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Chapter Text

In an inconspicuous and shadowed corner of the grand estate owned by the great Duke Yoo Joonghyuk, two ladies stood huddled next to each other passing along various tidbits of gossip.

One was a young knight whose reputation greatly preceded her, expertly climbing her way to the top until she reached the venerated position of Maritime Operations Chief. Her tied-up black hair steadily fell out of its ponytail throughout the day, and she would only allow the woman across from her to see her so unguarded. Idly, she’d fidget with strands of her hair, seemingly uninterested. Of course, she latched onto every word that flowed out of her senior’s mouth.

The older knight was much less careful with appearances, but somehow her hair managed to stay in a perfect bun. Maybe her hair was too intimidated by her lawful air to fall out of line?

Both women were from humble backgrounds but fought tooth and nail to get where they were. Perhaps that’s why they decided to squander their precious time together. The taller knight leaned against the wall and crossed her arms over her chainmail tunic.

She leaned in, armor lightly clinking together, and shared in a hushed voice, “For a month now, I’ve seen strange letters appear right in the middle of the lord’s desk."

The small black-haired knight gasped, covering her mouth and looking askance before getting impossibly closer to her senior.

“Perhaps…” The younger woman paused, wracking her brain before muttering carefully, “He’s found an overseas lover?”

The other knight shook her head, eyes narrowing. “I’m more concerned that our lord is getting assassination letters and casting them to the wayside,” her hand came to rest on the hilt of her sword, eyes briefly flitting over to the hallway to the dining room ahead of her, “In any case, the letters must be important to the duke. The moment I even glance at them, he sends me out of the room.”

After a few beats, the younger knight finally noticed her conversation partner’s constant glances ahead and lowered her voice impossibly quieter. Carefully, she murmured, “Let’s continue this somewhere else.”

Ducked into the hallway ahead of the two, a certain conniving man worried his bottom lip and followed the retreating forms of the two powerful knights with his eyes. Once they disappeared, he slumped against the wall and slid down.

Head in his hands, he groaned, “ I’ve really got to be more careful. ”

Kim Dokja tentatively spread his fingers apart to look at the polished marble floors ahead and briefly zoned out. Some part of him wasn’t even surprised when he’d woken up in a new, fantastical world and still had the same job as always. 

Still, he wouldn’t be qualified as ‘sane’ if he didn’t constantly think back on how he ended up like this.

-

The crowd around Kim Dokja as he walked down the sidewalks of Seoul was loud and diverse. He looked to his left and saw a family of three, the two parents amicably chatting with their daughter about her day at school. Kim Dokja looked to his right and got an uncomfortable eyeful of a young couple engaging in PDA that he’d honestly consider public indecency.

Then there was him, absorbed in his phone and reading through the last chapters of this lame –but admittedly popular– webnovel he’d started while waiting for Ways of Survival to update. In every sense of the phrase, this novel was a guilty-pleasure read. It had long stretches of adversity for the protagonist to face followed by brief cathartic release in the form of retributory killing sprees. This novel, The Tyrant’s Rise, was a walking stereotype.

On the plus side, however, the main character had the same name as the protagonist of his favorite novel. However, it was still weird seeing all of the names from Ways of Survival be recycled for a third-rate romance novel. Once, he’d left a comment on the matter and almost got banned from the site thanks to the author’s insecurity. Kim Dokja figured the author was most likely a high schooler who needed names and just used the ones from the latest novel they’d read.

“Hack author even copied the characters' personalities,” Kim Dokja internally scoffed.

Granted, before around the fiftieth chapter, Ways of Survival was quite popular. He’d probably use WoS as a framework if he was an author. The success rate of doing so was pretty high, mind wandering to SSSSS-grade Infinite Regressor. Still, he stuck with this copycat novel out of pure co-dependency ( “It’s just a long-time reader's attachment”, Kim Dokja shamelessly amended).

Loosening his tie, he clicked to read the last chapter and sighed like a man who’d reached the Garden of Eden after painstakingly climbing through every circle of Hell. From the looks of the previous chapter’s contents, the story would lead up to a relatively stereotypical end where the protagonist gets both the girl and the throne. At least, that was what the seasoned reader predicted.

-

Just a few moments ago, Yoo Joonghyuk was cradling his lover and reveling in how far he’d come, so how the hell did it come to this? He looked behind him, eyes desperately searching the razed domain for just one sign of life before realizing the Yoo Duchy was no more. He was alone again.

-

If not for the rapid current people, Kim Dokja would have stopped where he stood to properly digest what he just read. The words seemed to twinkle at Kim Dokja within the confines of their sentence as if mocking him for thinking he knew what would happen. Seriously, what kind of insane author would end their novel like this!?

Kim Dokja shoved his phone in his pocket and weaved through the crowd until happening upon an empty bench. His pocketed phone burned a hole in his jacket as he sat down, and some passers-by could practically feel the utter confusion and shock radiating off his body.

Taking a moment to rationalize his thoughts, Kim Dokja took out his phone again. His expression went through all five stages of grief at least ten times while he poured over the fluorescent letters.

“That crazy author killed every character off at the last minute…” Kim Dokja mused. Part of him begrudgingly respected the author for building this set-up to the perfect ending before immediately kicking the ladder and making the story jump to its untimely demise.

For a while Kim Dokja sat, mulling over what he’d read. He quietly groaned into his hands while stamping down the numbing feeling of unadulterated bewilderment after reading about the vengeful posse of Yoo Joonghyuk’s major enemies coming back to destroy the man emotionally.

Shoving his phone back in his pocket, Kim Dokja rejoined the procession of salary-people marching home. While trudging back to his one bedroom, the reader internally cursed himself for not noticing the obvious signs earlier. The idiot protagonist didn’t even think to ensure his deceitful long-time advisor Anna Croft was dead! He didn’t keep tabs on his obsessive part-time military ally Nirvana either! Of course, the two would return with a vengeance and burn down everything the man held dear after everything Yoo Joonghyuk had put them through!

He came to a stop with a sigh and waited for the traffic light to let him walk the last crosswalk to the janitor closet he called home. The reader really couldn’t put his finger on why he cared so much. His expectations were subverted— an obvious fact. Still, he just couldn’t get the novel out of his mind. Maybe it was because the protagonist was a carbon copy of a certain regressor? Perhaps the idea of his long-beloved character being met with such an end, even in a different webnovel, irked him to the point of being unable to move past his latest read.

The light ahead flickered and then lit up with the walking sign; the salaryman pushed slightly ahead of the crowd to avoid getting trampled and tramped across. In any case, he’d finished reading that half-baked, revenge-filled creation. Kim Dokja would go back to religiously following WoS until the author took another hiatus, taking up another webnovel while waiting to fill the absence of constant words floating past his eyes.

Rinse and repeat.

He’d walked this crosswalk what felt like a thousand times before on his way home from his unfulfilling job as a pencil pusher. The words echoed in his mind as everything around him stilled. There were terrified screams resounding, and in his peripheral, he saw people jumping out of the way. Slowly, Kim Dokja turned to look at the oncoming traffic, barely staggering back two steps before his field of vision was filled with the sight of a semi-truck's grille. The blob of grey inched closer until Kim Dokja’s world blacked out.

He’d felt this kind of pain before. The one where your body turns away in grief while your cells fail around you. Throbs of pain, periods of numbness, and then nothing.

Rinse and repeat, Kim Dokja.

Chapter Text

The gravel beneath his feet crackled softly with every step he took as a summer night's breeze flew through the quiet city streets. Crickets chirped in the grass lining the well-traveled path, and if you happened to turn at the right time, you could see one jumping out of the weeds. Kim Dokja couldn't get the timing right, so he cast his gaze skyward.

When he looked up, there were no overhanging trees or luminescent averts, only the stars in the sky winking back at him. Sighing and lowering his head, the situation had finally set in. He could no longer pass off what he was experiencing as mere dream or hallucination. Kim Dokja had been, for lack of non-colloquial wording, transmigrated into The Tyrant's Rise for about two days now.

The first question anyone would have upon realizing their situation would be: Then who have I become? (It wasn't, but Kim Dokja wanted to insist that his thoughts were ones anyone would have.) There are three pools of characters to consider: the main characters (including the antagonists), the side characters, and the extras. No matter how complex the character is, their role can always be summed up using this framework.

After a day of observation, Kim Dokja found that the 'character' he was supposed to play was so unimportant that instead of possessing this character, Kim Dokja simply replaced him. To his brief chagrin, he swapped out with one of the novel's many extras. He, an inconsequential salaryman, had been transported into the body of another inconsequential salaryman who worked in the duchy palace as someone who filed complaints sent in by citizens.

In fact, inconsequential was possibly the most accurate description he could come up with. He shrugged his worn crossbody bag back onto his shoulder and scoffed incredulously, thinking of how painfully average both of his lives were. So far, his only complaint was how incessant the noise of his co-workers clacking away on their typewriters was. 

On the way to the tiny room he –his character– had rented in one of the capital city's many townhouses, he internally griped, " Now I'm sure of where I am. There's only one lousy story that would pencil in typewriters and still advertise itself as a European historical."

Briefly shaking his head, Kim Dokja guided himself back to the topic at hand. Gathering all his transmigration novel knowledge, he mentally recounted his findings from the past two days. He had no 'system' to help him level up to relevancy, no convenient fortune left to him, nor a special skill that would shoot him into power.

