Sing-Shong

「 For the first time since the fall began, Kim Dokja slept comfortably. 」

–Kim Dokja: Writer, thank you for everything in the meantime. I am looking forward to the epilogue.

They were sincere sentences. Ways of Survival was my life's novel. It wasn't the most popular, but it was the best novel for me.

If this world were a novel, the protagonist would likely be someone like her. In fact, it was an inevitable outcome.

While I hadn't worked hard…

Yoo Sangah had.

While I read webnovels on the Internet…

Yoo Sangah studied diligently.

What would it be like, if I had a life different from the one I had now? In other words, what if the genre of my life had been different?

"Kim Dok…"

If the genre of my life weren't 'realism' but 'fantasy'…

Would I have been able to become the protagonist?

Who knows.

That was probably something I would never find out. However, if there was one I did know, it was this:

"It's fine, Yoo Sangah-ssi."

"Pardon?"

"Even if you tell me the app, it won't be any use."

The genre of my life was plainly 'realism.'

"It's because a Dokja has a Dokja's life, you see."

"Hm? What do you …"

"It's just that some people are like that in life."

And in this genre, I wasn't a protagonist but a 'Reader'.

Everything had returned to normal, but strangely, my scrolling of the novel didn't go well. Maybe it was because I realized the weight of reality that I couldn't scroll down.

…Like my name, I was also a reader by nature. So, I was excited to receive the mail. Yes, it wasn't bad living as a reader.

Something was heading this way in the darkness. It was just a coincidence that I saw the clock at this moment—7:00 p.m.

Tick, it felt like the world was stopping. Then I heard a voice:

[The free service of planetary system 8612 has been terminated.]

[The main scenario has started.]

This was the moment the genre of my life changed.

"Of course, I know what you are thinking. You have to kill your fellow countrymen to live. It is something only sons of bitches will do. But you know, it is a situation beyond our control. Beyond our control. We will die if we don't kill. Who will blame us? Are you going to die in the end because of your morals?"

"T-That…"

"Think carefully. The world you have known so far has just ended."

Han Myungoh's shoulders trembled. It wasn't only Han Myungoh. Cracks were showing in the eyes of the other people present. It was a scene where their vague sense of morality was collapsing. Kim Namwoon put a wedge in that crack.

They were like guards cooperating for the death penalty. Like guards pulling the lever at the same time so they couldn't tell who killed the prisoner, these people passively kicked and punched the grandmother.

…And I was watching all of this. I was standing by, like someone watching something happening in another world. The grandmother whose name I didn't know was someone who wasn't meant to live. In the original scenario, the grandmother died. So… it wasn't a sin to observe that death.

Yoo Sangah's eyes were shaking with fear. Even so… I realized it. Despite the genre of the story changing, some people still shone brightly.