If Kim Dokja remembered the events of the first few scenarios correctly, then Yoo Joonghyuk should be making his reappearance soon enough. That was just fine in his mind—after all, he could never hope to be anywhere close to as interesting of a protagonist as Yoo Joonghyuk was. His mere presence would make the whole thing better, in Kim Dokja's humble (and objectively correct) opinion.
Jung Heewon sighed and rested her cheek on her hand. "Even though I was here, I missed everything. I guess one good point of this weird scenario is that I can finally understand just what was going on while I was unconscious."
[The constellation 'Demon-like Judge of Fire' praises the incarnation 'Jung Heewon' for looking on the bright side.]
Jung Heewon glanced up at the starry ceiling and smiled. "Thanks."
Dokja's group arrives at Chungmuro station, and Sangah immediately comments that it feels eerie.
'There are a lot of dokkaebi channels since the scenario is becoming more large-scale,' Dokja thinks as he sees more pop-up with the channel names of other dokkaebi.
People are seen sitting around and chatting as a window informs Dokja's group that they're now in the third main scenario. A drunk man notices them and calls out to them.
"Hey, little samurai. You've brought newbies."
Dokja just mentally remarks that the man would regret calling her a samurai if he knew who her sponsor is. Jihye confronts the drunkards on their drinking habits in the apocalypse, but they laugh it off while being impressed that the group came through the tracks. Noticing Sangah, he states he knows of a cheap Room if she wants it.
"Sorry? A Room?" Sangah asks, but the drunkard's sorry attempt at an explanation is cut off by Jihye. She threatens them with her sword before she turns back to Dokja's party and tells them they're on their own now.
'Would it hurt to be a little polite?' Dokja wonders with a deadpan as Jihye starts to walk away.
Lee Jihye laughed awkwardly. "Sorry, ahjussi, I was just a bit on edge."
Well, that was expected. Still, it had certainly made an interesting first impression.
"You were a bit mean at first," Lee Gilyoung admitted, shooting her a withering glance before he paused and lightened up a bit. "You're a lot cooler now, though."
[The constellation 'Abyssal Black Flame Dragon' says that the incarnation 'Lee Jihye' is cool because she is a teenager.]
Kim Dokja wanted to scoff. Just how old did this dragon think he was, anyway?
Lee Jihye laughed and scooted over to ruffle Lee Gilyoung's hair, making the younger boy look up at her with a strange mix of a pout and a frown on his face. "Hey, leave my hair alone!"
"But you let ahjussi do this all the time," Lee Jihye protested. "Why not me?"
Lee Gilyoung even let go of Kim Dokja to cover his head with his hands in a pitiful attempt to keep his hair unruffled. He scowled at her as he replied, "Hyung is hyung, and he can do whatever he wants."
Lee Jihye let out a huff. "But your hair is so fluffy… ugh, fine."
Her gaze flicked over to Yoo Joonghyuk and his artfully tousled hair for a moment, and Kim Dokja had to choke back a laugh. She might be his apprentice, but did she have a death wish!?
After a moment, she seemed to decide that the risk wasn't worth the reward, but she stayed sitting in between Lee Gilyoung and Lee Hyunsung as they went back to watching.
"Yoo Joonghyuk is here too, right?" he asks her, and she stops with her eyes wide. Immediately, Jihye turns around and demands to know who he is. Her expression is furious, and she starts to unsheath her sword as a clear threat.
It looks like Yoo Joonghyuk already did a number on her. I understand why, though. A constellation at the level of the Maritime War God is a rare find.
'If I were in his shoes, I would have looked for her as soon as I got here too,' Dokja thinks before continuing as his group members look at him in varying degrees of worry. "I'm Yoo Joonghyuk's companion who has returned alive."
Naturally, Jihye doesn't believe him, but Dokja says Joonghyuk will know who he is if she tells him what Dokja said.
"Where is he now?" Dokja asks curiously.
"Master isn't here right now." Jihye shoots back, suspicious.
'She calls him master? What have you done to the poor kid, Yoo Joonghyuk…?' Dokja wonders before telling Jihye he has a message for Joonghyuk.
Jihye pauses, and it's obvious thanks to her expression that she doesn't trust them at all. She calls out to a freckled teen nearby and tells him to watch Dokja's party while she goes to Joonghyuk. After he asks who they are, Jihye only replies they claim to be Joonghyuk's friends.
"You're friends of Mr. Yoo Joonghyuk?" the boy asks excitedly, and it's so intense that a shimmer can be seen in his eyes and he almost seems to be surrounded by visible sparkles.
Dokja barely pauses to take it in before answering with a matching degree of sparkliness. "Very good friends."
"Dokja-ssi… that's certainly, uh…" Lee Hyunsung trailed off, caught off guard by the way Kim Dokja had decided to respond to the teenager. Yeah, it was overkill and he knew it, but it had just felt right at the time.