He was only equipped with the knowledge of the average 28-year-old in Korea and a relatively detailed recount of the novel's plot. The only fresh plot point in his mind was the sight of the scenery in front of him –the sprawling green hills, the last few children rushing to get home before their parents scolded them, and the towering townhouses– all turning to ash.

Unzipping his bag, he fished around for the newspaper thrown at his door every morning. A small prick of annoyance poked him as he thought back on how the thud of the newspaper on his flimsy door had roused him at least an hour before he was supposed to wake up.

He gave the paper a rough shake to lift it upright and looked it over appraisingly. Usually, whenever Yoo Joonghyuk felt trigger-happy, it would make front-page news. Instead, the front page displayed a black-and-white photo of a devastating house fire. Tragic, yes. Informative? Not to Kim Dokja, no.

Moving closer to the edge of the path, Kim Dokja’s eyes flitted up to meet a disheveled boy cradling a small wooden chest in his arms and a well-kept older woman dragging the small boy along. Momentarily watching the two trudge forward, he focused on the newspaper once more and began to skim through the pages, light crinkling joining the sound of crickets and gravel.

The only thing related to Yoo Joonghyuk that he could find were side articles on the legislature he'd passed as of late. Still, it gave Kim Dokja an idea of what point in the book he'd transmigrated to. Nothing on Medicare, so Yoo Joonghyuk hadn't met Lee Seolhwa yet. Furthermore, it didn't look like the public knew about how their duke had slaughtered his abusive family.

Then we're still in the early chapters , Kim Dokja mused, shoving the newspaper back in and zipping his bag back up. It took a couple of tugs on the zipper, but he managed to get it closed with only one small friction burn on his finger as collateral. The inconvenience almost made him laugh.

I don't even have the money to afford a bag that doesn't get stuck when I try to zip it up. Transmigration or not, some things never change, Kim Dokja griped, glaring down at his quickly reddening ring finger before his eyes widened with a startled gasp.

An imposing shadow fell over his body, engulfing the irritating red in a dull grey. Kim Dokja's heart rate sharply hiked up, and he moved instinctively, beginning to stamp his foot down to whip around and meet with what stood over him. Streaks of a rapidly approaching hammer flew into his peripheral before his foot could meet the ground and the weapon smashed him square in the temple with a nasty crunch. 

The sound might have come from his head or his body hitting the floor, but the shock rendered him unable to differentiate as he was knocked to the ground, and his vision strobed black and white before he lost consciousness.

-

 "Ah, dear patrons, it takes a while for some of our participants to wake up!" A pathetic and squeaky voice yelped, their tone half-placating and half-exasperated.

The thrumming in Kim Dokja's ears began to subside, and he opened his eyes as wide as he could until his head told him he couldn't pry them any further with a sharp stabbing pain. This definitely wasn’t his one-bedroom. He bit back a groan and smoothed out the gravel indents on his cheek. Kim Dokja's other hand felt around, cool soil lodging under his fingernails as he finally raised his head.

"Ah! My patrons, did I not tell you!" The grating voice from earlier squeaked, now clearer and leagues more annoying, "Our contestants are coming to," There was an imperceptible grumble, "Ah, well not all of our contestants can be lookers."

By this time, Kim Dokja had enough strength to lift his gaze to fall on a large panel of masked figures in plush, lacquered chairs. They were all perched on a large wall, and when Kim Dokja looked around further, he realized the wall stretched around behind him with no exit in sight. Standing off to the side of the imposing group was a small, scrawny-looking man.

He couldn't tell from this distance, but Kim Dokja bet the uppity suit the little man was wearing was actually falling apart at the seams. If not for the fact that it was probably the guy's fault for throwing Kim Dokja in here, he would have sympathized. The man's shifty eyes landed on Kim Dokja and shot him a look, slightly nodding their head down.

Was the small, white-haired guy asking him to put his head down? Having no other choice, Kim Dokja complied while his mind drifted back to the chatty man's earlier exchange with one of the shadow-shrouded people.

" Not all of our contestants can be lookers."

A pang of both shock and offense bulldozed through Kim Dokja's body. Were they referring to him!? He could almost scoff. Of course beauty standards were different in this world, but still, not everyone could be Yoo Joonghyuk levels of handsome!

Sighing lightly, Kim Dokja nipped his indignant thoughts in the bud and decided to think about his apparent ugliness another day, opting to make sense of this new situation.

Now I remember, Kim Dokja mused, absentmindedly rolling a stray pebble in the soil between his fingers. One of the most important moments in the early chapters was in a place like this.

Disgusting. The underbelly of his land was truly disgusting. These were Yoo Joonghyuk's thoughts as he contemplated flicking the pebble between his fingers right at the goblin-faced man standing tall in the stands. Like a calming spray, his more rational mind took over his thoughts, and he let the small rock go. He couldn't leave unless he killed? He held back a scoff. This would be their unlucky day.

Fighting the ache nipping the edges of his skull, Kim Dokja shoved what he remembered about The Tyrant's Rise to the front of his mind. The Yoo Duchy was riddled with gilded pitfalls. If you happened to fall into one, you'd land right in the rot, fated to do dastardly things just to claw out. Killing was one of them. Possibly the most common one. The numerous sick 'nobles' serving under Yoo Joonghyuk frequented events like these, hosted by an underground and horrifyingly influential organization: The Star Stream .

In fact, the group that stared down at Kim Dokja, ravenous for a truly great spectacle, likely consisted of some of this territory's barons and viscounts. In return for seeing a bunch of commoners fall over themselves to survive, they paid the city's underworld impossibly large amounts of hush money. It was a flawless win-win situation.

Of course, Kim Dokja had long figured out many loopholes to the various scenarios mapped out by The Star Stream , but regardless of all of his planning, Kim Dokja might just start digging his early grave here.

  His patience waning, Yoo Joonghyuk took matters into his own hands. Like a ravenous beast, he scaled the wall that dared to stand tall in front of him and slaughtered all who sat comfortably in their chairs. His muscles rippled dangerously-

Kim Dokja's lips curled down until his disgusted frown strained his mouth. Seriously, how did he sit through this level of cringe?

- as he held up the announcer by the throat and squeezed .

Rippling muscles aside, Yoo Joonghyuk burned the building, walking away to let those inside figure it out for themselves. An effective way to weed out corruption, but a heartless one considering that there were at least forty innocents trapped inside. If they weren't killed by each other in the prior scenario, they would meet their end in a fire instead.

Kim Dokja bit his lip and stopped reminiscing, tentatively watching the people around him stir.

Now, he could only hope that The Star Stream didn’t kidnap both Yoo Joonghyuk and him on the same day. As long as Yoo Joongyuk wasn’t here, the reader –turned abductee– had a fighting chance.

The announcer looming above the innocent crowd grinned a grotesque lip-curling grin and cooed, "Ah, you all must be confused, no? Welcome, to the most important event of your feeble lives," The shadowed figures shook in laughter and the 'goblin-faced man' continued with a bit more bravado, "We ask but one thing of you all, gathered here today. Kill for us. Entertain us."

Collectively, the crowd lurched back and whipped their heads around to scrutinize the area around them, hoping something would reveal this whole thing to be a dream. Kim Dokja knew it was completely, despairingly real, and something heavy stirred in his gut, nailing him in place. The emcee –' Bihyung, I think, ' Kim Dokja mentally corrected– scanned the group and his smile grew somehow even larger.

Gesticulating wildly, the short emcee droned on. Kim Dokja's lips pursed in apprehension, ignoring the detailed instructions and training his gaze on a young man staring up at Bihyung, eyes sparkling. Kim Dokja prayed it was because they had a similar hair color and not because the boy was who Kim Dokja thought he was. No, he couldn't possibly be…

"Well? Get on with it then." The small man goaded, forcing Kim Dokja to tear his eyes off of the excited boy and focus. The announcer leveled the room –now the arena– with a crazed simper, "Don't keep my patrons waiting, contestants."

All Kim Dokja had to do was exploit the obvious loophole here, and he'd walk free. He’d momentarily monitored after, in the case he squealed to any authorities, but free nonetheless. There was only one thing that would ruin his chances of survival, and he sincerely doubted it would happen.

"So all we gotta do is off someone and we get cash? Not too bad of a deal to me."

I spoke too soon.

Yoo Joonghyuk trailed his eyes up and down the young man who dared to grab his coat and attempt to tug him back.

"You! You're the insane fucker who blew the place up, aren't you!" The boy's lips curled into a challenging grin full of teeth, "I’m Kim Namwoon, and you better not forget the name cuz I'll be following you for a while."

The cold, jaw-droppingly handsome duke-

Kim Dokja furtively shook his head, Author, now's not the time!

-stared back silently.

This 'Kim Namwoon' had the resolve to kill, and he must have also ravaged his own arena if the lack of other survivors told Yoo Joonghyuk anything. The blood streaking down Kim Namwoon's hands was a better indicator, but crimson had long become a common grey.

He could dispatch this little boy in a second, but there was something about the sheer excitement in his eyes that made Yoo Joonghyuk think again. He always found himself needing a leashed wild card.

I suppose I've found one.

