Literature / Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint

"There are three ways to survive in a ruined world. I have forgotten some of them now. However, one thing is certain: you who are currently reading these words will survive. –Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World"

Omniscient Reader (전지적 독자 시점) is an apocalyptic fantasy Fiction Korean Web Novel written by a Korean author duo writing under the pen name Sing Shong about an office worker, Kim Dokja, who enters the world of his favorite novel.

A novel called Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World (written by the anonymous author tls123) has been written and published over the course of a decade, and Kim Dokja is the sole reader who has followed it to its ending. When the real world is plunged into the premise of Ways of Survival, Kim Dokja's unique knowledge of the novel becomes vital to his survival. Kim Dokja allies with Yoo Joonghyuk, the protagonist of Ways of Survival, in order to change the novel's original plot and more quickly approach the end of the story. As Kim Dokja and his party members progress through the scenarios, they face increasingly difficult threats and life-or-death challenges, struggling to stay alive and work together as they aim to destroy the <Star Stream> that demands their suffering.

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Originally written in Korean, the webnovel was also known as Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, the original translated title before it got picked up by Webnovel and translated unofficially by Webnovel translators Rainbowturtle and A_Passing_Wanderer respectively. The webnovel was divided into 5 volumes, each containing a number of episodes, along with a 5-part epilogue. Each episode was also further divided into several chapters.

The novel was exceedingly popular in the Korean webnovel reader community, having exceeded 26 million views on Munpia by September 2019 as seen here

In January 2021, an ebook and physical book were announced, with the first eight volumes releasing in March 2021 in Munpia and later on Naver, with four more volumes releasing in September of 2021 and the last few volumes releasing in January 2023. As confirmed by Sing Shong on Munpia here, the ebook releases have also had revisions in certain parts of the story, but those changes would not be reflected in the original webnovel's contents. According to Sing Shong's own review featured in the Ebook, both versions are still correct and can be considered as conflicting memories on the same events. Physical releases for the Ebook have since been released as well, with soft and hardcover editions being published in Korean as well as simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese and Thai respectively.

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In addition, side stories have since been released, detailing previously untold events in ORV such as expanding on Yoo Joonghyuk's backstory. As of May 2023, five side stories have been released, two in the ebook, one in the physical hardcover release, and one freely available on Munpia/Naver here. The last side story began on February 15, 2023 and has been ongoing ever since with four chapters a week. Seemingly a direct continuation of the events of ORV, it centers on webnovel author Lee Hakhyun and other ORV readers being brought into the world of Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse. As of now, no official translations have been released for these side stories.

Omniscient Reader characters have also appeared in one of Sing Shong's other webnovels, The World After The Fall, which they released before ORV. The Webtoon adaptation can be read here.

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The official English translation can be found here.

There is also a WebToon adaptation that was announced a day after the end of the webnovel. Produced by Redice studios and Published by Naver Webtoon, it would later have an English translation released on August 19th of the same year by LINE Webtoon. Following the events of the ebook rather than the original webnovel, the Webtoon has since attained a high level of popularity in Korea as well as globally, with it having accumulated 360 million global views by May 2021 and a consistent top ranking during the Wednesday webtoon list in Korea and elsewhere.

In July 2023 it was picked up Ize Press, an imprint of Yen Press, for physical distribution for both the Manhwa and the novel.

Movie adaptations of the story produced by Realize Pictures were also announced by Munpia in September 2019, with plans to adapt the story into five feature films. No release dates have been announced as of yet. Actors Lee Minho and Ahn Hyoseop were confirmed to be in talks to portray Yoo Jooghyuk and Kim Dokja respectively, with others such as Yoo Sangah, Jung Heewon, and Lee Jihye being rumored to be played by Korean actresses Chae Soo Bin, Nana, and Kim Jisoo of BLACKPINK fame respectively.

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Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint contains the following tropes:

• All According to Plan: Kim Dokja often plans ahead far enough that his apparent failures are either a Bait-and-Switch, or done intentionally to avoid the reward's terrible side-effects.
• Alternate Timeline:
  • The story takes place during the Yoo Joonghyuk's third Regression and Kim Dokja's action gradually change both Yoo Joonghyuk's future and how "Ways of Survival" played out.
  • Later on however, it is revealed that 3rd Regression that we know of is actually the 1864th and effectively acts as the epilogue of the original story of TWSA.
  • The story also later reveals that Secretive Plotter is the Yoo Joonghyuk of the original events of TWSA, having survived and become an Outer God after the events of the original novel, with the Yoo Joonghyuk that Dokja eventually becomes a companion to being his alternate self.
• Aside Comment: In the webtoon version, Kim Dokja often looks to the side to comment how absurd his situation is.
• Apocalypse How: A planetary example. The Advent of the Star Stream and the scenarios guarantee this to any place that they occur in, with it being implied to be an outright inevitabiity for the result to be the destruction of the world where the Scenarios take place.
• Back from the Dead: Hand in hand with Resurrective Immortality. To elaborate, there are in fact three main abilities that allow one to, as the author of "Three Ways to Survive a Ruined World" puts it, "survive" in a ruined world and the Scenarios of the Star Stream. The so-called three protagonists of Ways of Survival each possess one of these abilities or traits, Yoo Joonghyuk with his Regression Stigma, Jang Hayoung with his Attribute as a Returnee, and Sakyamuni alongside Yoo Sangah as Sakyamuni's Succesor with their Attributes as Reincarnators. Dokja eventually gets this ability as well, using the abilities of the "King of No Killing" and the resurrection ability he gets from slaying Yamato no Orochi during the 6th Scenario respectively.
• Badass Longcoat: Kim Dokja, Han Sooyoung, and Yoo Joonghyuk sport long coats in white and black and are some of the strongest Incarnations in the setting. Kim Dokja later gets an upgraded version from the Han Sooyoung of Yoo Joonghyuk's 1863rd regression. It's also mentioned that Returnees in general get these as one of the standard rewards they acquire upon returning to their original worlds.
• Be All My Sins Remembered: Yoo Joonghyuk in his 1863rd regression, being nothing more than an Empty Shell desperate for death and to end the scenarios.
• Big Bad Ensemble: The 10 Evils, who are the most prominent and consistent antagonists of Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse, with different members antagonizing Yoo Junghyeok during his regressions.
• Big Damn Heroes: Quite often, when one of the central characters are in a pickle, one of the members of Kim Dokja's Company happens to be nearby and helps win the fight.
• Black-and-White Morality: There are some Constellations who only reward good deeds and Kim Dokja sometimes has to avoid "the easy way" to get extra items. Certain abilities, like Jung Heewon's Judge of Evil, only work if the system believes the target is Evil, though its evolved form works against anyone Kim Dokja's Company deems unjust, which is arbitrary.
• Brown Note Being:
  • A Constellation speaking through an Incarnation has enough powers to hurt its host and people nearby, from which Kim Dokja's "Fourth Wall" ability provides some protection. The same ability also negates most mental attacks.
  • Outer Gods are an even greater example, with even the weakest ones able to hurt or disorient weaker Constellations, and outright causing even stronger Incarnations to faint when their "true" voices are heard.
• Buy Them Off: Kim Dokja often pays his dues to others, though it's often because he knows they'll be less of a problem in the future this way or because a good-aligned Constellation is paying attention. This attitude in turn makes people he rescues repay him as well.
• Came Back Strong:
  • Resurrective Immortality gained from the King of No Killing and Eight Lives attributes comes with a stat boost every resurrection.
  • In a similar way, the three ways to survive a ruined world also allow the Incarnations with these abilities to do the same thing. With Regression allowing Yoo Joonghuk to return to the beginning of the Scenarios with more experience each time, Returning allow those who die to visit other worlds and gain abilities there that they can keep upon their departure, and Reincarnating allowing for the abilities of past lives to be regained once more.
• Cerebus Retcon: Everyone calling Dokja ugly isn't a Running Gag, he has a Perception Filter he's not aware of censoring his face and actively distorting his appearance during Star Stream broadcasts and everyone except non-characters or people close enough to him or his nebula get hit with an immediate Laser-Guided Amnesia about it.
• Central Theme: As Kim Dokja puts it, he got strong "by reading a lot" and respecting the characters. Despite being mocked for being a novel nerd in his childhood, not only the knowledge of "Ways of Survival" helps him find solutions to the Scenarios and avoid hidden traps, he's done enough character study to understand everyone's motivations even if they weren't described in the Novel. His understanding of mythology also allows him to make deals with the Constellations without getting screwed over. A few Arc Villains can be viewed as allegories of authors and readers projecting their ideals into characters and lashing out when they act differently.