To be honest, Kim Dokja was more surprised that Yoo Joonghyuk wasn't getting all huffy and protesting that they weren't friends. That was weird.
Should he push his luck? Ah, fuck it.
"Joonghyuk-ah, you're not going to deny being friends with me?" Kim Dokja teased, glancing over slyly with a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth.
Yoo Joonghyuk looked back over at him and raised a brow. "Do you want me to?"
Wait, what?
[The constellation 'Demon-like Judge of Fire' is shaking her head rapidly.]
Kim Dokja wasn't sure what to say, pinned under the weight of Yoo Joonghyuk's gaze. It was like Yoo Joonghyuk was trying to convey some kind of meaning that was just going over Kim Dokja's head, and he sputtered instead of finding any useful words. "Well, no, I— uh—"
Fuck, why was he getting tongue-tied? Was this a protagonist halo ability? Did normal people lose the ability to function just by being in his presence?
Han Sooyoung snorted and Kim Dokja immediately glanced over at her. She just covered her mouth to muffle a laugh and waved him off.
"Oh no, don't mind me. Just go back to your very awkward tension, you two."
Seriously, what was she even talking about? It wasn't tension, it was just Kim Dokja making a fool of himself unintentionally by underestimating the protagonist's ability to banter, that was all.
It definitely didn't have anything to do with Yoo Joonghyuk and his perfect face and perfect voice and the way his piercing gaze stared straight through to Kim Dokja's soul. Yoo Joonghyuk scoffed and looked away, and Kim Dokja felt a shudder go down his spine—definitely because he wasn't being judged anymore.
The boy then spends a very long time regaling the group with how Yoo Joonghyuk became their group leader. Dokja visibly gets more tired the longer he speaks.
"So Yoo Joonghyuk appeared around three days ago and saved you and Lee Jihye from a pack of monsters. This is the gist of the story, right?" Dokja says, bags visible under his eyes.
'So he was a follower of Yoo Joonghyuk, just like Lee Jihye. I'm not interested in hearing stories about that psychopath.'
This boy doesn't know that Yoo Joonghyuck didn't save him because he was a good man, but only because he was lucky enough to be next to Lee Jihye at the time.
Hyunsung then asks about the food situation at the station, notebook in hand like a good student. The boy tells them that most people rely on Jihye catching monsters and Joonghyuk cooking them. Hyunsung writes this down, much to Dokja's judgement.
"What about drinking water?" Hyunsung continues, his military instincts taking over.
"We make trades with the Landlord Coalition using food and coins," the boy states, catching Dokja's attention.
Now this is getting interesting. The Chungmuro Landlord Coalition. I know them very well from reading TWSA. Their leader who has all of Chungmuro under their control must be one of the Ten Evils.
"Hyunsung-ssi was truly helpful in gathering information here," Yoo Sangah remarked with a small smile.
Jung Heewon nodded in agreement. "Yeah, you can be really responsible too, huh?"
The man beamed in response, incredibly proud of being able to use his skills for the benefit of the group. Lee Hyunsung was basically a large, friendly dog in the body of a man built like a wall. It was an incredibly funny sight.
"I'm more amused by how much this random kid was talking about Yoo Joonghyuk," Han Sooyoung chuckled before sending an odd look Kim Dokja's way. "I'd almost think he was the bigger fan, considering your reactions."
Okay, that was uncalled for. Kim Dokja shot her a glare in response and then rolled his eyes, not wanting to bother responding to her comment. Lee Jihye gasped with widened eyes as she glanced between Yoo Joonghyuk and Kim Dokja, for some reason.
Sure, Yoo Joonghyuk might be a bastard of a psychopath who, in certain regressions and circumstances, didn't care for anyone or anything other than his sister and tearing down the Star Stream with his bare hands, but he was a capable psychopath, okay? He truly embodied the iconic features of a protagonist—he was cool, composed, and powerful. He could silence a room just by stepping through the door, and he could part a crowd with a single word.
No one knew Yoo Joonghyuk better than Kim Dokja, and definitely not this random kid who he just happened to save. Okay, fine, this kid was the only one out of the two of them who had been saved by the protagonist in person—Kim Dokja truly believed that Yoo Joonghyuk was so exasperated with him that he would rather throw him into another monster's mouth than to willingly save him—but that didn't mean he had more knowledge or expertise!
After all, there was no way this guy could know about Kim Dokja's beloved 999th round and how Yoo Joonghyuk sacrificed himself over and over so his companions could live and make it to the end of the scenarios! He couldn't know about just how broken Yoo Joonghyuk had become at the end of his 1863 lifetimes, and he definitely couldn't know what the original 3rd round Yoo Joonghyuk would have been like without any interference from Kim Dokja.
[The constellation 'Secretive Plotter' is wondering what the incarnation 'Kim Dokja' is thinking.]
Nothing important, leave him alone.
