WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Editor: ChaoticRain
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈
Chapter 174: Episode 33: Re-reading (3)
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Mother fell silent for a moment at my words. It made me a little happy. The fact that this “mother” had expected me to love her, and that I could hurt those feelings, thrilled me.
Yet when she spoke again, her tone suggested she had expected this.
“Hmm, I thought so.”
“...”
“Still, I wanted to test it. It might have ended your Fate. You still had plenty of lives left, after all.”
“Don't talk as if you care about me.”
“Dokja, I love you more than anyone else in the world. Maybe even more than I love myself.”
Goosebumps rose all over my body.
Why was she suddenly saying that now?
“What do you mean?”
As I looked at mother smiling, one corner of my heart ached. Did she really believe those words? Did she think I could forgive the more than ten years I had spent writhing in pain alone because of her, just because she said that?
I glared at her in silence.
Mother loved me.
I couldn't bring myself to use [lie detection]. If those words were true, and if they were lies, I wasn't confident I could bear either possibility. A sigh escaped me.
“It's too late.”
“I know.”
“Then why...?”
“Because I don't think I've ever said it to you before.”
For a while, neither of us spoke as we counted the silence. Only the ticking second hand of the quiet wall clock told me that this moment was passing. It was like turning a page with nothing written on it. I opened my mouth like a writer barely managing to force out the first sentence.
“What was prison like?”
“I can't say it was good. Even if I don't tell you...”
“I won't know if you don't tell me.”
“...”
“Why didn't you ever say anything? I visited you so many times...”
I hadn't hated mother from the beginning. Not even when she killed father. Not even when she went to prison for it. Not even when the relatives rushed in, stripped away our family assets, and left me in their homes like discounted merchandise no one wanted.
I didn't hate or resent mother. If anything, we were fellow victims. Comrades who had stood together against the monster trying to destroy our world.
“How could someone be so selfish?”
The reason I came to resent mother was simple.
“Why did you stay silent with me? And why... why did you write that story?”
Someone might say that selling that book and getting rich from the royalties was a good thing. I didn't know whether the royalties mother received ever helped support me. My relatives always treated me as though I barely existed. My life had never changed.
“Everywhere was like hell. Whether I went to school, walked down the street, or met someone, it felt like everyone in the world was talking about me. Moving house and changing schools didn't make any difference. I was always the ‘murderer's son.’”
Anyone who hadn't gone through it wouldn't understand how relentless this world could be. Reporters lingering outside the house, every gaze in the world feeling like it was following me.
“Still, maybe I could've endured even that.”
It might have been all right if mother had said even one word to me. If she had told me to hold on a little longer, that I could endure it. Even if she had sold my story for money, if only she had let me know she was on my side.
[The Fourth Wall shakes violently.]
[Stigma, Self-Rationalization Lv.2, has activated!]
I looked at mother. I hadn't misunderstood. Mother had sold both my life and hers, and made a great deal of money.
Then she opened her mouth.
“I wanted people to know.”
“Know what?”
“The truth.”
“...What truth? That you killed father?”
“You know that isn't the story.”
“No. I know very well. After we parted, I reread my memories countless times.”
Re-reading. Maybe I had become so good at immersing myself in fictional characters because of mother.
「Dokja. From now on, you're going to ‘reread’ everything.」
「Your father committed a sin worthy of death.」
「It was self-defense. You understand?」
Memories I had reread hundreds, thousands, no, tens of thousands of times. I had replayed them so often that I no longer knew whether they had really happened.
“Honestly, I thought it was a good thing father died. He was a habitual domestic abuser and a gambling addict. If we had let him stay with us, our family would've become more and more dangerous.”
Mother looked at me for a moment, then nodded.
“Yes. Then why are you angry?”
I had tried so many times to ask mother.
Why hadn't she run away with me? Why had she left me alone as a child? Why hadn't she come to see me after she was released from prison?
But as those questions piled up inside me, I had found my own answer.
[The Fourth Wall's shaking subsides.]
It was an answer born from fear. An answer that had erased the space where an answer should have been. Perhaps I was afraid that, if the right answer were written there, I wouldn't be able to accept it.
In the meantime, mother repeatedly opened and closed her mouth as if she wanted to say something. Then she spoke again.
