< Episode 5. Villain (5) >
7942? What's that?
"7942."
The man said it again.
I wondered if it was some sort of reader-defined code word.
I should answer correctly.
"Between friends!"
Dansoo ahjussi suddenly exclaimed. He spoke with the speed of a scholarship quiz.
He turned to me and muttered in a half-whisper.
"My mate doesn't know, but that means 'between friends' this days. It sounds like he's happy to
see you."
But no matter how I looked at it, those were not friendly eyes.
The thorn in the man's hand slowly pointed at Dansoo ahjussi. The man's expression turned cold,
and a breathless confrontation ensued.
"9158!"
Kyung Sein shouted fitfully.
The thorn stopped in midair.
"You're a member of the Seven Apostles, right?"
Kyung Sein's expression was somehow flushed as she said that.
The man who retracted the thorn asked.
"Who are you?"
*
After using 'Readers' Comments List' a few times, I slowly realized the generation pattern of the
readers' ID.
For example, Dansoo ahjussi's ID, wldbsdldkQk80, when converted to English based on a
QWERTY keyboard, looks like this
wldbsdldkQk80
=Jiyoon's dad 80
We can convert alsdn0905, Kyung Sein's ID, similarly.
alsdn0905
=Minwoo0905 (presumably his real name).
Both of them were perfect if they wanted their personal information to be leaked.
But the two new people I met were different.
First, there was this guy.
killer_king [1]
=killer_king
Killer King. Aside from the fact that it's a combination of two cool words, it's a pretty
uninformative ID.
On the other hand, the woman over there lighting the 'Magic Power Stove' was a little different.
ansgkrthsu64.
=LiteraryGirl64
I didn't recognize her nickname, but it was clear that she was a book lover.
Literary Girl 64 placed the freshly caught ground rat meat on the Magic Power Stove and began
roasting it with medicine.
"Sit down for now."
Killer King commanded us confidently, then sat down himself.
He hesitated a moment, then added some words.
"I guess it doesn't matter if I speak informally. This isn't 'real life' anyway."
"This is real too."
"No, this is a 'new world' dominated by 'new laws'."
If that is the mindset of a reader who has read Omniscient Reader 99.8 times, I can only respect
it.
Kyung Sein and Dansoo ahjussi didn't seem to disagree. We are all adults.
"Are all three of you readers?"
"Yes, as you can see."
"How do you know the password of the Apostles?"
The Seven Apostles. I had heard the name of the community from Kyung Sein before.
She replied.
"I was a member of the community, though I was rarely active."
"Nickname?"
"Judge Heewon."
After a moment of thought, Killer King asked.
"Are you the guy who used to post pictures of his abs on the message boards all the time?"
"Ah! You remember."
"It'd be strange if I didn't remember. You've been doing the same thing every day for two years."
"Haha, yeah, I did."
"It's a shame you don't have abs to show off."
Kyung Sein looked down at her tiny body and chuckled.
"Still, it's fun to start anew. And here, you just level up your stats and your body improves on its
own."
"It's a convenient world."
"Now I'd like to hear about you."
"I'm Killer King."
Kyung Sein's mouth dropped open.
"Killer King? Are you really the Killer King?"
Killer King nodded, and Kyung Sein shuddered.
I asked in a whisper.
"Is he a famous?"
"Of course he is. There's no one who doesn't know his nickname."
I don't know, but that Killer King seemed to be very important in that world.
"Killer King-nim is the Second Apostle of the Seven Apostles."
Since they were the Seven Apostles, it must have a total of seven leaders.
This means that the Killer King in front of me is the second of them.... Wait. So there's someone who's read more than him?
As if reading my mind, Kyung Sein whispered.
"Rumor has it that the First Apostle has read Omniscient Reader over 100 times."
Killer King, who had overheard the conversation, stepped in.
"It's not 'Omniscient Reader', it's the 'Book of Revelation'. I see you've already forgotten the rules
of the Seven Apostles."
"Oh, yes, I did. I'm sorry."
"And I was about to reach the 100 readings myself."
"Stop talking about pathetic things and eat."
Everyone turned around at the sound of her voice. Literary Girl 64, who had been silent for a
long time, opened her mouth for the first time.
Perhaps because of the sudden attention, Literary Girl 64 lowered her head blushing and looked
down at the stove.
Kyung Sein asked Killer King.
"Is she also an 'Apostle'?"
Killer King picked up a skewer of ground rat and said.
"She's just my younger sibling."
"Ah, so your sister has read the Book of Revelation."
"No, I haven't."
"What? And yet you ended up in Omniscient Reader?"
At that, Literary Girl 64 glared at Killer King.
Killer King coughed lightly and replied.
"I told her about the Book of Revelation a few times."
"How many times?"
"...Quite a few times."
Suddenly, I understood the meaning of (12.8 times) in Literary Girl 64's information list.
She shook her head as if she was bored, and handed us each a skewer of ground rat.
As I was about to take the skewer, Literature Girl 64 glanced in my direction. When I looked
back at her, she bowed her head and mumbled something.
