WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Editor: ChaoticRain

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◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 166: Episode 32: Kim Dokja's Love (3)

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Jeong Huiwon was startled.

...They're agonizing?

Reinheit was evil by anyone's standards. He had deceived countless Incarnations and mass-produced monsters underground. How could he possibly not be an evildoer?

[Constellations of the absolute good alignment entrust the judgment to the incarnation Jeong Huiwon.]

Reinheit spread his arms wide and smiled.

"If you kill me, Paradise will come to an end."

The force of the blazing [hellfire inferno] weakened for a moment. Reinheit continued with a faint smile.

"Jeong Huiwon, you must have expected it to some extent, didn't you?"

"..."

"You knew, didn't you? That there was no perfect Paradise. That every beautiful place must have its shadow."

Huiwon couldn't answer. Saying she hadn't known would have been deceitful. Of course, she had wondered. She'd thought that this place, too, must be hiding some terrible truth.

She just hadn't expected it to be like this...

"What do you plan to do by mass-producing monsters? Are you going to conquer Dark Castle?"

"I don't plan to do anything. They are simply nourishment for Paradise."

At the center of the cavern stood a tree trunk of unnatural size. A thick stem rose from it, while branches stretched beneath it like tentacles, swaying as they searched through the nearby monsters. Huiwon's gaze followed the trembling branches, eventually reaching the top of the tree. Its crown had pierced through the ceiling and risen outside. In that instant, she realized what it was.

The small flower blooming on the hill, Perpetual Motion.

Her legs trembled without her realizing it. Surely, this tree was...

"Isn't it strange? Why do the countless demonic species swarming through Dark Castle never trespass here?"

She should've suspected it long ago. Paradise had too many weaknesses to be called a naturally fortified stronghold.

"Why there are so many demonic species in Dark Castle."

The branches snatched up the prisoners one by one. Their struggling resistance was useless. The branches swiftly coiled around their captives and bound them tightly before throwing them into a hole inside the trunk.

Crackkkle!

It sounded as though something was melting. Screams rang out, as if souls were being carved from living beings. A moment later, buds formed on the branches. Huiwon shuddered as she sensed what would emerge from them.

Before several minutes had even passed, one of the flowers bloomed and withered, and instead of fruit, a strange life-form was born. It was the human the tree had just devoured.

Perpetual Motion. A tree that made demons.

"How... How could you do something like this...?"

The reason demonic species couldn't be found near Paradise. Paradoxically, it was because Paradise itself was where demonic species were produced.

"The demons produced here are released outside on a certain day each month. There is a limit to how many the prison can hold."

Reinheit continued with a smile.

"Don't look at me like that. Becoming a demon isn't necessarily a bad thing. They can live forever, and they can become stronger than they were as humans. And above all..."

Rumble.

The tree, now grown another layer larger, emitted a bright light and began supplying nourishment to the land of Paradise.

"They can offer up their sins and sustain the lives of other beings. Like martyrs."

The source that made barren land fertile and supplied the life force needed for crops to grow within the castle. That was Perpetual Motion's role.

[Constellations of the absolute good alignment demand that you make a choice.]

Huiwon's hand trembled around the hilt of her sword. If she cut down Reinheit here, the Underground Prison would collapse. Perpetual Motion would rapidly wither, and Paradise's system would fall apart. The people would lose their land and food, and the countless monsters would tear apart the Incarnations who had grown accustomed to peace.

"Why...?"

That was why Huiwon couldn't kill Reinheit. She wasn't confident she could prevent a greater disaster, so she wasn't confident she could judge the source of this tragedy.

"Because someone had to do it."

Reinheit looked sad.

"Life continues even for the defeated. Someone had to make a place for them."

"If you really did it for them, you should've helped them continue the Scenarios. Instead of making a place like this, you should've led the people and tried to clear the Scenarios!"

"You don't understand. The enemy that appears in the next Scenario isn't something we can defeat."

"...Don't tell me you know what's on the upper floor?"

"What is there isn't important. And even if we clear the next Scenario... the one after that will always be waiting. To create more failures."

"Then we'll overcome all of it! They're Scenarios, so there has to be an end someday, doesn't there? If we train our skills, build up fables, and keep moving forward...!"

"Do you believe that one day, you can clear every Scenario?"

Huiwon closed her mouth. The end of all Scenarios. The place her Companion, Dokja, was trying to reach. Reinheit continued.

"Do you believe peace will come then?"

Huiwon answered with a surge of emotion.

"Yes. I believe it will."

"Why do you think that? Has even one being ever reached the end of the Scenarios?"

"There are Constellations!"

"Constellations?"

"They exist outside the Scenario. That means there's a way to escape this Scenario."

Constellations who toyed with Incarnations as though they were playthings. Because such absolute beings existed, the Incarnations could paradoxically hold on to hope.

That someday, they too could rise to that place.

That they could escape beyond these hellish Scenarios.

"Ha. Hahaha, hahahaha..."

Reinheit laughed.

"I see. Constellations. I understand how you feel. I once thought the same way."

"What do you mean?"

