The golden light of the god-slaying bullet tore through the air, a final, brilliant streak of defiance that shattered the Desert Eagle in my hand. The recoil vibrated through my bones, and I watched the faint, beautiful trail it left behind—a signature of my existence as the Author.
I knew, with a heavy certainty, that I wouldn't be around to see where it landed.
My body buckled.
The world began to tilt. Drops of blood spattered against the ground. My vision spun wildly, the stars above becoming a blur of incoherent light as my limbs escaped the realm of my control.
"Hajin! Hajin!"
Boss caught me. Her voice was sharp with a frantic, jagged fear, but it sounded like she was calling from the other side of a vast, frozen ocean. I wanted to tell her I wouldn't die, but my consciousness was already slipping away.
I felt like I was sinking into a bottomless pit. Someone was pulling me down into the abyss, their voice a low hum I didn't recognize. As the darkness rushed in to claim me, blue words flickered in the void of my mind.
[The Final Arc…]
[The 'Fragment of a Censored World' awakens inside you!]
[System Alert!]
[Story 'Viewpoint of Mysterious Extra' does not exist in this world.]
Viewpoint of Mysterious Extra? The name echoed in the hollows of my mind, sounding impossibly familiar, like a melody I had forgotten a lifetime ago.
Before I could grasp it, the unpleasant chaos of the transition swallowed me whole.
When I opened my eyes, I was alive.
It was the second time I had experienced the [Clockhand of Fate], and it was no more pleasant than the first.
Death still tasted like shit.
As my life flashed before my eyes, I realized with a start that I wasn't seeing the Earth I was born on. I was seeing this world. The hills of the Republic, the cold gaze of the Cube, the warmth of the Chameleon Troupe, the floors of the Tower, the faces of the characters I created.
I clutched my chest as a sharp pain scolded my heart. I rolled on the ground, gasping for air, but when I finally looked up, I was alone.
Boss, Suho, Nayun, Yeonha… they were all gone.
I was lying on a field of snow, white and soft, but strangely warm to the touch. The sky was an abyssal dark, yet it was blindingly bright with stars that felt close enough to touch.
"Oh right... the system."
I pulled up the logs I had missed.
[The final arc has been completed.]
[All SP has been retrieved.]
[▷Decision: You can now make a decision as the author….]
'As the Author...' for some reason Hajin felt like he had seen this message before. 'Decision... choice... I made some choice?'
The thoughts slipped away from him.
The crunch of footsteps on the snow made me snap my head around.
A man was walking toward me. He looked utterly ordinary.
"Nice to meet you, Kim Hajin-ssi," he said with a nonchalant smile. "Since the final arc has ended, I've come to fulfill my promise. I am the Co-Author."
I stared at him, my mind bubbling with questions that refused to form.
"I am a Dimensional Author," he explained, clearing his throat as if reading my thoughts. "I am a universal existence derived from the 'pinnacle-ranked dimension' where you come from. I needed the permission of a True Author to create a world. I observed your Story for thousands of years until I received a permition from you. That was when I sent the email."
"The... homosapiens email?" I rasped.
"Exactly!" He clapped his hands. "I needed a novel that was... well, let's say sufficiently structured but poorly written enough that the author would allow a remake. You gave me permission when you replied to those three sentences. To you, they were insignificant. To me, they were the seed of an entire world."
He snapped his fingers, and the hierarchy of the universe manifested in the air—the Pinnacle Dimension of Earth at the top, and the world of the novel beneath it.
"You thought you were an extra, Hajin-ssi. But in the eyes of real extras like me, you are a main character who shines brighter than anyone else. But now, the story has reached its limit. You must decide."
I felt my voice shake. "What happens if I leave?"
"If the Author leaves, the novel stops. The world will slowly rot and crumble away. It is your soul that maintains this intermediate dimension. Without you, everyone you know will simply... cease."
He heaved a light sigh. "But you can go back to Earth. Scarcely a day has passed there. I can even erase your memories so you don't have to carry the grief of a dying world."
An empty, bitter laugh escaped my lips. "Great, my ass. You're telling me this world—the one I've lived in, fought for, and bled for—is just a draft that stops when I walk away?"
"Then what is your decision?" the Co-Author asked, his tone turning serious.
"Can I die here? If I stay?"
