WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Editor: ChaoticRain

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◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 163: Episode 31: Graveyard of the Scenarios (5)

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'If I die, Paradise will fall?'

After Kim Dokja left, Reinheit stared blankly down the hill for a long time. When he first heard those words, he laughed because they were so absurd. But when Dokja's expression didn't change, he had no choice but to stop laughing too.

He was angry.

Even if Dokja had become a Constellation, what he said had gone too far. Constellations weren't the strongest beings from the start. In the Star Stream, it wasn't unusual for the 72 Demon Kings to devour novice Constellations.

Besides, Dokja was only a half-baked Constellation.

[The constellation Abyssal Black Flame Dragon warns you not to overlook Kim Dokja's words.]

That was why Reinheit couldn't help being surprised when Abyssal Black Flame Dragon came to Dokja's defense.

Who was Abyssal Black Flame Dragon? Even among the absolute evils, he was a famously rotten bastard, someone even the mighty 72 Demon Kings avoided getting involved with. The soldiers of Paradise stood in formation beneath the fortress walls. Looking at those dependable figures, Reinheit forced himself to hide his unease.

Paradise would never fall.

He was old, but he was still going strong. He had protected this place alone for seven hundred years. It would be fine from now on too. Even if the Addicted Constellations, driven mad by stagnating in the Scenarios, came here, he wouldn't lose as long as he fought in Paradise.

'If anything, the ones in danger are...'

Dokja still didn't know how terrifying it was for someone who had built up high-quality fables to come to Dark Castle.

Thud.

A rotten fruit of Perpetual Motion fell, and Reinheit disappeared beyond the hill.

* * *

I was worried a battle might break out there, but fortunately, Reinheit didn't attack. If we had fought there, all of Paradise would have been turned upside down.

Defeating Reinheit here would make things go smoothly, but I would suffer tremendous damage, and the Incarnations of Paradise would grow to resent me.

That wouldn't do.

Even if Paradise collapsed, it had to be because of the contradictions within Paradise itself, not anger toward an outside enemy.

"...Are you done talking?"

"Yes."

Jeong Huiwon had been waiting for me at the bottom of the hill. She still looked torn. She was probably caught between her loyalty to me and the comfort Paradise offered. I decided to ease that burden a little.

"Huiwon-ssi. Shall we go shopping for a while?"

We matched our steps as we walked down the street. The noise of the bustling shopping district surrounded us.

"It's been a long time since we walked around this leisurely."

"Yeah."

When the awkward silence continued, Huiwon spoke first.

"Is there anything you're curious about?"

"What should I ask?"

I actually knew what I should ask.

But there were things I didn't ask precisely because I knew.

"Um... your favorite color, or favorite food."

"Those are questions people probably wouldn't even ask on a blind date."

"Have you been on blind dates too, Dokja-ssi?"

"...That's harsh."

"No, I mean... Dokja-ssi seems like a bit of a bookish type. Like you'd want some sort of fated encounter."

It felt like she had unexpectedly hit the mark. I had never been on a blind date. More accurately, I had never had time for something like that. Huiwon continued.

"We've never talked about things like that before."

"..."

"What we did for a living, where we went to school. What our phone numbers were, where we lived. And..."

The scenery drifted past slowly, and Huiwon's voice gradually faded. Even as she spoke, she must have realized it. Perhaps too much time had passed for us to have that kind of conversation.

The neighborhood where she had lived was probably destroyed, and the people who remembered the life she had built...

They probably weren't alive anymore. All of that had happened to us in just a few months.

"Even if we go back... Seoul won't be the same anymore, will it?"

"It won't."

Once the tenth Scenario ended, the Seoul Dome would break apart and the Incarnations would be freed.

But that would only be the beginning of another hell. The Scenarios that had occurred only within the domes of capital regions would spread across the entire world.

"Then why do we have to keep doing the Scenarios? Nothing we knew is left. There's nowhere for us to return to."

That was why the Incarnations couldn't reject this Paradise.

The mother and daughter from Geumho Station, Kim Youngpal of the Pinkies, and Huiwon were all the same. This was where people who had lost their own paradise gathered.

Huiwon lowered her head.

I deliberately spoke without looking at her face.

"Huiwon, you're good with a sword."

"..."

"More than anyone among us, you're levelheaded in the face of injustice. You're especially sensitive to the tyranny of the strong."

Slowly, I began telling the story I knew. Just because it hadn't appeared in the original story didn't mean I didn't know Huiwon. After all, I was reading the original story more closely than ever before.

"You always fight at the front of the group, and you've never once complained that things were hard."

Huiwon listened with her lips pressed tightly together. I continued.

"Even when you're hurt, you don't confide in anyone. And when something seems suspicious, if you trust that person, you think it's a matter of loyalty not to ask."

I thought of Huiwon. Huiwon, who had trusted my suspicious actions. Huiwon, who had fought in my place at Geumho Station.

"You distrust people more than anyone, but you're actually warmhearted. When an Ally is in danger, you're the first one to rush over."

