WeTried Translations
Translator: NEET_Romulus
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Dropped into the Ending of a Trash Show as an Extra ◈
Chapter 1: The Drama's Ending
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My mom was a makjang drama fanatic.
What was a makjang drama? Secrets of parentage, amnesia, mothers-in-law flinging envelopes of cash, and, of course, the indispensable kimchi slap!
Korean makjang dramas pushed melodrama to its very limits, with logic having been boiled away long ago! That's why makjang dramas are also often time referred to as trash shows.
Among them, there was one drama my mom never missed.
Its title was Tears of the Imperial Palace.
It was an alternate-history romance set in a twenty-first-century Korea where the imperial family still existed, a so-called constitutional monarchy. The plot was predictable.
A tough, hardworking heroine from a commoner background entered the imperial family by chance, then became hopelessly entangled with a prickly Crown Prince who was warm only to the woman he loved.
Watching that drama, which told historical accuracy to go to hell and mashed court intrigue together with chaebol drama clichés, I could only click my tongue to myself.
My taste ran to proper historical dramas with bold, sweeping stories, like The Land of Morning. Of course, Mom owned the remote in our house, so I had no choice but to respect her tastes.
Still, I couldn't help having questions.
“Mom, isn't it unconstitutional for the Crown Prince to move the army around however he wants? You said this was a constitutional monarchy.”
Or:
“Plotting to murder an imperial relative? They can arrest and lock someone up without a warrant for that? In the twenty-first century?”
Or:
“This is supposedly a twenty-first-century imperial household, but their security is worse than a hole-in-the-wall shop. How does that evil woman plant a listening device in the Emperor's bedroom?”
Every time, Mom would smack me on the back and defend it, saying, “You're not supposed to nitpick the logic in these things! Our Crown Prince's handsome face is all the plausibility it needs!”
Apparently, the actor who had kept her company in the living room all that time mattered more than the son who had returned from far overseas. Sigh. What an unfilial son I was.
“If there's an imperial family in the first place, why is the country still called the Republic of Korea?”
“Oh, just be quiet and watch! Dramas are supposed to be like this. Oh my God, look at that wretched bitch! She's throwing water at the heroine again!”
That was my mom. Even while cursing, she never missed a live broadcast.
But then...
“Ah, fuck! Is this insane?! Has the writer lost it?! Are you kidding me right now?!”
There came the day she watched the grand finale. Normally, she enjoyed every absurd development while shouting, “That writer's insane!” Watching while swearing could only be called enjoying it.
But a scream from the living room startled me out of my room. Mom's face was bright red as she huffed, on the verge of throwing the remote at the television.
An ending that could shatter the mental fortitude Mom had built through more than a decade of makjang dramas in one blow.
What could possibly have happened to the two leads? Curious, I cautiously approached her.
“Mom, what's wrong? They don't get married? Are they secretly half-siblings?”
“Don't ask.”
“No, what kind of ending was it? Let me know too. Is it worth watching?”
“Never watch it!! It's the shame of my life, my shame! I want to gouge out my eyes for following this garbage for two months!”
Still fuming, Mom went into her bedroom, leaving only the blackened television screen in the living room.
I smacked my lips as I looked at it.
What kind of ending could make our normally tolerant lady's mind collapse like that?
I was curious, but I didn't have the nerve to turn on the replay in front of my fuming mother. My final memory was grumbling to myself, Mom, at least let me see the ending too. If you were going to turn it off, you could've done it on your way out.
Yeah. I never dreamed that would really be my last memory of my past life.
Or that I would transmigrate into that godforsaken makjang drama.
Goddamn it.
* * *
“Ah, fuck. It's cold. Freezing.”
It was January on Ganghwa Island, where a knife-sharp wind blew.
Sniffling back the snot beading on the tip of my nose, I was repairing a torn greenhouse. My fingers had long since frozen numb, and every breath came out in a white cloud.
It had already been three years since I experienced the impossible phenomenon called transmigration.
When I opened my eyes, I had landed in the world of Tears of the Imperial Palace.
And I wasn't the male lead, the Crown Prince, or the second male lead pining after the heroine. I was an extra named Lee Jin.
Lee Jin.
A nobody imperial relative, descended from a branch of the imperial family so far removed it went down and down and down, barely clinging to a spot on the current Imperial Clan Office's rolls as forty-seventh in line to the Imperial Throne.
Forty-seventh in line sounded grand, but I was so distantly related to the direct imperial line that counting the degree of kinship was meaningless. Other than bearing the title of imperial relative, I was practically a commoner.
The only perk I received as royalty was an imperial-crest calendar and a Spam gift set delivered to my house at the end of every year.