• Comically Small Bribe: Min Jiwon's attempt to buy Kim Dokja's loyalty with 2000 coins backfires on her when he makes a counteroffer of 20,000. Funnily enough, the Secretive Plotter then proceeds to pay Kim Dokja 2,000 coins almost as a mere brag.
• Corrupt Politician: Being a Corrupt Politician is Yoo Hyeonho's stated trait, and he uses pro-democracy speeches as argument for effectively putting him in charge. Nobody takes him seriously.
• Covers Always Lie: It's impossible to tell from the cover, but Kim Dokja is a 28 year old salaryman who's a firm 5/10 when it comes to looks, though some of his and Yoo Joonghyuk's associates might say he's closer to a 1. Eventually we find out that isn't actually true, but once the world became a book people became unable to properly perceive or remember his face. He just gets a lot of insults about his looks because constellations who don't like him will hand out coins to people who do it. He doesn't remember ever being insulted about his looks before the scenarios, even with his history of being bullied, so the covers might be closer to the truth than the insults.
• Crapsack World: Earth becomes a lawless wasteland with the introduction of the scenarios, thanks to scenarios encouraging violence and random hooligans gaining incredibly destructive power. Things only get worse with each passing scenario and the progressively more frequent interference of the Bureau, more specifically the Dokkaebi King and his Great Dokkaebis, not to mention the interference of the Constellations, the Demon Kings and their Nebulas alongside the presence of the outright Lovecraftian Outer Gods.
• Crossover Cosmology: A major part of the setting is that all mythological characters exist as beings known as Constellations, with more well-known constellations being stronger. Cliques exist (technically, they're called Nebulas) of constellations from the same mythologies, though unaffiliated constellations can join any nebula if an invitation is extended.
• Cursed with Awesome: Seems to be the way that the three ways to survive the apocalypse work, with Regression, Returning, and Reincarnation each being described to cause harm to the minds of their users, with Yoo Joonghyuk's Regressor Depression being the most prominent case.
• Death-Activated Superpower: Yoo Joonghyuk's Regression ability and Kim Dokja's Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint both only show their potential once the person has died. As it turns out, the other two ways to survive a ruined world, also act in this manner, with the Returnee Attribute sending the individual to other worlds or even world-lines whereas the Reincarnator Attribute allows the individual to reincarnate to different forms and shapes.
• Death Seeker: One of the effects of Regressing shown in TWSA is that Yoo Joonghyuk steadily becomes this, to the point of contemplating outright suicide when certain Scenarios don't go according to plan.
• Deconstruction:
  • To the typical Korean Web Novel and Light Novel set ups regarding an individual suddenly being transported into a world similar to something he is incredibly familiar with alongside the characters of the stories he knows so well: In Dokja's case, he actively struggles with his decisions for surviving alongside the main characters, and has to be numbed through the <Fourth Wall>'s interference in order to not see the true horror of the situation he is in.
  • To storylines regarding the concepts of main characters Regressing back into the past, Returning from other worlds, and Reincarnating over and over again. In many cases, these individuals blessed with these abilities are often worse off, with Yoo Joonghyuk in particular. becoming a cold and cruel individidual over the course of hundreds if not thousands of his Regressions and slowly becoming an active Death Seeker desperate to see the end of the Scenarios. Returnees aren't better, with a few actively shown to have lost their minds and become murderers over the course of their times in other worlds, with even the most well adjusted among them such as Kyrgios or Jang Hayoung shown to have difficulty interacting with the people from their original worlds. Reincarnators are also shown to become callous to the plight of other people due to the countless past lives they have lived, with the worst of the worst such as Nirvana actively manipulating others for their own gain and trying to control Yoo Joonghyuk.
  • The Sudden Game Interface of the Star Stream also actively criticizes stories with the sudden creation of an RPG Mechanics 'Verse, as the Star Stream actively forces Incarnations to participate or die, and even scenarios without specified time limits are still dangerous as shown in the fall of Paradise. The Constellations who watch over these Incarnations also give them gifts and sponsor the lucky, but even they are said to mainly watch the broadcasts in the same way that bored people might watch a Twitch stream, and as later revealed, Constellations use this time as escapism and in order to cope due to the fact that even they are still active participants of the Scenarios, merely being Ascended Incarnations in their own right.
