Chapter 10: The End
Many things happened after that.
There was a war with the Olympus nebulae, and the scenarios rapidly advanced forward.
They reached an isle of reincarnators, in which every member of the team spent years and years as someone else, except for Kim Dokja and Klein.
On this Isle, Klein stood in front of the Wall of Samsara, and did an important divination.
The Most Ancient Dream is more complex than I thought… Klein was startled. This goes quite deep. The Dream is very loop-like. Is a 'Wall' so relevant to the Most Ancient Dream? Hmm, I see…
After many more events, came Main Scenario 80-the War of Good and Evil. Klein was amused when two sides contested Kim Dokja's morality, teasing apart the morality of every action his cousin had ever performed in the scenarios. Luckily, Kim Dokja was not too affected by this, but did appear somewhat embarrassed in front of the Demon-Like Judge of Fire, the angel "Uriel", who in the end Klein thought had a quite sweet nature—at least towards Kim Dokja's Company.
And that was another thing. They had all banded together as Kim Dokja's Company, an official nebula before the constellations, except most members were human. Klein was in it, Kim Dokja of course was in it, even Yoo Junghyuk was in it. As well as Yoo Sangah, who had… eventually emerged out of Kim Dokja's, ehm, brain, Jung Heewon, the kids, Lee Hyungsung, and Hansooyoung.
It was quite the enjoyable crew, and together with Klein's help, they somehow were able to prevent Kim Dokja from sort of killing himself all the time, and to instead explain things more clearly.
One day, Kim Dokja even explained to everyone about them being characters in a novel—with notable exceptions—and the Three Ways of Survival. Everyone took it differently, but Yoo Junghyuk was especially upset. Klein wasn't too bothered.
However, when Kim Dokja began explaining what had happened in the 3 years he was gone in the "1864th regression", everyone stared at him and could barely make sense of it. 999th regression this, 1864th regression that… Even Klein had to puzzle it out for quite a while to sort it out. When he realized Kim Dokja had believed this was the "3rd Regression", he understood the confusion however—meanwhile, Klein had already experienced over a thousand regressions linearly as "resets" without knowing it, uninvolved with Yoo Junghyuk.
Yes, this is why the Dream "reset" over a thousand times, each time at somewhat random points…
Each point was related to Yoo Junghyuk's death. He confirmed this in a divination.
Occasionally, Klein heard prayers from the Tarot Club, both major and minor arcana, and he fondly caught up on their progress. In the years he had been in the past with the younger Kim Dokja, he hadn't heard the prayers at all, but he had missed them.
Fors has indeed learned to act like a charlatan… Klein wondered if she learned this from Mr. Fool or Mr. World.
Leonard still sends me poems occasionally. Some are of worse quality, and others are mediocre… His creativity is improving… Klein chuckled, remembering the days when, if asked to write a poem, Leonard would only blankly stare or try to secretly recite from a book on his desk.
Ms. Justice is traveling frequently with Susie… Ah, Susie is also now giving therapy sessions on her own… Klein paused on this for a long time.
He caught up this way by getting snatches and glimpses of their lives. The prayers were rare, however, because he had warned them not to use his name too often, to prevent Celestial Worthy's interference. Now, however, it was fine.
After some thought, he mocked up Mr. World in an empty room of the Industrial Complex, filling the room with an illusion of gray fog. Mr. World kneeled, but was slumped in a tired way, and then said,
"Mr. Fool is recovering. You may freely send prayers again for a time."
Klein as the Fool then sent the message to the Tarot Club's major arcana, passing the prayer out of the Dream then through Sefirah Castle.
In that moment, the door swung open, and Kim Dokja stepped in.
"Klein…" He then startled, and his eyes widened at the cult-like scene.
For a long time, Klein and Kim Dokja stared at each other. More accurately, Kim Dokja stared at the hooded Mr. World, and then at the gray-fog-enshrouded Klein, who was sitting on a throne largely hidden from sight.
A flood of prayers then hit Klein, multiple whispers being interpreted at once by the various wormy bits of Klein, each praising his name. Wait, not now!