Kim Dokja’s chances of survival were chewed up and spit out in his face. It was the worst-case scenario. If this delusional demon was here, then that meant he would also be…

There's no doubt about it, Kim Dokja began, worrying his bottom lip. His eyes flitted over to the boy –Kim Namwoon– who began to stalk over to an old woman cowering against the wall. Kim Dokja took a steadying breath and thought resolutely, I'm dead.

Chapter Text

Images of his impending, gruesome death flashed behind Kim Dokja’s eyelids like a film reel, each frame showing his skin melting away further and further. For the sake of Yoo Joonghyuk’s team, he had to be sacrificed along with everyone else in this building. The thought held him down hard enough to keep every muscle of his in place as he watched Kim Namwoon pick up the poor grandma by the throat.

“Some people just catch on quicker than others, hm? That’s right, just take one life and you’re out,” Bihyung sneered, leaning over the stand’s balustrade to sift through the crowd. The announcer zeroed in on a trembling man tugging at his hair and reached towards his back pocket. “Still, our other contestants might need some help catching up.”

Too busy panicking over Kim Namwoon, Kim Dokja didn’t register what had happened until hot, frothy gore splattered across his face and ran down his hair. 

Drip. Drip. Drip. Down it went into the dirt below.

He whipped around in time to see the man’s hands fall limply from his hair, fingers catching on the edge of his wound before flopping over motionless, limbs folding into a grotesque pile. Even Kim Namwoon paused and looked back at the corpse, eyes widening and looking between Bihyung and the dead man frantically. 

Two beats passed, and half of the people still alive shrieked bloody murder while the others scrambled away from the people next to them. Kim Dokja’s blood ran cold while his sclera burned white-hot.

The flickering candles seemed to lose their fire, dimming impossibly darker until all one could see was the deranged shine in Bihyung’s eyes and the pearlescent sheen of his jagged teeth gleaming from behind the smoke billowing out of his gun. Bihyung cackled -a grainy and malicious sound- and dangled his flintlock from his index finger. Innocently, he rested his cheek in his free hand.

“This, this is not a game, my contestants. Every rule you’ve ever followed doesn’t mean shit for these ten minutes.” Bihyung pushed off the railing and slunk back into his spot next to his patrons. “You all better get to work. If you’re too scared to, then try shaking your ass and hope it makes us laugh hard enough to free you.”

Some of the hooded figures laughed heartily at that, tossing some gold coins into a trough beneath. Somehow, Bihyung’s eyes sparkled even brighter, and he made a show of inspecting his handgun, fiddling with the jaw-spring.

“I suppose I can leave you all with a gift.” Bihyung mused aloud, pausing to let the crowd below look up. Kim Dokja kept his head hung low, knowing full well just how far the emcee would go for a couple more inches of gold added to his donations.

“Good luck.” Bihyung snickered, lazily tossing the handgun into the arena.

The clattering of its landing was muffled by the soil beneath but was impossibly loud to all of the desperate eyes staring it down. It was then that the stagnant air in the room cleared and almost every person threw themselves into action— a kid was flung away by a seedy-looking man vying for the gun, Kim Namwoon slammed the cowering grandma onto the floor, and everyone else followed one of the two like mindless, terrified sheep.

In the meantime, Bihyung went on his tip-toes to flip over a large hourglass with a wider neck than most. The first drops of sand trickled down into the lower chamber, and Kim Dokja was reminded once again that once a mere ten minutes passed, he’d either be shot to death or made to burn.

His mind couldn’t seem to catch up as he stared on in horror. The blood gushing out of the dead man just a couple of steps away seeped into the soil and wriggled under Kim Dokja’s fingers. His traitorous vision superimposed his own lifeless body onto the maimed corpse lying across from him. His own glazed eyes stared blankly back at him.

This is real.

He had this thought plastered to the back of his mind since he woke up in this pathetic excuse for a medieval world. On top of the first thought, another graffitied itself onto his skull.

This is real, and I don’t want to die here.

Clumsily, he clambered to his feet before a catapulting weight punched the air out of his lungs and knocked him back down. With a groan, he glanced down to see a mass of unkempt brown hair shivering against his chest. He pried the head of hair off to find out that it was —in fact— not just a head of hair but a small boy cradling a box.

He watched the child’s eyes dart around and instinctively held the boy’s shoulders. Finally, the kid’s eyes —brown and blown wide— focused on Kim Dokja.

“You…” The words died in Kim Dokja’s throat. Internally, he begged the buzzing he heard spilling out of the box’s lid came from what he hoped it did.

Kim Dokja’s hands tightened around the child’s shoulders, and he asked desperately, “Your box, what’s-” The kid flinched and tried to wrench himself back. 

Kim Dokja immediately stilled. What was he thinking? Imposing himself on a child made him no better than the other brainless people scrambling around the arena. He needed to calm down if he was to get this kid to cooperate with him.

He swallowed and continued with a calmer tone, loosening his white-knuckled grip, “Sorry. My name is Kim Dokja. And yours?”

“Ah…” The boy whimpered, holding his little chest even closer as he found his voice. Slowly, he responded, “L-Lee Gilyoung. My name, it- it’s Lee Gilyoung.”

The tussle for the gun behind them got rowdier, and the first punches were thrown. Further away, Kim Namwoon kicked his target around, laughing maniacally. Lee Gilyoung screwed his eyes shut, and Kim Dokja shuffled closer, moving to clasp his hands around the small boy’s ears.

“Listen to me, Lee Gilyoung. You don’t have to die, and you don’t have to kill anyone to survive.” Tentatively, the kid opened his eyes again, looking up at Kim Dokja expectantly. With a reassuring nod, Kim Dokja continued, “What’s inside your box?”

Lee Gilyoung blinked in confusion, looking down at the item in his hands. He didn’t fully understand what this strange man was getting at, but he answered slowly, “...Crickets?”

It took all of Kim Dokja’s willpower not to start smiling like a man gone insane. As long as he escaped in time, he could narrowly miss being blown up, and these bugs would be his exit ticket. He knew there had to be an exit somewhere, otherwise how could they have gotten in? He just needed time to search and passing the scenario -challenge, he amended- would give him all the free minutes he'd need. He took a short, calming breath and looked ahead at the two mobs.

The shifty man who had pushed Lee Gilyoung finally took hold of the gun and waved it around erratically, sweat flinging off of his fingers. “Ha! I have it!” He trained it on the others in front of him, switching from target to target, and stammered with an undercurrent of sheer fear, “You- you all better back off!”

Kim Dokja pressed harder on Lee Gilyoung’s ears before pulling away with a shaky sigh. He whispered, “Hand me your box.” 

Lee Gilyoung’s initial shock had worn off, and he immediately left the box full of indignantly buzzing crickets in Kim Dokja’s waiting hands. Somehow, this boy —no older than eleven— had become calmer than Kim Dokja could ever dream to be when faced with the possibility of death.

Kim Dokja tucked the chest under his arm and placed a fleeting hand on Lee Gilyoung’s head, “Copy what I do, Gilyoung-ah. You’ll know when.” 

Lee Gilyoung hurriedly placed both hands on Kim Dokja’s before the older man could pull away. The child’s mildly chapped lips curved around invisible words before he finally found what he wanted to say, “Be careful, Dokja hyung.”

Stamping down the swelling of his heart, Kim Dokja gave a sorry smile and came to kneel. He kept his head held high so Lee Gilyoung wouldn’t see the disgusted face he pulled while rummaging through the chest for a cricket. Swallowing back a groan, he plucked out a relatively sizable one and left it with Lee Gilyoung.

The part of himself that he thought waves of mundanity had weathered away willed his legs to trudge forward toward the most dangerous person in the room.

“I’ll shoot! I swear to our god above I’ll shoot!” The seedy man shrieked, eyes blown wide and laser-focused on Kim Dokja, who began to push through the quivering crowd.

Imperceptibly, Kim Dokja flinched as the flintlock’s muzzle spun to aim right at his forehead. With every echoing step Kim Dokja took, the man ahead began to hyperventilate faster and faster until Kim Dokja was close enough to feel the other’s hot breath spray warm, moist air on his skin.

The gun curved up to push incessantly under Kim Dokja’s chin. If that trigger was pulled, he’d likely— no, definitely— die on the spot. Regardless, Kim Dokja was able to flash the disheveled man a small, uncannily friendly smile.

“Are you going to kill me?” Kim Dokja murmured, low enough for only the two of them to hear.

The shifty-eyed man sputtered and squawked, shoving the gun up until Kim Dokja had no choice but to look him in the eye, “What else!? You’re the only idiot who came close, so w-who else would I shoot!”

Kim Dokja's back was turned to the nobles and Bihyung, but he assumed the whole lot was practically falling out of their seats in anticipation.

“Let’s see it then.” Kim Dokja suggested innocently, holding the seedy man’s wrist in place, “Then what?”

The other man began to tremble under Kim Dokja’s grip. For just that moment, he was stunned silent, and the flow of his thoughts abruptly changed direction.

Kim Dokja hated to be this underhanded, but with both of his hands occupied and the perfect opportunity presented to him, he had no choice but to rear his leg up and kick out as hard as he could. 

The gun-wielding man choked on his own spit and keeled over Kim Dokja’s foot with a strangled groan, and his grip on the gun’s handle loosened to the point of tumbling out of his hand. His hold faltered long enough to let Kim Dokja snatch it away with a couple of frantic tugs and fling it skyward.