  • The Dokkaebi bureau also counts, showing the struggles that Dokkaebis has against the Jerkass Gods that they serve as streamers, often needing to be a Slave to PR in order to satisfy and entertain them to the best of their abilities. As seen with Bihyung and his random item box and Paul actively interfering with the Scenarios against, the Bureau also often makes mistakes that can and do affect the Scenarios for the better and for the worse and which make life all the harder for Incarnations. Their Fantastic Rank System also means that the Dokkaebi spend their time trying to create interesting scenarios and stories, without caring for the Incarnations that they hurt, and that they often will try to fight one another for supremacy and in order to get more viewers through whatever tricks that they can get away with.
  • Yoo Joonghyuk's existence in particular is another example, being a Broken Ace who has spent countless lifetimes over the course of TWSA recruiting his companions and undergoing Training from Hell in order to survive the Scenarios and see the end of the Star Stream. He is cold and cruel to his enemies and barely any better to even his companions due to the knowledge that they could die at any time. He has seen his loved ones die again and again, and has gained trauma from it and the Scenarios that leaves him in a state of being perpetually a Shell-Shocked Veteran. His experiences in the Scenario and the nature of his Regression ability means he remembers each and ''every'' single thing that has happened to him. and has gained a profound hatred for the Constellations for it, and as such Dokja notes that any time a bad thing happens in one of the Scenarios, Yoo Joonghyuk will actively contemplate suicide if it only means he can a better chance next turn and who only thinks of his companions at tools at most to survive, and by the time of his 1863rd Regression, he is actively an Empty Shell that can Kill the God in one blow, but who only wants to be freed from the Living Hell of his life. Dokja meets him in what seems to be his 3rd Regression as an arrogant and incredibly destructive fighter who barely gives him any thought other than for his usefulness as a supposed "prophet", and notes that Yoo Joonghyuk's personality only gets ''worse'' from here on.
• Determinator: Yoo Joonghyuk's specialty, to the point that in the original canon, he relived his life in the scenarios 1863 times. Most of these Regressions last much longer than normal lifetimes as well, meaning that even before time the original 1863rd Regression Yoo Joonghyuk becomes the Secretive Plotter, he's already thousands of years old.
• Deity of Human Origin: With enough Fables, a human or demon can be promoted to a Constellation, and many historical figures can be seen among their low-ranks, which is what Kim Dokja does.
• Divine Ranks: The "Grades" of the Constellations are based on the number and quality of their Stories, and directly correlate to how powerful they are, with higher ranking Stories often allowing Constellations to get higher ranks as well.
• Eldritch Abomination: The Outer Gods are set up to be horrific and immensely powerful existences outside of the scenarios, to the point that many Incarnations and Constellations dread running to one. However, they are actually beings rejected by the Star Stream that exist only outside of the scenarios and quite a few are in fact survivors of the destruction of Yoo Joonghyuk's various Regressions. Even among them however, a few stand out. Some being The Secretive Plotter, and the 4 other Outer God Kings, and the Indescribable Distance.
• Exact Words: The Scenario #1 asks the participants to "kill another living being" to proceed. Kim Dokja correctly deduces that it means not only humans, but bugs as well, which a nearby Lee Gilyoung so happens to carry around in a cage, which helped a few people survive without resorting to murder.
• The Faceless: Kim Dokja, apparently the entire time. It seems that very few people can actually see or remember what his face looks like.
• Fantastic Rank System:
  • A constellation’s rank is decided based on their power levels, which in turn is determined by the strength and ranking of their Stories. Constellations are ranked as follows:
  Historical figure grade / Historical-grade (lowest ranked; has previously been referred to as upper-grade and great-grade)
  Narrative grade (also known as Fable grade)
  Myth grade (highest ranked) Myth grade constellations rarely interfere with lower ranked scenarios because they are already on the candidate list for 'One Single Story
  • Dokkaebis are also ranked similarly by their strength and power, generally decided by the viewership and donations received from their channel or by promotions from the Dokkaebi Bureau. Each rank grants certain privileges to Dokkaebis of that rank, from better clothes to looking larger, to the point that the Great Grade Dokkaebis look very human in apperance compared to their lower ranking brethren. There are four general ranks a dokkaebi can achieve, listed here in ascending order:
  Low-Grade
  Mid-Grade
  Advanced-Grade
  Great-Grade (Dokkaebis of this rank are referred to as Great Dokkaebis)
  There are also the Dokkaebi Enforcers, which are former Constellations punished for one reason or another. These transformed Constellations tend to dislike their Dokkaebi brethren, and work to enforce the rules of the Star stream and punish those who do not.
  The highest rank a dokkaebi can achieve, however, is the title of the Dokkaebi King, held by a single individual.