"You can die. But if you die while staying, the world will not stop. Your soul will remain as its foundation. That is what you must choose. If you stay, you lose the status of an Author. You lose the powers, the gear... and potentially the weight of your relationships. You will become a part of the world, not its creator."
The Co-Author urged me. "Ten minutes here is a day on Earth. Choose."
I looked at the snowy field. If he had asked me on the first day at the Cube, the choice would have been easy. I would have run back to my lonely apartment without a second thought. But now?
I had spent too much time here. I had come to love these people—these "characters"—too much to let them dissolve into ink.
I began to walk, my footsteps carving a jagged path through the warm snow.
"Where are you going?" the Co-Author called out.
"I'm going back," I whispered, tears finally blurring my vision and falling onto the white field
"I'm going home."
***
It started as a flicker—a momentary lapse in thought.
Kim Suho stood by the Han River, the brilliant light of Misteltein reflecting off the water. He was clearing out the remnants of the demon army, his movements precise and deadly. Beside him, Jin Sahyuk unleashed spears of black magic, her laughter echoing across the battlefield.
But as Suho looked down at his sword, his grip faltered. Wasn't there something... someone... associated with this blade? A memory of a training hall, a shared meal, a certain advice—it was all there, but the face was blurred, the name a static hum.
He felt a desperate, clawing need to remember, but the more he reached for the thought, the faster it dissolved.
He wasn't the only one.
In the high-rise offices of the Essence of the Strait, Yoo Yeonha rested her chin on her palm. The Chameleon Troupe had been disbanded, and she had successfully recruited Yi Byul to lead a new charitable foundation.
On paper, everything was perfect.
The "New Evils" were being suppressed, and her corporate empire was reaching its zenith.
She picked up her smartwatch to reply to a message from Rachel. It was a photo of Evandel, her face covered in whipped cream.
"So cute," Yeonha murmured. She began to type a reply: Hiding something so cute… God, she's so cute. Didn't you say Evandel liked dolls? The next time we meet—
She stopped.
A sudden wave of embarrassment washed over her.
Why was she sending this?
Who was she really thinking of when she mentioned the dolls?
She felt like she was forgetting a vital ally, a "trusty partner" who had stood in the shadows behind her success.
She erased the message and focused back on the logistics of the foundation, pushing the "emptiness" into a corner of her mind.
***
Chae Nayun sat in her limousine, staring out at the Seoul skyline. She was a "Grand Hero" now, an elite team leader, but she chose to fight alone. She didn't know why. She just felt like a specific space beside her was meant to be empty.
When Jin Seyeon and Cheok Jungyeong approached her about the Kwang-Oh Incident and her grandfather's sins, Nayun felt a sharp, brain-splitting pang of pain.
"It's a tragedy that must be made right," Jin Seyeon said.
"I'll help," Nayun whispered, but her hand instinctively went to the necklace around her neck.
Who gave this to me?
She closed her eyes, trying to force the image of a face to appear.
She felt her heart moving "for him," but "he" had no name.
No shape.
Only a hollow ache
***
Far away, in a small, ordinary apartment, the man who had been erased sat on his floor.
[The 'Fragment of a Censored World' awakens inside you!]
[System Alert!]
[Story 'Viewpoint of Mysterious Extra' does not exist in this world.]
"Viewpoint of Mysterious Extra?" Hajin muttered, his voice sounding thin in the quiet room. "Sounds familiar..."
He picked up a chopstick and threw it at the wall. It hit with a dull thud and rolled away. The Master Sharpshooter gift was gone.
The Author's authority was gone. He was no longer a character in a novel; he was just an insignificant man named Kim Hajin.
'But why do I have a feeling like... Why do I feel like I've already lost the Author's authority once? That's impossible, Hajin... Ha-ha, you must sleep more.'
A heavy box sat in his living room—a final gift from the Co-Author containing his Black Lotus uniform and a silver gun. He stared at them, not crying, but feeling a profound, quiet gratitude.
He was the only one who remembered the truth.
To the rest of the world, he was a ghost that had never existed.
***
Three months passed.
The world had adjusted to the hole in its history.
During a lockdown in her mansion's underground bunker, she sat alone, surrounded by the silence of the reinforced walls.
To pass the time, she began scrolling through her past message logs, looking for conversations with her father to ease her guilt over his arrest.
She scrolled past the business reports.
Past the personal notes.
And then, she found a log that had no recipient name.
