The world did not so much change as it peeled. Like the thin skin of a fruit torn back to reveal something deeper, older — and utterly foreign. One moment, they stood on a ruined street soaked with blood and shadow. The next, the city blurred into something else, each building stretching and folding like paper in a storm. The monsters dissolved, their roars echoing away into silence as the scene bled into stillness.
Kim Dokja staggered slightly, his hand gripping his sword tighter as the pavement beneath his boots shimmered. Illusion? Transition? A hidden script? He couldn't tell. The Fourth Scenario had always been a dangerous turning point in Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse, but this was not what had been written. This wasn't in his version of the story.
The girl stood at the center of it all — still calm, still untouched. A silent axis around which the chaos turned.
"Where are we?" Kim Dokja asked, scanning the surroundings. The new world resembled a theater stage half-swallowed by night. Fragments of the previous scenario floated like torn canvas — half-formed memories of battles, buildings, and blood.
"A backstage," she said.
He blinked. "What?"
"Behind the story," she clarified. "Where the audience doesn't look. Where the real script is written."
Kim Dokja stared at her. His thoughts whirred, trying to process what this meant. A backstage? A layer beneath the scenario? If what she said was true…
Then this world is more than a stage. It's a performance… and someone is watching.
Before he could question her further, the void shimmered, and a flicker of light appeared — not from the sun, but from above. High above, too far to reach, were thousands of distant glowing eyes. Not stars. Not constellations.
Observers.
Dokkaebi?
No… not quite.
They watched without blinking, without intervening. Passive but aware.
Kim Dokja's breath caught in his throat. This was not how Scenarios worked. Not even the dokkaebi showed themselves like this — not without a broadcast. This place… it was a fracture. A glitch in the system. And someone — or something — had brought him here on purpose.
"Who are you?" he asked her quietly.
She tilted her head, her gaze never leaving the sky. "A reader."
He felt his blood go cold.
"A reader," he echoed. "You mean…"
"Like you," she said. "Only I was reading a different version."
A hundred alarms went off in his head. This was impossible. There was only one reader of Ways of Survival. Only one person who had seen it to the end. That had been his defining strength. His singular advantage.
Unless…
"You're lying," he whispered, but the words rang hollow.
"I thought you might say that," she said. "But think about it, Kim Dokja. The world has changed in ways you never expected. Events are out of sequence. Characters behaving differently. You felt it too, didn't you?"
He had. Since the moment she arrived. Since the moment his story began to deviate from the words he had memorized line by line. His script had been infallible — but now it was warped, twisted by a hand he didn't recognize.
Kim Dokja took a step back. "Then who wrote your version?"
She met his gaze. "That's the question, isn't it?"
Suddenly, a ripple passed through the space — a warning. The scenario was trying to reclaim them, to pull them back into the fixed story. The world around them began to stabilize, reforming into the recognizable outskirts of a ruined subway station. Familiar territory.
But nothing felt familiar anymore.
[Main Scenario #4: The Monster Who Lurks Underground]
The system window blinked into existence like a slap in the face. But even the familiar glow of the text could not comfort Kim Dokja. This was the script trying to reassert itself — like a dying flame flaring in protest.
He looked at her. "You broke the scenario."
"No," she replied. "We cracked it."
A silence passed between them.
Then her eyes narrowed. "They'll send someone soon. A manager. Maybe a higher-level dokkaebi. They don't like when players go off-script."
As if summoned by her words, a tear appeared in the sky — a vertical slit of searing white, and from it emerged a being Kim Dokja recognized immediately.
"Bihyung?" he asked, but stopped himself. No — this wasn't Bihyung. The face was different. Sharper. Older. More… refined.
The dokkaebi descended like a falling star, robes flaring, eyes gleaming with disappointed amusement.
"Well, well," the being said. "Kim Dokja. You've been busy."
Kim Dokja readied himself. "You're not my dokkaebi."
"Correct. I'm not a host-level. I'm a scenario regulator." His voice was smooth, but behind it was a steel edge. "And you've wandered where you shouldn't."
The girl stepped forward, unfazed. "We've simply followed the story to where it wanted to go."
The regulator dokkaebi chuckled. "The story? No, no. You pulled it here. And that makes you dangerous."
Suddenly, Kim Dokja felt the pressure in the air increase. The other players — the ones they had saved earlier — were gone. Removed, erased, or repositioned. This was no longer part of the main scenario. It was a judgment space.
"You've caught the eyes of higher beings," the dokkaebi continued, floating down to their level. "And they are… divided."
Kim Dokja's mind snapped into overdrive. If the Constellations were split, that meant power struggles. Factions.
And this girl — whoever she was — had just become the match tossed into the powder keg.
"What happens now?" Kim Dokja asked quietly.
The dokkaebi's smile deepened. "Now? You prove your worth."
With a wave of his hand, the world began to blur again.
[Emergency Scenario Activated!]
[Emergency Scenario – Duel of the Readers]
[Description: Two Readers. One Truth. Only one story will survive.]
[Time Limit: 3 hours]
[Victory Condition: Overwrite your opponent's narrative.]
Kim Dokja's eyes widened.
"What is this?" he breathed.
The girl looked over at him. "The audition has begun."
End of Chapter 15