Prompt: "who are you?"
At first, Yoo Joonghyuk did not think Kim Dokja was that important. He was a prophet who had only survived through an explosion that Yoo Joonghyuk had caused. Otherwise, he and three others would have died, and Kim Namwoon would be in their place. The loss of Kim Namwoon pained Yoo Joonghyuk, though he wouldn't admit it. Kim Namwoon had been with him in all his past regressions, and now he was gone, and Kim Dokja was likely the killer.
At least Lee Hyunsung still survived in the train car. At least Lee Jihye, Lee Seolhwa, and Shin Yoosung weren't in the train car that had changed due to Yoo Joonghyuk's actions.
Kim Dokja quickly proved to be a pain. He knew too much, and he used his knowledge to his advantage. He performed actions that Yoo Joonghyuk never would have thought of, not in this regression turn at least.
And then, Yoo Joonghyuk… began to think of him as his companion.
There were other anomalies. Yoo Sangah, Lee Gilyoung, and Han Myungoh were all supposed to die that day, like Kim Dokja, but because of his actions, they survived. (Well, Han Myungoh had at least survived for a bit longer. It was unknown where exactly he was now.) Han Sooyoung was nowhere close to Yoo Joonghyuk's location, yet somehow managed to survive. Same with the King of Wanderers. Yoo Joonghyuk wondered if they were in past regressions but had laid low in those and only showed their faces now due to the small changes he made causing a butterfly effect. It was all very confusing.
One thing was known for sure.
Kim Dokja was not unimportant. He was, in fact, one of the most important people ever to have come into Yoo Joonghyuk's life.
Yet so many things were still unknown about Kim Dokja.
How was it that a prophet as knowledgeable as him hadn't survived Yoo Joonghyuk's past few regressions? How did he know so much, not just about the future but also about the past?
Who exactly was he?
Being the one to kill Kim Dokja hurt.
「Incarnation Kim Dokja will be killed by the person he loves most.」
…No, he couldn't be the one Kim Dokja loved the most. Lee Sookyung, Kim Dokja's mother and the King of Wanderers, had killed him earlier. Certainly she had to be the one.
But…
Yoo Joonghyuk had attempted to sacrifice himself and die so the others could survive. Now Kim Dokja was dead, and it was at his hands.
But he would certainly live. Every time he died, he had eventually come back to life. There was no way someone like him, whomever he may be, could finally leave this world.
He was only exiled from the scenario, really. Yes, that pretty much meant certain death, but if there was any way for him to have survived, then he would have done so.
"So you're the one he loves the most, huh?"
Yoo Joonghyuk turned to see Han Sooyoung. Kim Dokja had put her in charge of the group before his… untimely departure, and now she pretty much had to stay with them, when before, she would just leave and disappear for days if she felt like it. And now, she was voicing Yoo Joonghyuk's thoughts out loud.
…Kim Dokja also had the uncanny ability to know what Yoo Joonghyuk was thinking about. However, in Kim Dokja's case, it seemed as though he could read minds, while Han Sooyoung just seemed to be able to predict well. She had said she was a writer. That was probably it.
"It must be Lee Sookyung," Yoo Joonghyuk responded.
"It is definitely not her," Han Sooyoung said with a sigh. "Believe me, I've seen them interact. Their relationship is… complicated, to say the least."
Yoo Joonghyuk didn't know the details, but yes, that seemed pretty accurate.
"…there isn't much I can say about Kim Dokja," Yoo Joonghyuk finally said. "He… hides a lot."
Han Sooyoung snorted. "That, he does."
"However," Yoo Joonghyuk continued, "I do know that there is no way I could be the one he loves the most."
He had called Kim Dokja his companion a few times now, and perhaps the prophet returned the sentiment. But it was impossible for him to have loved Yoo Joonghyuk so much in the little time they had known each other.
"You don't know," Han Sooyoung murmured, "how much you mean to him."
Yoo Joonghyuk paused. "And you do?"
"I certainly know better than you," Han Sooyoung responded, and then she left.
"Who are you?"
Yoo Joonghyuk asked that question to Kim Dokja in the First Murim. Kim Dokja tore his gaze away from Jang Hayoung's training and asked, "What do you mean?"
"...Never mind."
Yoo Joonghyuk didn't look at Kim Dokja. He kept his eyes on Jang Hayoung, Han Myungoh in the background trying to call out advice to her but utterly failing. TV shows did not demonstrate what Murim was really like. He was faintly surprised that Han Myungoh was alive, though not too happy about the fact that he was now working for Asmodeus. Nothing much he could do about that, though, despite how much he entertained the thought of cutting off Asmodeus's head.
He felt Kim Dokja's gaze on him for a while longer before the constellation looked away. Just as well.
It took three years for Kim Dokja to return.
Yoo Joonghyuk still knew next to nothing about his companion.
There was a webnovel. Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World, by tls123.
And its only reader was a man named Kim Dokja.
"What do you think about your companion now?" Metatron asked Yoo Joonghyuk.
Yoo Joonghyuk didn't respond. Couldn't respond.
He had never truly known who Kim Dokja was. Was that because the Kim Dokja he knew had never been the real one all along?
[Unbreakable Faith] clattered onto the ground.
Yoo Joonghyuk looked up at Kim Dokja. In the end, this man did not kill him.
His companion.
His backstabber.
I'm right here, in this place.
Kim Dokja didn't move.
Even then, you only chose to read and nothing else.
If you're unwilling, then I shall do it myself.
Slowly, Yoo Joonghyuk got back up. He grasped his sword tightly. He was prepared.
"…Hey, Yoo Joonghyuk."
Yoo Joonghyuk froze.
"You probably know this already, but I'm not a prophet. No, I am as far removed from such a being as you can get."
Kim Dokja was never a prophet. Something that Yoo Joonghyuk had only found out recently, but to hear Kim Dokja speak it…
"I'm not the 'Demon King of Salvation'."
[The story 'Demon King of Salvation' has stopped its storytelling.]
"I'm also not the 'King of a Kingless World'."
[The story 'King of a Kingless World' has stopped its storytelling.]
It was all dead still.
"My name is Kim Dokja."
Yoo Joonghyuk stared as the wings on Kim Dokja's back disappeared.
"Twenty-eight… No, wait. I was twenty-eight, and I was an employee of a game company. My hobby was reading web novels…"
…What's going on? It almost sounded as if… Kim Dokja was introducing himself to Yoo Joonghyuk for the first time.
And he was.
"It's pathetic, right? Well, this is who I am… Yoo Joonghyuk, who are you?"
The question that Yoo Joonghyuk had always wanted to ask Kim Dokja was now answered. This man didn't survive because of the explosion Yoo Joonghyuk caused, rather, because he had read about Yoo Joonghyuk's past and future. He looked at the world through an omniscient reader's viewpoint. That was how they had gotten this far.
And… to Kim Dokja, Yoo Joonghyuk was no longer a character, was he?
Yoo Joonghyuk refused to be that character any longer.
"I am Yoo Joonghyuk."
His blade slowly moved.
"Yoo Joonghyuk, a former Regressor."
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