Before the crowd could begin to react, let alone say anything, he brought the gun down to point at the person ahead. Time slowed as the seedy man scrambled to seize the firearm again, one of his hands palming Kim Dokja’s face and slowly beginning to squeeze. A finger accidentally slipped under Kim Dokja’s lip, and its nail sunk into his gums, a sharp jolt of pain running across Kim Dokja’s teeth.

Kim Dokja kept his feet planted and grimaced as the other man pushed harder and rougher, the other hand clenching around the air each time he tried to seize the gun again. Words weren’t needed; Kim Dokja knew that the moment he stopped trying, this man would slam him onto the floor and kill him one way or another. 

I don’t want to die here.

A desperate roar ripped out of his throat as a surge of strength coursed through his nerves, one strong enough to let him push back and thrust the gun's muzzle into his assailant’s chest. The man’s eyes bugged out of his head, but he couldn’t pull away before Kim Dokja found the flintlock’s trigger with a shaking finger and pulled .

Gasps bounced off the mossy stone walls of the arena, but when the crowd came down from their adrenaline-induced highs, they realized that where there should have been a corpse was a perfectly unscathed man. The man in question realized he was alive too, his ragged exhale growing rougher as if to confirm that, yes, he was still breathing.

A voice, somehow confident in this life-or-death situation, rose above the cacophony of mutters and heaving breaths, “You all truly believed that those people up there would let us get away that easy?”

Kim Dokja stood straight and slightly puffed out his chest. He hoped his hair, falling in haphazard black strands along his field of vision, was the only trace of the tussle he had earlier. The more confident he looked, the easier it would be to guide this scenario in the direction he wanted it to go.

Rubbing his inflamed gums, Kim Dokja straightened his posture and spoke directly to the observers sitting safely in their seats, “If I pointed this gun at one of you and shot, what would happen?”

Once again, Kim Dokja didn’t spare a single second for anyone to respond as he pointed the gun at the audience above and pulled the trigger for the second time. All that came out of the gun was a meek click . 

He figured the gun was empty from the beginning. The gunpowder had already been lit, and even someone who didn’t know how a flintlock pistol worked could guess it only had one round. However, the same couldn’t be said for the hand-picked lower-class citizens in this hallowed arena. No, all they knew was that a gun was dangerous and could kill someone quickly. Never mind the specifics of reloading and whatnot.

Bihyung must have pulled this move every time he’d been made to host a scenario like this.

The upper class would fall over themselves laughing at how foolish these peasants were compared to them. He was no ethics officer, but he reasoned anyone would realize the inherent immorality of this entire situation. Kim Dokja put most of his strength into schooling his expression, overflowing with contempt, and he pulled the trigger two more times to vent his feelings. Not a single cloaked figure reacted to him seriously, their shoulders shaking in silent laughter.

Kim Dokja laughed too, loud and vitriolic, tossing the empty, useless gun away, “That’s right. Nothing. None of you up there was actually thinking of giving us an easy out.

An anxious haze fell over the contestants. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what Kim Dokja’s words meant. They had to kill another person with their bare hands, a life extinguished under their guilty skin. Some had taken to sobbing at the horrible realization.

“They can’t give you an out, but I can. If you have the desperation to take it.” Kim Dokja spoke as he strode towards the wall ahead, holding Lee Gilyoung’s chest in his hands. He was just as surprised as the people around him at his apparent calmness.

“If I remember correctly, the man up there had said, ‘Take a life and you’re out.’” Kim Dokja began, spinning around to face the uneasy crowd. “After seeing someone get shot, all of us assumed that meant we had to kill each other.”

Again, he reached into the box of crickets and pulled out a sizable one. It twitched and buzzed furiously as it was forcibly raised high enough for everyone to have a clear view of Kim Dokja mashing it to death in one quick squeeze.

He brandished the insect —rather what used to be an insect— as he walked back into the crowd. A twitching cricket leg slid down his palm as he opened his hand and waved at Bihyung, seething from on high.

The announcer in question grumbled something too quiet for anyone to hear and snatched up a weathered sheet of parchment and a quill tucked away behind the hourglass, lividly crossing something out with his quill. It took almost too much effort not to snort at the ink that had splashed on Bihyung’s pristine off-white button-up.

Kim Dokja schooled his smirk and asked calmly, “So? Have I passed?”

Bihyung gnashed his pearly whites together and gritted out, “Contestant… Kim Dokja… has passed-”

“If that’s not enough proof for everyone,” Kim Dokja cut Bihyung off, addressing the slowly sobering crowd, “Then, we can test it one more time.”

Kim Dokja turned to Lee Gilyoung, who stood up and held his hands high above his head. The horrified kid from before was nowhere to be found as the boy harshly smashed his clasped hands together, twisting and smushing for good measure. Expressionlessly, Lee Gilyoung brought his hands down. Kim Dokja couldn’t begin to describe the mess of what used to be an insect splattered across the kid’s open palms displayed for Bihyung to see.

Bihyung’s mouth gaped open indignantly before he begrudgingly declared, “Contestant Lee Gilyoung…” He made a show of crossing out the name on the parchment, swiping over it with a couple of quill strokes, “...has passed.”

Kim Dokja had spent too long looking up at Bihyung with smug satisfaction to notice the surrounding horde closing in on him with hungry glints in their eyes. He didn’t realize how much trouble he was in until the first hand slapped his waist and then seized it harshly enough for Kim Dokja to stumble.

Someone was clawing at his back, another person swatting at his arm, and an uncountable number of other ‘contestants’ latching onto any part of him that they could. Every touch seared his skin, and if he didn’t know better, he’d have thought he was getting brands scorched onto every inch of him. He had more than fifteen people trying to tear into him like animals.

Not a single person was looking to harm him, but if they had to, they would. Anything for that box. Kim Dokja had figured that much out at least, but any further thoughts he had would mean nothing if he just let himself get trampled. 

His back dipped over a hand that tried to tug him down by the shirt, and he thrashed about, pushing as many people away as he could. Finally, with one devastating blow to the jaw, Kim Dokja had gotten rid of the person who stood right over the hand that clutched the box of crickets. 

Now, bear in mind he wasn’t someone with the strongest arm, but he could hold his own during dodgeball in PE. Emboldened by the small flash of memories, sweaty locker rooms and aching bruises, he reared up his arm. He stepped on two hands scuffling below as he stamped his foot down, and with one last squeeze, Kim Dokja hurled the chest away with all of his strength.

The box flying overhead seemed to spin away in slow motion. The remaining crickets wriggled out of their prison as the lid flung open. The sight of the mob tripping and pushing, the livid Bihyung beside himself with disbelief, and the audience cheering excitedly somehow made Kim Dokja smile after a few labored breaths. It was small but wide enough for him to feel guilt sting the sides of his mouth.

There were no words strong enough to describe just how terrified Kim Dokja was of himself at that moment. Like an alien who had just learned how to identify emotions, Kim Dokja despaired:

I think I’m having too much fun.

Chapter Text

The hands he'd stepped on had slipped from under him, and Kim Dokja wobbled backward, fighting to stay upright, before resignedly slumping his body against the wall behind him. The dastardly smile still kept itself firmly plastered on his face. Propping himself a little higher, Kim Dokja slapped a hand over his mouth and watched from behind his disheveled hair as the people he'd instigated tore at each other.

He'd read scenes like this countless times, but no author could capture just how visceral the sight was. The looks on those people's faces told you that they'd tear another's throat out by the teeth. The hands that strained like their owners were trying to will claws out of them.

I can't even look at their faces. Kim Dokja tossed his head to the side and fixated on an arbitrary spot on the floor.

Blood seemed to rush to his eyes, kicking them into overdrive to a painful degree as his heartbeat thrummed in his ears incessantly. The meager candlelight illuminating Kim Dokja's view of the ground steadily dimmed until a shadowy silhouette engulfed it entirely. He wanted to look up, but danger alarms blared in his mind, willing his body still. With a painfully loud thwack, a bloodied hand smacked the cobblestone wall above Kim Dokja before trailing down.

"Hey."

Scratchy and slightly higher-pitched. Sounds about right. I was wondering when he'd show up.

"Hey."

Kim Namwoon's voice sharpened, and he punched the wall impatiently. Small droplets of condensation dribbled down Kim Dokja's hair as Kim Namwoon leaned in close enough to breathe his uncomfortably humid breath into Kim Dokja's face. A warmer liquid dropped onto the center of the transmigrator's head and trickled down to his chin.

Blood from that guy's fist. Definitely not his blood, Kim Dokja thought, eyes darting for a way out and decidedly ignoring the teenager overhead.

"Afraid I'll hurt you?" Kim Namwoon taunted. Kim Dokja always read his voice as over-confident, but hearing it in person was worse, "I just want to know why'd you throw the box. I mean— it was sweet-" Kim Namwoon snorted at that word, "-that you threw it in my direction. Still a little curious, though."

To Kim Namwoon, Kim Dokja's glare could have come from getting his masculine ego hurt at being called sweet, but Kim Dokja's thoughts were far away from this one-sided conversation.

It wasn't for you! Kim Dokja griped, Do you know how annoyed I was reading chapter upon chapter of Yoo Joonghyuk wasting his precious time trying to whip you into a functioning member of society!? Even if the novel is different, some things never change…

Noncommittally, Kim Dokja hissed in response, "There were only three left."

