The message echoed like a whisper that had traveled too far to still be sharp.
[The Star Stream is rebooting some of its functions.]
[Star Stream can't find the system.]
[You are no longer "The Character."]
Kim Dokja stood frozen, his fingers curled slightly around the empty air where the window had flickered out. There was no familiar mechanical voice, no stat screen or channel system.
Just the absence of something that had once been omnipresent.
"Dokja?" Jung Heewon's voice brought him back. Her brows furrowed. "You okay?"
He nodded slowly. "Yeah. Just… hearing ghosts."
The others were starting to gather, drawn by the sudden shift in atmosphere. Yoo Joonghyuk looked at him sharply. Han Sooyoung's mouth opened, then closed—she must have seen the same flicker in the air. The kids clustered around Wukong, who now stood straighter, tail twitching with alertness.
Then the sky split.
It wasn't thunder, not really. More like the sound of a book being snapped shut. A seam opened above the hill, crackling with silver threads of starlight that felt like déjà vu.
And from it stepped a figure.
Short, agitated, and very, very familiar.
"…Byoo?" Kim Dokja breathed.
The dokkaebi's silhouette was unmistakable—now wrapped in dark velvet robes that shimmered with stories that didn't exist anymore. Her once childish face had aged, not in features but in presence. Her horns were longer now, almost crownlike, and a jagged cloak of woven darkness fluttered behind her like a shadow remembering how to be light.
"You idiots," she said, glaring at all of them. "You destroyed the damn system."
Han Sooyoung blinked. "Byoo?"
"Who else?" the dokkaebi snapped. "After you cracked open the Final Wall, the whole system destabilized. Star Stream collapsed. The scripts unraveled. I had to remain in Dark Space for who knows how long just to keep the Stream from imploding into chaos."
Shin Yoosung tugged on Gilyoung's sleeve. "Is she stronger now?"
"She's angrier," Gilyoung whispered.
"You're both right," Byoo said, as if she'd heard them.
Kim Dokja stepped forward. "Then why are we still here?"
"I don't know" she said, tone sharp. "All of you. Not as constellations or incarnations—but as something else, I can't even tell the difference without the system. You weren't supposed to make it that far, dumbass."
"I didn't do anything" Dokja said. "None of us did, I simply woken up again, the loop broken and my soul healed."
Byoo's gaze flicked to each of them—Joonghyuk, Sooyoung, Heewon, Sangah, the kids, Hyunsung, Jiyhe, the entire ragged patchwork of a family they'd built.
"No," she admitted. "You didn't."
There was a long pause. Then she held out her hand, and the air rippled like a curtain being pulled back.
[Partial Star Stream Function Restored]
[Scenario System: Offline]
[Sponsorship: Suspended]
[Constellation Registry: Severed]
[Remaining Active Members: Not Available]
"You're not the oldest dream now," Byoo said softly. "You can't speak with the Fourth wall anymore, right?
Lee Jihye, who had woken up just in time to catch the last message, muttered, "That not sound good."
No one spoke.
Then Yoo Sangah stepped forward. "It's true?"
Everyone turned to Kim Dokja.
He hesitated.
Then, slowly, he nodded.
"It's... quiet now," he said. "Like the Fourth Wall is still there, but asleep. I can feel it, sometimes. Like a dream I used to have every night and now only remember in pieces, But I can't tell if its here or not"
He touched his chest, not dramatically, just gently—as if testing the outline of something no longer physical.
"It used to protect me. Whisper to me. Sometimes show me what I didn't want to see. Now it's just… a faint warmth. Like the memory of a hand on my shoulder."
"So, it's gone?" Jung Heewon asked.
"I don't 'know."
"Convenient," Han Sooyoung muttered, folding her arms. "You always wanted to see the ending and know you disappear , what a joke".
Her voice was sharp, but the edge wasn't cruel—it was her assistant for years. And know that Kim Dokja returned, she no longer had any reason to hold it against the one thing that protected his only reader.
He gave her a faint smile. "Maybe because this is not my story anymore."
Han Sooyoung looked away, as if the answer annoyed her more than the question.
Yoo Joonghyuk stepped forward then, his coat fluttering behind him in the breeze.
"If the system is gone," he said, "then so is the status screen. So are skills. Attributes. Buffs. Healing factors."
He looked at his hand like he was trying to see through it.
"I tried activating [Eye of the Sage] this morning. Nothing. It's like my body remembers what to do, but the world doesn't respond."
"It doesn't," Byoo confirmed. "You're not characters anymore. I don't even know what to call you, the constellation maintain part of their strength and ability, but that's the end of it."
Uriel and Wukong stiffened. "Does that mean… if we get hurt now, it won't recover automatically?"
Byoo gave her a look. "You think the laws of mortality care about your sword just because it used to glow?"
A silence fell.
"Then why us?" Yoo Sangah asked again. "Why are we still here? Why the world didn't' freeze if dokja is here"?
"Because something took his place" Byoo said. "You touched the end of the story and came back with your souls intact. The Stream doesn't recognize you anymore because someone transformed this world line in his story."
