[the constellation 'prisoner of the golden headband' is curious about the '73rd demon realm'.]
"I just hope that Dokja-ssi arrives safely," Yoo Sangah said somewhat nervously as they all waited for him to prove that he was alive. It was kind of sad that the bar was so low, but his physical state really was bad enough that Kim Dokja had to admit that it made sense this time.
With any luck, he'd be just fine, and everyone would see that they had nothing to worry about.
The sky turns a dusty brown as Dokja crashes down hard onto a pile of scraps, rolling down onto the dry and dusty ground. Every time his body touches the ground, the areas making contact begin to crack more and more. As he falls, system notifications update him on his deteriorating state and the urgency of getting a new incarnation form, as well as informing him that he has arrived at an area adjacent to the scenario.
Struggling to his knees, Dokja looks around to assess his location as words begin to leak through the cracks all over his body. The most dangerous crack is the one in his chest, which is allowing his birth story to leak out. If he doesn't seal his wounds soon, Dokja knows that all his stories will collapse and lead to his death. As he looks at the piles of garbage surrounding him, the voice of the Wenny Man enters his mind, telling him he's at the Scenario Horizon.
The Scenario Horizon. A place where the waste of the scenarios, expelled from the scenario like me and forcibly removed by cleaners, are gathered…
Finally taking in his surroundings and trying to pick up a sword that is disintegrating into words, Dokja loudly exclaims that this place is just a landfill. The voice continues, telling Dokja that he should be able to obtain some sort of incarnation form if he can find useful components before leaving him with a final word of blessing.
Unfortunately for Kim Dokja, his hopes were dashed as he fell from the sky, crash-landing violently. He cringed, having to look away and inhale sharply as Shin Yoosung squeezed his arm so tightly that it almost hurt.
"Ahjussi!" She yelled in despair, staring at the story fragments that had fallen from his body with unconcealed horror. "You have to be okay, you have to be!"
[the constellation 'guam divine doctor' is frowning at the current state of the incarnation 'kim dokja'.]
"Well… at least I arrived?" Kim Dokja weakly said with a shrug, looking far less certain than before. That bastard of a Wenny Man, he definitely didn't need to drop him from the sky, dammit! Was that payback for scamming him?
As Kim Dokja got several messages informing him of his current state and location, Lee Seolhwa frowned deeply. "I'm glad to see that Dokja-ssi is mostly in one piece, but how will he repair his incarnation body when he no longer has one?"
Well, it would be less 'repair' and more 'construct', really. Thankfully, he was in the best possible place to do that. Kim Dokja tried to give her a reassuring smile, but it didn't seem to work very well, considering the doubtful glances from at least half of the people in the room. "It'll probably be a messy patch job since I'm not an expert, but it'll have to do for now."
As he got to his knees, despite his crumbling stories, Yoo Mia looked at him nervously. "That looks really bad, ahjussi."
Well, yes. That's because it was bad.
"I believe in you, hyung!" Lee Gilyoung exclaimed eagerly, looking almost excited to see what kind of trick that Kim Dokja would pull this time. Feeling his expression soften somewhat, he ruffled the kid's hair. At least someone had faith in him.
[the constellation 'demon-like judge of fire' is hoping that the incarnation 'kim dokja' will hurry.]
[the constellation 'secretive plotter' is carefully examining the 'scenario horizon'.]
It was an ugly place, just piles of discarded and broken stories that no one wanted anymore. If he had more time, then maybe Kim Dokja would have been tempted to comb through the piles, looking for stories that deserved to be read and remembered.
Upon hearing Kim Dokja's narration about the Scenario Horizon, Han Sooyoung couldn't help but snort. Kim Dokja shot her a confused and judgmental glare, but her lips slowly curved into an amused grin. That couldn't mean anything good, coming from her.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Han Sooyoung asked, looking and sounding far too smug. "You do realize that the Wenny Man literally tossed you out with the trash there, right?"
[the constellation 'abyssal black flame dragon' is howling with laughter.]
Kim Dokja didn't deign that with a response other than rolling his eyes. One man's trash was another's treasure, and for Kim Dokja, this place had the potential of being a veritable treasure trove. Han Sooyoung hadn't read far enough into the novel to have known about the 111th regression, so he could only fault her for not having good enough taste to keep reading TWSA.
"It wouldn't matter if he crash landed on a beach resort if he doesn't get those injuries fixed soon," Jung Heewon muttered darkly, scowling at the massive crack on his chest that was rapidly leaking stories. After a moment, she looked at him with far too many emotions in her gaze. "You'd better hope that you know what you're doing."
Of course he did. If he had ended up somewhere else, then maybe there would have been a valid reason to panic, but this was just the 73rd Demon Realm. Kim Dokja basically had a walkthrough for this place, so everything would be just fine.
"That guy totally just said you had to find components, right? I didn't hear that wrong?" Lee Jihye wondered, looking both curious and slightly disturbed as the Wenny Man's voice faded. "What are you going to do, look for random body parts in there and then become a mad scientist to build a body?"
"Well—" Kim Dokja began, but he was immediately cut off by the girl's shriek.
Lee Jihye turned her horrified gaze to him, holding onto her pale cheeks. "Just because you have a white coat doesn't mean you're qualified to be a mad scientist, ahjussi!"
Yeah, she was a lost cause.
[the constellation 'god of wine and ecstasy' is snorting.]
Reaching out to the sky, Dokja calls for the voice to wait, looking devastated. He knows full well that the Wenny Man is hoping that he'll die here so his stories can be retrieved. After a few moments, Dokja lowers his head and his bangs mask his expression as his stories continue to leak from his body. If he doesn't move soon, then he'll die in less than five minutes. When he raises his head again, however, he looks eerily calm now that he can't sense the Wenny Man's gaze anymore. As Dokja stands, ready to move on with his plans, the wall takes the time to mock his acting and remind him that he sucks at it.