Kim Namwoon scoffed incredulously and wrenched Kim Dokja's hand away from the wall he braced it against, forcibly pulling him to stand to the point of nearly tearing Kim Dokja's arm from its socket. A stabbing pain streaked down his shoulder as Kim Dokja yanked his arm back, now faced with Kim Namwoon's toothy, yellowed simper and slightly twitching red eyes— somehow dyed a darker, chilling crimson by candlelight.

Before Kim Namwoon could go on his villainous tangent, Bihyung sing-songed, "Only three people passed so far?" The announcer paused to cackle delightedly, "Really? You all only have three more minutes, and that's all we've gotten? Try fighting a little harder!"

Three more minutes!? Kim Dokja gasped internally. He really chose the worst possible location to commit his antics. How could he manage his time if he couldn't even see the hourglass! He couldn't believe his own lack of foresight and managed to shove past Kim Namwoon and stare in horror at the nearly empty hourglass above.

Screams echoed and bounced off the arena walls, but Yoo Joonghyuk couldn't be bothered to join in the action. Once the hourglass had only a quarter of its sand left to fall, the announcer jeered at the incompetent crowd who had yet to kill a single person, seemingly trained to give status checks at certain intervals. His patience waning…

After this, Yoo Joonghyuk would kill the announcer, find the conveniently placed explosives behind the audience (such was the choice of the most definitely teenaged author), and blow the entire secluded building to absolute smithereens. His life as a transmigrator would end before it even started.

"...Y'know, Mr. Grasshopper. You see that crowd over there?" Kim Dokja's line of sight followed Kim Namwoon's thumb pointing backward at the mob, "They knocked me away from Granny, and some seedy asshole took one of those crickets right before I could get it."

Young man, we are seconds away from being fried.– is what Kim Dokja would say to Kim Namwoon if he didn't have to worry about drawing more attention to himself than he already had.

Instead, he kept his mouth shut and glared at Kim Namwoon with as much exasperation as he could. Kim Namwoon momentarily stepped back before his lips curled, and he slid right back into Kim Dokja's face.

"I kinda like you, Grasshopper Guy." Kim Namwoon mused aloud, looking Kim Dokja —standing in all his mediocrity— up and down, "I'm in a tough spot, so let's work together on this, huh? Help me out."

Kim Dokja schooled his expression lest he hit Kim Namwoon with the full force of his disgust at that statement. He knew this character well enough to parse the words left unsaid.

'Let's work together…because you're just like me.'

Miraculously, the tension in the air around him cleared, and Kim Dokja was able to breathe a bit easier.

Me? Similar to him for just doing what I had to? Kim Dokja scoffed internally, the absurdity of the notion slightly sobering him up as he began to analyze Kim Namwoon's character.

The white-haired teen thought he'd found a kindred spirit who could also adapt to the cruelty of the world by lashing out even harder. Kim Namwoon's misconception of Kim Dokja couldn't be farther from the truth; all Kim Dokja thirsted for now was his second chance at life. Kim Dokja's heart thrummed to the beat of the words he repeated in his mind: I've read this before. I'll get out alive. I will. I will. I will.

Kim Dokja took a harsh step back and spoke, "Sorry, I work alone, but…" He walked to place himself between the grandma who bled out just a couple of paces away and the bloodthirsty teen, "I can't let you go back either."

The gleam of curiosity in Kim Namwoon's eyes shifted from a wavering confusion to a blazing anger.

Kim Dokja could feel the vitriol waft off Kim Namwoon's scowl as the teen snarled, "So that's who you are." He scoffed incredulously, "A 'righteous' know-it-all who does nice shit to make yourself feel better."

Kim Namwoon swayed a bit, his body deliberating whether he would laugh uncontrollably at the irony or start shaking in rage. His crazed eyes locked onto Kim Dokja, and his swirling opinions on the ordinary-looking man in front of him reached a fever pitch. Immediately, his fist shot out, a devastating punch ready to erupt from his white knuckles.

If he hadn't reminded himself that he'd read this story before, Kim Dokja would have paled and dove for any space where Kim Namwoon's hurtling fist, seeming to stretch out with afterimages streaking behind it, wouldn't be able to connect. Still, as the sole reader of this new world, Kim Dokja stood planted as if ready to take the blow head-on.

A gust roared around Kim Namwoon's fist as it came a millimeter away from exploding across Kim Dokja's cheek before it was completely swallowed by an earsplitting ringing that permeated through the eardrums of every contestant and audience member. Only it wasn't a simple ringing but an impossibly loud blast that was so nearby one could only hear the wailing oscillations of their own ear.

Kim Namwoon's fist faltered, and Kim Dokja raced past him, leaving the teen in a half-turn before the source caught up with the sound. The walls behind the spectators on high grew fiery orange as the burst of color spread between the crevices of the cobblestone pieces and spread. With one last flash of bright yellow…

BOOM!

Kim Dokja felt ravenous heat on his back as he ran towards Lee Gilyoung, who gaped at the devastation unfolding. Sickening thuds of the bodies belonging to the haughty noble spectators dotted the already hectic soundscape of screams and rumbling.

The shockwave knocked Kim Dokja off his feet and sent him falling the rest of the way, landing painfully on his stomach and scuffing his chin on the dirt floor. Holding back the bile threatening to burst from his mouth, Kim Dokja clambered back up and grabbed at Lee Gilyoung's arm, missing miserably and yanking the kid up by the shirt.

The ceiling above creaked incessantly before rumbling, the intensity of the sound sending dust and debris cascading down. From where the explosion burst forth, the wooden infrastructure caught fire. The flames licked at the bodies unfortunate enough to be close before swallowing them whole.

In his mind, Kim Dokja began to visualize the layout of the two arenas. If the explosives were behind the audience in Yoo Joonghyuk's arena, then that means this arena and that sunfish's are connected and mirrored. If Yoo Joonghyuk found a way out, then if we also wanted to leave, we'd have to find him…

Kim Dokja's thoughts ended abruptly there. He did have one more thought before he was pulled out of his musings, but the realization stunned him to the point of being unable to recall it. In the end, he was left with one conclusion.

His voice dry but desperate, Kim Dokja turned to Lee Gilyoung and pleaded, "Gilyoung-ah, trust me one more time." He was unmistakably nervous as he glanced at the gaping hole of fire, "We have to run through there."

We'd have to cross through to the other arena where that crazy sunfish is, so we can follow him out before the place collapses. Kim Dokja's breath quivered. That means the burning hole in the wall is our only way out.

The young boy blanched and did a double-take, and Kim Dokja considered just picking him up and making a break for it before Lee Gilyoung swallowed his fears down and nodded, frazzled brown hair falling over his eyes. Kim Dokja gave a nod in return, observing the flickering flames before mouthing 'okay.'

Outwardly, he looked as if he'd run through fire a thousand times over, but on the inside, where the average Korean salaryman resided, he was despairing more than he was when WOS took abnormally long to update. Lee Gilyoung must have noticed as the boy made a timid sound in the back of his throat, staring at the field of fire before taking a determined step forward.

The ceiling gave another low rumble, and the two began to walk before breaking out into a run, their uncoordinated steps muffled by the chaos around. A strange flash of white flitted across Kim Dokja's peripheral vision. Just as the two were about to break through the stands ahead, Kim Dokja skidded to a stop and almost accidentally flung Lee Gilyoung back.

The boy stumbled in surprise and grasped Kim Dokja's arm with his free hand, "Hyung?"

Kim Dokja couldn't see the look the boy was giving him, but it screamed, 'You suggested this, you commit to it.' He was busy staring at a person lying in a mess of limbs and torso, head crooked at an odd angle. Unlike the delusional demon with similar white hair, this man would definitely die here. Kim Dokja was staring at Bihyung, crumpled and knocked out on the arena floor.

I have plans with him. Kim Dokja murmured to himself, gingerly removing himself from Lee Gilyoung and slinking toward the unconscious man.

It took up countless seconds of precious time, but Kim Dokja managed to awkwardly shove the dead weight onto his back, pointedly ignoring Lee Gilyoung's disbelieving expression.

With the announcer on his back and Lee Gilyoung holding his hand once more, the duo, trio if you count Bihyung, began to run towards the ring of fire at full speed. Every ounce of Kim Dokja screamed at him to stop as the flames got closer and closer, baring their illusory teeth at the group. Behind them, a slab of cobblestone from the ceiling came plummeting down, smashing into flying pieces. The ones that happened to soar in their direction littered Lee Gilyoung's back with bruises, but he kept his eyes on the exit no matter how bad they stung.

More slabs came loose, and with one dying rumble, the entire ceiling came crashing down. Kim Dokja couldn't hear the screams of the other contestants dying behind him as he slammed his foot down to make one final push across the barrier of fire. Every inch of exposed skin shrieked as layer upon layer of cells were scorched, and it felt as if he'd hit a wall of pure heat. His lungs constricted and threatened to fail before Kim Dokja felt his feet hit an even, cooler floor and began to breathe again.

Lee Gilyoung's breathing was erratic, but through the dry heaves and winces, he gasped, "We did it…"

Kim Dokja couldn't believe it either, inebriated with adrenaline as he was. He swallowed dryly and nodded, stumbling away from the fire that seemed to flicker weakly in disappointment, and behind a mass of rock and debris. Silently, he braced Bihyung's body on the cobblestone heap and put a finger to his mouth.

