Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint (Web Novel KR)

I looked around inside the theater.
There were a total of seventeen people waiting on B1.

Even at a glance, none of them looked ordinary.
[Someone uses ‘Peek’ on you!]
[Someone uses ‘Trait Appraisal’ on you!]

Detection-skill messages flew in, as if they’d been waiting for this.
[Peek] and [Trait Appraisal].
They weren’t as high-grade as Yoo Joonghyuk’s [Eye of the Sage], but they were still skills you didn’t usually get this early.

As expected of readers—hardly average.
[‘Peek’ has failed for an unknown reason!]
[‘Trait Appraisal’ has failed for an unknown reason!]
Of course, they didn’t work on me.

I didn’t know why either. Come to think of it, even I couldn’t see my own ‘Trait Window’; it would be odd if others could see it.
Did I have the [Fourth Wall] after all?
“The Fourth Wall.”

I called it inwardly, but there was no response.
Maybe I just blocked it with sheer mental strength—my willpower is decent.
“Ugh.”

In any case, I could spot the ones suffering the skills’ backlash. Two people showed unusual reactions.
One was an old man leaning against a concession counter with a long-stemmed pipe at his lips. The other was a woman with a long iron cudgel slung over her back.
Those two were probably the ones who’d just used the detection skills.

I quickly used [Reader Comment List] to check their info.
[Retrieving the profile information of the reader in question.]
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ID: barampoong
Platform: Textpia
Total Comments: 31
Reader Level: 35
Full Rereads: 6
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ID: strawberry1137
Platform: Series
Total Comments: 112
Reader Level: 46
Full Rereads: 8

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The old man was 0.06 Killer King.
The woman? Maybe 0.08 Killer King.

I’d ended up evaluating every reader by Killer King standards.
I looked over the others one by one as well.
That guy standing over there was 0.005 Killer King; next to him, 0.001 Killer King; 0.0006 Killer King… Quite a few hadn’t even finished the novel.
No other readers with notably high full-reread counts stood out.

Everyone’s got some grinding to do.
“Hey, isn’t that Lee Jihye?”
Someone muttered under their breath.

Too late, I realized I should’ve thought of this and glanced at Lee Jihye.
Even if others were hard to place, Lee Jihye stood out. The novel described her.
Hoodie, ponytail. A long blade at her hip. And she was cute enough that you couldn’t miss her.

“Hm?”
When Lee Jihye glared toward the sound, people quickly averted their eyes.
Gyeong Sein whispered in my ear.

“Should I go talk to them?”
I shook my head.
Sein could get along with anyone, so making friends wouldn’t be an issue, but…

“It’s better to be cautious here.”
So far, we’d been lucky. Sein, Uncle Dansoo, Ye Heeyoon—every one of them good people.
But Killer King’s advice was right. As he said, there was no guarantee every reader was kind.

[Oh my, quite a crowd has gathered already.]
The theater doors behind us slid shut, and a dokkaebi’s voice echoed in the air.
[Now then, since the last of you have arrived… those of you in the basement, please come up to the first floor.]

The ‘Theater Dungeon’ was a hidden scenario.
Normally, dokkaebis didn’t intervene in hidden scenarios.
“There are more people upstairs. We should be careful.”

At Uncle Dansoo’s words, we exchanged brief looks and headed up to the first floor.
The first thing we saw upon entering the first-floor lobby was a dokkaebi in a suit.
[Welcome. I am Baul, a mid-grade dokkaebi.]

Mid-grade dokkaebi Baul.
He’d appeared in Ways of Survival, too—the one who wrecked the ‘Disaster of Floods’ scenario, got pummeled by Kim Dokja, and was exiled.
Running into that guy of all people in the 41st? The feeling was… odd.

[Hmm… far too many of you have come here this time. At this rate, we can hardly call it a ‘hidden scenario,’ can we?]
There were clearly more than forty people gathered in the first-floor lobby.
[And you’re a bit late. Quite a few who discovered this theater hours ago have already climbed to the upper floors.]

A screen unfolded on the lobby ceiling.
On it played the figures of other incarnations clearing the upper levels of the Theater Dungeon.
—What the, this is nothing.

A young man chuckled as he mowed down movie zombies. Ragged school uniform, bleached white hair. A black aura coiled around a sharp knife.
I realized who he was.
「Kim Namwoon.」

I wasn’t the only one. Some people covered their mouths to hide their surprise; others stared, eyes wide.
—Hey, soldier. Keep up. I’m getting to the top before the captain. If you slow me down…
In the 41st round, Kim Namwoon was still Kim Namwoon.

