Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint (Web Novel KR)

The men flinched and stepped back, thinking he was about to draw a weapon.
But what Yoo Joonghyuk pulled out was something completely unexpected.
「“The chances are slim, but still.”」

He placed two small beads on top of a crumpled snack box.
「“When Cheon Inho shows up, give him these.”」
Then he started walking into the tunnel. Soon the darkness swallowed the hem of Yoo Joonghyuk’s black coat, and even his shadow disappeared.

A strange shiver ran down my spine.
I suddenly wanted to ask the little Kim Dokja beside me—were you feeling the same thing as me right now?
When I turned my head, the little Kim Dokja was already staring at me. His eyes were wide in disbelief, and his lips silently mouthed the words toward me:

You shouldn’t be here.
At that moment, I felt something yank sharply at the nape of my neck. The screen in front of me went black, and my consciousness was dragged away with it.
But even as my mind faded, I clearly remembered the last thing I saw.
The name tag dangling from the child’s chest. And on that tag, it unmistakably read:

Kim Dokja37.
***
“He’s awake!”

My vision slowly returned, accompanied by the blinding flash of a phone’s flashlight.
The hard floor of a subway platform. People crowding around, peering down at me.
I blinked with a small groan.

“Inho-ssi!”
Gyeong Sein clutched my shoulder tightly, tears brimming in his eyes. Beside him, Uncle Dansoo was nodding in relief, and not far off I saw Bang Cheolsoo, both his eyes swollen with bruises.
I groaned and forced myself upright.

“Heewon-ssi—”
Turning my head, I saw Jung Heewon lying unconscious, her eyes firmly shut.
Gyeong Sein’s voice quivered as he explained.

“Heewon unni carried you all the way here. We were about to send a rescue party, but…”
The words I hadn’t ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) been able to read were carved all over her body instead. Countless cuts etched across her arms, scraped knees, her entire frame covered in dust and dirt.
Jung Heewon had carried my collapsed body here on her back.

“Don’t worry. I gave her first aid. Most of the major wounds have already healed.”
Now that he mentioned it, my own body felt oddly light. Which made no sense—I had been at death’s door just moments ago.
Sensing my confusion, Gyeong Sein added:
“I fed both of you the ‘Spirit of the Elraine Forest.’”

“Ah.”
“Yoo Joonghyuk… he left it for you.”
The scene I had just witnessed in the dream came back to me—Yoo Joonghyuk laying something on the ground before walking away.

So that hadn’t been a dream after all.
Come to think of it, it was absurd. He gave me the wound, and then the cure?
「“Don’t forget what you must do. Don’t make me regret employing trash like you.”」

He must have decided I was still useful.
[One of the constellations, who has yet to reveal its modifier, nods its head.]
Well, looking at it this way, maybe my little rehabilitation project wasn’t a complete failure.

Even Bang Cheolsoo looked relatively content.
Uncle Dansoo then gave me a brief rundown of what had happened after I lost consciousness. Most of it was exactly what I had seen on the theater’s screen.
“What exactly happened with your friend? Did you really fight the real Yoo Joonghyuk?”

I let out a weary sigh before recounting to Gyeong Sein and Uncle Dansoo everything that had happened.
From the moment I shoved the two of them aside sensing danger, to when the Rhinoceros of Gluttony smashed through the tunnel. And how Yoo Joonghyuk had single-handedly sliced that beast into pieces.
“Yoo Joonghyuk is totally broken, isn’t he?”

Then Yoo Joonghyuk fought with Jung Heewon.
“Wow, I didn’t think Yoo Joonghyuk would be that cheap. Honestly, fighting at that timing was way too unfair for Heewon-nim.”
In the attempt to save Jung Heewon, I was swallowed by the Sea Serpent.

“Wait, that sounds way too familiar?”
Inside the serpent, I made a contract with Bihyung.
“Friend, you’re not Kim Dokja, right?”
Jung Heewon and I planned our escape.

“I should’ve been there instead!”
And during our escape, Jung Heewon awakened.
“No way, something like that….”

“What did Heewon unni awaken as?”
By the time I finished explaining, I felt like Yoo Joonghyuk repeating yet another round—completely drained.
“Anyway, that’s how it went.”

“You really went through so much. You did well, truly.”
“Inho-ssi, you must’ve gotten incredible rewards for that…”
It was only when I saw Gyeong Sein’s eyes gleam that the thought of rewards finally struck me.

[You have 3 unclaimed rewards.]
[You may claim the reward for Hidden Scenario ‘Serpent Slayer.’]
[You may claim the reward for Hidden Scenario ‘Commander Slayer.’]

[You may claim the Constellations’ Sponsorship Reward.]
There really were a pile of unclaimed rewards. But right now, something was more urgent than checking them.
“By the way, did either of you make direct contact with Yoo Joonghyuk?”

“Huh? No. We only saw him from afar.”
It seemed Gyeong Sein, quick-witted as ever, had avoided Yoo Joonghyuk by using his [Sixth Sense], and Uncle Dansoo had benefitted from it as well.
I let out a breath of relief.

“Good. Make sure you never come into direct contact with him.”
Gyeong Sein tilted his head, then nodded knowingly.
“I think I understand what you mean. Honestly, I thought I could just talk him around a little, but seeing him in person? He’s genuinely insane. And Kim Dokja, barging into him like that—you’re even crazier.”