“...Is it too late even to say that?”
Yes. I knew it.
[A considerable number of constellations have sponsored 5,000 coins for your family history.]
This goddamn melodrama had gone on long enough.
[The constellation Prisoner of the Golden Headband is parched from your situation.]
[The constellation Demonic Judge of Fire advises you to think again.]
[The constellation One Who Gouged Out His Own Eyes smiles sinisterly.]
That sort of thing didn't suit a mother and son like us in the first place.
“Why do you keep changing the original work?”
Mother casually changed the subject.
“If you had let things flow as they were meant to, if you had let those destined to die die, the Scenarios wouldn't have become this difficult.”
“I had to change it. As you know, Yu Junghyeok of the third round can't make it to the ending.”
[Multiple constellations are frustrated by the filtering.]
It seemed discussions about the original work were filtered for the constellations after all.
“The ending?”
“Yes. The ending.”
“You're going through all this for something like that? You're out of your mind.”
“The ending of this story matters to me. This world protected me while you were gone.”
This novel was the only reason I had been able to live through those more than ten years with neither mother nor father.
“Someone like you wouldn't understand even if I explained it.”
『Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse』. I didn't know why the author had given it that title. To me, though, the title wasn't a metaphor. This world had been no different from a ruined world to me for a long time.
I survived because I read this novel.
That was why I couldn't give up on this story.
“This isn't a novel anymore. There is no ending in reality where everyone lives happily ever after.”
“We won't know until we reach the end. And when did I ever say I wanted an ending like that?”
“Stop. This world is insane. Just because you know a little about the future, just because you struggle, doesn't mean it's a story you can do anything about. You know that too, don't you? Even the next Scenario alone-”
“Stop.”
There was no point in arguing any further.
“Just tell me what you want. Why did you call me here?”
“Stay here.”
“...”
“I can't lose my only son again. I'll somehow handle the next Scenario.”
“Forget it.”
Rooooar!
I raised my fighting spirit and spoke.
“Be honest. Just say I'm getting in your way. I don't know what your goal is, but there's no point asking, is there?”
For the first time, an unfamiliar emotion crossed mother's face.
She looked sad. Sad? What right did you have to be sad?
“...I wonder who you take after.”
Mana waves began to surge from mother's body as well.
“I hate doing this, but I don't have a choice right now.”
Rumble!
[Some constellations enjoy dysfunctional family fights.]
[Some constellations who value filial piety lecture you.]
As the furniture inside the house was swept up in the Mana storm and began flying around, Han Suyeong, who had noticed something was wrong, kicked open the front door and rushed in.
“Kim Dokja!”
Behind Suyeong appeared Jo Yeongran, the incarnation of Jeon Woochi. The living room turned into a standoff in an instant. Yeongran prepared her Daoist arts, while mother only watched me with calm eyes. Jeon Woochi's Daoist arts were troublesome, but if I knew what they were, I could defend against them somehow.
Mother was the problem. I still didn't know what mother's Patron was. That meant the decisive moment was now, right before her ability manifested.
[Exclusive Skill, Bookmark, has activated!]
“Bookmark Number Four, select Lycaon Isparang.”
[Exclusive Skill, Way of the Wind Lv.10(+1), has activated!]
[Way of the Wind], pushed to its limit, activated, and the entire living room was swallowed by a Mana storm.
In the chaos of my vision, I detonated the condensed wind and brought down the living room. Then I escaped the house with Suyeong. While thick smoke obscured our sight, I spoke to her.
“I'll end this right away. Get ready.”
“Got it.”
Suyeong began forming powerful [Black Flame] in her hands. I immediately changed Bookmarks.
“Bookmark Number Five, select Kyrios Lordgrime.”
The combination of [Miniaturization] and [Electrification] after [Way of the Wind]. The fastest and most efficient route was to pour every bit of my strongest techniques into subduing mother.
Just as I was about to use the skills, dozens of people burst through the dust cloud.
They surrounded me and spoke in pleading voices.
“You've misunderstood something. Please. You have to stay here.”
They were mother's subordinates. Dozens of women in prison uniforms looked at me with pitying expressions.
Suyeong shouted in surprise.
“What are these people?”