The fire was the easy part.

Lee Gilyoung nodded in understanding and tiptoed behind the older man, making to grab onto his coat before realizing at least half of it was scorched off and slightly crackling with remnants of flame.

The infrastructure of the walls was slightly more fortified than the rest of the building, so with the ceiling caved in, only the partition between the arenas stood particularly tall. The twinkling stars overhead had yet to fade but had grown noticeably duller as the night began to wane. The crumbling of the building went silent, and only the woosh and crackle of fire resounded through the chill air. Even the remaining sounds seemed to go silent for a moment as if to make room for…

"Hm."

The deep sound made Kim Dokja unconsciously grip the lapel of his coat. Slowly, Kim Dokja peeked out from behind the pile of debris. He took in the mess of dripping blood and rubble before his eyes locked onto an unwavering figure clad in a black hood that draped down to their ankles.

He felt the vessels under his skin burn excitedly, making his body grow warmer than it was when he jumped through literal fire.

He's here.

An inhuman groan caused the figure to slightly glance to the side, and Kim Dokja carefully stood on the balls of his feet to overlook the debris littering the floor. However, the imposing figure was quicker, whipping out a jagged piece of broken wood, the cape of his hood fluttering. He didn't even turn to look as he skewered the crawling man with his makeshift weapon. A scream, some pathetic cries, and then silence again.

It really is him.

The blood from the dying noble, now that Kim Dokja took a proper look at the corpse, spattered onto the figure's cloak, making a mess of their side. They turned to look briefly at their shoulder, and Kim Dokja's breath caught in his throat as they clicked their tongue.

There's no reason to keep the cloak on anymore, right? Come on…! I need to be sure! Take it off!

Briefly, Kim Dokja thought himself a little peculiar for wanting to see another man take their clothes off, but he wasn't talking about any other man. No, he was talking about the man. That, of course, made it okay.

The dancing fires and the ruins seemed to fade as Kim Dokja trained his gaze on every bit of the 'mysterious' figure's movements, from where they raised their other hand to where they grasped the hood of their cloak and let it cascade off of their impossibly black hair.

The firelight ahead of the man clung to the angles and slopes of his face. His physique eclipsed even the most potent element and rendered it a simple accessory to his sculpted features that would never be able to be replicated. Yes, if this man were a sculpture, he would undoubtedly be the sculptor's magnum opus. A man-made creation that could defy the other bodies of the universe that lay beyond human reach.

His hair, curled at the ends in perfect wisps, shadowed his face, and only the glow of his eyes remained fathomable; other features of his rendered outlines. Even in darkness, Kim Dokja recognized every unmeasurable angle and contour of that face.

My protagonist—

Whose existence spurred on the turn of the heavens and earth: Yoo Joonghyuk.

Kim Dokja's fingers trembled like they wanted to drag his body over to Yoo Joonghyuk and poke his cheekbone to confirm that he was real. It would get him sliced on the spot, but he felt like a kid who just saw a street performer dressed as Spider-Man. If he were still a child, he'd turn to Lee Gilyoung and gush, It's really Yoo Joonghyuk! I told you he's real!

Yoo Joonghyuk's head snapped up suddenly, and Kim Dokja almost yelped his heart out of his throat. Thankfully, he still had some of his wits about him and ducked behind the pile, one of his hands snaking up to clutch onto his sooty dress shirt. The burns throughout his body began to tear up his nerves once almost every bit of excitement had died, and he screwed his eyes shut, praying for Yoo Joonghyuk to lead the way out.

Lee Gilyoung tensed and squeezed Kim Dokja's hand, but before the man could turn to ask what was wrong, he heard it. Long, drawn-out footsteps that grew louder with each rhythmic step, step, step. This Yoo Joonghyuk was different from the one he got to know through Ways of Survival. He'd liken this one to turn #41. Cutthroat to the point it was borderline cruel. If the group was caught, Kim Dokja knew that apart from maybe Lee Gilyoung, they were as good as dead.

He'd tried to be proactive in this game of life and death, but when faced with his protagonist, the gears in his mind sputtered like they'd been doused in salt.

Another step was taken, accompanied by the crunch of bones.

Kim Dokja readied himself to push Lee Gilyoung away.

The next step was muffled under a grotesque squelch. Kim Dokja had the mental image of Yoo Joonghyuk's boots pulverizing a stray limb.

He slowly bent down, taking a sizable rock in his hand. Before the next footfall, Kim Dokja raised it high, poised to crack down. The milliseconds flew away, and Kim Dokja apologized mentally ten times in advance. He was about to bludgeon the face that could slap him tenfold.

Suddenly, the footsteps paused before turning into casual strides that grew quieter. Yoo Joonghyuk was walking away. Behind Kim Dokja, Lee Gilyoung let out a small sigh of relief as he took the rock from Kim Dokja's lowered hand and cast it aside.

The footsteps no longer filled the hall, and every bit of sensory detail grew more intense —rather returned to normal— upon Yoo Joonghyuk's exit. Kim Dokja hazarded another cursory scan of the environment before ensuring that it was safe to run. Yoo Joonghyuk's silhouette blotted the brightening horizon past the devastation he left in his wake.

Kim Dokja barely registered his walk out of the arena, simply trudging forward and past a clearing in the rubble into the forest ahead. The night air had warmed a bit thanks to the burning mass behind them that once used to be a building. As the flames sanctified the hallowed area, Kim Dokja paused to breathe and adjust Bihyung strewn across his back. The towering Yoo Estate grew visible past the foliage as the sun climbed higher.

Kim Dokja was in pain, an uncontested fact. He was burnt, bruised, and above all, tired. He thought of Yoo Joonghyuk and felt the weight of his experience lessen. If Kim Namwoon made it out, Yoo Joonghyuk would be recruiting him around now. Then he'd go back to his estate with his new teammate in tow, and the rest of his story would play out.

The rest of his story, including the part where everything he'd ever loved was reduced to cinders. Kim Dokja shook his head.

"Gilyoung-ah?" Kim Dokja croaked, his voice scratchy and lethargic, "Do you know how to get home?"

Lee Gilyoung lowered his head, gaze fixed on the path ahead.

"It…burned down, hyung." Lee Gilyoung's bottom lip wobbled, and he turned away, "I wasn't there for it."

What a strong kid, Kim Dokja thought. The child ran through fire with him. Ran through the same thing that took everything away from him without so much as a complaint. The rest of the boy's story came together in Kim Dokja's mind, one of loss and isolation. It wasn't quite the same as his own story, but Kim Dokja understood it all regardless. He squeezed Lee Gilyoung's hand in response before giving him the best smile he could manage through his exhaustion.

"I don't have the best place, but it's still somewhere—"

"Yes!" Lee Gilyoung cut off Kim Dokja in his excitement. He trailed off sheepishly before continuing, "Sure, hyung. I know not to trust strangers completely, though. Be careful."

Kim Dokja laughed then immediately regretted it as the sound tapered off into wheezes. The forest held no recollection of the massacre that happened deep within its underbrush and canopies of oak, so when Kim Dokja went quiet, nothing else followed.

He eyed the contingency plan on his back, then looked to Lee Gilyoung, whose eyes were drooping and marred with the last hot tears the boy had to give for the night. Kim Dokja held the weight of what he read with the same exhaustion and fearful responsibility as one who held up the sky. Was it really up to him to save this story?

Chapter Text

In a world not yet graced by the female lead’s intelligence, medical insurance was a topic unheard of. Well, perhaps someone had gotten the bright idea of ensuring the common folk’s right to treatment before, but only the headstrong beauty Lee Seolhwa was able to make the musings become a reality. Really, Kim Dokja didn’t know what she saw in that headstrong sunfish.

Before he was swept up in the memory of Yoo Joonghyuk, Kim Dokja inwardly scoffed, We can have typewriters and occasionally plastic, but not medical insurance? Thanks, author.

These were Kim Dokja’s thoughts as he and Lee Gilyoung finally made it out of the forest and walked to actual civilization, towards the sun. Watching the sun slowly rise, rippling waves of burning orange as it moved, Kim Dokja began to think deeply about some holes he found in the world’s logic.

For instance, he got off work around 7 pm, which is when he was knocked out. If they had to drive out to the forest, then he’d estimate, with hypothesized carriages, it would take them a whole eight hours to get from there to the forest.

If you asked Kim Dokja, he’d say that for a criminal organization, moving ‘contestants’ for four hours for only ten minutes of ‘fun’ was wholly inefficient. If you asked him to be serious, he’d tell you how odd it was to see the sun rise when, at most, it should have been 11 pm by the time they escaped.

The only explanation he could think of was that between when he had to take a hammer to the head and when he woke up, time had skipped forward to match the narrative.

 When he was reading The Tyrant’s Rise, he’d grown desensitized to these kinds of ‘black out time skips,’ but actually experiencing them was a whole different ball game.

He thought of the perfect description for this trash novel. It was similar to a child's daydream. The plot would jump forward and backward seemingly at random, with instances where a possible subplot could develop, but never to the level of the central plot. After all, when conceiving a story using only the mind, it would be difficult to keep up with anything but the main story.

