Chapter 2 - A Game Changer (2)

“I won’t succumb to the fate that you want to force upon me.”


***


I had come to realize over the years that life was like a tomato.

Almost everyone at first thinks that a tomato is a vegetable, but as you grow up, you get the nasty surprise: it’s a fruit.

I like to think that’s how life is: you think it's one thing and then someone has to come along and ruin it all for you.

That was what I was thinking about the day when my life did a 180.

“Aren’t I so wise and philosophical?”

I asked my partner in crime, Carvo Luka, with a grin after explaining my thoughts.

Luka looked at me with a ‘how stupid can you be’ face and said, “Uh-huh, yeah, right.”

I sighed. No one could understand me. “I call it twisted logic.”

“You’re twisted. So twisted that you’re out of your mind.”

I couldn’t hear the rest of the sentence because I had popped my ear buds back in and started listening to Confident by Demi Lovato.

I liked it.

It gave me bad*ss vibes.

I liked being bad*ss.

Luka was saying something in front of me but I ignored him. He waved his hand in front of my face before giving up. Ha, he kind of deserved being ignored.

He was the one who dragged me onto a subway to go to the middle of nowhere.

Oh, yes, he wanted to check out this stupid garden somewhere. He claimed that it was a big maze of some sort that the government wanted to open up later on? Anyway, he wanted to break rules and do some stupid stuff and I was just there to escort him.

Why?

I don’t know. Maybe it was because he pulled the friend card on me.

Or maybe it was because I had literally nothing better to do with my time.

I stared brazenly around me on the subway, noting that most people were yawning and doing all sorts of whatnot on their phones.

After a few minutes, the subway pulled into a station. Luka stood up and pulled one of my earbuds out of my ear.

“Hey, you coming?”

I shook my head. “No, I have absolutely no interest in visiting a garden.”

Luka frowned but dropped my earbud into my open hand. He said, “Catch you later, then,” and strode off toward the exit.

I thought that he was mad at me.

But, it didn’t matter. Luka had a bad temper but he forgave easily. Short mushroom.

I pulled out my own phone and began to search up several novels. I wasn’t big on reading, but I was bored and I happened to download the app just a few weeks ago, so I might as well use it.

[Dragon Rider of the Abyss]? Sounds too cliche.

[The World After the Fall]? I had already read that one.

[When Death Reigns From the Skies and Heaven Greets its Blessing]? ...Nope, no thanks.

One caught my attention.

[Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World]

Huh? What was this? I clicked on it hesitatingly and as the chapter count appeared on the cracked screen, fear blazed through my veins.

The agony!

I kept scrolling down... and down... and down while trying to withhold mental tears.

There were 3,149 chapters, with more than 95% of the total chapters views being one! I could barely wrap my head around it; someone who could write 3149 chapters?!

Such dedication, ah. I couldn’t even match one hundredth of that effort even if my life was on the line.

I clicked on the first chapter, seeing that it was published around ten years ago. I quickly read the chapter, reading bits and chunks of information.

[Yoo Joonghyuk gritted his teeth, his grip on his sword tightening with every step she took.]

[This was only his third regression and yet...]

[That Heavenly Martyr Demon constellation had wanted to be his sponsor. Yoo Joonghyuk looked up at the sky and with an almost imperceptible sneer, he said condescendingly, “Scram.”]

[It was the legendary Yin-Yang Sword that he was unable to retrieve in his past regression.]

I was completely sucked into my phone as I wiped the non-existent sweat from my forehead. The chapter had a mind-blowing 30k words, so I decided to throw reading carefully out of the window and skimmed the whole thing. I noted the most important things and completely forgot the unimportant.

At the end of the chapter were a few comments. They were relatively ordinary, like commenting about what had happened or congratulating the author. But even I could see that they were being fake; the novel was poorly written.

I could barely understand what was happening, though maybe that was also due to the massive worldbuilding.

There was only one comment that stuck out to me and that was the one with the username of ‘Kim Dokja.’

He sounded quite sincere.

I didn’t really enjoy the novel, but something in my head nagged me to keep reading so I clicked the next chapter button and also started skimming it, too. As a (fake) fortune teller, relying on your intuition could save you a lot of trouble.

The next chapter proved to be even more interesting than the first.

In short, [Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World] was about a 28 year-old man named Yoo Joonghyuk, the protagonist of the novel. In the apocalypse, when there were terrifying ‘scenarios,’ constellations, and dokkaebis, he was the most powerful of them all.

Why?

He had the stigma [Regression]. When he died, he would ‘go back in time’ and be able to start again.

However, unlike what I first thought, it was less like going back in time than creating an entire new world and leaving the old one.

When Yoo Joonghyuk regressed, the old world was destroyed without him and it seemed that a new world wine was created. He could start from the beginning and learn from his mistakes. However, as a regressor, he didn’t truly know the future.

He only knew what he had experienced in his past life and so, once he changed that future, he didn’t know anything anymore.

The novel began in his third round and rarely even talked about the 0th, 1st, or 2nd round. It seemed like the author wanted to be mysterious about his past.

I definitely did care because the man was a jerk.

I mean, I get it. Anyone can become a jerk after experiencing several lifetimes. But, this Yoo Joonghyuk seemed to be getting darker exponentially as he repeatedly died and saw his companions die.

By then, I was skimming the whole chapter as quickly as I could. In the world of TWSA, it was a regular world. It was literally modern day... until it wasn’t.

An apocalypse struck and strange beings called dokkaebis suddenly started ‘streaming’ to please their audience, the mysterious constellations. In that world, humans had to go through grueling scenarios filled with deception, monsters, and death. The constellations were like gods, with powerful skills and stigmas.

Their real name was unknown and they were known by their modifiers.

The people, called incarnations, could choose a sponsor out of the constellations that wanted to sponsor them. The constellations gave them stigmas, items, and starter packs so they would have a higher chance of surviving. But not all constellations were like that.

One, in particular, only chose his incarnations for fun, supporting their incarnation’s enemies and abandoning them once they got bored.

Yoo Joonghyuk’s sponsor was unknown. His constellation, whose modifier was [???] had only given him the stigma [Regression] and never appeared again.

And so, because of that one powerful constellation, Yoo Joonghyuk was sentenced to a fate worse than death.

He had to watch his companions die over and over again.

It was a tragedy.

And that was only about 15 chapters in!

I had spent several hours skimming fifteen chapters, each with 20k-50k words with intense focus.

I actually wanted to pat myself on my back, it was the first thing that I had done with so much effort and motivation before.

Maybe it was because of some secret voice deep inside my mind which kept insisting to read the novel.

[Read it, or you will die.]

What made it interesting was the reader [Kim Dokja] who always left comments in all of the chapters. I exited out of the 15th chapter and looked over the chapter count. I randomly clicked on one and started to read it.

Huh?!

The Yoo Joonghyuk of the 999th round was different from before. 999 was selfless, repeatedly sacrificing himself for his companions. By the end of the round, he had lost both of his eyes, his right arm, and his left leg.

He had taken all the brunt for the team.

In fact, because he had sacrificed himself for his companions, they were closer to... the end than before.

Yes, they were advancing to see the end of the scenarios.

It made me see Yoo Joonghyuk in a new light.

Hah.

I snorted and shook my head. Seriously, Hyun Ki? You’re treating this character as if he was real. As if he had truly endured through all of those tragedies. As if he had really died that many times.

It wasn’t real.

Right?

Chapter end