The sender was "Yoo Yeonha," but the contact field was blank—a null value that the system couldn't process.
Curious, she clicked it.
"Hello, Kim Hajin-ssi. This is Yoo Yeonha. Today has been a difficult day. Maybe that's why... the days I spent with you as my trusty ally are popping up in my head. I was embarrassed, tired, and a little annoyed, but now that I think about it, they were precious memories. Right, I'm thinking about you right now…"
Yeonha froze.
Her face turned a deep, burning red.
"W-What the hell is this?"
She clutched her head, the unimaginable embarrassment causing her heart to race.
But beneath the shame, the "emptiness" she had felt for months began to fill with a terrifying, liquid clarity.
The Kwang-Oh Incident.
The secret alliances.
The man who had stood beside her when the world was falling apart.
"Ah..."
Short, broken mutters escaped her lips as she pressed her temples.
The "elimination of existence"—Baal's final, spiteful curse—was beginning to crack. The name she had just read on the screen burned into her vision.
Kim Hajin.
***
The silence of the Swiss Alps was broken only by the whistling wind and the occasional crunch of boots on snow.
In a secluded cabin nestled near a cliff's end, the man once known as the Black Lotus lived a life that was as quiet as it was profound.
He was no longer a hero.
He was no longer an Author.
He was a mysterious pharmacist.
Equipped with the [Medicinal Memory Physique], Kim Hajin spent his days wandering the jagged peaks to find rare herbs.
In his small cabin, he brewed cures that defied modern science—pills that could neutralize the most potent poisons or mend bones shattered by demons.
Travelers whispered of the "Hermit of the Alps," a young man with a sharp gaze and an even sharper instinct for healing, who asked for nothing but a simple jewel or a story in exchange for his miracles.
He lived in the "starting point" of a new life, wearing a version of the Black Lotus Uniform that had shrunk to fit his slightly smaller frame.
He was an insignificant Kim Hajin, forgotten by the world he had saved.
Until the fables began to push back against the forgetfulness.
***
In a hero's lounge in Seoul, Rachel and Chae Nayun were startled by a sudden shriek.
Spartan, the eagle that had become Evandel's constant companion, was having what looked like a seizure on Rachel's lap.
He began to peck her smartwatch with the speed of a power drill—tududududududu!
"What is wrong with him?!" Nayun shouted, her hand instinctively clutching the necklace around her neck.
Rachel turned on her watch.
The message from Yeonha was short, containing only a single name.
Kim Hajin.
The world seemed to stop.
Chae Nayun felt a sharp, brain-splitting pang of pain.
She kneeled, clutching her head as the unpleasant fog of forgetfulness was forcibly burned away by the heat of her own heart.
The necklace—the gift she had forgotten to return—pulsed against her skin.
"This Kim Hajin…" Rachel rasped, her face as hard as rock. "Who is he?"
Nayun couldn't answer yet, but her heart was already moving.
The sunset over the Alps was a dazzling, orange-hued masterpiece.
Hajin had just sent off his last visitors—two women who had paid for an antidote with a blue diamond.
He sat back in his chair, the familiar weight of the Desert Eagle on the table beside him.
Tok, tok—
A knock rang out.
It was more urgent than the previous ones.
Hajin sighed, thinking it was another desperate traveler.
He got up and opened the door.
The northern wind rushed in, carrying the scent of familiar perfume.
Black hair fluttered in the cold breeze.
Hajin froze.
His brain cells seemed to fry in an instant.
He wondered if he was dreaming, if the "Decision" he had made was finally fracturing.
"I told you before, didn't I?"
The voice was a sob, a clear, beautiful sound that broke the silence of the mountains. Yi Byul—the Boss of the Chameleon Troupe—stood there, her eyes shining like jewels behind a veil of tears.
"That I would never forget."
Hajin couldn't move.
He couldn't think.
He simply stared at the woman.
"...I told you I won't forget," she sobbed again.
Hajin's body moved on its own. He stepped forward and pulled her into his arms. The scent of her hair, the touch of her clothes—it was reality. It was home.
"Kim Hajin," she whispered against his chest, her hands clutching his Black Lotus uniform. "I remember you."
Hajin smiled, a droplet of pure leisure falling into his heart.
"Thank you. Really."
He embraced her tightly, oblivious to the world for a moment.
But as they stood there, a fierce shouting echoed from the sky.
Kieeeeeek—!
