Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint - Chapter 160

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Editor: ChaoticRain

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 160: Episode 31: Graveyard of the Scenarios (2)

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Yu Sangah, whom Yu Junghyeok had met for the first time in a week, looked even more haggard than before. Yet the sharpness in her eyes shone brighter than ever.

"It looks like you've inherited some rather good fables."

Junghyeok gripped the Splitting the Sky Sword. The second floor of the Dark Castle was the perfect stage for stealing other people's fables. And Sangah's fables were valuable enough to take.

'This woman didn't exist in the previous round either.'

There had been circumstances last time, but he couldn't leave uncertain factors alone forever. Kim Dokja alone was already more than enough of a variable.

Sangah lightly raised both hands and stepped back.

"I didn't come here to fight."

"Then why did you come?"

"I need help."

"I told you not to get involved with me again. Saving you then was only repayment for my debt to Kim Dokja."

"It's about Kim Dokja."

"...What do you mean?"

Once the pressure around them vanished, Sangah took a short breath and spoke.

"Dokja is going to die in this Scenario."

Dokja would die? Junghyeok let out a snort.

"Kim Dokja has a resurrection ability. I think I told you before. Were you not listening properly?"

Junghyeok had a rough idea of Dokja's abilities by now. His resurrections surely weren't infinite, but he would be able to come back to life at least a few more times. Dokja's life wouldn't be in danger for the time being.

"He should have come back by now. It seems you haven't met him yet."

Sangah's gaze wavered this time. Still, she didn't back down.

"That's not what I mean. If we leave him like this, Dokja will die for real."

"...How do you know that?"

"Because I saw it."

"You saw it?"

The next moment, a huge ball of thread appeared behind Sangah.

It wasn't Ariadne's Thread, nor was it Arachne's Web.

Looking closer, the threads weren't made of fiber. They were tiny strings of text. Cords woven from countless stories. Junghyeok knew that form, the thing that gathered the world's fables and embroidered a great destiny like cloth.

Which was why he couldn't help being shocked.

It was the symbol of the three goddesses of fate, the Moirai.

Junghyeok ground out, "Don't tell me you peeked at the constellations' prophecy?"

Sangah hesitated, then nodded. Junghyeok pressed her.

"Do you understand what you've done? Fate is..."

"I know! That's why I'm asking for your help, Yu Junghyeok."

Junghyeok's thoughts became tangled. The Moirai's Fate wasn't simply a power that saw and foretold the future. It was closer to a conclusion drawn from big data. The most plausible future predicted through combinations of existing strings.

It seemed as though Fate wasn't absolute and could be changed at any time, but that wasn't true at all.

Olympus's prophecies had never been wrong.

Even Zeus, the chief god of Olympus, couldn't escape that Fate.

Because from the moment Fate began, all of Olympus's Plausibility was used to make it come true.

"Please stop Dokja. Otherwise..."

Sangah's desperate words were cut off. Sparks engulfed her body and sealed her mouth.

Yet Junghyeok could clearly see the string of text embroidered in the ball of thread behind her.

「The Incarnation Kim Dokja will be killed by the one he loves most.」

* * *

"The plains are enormous."

"Is this really the Dark Castle?"

Lee Hyeongseong stared at the endless horizon in amazement. Jungles sprawled across the vast plain, and a black river brimming with ominous energy flowed majestically through its center.

That river was probably Phoenix, a tributary of the Demon Realm.

We had finally arrived on the second floor of the Dark Castle.

"That's right. This is the second floor. It's completely different from the first."

Unlike the first floor, where a new Scenario was underway, the Dark Castle's second floor had housed a Scenario that had been running for a very long time.

In the distance, Incarnations were gathered in small groups.

They seemed to be Incarnations from Seoul who had entered alongside us. They didn't react much when they saw us, but looking closer, they were listening to a dokkaebi's guide.

[...Thus, congratulations to all Incarnations who have newly ascended to the second floor. This place, Abyss Plains, will become a place of opportunity where you may become anything.]

This dokkaebi spoke in a peculiar manner I hadn't heard before. Its face was wrinkled, and it looked visibly aged. It seemed to be a dokkaebi who had served the Administration Bureau for a very long time. That made sense if it was in charge of the Abyss Plains Scenario.