Had he more time and the means, Kim Dokja would have sat down and tried to make more sense of the logistics of the world of The Tyrant’s Rise. However, he had neither and despondently dragged his mind back to the topic at hand: getting everyone treated and getting home.

The story was still in its early stages, so Kim Dokja had to prepare to pay out of pocket for treatment. He’d be more prepared if he had his wallet on him, but he didn’t. His bag was taken from him before he woke up, and part of himself grew a little jealous of Lee Gilyoung for being an unassuming child who could keep their things, even if ‘things’ were a box full of chirping crickets.

No, that doesn’t feel right to say, Kim Dokja griped, unable to card through his hair agitatedly for the time being.

Kim Dokja threw his jealousy out and focused on Lee Gilyoung’s hand, small and slightly trembling. The boy walked to the right of him, his burns thankfully less severe. Kim Dokja noted the way Lee Gilyoung kept his right arm away from his body and tensed when his sooty clothes brushed against his bare skin.

When he was Lee Gilyoung’s age, Kim Dokja usually distracted himself by —how surprising— reading or listening to his mother read. He felt a brief aching but opted to rack his brain for conversation topics. After a second more of deliberation, he cleared his throat.

“Ahem. Gilyoung-ie, this sleeping ahjussi might wake up soon,” Kim Dokja mused aloud, feeling Bihyung stir on his back, “He won’t be up for long, probably.”

Lee Gilyoung settled on awkwardly twisting the scorched parts of his shirt away from his torso. This new parent of his was really bad at choosing conversation topics, and Lee Gilyoung wondered where that eloquent, insect-killer from before went.

He eyed the near-dead man slumped over Kim Dokja’s shoulder. The boy was no medical expert, but he had the feeling the white-haired guy wouldn’t last the night… or day. 

Slowly, he questioned, “Did we… have to bring him, hyung?”

The image of Bihyung smiling behind his pistol faded into the dirt road leading into what Kim Dokja hoped to be a border village. The scene assimilated into the ground, leaving Kim Dokja to consider exactly what ‘plan’ he was trying to formulate that involved this…money-hungry, goblin of a man. His thought process when he picked up the announcer was brief enough to be squeezed into a millisecond, but now that he had the time to sober up, he couldn’t recall for the life of him what he had rationalized.

To Lee Gilyoung’s question, he didn’t exactly have an answer, so he gave a small, unsure nod and looked up at the Yoo estate in the distance, looming over the expansive dukedom’s capital city. It worked as a north star of sorts, after all, his house couldn’t be too far from his workplace with the lack of faster transportation and all.

Granted, there was a public carriage system that was given a passing description, but figuring out the routes after only three days of ‘moving’ here was troublesome. He was lucky enough that his job in the estate was close enough to the one in his first life, but it seemed that was where his luck ran out.

Can’t get a grasp on my thoughts for the life of me, Kim Dokja groaned, bending down to keep the dead weight he carried centered. Not like I’d be any better off if this guy woke up.

Kim Dokja shuffled a couple more steps forward, but each footfall and attempt at planning was punctuated with a burning between the grooves of his brain. Once his vision began to swim, afterimages of pebbles floating in his eyes, was when Kim Dokja really began to panic. Briefly, he felt something behind his eyes shift, close to a page turning, but it was just Lee Gilyoung pulling ahead to check on him. The boy might have been calling his name, but it was muffled like he’d been shoved underwater.

Kim Dokja reared up to make a sardonic comment on himself for the umpteenth time, but the sting flossed harsher this time like a wire saw running between folds of skin. His vision strobed black while he stumbled, and it oscillated between colors one more time before he heard Lee Gilyoung yell.

“Hyung!”

Kim Dokja blinked twice, and his vision returned almost instantaneously, but not before a warbled voice resounded in his ear; rather, it spoke directly to his brain.

Offset…? Did I hear that right? The question was so clear compared to those asked just moments before. Kim Dokja shuddered like he was being smiled at by something unknown before even that sensation vanished without a trace.

“Hyung! Hyung, are you okay!?” Lee Gilyoung panicked, rushing ahead to hold Kim Dokja by his shoulders. 

Kim Dokja would have pushed the boy down from his toes, but he thought better of it. It might be too familiar of him to do.

“I’m fine. I’m fine. I just lost my footing for a bit. The Star…” Kim Dokja trailed off before he accidentally said a name he was definitely not supposed to know, “Those guys knocked me out with a hammer. I would be surprised if I weren’t dizzy.”

Lee Gilyoung pursed his lips skeptically, but reluctantly went back down on his feet and continued to walk. 

“Sure, Hyung…”

“Surprised if I wasn’t dizzy,” Kim Dokja mocked himself briefly before cutting himself off in the same line. I am surprised! I was just about to knock out just a while ago…

With Lee Gilyoung focused on walking, Kim Dokja stopped controlling his expression and furrowed his eyebrows in understandable confusion. 

What was that? I don’t feel healed. Ah, it’s more like I just forgot about the pain?

All the places he was sure he’d bruised or scraped were devoid of any pain, and his mind was calm. It reminded him of swishing a window curtain closed. There was the deep-rooted inkling that behind that curtain, the world went on. That muffled feeling is exactly what Kim Dokja had pinpointed. To emphasize his own idea, he experimentally opened and closed his hand, which miraculously showed no sign of fatigue or stinging.

Seeing Kim Dokja flex his hand, Lee Gilyoung took it as a sign to hold his guardian’s hand again and seamlessly slotted his smaller hand into Kim Dokja’s like it was the natural thing to do. The older man squeezed the kid’s hand reassuringly and began to take stock of their new surroundings. The earlier mysterious recovery had to be put on Kim Dokja’s mental back burner. This was no time to be curious.

Focus. That stupid novel said the estate is to the west of a major river and east of the sea. The sun is rising ahead of us, so I’d say we’re closer to the river’s side then? That means, Kim Dokja almost groaned aloud, We’d have to walk even further past the estate to get to my house. 

Kim Dokja felt himself really missing the Han River.

Did the previous owner of this body like the beach that much? There’s nothing wrong with rivers!

Unhelpfully, his mind supplemented that he’d also have to find treatment for Bihyung, somehow work back the money he’d lost, and figure out how to excuse his tardiness upon coming into work. 

Transmigrators are supposed to get easier lives, so why does it seem to be the opposite in my case?

Kim Dokja let his thoughts fly around for a while —many of them similar to his last comment— as he and Lee Gilyoung walked another two blocks further into the village, which was now transitioning into a more urban area. Overhead, clotheslines hung and dripped discolored water onto the street below, numerous enough to partially blot out the white shadow of the daytime moon.

All of The Tyrant’s Rise took place in or near the Yoo Estate, save for a couple of ‘diplomatic visits’ to the Empire’s Capital, so how was I supposed to know the situation in the capital’s outskirts was this… bad?

The buildings grew taller and darker as they walked, and Lee Gilyoung furtively brushed a sleeve under his nose, a temporary reprieve from the foul smell seeming to waft in from the alleyways between the lived-in townhouses. Kim Dokja could also register the rank stench, but there was a feeling in the back of his head that what he smelled was much less foul than what it actually was.

Does it have to do with the voice from earlier? Kim Dokja’s head began to throb in retaliation, Right. One thing at a time, one thing at a time.

Lee Gilyoung brushed his nose three more times before Kim Dokja sighed and resolved he would have to skip work today. Lee Gilyoung, from what Kim Dokja surmised thus far, was only acting strong. He, too, wouldn’t be able to take this much longer.

Moreover, walking under these conditions was out of the question, and the longer Bihyung remained unconscious, the more Kim Dokja had reason to believe he was hauling along a corpse. 

At this point, we might as well try finding a kind soul to help. The Duchy’s citizens were always written as nice and generous. This could work!

“Gilyoung-ah. When I walk up to a door, stand behind me, alright?” Kim Dokja looked at the kid through the corner of his eye, untangling his hand to brush some soot out of Lee Gilyoung’s hair.

Lee Gilyoung ran a hand through his frizzy hair and tidied it up while nodding, “Behind you, got it.”

 I’ve never done door-to-door sales, but it’s not too late to try.

Swallowing some apprehension, Kim Dokja walked up to the first townhouse illuminated from inside by candlelight and knocked on its chipped door. It made a hollow sound, and for good measure, Kim Dokja knocked three more times in quick succession. He was about to go for a fourth, but suddenly, the door swung open to reveal a man with a flat, greasy nose and thinning grey hair.

The old man had his hands close to himself defensively, and when Kim Dokja glanced past him, there were two women still in their nightclothes, eying the door warily and huddling close enough to hug in apprehension. He suppressed a furrowed brow and put on a salaryman smile, an uncanny grin that made it seem like his mind was not all there.

“Hello, sir. My child and I-” He began cordially, unconsciously bowing a bit. Lee Gilyoung furtively preened at Kim Dokja’s address.

Kim Dokja was cut off with a loud scoff, and the old man made to close the door while nearly hissing, “We have nothing left for you people. Didn’t you come by yesterday?”

“No, we-“

“I-I told you we have nothing.” The man shakily repeated, furtively easing the door shut like a shield.

“We just need some medicine.” Kim Dokja pleaded, stepping into the doorway, “Whatever you have. We’d even settle for onions.”

The old man ground his teeth and straightened up as much as he could, like trying to make himself look bigger in front of a predator. He hesitated for a couple of seconds but soon he nearly bellowed, “Damn it, leave us alone!”