• False Utopia: Reinheit Von Djerba has built a castle for Incarnations where they can live indefinitely, since the 9th Scenario doesn't have a time limit or respawning monsters. Because problematic citizens are fed to demons or converted into them to keep them at bay. Dokja tells him his "paradise" can't last, even if he didn't already know that from the novel.
• Friendly Enemy: This ends up being the case with Kim Dokja's company and several Constellations, due to the Stories they obtained basically binding them together and making them a form of Fire-Forged Friends.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Yoo Joonghyuk initially tried to kill Kim Dokja multiple times for being too suspicious, while Han Sooyoung was his actual enemy. They both end up trusting him enough after trying to save Seoul together and eventually join his party. To the point that Kim Dokja's Company end up regressing together to save Kim Dokja after he sacrifices himself to become The Most Ancient Dream.
• Foreshadowing: When he meets the masked Ruler of Wanderers, Kim Dokja panics for no specified reason. Later, when asked about his childhood trauma, he says that "that person" is definitely safe in Seoul despite making no contacts, and they also know the Novel. It's not hard to piece together that his mother became a powerful Incarnation.
• Groundhog Peggy Sue: Yoo Joonghyuk's special ability is to rewind time to the start of the scenarios every time he dies. In the original "Ways of Survival" story he has Regressed 1863 times. By the start of the story it's his 3rd attempt and Kim Dokja tries to avoid another one as it may reset all his efforts.
• Genre Savvy: Kim Dokja's knowledge of "Ways of Survival"'s plot and also having the full copy of it lets him know Star Stream System's plans in advance, as well as avoiding rewards that would result in Blessed with Suck. He has also read enough Web Serial Novels casually to notice writing cliches and act accordignly.
• The Heart: Kim Dokja is not only the leader of his party, but is also a friend to each of them and sometimes has to regulate their conflicting attitudes. His death later on causes the party to splinter and do their own thing until he comes back.
• Immortal Immaturity: A few god-like Constellations act not very maturely for their status and age, Demon-like Judge of Fire is an excitable Yaoi Fangirl, Black Abyss Dragon has been titled Chuunibyou several times which turns out to be intentional and many others can be pleased or angered very easily.
• Impersonation Gambit: Kim Dokja pretends to be Yoo Joonghyuk to fool the "prophets" who read parts of the novel and in the 73rd Demon Realm. Funnily enough, in return, Yoo Joonghyuk pretends to be Dokja and unwittingly saves his life by helping him clear the Revolutionary Scenario.
• Inconsistent Spelling:
  • Applies to pretty much every Korean character because of the way Korean romanization works, and that certain vowels in Korean can be translated into different Latin vowels. The only notable exception is Kim Dokja, who never has any alternative spelling to his name. Otherwise, some examples:
    • Yoo Jonghyuk (which is actually incorrect due to the first novel translator mistaking the vowel "oo" in his name for "o")/ Yoo Joonghyuk (most popular spelling with fans)/ Yu Jung-Hyeok (used by the second novel translator and the official Webtoon translation).
    • Yoo Sangah/ Yu Sang-Ah.
    • Han Sooyoung/Han Su-Yeong.
    • Lee Gilyoung/Yi Gil-Yeong.
    • Shin Yoosung/Shin Yu-Seung.
    • Lee Hyunsung/Yi Hyeon-Seong.
    • Jung Heewon/Jeong Hui-Won.
    • Lee Jihye/Yi Ji-Hye.
    • Lee Sookyung/Yi Su-Gyeong.
  • The novel by tls123 is translated in two different ways: "Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World" and shortened into WOS (Ways of Survival) in the official webnovel translation; or "Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse" and shortened into TWSA in the official webtoon translation.
• Informed Deformity: In the Manhwa adaptation, Kim Dokja is constantly described as rather ugly by other characters, even comes to be called the "Ugly King" as the story progresses, but the series has plenty of non-attractive male characters that don't get the same treatment. He looks decidedly average, bordering on even handsome, depending on your preference. Long way into the story this is revealed to be due to a Perception Filter applied by the System, which for some reason makes average people see his face like it has a blur effect on it, masking the details of his features. People/entities who can see his actual face tend to think he is rather handsome.
• Kill the God: Yoo Joonghyuk in particular, with several of his regressions mainly focusing on how he gets better and better at killing Nebulas and Constellations, to the point of developing the Shooting Star Slash sometime after his 1000th regression, a technique capable of killing even Myth Grade Constellations.
• Landfill Beyond the Stars: Beyond the Star Stream, there is a junkyard for exiled and broken story scraps.
• Laser Blade:
  • Kim Dokja's sword, Unbroken Faith, is made of light in Divine mode.
  • Yoo Joonghyuk by virtue of being The Ace, also has quite a few skills from his training in Murim and his regressions that end up being examples of this.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The Constellations, being the Audience Surrogate, continuously leave remarks regarding characters' actions in the same way an actual reader would comment online. At one point one of them expresses discontent by the approaching Cliffhanger.