"They keep mentioning something called a Room. What are they referring to?" Sangah questions as they walk, with Dokja carrying Heewon this time. The boy points to a section on the floor that is lit up with a green light, and the words Green Zone 0/1 float above it. People are fighting near it, and Sangah asks about the purpose of these Green Zones curiously. The boy only explains that they call them Rooms, they have to do with the scenario, and that most are under the control of the Landlord Coalition.
"Didn't Yoo Joonghyuk do anything about this?" Dokja asks, causing the boy to stutter in his steps. "I thought he saved you?"
"Well…" The boy begins slowly. "He told us to fend for ourselves."
Yoo Joonghyuk probably didn't ask these people to follow him. They must have been drawn to him because of his overwhelming power.
'Yoo Joonghyuk is straying off his original path. His current third round is slightly different. I need to find out what he's doing differently this time around,' Dokja thinks as the boy looks downcast at his admission.
Han Sooyoung glanced back at him in exasperation. "This is what you get for fucking around with the original events."
"Do you think I wouldn't take some degree of butterfly effect into account?" Kim Dokja asked her, and she only sighed. Honestly, she said that as if she didn't cause massive waves herself.
Yoo Joonghyuk looked pensive for a moment, but he seemed to come to a conclusion and once again pinned Kim Dokja under the weight of his gaze. "Kim Dokja, tell me about the original third round later."
What? Yoo Joonghyuk actually wanted to hear about the original novel?
"Pardon?"
"You heard me," the protagonist said with a slight growl in his tone, almost seductive as a result. Kim Dokja shuddered.
Okay, okay, fine, just stop talking like that! It wasn't good for Kim Dokja's heart—it made him think that Yoo Joonghyuk might be on the verge of snapping if he wasn't acknowledged. Plus, couldn't Yoo Joonghyuk consider having mercy on any women in the area? He couldn't just talk like that and expect people to be unaffected!
"Yeah," Kim Dokja replied in a much less sure tone than he was hoping for. "Later."
As they keep walking, they approach a group of people and the boy says the bathroom is just beyond them. People can be heard yelling and trying to bargain with a Gong Pildu, but members of the Landlord Coalition are holding them back.
'I have a feeling that the Ten Evils will be here as well, but they look so much alike it's hard to tell…' Dokja thinks as he casts a glance over the members of the Landlord Coalition.
Suddenly, Gilyoung runs out into the crowd to get through to the bathroom, but as he darts around several people, he gets knocked over and falls. To his dismay, his hands land just over the boundary of a Green Zone.
[The incarnation 'Lee Gilyoung' has trespassed onto 'Private Property'!]
Immediately, the Green Zone turns red, and members of the Coalition try to intimidate him with weapons. Dokja and the others rush through the crowd to reach the front and help him, but one of the men puts his hand on top of Gilyoung's head as mounted gatling guns materialize around the zone and point their barrels at Gilyoung.
[The stigma 'Militarized Zone lvl. 3' of the character 'Gong Pildu' has been activated!]
[The character 'Gong Pildu' is demanding a payment of 500 coins for trespassing.]
[All turrets in this area will initiate fire if his demand is not met.]
The man takes his hand off Gilyoung's head, holding it out as he waits for a transfer. "Hey, hand over your coins."
Yoo Mia looked at the screen with a disturbed expression. "Seriously? It was just your hands! That's not fair!"
Shin Yoosung nodded as well. "I might not like that you try to hog ahjussi, Bug Boy, but this is really stupid."
Lee Gilyoung shrugged and grinned. "I was fine! Dokja-hyung came to fix everything."
Hey now, don't give him too much credit. Yoo Joonghyuk did at least half the work just by showing up.
"You sure you weren't scared?" Shin Yoosung asked with narrowed eyes, and Lee Gilyoung just rolled his instead of replying.
These kids knew it was okay to be scared when getting threatened, right? Why was he trying to act strong now?
Yoo Sangah smiled gently. "Just be more careful when running next time so you don't fall, okay?"
All three kids nodded, even if they huffed a bit, and Kim Dokja had to wonder if Yoo Sangah would have made a good teacher in another life. The kids seemed to genuinely respect her, which was more than he could say for himself.
[The constellation 'Prisoner of the Golden Headband' thinks the children are endearing.]
Now that was something Kim Dokja and the great sage could agree on.
Shin Yoosung was adorable, even if she was gradually getting more and more territorial for some reason. Lee Gilyoung was like a small puppy when it came to Kim Dokja, even if he was a bit concerned about the kid's more… feral… moments. Yoo Mia, of course, was like a tiny, female version of Yoo Joonghyuk, which automatically made her cute. She had his looks, after all, and those more than made up for her standoffish attitude.
As the kids bickered and squabbled over what they would have done differently in the scenario, which transitioned into the three of them insulting the unkempt facial hair of the members of the Coalition, Kim Dokja watched them with a fond smile. It would be nice if they could get more time to just be kids like this.