[Novel][Part 3] Thoughts on KSE in recent chapters (and some stuff about the Church)
Its 2 AM right now and I can't sleep so here's what I'm thinking regarding the latest chapters.
The way KSE acts after coming back into the DER world feels kind of strange somehow. He feels more easy-going(?) uhhh, I don't know the right word for it, but it seems like he's more casual about this whole situation compared to before. Of course it's only natural that he became more accustomed to the ghost stories after everything he did in Daydream and the Bureau before. And yes he still got scared easily but something just feels off. The feeling I got while reading this Part 3 is very similar to the one I get when I read about KSE being contaminated. It's very subtle but there's this unsettling feeling somewhere. I do hope I'm just overthinking things and that there's actually nothing wrong with him.
Another thing I'd like to point out is that there's a big possibility of KSE possessing someone else's body right now. He was being harassed when he came to his senses after being dragged back into this world. The way the people around him reacted to him being there as if nothing was wrong, it seems like "he" had already been there for quite some time (it looks like KSE himself doesn't find it strange huh). And the place he happened to open his eyes for the first time was in front of a strange ancestral rites table! Right after he pulled a cult ID card! Totally not suspicious at all!
But isn't it strange? Jin Nasol immediately knew that he was Roe Deer when he talked to her, and he never said that his body didn't feel like his own. That means his current body is almost indistinguishable from his real body. Just like his Good Friend form.
I've already mentioned this in once, but this could be another Jang Heoun situation where the people of the Church intentionally created a person capable of usurping KSE's narrative, both physically and mentally. Like how they made Jang Heoun and Kim Heoun very similar to Lee Heoun, both in appearance and 'narrative'.
What were they aiming in making "someone capable of inheriting a certain person's narrative" like the Heouns anyway? To make someone inherit a certain person memories? Or to create a suitable 'vessel' for that certain person to inhabit? At first I thought it was the former but maybe it's actually the latter? (or there might actually be another reason that I cannot comprehend)
The church is VERY likely to have already noticed the existence of KSE. Back in the Happy Ending Sect arc, one of the officers (the girl one) was already hinted to have gotten a grasp of who KSE actually is. After KSE used his wiki ability on her, the last word she said right before she lost consciousness was "Ireum-nim?". We don't know what happened to the twins after 130666 and the gang went to Sekwang City but lets just say that they're alive for now. Assuming she immediately connected KSE to Ireum-nim and got away safely after that incident, there's a big possibility of her telling the other followers about what happened there.
And now that the Sekwang City's seal has already been lifted (meaning every piece of information regarding the disaster has also become known to some people), what are the chances that the Church won't realize something? The fact that Ireum-nim's summoning had been successful (albeit he immediately became corrupted) would already be known by the Church now. There's no way they would just stand still and do nothing after learning about that. Another possibility is that maybe they already knew about it from the beginning but they just kept their silence for whatever reasons.
They also know about KSE returning to his real world. There's no mention that the one who wrote about KSE returning to his home on the DER wiki page is the Church of the Luminous Unknown, but I honestly can't think of another suspect beside them. The fact that they're referring KSE as "Ireum-nim" and that the Church was the only confirmed 'self-aware' characters also plays a big role here. Assuming I was correct about that, there's a big chance that the one who sent KSE into the DER world and lured him back into the that world again is also them.
Here's the link of a post I made about the possible connection between CRI and the Church in case you wanna read about it.
I feel like I keep branching the topic here and there so I'll stop for now and keep the rest in my draft. I guess it's too soon to talk about this already (Part 3 only has 14 chapters right now), but what do you guys think??
note: I'm not sure whether to use discussion or theory tag here.. please let me know if I need to change the flair
Posted Jul 10, 2026, 7:25 PM UTC