The world didn't stop burning.
Even after the light of the Third Scenario dimmed and the bodies of the designated prey lay smoldering, the world remained steeped in the silence of aftermath. Ash hung in the air like snowfall, and the sky trembled — as though the world itself feared what came next.
Kim Dokja stood at the edge of a rooftop, staring down at the remains of what once was a subway station. People were gathering below, their expressions dazed and hollow. Survivors. Stragglers. The desperate.
A week had passed since the "reset."
At least, that's what he was calling it.
The world had snapped back — just as it had been in Chapter 1. The girl, the reader who had met him prematurely, was gone. No trace. No memory of her lingered in the world. Only in Dokja's mind.
But things weren't exactly the same.
Because Dokja remembered. And more importantly, the system remembered him.
[You are the Candidate.]
[Your audition continues.]
It was the first thing he saw upon waking up after the reset — a message unlike any other he had encountered before. It wasn't issued by the scenario system. It felt older, deeper. As though something beneath the surface of the world had finally acknowledged him.
Since then, he had been watching. Listening. Not just for monsters or constellations, but for the truth.
He wasn't just playing through a story anymore.
He was being watched.
And judged.
"Candidate," he muttered to himself, fingers tightening on the ledge. "Candidate for what?"
The wind tugged at his coat. Somewhere behind him, Yoo Joonghyuk barked orders to a squad of survivors. The regressor remained the same — stoic, methodical, brutal. A necessary constant. Dokja wondered if Joonghyuk remembered anything about the previous timeline.
He doubted it.
"Then it's just me again."
"Talking to yourself already?" a familiar voice called.
Dokja didn't turn immediately. He knew that voice. Han Sooyoung, the unpredictable author-turned-survivor, stepped onto the rooftop like she owned the sky. Her black jacket fluttered, half-covered in soot.
"You're early," he said.
"I have a nose for brooding protagonists," she replied, leaning beside him. "Plus, you've been weird lately. Even weirder than usual."
Dokja didn't respond.
Sooyoung peered at him. "Let me guess. You know something again, don't you?"
He gave her a sidelong glance. "Maybe."
She narrowed her eyes. "Did you find another chapter of the novel? Something that wasn't supposed to be there?"
"No," he said. "It's not that."
She waited, but Dokja stayed quiet.
The truth was, he didn't fully understand it yet. All he knew was this: something had shifted. Something deep in the gears of the story. It wasn't about knowledge anymore — it was about authorship. Ownership. Whoever — or whatever — controlled the narrative was watching him now, testing him not as a reader, but as a potential successor.
That's what the girl had hinted at, wasn't it?
A cosmic audition.
"You've gone full mystery protagonist," Sooyoung muttered, nudging his shoulder. "Fine. Don't tell me. But when you start monologuing in Latin, I'm out."
He cracked a faint smile. "I'll keep that in mind."
A system message interrupted them both.
[Sub-Scenario: The Voice Behind the Curtain – Activated.]
[You have been invited to a Restricted Narrative Zone.]
Before Dokja could react, the rooftop shattered.
Reality twisted. The sky bent inward, folding like origami, and suddenly he was falling. No scream. No sound. Just weightless descent through ink-black nothingness until—
—his feet touched ground.
He stood in a void. Not darkness, but absence. There was no color, no texture, just blankness that went on forever. In front of him sat a single object: a chair.
Old. Worn. And impossibly familiar.
It was the seat from the subway car in Chapter 1.
[Welcome, Kim Dokja.]
A voice — but not spoken. It crawled through his thoughts like liquid metal.
[You are one of the final candidates for Authorship.]
[Do you accept this phase of the audition?]
His pulse thudded.
This wasn't a scenario. It wasn't a constellation's test. This was… something else.
Dokja stepped closer to the chair.
"What does being an author mean?" he asked the air. "Rewriting the world? Controlling it?"
[It means responsibility. Sacrifice. And narrative sovereignty.]
[Only those who understand the story from beginning to end — and still wish to rewrite it — may sit.]
A test. Of power. Of identity.
He thought of the girl again — the other reader. The one he had met too soon. Had she been a candidate too? Was her presence in the timeline a fluke, or an intentional warning?
"Why me?" he asked. "Why not Yoo Joonghyuk? He's the protagonist."
[The protagonist walks within the frame.]
[You, Kim Dokja, saw the entire picture.]
[You are the reader who read to the end.]
A chill ran through him.
He remembered the ending — not just the plot, but the emotion. The hollow grief. The loneliness of knowing how everything concluded. And yet, he had kept going. He had clung to the story even when it broke him.
"Then this is the price," he murmured.
[Choose. Sit, and the next phase begins. Refuse, and forget.]
He took a breath.
And sat.
The void shivered.
The subway seat vanished beneath him, replaced by a throne of blank paper and shifting ink. A quill floated beside his head, tip dripping with narrative.
[Kim Dokja has accepted Phase Two of the Audition.]
[You may now alter minor narrative threads.]
[Use this power with care.]
The ground returned beneath him in a blink — the rooftop, the city skyline, the ash.
Sooyoung stared at him, frozen mid-sentence.
"What the hell just happened to you?" she asked, eyes narrowing.
Kim Dokja didn't answer immediately.
He looked down at his hands. The quill was gone, but he could still feel its weight. In the back of his mind, he sensed it: narrative threads — thin as spider silk — tethered to the world around him. Names. Places. Events.
He could tug them now.
Just a little.
Not enough to break the story. But enough to bend it.
"I think," he said softly, "the real story is only just beginning."
End of Chapter 10