The Scenarios here were usually assigned to demoted dokkaebis.

I turned on my smartphone and found information about the second floor of the Dark Castle in TWSA.

「Abyss Plains. The dokkaebis call it the Graveyard of the Scenarios.」

Graveyard of the Scenarios. Reading those words filled me with a strange emotion. So I had already come this far.

Han Suyeong, who had been listening to the dokkaebi, spoke.

"What bullshit. Opportunity, my ass. They'll work us like dogs whenever they get the chance, going on about balancing the difficulty and all that."

She wasn't the only one. Other Incarnations, already used to the dokkaebis' honeyed words, only glared at the dokkaebi with distrustful faces. Having reached the ninth scenario, there was no way they would fall for talk about opportunities.

Whether it heard her or not, the old dokkaebi smiled.

[Do not worry. The dokkaebis will not interfere in this Scenario. Whether the Scenario is entertaining or not, we will never lay a hand on the story.]

The Incarnations murmured. The dokkaebis had never said anything like that before.

Why would dokkaebis, who always wanted more stimulating stories, suddenly say they wouldn't interfere with a story?

"What are they plotting?"

[I know you have all grown weary of the Scenarios so far. But my words are true.]

[An updated Main Scenario has arrived!]

Category: Main

Difficulty: ???

Clear Conditions: ???

Time Limit: None

Rewards: None

Penalty for Failure: None

Every condition was hidden, and there was neither a time limit nor a penalty for failure. The Incarnations, who had never received a Scenario like this before, were thrown into confusion.

"What? What are we supposed to do if they don't reveal anything?"

"They're trying to screw us over with another shitty Scenario, aren't they?"

Despite their heated reactions, the dokkaebi only smiled generously.

[What have you run for until now? For your families or friends? To become stronger? Or to stand above everyone else? You must each have an answer. But I think all of those answers are lies. Because you have only come this far to carry out the Scenarios.]

The Incarnations' gazes wavered at the words that dismissed their lives. The old dokkaebi continued.

[But it will be difficult to overcome the Scenarios ahead with that mindset alone. The Star Stream does not want such Incarnations. Therefore, this Scenario will demand nothing from you.]

A Scenario that demanded nothing. The Incarnations trembled.

[There is no time limit or penalty for failure. Because there is nothing to fail. Find the Clear Conditions yourselves. Only those who desire a story for themselves will be able to move forward. Hehe, though I wonder how many will make such a choice... I pray that you do not sleep in this grave.]

With those final words, the dokkaebi disappeared.

The Incarnations, who had suddenly lost their purpose, began murmuring noisily. It was a strange sight. This was a more peaceful Scenario than any we had experienced so far, yet the Incarnations looked uneasy.

As if they had been happier when they had an impossible goal.

"Dokja? What is this..."

Hyeongseong looked deeply confused as well.

He had been burning with determination to raise his ranking until just a moment ago, only for a Scenario with no Clear Conditions to appear. He couldn't help feeling deflated. I had been worried about it, too.

This Scenario might be the most dangerous one for our party.

Just as I was about to speak, I heard movement behind me.

"Ugh... Where are we?"

Lee Jihye and Lee Gilyeong, who had been unconscious, woke up.

* * *

Jihye fell into despair after seeing her incredible rank of 98,761st.

"I've never even gotten a rank like this on a mock exam..."

That was a lie, of course. According to TWSA, Jihye was bad at studying.

"...Dokja-hyung?"

Gilyeong sprang up like a grasshopper the moment he saw me, then immediately curled up like a polite pill bug and pretended to be calm.

"I knew you'd be alive. I believed in you until the end, hyung!"

Jihye snorted.

"What are you talking about, brat? You were crying your eyes out and dripping snot everywhere."

"I wasn't crying."

Gilyeong insisted to the end that he hadn't cried and that he had naturally known I would come back to life. Yet ten minutes later, his eyes brimmed with tears again, and he lost control of his emotions.

"Hyuuuuung!"

He clung to my leg.

"...A Scenario without a Scenario?"

After hearing our explanation, Jihye looked at us as if we were talking nonsense.

"How are we supposed to clear that?"

