Chapter 3 - CHAPTER 2

"It's a dokkaebi. Someone said that the moment it first appeared."

I didn't know why that sentence suddenly popped into my head.

A subway that had made an emergency stop.

A darkened train car.

Not enough detail to give me déjà vu—emergency stops happen, rare but not unheard of.

And yet, why?

The opening lines of that familiar novel kept repeating in my head.

But that's ridiculous.

No way, right?

That's when the front door of car 3807 slammed open and the power came back on.

Yusangah, who was beside me, murmured quietly,

"...Dokkaebi?"

My head buzzed.

The novel I knew and the reality in front of me overlapped, and my surroundings trembled with unease.

"Two small horns. A strange creature covered in a tattered cloth, its fluffy down fur floating in midair."

"Too bizarre to be called a fairy, too wicked for an angel, too innocent for a demon."

"That's why it was called a dokkaebi."

And I already knew exactly what that dokkaebi would say first.

「&@#!&@#...」

[&@#!&@#...]

Fiction and reality overlapped perfectly.

"What the hell is that?"

"Is this some kind of AR thing?"

As the murmurs rose around me, I felt like I was the only one being thrown into another world.

That was definitely a dokkaebi.

The very dokkaebi that always opened the tragedy in the thousands of chapters of Ways of Survival.

...My thoughts were interrupted by Yusangah's voice.

"It kind of sounds like Spanish. Should I try talking to it?"

I was too dumbfounded to respond logically.

"...Do you even know what that thing is? What, are you going to ask it for a loan?"

"Well, not that, but..."

That's when we heard it—clear, flawless Korean.

[Ah. Ah. Can you hear me? Geez, I had such a hard time without the Hangul patch. Everyone, can you hear me clearly?]

Maybe it was because the language was familiar, but I could see the tension easing from people's faces.

The first to speak up was a large man in a suit.

"Hey, what the hell are you doing right now?"

[...Huh?]

"Is this some kind of film shoot? I've got an audition to get to, so I need to go."

He looked unfamiliar, probably a no-name actor or something. If I were a casting director, I'd have picked him on the spot for his confident voice.

But unfortunately, the being in front of him wasn't a director.

[Ah, an audition! Right, people go to those even at this hour. Ha, guess my research was off. I thought there'd be the most users logging in around 7 p.m.]

"What? What are you talking about?"

[Now, now. Everyone, please calm down and take your seats. I have something very important to say!]

A suffocating pressure started to build in my chest.

"What is this?! Get the train moving already!"

"Someone contact the conductor!"

"What do you think you're doing, blocking citizens like this?!"

"Mom, what is that? Is it a cartoon?"

There was no doubt.

This was exactly how it went.

I had to stop it.

But there was no way to do so.

No one would believe the words of a weird, cute-looking CGI blob.

The only thing I could do was stop Yusangah, who was about to stand up without realizing the danger.

"Yusangah-ssi, stay still. It's dangerous."

"Huh?"

Startled, she looked at me with wide eyes.

I had blurted it out, but even I had no way to explain what I understood.

Or more accurately—there was no need to explain.

[Jeez, so noisy.]

Because the being in front of us had more persuasive power than anything I could say.

[I said shut up.]

The dokkaebi slowly closed its eyes and opened them again—its pupils now glowing red.

There was a crack, like something shattering, and silence fell over the subway car.

"Uh... Uh... Uh..."

A large hole had opened in the forehead of the aspiring actor.

His lips moved faintly for a moment, then he collapsed where he stood, eyes glazed.

[This is not a movie shoot.]

Another wet cracking sound echoed.

This time, it was the woman who had mentioned the conductor.

[It's not a dream. Not a novel.]

One by one, streams of blood began erupting in midair.

People's heads were bursting open.

Anyone who had complained to the dokkaebi.

Anyone who had screamed or resisted.

Anyone who made the slightest disturbance had a hole blown through their head.

In an instant, the subway turned into a sea of blood.

[And it's not the 'reality' you used to know either. Do you understand now? So shut up and listen to what I have to say.]

More than half the passengers were dead.

A subway full of blood and corpses during the evening commute.

Now, no one screamed anymore.

Like primitive apes facing a top predator, everyone just stared at the dokkaebi, frozen with fear.

I held down Yusangah's trembling shoulders, trying to steady her hiccuping breath.

This was real.

Even when I heard that strange message whispering in my ear, even when the dokkaebi appeared before my eyes, it still hadn't felt real.

But now, looking at the train car turned into a sea of blood—it was starting to sink in.

[Everyone, life must've been pretty sweet up until now, huh?]

In the priority seats, an elderly woman who locked eyes with the dokkaebi wet herself.

[You all lived for free for far too long. Life's been way too generous, don't you think? Breathing, eating, crapping, and reproducing however you please without paying a damn thing! Ha! What a fking beautiful world you've had!]**

Free?

There was no one in this after-work subway car who'd been living "for free."

This was the space of people desperately scraping by to survive.

This subway, in the middle of the evening rush.

And yet, in that moment, not a single person could speak against what the dokkaebi had said.

[But the good times are over. You didn't really think you could enjoy all that for free forever, did you? It's common sense to pay for happiness. Don't you agree?]

The people gasping for air couldn't respond.

That's when someone slowly raised their hand.

"Uh, excuse me... are you asking for money?"

I couldn't believe someone actually said that in this situation—

And to my shock, it was a familiar face.

"Yusangah-ssi, isn't that guy from Finance?"

"...Yes. That's him."

No mistake. It was Han Myeong-oh, Deputy Director of Finance.

A notorious nepotism hire and the top-ranked boss all new recruits wanted to avoid.

What the hell was he doing on the subway?

"If it's money you want, I'll give you as much as you need. Here, take it. For your reference, I'm this kind of person."

He even whipped out his business card.

People started looking at him with eyes full of faint admiration, as if he were a savior standing up to a terrorist.

"How much do you want? One big one? Two?"

It was way too much money for a mere department head to offer so casually.

There had once been a rumor that Han Myeong-oh was the youngest son of a chaebol family.

Now, it didn't seem so far-fetched—because no regular deputy director would walk around with that many blank checks in his wallet.

[Hmm. So you're saying you humans want to pay me money?]

"Y-Yes! I don't have much cash on me right now, but... if you let us out of here, I'll give you as much as you want!"

[Money. It's nice. A fiber-based plant product imbued with the intersubjective agreement of many humans.]

Han Myeong-oh's face lit up at that. He looked like he was thinking, See? I knew money solves everything.

Poor guy.

"This is all I have right now, but please—"

[That's only true in your little spacetime.]

"...What?"

The next moment, flames erupted from midair.

The checks in Han Myeong-oh's hand all burst into fire and disintegrated.

He let out a scream, stumbling back in shock.

[That crap has no value in the dimensional system of the Great Schema. Try that again, and I'll blow your head off.]

"U-Urgh..."

Terror swept across people's faces once more.

Everyone looked like they were reading a horror novel with the ending already spoiled—you could practically see their thoughts.

"What the hell is about to happen to us?"

Only I knew exactly what was about to happen.

[Sigh. Even now, while I'm talking, your debt is piling up. Well, whatever. Rather than explain it a hundred times, wouldn't it be faster if you just tried earning some money yourselves?]

The dokkaebi's horns extended like antennae, and its small body floated gently toward the ceiling of the train car.

Then, a message rang out:

[#BI-7623 Channel has opened.]

[The Constellations are entering.]

Above the heads of the stunned, blinking passengers, small translucent windows appeared one by one.

[The Main Scenario has arrived!]