As soon as the screen lit up again, Kim Dokja instantly knew that they were being tossed directly back into the action. Thankfully, that fight hadn't been too hard, comparatively.
[Many constellations are looking forward to a thrilling fight.]
As the group runs away, the two injured men are too slow to avoid the next attack, and one of them is already struggling to stay standing. The dinosaur roars and both men are immediately thrown aside by a powerful swipe of the T-rex's tail, coughing up blood as they impact the trees. Reptilian eyes glow red as the dinosaur notices Dokja's group, who have settled down to the side.
Dokja sets Gilyoung down and draws his sword, to Jihye's surprise, and she asks if he's going to try to fight it. Dokja points out that they need to clear a path, and that requires killing it, as he looks past the T-rex to a building located deeper in the forest.
'That building in the back must be the central research lab..!' Dokja realizes as he narrows his eyes and tries to hide his nervousness.
"Have you forgotten? We're inside a movie. Let's make a badass ending," Dokja states, bracing for the fight, as the T-rex roars and activates the [Fear the Predator] skill.
As [The Fourth Wall] blocks the skill effects, he tells Jihye and Heewon to scatter to the sides of the T-rex, and for Gilyoung to fall back. However, he is surprised when he gets a notification that Gilyoung has activated the skill [Dinosaur Book]. A slightly translucent book floats in front of him, glowing green, and it describes the attributes of the T-Rex. Gilyoung dutifully reads it off, and when asked how he knew that, he claims that he'd read it in a book when he was a kid.
Lee Gilyoung blinked in shock for a moment before flushing in embarrassment. "I didn't know you could see that, hyung…"
"I definitely didn't see anything," Lee Jihye muttered as she examined the floating book on the screen. "I'm not sure how useful that will be normally, but it'd be great if we run into any more dinosaurs later."
Jung Heewon nodded, then paused as she remembered something. "Also, Dokja-ssi, you got a notification saying that he used his skill too? I know that's happened before in this recording, but I wasn't sure if it was just for our benefit or not until now."
Now that Kim Dokja remembered it… yeah. From the surprised expressions on most people's faces, that wasn't a universal experience.
"I get them fairly often, actually," Kim Dokja admitted. "Maybe it has to do with an attribute that I can't see, or the fact that I read TWSA?"
Han Sooyoung sighed. "Nope, it's not the second one. I don't get them."
Well, there goes that theory.
[Several constellations are curious about the attribute of the incarnation 'Kim Dokja'.]
At the very least, it was a nice warning system for when certain skills were being used, even if he couldn't guarantee that he had enough reaction time to avoid everything.
As the T-rex begins to charge towards them, Dokja snaps back into focus and begins to attempt to give instructions to his group. However, Jihye and Heewon immediately split off towards its sides without even waiting for him to finish. Dokja is, of course, pleased that they catch on to what he means quickly.
I'm the only one that can act as a tank here.
'It shouldn't be hard for those two to take down the T-rex while I distract it,' Dokja thinks as the T-rex draws closer, bearing down on him ominously.
Suddenly, Gilyoung yells that he'll divert its attention. This worries Dokja but, to his surprise, Gilyoung's skill activates and he calls upon the mantis from earlier. It rushes forward and slices through the dinosaur's eyes with its razor-sharp forelegs, causing the T-rex to roar in pain.
Dokja's jaw drops as he's standing there, stunned. 'No wonder Yoo Joonghyuk wanted to take him!'
Getting back in control of himself, Dokja quickly yells out for the ladies to take advantage of their enemy's stunned state, and the two move to make impressively powerful slices into its legs. Dokja circles around to its back and activates the fire element on
Using all of his agility, he runs up the tail to the back of the T-rex's head before raising his sword and using it to cut as deeply as he can into the back of the dinosaur's neck. He then jumps off the side, using his weight and gravity to drag the sword down through the muscle and meat of the beast before fully activating the sword's effect and roasting it in flames. As the T-rex falls to the ground, defeated, Heewon notes that it smells like barbeque.
Shin Yoosung and Yoo Mia exchanged a resigned glance, as if they were wordlessly communicating. After a moment, Yoo Mia seemed to have lost their impromptu staring contest and sighed dramatically as Shin Yoosung cheered a little.
"Ugh, fine. Good job with the bug there, or whatever," she drawled, making far too much effort to look unbothered. Honestly, it was kind of cute.
Lee Gilyoung huffed and crossed his arms, but he couldn't fight back the slowly-growing smile of pride. "See? Bugs are awesome."
Kim Dokja gently ruffled the boy's hair. "Yup, you did a great job, Gilyoung-ah."
