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A Kingless World (1)

Kim Dokja could come up with two conclusions.

1. This crazy woman is the first apostle.

2. That same apostle has somehow taken over his workplace.

For some reason, he wasn't really surprised. Too many bizarre things had already happened, it'd be odd to fuss over someone committing office domination.

Still, he couldn't help but wonder how it came to this. It shouldn't be easy to tame a large group of people, let alone rule over them while they tremble in fear.

Of course, unless you're a really bad person who likes power abuse. The apocalypse seemed to have many of those.

"INTRUDER!"

'Huh?'

The man snapped out of his thoughts when he heard a sudden loud yell, turning to see someone already pointing at him.

'Me?'

"GET HIM!" Another person yelled.

Kim Dokja's eyes widened. "WAIT-!"

It was too late. People had already swarmed and tackled him to the floor, and he was engulfed with a strange scent before gradually passing out.

As he lost consciousness, he could hear the distant sound of evil laughter from that vile, vile plagiarist.

"Tie him up."

Oh, for God's sake--

Dokja's vision went black.

When he fluttered his eyes open, he was in a cage. He had to squint from the brightness, his slightly blurry vision slowly focusing to reveal the short-haired woman standing outside the bars with folded arms and an almost Cheshire grin.

For some reason, he felt some sort of deja vu.

"Finally awake, huh?" Han Sooyoung said with a bit of mockery, causing Dokja to roll his eyes.

"You knocked me out for no reason."

"Is it for no reason if you've made me your slave once by forcing me to write a whole book without sleeping?!" Sooyoung argued back, looking visibly annoyed.

Kim Dokja shrugged without any ounce of guilt. "You intruded on my station with the intention of destroying. It was a fair payback."

"Ugh-!" She couldn't even retort to that.

"Anyways, shouldn't you be telling me how you ended up... ruling the place I used to work in?" Dokja asked as he took a look around him.

It was the rooftop of Mino Soft. Although it's only been a little while since he was here, it felt nostalgic. The place where he used to spend time at during break alone because inside the building felt suffocating, had turned into a place where many of these cages were present. Some of them were empty, while some were filled with people lying down or groaning or crying or shouting...

Han Sooyoung's grin returned. "No reason for me to tell you that."

"Figures." Yeah, that was expected. The woman was petty.

Despite that, he asked again. He thought that she would at least answer this question. "Who are these people?"

"Assholes, annoying people, air polluters, waste of space," Sooyoung answered simply.

She couldn't tell him that a certain white masked man had told her she was free to lock up annoying people worse than trash.

"Am I considered as one?"

She smirked. "You are."

Then there was an audible click from the cage's door, causing him to perk slightly before it opened.

"But fortunately for you, I don't plan on keeping you here." She gestured with her hand. "Follow me."

Kim Dokja frowned in confusion, skeptical about the offer but thinking that there was nothing to lose. He stood up, walked out the door, and followed her.

He observed his surroundings. The people within the cages were all roughed up, and he couldn't help but spare them a little bit of his pity. "What are you gonna do to them?"

Han Sooyoung replied as she walked ahead of him. "Not me. The man."

"The man?" He frowned.

Sooyoung turned her head back. "Remember Crimson Reaper? That guy."

Ah.

Dokja nodded slowly before frowning. "What?"

She clicked her tongue. "I know right? People really can't come up with a better name. They just take his red hair and the fact that he takes lives and mash them together."

"No, wait-" he shook his head quickly. "-you actually work with him? I thought you were only threatened?"

"... What's the difference?"

"Ah, so you're like a slave to him too..."

"..."

Han Sooyoung hated the fact that she couldn't refute it.

"Well, either way," she quickly added as they walked in the hallway of the building, heading into a room that Kim Dokja remembered as the CEO's office, "I was told to give you something."

"By the reaper guy?" he guessed as Han Sooyoung pulled out something from the desk.

"By the reaper guy," she confirmed as she handed him a scroll of paper.

Kim Dokja felt wary of the piece of paper. What if something happened once he opened it? Yoo Joonghyuk had accidentally unleashed a curse when opening a mysterious paper during one of the rounds...

Well, right now was still an early scenario so he shouldn't think about it too much. Cursed items were quite rare after all.

He slowly unfolded the scroll...

"... There's nothing here," he pointed out.

It was blank.

"Oh," Sooyoung said as she was reminded of something. "He said you have to give it a drop of your blood."

His face scrunched up.

'... Isn't that weirdly suspicious? Is this a ritual? Am I summoning a demon? Maybe I'm being tricked into giving up my soul?'

"I can tell what you're thinking," Sooyoung deadpanned. "None of those are gonna happen. He might be a scary guy, but he's someone who keeps his word. I think it's worth listening. He won't hurt you if you're not on his list of bad people."

A list of bad people? What is defined as 'bad people' in his book?

"... Are you sure my name isn't in there?"

Sooyoung shrugged. "He seems practical. If he wanted to kill you, then he wouldn't go out of his way to do this by involving me. He'd just finish you off personally. You've heard what happened to the other apostles."

That was a good point.

Now that he thought about it, if Kim Dokja were to decide, he wouldn't know which was scarier, Crimson Reaper with his mysterious grudge or the crazy bastard with ginger hair who kept mouthing about the story.

Crimson Reaper seemed to be helping him in the background during the flag scenario through Cale, and now with this scroll through Han Sooyoung. In comparison, the crazy bastard was intent on killing him.

...