• Lilliputians: For the Main Scenario 6, the Incarnations have to genocide another planet of tiny people as Disasters. Kim Dokja's Company chose to protect the natives instead and for them the Scenario switches accordingly, while still penalizing them by shrinking in size. Which turns out to be Asuka Ren's manga "Peace Land" brought to life on own planet.
• Lonely at the Top: Many of Yoo Joonghyuk's regressions end like this, due to him being the sole survivor among his companions for one reason or another.
• Lotus-Eater Machine: Yoo Joonghyuk's experiences with his regressions leave him particularly susceptible to this type of skill, with Dokja noting these types of skills to be the reason for several regressions to end.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Kim Dokja, can be written with two different Hanja, giving different meanings to it—either with "Dok" (讀) as in reader (favored by his mother), or "Dok" (獨) as in alone (favored by his father).
  • The Modifiers and synonymic constructions of the Constellations are often based on their stories, and provide hints as to what the true identity of the Constellation might be.
• Mistaken for Gay: Kim Dokja regularly trolls Yoo Joonghyuk to provoke him into action and often has to treat him from injuries. This makes their companions get mixed messages while the Constellation Demon-like Judge of Fire throws her money at them when this happens because how hot it looks.
• My Death Is Just the Beginning: The abilities of those with the three ways to survive the apocalypse allow them to pull this off, with Dokja's own abilities giving him a similar capability at times.
• Murder Is the Best Solution: Mentioned and subverted. While Yoo Joonghyuk and Han Sooyoung believe problems can be solved by killing those who are even potentially responsible, Kim Dokja knows from "Ways of Survival" that such actions will end to a bad ending and makes them do things the hard way.
• Our Angels Are Different:
  • The members of the "Eden" Nebula of Constellations are described as the Biblical pantheon and include Celestial Paragons and Archangels. Kim Dokja remarks that out of other Constellations, they are that powerful that sponsoring with them is rather tempting. Out of noteworthy departures from canon, Archangel Uriel is a hardcore Yaoi Fangirl though she is later seen to be much more serious in other regressions, while Michael has become a Composite Character with Lucifer after consuming the fruit of forbidden knowledge.
  • Kim Dokja in his Demon Transformation later becomes an angel and regains his status as a Constellation after he consumes his own fruit of forbidden knowledge that he got from Eden.
• Our Demons Are Different: The Demon Kings are demons from Ars Goetia who are part of Star Stream System, but aren't considered Constellations due to their corrupted status, and are typically extremely evil. Instead of sponsoring Incarnations, they can offer monstrous transformations to those that they favor, and heavily dislike and can outright cause a Dying Curse when someone kills their beasts. Interestingly, Archangel Michael and Lucifer are shown to be the same person and can switch between forms. Later it turns out that consuming the fruit of forbidden knowledge can make one become a proper Constellation.
• Our Gods Are Different: The Constellations are ascended Incarnations who have acquired enough Fables to ascend, and are considered the far more powerful group among the Star Stream's participants. Capable of exerting pressure on others through simply releasing their Statuses, Constellations still participate in the scenarios, simply being much farther along than most Incarnations. Much of their time is spent watching the Dokkaebi channels for entertainment, and should a certain Incarnation intrigue them they can offer to become their Sponsor. Constellation Sponsors exert a certain level of control over their Incarnations and can bestow Stigmas related to the Stories that they have. They are also fond of eating Stories, using these Fables as sustenance, to the point of there being an entire association formed by the gourmands of the Star Stream to eat particularly rare Stories. Stories also act as their way to increase their status, with the rank of a Constellation being based on the number and quality of the Stories that they might have.
• Parental Substitute: Kim Dokja ends up in custody of 11 year old Lee Gilyoung and Shin Yoosung, and in apocalyptic setting, makes sure they grow safe and strong. For Shin Yoosung specifically, he becomes her Sponsor to unsuccessfully derail her future self returning as the 5th Disaster.
• Personality Powers: The scenarios grants its players special abilities based on aspects of their personality from when the game started. For example, Dokja gets Fourth Wall for having been a reader of the scenarios as a novel, and Sangah gets Interpretation for having studied Spanish just as the game started.
• Plagiarism in Fiction: Possibly subverted in the case of Han Sooyoung; she wrote a novel with the same premise and protagonist as the novel Kim Dokja reads, but when he accuses her of plagiarism, she denies it and says she wrote what came to her in a dream, and her ability Lie Detection confirms that she was telling the truth. However, the 1863rd round's Han Sooyoung calls herself a plagiarist and is capable of sending back her memories to her counterpart in the main timeline of the novel, so it's hard to say what's true.
