Grains of Sand (1)
In the detention room prepared inside Fairy Corporation, a festival was in full swing.
“It’s burning up~!”
“Fiiiiiireeeeee~~”
Pam and Ham were dancing wildly as they rewatched the necromancers burning to death on loop.
“Kyarru! I raised him myself, but Julian really is a talent!”
“Yeah. A real disaster. At this rate it’s basically a walking calamity.”
“Ah, no, not that kind of talent! Still… it’s pretty close, right? Kyarru.”
The talent Pam had carefully nurtured had become a full-blown disaster the moment it set foot inside Ram’s story board—their enemy’s domain.
There was no more exhilarating situation in the world.
“But…”
“Yes?”
899 Constellations
“Breaking through the wall for an extra really is difficult.”
Characters had limits on the number of constellations that could watch them, depending on their narrative weight. Extras were capped at one thousand. A gaze from a transcendent number of viewers was too much for any individual to endure, so the system built in a roughly ten-percent cushion. In short, once you hit nine hundred, countless obstacles were deliberately designed to stop you from climbing any higher.
The most obvious of those obstacles was the filter.
“It’s mostly the filter’s fault. Most of the constellations can’t see Julian as he truly is. To them he’s just a roughly sketched background figure.”
The way constellations perceived a character changed completely according to that character’s narrative rank. Just as a random extra in a comic was never drawn with any real detail, Julian appeared to the constellations as nothing more than one more blurry face in the crowd.
“On top of that, his stream time allocation and algorithmic preference are set so low it’s like the final nail in the coffin.”
Once more than eight hundred constellations started watching Julian, the recommendation algorithms would begin excluding him. And if, despite that, more than nine hundred tried to gather on his channel?
The stream would simply cut out from the overload. That was both the safety measure and the shackle provided by the Story Board 3.0 system. No matter how remarkable Julian was, he could not escape these restrictions. It was the same as a high-performance sports car that was legally locked from exceeding a certain speed.
“Hmm…”
Pam stroked her chin.
The Story Board 3.0 system was certainly far more advanced than its predecessor.
“How are we supposed to overcome this?”
“Should we make full use of the item shop we hacked together? If I supply a few more ‘My Way’ series items…”
“No, that won’t be enough. In the end everything revolves around the protagonist. We should create a stronger connection with Kang Hae-il instead…”
Pam and Ham tossed ideas back and forth.
Since they were story fairies, their first instinct was to solve the problem through some form of intervention.
But every single one of their discussions suddenly became meaningless.
“Huh?!”
“…What? Why is… the screen…?”
While they were watching Julian’s stream, the screen faded to black.
Crackle—!
Then an image of the subway interior appeared. More precisely, it was footage someone had taken with their phone camera.
“This… this is…?”
Pam’s eyes widened. She hurriedly switched to another channel.
Kang Hae-il’s stream.
It was the exact same screen.
“J-Julian got dragged into Kang Hae-il’s flashback!”
“What?!”
“This… this is bad, isn’t it?”
Pam shot to her feet.
“If an extra gets caught up in something like this… his entire character could collapse!”
A flashback was a black hole manifested inside the story board—one that twisted the timeline and dragged constellations into the past. Constellations could endure it, but the surrounding characters caught in the pull often could not. Even characters directly tied to the protagonist sometimes broke when pulled in. So what would happen to an unrelated extra who got swept into a flashback?
“What do we do?! Should I head over right now?!”
Ham rose into the air, but Pam stopped her.
“P-Pam?”
“…No.”
Gulp.
Pam swallowed dryly.
“This flashback… it’s not ordinary. It’s not completely unrelated to Julian!”
“…Huh?”
Only then did she realize.
This subway.
It was Line 4.
[Next stop is Dongjak. Dongjak Station. Please exit through—]
The video someone had recorded showed the Line 4 subway on that day as a vision of hell.
“S-save me!”
“Aaaaagh!”
“Don’t push! Stop pushing!”
It had been pure coincidence that anyone was recording at all. The owner of the footage had simply thought the commotion looked interesting and turned on their camera. By the time they realized they were not an exception to the panic, it was already too late.
“Ugh…?!”
The person filming was gasping, shoved back and forth by the crowd.
Thud. Thud.
“Stop pushing! Please stop pushing!”
It was the voice of a young woman. The one filming was most likely female.
“I-I can’t breathe… I can’t breathe…!”
She and a large group of adults were crammed into an impossibly tight space right in front of the door leading to the next car.
“Open the next car! Open the door to the next car!!”
Young men nearby shouted in protest, but she had no control over it either.
“It won’t open! No matter what I do it won’t open! Help! Please open it!”
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The camera owner was practically sobbing as she begged, but the door to the next car refused to budge.
Then—
“I know how to open it! I’m a former firefighter! Please make some room!”
A sturdy middle-aged man pushed his way through the press of bodies.
“It’ll only take a moment. Stop pushing! If you push any harder here someone will get seriously hurt!”
He wedged a metal rod he had found somewhere into the gap like a lever and threw his weight onto it.
Creeeeak—!
It looked like it would open at any second.
“N-no…?”
He never imagined that people on the other side were desperately holding it shut. He assumed it was a mechanical failure.
“It’s completely jammed.”
Shouts erupted again from behind him.
“Open it already! Fuck! We’re gonna get crushed to death!”
“Kyaaaaa! M-monster! It’s a monster!”