Klein coughed, he snapped his fingers, and the fog, Mr. World, the altar, the throne, and everything unusual were now gone. He stood as if nothing had happened.
"Yes?" Klein asked Dokja, face blank. Clown is indeed useful… ehm.
His cousin looked over the now-clean scene one more time, and said slowly, "Klein. Cousin. I came to get you to discuss the next scenario."
The Fourth Wall must have been turned on very strongly, as Klein didn't detect anything unusual from his cousin's expression.
"Ah. Of course. Lead the way."
His cousin then led him to the others and didn't comment about anything.
The walk was very silent.
Each step was painful.
Fuck. Klein felt like slamming his head against a wall, he was so embarrassed.
[The constellation that likes to switch genders is laughing at you.]
[600 coins have been sponsored.]
At the door to where the other members of Kim Dokja's Company were, Dokja finally paused. He placed his hand teasingly on the knob.
"Should I help spread your religion, cousin?"
"No!" Klein exclaimed without realizing it, and grabbed Dokja's wrist to stop him. "Ehm. Please don't mention anything to them."
His cousin laughed.
A playful smile then lit on his face, and his eyes looked brighter. Klein stared, momentarily stunned. It had been so long since he saw him laugh. No, I only ever saw it in the past, back in college.
"Don't worry," Kim Dokja said, then shrugged off his grip and turned the knob.
… Your smile is not very reassuring, cousin, Klein thought nervously then.
[The constellation that likes to switch genders says, 'Praise the Fool!']
[500 coins have been sponsored.]
"Praise the Fool," Dokja murmured, sing-song.
This fellow… Klein lampooned. From his ears, he was already constantly hearing a ringing of, Praise the Fool! Praise the Fool! Klein suddenly regretted all his life choices.
The door finally opened.
.
Still, somehow, Kim Dokja ended up dying again.
Again, the company was flung into the terrible uncertainty of whether he was alive or not… The children kept capturing random creatures during the scenarios, and asking them if they were Dokja.
Klein only was able to get them to stop after doing a divination, and reassuring everyone that Kim Dokja was in fact alive.
This proved true when they came to Main Scenario 94—re-enacting the Journey to the West. Klein had felt somewhat emotional about this story, because it had been a cornerstone staple of his childhood education. The party was even more emotional when a mysterious and somewhat faceless [Watcher of Light and Darkness] joined their acting team last minute…
Based on his mannerisms, everyone guessed this was Kim Dokja. Kim Dokja's Company had become phenomenal actors, however, because while they knew the constellation playing Sun Wukong was Dokja, they merely pampered him and played along, pretending to not know he was Kim Dokja.
"Sun Wukong, don't move," Klein said as the Longevity Monk, somewhat teasingly. "It's good to rest when you can. For example, relaxing freely on days like this is quite good… don't you think?"
His cousin twitched.
The other companions had similar sentiments, and used the real monkey king's approval of this "Sun Wukong's" pamperedness as an excuse to disguise their actions. [The Prisoner of the Golden Headband] was raining down coins on them constantly, and Klein finally understood the wonder of being very popular with the constellations— money!
However, I cannot bring this money home with me… he thought regretfully. And it is invisible too, lacking a distinct and lovable scent. It lacks the romanticism of paper notes, flush in a wallet…
Han Sooyoung snorted when he told her his thoughts.
"Should a Longevity Monk be thinking of such things?" she said.
Klein considered.
"Every monk should always be prepared for potential bankruptcy. After all, this problem could be very serious. For example, if the abbey loses money, then I can no longer eat well, and then I can no longer meditate." He thought he played his role very well.
"Hey, why don't you then … Hey, Sun Wukong! What are you doing!?"
More Yogoes had arrived in a new side mission, and "Sun Wukong" was bargaining and threatening for their lives.
"Sun Wukong, are you adopting more children?" Klein asked, amused, adopting a very pious and respectful tone.
"Yes, yes, so don't bug me!" said "Sun Wukong" grumpily. Klein suppressed his smile.