I saw faint smiles on some readers’ faces. Others went stone-faced.
Both reactions made sense.
That ‘Kim Namwoon’ was certainly the Kim Namwoon we knew. Which meant he was endlessly dangerous.

—Namwoon-ssi. This stage won’t be solved just by cutting down zombies…
I could tell from the voice alone.
Lee Hyunsung. No doubt about it.

Expressions around the room changed one by one. At last, they might get to meet another member of the .
Kim Namwoon’s scream rang out then.
—Aaaagh! What the hell—!

The picture shook ominously.
A shrill tearing noise followed.
At the edge of the frame, a white coat fluttered lightly.

Then the feed cut out.
[Well now, that’ll be enough of a preview.]
Baul laughed as if entertained. A murmur rippled through the hall.

“That was… him, right?”
“So they’re really there. If we can just rush the upper floors…”
“It’s a bit different from the original flow, but…”

I could guess what they were misunderstanding.
In Ways of Survival, a ‘white coat’ was too iconic an item.
“Inho-ssi. That was Kim Dokja just now, right?”

Sein whispered, her eyes trembling with hope.
「Kim Dokja might be somewhere in this world.」
I understood. What reader here wouldn’t be hoping for that?

I steadied myself and said,
“This is the 41st round.”
“Y-yeah, but you never know. Maybe something happened we don’t know about, and Kim Dokja is—”

“That’s possible.”
I rolled the lemon candy in my pocket between my fingers and answered,
“But even if Kim Dokja came here like us, it isn’t yet the timing for him to get the coat. You know that.”

“Ah. Right. The ‘Infinite-Dimensional Subspace Coat’ is…”
Sein’s face wilted.
“Then who was that just now?”

“We’ll know when we go up.”
Beside us, Lee Jihye, who’d been staring at the screen, urged,
“Ajusshi. Let’s go. I don’t want to lose to that jerk.”

I wondered which ‘jerk’ she meant, then asked,
“Kim Namwoon?”
“What—how do you know his name?”

“He looks like one.”
“What the—”
I looked at the mid-grade dokkaebi, Baul.

He’d chosen this exact timing to show the upper-floor footage.
He was also pressing us psychologically by stressing that we were ‘late.’ Normally, needless theatrics.
Which meant—

[As you can see, there’s no way for you to catch up to the incarnations on the upper floors.]
—there was probably a new scenario I didn’t know about.
[So this time, we’ve prepared a special event for you latecomers.]

[Constellation, ‘Prisoner of the Golden Headband,’ wonders what that might be.]
[An as-yet-unepitheted constellation becomes curious.]
[Constellation, ‘Tiger Who Eats Rice Cakes,’ worries over the incarnations.]

Judging from how things were going, I could guess the trick.
That damned mid-grade dokkaebi had teamed up with the master of this ‘Theater Dungeon’ and started a little game.
[For the details, please read the scenario description yourselves.]

[A new Sub Scenario has arrived!]
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Category: Sub
Difficulty: B
Clear Condition: Stairs for ‘Cinema Voyage’ will open within the Theater Dungeon.
Through ‘Cinema Voyage,’ you can quickly catch up ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ to the frontrunners.
Roll the die and clear stages to finish the ‘Theater Dungeon’ faster than the frontrunners.
Time Limit: —
Reward: ???
Failure: —
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You may form a team of up to 3 and begin the ‘Cinema Voyage.’

From the 1st to the 8th floor, every ‘stair’ you can step on hides one of [Normal Stage], [Bonus Stage], or [Trap Stage].
Each stage may, with a set probability, feature a mission related to a specific ‘film’; upon completing it, a ‘die’ will be awarded.
Roll the ‘die’ and climb as many steps as the number you roll.

 
I roughly understood the scenario.
In other words, it was a movie-themed ‘board game.’
We’d become pieces in teams of three, throw dice, and move up as many stairs as the number showed.

If we landed on a stage, we’d clear its mission.
If this was designed to help us catch the upper-floor incarnations, the stages would be far shorter than full movies.
“This is like B■Marble, right? Whoa, it actually censors that.”

Looked like both Sein and Uncle Dansoo had figured it out.
So had the other readers.
Honestly, who in Korea wouldn’t know this game?

