... buffered.

'What... what in the world are you?'

***

Klein Moretti's mind was clear. His connection to Sefirah Castle was distant, but present. He was alive. He was somewhere.

He pushed himself to his feet, adjusting his bowtie. He was in an unknown place with two unknown individuals.

That was the first time he was in such sterile room since his transmigration. Moreover this two... They looked...

Modern.

He couldn't dive deeper into his thoughts. His first priority now was assessment.

He tapped his glabella, and the world shifted.

Spirit Vision was active.

He looked at the man with the gun first.

The man's aura was bright and powerful.

It was stable, healthy... and profoundly artificial. It was like looking at a golem, but one made of flesh. He could see a complex, tattoo-like pattern of light bound to the man's arm and soul, pulsing with a power that felt designed. Spiritual particles reacted strangely.

It was a power he didn't recognize, not of a Beyonder, not of a deity he knew.

'A power source... 'grafted' onto his soul?'

Then, he turned his Spirit Vision to the other man.

And he froze.

It was... a paradox.

The man's aura was a chaotic storm. It was black and dead in places, flickering with decay. In other places, it was blindingly white and vibrant, surging with life.

But strangest of all was the thing that surrounded him.

At the edge of his being, his aura dissolved into... something else. It looked, to Klein's spiritual perception, like a wall of static, a flickering, intangible barrier that seemed to absorb and negate reality.

It was a 'wall' that seemed to be made of... letters, stories.

He looked like a living Fable.

A concept wearing a man's skin.

'Impossible,' Klein thought, his hand subtly moving to his pocket, where his revolver should have been. It wasn't there. He felt a prickle of genuine alarm.

The silence had to break.

It was Kim Hajin who broke it. He was wary, his gun still in his hand, though not aimed. He addressed the man who looked Korean.

"…저기요." (Hey.) "여기가 어딥니까?" (Where is this place?)

Kim Dokja's eyes widened slightly. The [Star Stream]'s translation filtered the words neatly into his head. 'He's Korean.' A massive, overwhelming sense of relief washed over him.

"저도 모릅니다." (I don't know either,) Dokja replied, his voice hoarse. "방금 전까지 다른 곳에..." (I was somewhere else just a moment ago...)

Hajin's shoulders relaxed by a fraction. Thank god. A fellow countryman. That made one of them less of an unknown variable.

Then, the other man spoke.

"Who are you?" Klein Moretti asked, his voice steady, his Loenese accent crisp. "What is this place? A spiritual world?"

Kim Dokja heard: [Who are you? What is this place? A spiritual world?]

He understood.

Hajin, however, just heard more gibberish. He tensed again, his gaze snapping to Klein. "뭐라는 거야?" (What's he saying?)

Dokja looked from Hajin (speaking Korean) to Klein (speaking Loenese), and then back to Hajin (who looked confused) and Klein (who looked suspicious).

A dreadful, weary realization dawned on Kim Dokja.

'Ah. Crap.' His lips formed a grim line. 'I'm the translator.'

This fragile peace, built on mutual confusion, was about to shatter. The man with the gun, Hajin, was clearly high-strung. He didn't trust anyone he couldn't analyze. And the man in the suit, Klein, was exuding an aura of calm, methodical danger.

Hajin made the first move. He didn't trust the situation. He didn't trust the man in the suit. He raised his impecably beautiful Desert Eagle, not aiming to kill, but as a clear, unmistakable warning.

"Don't move," he said in Korean, his voice flat.

Klein couldn't understand the words, but he understood the intent. His Spirit Vision saw the man's aura flare with hostility. The primitive firearm in his hand suddenly pulsed with that strange, artificial energy, and Klein's instincts screamed lethal.

He didn't hesitate. He was a Scholar of Yore. He didn't need to fight himself.

He grabbed the air.

A gray, illusory fog appeared beside him, and from it stepped a figure: robed, masked, and crackling with spiritual energy. A Historical Projection of his Sequence 4 Bizarro Sorcerer self and Reinette Tinekerr. It was a massive, blatant show of power.

Kim Hajin's eyes widened. 'Summoning? No... it's different. What is that...'

Kim Dokja saw the two 'protagonists' about to clash.

'Aish! This is the classic misunderstanding trope! I have to stop them!'

The Bizarro Sorcerer raised its hand. Hajin's finger tensed on the trigger.

"STOP!"

Kim Dokja threw himself between them. His body flared with the blue light of [Bookmark]'s [Way of Wind]. He yelled at Hajin in Korean, his voice cracking:

"Stop! He's not an enemy!"

"How do you know?" Klein lampooned thinking about making an ominous grimace.

Well, it was translated both ways by the system, so Klein also heard it.

Then, he spun, facing Klein and his terrifying projection, holding his hands up. The [Star Stream]'s translation continued, letting him speak the other man's language:

"Wait! Please! We are not enemies!"

The white room was silent once more, save for the faint crackle of Klein's projection and the low, dangerous hum of Aether from Hajin's gun.

The standoff was absolute, with Kim Dokja, the Reader, stuck precisely where he always was: in the very center of a story that was threatening to tear itself apart.