Watching Dokja's performance in adopting the Outer creatures, the Yogoes, until they trailed behind the company in a mass parade, suddenly, Klein realized why his cousin was so popular with the constellations.
Kim Dokja has the talent of drawing emotions from people, just by watching him.
Even this made Klein feel somewhat melancholic.
It is because he is a person who feels a lot, but hides it.
This is not good for him.
.
After finally reuniting and revealing his identity to everyone, Kim Dokja somehow got them into a fight against [Secretive Plotter], and had to be saved by [the Prisoner of the Golden Headband], the monkey king himself!
Meanwhile, the main scenario count ticked upwards and they rapidly approached Scenario 100.
Afterwards, Kim Dokja's Company understandably rioted and kidnapped him for a picnic, forcing him to eat well and talk to everyone.
He even had a scenario with a death penalty if Dokja didn't talk to everyone once.
This is a little excessive… Klein lampooned.
When it was Klein's turn, he was happy to see his cousin eating well and taking a break again… No, am I guilty by association again? He coughed.
They chatted for some time, about this and that—like the times they shared in university, and their adventures in the apocolypse. Klein confessed he now didn't mind this apocolypse as much as he once did, and found himself explaining the resets…
"Dokja," Klein said finally, seriously. "Be careful. Don't give up on yourself."
"Do you know something?" Dokja asked, finally.
"I know. No matter what you see, just keep my words in mind. Don't give up on yourself."
Dokja hesitated, then nodded, smiling.
"Why would I?" he said, somewhat sardonically.
His smile was an unlucky smile.
.
In Scenario 99, the Dokkeabi Bureau launched a big arc to escape to another worldline with the major constellations, and there was a big fight.
Coins turned into probability, and chicken scratch like a child's crayon drawing scribbles turned into a bomb the Dokkeabi summoned.
Still, Kim Dokja's Company fought and survived.
.
Scenario 100 came.
Dokja's pupils were shaking, and his mouth was twisted. He laughed dryly. He had just come back from the train station, after wanting to almost kill his younger self.
Luckily, his companions had stopped him.
"Klein," Dokja said, in a train station in the middle of nowhere, just as everyone had left, and he was about to split himself in two.
Klein sat in one of the rocky seats, a top hat on the seat next to him, and a cane in his hands.
To the companions, he had snapped and created an illusion of Kim Dokja and Klein returning, giving them time to talk.
"Dokja," Klein said quietly. "Don't worry. It will be alright. I told you not to give up on yourself."
Dokja laughed.
"You always say things like that. But cousin, didn't you know? Didn't you know? It's all a—"
Despair danced in his eyes.
This was the despair of "reality".
Klein smiled sadly at his cousin. Again, he remembered the bridge and the dark look.
"It's all a dream, cousin," Kim Dokja said hoarsely and bitterly. He then opened and closed his mouth again uselessly, as if having more words to speak, but finding himself unable to speak them.
Klein nodded. He had known that this was a dream from the beginning, after all. However, that did not mean it was not also reality.
So it would always come to this… Yes, more than his disposition alone, this is the nature of the Dream itself.
Klein had divined this all, long ago, in Sefirah Castle: Kim Dokja was the Most Ancient Dream—or at least, the Most Ancient Dream was a form of Kim Dokja.
Over the years, however, especially at the Wall of Samsara, he had finally understood what his divination had meant, as well as his presence here.
My role here was that child's will—Kim Dokja's will. I had already accidentally drifted into this dream while asleep—another reality, another history—and that child chose to put me in the Star Stream and made me Kim Dokja's cousin in the most recent regression.
Somehow, that resulted in a time loop that made it real, of my own volition. Why? Had that child seen my careful and humble home life, and desired it? Or had he known I was accidentally freeloading off his dream, using it to stabilize myself, and so he put me to work to protect himself?
Either way, this is the critical moment, in the end.
"How bewildering," Klein murmured, letting many of the thoughts that had been bubbling in his head be released aloud now. "In the logic of this dream, it seems that everyone is a God."
