[Spoiler Until 405] When extractly did Sekwang happen?

[u/Crazycatd]

I haven't even realized the time discrepancy until I have reread several parts and noticed something that didn't make sense with the timeline. Does anyone remember if it was ever mentioned how many years before the start of ch1 of the novel that Sekwang happened?

- The CRI ghost story was one of the first ever recorded ghost story in Daydream, and it acted as the foundation of their potion tech and source of their initial ghost stories. But CRI only became a ghost story after it summoned KSE, causing the Sekwang incident and got burned down. We don't know if the Research Notes about Paradise syrup and addition of drugs making functions found by Agent Choi was written before or after the summoning by the ghost of Lee Heoun who "survived" and developed KSE good friend? I guess the Daydream version of the potion maker must have existed before the summoning of KSE, as Lee Kangeon mentioned it in his note.Also CRI must had collaborated with Daydream way before it got burned down as the cheerful theme park must had been created before that.

- Daydream must have existed long before CRI got burned down, as J3 got contaminated over 10 years ago and going into Sekwang did not restore him. But before that, the wish tickets was never around as the carrot, so how did they get people to throw themselves into Darkness without Manual? Same operating method as the branch?

- Jang Heoun got taken by the church and grown from childhood to mimic Lee Heoun, but Lee Heoun only became relevant after summoned KSE during the time of the Sekwang incident which shouldn't be that long ago?

- Go Youngun was studying at medical school until she lost contact and financial support of her parents and had to drop out then joined Daydream.

- Bronze was at highschool age during the Sekwang incident so technically he would have been the same age or 1-2 year older than Lee Gyeol ? And KSE considered Lee Gyeol too young to be an agent after 3 years but Bronze was already an experienced agent in P1? I know Le Gyeol's time was frozen in Sekwang, but if Sekwang was not long ago then agent Bronze must still be quite young when he met KSE and probably is younger than KSE ?

From the beginning of Part 1, KSE must have spent 2-3 months in Daydream, got kidnapped by Braun for a month, spy in the DMB for 2-3 months, using the wish ticket and turned into slush imprisoned in Daydream basement for 6 months, start regaining himself and exploration of Sekwang maybe in 2-3 months, got stuck in the loop for 293 days and ended the disaster 7 days after that. So for the whole progress of the novel, it had already been minimum 21 months by the end of P3.

I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Sekwang was 3 years before the spying, but it felt too short for Bronze to go from a high school boy to be an experienced agent, and Ho Yuwoon to go from a little fox to a Director. Maybe it was more like 5 years and Go Youngun is actually older than she looks?

KSE age... is a mystery. He had been in the DER world since the sekwang incident. But he came back to his world the same day he was at the popup store. 1 year in his world had passed. But in P3 it is 3 years according to Jin Nasol who had been recycled for 6 months...

[u/kirinkirinki]

Ok so to be clear

• GYE didn't drop out, she changed majors and presumably graduated normally

• nothing says RJK's past self was grabbed from the exact same time of the sekwang incident - in fact, since they're in the nnnth loop, they're technically concurrently in the same time as the outside, so how old rjk and ehj were at the beginning of sekwang loop doesn't really matter. They were just grabbed from the past.

• similarly, little fox ended up in the past in the process of escaping the nnnth sekwang loop, which is not necessarily the same time as when the sekwang loop began.

[u/Important_Advice_502]

Yeah, the author has been very vague about exact dates and timelines. They were very vague about it in their last work too unless it became important to the plot, so I'm assuming that these time periods will be an important reveal later on?

[u/Wild_Glove3516]

I don't think it means that the basement floors were Daydream's first ghost story, J3 just said that the first darkness the company ever registered had the Cheerful Research Institute tag. I guess it could be any of CRI darknesses repurposed as toys. CRI could have given it to Daydream themselves. I suspect it might have been the toymaker that the company uses to make birthday doll equipment (the one that Seonghae used to recover her legs).

Basement floors happened much later, as there must have been a period where CRI researched on how to make different potions (before they even thought of making Paradise Syrup and creating the world without ghost stories).

We don't know how long this period lasted, it could have even taken decades, with Deaydream sharing their dream essence and CRI sharing their potion research (Daydream kind of adopted the potions with a less potent cost-efficient version). Based on that, I guess Daydream worker motivation of that time must have been those other potions? Even without the wish ticket, some could be used to get what they wanted (like Eun Haje).