"We're not special," Dokja said quietly. "Who can do such a thing?"
"No," Han Sooyoung said, voice low but firm. "You changed the story. So maybe at least one in the all universe want to see you happy.
His gaze met Dokja's—unflinching, intense.
"You carried it. And now we carry you."
Dokja blinked, startled.
Even Yoo Joonghyuk looked thrown.
"Did you just say something nice without threatening to kill him first?" she asked.
Joonghyuk turned away. "I'll fix it later."
A ripple of unexpected laughter passed through the group.
"You all have to decide now," Byoo said, watching them. "The world you're in—it won't reset. There's no checkpoint. No regressor. No miracle skill. Just you, I don't even know what this new reader wants."
"Hope it not a tragedy fan." Dokja said.
She nodded.
"Well, you are here now, so make it work, I will come again after I understand what this new reader wants. "
The seam in the sky flickered again, gently, like a chapter coming to an end.
Before she left, Byoo turned once more, softer now.
"By the way… thank you. For finishing it. Not all stories get to end."
Then she vanished.
The group stood there for a long moment, caught in the stillness she left behind.
Then Shin Yoosung looked up. "What do we do now?"
Gilyoung raised his hand. "Can we still have an outing?"
Sooyoung rolled her eyes, but didn't say no.
Kim Dokja looked toward the horizon, then at his companions—every one of them strange and broken and perfect.
"We go house hunting." he said.
A Few Days Later…
The house hunt took longer than expected.
Not because the world was filled with monsters or sudden scenario traps anymore—those were gone. Instead, the challenges were new and annoyingly mundane.
The first house looked nice enough until they realized the plumbing didn't work and the roof caved in when Yoo Joonghyuk leaned against it.
"You're not supposed to lean on the roof," Han Sooyoung deadpanned.
"I wasn't. It leaned on me first."
The second was technically a shed. Shin Yoosung liked it because of the wildflowers growing around the edges, but it had no insulation, and a family of raccoons had claimed squatter rights.
"Can we keep them?" Gilyoung asked hopefully.
"No," Heewon said, voice firm.
Three days turned into four. They walked more than they had in months—real walking, not enhanced by speed skills or strength buffs. Muscles ached. Backs complained. Black flame dragon and Wukong got blisters and made a scene about it.
"We used to fly!" he cried, peeling off his sandals. "Do you know how hard walking is when you've forgotten what gravity feels like?!"
Lee Hyunsung handed him a cup of barley tea and patted his shoulder in sympathy.
They were tired. Sweaty. Kind of annoyed.
But happy.
And maybe that was enough.
They found the house on the fifth day.
It sat quietly on the edge of a sleepy district near the complex, halfway up a hill where the wind didn't feel heavy anymore. Two stories. Old wood, but sturdy. A tiled roof, small vegetable patch out back, and a wide porch that begged for lazy evenings.
No hidden monsters. No system. No channels and scenarios.
Just a house.
"It's... nice," Sangah said first, hands resting on the railing.
"It smells like earth," said Heewon, surprised.
Joonghyuk walked through it twice, opening every closet and lifting every loose floorboard. He looked almost disappointed when he found nothing.
"Sooyoung?" Dokja asked.
She tilted her head. "Ugly wallpaper. Weird curtains. Not cursed. I….. like it."
Then she kicked off her shoes and walked inside.
That evening, Kim Dokja sat on the back step, watching the sun slide behind the hill. The air was filled with the smell of grass, distant smoke, and Wukong yelling because he'd accidentally stepped on a bee.
Someone sat next to him.
"Looks like it's sticking," Han Sooyoung said, sipping canned tea. "Everyone's claiming rooms. Jihye's trying to pick a fight with the water heater."
Dokja exhaled softly. "No magic to fix it."
"Nope. You'll have to fix the sink like a normal person now."
He looked down at his hand. No sparks. No symbols. Just skin and bones.
"I used to be able to survive anything."
"Now you'll have to live through it," she said, not unkindly. "There's a difference."
They sat there, not quite talking, but not silent either. The sunset stretched shadows across the grass like a long-lost script finally coming to an end.
"You still hearing it?" she asked.
He shook his head. "Just echoes. Nothing solid. The Fourth Wall is... sleeping. Or maybe gone."
"Maybe it's a sign that this time you will remain for good."
He didn't argue.
Inside, Yoo Joonghyuk was hammering something onto the wall—badly. Uriel had declared herself the official decorator, which somehow meant putting up five mismatched paintings she'd found in the attic. Yoosung and Gilyoung had already drawn a chalk boundary line dividing their room in half. Lee Hyunsung was trying to cook rice on a stove that no one know where it came from.
It was messy.
But it was home. Our home.
Kim Dokja leaned back and closed his eyes. The wind shifted, carrying with it the sound of laughter, of hammering, of Sooyoung yelling about a loose floorboard.
The world had no more scenario.
No more channels.
No more constellations.
Just people.
And somehow, that was still a story worth living.