Kim Dokja didn't speak. His expression was quite bad, worse than Klein had ever seen it before, even at that moment by the bridge. By now, Kim Dokja already knew everything. That did not mean his 'cousin' understood it, however, or had come to terms with it.
"This world was created in your head," Klein explained, "and has the characteristics of the Snake of Fate, of Omniscience, and other aspects of the Most Ancient One combined. In fact, in this world, you are referred to as the Most Ancient Dream. By watching this world, you create it. By having read this world and imagined it, you created it. Yet, the you that existed in this world was an ordinary person written into a novel, and yet, simultaneously, you are the God here. In the train station, there are also signs of other wordlines that have been similarly created, from solely the imagination of an author and a reader…"
Klein frowned.
Perhaps, I am the same way.
Klein was unsettled.
After stepping into this dream that was also real, he was unsure if his mentality had been hardened or strengthened, or if it had been shaken at its foundations. No, it's not the time to have an existential crisis. After all, there are responsibilities I must live up to, and real people I must protect.
His gaze settled on Kim Dokja, his 'cousin', who looked as if he was falling apart. His cousin.
This person is a person I want to protect.
Klein stepped forward, and said softly,
"Dokja. Even if the world is like this, that's not your fault. Somehow, the world was just built like this, and we only have to do our best to live in it. Aren't there people here you care about? Han Sooyoung? Yoo Junghyuk? Lee Jihye? Lee Gilyoung, and Shin Yoosung? The story you were reading and loved enough to create a world out of it? You always loved to talk about it, even before then."
Klein's words were very sincere.
"I also have people that I love," Klein said, embarrassed. "Even if I am not truly your cousin, I would like to be your cousin, for example. I also have people back home. Melissa and Benson, Leonard, Sharon and Maric, the Tarot Club… Mr. Azik who always guided and mentored me. And there's other things, too. For example, the taste of a Desi Pie… the chatter of people… hmm, butternut squash stew with perfectly salted meat…"
As Klein talked on, listing more dishes, he felt his appetite begin to grow.
Kim Dokja, surprisingly, barked a laugh, wiping at his face.
"You do really like food, Klein," Kim Dokja said, with his small, thin, but real smile. He looked more normal with that smile—not that dramatic and heartbreaking Demon King of Salvation, the wise and seclusive Watcher of Light and Darkness, or the mysterious and powerful Prophet that always wore the smile of a scammer. Instead, he just looked like Dokja. Like the younger Kim Dokja, but with broader shoulders, more grown after facing the world again and again.
"Yes," Klein said, smiling in return. "These are the things that keep my humanity. They are the things that I find important, and live for."
"I don't have anything like that, though. I'm just a reader," Kim Dokja confessed.
Klein was quiet.
You constantly have a wall around you. Even if you have it, you won't let it touch you. Sometimes, people are indeed quite complex… he lampooned.
"This isn't something you have to already know," Klein finally said. "You only have to keep trying, until you figure it out, piece by piece."
After a pause, Kim Dokja nodded, then agreed.
Klein hesitated.
There was one more thing Klein had divined, when looking at the Wall of Samsara.
The reason why Klein had been able to divine the future—though divination truly did not read the future, but instead spiritual imprints left behind in the past—
Was because all of this had already repeated in the past, but without Klein's presence.
He had divined Kim Dokja becoming the Most Ancient Dream, and then becoming a small child after spreading himself into the Dream, again and again. The same child who was in the train station, both creating and watching this world through his imagination, only to be reborn through confrontation and trauma again and again.
Klein's presence here was a deviation from that fate.
Perhaps this was what the Most Ancient Dream wished for, but being Kim Dokja, had been unable to grasp it directly, and even fought Klein once for trying to save him.
"Come back with me," Klein said. "The wordline will still continue existing without you observing it directly. I have a way."
Kim Dokja nodded again, and then believing him, wordlessly took his offered hand.
Klein smiled.
My cousin is very cute again.
