The day Baek Dohyun first met her was a day when humanity was drawing near its end.
Hundreds of sudden rifts appeared simultaneously across the nation.
Since the country had been elevated by Babel to a "Top Priority Management Nation," this was the first large-scale rift incident to occur.
A monster wave with no end in sight.
Hunters fought desperately at their assigned posts, but it wasn't enough.
On the Jamsil Bridge side, where small elite-type guilds like "Babylon" were fighting, the situation was especially at its worst.
With no support, their forces were being pushed back more and more, and the bridge was rapidly collapsing.
Just as they were increasingly hitting their limits.
To make matters worse.
In place of Baek Dohyun, who was put in danger while rescuing civilians, Guildmaster Gyeon Riok suffered a critical wound.
"Riok! No. Stay with me, open your eyes, Gyeon Riok!"
"…Fuck. That hurts like hell."
"You can laugh right now? Your arm—damn it…"
His shoulder was completely crushed.
At the horrific sight, Baek Dohyun couldn't bring himself to speak. But Gyeon Riok laughed even as he coughed up blood.
"Hyung. Our good and kind Mr. Baek Dohyun. …If I told you I've still got a deus ex machina I haven't used yet, what would you say? Gonna scold me for not using it till now?"
"This isn't the time for jokes, you punk. We need to stop the bleeding, now…"
Tak.
Gyeon Riok seized Baek Dohyun by the collar as he fumbled around. He gripped hard.
Then he whispered with a kind of mad light in his eyes.
"Whatever you see from now on, don't tell anyone."
With blood-soaked hands, Gyeon Riok smashed the necklace he always wore.
From then on, it was like a dream.
It felt like dreaming.
First, the color of the sky changed.
Like a signal, thunder crashed down. The rampaging beasts, with death screams, were all slammed down into the Han River at once.
Gwoooooong—!
A long, resonant sound was heard.
And the sound of a vast membrane ripping the sky.
Holding the fainted Gyeon Riok, Baek Dohyun looked up.
The shadow that covered the sky grew larger and darker.
And then,
One who sat atop the head of a black dragon.
It was his first time seeing her, but he knew instinctively.
"The Magician King…!"
Rank #1 of rumor.
The country's undisputed number one, Jioh.
Tap. The Magician King landed lightly and walked toward them.
Baek Dohyun's eyes widened.
It was a wondrous scene.
With every step the king took, as if rewinding, the collapsed spaces were being restored.
The Magician King asked,
"That mess he's in—was that you?"
"…I can't say it wasn't."
"If you did that to him, you die. Speak straight."
"They're not wounds I inflicted, but he was hurt because of me. Are you a friend of Riok's? Even if you hold me responsible, I have no excuse. I'm sorry."
"Your name?"
"…Baek, Dohyun."
Hearing the name, she muttered something briefly, then flicked back her hood.
Backlit, her gaze met his head-on.
At the unexpected sight, Baek Dohyun barely swallowed a groan.
Jioh let out a faint snort of a laugh.
"I'm just as surprised. That's one flashy title you've got. Must make things annoying around you."
"Enough. I don't want to get more entangled. Since you're a 'Guardian of Goodwill,' I decided to trust you and step in. See? At a glance you don't seem like a bad guy, right? We'll take Gyeon Riok from here, so rest easy."
That was the end of it.
Against a sunset sky, the black dragon soared.
Intense—and the first and last exchange he had with her.
He never told anyone—not even Gyeon Riok—but Baek Dohyun had never once forgotten the sight of her back that day.
Even up to the moment his single allotted life put a period at the end.
And now… life round two.
She was still small, still cute, still wearing that indifferent face, but—
"Ehh. There's literally nothing to eat. Are you sure a person lives here?"
"..."
"Huhh. No bed either. What is this? Major disappointment."
"..."
Was she… was she like this…?
The Magician King (Trait: Rank #1), rolled up in a blanket like a silkworm cocoon, poked her head out.
"Excuse me."
"…Yes?"
"Order tteokbokki for me. Haven't exerted myself in a while, I'm hungry. Very hungry."
"…Tteokbokki?"
"Ugh, my poor stomach. Because of somebody, I did labor that's not in my fate, and I have no strength left in my whole body. Feels like I'll die soon."
"…Where should I order from?"
"Yepddeok. Half-and-half. Less spicy. Add cheese."
This isn't it.
Something about this is really not it.
After finishing the phone order, as he put on his shoes—at the Magician King's mutter of "If you cut up hot dogs and toss them in, it'll be tasty"—Baek Dohyun kept thinking, but…
"While you're at it, bring a Melona back."
"..."
Where was the convenience store again?
Apparently there wasn't one nearby. He hadn't been back long since regressing, so his sense of the nearby layout was still fuzzy.
Then I might be a bit late… I should hurry!
Love—it is the most voluntary chain mankind wears.
Border-collie Baek Dohyun—spelled "ridiculously handsome" and read as "first love's pushover"—scurried off.
A couple of hours earlier.
The ability Gyeon Jioh had been granted by her Constellation could be described as a massive archive, or a computer library.
"Library-ization."
To put it simply, it was similar in kind to how a high-level demonic beast changes the battlefield into a field optimized for itself.
When this "Library-ization" was activated, Jioh, as the owner of the library—that is, the Constellation's sole proxy—
could document and read character information, edit the "development" or "ending," or find and retrieve desired records to manifest them, and so on.