• Planet Looters: The Star Stream System is effectively a conspiracy that lets gods indirectly participate in genocide to enrich themselves by using Stories their sponsored Incarnations experience, and Earth isn't the first one.
• Plot-Based Voice Cancellation: In-universe. Information about the future Kim Dokja knows or about Yoo Joonghyuk's previous regressions is censored from the Constellations' point of view, and the novel on his phone cannot be read by anyone but him. The filter gets weaker the more information slips into public knowledge.
• Prison Dimension: The Welcome Prison subscenario's titular prison, created by swallowing the Specter's Stone, traps the user's will in a nightmare if they fail to shake off the effects.
• Protagonist-Centered Morality: The activation of Jung Heewon's Hour of Judgement after she becomes the Judge of the Apocalypse depends entirely on what she and Kim Dokja's Company consider immoral.
• The Promise: Dokja makes a lot of long-term promises to others, and for the most part he does attempt to keep them. Especially when Constellations demand him keeping his word.
• Psychic Block Defense: Kim Dokja's special ability the Fourth Wall negates the majority of mental attacks by rendering them as notifications instead of applying them directly, though it's effectiveness heavily depends on his awareness that "he's in a novel". If he's distressed or believes he'll be harmed directly, he likely will be.
• Puppeteer Parasite: Queen of Parasites Antinus is an insectoid woman who can possess people. In current time she betrays the five guides who have joined the Star Stream System as helpful NPCs so she can get humans killed out of spite.
• Rescued from the Underworld: Unsatisfied with 4th Regression Shin Yoosung's forced Heel–Face Door-Slam right after he promised to save her, Kim Dokja asks Dionysus to take him to Tartarus so he can strike a deal with Persephone.
• Resurrective Immortality: The basis of many of Kim Dokja's plans is an ability that lets him come back from the dead, though they often come with drawbacks, like the title King of No Killing requiring accumulating enough karma points.
• Rise from Your Grave: This tends to be the main consequence of the resurrection skills that Dokja learns through the story.
• Samus Is a Girl: No one could tell that Yoo Joonghyuk's senior martial 'brother' was female, until Jang Hayoung specifically confirmed it.
• Save Scumming: Essentially how Yoo Joonghyuk's regressions work, with him being sent back to the First Scenario each and every time,
• Scry vs. Scry: This is implied to be the dynamic between Yoo Joonghyuk and Anna Croft in TWSA, with Anna's Prophet skill allowing her to see the future and Joonghyuk's Regression skill allowing him to constantly plan ahead of the Scenarios.
• Self-Sacrifice Scheme: Kim Dokja's plans are sometimes suicidal in nature, often meaning he has a way to use Resurrective Immortality prepared. After some point his enemies figured to specifically plan around this tendency.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: While Kim Dokja knows the end of this world, he sure as hell won't let it end the way that it does in the books. In a similar sense, every single regression that Yoo Joonghyuk goes through essentially involves him trying to avert the bad future. As a whole, Kim Dokja's Company and the other 100 most powerful Incarnations that survived the Final Scenario end up doing Regressing to save not just Kim Dokja, but also save millions all around the world with their combined skills and knowledge in the 1865th Regression world-line.
• Sequence Breaking: Kim Dokja's knowledge of TWSA, Yoo Joonghyuk's knowledge of the scenarios through his Regressions, and Han Sooyoung's Predictive Plagiarism allow them to pull these off very often through the story.
• Shipper on Deck: The Constellation Demon-like Judge of Fire, who is Archangel Uriel is very supportive of Kim Dokja and Yoo Joonghyuk's relationship.
• Sneaky Departure: This is how Kim Dokja manages to die as the strongest Incarnation during the Salvation Church arc, instructing Han Sooyoung to kill him while Yoo Joonghyuk and Nirvana Moebius are fighting one another and all of Seoul's Incarnations are too distracted to notice.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: Each Scenario boss is more powerful than the last, so Kim Dokja makes detours to weaken them ahead of time or to pick up items that would help against them. This is also reinforced in several ways by the Star Stream System to keep the Incarnations on edge without leaving the situation hopeless.
• Spirit Cultivation Genre: The Murim worldlines act as this, with many returnees from these areas having the martial arts skills to boot.
• Stable Time Loop: Kim Dokja and Han Sooyoung cause changes in the 1863rd worldline which lead to the creation of their own altered 3rd worldline, later revealed to be the 1864th worldline. Also, the creation of the Ways of Survival novel itself, not to mention Kim Dokja first reading Ways of Survival and eventually becoming the Most Ancient Dream.
• Sudden Game Interface: Every Incarnation can see pop-up menus from Star Stream System, which display notifications, stats, chat and the cash shop.