While walking away from the train and into the darkness, Klein split off a small part of himself, and grafted it to the Dream and the Most Ancient Dream's role. This was a small sacrifice, only causing him a little pain.
After some time, the worms would regenerate, and meanwhile, a mysterious child that wasn't quite Kim Dokja would watch and guard this world.
In this way, Klein broke the never-ending cycle of the Most Ancient Dream.
And so Klein and Kim Dokja returned to their reality, the Dream that carried on this universe.
.
Later, Kim Dokja asked Klein how he knew so much.
Klein was embarrassed, and scratched at his cheek. He cleared his throat. However, since this was a different reality, and he had already seen Kim Dokja, his cousin, in his worst state, Klein bravely said,
"Ah, do you remember the Mr. Fool I preached about? In fact, this is me. In order to stabilize myself as a God, I had decided to use the people of your world as anchors. Ehm, I happened to become a God recently, due to the circumstances of the world I'm from, and so…"
The explanation was very long, and very confusing to someone who hadn't been involved in the events, much like how Kim Dokja's explanation about Yoo Junghyuk's 999th regression and outer gods had also once sounded bizarre and incomprehensible to Klein.
Klein also explained how he had accidentally drifted into Kim Dokja's Dream and why everything had happened the way it had.
"... so yes, I am a God, too, cousin," he finished, awkwardly.
Kim Dokja stared at him for a very long time, and then finally said,
"Ah, so that's how it was."
Kim Dokja's lips twitched, and then he took out an unknown slip of paper from his pocket. Playfully, while Klein's eyes widened, he began reciting:
"The Fool that doesn't belong to this Era,
"The Mysterious Ruler above the gray fog,
"The King of Yellow and Black that wields good luck.
"Is that you?" Kim Dokja asked, smiling.
"How did you know?" Klein asked, astonished.
"I'm the Most Ancient Dream, remember? I'm omniscient. And oh, you left this in your room."
Klein laughed.
.
Back in Sefirah Castle, the Fool's foggy figure wavered and shifted again.
This time, when the Fool's body solidified into a human shape with brown eyes and a somewhat deep outline, after some minutes, the form did not waver again, remaining insistently human, without tentacles or other abnormalities.
Finally, Klein snapped his fingers, and opened his eyes.
In front of him, a rich variety of desserts, meals, and pies adorned the stone table of Sefirah Castle. The rich scents waffed and swam appetizingly, and slowly, Klein took a bite.
I'm fully stable.
He stood rapidly, and though his body in reality wasn't human at all like in the Dream, he stretched and tested his body, and then even took out Life's Cane from the junk pile for a few test swings.
Very good. Very solid.
Not once did his skin twitch or his identity ripple.
Klein's lip then twitched, remembering when his cane had fallen and pointed to Kim Dokja. He had asked, how do I wake up?
In the end, all it had taken was Kim Dokja reciting his honorific name. Without realizing it, in that moment, his cousin had granted him a powerful and unopinionated anchor that extended even outside the Dream, like a reader that would always calmly observe and understand events without interrupting.
Klein then sat in his throne at the head of the long stone table, feeling very dignified, and readied himself to call the Tarot Club. Coincidentally, or rather, not so coincidentally, it was almost 3pm on a Monday.
The minutes ticked by. Klein vanished away the food, and then enjoyed the comfortable feeling of the chair.
He called over a special guest, explaining the situation, and wrapped them in a deep fog near the other end of the table, nearby where the fake Mr. World's seat sat empty. The guest was at first perplexed, but then went along with it, bemused. They chatted briefly, and the last minutes passed quickly.
Ah, wait…
He almost forgot to call a puppet for Mr. World, but remembered at the last moment.
The guest teased him for this, and Klein coughed. "Nevermind that. Anyway, get ready. Remember your tarot card, and remember to call me Mr. Fool…"
"Yes, yes, Mr. Fool."
The gray fog flickered. Everything was then quiet. It was now 3pm.
Klein finally drummed his fingers against the table, and smiled.
After so long, he was back.
The Fool has now awakened.