"Why do you think the Constellations have cleared every Scenario? Did that Kim Dokja fellow tell you so?"

Dokja had never said that. Reinheit continued.

"They are certainly outside the Scenario. But they are only outside this Scenario."

"..."

"The Constellations are carrying out Scenarios just like us. Whether it is the 76th or the 84th. Their Scenarios differ in scale and number, but they are the same as us."

She had never considered that before. Huiwon asked in a trembling voice.

"Th-then...?"

"The Constellations are simply extraordinary powerhouses born in the middle of the Scenarios. They aren't gods, nor are they absolute beings."

As if declaring an absolute truth of this world, Reinheit said,

"Let me say it again. No one has reached the end of the Scenarios."

"..."

"This world is an eternal hell."

It felt as though the strength was slowly draining from her legs. Huiwon stiffened as she looked down at the shaking ground. Something even the Constellations couldn't accomplish. A place even those mighty beings couldn't reach. That was the place Dokja was heading toward.

How could he possibly be trying to do something like that? Just what was Dokja...

"That is why I had no choice but to create Paradise."

Huiwon blankly looked up at Reinheit.

"But at this rate, Paradise will collapse. The number of humans is dwindling, while the number of demonic species keeps increasing. There is absurdly little nourishment left to maintain the land."

A man who had finally made Paradise bloom by using that despair as fertilizer.

"I need noble human souls to nourish this tree. And as it happens, quite a few such souls arrived this quarter. Kim Dokja and you are among them."

Huiwon realized what he was saying.

"Is that why you needed me?"

"That's right. If you, chosen by a Great Archangel, become nourishment, you can maintain Paradise's life force for at least ten years. If Kim Dokja, who has become a Constellation, does so, he can maintain it for over two hundred years."

"You think I'd accept a request like that?"

"You will. Because you are the incarnation of a Great Archangel."

If she sacrificed herself, Paradise could be protected.

"If you help me, we won't have to punish petty criminals for a while. You may save tens of thousands of lives."

Huiwon's shoulders trembled faintly. Tens of thousands of people could be saved with her life. If she didn't die, tens of thousands would die.

Grrr...

A fish-like monster wriggled on the ground. Looking closely, its face resembled that of the woman from Geumho Station. The monster looked at Huiwon with desperate eyes and cried out.

"I..."

It was a life that had already been abandoned. Her parents, her friends, everyone who remembered her had died. The end of the Scenarios was impossible, and the life ahead of her would be meaningless.

"I..."

[Constellations of the absolute good alignment are looking at you.]

Huiwon made her decision.

"If I..."

If she could save tens of thousands of people by dying, then it would be right, just, and good.

Reinheit's expression softened.

At the final moment, though, something held her back.

'But then, what was my life?'

It was probably emptiness.

'What... was I, then?'

It was her last lingering attachment to life.

「Huiwon, you're good with a sword.」

And she already knew the answer.

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

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

Because someone had already given her the answer.

「Those are things I could know because you kept going through the Scenarios, Huiwon.」

Dokja had probably known the true nature of the Scenarios from the beginning.

Even so, he hadn't given up.

「That's why I believe we should keep going through the Scenarios.」

Huiwon tightened her grip on the Sword of Judgement.

"I can't die here."

She decided to become selfish.

She decided to live.

Even if many people died because of her choice, she decided to live while accepting even that.

"No, please die now."

Yet will and life were sometimes unrelated.

"And obediently become nourishment for Paradise."

There were too many demons to face, even if she unleashed [hellfire inferno] with all her strength. Huiwon opened all her Mana. She couldn't die. She wouldn't die.

Booom!

A moment later, the bulkhead behind her exploded, and people appeared.

"Huiwon!"

"Ah, how could you go off alone again?"

They were the people who sustained her life. Yet Reinheit didn't look flustered. Instead, he smiled as if this was for the best.

"I will obtain plenty of nourishment."

No matter what anyone said, he was the second-ranked powerhouse of Dark Castle. There was no way he would fear a group without Dokja.

"Everyone, fall back!"

Lee Hyeongseong stepped forward to protect the others. He had become much more dependable than before, but the situation was still dire. Someone would probably die in this battle, and if they were unlucky, everyone would die.

If only Dokja were here.

Though she had tried not to rely on Dokja, Huiwon found herself thinking that again.

"This is your end."

Reinheit raised his hand as he declared it.

At that moment, Paradise's foundation and the ceiling of the underground cavern collapsed all at once. Ruthless explosions rang out in succession, as though a bomber were dropping bunker busters.

Rumble!

A tremendous storm of Aether tore apart Perpetual Motion's branches, and the shattered ground fell directly onto Reinheit and the monsters. The monsters screamed horribly as they were crushed beneath it. A voice came from within the thick cloud of dust and smoke.

"You hid in a damn deep place."

A blunt-looking man stood atop the fallen mound of earth, with a woman's shadow following behind him. Yu Junghyeok looked at the Allies staring at him in awe and confusion, then spoke through gritted teeth.

"...Where is Kim Dokja?"

Footnotes:

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