The cry of an eagle.
Hajin looked up.
Spartan was circling the cabin, and further down the mountain path, he could see them.
A group of people—Nayun, Yeonha, Rachel, Suho—walking up the cliffside with a pleasant, frantic nervousness.
Boss pulled back slightly, wiping her nose and straightening her back with the dignity of a leader, though her eyes were still red.
"Hajin," she said proudly, a mischievous, genuinely delighted smile blooming on her face. "I'm the first one who came to see you. Remember that. Yep. I'm the first. The first... ufufu."
Hajin laughed, leaning in to kiss her.
Their lips touched.
Strangely, Hajin didn't feel nervous.
The story he had taken back was finally beginning its real epilogue.
Together.
***
"You remember it, yeah, I thought no one would remember me after all!"
"Enough of it, Hajin," Hajin was hit on the head by his wife as he was casually chatting with Kim Suho.
The candles on the cake flickered, fifty small flames casting a warm, dancing glow over the faces gathered in the dining hall of the Healing City residence. The air was thick with the scent of roasted meat, expensive wine, and the comfortable hum of a decade of peace.
At the head of the long table, Kim Hajin sat, his hair now streaked with silver at the temples. To his left, Yi Byul—his Boss, his wife—held his hand under the table, her grip as firm and grounding as it had been almost thirty years ago.
The room was a tapestry of lives well-lived.
Kim Suho and Yun Seung-ah sat together, their young daughter leaning against Suho's shoulder.
The "Hero of the Century" had aged gracefully, though his eyes still sparked with that indomitable light whenever he looked at his family.
Across from them, Shin Jonghak and Yoo Yeonha shared a quiet, dignified look. Jonghak's sharp edges had been smoothed by time and fatherhood, while Yeonha remained the architect of the modern world, her smartwatch still occasionally flickering with reports she couldn't quite ignore.
A ripple of purple light shimmered in the corner of the room, and Jin Sahyuk stepped out of a stable dimensional portal. She wore the regal attire of Akatrina, her presence as commanding as ever. Behind her, the portal closed with the precision of an 11th-star master—a feat only Shimurin could achieve.
"You're late, Sahyuk," Hajin noted with a small smirk.
"A King is never late; the world simply takes time to catch up," Sahyuk retorted, sliding into a seat. She glanced at the two teenagers sitting near the center of the table. "And how are the little stars? Dokja and Klein?"
Hajin's gaze softened as he looked at his sons.
Kim Dokja and Yi Klein.
He didn't know why those names had surfaced when they were born, only that when he whispered them to Byul, she had nodded as if she were remembering a dream.
"They entered Cube last month," Hajin said, pride swelling in his chest. "Dokja is already a top-ranked shooter. He's got my eyes."
"And Klein's shadow swordsmanship is terrifying," Suho added, scratching the back of his head. "The boy is a natural. He spends half his time asking me about sword forms. He's got a bright future."
Hajin smiled, but for a moment, his vision blurred.
For the past decade, a strange fog had settled in his mind.
He took medication for the worsening headaches, but the dreams remained—dreams of white rooms, of subways, of a man with a monocle and a reader with a white coat.
"A toast," Hajin said, his voice steadying as he stood up, ignoring the dull ache in his chest. He raised his glass, looking at the faces of the people who had become his entire universe.
"Although I became a different person in a different world," he began, his voice mirroring the quiet realization of a man at the end of his path. "Although I lost everything from the world I was born in... the current me—no, we—can confidently say that we are happy. Because we are with the people who are precious to us. To life!"
"To life!" the room echoed.
Hajin took a sip, but as he moved to sit back down, the world suddenly tilted.
The warmth of the room was replaced by an icy, crushing weight.
A sharp, searing pain erupted in his chest, radiating through his limbs like liquid lead.
He saw Byul's eyes widen in terror as she reached for him.
He saw Yi Yuri lunging forward, her hands already glowing with a powerful healing authority, and Droon shouting for a medic.
But Hajin knew.
The years of "Overclocking," the strain of the Stigma, that he used when young, had finally claimed their price. It was a miracle he had reached fifty.
He felt his soul being pulled, not into darkness.
As his eyes closed for the final time, two black-and-blue windows flickered in the void of his fading consciousness.
[The 'Fragment of a Censored World' is being drawn to the Archive.]
[Wait for someone to unlock it.]