WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Editor: ChaoticRain

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 169: Episode 32: Kim Dokja's Love (6)

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Kwakakakaka!

He had drawn only a single arc, yet the air ruptured as if a fighter jet had passed through. Cracks spread wherever the golden sword energy grazed. The monsters caught in those cracks were torn apart without even being able to scream. A golden trajectory that sent everything flying, whether it was a Grade 4 or Grade 5 monster.

Sky Splitter Sword Art, the path of the sword that split the sky.

Even Grade 3 monsters that could turn an entire area to ruins within ten minutes if released alone couldn't withstand his sword strikes and screamed without end. Even Yu Junghyeok himself didn't know how long he had practiced this sword art.

Ten years? Twenty years?

Including the training he had undergone using the time layers of the dark dimension, it had surely been more than a hundred years. Because he had spent that much time, Junghyeok had been able to reach the peak of humanity.

'My physical grade is still too low, so the threshold is as far as I can go.'

Junghyeok kept swinging his sword as he controlled his overloaded muscles. No matter how strong he was, he couldn't maintain the power of a Transcendent for long. Compared to his past self or his master, the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint, his current status was no more than that of a fledgling.

Even so, his attacks had gone beyond the scope of ordinary skills.

As monsters burst like fireworks amid sparks exploding in the air, even Reinheit couldn't hide his admiration.

[So the rumors about Transcendents weren't false. But how can a human who isn't even a Returnee...]

Reinheit couldn't finish speaking. An Aether blade over ten meters long rose from Junghyeok's Splitting the Sky Sword and tore away the place where Reinheit had stood only moments ago. Its destructive power was truly terrifying.

It was the power of [sky splitter] that had reached transcendence.

"Be careful! People are getting caught up in it!"

Yu Sangah shouted, but Junghyeok kept swinging his sword without concern. What he was good at was destroying things, not saving them.

"He's the owner of a Legendary-grade fable. We can't take him down easily. Inside Paradise, his strength is above that of a Grade 2 beast species."

Reinheit's Perpetual Motion was damaged, but it showed no signs of shrinking. Instead, its stems spewed steam and sucked in the humans nearby.

"Arghhh!"

The Perpetual Motion grew faster than they could rescue people. There were still too many monsters, too. Sangah, who was killing the surrounding monsters one by one with [Hermes' Stroll] and [Theseus' Resolve], spoke.

"...There's no end to them. Why were they hiding these monsters?"

"These monsters are Paradise's exports."

"Exports?"

For a brief moment, Junghyeok looked up into the air. The Dokkaebis who had declared that they would never intervene had gathered there as though they had found an entertaining spectacle.

[Huh... This is troublesome.]

[Looks like we'll need to find a new farm.]

Sangah didn't immediately understand what they meant. Amid the rolling waves of monsters, she spotted creatures that had become familiar through previous Scenarios. Tier-9 underground species Ground Rats, Tier-8 underground species Grols...

"Have you never wondered where all the monsters used in the Scenarios come from?"

Sangah stared blankly at Junghyeok, the Dokkaebis, and the monsters of Paradise. Jeong Huiwon, who had been pouring [hellfire inferno] onto the monsters beside her, reacted before the frozen Sangah could.

"What you just said..."

"Paradise is a monster supplier for the Star Stream. More precisely, it's one of them."

At Junghyeok's answer, flames flickered in Huiwon's eyes. It felt as though several things she had never understood were being forced into place. The second floor of the Dark Castle. A land where the Dokkaebis, who intervened in every Scenario, did not intervene for the first time. Thinking about it, such a place shouldn't have existed.

[Dokkaebis! Paradise can be rebuilt!]

In the distance, Reinheit's regenerated upper body was growing above the Perpetual Motion.

[This incident may have depleted our stock somewhat, but we can recover quickly. Please don't cancel the contract!]

The despair within that plea was something no one here could share. A world that had to offer Incarnations as sacrifices to maintain a paradise for Incarnations. Reinheit had become a monster who sacrificed even his beliefs for those beliefs.

The Incarnations who noticed the Dokkaebis shouted.

"Dokkaebi! It's the Dokkaebis!"

"Has a Scenario started...?"

"W-we didn't do anything wrong!"

The Dokkaebis only sneered and laughed.

[You did do something wrong. The wrong of doing nothing.]

[Not that this was a situation we intended. Hahahat!]

Huiwon bit down hard on her lip. She couldn't keep watching this any longer.

"Is there a way to kill that thing?"

Junghyeok looked at the Perpetual Motion, which was still growing, and flicked the blood from his blade.

"There is."

If he activated [Gigantification] here and unleashed the power of a Transcendent, he could crush Reinheit with pure force. But the cost would be too great. Paradise itself would be blown away as well. Junghyeok didn't favor such inefficient fights.

"To kill him, we need to destroy the roots of the Perpetual Motion."

The roots were the Perpetual Motion's core power source. If they destroyed the roots, they could destroy the Perpetual Motion without confronting the whole thing. The problem was that the monsters' home base was at its roots. There were even powerful monsters there that Reinheit himself couldn't control.

'If only I had recruited Sephirots, the Glacier Demon ranked sixth...'

If he had made Sephirots his Companion as planned, conquering Paradise would have been much easier than this. But when he had gone to bring Sephirots along, Sephirots was already dead.

'That means someone is hunting rankers as quickly as I am.'

Dokja was the first person who came to mind, but there was no guarantee it was Dokja. There were too many variables in this round.