When he first learned of Jioh's ability, Gyeon Riok fumed that what kind of busted munchkin broken cheat character was this.
Even so, her Constellation urged that Jioh was still inexperienced and pushed her to ascend the Tower.
As if to show it wasn't wrong, the proficiency of "Library-ization" displayed on her status window was only 17%.
Anyway, even so, the conclusion was that it was monstrously strong.
"My ability… is kinda cool."
Jioh, even dotting the air with a period, dismissed her quill with a gesture.
Even for an archmage boasting monstrous computational ability, "revisions" were the trickiest domain to handle.
But this time, thanks to the regressor who knew the origin of the incident well, it was comparatively easy.
The scene where the "development" had gone off the rails was now, before she knew it, neat as if nothing had happened.
Hiding her satisfaction, Jioh flicked up her hand. That's that, then.
"It was awkward working together; let's not meet."
"W-wait…!"
"No. I'm casting off every shackle and restraint of this world and leaving to find my happiness."
Baek Dohyun didn't have time to grab her.
Jioh darted off at a speed reminiscent of an agility-specialized class.
She nimbly dodged this way and that and slipped quickly into the alley next to Starbucks.
Protagonists of modern-fantasy stories were fearsome creatures.
By the laws of the genre, once those guys grabbed a so-called "big fish," they would shake them down to the bottom, down to the last drop.
All the more when Gyeon Jioh was a king-size big fish, rank #1.
If she got entangled and got tagged as "lol is this guy the strongest support character, huh," the moment that happened, it'd all be over.
No way. Who said they get to decide that?
There is only one passenger on the Gyeon Jioh bus: Gyeon Jioh.
Like some purebred border collie, where does that regressor punk think he's going, daring to climb aboard.
[Your Constellation, "Reader of Fate," marvels that your survival instincts are truly agile.]
Bzzzt.
Who is it, at a time like this?
Mom's Son │ 010-7351-xxxx
━ x Month xx ━
Your room
As expected of Starbucks. Must be using a good router. Even though it's just the next alley, the Wi-Fi hits and KakaoTalk pops.
Admiring the dinosaur franchise's capital power, Jioh unlocked her phone…
Ah, noooooo.
Two photos sent by Gyeon Riok.
They were of Jioh's room, empty.
Only the faint trace that a bed once remained there lingered, tugging at the viewer's heartstrings.
With quaking pupils, Jioh quickly read on—something about a temple in Gangwon-do, blah blah prayers and offerings.
G-Gangwon-do.
The boarding academy in Yongin had been awful—now a temple in Gangwon-do?
Her mind spun tight. Not even when she sat the CSAT twice had she ever deliberated this fast and hard.
The calculation wasn't long. Right—tomorrow's pain is always farther than today's. I've decided.
Jioh raised the body she'd tucked behind the utility pole. Planting a hip without hesitation, she called out:
"Hey, mister."
"…!"
Baek Dohyun, who'd been looking around for the vanished Magician King, flinched and turned around.
Looking at that face—clean-cut, reliable, with a character that seemed extremely upright and admirable—Jioh asked,
"You look like you're doing okay. Got some money and a place?"
It was a line perfectly like a runaway teenager… Baek Dohyun ends the brief recollection there.
When you help out a stray cat, people often say you've been chosen. Baek Dohyun was fully understanding that phrase right now.
Setting aside the species called human, this petite person (Trait: Rank #1) wasn't much different in habits from a small animal.
Brazen, lazy, not inclined to move from one spot, and naturally issuing orders…
"What are you looking at?"
Prickly…
"Fyaaawn. Hey, Mr. Baek, I'm sleepy. Lights off."
"…Cute."
Do I really have to see a person only as a person…?
Ah, no. Get it together. What is this… Baek Dohyun, were you always this easy?
Baek Dohyun shook his head and steeled himself. Like a regressor who had passed through countless horrific, desperate battlefields, his daytime earnestness turned severe and firm.
"We brush-brush before bed. I even bought a new toothbrush. Up you go."
"Ehh. That's a hassle."
"No. You'll get cavities. You even had two Melonas, didn't you? Come on."
Jioh trudged to her feet.
She hadn't had anywhere to go and had followed him in a pinch, but this man was subtly, annoyingly strict.
He nagged because she slurped a bit of the tteokbokki broth, and gave her looks for picking out only the sausages.
He even scolded her for leaving the sticks from the Melona bars lying around after she finished them.
Seriously, how's a runaway supposed to live with this grief…?
[Your Constellation, "Reader of Fate," nods vigorously.]
[They express concern that you might be stifling her—she could be someone who just doesn't tidy up.]
What can you do, Unnie? The kind me has to endure.
[Your Constellation feels sorry, saying their small and precious avatar is sometimes a bit too soft.]
[They're very upset, saying you can't live in such a scary world like that, that they were anxious from the moment you said you'd sleep at a strange man's house—are you going to keep making your Oppa worry about you?]
Then…
[Trait, "Spoiled Child," evolves by one stage!]
"…"
[…]
Babel, you rascal.
From afar, the leader of the skirt-breeze—no, the star-breeze world—cleared their throat.
There was nothing to say. Gyeon Jioh quietly focused back on brushing her teeth.