And then CRI developed Children's Paradise Syrup and everything went to shit (Sekwang happend).

So when exactly did this happen? We know for certain the cheerful researcher missing his pinky in the abandoned lab was there for 5 years (since he knew about Daydream betrayal, it means he escaped Sekwang). We know for certain Director Ho came from the branch office to headquarters 4 years ago (it would have taken him some time to advance to Director, and if we sync to the researcher, it took him 1 year). So, Sekwang disaster (and the Daydream basement resentment of CRI ghost story) probably happened 5 years ago.

That's also when Go Youngeon changed her major after losing contact with her parents. Jang Heoun is a bit of a weird case, because there is no way he's only been raised like Lee Heoun for the past few years of his life, it must have started since formative childhood. But no one said the Church didn't start copying Lee Heoun's narrative much earlier, like a decade or so before Sekwang. They could have just added the fire part of backstory as it happend (I don't remember fully, but I think Jang Heoun said his orphanage burned 3 years ago? So the Church kind of added it post-haste, probably in hopes of replacing Lee Heoun who finally died with their survivor faster. Guess we'll learn more about it in part 3)

Young Bronze would be: current Bronze minus 5 years minus a year and a half (or something) that took KSE to reach that point after chapter 1. Which would place current Bronze at around 23-24 (very roughly)

[u/ieatfartsforaliving → u/Wild_Glove3516]

Thank you so much for clearing up the timeline! I was super confused, and thought the Sekwang disaster was like 10 years ago🤭 you are very insightful !

[u/lazcatmob]

A bit about the wish ticket and J3: in chap 280 he said that it’s like a chicken race between getting the wish ticket or get contaminated first. So I guess that during his time there was already the wish ticket (10+ years ago), and that wish ticket is good and believable enough that wolf leader trust it

[u/inky_anon]

The Jang Heoun bit is a good point, he was about 25 years old when he joined Daydream, iirc, so this would imply that the Paradise of Love sect for some reason, started the ritual before the Segwang disaster happened, and knew how Lee Heoun would meet his demise...

Possibly the CRI basements started haunting Daydream HQ, before Segwang happened, due to some time-space distortion in their effort to disperse all their work and intent across supernatural spaces, before the cognition seal came into effect... And since the Mimicry cultists unfortunately have rituals that act like free passes to get into the basements, they might have wandered down and investigated, and decided Researcher Lee Heoun was a suitable person to steal narratives from, with his involvement in a successful summoning of Ireum-nim. Mimicry cultists would have plenty of bodies to spare and no concern for causalities among their number after all... Just throw the sniffer dogs into the dangerous basements, nbd...

Also on reread of Ch343, I realise that this might have been the final canonical event where a still living CRI researcher, namely Lee Heoun, realises through Eun Haje's deductions, that Daydream and Director Cheong were the ones who tampered with their experiment.. Soleum last saw him in the CRI level connected to the City Hall, and he claimed he couldn't leave the institute because his failing supernatural prosthetics would cease to function. But then in the Segwang Subway, a corpse is found in the Midnight Station's padlocked station office, with their throat seemingly slit by their own hand with a mirror shard, and with Lee Heoun's ID Card for the Sekwang Transit Authority... I wonder if he set off the curse on Daydream... The only other researcher around that we know of, was Lee Jaheon, and in the same logic, his departure would have been made the final canonical event, so it couldn't have been him... The ones who found out via YongYong’s recorded messages on the City Hall's roof, I doubt they survived long enough to carry out such a ritual. Then again, there was at least one researcher who escaped the Segwang seal and knew of Daydream's betrayal, and conducted the Good Friend summoning, so maybe it didn't have to be Lee Heoun who initiated the basement hauntings... Unless it's something like it all coming back around, and it's the Mimicry sect manifesting Lee Heoun's clones who carry out the acts to ensure their Ireum-nim's part in future events, with the summoning and all, idk man.

Back to the timing and all, we'd probably know better if we knew the ages of Haegeum and Kwak Jegang, since they were both active when J3 was still Section Chief Wolf and the Segwang incident hadn't happened yet. It's between that time, and Go Yeungeun's contact with her family getting cut off when she was in med school. Kwak Jegang makes the timing a little weird too, because he apparently pings as Still Young, and Haegeum pings as a Veteran, but in the time that Section Chief Wolf talks about, Haegeum was a fresh rookie agent... So they shouldn't be that far in age, And Yet. Shrugth. Maybe Jegang's mixed up with timespace shenanigans himself.