Naturally, I had nothing whatsoever to do with the imperial family's power struggles or wealth. I was living alone on this remote stretch of Ganghwa Island, farming the little patch of land my grandfather in this life had left me.
I was bewildered at first, but life was easier on the mind than being hounded by work at my company in my past life, so I adapted quickly.
Even so, life as a novice farmer was hard.
The greenhouse heater broke down at the start of the new year, the greenhouse tore, the water tank pipes froze and burst, and the village head called at the crack of dawn asking me to find out what had happened with the eco-friendly fertilizer subsidy.
“Hyung! Jin-hyung!”
While I wrestled with the greenhouse and swallowed a string of curses, a familiar, deep voice sounded behind me.
When I turned around, a guy with a close-cropped assault cut and a sharply pressed coat was grinning at me. Captain Kwak Ji-hoon of the Marine Corps 2nd Division.
“Oh, Captain Kwak. What brings you here? Isn't today your day off?”
“It's my day off, so I came to see you. What's this, your greenhouse tore? Want me to help?”
“Forget it. I'm almost done. A soldier should rest on weekends. If you keep hanging around farms, your men will complain that you're headed out for civilian aid again.”
I had gotten close to Captain Kwak two summers ago, when a typhoon ravaged the whole village and he came to our fields leading a Marine civilian-aid team.
He looked like a bandit, but he had a warm heart, and above all, he was easygoing. We got along well, and soon enough the two of us, a young man farming alone on Ganghwa Island and a Marine captain, had become like older and younger brothers, with me as the elder and Kwak as the younger.
“Come on, who takes care of the guys as well as you do? You even treated everyone who worked that day to a full-course dinner with your own hard-earned money.”
“Cut the nonsense. Why are you really here?”
“The weather's cold and dreary. You need a drink. I brought something amazing today.”
Captain Kwak discreetly pulled a bottle of premium liquor from inside his coat. It was the kind sold tax-free at the PX.
“Hey, isn't that illegally taken out?”
“Come on, I nicked it for you... I mean, I bought it fair and square. Let's go to that pork belly place in town! I'll sweet-talk them into waiving the corkage fee.”
If he put it like that, I couldn't exactly refuse.
The sight of that gleaming liquor bottle melted away my frozen irritation like snow.
“Oh, Kwak Ji-hoon. Truly the pride of the Marines. Fine, let's finish the pipes and go. Dinner's on me today.”
We moved to a shabby pork belly restaurant in town and took a table in the corner.
Thick cuts of meat sizzled on the grill, while amber liquor sloshed incongruously in soju glasses.
A delicate fruity fragrance mingled with smoky oak. Having premium liquor enter a mouth used to nothing but makgeolli made it feel as if my chilled body were slowly thawing.
“Ahh! Military-supply booze really is the best.”
“Right? Hyung, happy New Year, and may your farm be a huge success this year!”
“Sure. You get promoted this year too.”
“Come on, you don't know what the military is like these days. Seeing how things are going, I want to quit on the spot.”
“Tch. Should a soldier protecting the country say things like that?”
As I chewed my meat, my gaze happened to lift toward the old flatscreen television hanging on the restaurant wall.
[Breaking News] The Romance of the Century Finally Bears Fruit! Live Broadcast of the Imperial Wedding of His Highness Crown Prince Lee Geon and Her Highness Crown Princess-designate Lim Chae-yeon
On the television screen was Deoksu Palace, filled with shining gold decorations, brilliantly colored traditional wedding garments, and countless foreign correspondents and guests.
Then the male and female leads of Tears of the Imperial Palace emerged among them.
Lee Geon, the cold heir to the imperial family, and Lim Chae-yeon, a plucky, hardworking heroine chosen overnight to become Crown Princess from an ordinary civilian.
Well, I didn't have much of a reaction.
While I was breaking my back digging in the dirt just to survive, they had spent sixteen whole episodes carrying on torrid affairs, adultery, and palace intrigues before finally reaching their ending. That was about it.
The wedding was extravagance at its height. It was a world entirely different from the dust-blown scenery of this backwater where I lived.
“Hey, the Crown Prince really is handsome. That lady is gorgeous too. Shouldn't you be there, hyung? You're both imperial Lees.”
Captain Kwak flipped the meat and asked teasingly.
“Bullshit. Why would I go there? They'd turn me away at the door. There are over forty direct-line and high-ranking branch relatives inside that wedding hall alone. I don't even qualify for a seat among the guests.”
“Come on, you're still blood relatives. They wouldn't even send you an invitation? The imperial family is harsh.”
“At my degree of kinship, I'm just an ordinary person with the surname Lee. Do you think those stuck-up bastards would even give me a proper meal?”