A second later, Kim Dokja let out an oof as Lee Gilyoung practically flopped onto him in a hug, grinning widely.
[A few constellations are enjoying the cute sight.]
Lee Jihye glanced over at the two younger girls before dramatically putting the back of her hand to her forehead and declaring, "What about Heewon-unnie and me? We did a lot of work too, and this kid gets all the credit?"
'Hey,' Kim Dokja thought, 'I was the one who actually killed it, remember?'
The girls rushed to reassure Lee Jihye and Jung Heewon that they were awesome too, of course, to Yoo Sangah's amusement. She was having a difficult time holding back her light laughs as she watched them vehemently insist that swords were "ten million times cooler than bugs," which almost set off another argument with Lee Gilyoung in the process.
[The constellation 'Demon-like Judge of Fire' is laughing happily.]
Now that they're safe, Dokja's group approaches the one living member of the previous team. He's lying on the ground, barely breathing and coughing weakly. Dokja carefully raises his head and tries to give him water, but unfortunately, he coughs it all up along with blood. Dokja regretfully assesses that the man won't make it after giving his injuries a once-over.
"How did you find out about this place?" Dokja asks, trying to make the best of the man's remaining time. He learns that the man got the information from a group who call themselves 'The Prophets' and who claim that they have received revelations. Dokja's eyes widen as he wonders what these revelations could be, but he can't ask any further questions. Unfortunately, the man passes away before he can say anymore.
'Revelations', huh. What amusing bullshit. As far as I'm aware, the only one who possesses such an ability in TWSA is Anna Croft with her [Future Sight], which only leaves one possibility. The fact that they're not here themselves, but rather leaked information about this place as if to test it, makes me certain.
'There are others like me...' Dokja thinks as the group rests for a bit, placing a large leaf over the dead man in lieu of a burial.
It took everything Kim Dokja had to not glance over at Han Sooyoung. Sure, the rest of the group already knew that she had read some of TWSA, so it was obvious that there were other readers out there, but he didn't particularly want them to make the connection between her and the Prophets just yet.
Though some things were rockier than he'd like—he desperately tried to push flashbacks of his impassioned speech out of his mind since that was clearly just a product of temporary insanity—they were still fairly stable overall. He didn't want to shake the boat too much at this point, especially with Han Sooyoung still sitting within Yoo Sangah's stabbing range.
[The constellation 'Secretive Plotter' is feeling slight hostility towards 'The Prophets'.]
"That's despicable," Yoo Sangah hissed, grimacing and tightly fisting her hands. "I can't believe they had the audacity to send others into danger just so they didn't have to risk themselves when they weren't sure if their intel was accurate."
Kim Dokja watched as Han Sooyoung's gaze slid over to Yoo Sangah for a moment before she sighed and (thankfully) ignored her words.
"They're being practical," Yoo Joonghyuk said suddenly, drawing Yoo Sangah's ire. When he noticed her furious expression, he continued. "Practical, yet cowardly."
Han Sooyoung didn't even flinch, which was genuinely impressive considering that the protagonist was staring directly at her as he said that. Shit, did Yoo Joonghyuk want there to be a murder in here? Because that was what would likely happen if Yoo Sangah realized that the First Apostle was sitting near her.
On that note, Kim Dokja internally grimaced, how the fuck would he handle that impending disaster of a situation?
For once, he had absolutely no idea what to do. Both of the biggest players were almost complete unknowns to him, as beings from reality. He couldn't predict their thoughts or actions the way he could with the 'characters', and he hadn't truly seen how awful the attack on Chungmuro had been. Just how much rage was Yoo Sangah carrying beneath that deceptively calm and polite facade?
Once inside the research lab, the group looks over a cabinet full of potions, which are identified by a gleeful Dokja as Stamina, Mana, Agility, and Strength
…Her senses are superhuman.
As she calls the others over, she turns to Dokja and asks for the strength enhancing elixirs.
'How dare this witch lie to me…' Dokja thinks in annoyance as he looks at her [Character Profile], which clearly shows that Strength is her highest stat at level 17. As the others start discussing the elixirs, Dokja seems to feel that giving Jihye potions is wasteful since she's on Yoo Joonghyuk's team and not his.
In response to an indirect from Demon-like Judge of Fire about fairness, Dokja puts forward the idea of doing Rock-Paper-Scissors for the elixirs, to make it totally fair. Although Jihye is psyched, stating she's good at the game, Dokja activates [Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint Level 1].
"Rock, paper…" Lee Jihye says excitedly, preparing herself for the game.
[The character 'Lee Jihye' is preparing to play 'Scissors'.]
Kim Dokja just smiles serenely and plays 'Rock'.
