The chair landed with a soundless thud, though the earth cracked beneath it as if it had borne the weight of an entire galaxy.
The figure seated upon it wore no face, no constellation cloak, no symbolic regalia. It was not a sponsor, not a system message, not even a recognized god.
But it was watching.
[Final Phase Commenced.]
[Judgment of Narrative Validity Now in Progress.]
Kim Dokja couldn't breathe for a second — not because he was afraid, but because the entire realm had stopped. The false winds, the projections, the ripple of shifting timelines — all of it frozen in the presence of the Judge.
Even Unregistered Reader_XYZ was still, the glowing page fragment dimmed in her hands.
The Judge raised a hand. It held nothing. Then something. A book — or a tablet, or a scroll — shifting shape between formats, as if it too hadn't decided how the story should be recorded.
Kim Dokja swallowed.
He could hear something. Faintly.
A scratching noise.
The Judge is reading.
It wasn't dramatic. There were no explosions. No blazing lights. Just pages turning.
His heartbeat matched the rhythm.
Then:
[Candidate: Kim Dokja]
[Recorded Narrative: 3,927,174 words]
[Conflict with Alternate Narrative: Detected]
[Dominant Themes: Sacrifice, Choice, Companionship, Repetition, Deviation, Acceptance]
[Character Continuity: 94%]
[Deviation Tolerance: Within Limits]
A pause.
[Candidate: Unregistered Reader_XYZ]
[Recorded Narrative: 3,881,000 words]
[Conflict with Canon: Medium]
[Dominant Themes: Authorship, Regret, Justification, Control, Reclamation]
[Character Continuity: 87%]
[Deviation Tolerance: Flagged — Pending Clarification]
Kim Dokja's eyes flicked to the girl.
She was unreadable. Her jaw was clenched. The pen in her hand had stopped glowing.
"You think this ends with metrics?" she whispered. "That truth is just a percentage?"
"No," Kim Dokja said. "But the system finally stopped asking who read the story."
He took a breath.
"It's asking who understood it."
The Judge stood. The realm pulsed. From its hand emerged a scale — impossibly wide, each pan large enough to hold a world.
[Weighing Narrative Cores.]
Kim Dokja felt his essence pulled forward — not his body, but his beliefs. His memories. The weight of every choice he'd made. Yoo Joonghyuk in the subway tunnels. Sooyoung's cigarettes. Hyunsung's loyalty. Yoosung's smile.
They formed shapes — abstract, radiant. A web of cause and effect. Mistakes and forgiveness.
Unregistered Reader_XYZ's essence emerged too. Sharp edges. Lonely loops. A story where the world didn't need saving, only rewriting.
And in the middle — the scale trembled.
One side dipped.
Then rose.
Then dipped again.
[Judgment Outcome: Inconclusive.]
Kim Dokja's heart slammed into his ribs.
"What?"
[Both Narrative Cores Maintain Structural Integrity.]
[Neither Candidate is a False Reader.]
[However —]
The pause was long enough to draw blood.
[—Only One Story Can Advance.]
The scale dissolved.
The Judge sat again, slowly. Then it reached out — and pulled something from the void.
A single, unbound page.
Blank.
[Final Decision Delegated.]
"To… us?" Kim Dokja asked aloud.
The Judge didn't answer.
Instead, the blank page hovered between him and the girl, trembling.
Unregistered Reader_XYZ blinked, genuinely confused. "A final vote? You mean… we both write it?"
"No," Kim Dokja said quietly. "We both finish it."
She stared at the page, then him. "You still think you deserve that ending?"
"I don't think I deserve anything," he replied. "But I earned it. So did everyone who walked with me."
Kim Dokja stepped forward.
And so did she.
They both reached for the pen — and it split, neatly, into two.
The page remained whole.
A shared finale.
[Last Command: Write Your Ending.]
They didn't speak.
They just wrote.
Kim Dokja wrote in clean, looping script — a narrative full of imperfect choices, bitter victories, and unbreakable connections.
She wrote with jagged lines — raw pain, careful longing, rewritten loops, and a desperate wish to be understood.
Words filled the page.
And then—
The Judge raised it.
Read.
And finally —
[TIE-BREAKER TRIGGERED.]
[Audience Vote Engaged.]
The sky cracked open.
And they came.
The Constellations.
Not sponsors. Not patrons. Readers.
Thousands. Tens of thousands. Eyes of stars. Voices of galaxies. Each one glowing with narrative hunger.
They had been silent.
Now they would decide.
[Vote Begins: Which Story Will Continue?]
Kim Dokja stood still, heart in his throat.
The girl turned to him, her voice flat. "Even if you win, you'll never know if it was right."
He nodded. "I already don't."
The stars above flared.
And the page began to burn.
End of Chapter 18
.