I snorted and tossed back my liquor.
Honestly, I wasn't disappointed.
If anything, it was a relief. That imperial palace looked glamorous on the outside, but inside it was a cesspit of power struggles.
Even someone like me, who had only half-watched the drama out of the corner of my eye, knew that much.
Poisonings, assassination attempts, kidnappings, and so on. You could see how desperately the lead couple had struggled through all sixteen episodes just to make it to that wedding.
Something really was strange, though.
I propped my chin on my hand and stared at the television.
The officiant's address ended, and the Crown Prince in his dress uniform stood facing the heroine in her wedding gown. Glittering chandeliers filled Seokjo Hall, accompanied by thunderous applause. By all appearances, it was the perfect happy ending.
Yeah. That was how the drama was supposed to end.
The beautiful couple shed tears as they exchanged rings. A happy ending blessed by the entire nation. Suddenly, I remembered Mom raging as she threw the remote in my past life.
What could possibly have been wrong with this to make her so furious?
It was just the ending of an ordinary Cinderella story.
No matter how I looked at it, it was a peaceful ending.
The ending was so beautiful and happy, so why had Mom gone wild and smashed the remote?
A sudden pregnancy ending? Or would someone suddenly confess to having a terminal illness?
My impoverished imagination could only picture someone bursting in to shout, “Objection! This marriage is invalid!”
The male and female leads finished their vows and slowly moved closer to kiss. The camera zoomed in on their beautiful silhouettes.
“Ugh, they're rubbing it in us singles' faces. Hyung, let's have another drink...”
Captain Kwak grumbled as he held out his cup, and just as I was about to clink mine against it again...
Beeeeeeep!
Behind them on the screen, Deoksu Palace's enormous stone walls warped grotesquely.
KABOOOM!
A colossal blast, loud enough to rupture the television speakers, shook the restaurant.
On-screen, the magnificent Seokjo Hall was swallowed by crimson flames and collapsed.
“...Huh?”
Captain Kwak, the restaurant owner who had been cutting meat in the kitchen moments ago, and I all froze, staring blankly at the screen.
The scene was literal chaos.
Screams. Guests lying bloodied on the ground. The platform where the smiling Crown Prince and Crown Princess had stood only moments before had been blown away beyond recognition, and black smoke covered half the screen.
“Aaaah!”
“Please save us! Your Highness! Your Highness!”
The Crown Prince lay bloodied on the ground, and beside him were scraps of a dress mangled beyond recognition.
The camera spun as it filmed the scene of pandemonium, then the picture went completely black with a Bzzzt!
[Regular programming has been suspended due to circumstances at the broadcasting station.]
A sinister color-bar screen appeared, and only a Beeep tone filled the restaurant eerily.
Silence. The suffocating stillness lasted only a moment.
Bzzzz! Bzzzz! Beep! Beep! Beep!
My smartphone, Captain Kwak's smartphone, and even the restaurant owner's phone all began blaring emergency alerts at once.
[Ministry of Public Safety] Emergency Disaster Alert
A national state of emergency has been declared. All citizens are to remain where they are and follow government instructions. A major explosive terrorist attack has occurred in the imperial palace. (Details under investigation.)
“...Crazy.”
I muttered blankly.
Captain Kwak's face hardened. The smartwatch on his wrist was ringing insistently.
After checking it, he said urgently as he sprang from his seat.
“Hyung.”
“I need to return to base immediately. This isn't ordinary. Jindogae One[1] has just been issued for the entire military.”
“Uh, okay. Go, hurry. Be careful.”
“Don't go anywhere either, hyung. Go straight home! Call me immediately if anything happens!”
Captain Kwak shot out of the restaurant like an arrow. The restaurant owner, trembling, prepared to lock the door.
I sat blankly at the table and turned on my smartphone. I tried to access a portal site, but traffic must have overwhelmed it, because all I got was a message saying, “Unable to connect to the server.”
When I opened social media instead, horrifying information poured in with every refresh.
- Bomb attack at Deoksu Palace! Imperial family wiped out?!
- Breaking news just came on. The Emperor, the Crown Prince, and other direct-line imperial family members attending the wedding are presumed dead...
- There was a second explosion. Seoul is chaos right now! Is there going to be a war?
My breath caught in my throat.
Only a single word barely escaped my lips.
“Fucked.”
The ending of the makjang drama I had learned after three years was that, with five minutes remaining, they set off a bomb and killed every character.
Fuck, that insane writer!
Footnotes:
[1] Jindogae One: The highest level of the military's Jindogae anti-infiltration alert system.
Makjang dramas are Korean melodramas known for wildly sensational plots, including secrets of parentage, amnesia, and spectacular family conflicts.
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