Lee Jihye gasped, pointing at Kim Dokja with an expression that showed just how betrayed she was. "Ahjussi," she hissed, "did you seriously cheat at rock-paper-scissors!?"
What was it she had said earlier…? Oh, right.
"Jihye-yah," Kim Dokja replied teasingly, a shit-eating grin on his face, "I'm just using my skills to survive."
Not even a second later, the girl began cursing violently under her breath.
He couldn't help but tease her more. "And seriously? Asking for strength potions when you had a strength stat of 17? Do you have no shame?"
She looked up from her grumbling with a disgruntled expression that slowly turned into a sly grin.
"Oh, but ahjussi," she crooned in a tone that meant that Kim Dokja would probably be eating his words in a moment, "I still have more shame than you."
Well, fuck. There was nothing he could say to deny that. After all, he did scam a dokkaebi, manipulate a constellation or two, and cheat in rock-paper-scissors—and that was pretty damn shameless.
Han Sooyoung wheezed out a laugh, and even the kids betrayed him by joining her. Seriously? Hadn't Kim Dokja earned more respect than that by being their somewhat glorified babysitter for however long they had spent in this place?
[The constellation 'Prisoner of the Golden Headband' is laughing very hard.]
[The constellation 'Lily Blooming in Aquarius' reminds the incarnations that lying and cheating are bad.]
Bad? Sure, in some perspectives. In Kim Dokja's perspective, though, it was both practical and funny as hell.
As the helicopter comes in and Jihye laments that she lost every round, Heewon asks if killing the T-rex was ok. Dokja points out that it's more entertaining to kill the dinosaur, a point that is proven when the Theatre Master approves of their altered ending.
The key to this Dungeon is not reaching the 'True Ending', but rather the ending that will please the 'Theatre Master'. Note that the Theatre Master is the ultimate psychopath.
Gilyoung wishes a sweet farewell to the mantis, who he has seemingly named Titano.
Monsters created in the 'Theatre Dungeon' are unable to move to the next floor. Only items can be taken—for example, the stat enhancing elixirs from earlier.
As he remembers the results of their epic game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, it's illustrated with a lovely image of Dokja sticking his tongue out at Jihye as she wallows in sadness on the floor, his arms full of 16 potions. Next to him, Heewon and Gilyoung watch passively with 2 potions each.
Or this elixir I gained from defeating the T-rex.
In his hand, Dokja holds the item
'Although it has the disadvantage that it can only be used in the 'Theatre Dungeon', it's impossible to clear the last floor of this dungeon without it,' Dokja thinks to himself as everyone gets settled in the helicopter. 'Especially if Yoo Joonghyuk is in the worst-case scenario that I predicted.'
As the helicopter takes flight, several windows pop up informing them they've reached the first 'Ending Credit', names them as the members of the cast, and gives them a reward of 500 coins each. As the helicopter flies higher into the sky, the entire jungle area vanishes into a series of pixels.
Yoo Joonghyuk narrowed his eyes. "Kim Dokja, you could have given her one or two."
Sure, he could have, but he had no way of guaranteeing that Lee Jihye would be anything more than a temporary ally.
"Yeah, ahjussi, you could have shared," she muttered before sighing dramatically. "Whatever, I'll just have to get stronger than you with Master's help or by training on my own."
"Who cares about that, I had to leave Titano behind," Lee Gilyoung said with a frown and a resigned sigh.
Lee Hyunsung blinked in confusion. "Wait, didn't you offer to let me hug Titano earlier? How…?"
Lee Gilyoung looked at him like he was stupid. "That was Titano I, I offered to let you hug Titano II."
"I… I see?" Lee Hyunsung replied, confused. It was abundantly clear that he very much did not see, and Jung Heewon had to muffle her laughter from beside him.
[Many constellations are confused.]
Yeah, Kim Dokja couldn't even pretend to understand this kid's mind either.
Still, it was a very good thing that they had managed to pick up the potions, especially considering the state that Yoo Joonghyuk had been in. That
Han Sooyoung looked contemplative as she looked at the screen. "It's interesting that you didn't have to follow the exact plot of the movie, though."
[A constellation who likes movies is disappointed.]
[The constellation 'Secretive Plotter' is chuckling.]
Lee Jihye snickered, and Jung Heewon had to suppress another laugh, which made some of the other members of their group trade confused looks.
"Yeah, it's just what's satisfying for the master of the dungeon," Kim Dokja replied, exasperatedly recalling some of their more… extreme measures to reach an ending as soon as possible.
So many murdered NPCs…
[The constellation 'God of Wine and Ecstasy' offers a glass of wine to a constellation who likes movies.]
Yeah, that anonymous constellation was going to need it at this rate.