The retort was so loud that Kim Dokja took a cautionary step back, but once his foot was out the door…

SLAM!

It shut right in his face. For a second, he stood outside the house dazed, but soon sighed and smoothed his blackened dress shirt. Shoving Bihyung further up his back, Kim Dokja turned to Lee Gilyoung and nodded forward. Maybe just this one house mistook him for a loan shark? 

Lee Gilyoung trudged away from the townhouse and crossed his arms, narrowing his eyes at the offending door. Turning his nose up, Lee Gilyoung grumbled, “Why’d they slam the door like that?”

“I wish I knew, Gilyoung-ie.” Kim Dokja gestured towards the lit-up house with his chin, and the three began to walk again.

Thus, Kim Dokja got to experience the life of a steadfast solicitor. It went a little something like this:

“Hello, my son and-”

SLAM!

“Sorry, could we trouble you for some-”

SLAM!

“Uh...help us?”

For a second, the person inside gave him a look of pity. They made to open the door…

SLAM!

Only to shut it with a bang.

The sun had successfully triumphed over the horizon by the time Kim Dokja gave up. They sat on the mossy steps up to the latest house they tried, heads hung despondently like a group of abandoned kittens. Occasionally, Bihyung took in a gulping breath, but other than this one sign of apparent consciousness, he stayed knocked out on Kim Dokja’s back. In times like these, trying times, Kim Dokja thought of Yoo Joonghyuk and what he would be doing. He could almost see the bastard stomping through the block as Kim Dokja peered down the road.

More realistically, he’s walking home with a terrifying look on his face and scaring a coachman into giving him a free ride home, Kim Dokja felt one side of mouth curl up wickedly before he frowned deeply, Damn protagonists.

“Right, we can try this instead.” Kim Dokja compromised, getting to his feet with great effort, “Ah, we can…” He groaned and started over, “We can walk further in and wait for a carriage.”

Lee Gilyoung’s eyes lit up with recognition, “The ones you can pay for!” The boy stalled, looking Kim Dokja up and down, “…ah.”

The light left just as fast, and Kim Dokja had the urge to slap his cheeks to get a hold of himself as he grew increasingly hopeless. He didn’t have a wallet, so they had nothing to pay with if they were to hitch a ride. The only thing left to do was walk, but he doubted they would hold out for that long on zero hours of sleep—minus the skipped time spent forcibly unconscious—and without food or water.

He racked his brain again and again, but his ideas always came back to him as disproven. He threw out his last plan, but had his musings shut down by a pained groan right next to his ear. Kim Dokja jolted and whipped his head around to look at the quivering mess of white-hair.

Seriously!?

He’d joked about it a whole thirty minutes ago, but in reality, he didn’t want Bihyung to wake up so soon! Lee Gilyoung jumped and stifled a yelp of surprise, sliding away from Kim Dokja as far as the stairs would allow.

Bihyung’s face scrunched up in pain as he wailed, his unconsciousness wearing off by the second. The severe burns up and down his back punched needles into his raw skin. Kim Dokja angled his neck away to save his ears from potential deafness, frantically searching around for…? He didn’t even know what there was to find at this point.

“H-hyung, what do we do!?” Lee Gilyoung fretted, wavering between stepping closer to help or staying far away. It was a sensible thing because adults always seem to want the opposite of whatever choice a child makes, but not Kim Dokja, he’d take any help he could get!

Goddamn it, what can we do!?

Bihyung managed to jerk himself away, and Kim Dokja’s foot hit his other ankle in an attempt to stabilize himself. Half of his brain winced while the other half registered him stumbling and falling, head set to crash into the edge of the stairs.

No way. I already died once! A truck crash is more dignified than this!

He couldn’t believe his own snark as he felt the wind of gravity squeeze his eyes shut, imagining his head being split open like a bloodied watermelon.

“Woah!”

The humiliating exclamation slipped out of him before he could stop it. Kim Dokja was no longer falling, and felt a strong hand pull him upright from the shoulder and move to pat his back. Bihyung was still making small sounds of pain, but they quieted for a moment to let Kim Dokja blink his eyes open.

“You okay?”

Kim Dokja could only curve his lips around a mute thank you as he trailed his gaze upwards, past a hand that suddenly twisted away, a faded tie, an off white collar, and finally to a face whose composition was sharp and so unconventionally —but somehow inherently— beautiful it gave him pause. The unnamed woman scrutinized the group in front of her, a ragtag bunch consisting of a young boy and a nondescript-looking man with a rotisseried friend on his back.

“You guys look like…shit.” The newcomer mused aloud, snapping her mouth shut upon realizing her sudden comment.

Kim Dokja found his voice and cut in awkwardly, “Ah, thank you.”

“...For saying you guys look like shit?”

“No,” Kim Dokja deadpanned while straightening up, “For catching us.”

The woman mouthed an enlightened ‘oh’ and nodded, her sharply slanted eyes crinkling as she smiled, “Don’t thank me yet. I came over in the first place to offer you guys a place to rest for a bit. If you don’t mind following me, I could try and get my friend to patch you up as well.”

She gets right to the point, Kim Dokja observed critically.

Lee Gilyoung didn’t want to interrupt the conversation, but he couldn’t help but whisper a small, “Really?”

Hearing the excitement in Lee Gilyoung’s voice and feeling his own mental exhaustion leave him, Kim Dokja almost responded with the most enthusiastic affirmation of his life. His rationality stopped him like a red light, and he took a small step back.

“That’s very kind, but we can manage.” Kim Dokja reluctantly refused, shoving Bihyung up his back for the millionth time, making the ex-announcer groan.

Upon hearing this, the woman’s face scrunched up in understandable confusion before relaxing, making sense of Kim Dokja’s rationale. 

Slowly, she explained, “I’m not going to…” She waved a hand in the air until she settled on an explanation, “take you to an alley and demand your money.”

I would hope not? Despite his building skepticism, Kim Dokja stayed his tongue, an impressive feat.

“My friend is a wandering doctor, and I work at the tavern just down there.” She pointed closely down the street, cracked with dried mud and dirt, to a building with a protruding sign, “I seriously just want to help. I couldn’t watch you guys wander around and give up.”

“You were watching us? Why come up to help now?” Kim Dokja interrogated. He knew he was being difficult, but in a strange and only slightly familiar world, he couldn’t take his chances with unknown characters like this woman.

For a split second, the stranger looked like she wanted to take Kim Dokja by the shoulders and shake some sense into him, but she soon thought better of it and sighed.

“You want the whole story?” She half-joked before realizing that Kim Dokja really did want the whole story, “...Okay? Uh, well, I was taking out the trash from the night before to prepare to open today, and noticed you two, er, three, making your way down the street while knocking on each door.”

Both Kim Dokja and Lee Gilyoung nodded almost simultaneously, and the woman took that as a sign to continue, “By the time I finished preparing to open, you guys were here.” She gestured with her chin, nodding her head down to their current spot, “I walked over, and that’s about it.”

Humming lightly in thought, Kim Dokja turned to Lee Gilyoung, who was already looking to him for an answer, and then to the newcomer. She looked strong, her forearm bulging as she crossed her arms, and was even only a centimeter below his height. 

If she had bad intentions, Kim Dokja would have no choice but to hope he could wildly swing a fist and bolt away with Lee Gilyoung, dragging Bihyung along the road by the wrist.

“I get it. No one trusts anyone here. I’m thinking now that you lot might put me in danger too, believe it or not,” The woman articulated with full honesty.

It sounded nonsensical, considering the group’s current state, but to Kim Dokja, her confession made perfect sense. Her arms were folded over her chest, but while he turned to right himself a moment ago, he'd caught a glimpse of angry bruises lining her wrist. Where one mark healed, another festered. The implications were grim. Kim Dokja wondered if it was righteousness or intuition that told her to come to their rescue.

Upon realizing she'd probably said too much, the woman took a physical step back and looked askance.

“If you don’t want to head inside, I’ll grab some medicine while you stand by the door.”

She said her last sentence with unwavering insistence, different from when Kim Dokja noticed her voice to be overtly casual. It was all too good to be true, but in their predicament, it was better to take a new route than stick to one already tried.

If she tries to hurt us, at least I’m more prepared. I think a hammer to the head was warning enough to stay more vigilant.

Finally, Kim Dokja conceded, “We’re in your care then.”

The woman spun around to walk with a nod, but before that, Kim Dokja could have sworn he heard an exasperated and grateful sigh, “Tell that to my friend when we get there. You’re in good hands.”

He hadn’t agreed to follow her inside, but as he said, he might as well take the help he could get.

“Noted.”

With Kim Dokja’s last comment, the air between the group went silent. The stranger didn’t want to push for their story just yet, and Kim Dokja just didn’t have the strength to ask questions either. He walked a little slower for a moment to let Lee Gilyoung walk between the two adults.

“Wha…”

An intelligible sound ghosted Kim Dokja’s ear as they walked up to the tavern’s door. His eye almost twitched.

“Sorry, I didn’t ask for your name yet.” Kim Dokja apologized and pinched Bihyung’s forearm as a warning.

The woman smiled again, obviously glad Kim Dokja asked. As she pushed open the door to the tavern, she introduced herself charmingly, “My name’s Jung Heewon.”