Hyeongseong spoke after thinking for a moment.

"Could there be another intention behind it? If we find the hidden condition, we should be able to clear the Scenario."

"That must be it. If we all work together and look..."

Watching Hyeongseong and Jihye join forces, I gave a bitter smile.

Simplicity was helpful at times like this. But not everyone had their simple drive.

"Um... Do we have to clear it?"

The one who said that was Kim Youngpal of the Pinkies. Jihye asked, "Who's that woman?"

"Just some woman... man who happened to come with us."

I was too tired to explain properly. They wouldn't believe me if I suddenly told them he was a man in his forties.

Youngpal fumbled with half-lidded eyes.

"Wouldn't it be fine to just stay like this? Do we really have to clear it...?"

"What kind of bullshit is that all of a sudden?"

"D-Do you all know what lies at the end of these Scenarios?"

It felt as if he had pierced the heart of the matter from somewhere unexpected. I never thought that old man would have such thoughts.

Jihye asked back in confusion, "What?"

"We don't know whether continuing these Scenarios will be good for us or bad for us. We're only toys for the constellations within the Scenarios. Even if we clear this Scenario, we don't know what the next one will be like. W-We could die at any time."

The expressions of our party grew troubled at Youngpal's words. Thinking about it, he was right. No one knew how these Scenarios would end. No one knew who would die, where, or how.

Everyone had only run this far because they would die if they didn't clear them.

But this Scenario had no penalty for failure and no time limit.

Jihye bit her lip and shouted, "So what are we supposed to do? Stay here? Do you even know where this is? Demons are wandering around, and there isn't a single safe place..."

Before Jihye could finish speaking, large demonic species began rushing toward us from across the plain. They were demonic species of at least the fifth grade at a glance.

Jihye smiled as if she had known it would happen.

"See? They're already coming."

"Everyone, gather up!"

The nearby Incarnations quickly gathered around our party. The approaching monsters were Devil Bears, fourth-grade demonic species. There were about twenty of them. If I used [Electrification] and joined forces with the others, we could defeat that many easily enough.

The other Incarnations, who didn't know my strength, looked despairing.

"Those monsters again..."

That was when beams of light poured down from beyond the Devil Bears. Blazing crimson flames. A path of sacred fire opened, and the demons behind them screamed.

Power strong enough to slaughter fourth-grade demonic species. That Stigma was definitely...

"Huiwon!"

Jihye shouted.

As expected, the flames were Jeong Huiwon's [hellfire inferno]. Huiwon, who had spotted us from afar, looked stunned. When she saw me alive in particular, she looked almost aghast.

I awkwardly waved. Huiwon hesitated, then nodded.

At that moment, I felt a strange sense of unease.

...What was this?

Looking closer, Huiwon was riding a Black Unicorn.

How had she tamed that beast species?

Several people riding Black Unicorns with Huiwon drove back the demons and rushed toward us. Incarnations who recognized Huiwon cried out her title.

"It's the Judge of Evil!"

As Huiwon came closer, Jihye ran to her.

"Huiwon, you were alive after all! Did you get here first?"

"Jihye, sorry, but let's talk later."

Leaving the chatty Jihye behind, Huiwon turned away. Jihye trudged back to my side, looking dejected.

As if she were already used to this, Huiwon naturally began guiding people.

"Everyone, follow me! I'll lead you somewhere safe!"

Somewhere safe? The unease I had felt earlier deepened.

The Incarnations, awed by Huiwon's overwhelming strength, followed her as if bewitched. We had no choice but to follow them.

After crossing the plains for about an hour, a rampart hidden between the jungle zones came into view.

It was a solid rampart that looked impossible for any demonic species to cross. As the Incarnations stared at it in wonder, a voice rang out from somewhere.

"Welcome. It must have been difficult getting here. You have worked hard. You are safe now."

People murmured. Huiwon was looking at me with complicated eyes.

At that moment, I realized what was going on.

Damn it. I see.

This was that bastard's fortress.

A man appeared atop the rampart. His appearance alone made it clear that he was the master of this place.

A demon bearing the most peaceful despair in the world looked down at us and smiled.

"You no longer need to carry out the Scenarios."

Footnotes:

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