"We can't get underground. What do we do?"

"We don't go in. I've already assigned that role."

Lee Hyeongseong, who had killed a monster and retreated, asked the group.

"Have any of you seen Yuseong and Gilyeong? I haven't seen them for a while-"

Huiwon's eyes widened.

"Yu Junghyeok, don't tell me...!"

Before she could finish, Junghyeok spoke.

"Kim Dokja didn't leave you all behind without thinking."

Perhaps it was something only he could say because he was the regressor. Dokja had always been the one to read him, but this time, he too could read Dokja's thoughts.

[A constellation without a modifier sighs.]

Junghyeok sensed the gaze from the air and grimaced.

* * *

In a dark cavern crowded with monsters, Shin Yuseong and Lee Gilyeong were curled up as they held each other tightly. The density of monsters was so high that the small children had gone unnoticed instead.

Kwooooo!

It had also helped that they had tamed several Giant Soldier Wasps, Tier-8 Monarch-Level Insects, at a critical moment. The wasps danced chaotically beside Yuseong and Gilyeong, distorting the monsters' attention. Still, [Wasp Dance] had its limits when it came to scattering their awareness.

'What do we do?'

'I don't know either.'

Yuseong, the Beast Master, and Gilyeong, the Insect Master. They were currently the strongest tamers in Seoul. Yet even they couldn't tame all these monsters. Even setting aside the certainty that their brains would burst if they tried, the limit of [taming] they could currently manage was Grade 4. They might be able to tame a Grade 3 if they pushed themselves, but it would probably only last briefly.

'...Are we going to die like this?'

As time passed, stronger monsters appeared, and the ecosystem around them slowly began to settle.

Devil Wolf monsters prowled while drooling, while Dark Fringes bared their enormous fangs and sniffed the air with hissing breaths. The frightened wasps danced even harder, but being discovered was now only a matter of time. The monsters weren't even the only problem.

Pshhhht!

A stem of the Perpetual Motion shot through the gaps between the monsters and raced toward the two children. In that brief instant of alarm, Gilyeong embraced Yuseong, and the stem flew at them as if it would pierce them both.

Then a powerful blast of energy shot from somewhere and stopped the stem. The stem seemed startled before turning away and ignoring the children. Yuseong turned her head toward the source of the energy that had stopped it.

'What in the world...'

A monster had seen through [Wasp Dance] and was looking directly at them.

At first, she hadn't even thought it was a monster. It was far too enormous to imagine as a living creature. Its body occupied exactly one-third of the cavern. When its yellow eyes blinked in the darkness, Yuseong felt every hair on her body stand on end.

That wasn't a monster.

All sounds in the area fell silent. Even the mindless monsters bowed before it as if offering themselves up. Something with such an absurd presence was looking at them with interested eyes.

What are you two?

It seemed to be asking that. But Yuseong didn't have the confidence to answer. When she looked back, Gilyeong was in much the same state. Yuseong found her courage first.

"...Hey."

Gilyeong shook his head in horror.

"It's impossible. That thing is absolutely impossible."

With [Inter-Species Communication] pushed to its limit, they could understand each other without speaking.

"We'll die anyway if we stay like this."

Yuseong carefully rose and staggered toward the monster. The monsters that had been bowing growled fiercely, but she didn't care. At that moment, Yuseong realized what she was for.

'That's why Mister left me here.'

Only she could do this.

"Damn it."

Gilyeong cursed and followed behind her on trembling legs.

Once they came right before it, the monster's presence became incomparably stronger. Before its arrogant gaze, as if daring her to try, Yuseong felt stripped bare down to her bones.

[Exclusive Skill, Advanced Inter-Species Communication Lv.5, has activated!]

A translucent strand appeared and shot toward the monster. Inter-Species Communication. A skill created to understand different species. The moment the tip of her aura touched the monster, Yuseong's mind exploded.

'Ah, ahh...'

The monster's origin and its horrific memories were flowing into her mind. A being that had fallen into the underground depths of this miserable Paradise and survived by devouring other monsters. Eating, being eaten, despairing, screaming. A natural monster that had walked through a hellscape no human language could describe.

Blood vessels that couldn't withstand the overwhelming blood flow burst, and blood ran from Yuseong's nose and mouth. Her tear-filled vision was turning red. Gilyeong rushed over and supported her, checking her complexion, but the situation was already out of control.

In the end, Gilyeong activated [Inter-Species Communication] too.

The two children who had always bickered and fought held hands at that moment. As Gilyeong's Mana joined hers, the path of understanding widened further. Hundreds of years of tenacious life flooded their minds, and blood soon poured from Gilyeong's nose as well.

"Urgh... Aaaaargh!"

Understanding the pain of an unfamiliar monster, Yuseong wanted to give up everything for the first time. She heard a hallucination like a vessel shattering. Yuseong and Gilyeong's minds were slowly collapsing. A self too vast to bear, wounds too deep to hold. This was the price of daring to tame an opponent whose status exceeded theirs.

Within her gradually fading consciousness, Yuseong suddenly felt a gaze. It held neither the violence of something that wanted to swallow her whole nor the greed of something that wanted to consume her. It was a gaze that had watched over her for a very long time. Her body slowly grew warm, and the blood flowing from her nose stopped.

A being whose status was in no way inferior to that monster's was looking at her.

Perhaps it was a gaze that had protected her for a very long time.

[A constellation without a modifier is looking at you.]

Footnotes:

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