「He couldn't let himself get caught since coming here was his goal in the first place. To get what he wanted while hiding as much information as possible, this level of acting was necessary.」
Dokja looks around, noting that he's arrived at the right place before looking down at his hands—which have started to disintegrate once more—reminding him of his lack of time. Considering the pain that he's in, thanks to the show he had put on in front of the constellations to get here, it's hard for Dokja to stay focused. As he walks and starts to look around for broken pieces of stories, he reminisces about TWSA.
Yoo Joonghyuk's 111th turn. The place where he went to regain his power after being expelled from the scenario. The 73rd Demon Realm's 'Scenario Horizon'. In that dumpster, Yoo Joonghyuk obtained his new 'body'.
"You can't die here, Dokja-ssi," Lee Hyunsung declared firmly, as though he was speaking it into existence. "You have the egg to protect, so you won't give up so easily."
Exactly, there was no way in hell he was letting the Wenny Man get his grubby hands on 41st Shin Yoosung's soul again. Plus, the Wenny Man had literally no way of knowing that he had essentially just given Kim Dokja exactly what he likely wanted on a silver platter. Manipulation successful.
[the constellation 'lily blooming in aquarius' is looking nervously at the incarnation 'kim dokja'.]
[the constellation 'queen of the darkest spring' is hoping that the incarnation 'kim dokja' still has the energy to move.]
"Stop stalling, Kim Dokja," Yoo Joonghyuk grumbled at the screen, and Kim Dokja nearly flinched at the sudden rumble of his deep voice. Several members of the group looked over in confusion, and even Yoo Sangah looked baffled by his words.
"But Joonghyuk-ssi, his condition is…" Yoo Sangah began, but Yoo Joonghyuk just raised a brow and she fell silent.
Instead, Yoo Joonghyuk just looked straight at Kim Dokja with a startling intensity. "You're already there, don't waste your time acting."
Ah, so he had realized? As his future self fell silent and he realized that he had less than five minutes left, Yoo Joonghyuk's stare only got more intense. They stared into each other's eyes for a moment until it was starting to make him feel the urge to squirm under the protagonist's gaze. Finally, Kim Dokja gave in and sighed deeply. "How did you realize I was acting?"
Yoo Joonghyuk just scoffed, never breaking eye contact, and he seemed almost smug. "You've only ever been that upset when you thought I would die."
[the constellation 'demon-like judge of fire' is feeling faint.]
[the constellation 'secretive plotter' is grumbling under his breath.]
Kim Dokja blinked in shock. "I… uh… I've totally been worried for other reasons too, so—"
"Never for your own safety, you fool," Yoo Joonghyuk retorted with a tone of finality, and Kim Dokja couldn't even form a response to that one. Fuck, had the protagonist really been observing all of his actions and decisions, learning how to read him the same way that Kim Dokja had learned all of Yoo Joonghyuk's little quirks?
Sure enough, not even a second later, [The Fourth Wall] began making fun of him for having shitty acting skills. Kim Dokja really wanted it to shut up.
[several constellations are impressed by the manipulation skills of the incarnation 'kim dokja'.]
[the constellation 'prisoner of the golden headband' is confused by the strange tastes of the incarnation 'kim dokja'.]
He didn't want to end up in a trash heap specifically, dammit! This just happened to be a place he knew about, and somewhere he'd be able to take advantage of that attribute he surely must have bought.
"You have to hurry, ahjussi," Shin Yoosung urged in a panicked tone as she realized that his hands were starting to vanish too.
Well, he could only move so fast in this state, but he'd try.
"Hey." At the sound of her voice, Kim Dokja turned to look at Jung Heewon, only to be faced by her furious expression. "What the hell do you mean by 'the show' you put on?"
Yoo Sangah glanced at him nervously. "Dokja-ssi, if you really planned ahead with Bihyung to prepare that box, then you truly always knew something like that would happen in the 10th scenario, didn't you? That's what you meant by that comment, right?"
Kim Dokja didn't know. Though he and his future self were technically the same person, that didn't mean that he could always know what his future self was thinking. All he knew was what this scenario was showing them, and even then, it was still hard to know if things were purposefully being left out for dramatic tension. The screen didn't just follow him, and it wasn't forcing them to experience every second of his life either. It was structured like a movie, carefully curated to tell a story that could draw in its viewers.
"Does it matter?" Kim Dokja asked instead. "Whether I did it all on purpose or not, I got the constellations off my back and everyone else's. Isn't that better for all of us?"
[the constellation 'maritime war god' is nodding solemnly.]
Right now, he had to focus on what stories his future self would choose to construct a new body. Even if he couldn't get enough for a full reconstruction, it would at least help stabilize him somewhat, and that would have to do for now.
As his future self began reminiscing about TWSA and the 111th regression, Kim Dokja found himself relaxing as the familiar story brought him into its fold.
"So, once again, you're just copying the protagonist," Han Sooyoung muttered. "Figures."
Kim Dokja didn't think that it should be all that surprising; why bother trying to come up with an entirely new solution when there was already one that was proven to work?
Lee Hyunsung just smiled weakly. "At least Joonghyuk-ssi is technically helping you again, even though he isn't physically with you."
That was true, even though the 111th regression hadn't been one of Yoo Joonghyuk's finer moments. Once again, Yoo Joonghyuk's story was taking him by the hand and giving him a solution to a problem that would otherwise seem insurmountable. Though he didn't notice it, a small smile made its way onto Kim Dokja's face.
[the constellation 'secretive plotter' is looking at the incarnation 'kim dokja'.]