Huiwon, who had desperately searched for her Allies when the dokkaebi's tricks scattered them apart. Huiwon, who looked prickly but carefully worried that even a small joke might hurt someone else's feelings.

"Isn't that enough for me to know at least a little about Jeong Huiwon-ssi?"

With her head lowered, Huiwon said, "I'm not that kind of person."

"But that's the Jeong Huiwon-ssi I've seen."

Avoiding my gaze, Huiwon gave a bitter smile.

"...You'll be good at talking if you ever go on a blind date, Dokja-ssi."

"Those are things I could know because Huiwon-ssi kept going through the Scenarios."

Huiwon's half-parted lips froze. Looking at Paradise's tightly shut gates, I said, "That's why I believe we should keep going through the Scenarios."

There was nowhere for us to return to. And perhaps there would be nowhere for us to stay, either. But at least the story was continuing. And because the story continued, there were things we could barely come to know.

Huiwon carefully bit her lip.

"It's too difficult. I don't really understand what you're saying. I told you before, I dropped out of school."

"I'm not saying this because I want Huiwon-ssi to act a certain way. For the record, I wasn't very diligent about attending school either."

"..."

"Huiwon-ssi, you just have to live in Huiwon-ssi's own way."

With those words, I opened the auction house.

[An item from a crafting commission has arrived.]

The item I had commissioned arrived at just the right time. It had been made from the bones of the fire dragon race, a demon's heart, and the cores of several monstrous beasts. An item only Huiwon could use in this world.

Even in the original story, it was an item only the Three Great Judges could use.

I paid the crafting fee of 100,000 coins in full and received the item.

[You have given Sword of Judgement to Jeong Huiwon.]

Startled, Huiwon accepted the sword without thinking.

"This is...?"

"Didn't we agree to go shopping together? This is a gift from me. The sword you used before was damaged, right?"

"I don't deserve something like this."

The Sword of Judgement. A sword made for the world's most precise destruction of evil. As I placed its hilt in Huiwon's hand, I said, "No. Huiwon-ssi is the only one worthy of using this sword."

* * *

"Your personality is seriously screwed up. Are you really leaving like this?"

Paradise grew farther away. Han Suyeong kept looking back as she asked. I answered without turning around.

"I'm done with what I had to do here."

"What do you mean, done?"

If things followed the original story, Paradise would definitely be destroyed. The peace the Incarnations reached after a long Scenario would be brutally shattered. Should I stop it? I couldn't. As long as Paradise existed, this Scenario wouldn't end.

"Paradise wasn't mine to deal with anyway."

"Ah, so you're leaving it to the original story... But why? You could do it yourself."

"Reinheit is too much to handle right now, and even if I beat him, I'd only gain bad fables. He has too many supporters."

Fables didn't only have good effects. Some fables lowered your stats simply by possessing them.

"Fine, let's say that's true. Then what kind of sick reasoning is leaving all your Allies behind?"

"They need to rest too."

"What? Rest? Be honest. You're sulking, aren't you? You did all sorts of things for them, but they fell for some random demon they just met. Especially that Jeong Huiwon or whatever..."

"Jeong Huiwon has every reason to do that. She's had it hard enough until now."

Suyeong snorted.

"That's funny. Do you even know what you've done? Paradise is about to fall. And she's happily holding the sword you gave her without knowing anything."

"They made their own choices, so they have to bear the responsibility themselves."

"You demon bastard..."

Some wounds broke us, but some wounds made us stronger. Even if she called me a demon, it couldn't be helped. That was my way.

Suyeong grumbled for a long time before speaking again.

"Hmm... But, Kim Dokja."

"What?"

"Then why are you taking me with you?"

"Because you're useful."

Suyeong pouted, then suddenly summoned her avatar and started hitting it. Looking closer, the avatar's face resembled mine. Right, that avatar could change its face too.

"...What are you doing?"

"Training."

It looked more like one-sided violence than training. Somehow, she was also concentrating on places that looked painful. After walking for a while while beating up the avatar with my face, Suyeong asked, "So what are you planning to do now?"

"For three or four days, I'll put the Scenarios aside, gather fables while looking for Hidden Pieces."

At the words Hidden Pieces, the corner of Suyeong's mouth twitched slightly.

"That's unusual. Aren't you the type who focuses on the Main Scenario?"

"This time, I'm going to leave some things to other people too. I've had a hard time handling everything on my own until now."

Thinking about it, I had tried too hard by myself until now.

That bastard Yu Junghyeok seemed to be working hard on something too, but he was strangely unhelpful when it mattered. During the Catastrophe of Floods and in peace land, everything would have been over if I hadn't helped.

No doubt, while I was working hard to prepare for the Scenarios, he had been wandering around looking for Hidden Pieces. That was probably why things had turned out that way.

So this was the time for that bastard to get moving properly.

I grinned.

"From now on, we're going to pretend to be the regressor."

Footnotes:

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