Suyeong unleashed an attack at them, but the Black Flame scattered in every direction due to Jeon Woochi's Strange Gate Formation. Yeongran shouted.
“Kim Dokja! Stop! Ms. Sukyeong is doing this for you...!”
Mother stopped them. She placed a finger quietly to her lips as if telling them not to say anything, and a majestic aura began rising from her entire body.
Sparks caused by excessive use of Plausibility. It was a synchronization rate more powerful than anything I had ever seen. Mother was clearly overexerting herself.
[The Patron of the incarnation Lee Sukyeong reveals its modifier.]
[The constellation Mother of the Founder feels deep sorrow as she looks at you.]
Mother of the Founder? No way.
[The constellation Mother of the Founder says that your power threatens the Korean Peninsula Scenario.]
[The constellation Mother of the Founder advises that she will not take your life if you do not resist.]
In my haste, I used [Miniaturization] and [Electrification] at the same time.
[The energy of the ancient land seals your skill use.]
My vision darkened as though I had entered a pitch-black cave. Strength drained from my whole body, and helplessness seized me, as if I had become an ordinary human or a small animal.
[The energy of the ancient land seals your status.]
I knew this Stigma. A seal using fables that could only be used on the Korean Peninsula.
“...I never thought you'd use a move like this.”
Come to think of it, it was strange. This was the Korean Peninsula. Yet there was one nebula that had not contacted me yet. A nebula that should have approached me first, but still hadn't.
“I told you, I love you.”
Mother smiled as she shook the bronze bell in her hand.
Mother of the Founder.
One of the high-ranking deities of Hongik, the nebula of the Korean Peninsula, and one of the best-known figures in the fables of this land.
Mother's Patron was Ungnyeo, the mother of Dangun Wanggeom.
“...Fine. I surrender.”
“What? Hey! Kim Dokja!”
“Stay still. We can't win right now anyway.”
A feeling of exhaustion swept through my entire body. At this point, I was no different from an ordinary person with high stats.
“The Patron is one thing, but how did you get the Eight-Jewel Bell?”
I looked at the bronze bell in mother's hand. The Eight-Jewel Bell was one of the Three Heavenly Seals from the Dangun myth. It was one of the Korean Peninsula's greatest constellation artifacts, capable of sealing an opponent's abilities with the power of fables.
No matter how much I thought about it, I couldn't imagine any normal way to obtain that constellation artifact at this point in time. Mother had clearly paid a price great enough for it.
“I'll release you when the time comes, so stay here quietly.”
With those final words, mother and the Wanderers disappeared within the Strange Gate Formation. Only Suyeong and I remained in the empty formation.
It wasn't difficult to guess where mother had gone. She had probably gone to meet the protagonist of this novel, Junghyeok. I didn't even want to imagine what disaster would unfold if those two met.
“Damn it, what do we do now? How do we get out of here?”
Suyeong asked as she desperately tried to break the formation. Our skills had been sealed along with our constellation status, so we had no immediate solution.
At least, not by our own power.
“There is one way.”
“What is it?”
“There's someone who can break a Gimun Formation with sheer strength.”
“What? Who?”
If I called him, he would somehow deal with the seal as well. He was a constellation I normally wouldn't dare call, but perhaps things were different now.
I immediately took out the Ganpyeongui.
I had saved it for an important moment, but it was the only thing I could trust now.
[Ganpyeongui's special option, Star Echo, has activated.]
[Through Star Echo, you may request the aid of a Historical-grade constellation.]
“I will call upon a constellation.”
[Historical-grade constellations hear your voice amid the flow of stars.]
I called the constellation's modifier.
[That constellation's status is far too high.]
[That constellation requests five stars from the celestial plate. Will you comply?]
I only had five stars left in the Ganpyeongui. I had used one when I called the last of the Big Dipper Star Lords, and another when I called the onmyoji of contradictions.
Yet this constellation was now demanding every remaining star in the Ganpyeongui.
It made sense. His power had already surpassed Historical-grade.
[The voyage of the stars begins.]
In the darkness of the deep night sky, a solitary star far from the others glittered.
I opened my mouth toward him.
“Goryeo's Top Swordsman, I need your strength.”
Footnotes:
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