Kim Dokja couldn't help but feel like he was somehow stuck in the middle of chaos, and while he knew everything about Ways of Survival, there was a big chunk of information that he was missing.

'... Yoo Joonghyuk's information showed that this is the 3rd round. I never thought about it much, but... why the 3rd round? Why not the 1st? Why not the 2nd? Why not the 1863rd? Why did reality and the novel decide to merge in this particular round? And why do anomalies keep appearing? Are we all going through an alternate 3rd round...?'

There were so many questions with so little answers.

Kim Dokja wasn't sure how to act, but one thing his mind was telling him was that there was one person who could guide him.

He prickled his hand with his knife and watched as the blood dropped onto the blank scroll.

The red spot on the paper seemed to gleam, and something inside him trembled as the scroll instantly burned away, turning into ashes.

'... What just happened?'

He didn't feel any different, though he wasn't sure if that was a good thing. The paper just crumbled to dust in front of his eyes. 

"Am I going to die?" he asked no one in particular.

Unfortunately for him, Sooyoung was there. "I hope so," she replied with a shrug.

Kim Dokja would've thrown his sword if he had it with him, but it wasn't there, most likely confiscated. He decided to brush off her comment to announce, "I have to go."

"No one's stopping you."

He frowned. "... You're not stopping me?" 'Not even after drugging and caging me?'

"No. I have no use for you anyway."

'Ouch.'

Of course, that was a relief. He could proceed with his plans regarding the fifth scenario now.

Kim Dokja nodded, and he was about to ask for his weapons back when both of them heard a loud commotion. A feral howl and scream came from the rooftop where they once were.

What was that?

"Tch. That noisy bastard's awake again," Sooyoung clicked her tongue in irritation and quickly marched out. Naturally, Kim Dokja followed.

Upon returning to the rooftop, this time, he was greeted by the sight of an angry werewolf beast...

There were too many cages that he hadn't even noticed it at first.

An outside species?

During the flag scenario, those outside of the station groups or people who didn't belong in any were called wanderers. Wanderers had their own ways of survival. There were those who still existed as humans and used any means to gain coins, while there were others who gave up on being human and walked the path of a new species.

Werewolves were one of these species.

The outside species had limits but because they gave up on their humanity, they could grow faster than others in the beginning to mid part of the story.

"...They gained the power of the meteorite," he mumbled.

Right now, it was only the fifth scenario. At the current time, the only way people could evolve into werewolves was by using the power of the meteorite. Kim Dokja could guess that the wanderers had already got their hands on one of the meteorites somewhere in the nearest district.

"I'LL KILL YOU! LET ME OUT OF HEREEE!" The werewolf in the cage roared and shouted as he punched the steel which didn't even bend, his yellow eyes shining in a manic light.

'Crazy. Han Sooyoung managed to detain this beast?'

Not only was he an outside species, but it was a 6th grade too. Even higher than the fire dragon, Igneel, when his supposed existence was revealed in the novel being a 5th grade upon hatching.

[The 6th grade outside species, Song Minwoo has triggered 'A Predator's Threat Lv. 5!']

[The character 'Han Sooyoung' has used 'Mental Barrier Lv. 3'.]

"Yah! You're disrupting the whole neighborhood, do you want to die?!" the short woman said with much irritation, kicking the cage.

The werewolf growled something back at her, but Kim Dokja was too distracted to realize.

'Song Minwoo?'

It definitely wasn't the name of a character. Yet he felt like he had heard the name somewhere...

The name was all too familiar that it sent chills down his spine.

Ah... Perhaps...?

It hit him a little too late. Maybe it was because of the circumstances. All his life, Kim Dokja had always been on the receiving end of shitty treatment during high school. Even more so after he was known as a murderer's child.

A memory came to mind. It was the dream he had a few times before. He foggily remembered his days in high school and the gangsters who bullied him. Many years had passed but his facial expression seemed to fit. No matter how much time passed, Kim Dokja couldn't forget that name on the name badge.

Song Minwoo... It must be him.

What a coincidence.

'When I was 17, I used to think that if I had the strength, I would tear apart this guy in front of me.'

However... right now, for the first time, the bastard looked... pathetic. After all, he was like a caged, wild animal, which wasn't a far-fetched statement considering his new appearance.

Kim Dokja watched Han Sooyoung and Song Minwoo argue, and he felt that she was resisting the urge from jumping into the cage and beat the big guy up, which wouldn't be good...

He wanted to do that himself.

"Han Sooyoung," he called.

She looked back at him and spoke flatly, "Kim Dokja."

"Kim Dokja?" Song Minwoo repeated the familiar name.

He ignored Minwoo and flashed Sooyoung a smile.

If any of the teens were here, they would undoubtedly say:

"He's about to scam someone." -Namwoon

"How would you know?" -Bori

"I just do." -Namwoon

"Are you planning on keeping him?" he asked gleefully.

"... I'm not sure yet," Sooyoung replied reluctantly, unsettled by his sudden cheerfulness.

Kim Dokja's smile brightened as he looked up, "I would like to talk to Song Minwoo's sponsor and propose a deal."

___

a/n: I LIIIIVVVEEEDD.!!!

p.s gonna edit some chapters soon so there will be minor changes :D

before i forget: 19k votes! 200k reads! absolute banger! thank you for all ur support <3 i'm so srs, every single read really motivated me to continue this. i'm especially thankful to the ones who took their precious time to leave kind words. i love reading them sm, i always went back to read them every few days. they really kept me motivated to write more and not give up on this precious story :( thank you once again!

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