At least he understood.
That meant neither of them would try anything reckless. But then Uncle Dansoo frowned.
“Is he really that bad?”

“…What?”
“I mean, the thought just crossed my mind. He did hurt you, yes, but… from Yoo Joonghyuk’s perspective, Cheon Inho has always been a villain, hasn’t he?”
His words weren’t unreasonable.

It was our first time meeting Yoo Joonghyuk in person, but he had already encountered Cheon Inho in past regressions. From his viewpoint, it was only natural to treat me as an enemy.
“Even Jiyoon always said Yoo Joonghyuk was actually a good guy. That she’d marry him one day.”
The uncle spoke as though defending his future son-in-law.

“In the end, he even gave you that Elraine something-or-other. He’s still the protagonist, so maybe we shouldn’t paint him too badly…”
From a logical standpoint, Uncle Dansoo wasn’t wrong.
That is—if this world was the ‘Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint’ we knew.

“You remember why we went to Oksu Station?”
Uncle nodded.
“We never met Yoo Sangah, or Lee Gilyoung, or Lee Hyunsung, or Han Myungoh.”

“Ah, now that you mention it…”
“Do you see what that means?”
Uncle still looked puzzled. But Gyeong Sein’s expression was gradually hardening.

I decided to spell it out.
“This isn’t the Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint we know.”
“…What do you mean?”

“To be exact, this world isn’t just ‘ORV.’ In this world, the we remember will never be formed.”
At last, realization dawned on Uncle Dansoo. His mouth dropped open. Gyeong Sein’s eyes widened in shock.
“Then this place is…”

“We’ve entered Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World.”
Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World.
The novel within a novel—3,149 chapters long—that Kim Dokja had read. We were now inside that failed story.

Gyeong Sein stammered.
“H-how… how do you know that, Inho-ssi?”
“Because I saw Yoo Joonghyuk’s attribute window.”

“You have something like a [Character List]?”
“Yes. I got it somehow.”
Gyeong Sein glanced at me blankly, then at Uncle, then at Bang Cheolsoo who was fooling around with Dayoung’s mom in the distance. Suddenly, his face went pale.

“Wait a second. Then… this Yoo Joonghyuk isn’t the 3rd round one?”
“That’s right. He isn’t.”
In other words, the Yoo Joonghyuk of this world wasn’t the one from ORV.

Then a strange thought crossed Gyeong Sein’s mind, and his expression shifted.
“Hold on. Isn’t that actually better? The more regressions he has, the stronger he becomes, right? For instance, the Yoo Joonghyuk of the 1,863rd regression basically became a god of another world.”
Uncle Dansoo seemed to recall something too.

“The Man Who Reached the End of the World… the one who became a god himself… I remember now. Jiyoon even had that written on her desk. And the Sneaking Schemer too…”
“The Secretive Plotter. Anyway, Inho-ssi, maybe it’s too early to assume the worst, don’t you think?”
It was true. The Yoo Joonghyuk of Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World could very well be stronger than the one from ORV.

After all, by his 1,863rd regression, Yoo Joonghyuk had reached the ‘Final Wall’ alone.
Even if not that far, the further into his regressions, the stronger he became exponentially.
The problem was—

“That only applies to the later regressions.”
If this were one of the later regressions, or even the final one, things would’ve been far better.
In the main story, Kim Dokja had even enslaved the Yoo Joonghyuk of the 1,863rd regression.

I couldn’t feed Yoo Joonghyuk dirt like Kim Dokja did, but at least I could have tried something similar.
But in this regression? There wasn’t the slightest chance.
I knew this because I had faced him directly.

“This round offers us nothing. The Yoo Joonghyuk of this round is the worst of them all.”
“The worst Yoo Joonghyuk? Which round is it…?”
Across the entirety of Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, there is one Yoo Joonghyuk that makes everyone shudder.

If you ever ended up inside Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World, he’s the one Yoo Joonghyuk you must never, under any circumstances, side with.
I remembered the words of Shin Yooseung, who once arrived as a calamity in the 3rd round.
「“You always wanted Yoo Joonghyuk’s recognition. And in the seas you loved so much, you’ll die. Betrayed by the constellations who despised your background… Do you know what Yoo Joonghyuk said after losing you?”」

“Looks like naval battles will be a bit more difficult now.”
Gyeong Sein’s pupils shook violently as he heard my words.
I continued.

「“You saved countless lives, protected Yoo Joonghyuk to the very end, until you were reduced to ashes by the Iron-Blooded Dragon’s breath. And do you know what Yoo Joonghyuk said then?”」
“I lost a useful shield.”
Those were Yoo Joonghyuk’s most infamous lines, even in all of Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World.

Gyeong Sein’s lips trembled as realization sank in.
“No… right? Inho-ssi, please. Please tell me it’s not true.”
But perhaps, in this timeline, Yoo Joonghyuk could no longer be considered more righteous than Cheon Inho.

This was the man who sacrificed every companion, turning them into calamities, all for the sake of destroying .
「What Yoo Joonghyuk did was more horrifying than mere murder. Thousands of years. Enough time to erode a person’s identity and shatter a soul. Shin Yooseung endured that span, until at last she became a Calamity.」
I blinked slowly, recalling the round of Yoo Joonghyuk I had seen.

“This Yoo Joonghyuk is from the 41st regression.”
This world’s Yoo Joonghyuk was the worst villain of them all—the man who annihilated every single one of his companions.