The footage didn’t show exactly what was happening, but it was clear that goblins were pouring in from the opposite side, driving the citizens toward one end of the car.
The only possible escape route was the door to the next car.
“Open it! Open the damn door!”
Of course, opening it would be the same as paving a highway for the goblins, but no one present understood the situation, nor did they realize the same thing was happening on the other side.
After all, this was the first time any of them had seen goblins outside of a game—especially during rush hour on the subway.
Everything was chaos. Nothing was visible. The only thing they could focus on was the single visible exit: the next car.
But—
“They’re… holding it shut.”
The former firefighter finally realized what was happening. He muttered in despair.
Through the fogged glass he could see luggage and heavy bags piled up. Several large men were using every ounce of strength to keep the door blocked.
“Why…?”
He couldn’t understand it. No one in that car—no one in the entire country—could fully comprehend the situation.
Except for one man standing leisurely on the other side.
“……!”
“……! ……!”
Though the words were muffled, the men blocking the door seemed to be following the relaxed man’s orders. Their loyalty was almost military in nature. The area around the man was soaked in blood. Perhaps they were being threatened.
Once it became clear the door would not open, the wave of panic only grew worse.
“They’re holding it closed?!”
A man asked again in disbelief.
“Are you fucking kidding me?! You bastards! Are you even human?!”
Thud! Thud!
An old man kicked the wall in fury.
“What… what do we do… what do we do, mister?!”
A girl burst into tears as the crushing pressure grew stronger.
The man trying to open the door comforted her.
“I used to be a firefighter. I can open it. No—I have to open it…”
He threw his entire weight against the lever once more.
“Hrrrrrrgh—!”
Veins bulged in his eyes. He even let out a roar.
But the audio of the video was soon drowned beneath screams of pure terror.
They were all slaughtered by the goblins right in front of that door.
[This video is an edited version of the original Instagram Live broadcast. All excessively cruel scenes have been removed.]
The white mouse cursor trembled, lost, unable to find its next destination.
Thump.
Hae-il, who had been watching blankly, slid off his chair and collapsed to the floor, his whole body shaking.
“……”
His mouth opened and closed, but no words came out. Even so, the pain was transmitted clearly.
The flashback ended there.
Chirp chirp—
The scene returned to a peaceful mountain cemetery. Instead of screams, only birdsong and the rustle of leaves in the wind filled the ears.
‘Ah…’
But Junil could not hear any of it.
The last words Kang Hae-il had tried to speak as he collapsed—words that never managed to ride the air—echoed perfectly inside Junil’s head.
‘…Dad?’
The moment that word took shape, something inside him snapped. Strength left his legs.
Thump—
Junil’s knees hit the ground in front of someone’s grave.
‘Damn it… so that’s what it was?’
The aftermath of the flashback had been overwhelming. The sensation of his very existence being threatened, the feeling that every ounce of power had been drained from his body. Still, Junil had survived. His mind remained intact. He had endured a gaze that transcended his current rank.
“Haa… haa…”
He panted, blinking rapidly until his vision finally focused.
His trembling hand still held the soju glass Hae-il had given him.
Hae-il looked down at him with a puzzled expression.
“You don’t have to kneel just to pour a drink.”
It was fortunate. At least he had an excuse.
With a hoarse voice, Junil answered.
“Ah… yes. It’s a matter of respect.”
Glug glug.
The sharp scent of alcohol stung his nose. The liquid that could make one forget memories was poured onto the empty grave.
Was he drunk from the fragrance alone, or was it the aftermath of the flashback? Junil’s vision blurred for a moment.
“Why are you getting teary-eyed over someone else’s story? Maybe I shouldn’t have told you.”
Pat.
Hae-il clapped him on the shoulder and gave an awkward smile.
“……”
Junil could only stare at the corner of his mouth. He didn’t dare meet his eyes. He didn’t want to know what kind of expression Hae-il was making, or what he himself must look like in those eyes.
Sometimes heroes were better off not knowing. Because they couldn’t always make the choice that was good for everyone.
983 Constellations
The number of constellations watching shot toward one thousand.
This gaze exceeds what your current rank can endure!
The boundary of your rank is shaking!
His vision blurred again as the warning rang out. A headache struck.
‘I feel dizzy. Damn it.’
At the very least, every constellation who knew that Moon Junil was Sagosul seemed to be forcing their way into the stream. Even they had only just learned the truth behind the incident.
The people inside the story board might not know it, but not every story board progressed in strict chronological order. Naturally, not everything unfolded according to the story fairies’ intentions. Sometimes even events that had gone exactly as planned led to completely different results.
A story was like fine grains of sand on a white beach. No matter how tightly you tried to grasp them, they slipped through your fingers. No being could hold them perfectly. No effort held any meaning.
Wasn’t it truly cruel?
Countless people despaired before that white sand. Yet they had no choice but to accept it. Because when the sand caught the sunlight as it fell from their grasp, it shone far too beautifully.
Incarnation ‘Hero – Julian’ Rank Increased!
Extra → Supporting Character
Viewer Limit: 1,000 → 5,000
More detailed depictions are now possible.
Sub-Stream generation has become available.
Constellations can perceive you more clearly.
1,037 Constellations
Incarnation ‘Hero – Julian’
10.37% in progress
None of it had flowed according to anyone’s intentions.
Yet in this moment, in this place, their story was shining brilliantly.