• Supernaturally-Validated Trans Person: Despite Kim Dokja not recognizing it due to his confusion of her gender, Jang Hayoung excels at the Breaking the Sky sword style, which is traditionally female-biased, because she's female but with the incarnated body of a man.
• Take That, Audience!: ORV is an inherently meta story, with humans acting as player characters for the 'Constellations' who watch from a distance, while Kim Dokja and Han Sooyoung often comment on Web Serial Novels. This results in many jabs at the Constellations landing with both them and the true audience of the novel.
• These Are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know: The Fourth Wall is all that stands between Kim Dokja and having his brain leak out his ears for hearing a single word from some of the more powerful Constellations. In addition, he already knows a lot of stuff even they aren't meant to know....
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: The King of No Killing attribute enforces Kim Dokja to not deliver finishing blows in return for Resurrective Immortality. This doesn't mean he can't kill them indirectly by letting someone else do it.
• The Time Traveller's Dilemma: After brief consideration, Kim Dokja figures that if Yoo Joonghyuk activates his Mental Time Travel, either the current situation becomes harder for everyone without him, or everyone's progress and memories will get reset, so he can't have him dying.
• Training from Hell: Yoo Joonghyuk's regressions allow him to pull this off, with Dokja noting that several regressions of his were spent training in certain weapons or techniques for literal decades.
• Trapped in Another World: The Returnees are deconstructions of the "isekai" novels. Myung Ilsang was origianlly a human who got reincarnated in Chronos as a hero, but became drunk with power, turned into a Ax-Crazy murderer, and eventually destroyed it, before the Star System reused him as a Disaster in the Scenarios.
• Trapped in TV Land: The Theatre Dungeon puts challengers into popular movies. A film is considered completed when the villain is killed, even if early.
• True Companions: The initial group Kim Dokja ends up with end up as his best friends and warriors.
• "Truman Show" Plot: The apocalypse is treated like a game and is broadcasted to god-like Constellations who act as the "audience", and reward or punish humans with coins for their actions according on their individual preferences.
• Unreliable Narrator: Kim Dokja knows of the future in full from "Ways of Survival" and keeps it as his secret weapon, while giving his companions vague or outright false "prophecies" to guarantee better outcomes for everyone.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Kim Dokja specializes in extremely long-term plans that, due to the nature of using secret knowledge of the future, he generally refuses to explain to even his closest allies in order to prevent interference, which leaves Constellations is shock by his audacity. His inner monologues also neglect to describe his strategies or what happens in the novel until after they become relevant.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: After initially considering her an enemy due to her actions as the 1st Prophet, much less trying to kill him multiple times, Kim Dokja becomes uneasy friends with Han Sooyoung.
• Wham Line:
  • The notification after Dokja slays Yamata no Orochi gives away his long-term plan.
    Now, you must accumulate the last Fable in order to become a Constellation.
  • The Fourth Wall ability Dokja has been using the entire time turns out to be own entity.
    "The Fourth Wall is smiling with satisfaction."
  • Reinheit drops that the Star Stream System has no ending. Even the high-ranking Constellations are just ascended Incarnations further along the same Scenarios that other Incarnations were forced into, with many of them being in the Scenarios numbered in the 70s.
• The Watchmaker: Kim Dokja enlists the help of Aileen Makerfield, a clock and watchmaker with a complex understanding of the stories in the scenario, in order to recover from his banishment from the scenario.
• Wild Card: Kim Dokja's true alignment is unknown to anyone but him. Becuase he knows the future, the way he encourages his companions isn't always honest and at some times borders on Omniscient Morality License. He also makes sudden allegiances to obvious enemies and Constellations becuase they have something he'll need, and makes deals the other side doesn't immediatelly recognize won't actually benefit them.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Yoo Joonghyuk's Regression skill allows him to return again and again to the beginning of the scenarios and accumulate power along the way, growing stronger and more skilled with each regression, at the cost of his sanity and will to live.
• Would Hit a Girl: Kim Dokja is a Combat Pragmatist with a ruthless attitude towards his enemies and knowledge of what they might do in the future, so he doesn't hesitate to fight back.
• You Can't Fight Fate: Unlike predicting the future, reading Fate sets things in stone and enforces that they occur one way or another. The only way to oppose one is to use Plausibility even some high-ranking Constellations can't afford, though Kim Dokja deduces their wording can be very ambiguous.
• You Never Did That for Me: Yoo Joonghyuk's lover in previous time loops, Lee Seolhwa, notes that his typically cold attitude changes around Kim Dokja.

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