I wasn't sure, but she seemed to be thanking me.
I think she was thanking me for telling her the attack pattern earlier.
"What?"
She just smiled and handed me the skewer.
I'm touched. This is completely normal.
It was painful to think that the one who didn't read Omniscient Reader was the most normal.
[The constellation 'Prisoner of the Golden Headband' smacks his lips.]
[The constellation 'Sneaking Schemer' gulps down his saliva.]
I was really hungry, and the sight of the golden brown meat in front of me was hard to resist.
Kyung Sein asked.
"May I eat it?"
"Of course."
"Thanks for the meal."
We started tearing into the meat without anyone stopping us. When you're eating something really good, there's a natural silence. No one said a word, but we
were all thinking the same thing.
「This is really good.」
The meat that existed only in text has become real. The seasoning that the younger sibling made
was just right.
"Ha, it's really good."
"You're very skillful."
Only after barely tearing off one leg piece by piece did Kyung Sein and Dansoo ahjussi express
their admiration at the same time.
Literary Girl 64 smiled silently.
Killer King also shook his head as if the meat wasn't bad.
"Killer King-nim. I'm actually a real fan of yours. I also remember the comment war you had
with the members of the Misreading Association for three days and four nights."
"You remember that useless stuff."
"Seriously, I can't tell you how lucky I am to see you here. I've almost died several times, but
you've read the Book of Revelation 99 ti—"
"Almost 100 times."
"I never thought I'd meet the Killer King who read it almost 100 times...."
"Why are you glad you met me?"
"What? It's you we're talking about."
"I could be a bad guy."
Kyung Sein's eyes widened.
"Don't say that. No one who has read the Book of Revelation all the way through is a bad
person."
I was speechless for a moment.
Even more surprising was Killer King's response.
"Not everyone who reads it is a good human being."
He said so seriously, immersed in a strange sense of sorrow. It would have been a bit cool if his
name wasn't Killer King.
Kyung Sein was speechless, while Dansoo ahjussi looked lethargic, perhaps because he was full.
Since no one else spoke up, I had to point it out.
"By the way, your way of speaking is strangely similar to someone's."
"No."
"You must like Yoo Joonghyuk."
Literary Girl 64, who was next to me, made a raspy, windy sound.
Killer King looked at me and asked.
"You hardly ate the meat."
"I'm a slow eater."
"What's your nickname?"
"Oh, he's not an Apostle. He doesn't join any comms."
Killer King's eyes narrowed at Kyung Sein's comment.
"How many times have you read the Book of Revelation?"
"I don't remember, but I must have read it more than 10 times."
[Someone has used 'Lie Detection'.]
Wow, he already had [Lie Detection]?
[The other person has confirmed that the statement is true.]
If I've read it 100 times it's also more than 10 times.
"I see. You'll be an intermediate apostle by 10 times."
I was surprised to see Killer King looking at me in pure amazement.
I didn't realize there were grades for apostles.
"I'm flattered."
"How did you know about the last pattern of the 'Dark Keeper'? That doesn't even appear in the
Book of Revelation."
"It just came to me."
[The other person has confirmed that the statement is true.]
Killer King had a questioning look on his face.
"You must have a foresight skill."
"Well, I do have the ability to find out hidden information."
I have notes that only I know about, so this wasn't a lie.
[The other person has confirmed that the statement is true.]
Killer King nodded and said.
"Interesting."
A moment of silence.
I spit the bite of skewer I'd taken on the floor and stood up slowly.
"I'm not that interesting."
At the same time, Dansoo ahjussi and Kyung Sein fell sideways.
I glared at the two people in front of me, holding the spike in my right hand.
Killer King held the spike like me, ready for battle. And beside him, I could see Literary Girl 64,
her head down. Killer King said.
"They're not dead, just asleep."
If it's a sleeping potion you can get early on, it's probably the stem of yanaspleta.
I don't know how they got it, but they were prepared.
"Why did you do this?"
"I have two reasons."
Killeer King looked at the 'Dark Keeper' fallen on the distance.
"One. You were going to attack us."
"We weren't."
"Two. I smell blood on you."
"That's because we caught a lot of ground rats."
"The smell of human blood."
I paused for the first time.
"Even if you know the contents of the Book of Revelation, you are, at your core, an ordinary
human being. Few humans can kill their own kind without hesitation because they're suddenly in
a novel."
"True, but if you want to protect yourself, you have to fight."
"The average reader has a pattern. If you've been lucky enough to find a bug and kill it, you
wouldn't have killed anyone yet, but if you had to kill someone, you would have killed one. But."
Upon closer inspection, one of Killer King's eyes shined in an unnerving dark red color.
I knew what that skill was.
"You have killed at least ten human beings."
It is the stigma of an archangel who can read the sins of others.
[Eye of Sin].
"Anything else to say? Murderer."
It seems that 'Killer King''s sponsor is 'Archangel Jophiel'.
Author's Note
Thank you.
[1] It was written in English in the original.