[From now, you have ten minutes to form teams.]
Incarnations all looked around at once.
Those who already had a team seemed ready to enter as-is; others were quickly scouting nearby.

—The two next to you. Jung Heewon and Lee Jihye, right?
A voice brushed my ear, and I scanned the area.
[Whisper].

I hadn’t expected someone to have bought that skill already.
—Don’t look around.
A high-handed tone.

I kept my eyes moving only at the edges.
[Whisper] sealed sound into mana and transmitted it.
The user couldn’t help moving their lips.

—Not sure how you’ve recruited S-grade characters already, but join our group. We’re three total. One of us has a contract with a myth-grade constellation, and another has gotten their hands on an S-grade item.
A myth-grade constellation and an S-grade item.
Not a bad offer.

If not for what came next.
—You, Lee Jihye, and Jung Heewon—we can take the three of you. Splitting into two teams and climbing together could work, right?
It didn’t take long to find the user of [Whisper]: the woman with the iron cudgel who’d used [Trait Appraisal] on me earlier.

—Think it over quickly and answer. And remember—this isn’t a novel. It’s reality.
Nickname: strawberry1137.
Eight full rereads.

Does finishing Ways of Survival eight times give you that kind of confidence?
Another [Whisper] came in.
—Would you consider joining forces with us?

This time it was the old man with the pipe. Obvious, really—he was the only one mouthing words like a ventriloquist.
Nickname: barampoong.
Six full rereads.

—We’re two on our side. Fewer in number, but as you can see, we have [Whisper] and even one S-grade skill. You look to be five… how about joining hands?
Also not a bad proposal.
Under-the-table maneuvering already—sharp folks.

But not every reader was like that.
“Uh, excuse me…”
A man timidly raised his hand. He wore a shabby tracksuit and held a nicked, toothless knife. You had to wonder how he’d even made it this far.

He glanced around, then asked the naïve question everyone prayed he wouldn’t throw out.
“H-has anyone here read Ways of Survival?”
Sighs leaked out all around. Judging from the faces, that guy wouldn’t be finding teammates easily.

That was when a group stepped out from the concession area deeper in the lobby.
“Why’s everyone being so cagey? There’s no one here who hasn’t read that novel.”
A group of five—men and women.

They were ones I hadn’t yet checked with [Reader Comment List].
A man who seemed to be the leader continued,
“This isn’t the time to be looking around for cues.”

Several people sucked in a breath at the man’s outfit.
A white coat and a long sword.
He wasn’t Kim Dokja, of course.

“We didn’t come here to fight each other. The goal is to clear the dungeon together, isn’t it? You all got a scenario at the Banquet.”
He held the room with a heavy voice. A smooth talker.
“You’re not planning to keep dithering until you’re picked off one by one, are you? Have you forgotten what kind of world this is?”

As the mood turned, the woman with the iron cudgel—who’d been listening quietly—spoke up.
“Who do you think you are to butt in?”
“Me?”

The man grinned like Kim Dokja.
“Let’s say I’m the person in this world who’s closer to ‘Kim Dokja’ than anyone.”
The iron-cudgel woman snorted.

“You?”
“That’s right.”
“You that confident?”

True to someone who’d fully reread Ways of Survival eight times, the woman boldly drew her cudgel.
The man laughed.
“I’m not just talking about skill.”

He drew the sword at his waist.
I felt Sein draw in a breath beside me. Anyone would have.
A broken blade—sheared in half.

No sharp-eyed reader would fail to recognize that item.
“Broken Faith…!”
The crowd stirred.

The woman narrowed her eyes.
“You think you can play Kim Dokja with a single broken sword—”
Vrrrrrm.

A bright blue radiance surged from the blade.
Ether Blade.
Someone yelped in surprise.

“B—Baek Cheonganggi?”
“It’s Baek Cheonganggi!”
This time, even the iron-cudgel woman’s face went rigid.

The man gave her a faint smile, then slowly turned to address the room.
“I understand why you’re all so frightened. But there’s no need to worry.”
“W-who are you? You’re not the real Kim Dokja.”

“Of course I’m not Kim Dokja.”
He smiled with a strangely sorrowful look.
“But I doubt even ‘Kim Dokja’ knows this world better than I do.”

With a single performance, he overwhelmed the hall—and then calmly revealed who he was.
“I’m the one who wrote Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint.”