WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 182: Episode 34: Something That Can’t Be Eaten (2)

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In the original work, the One Who Devours Dreams consumed Yu Junghyeok, writhed in response to the horrific life he had endured, and eventually vanished. It was a tragedy caused by overeating.

But that was the story of TWSA.

This time, it wouldn't be consuming only the 136th round.

【Gwoooooooooh...!】

The third round, the fourth round, the fifth round...

「"Do you know what happens when a human lives for thousands of years?"」

The 36th round, the 47th round, the 69th round...

「"Have you ever even considered the pain of a life that repeats without end?"」

The 141st round, the 143rd round, the 148th round...

「"This is human suffering, you goddamned tentacled bastard."」

It was a feast of memories without end.

Cracks began spreading throughout the swollen space. Having eaten something it never should have eaten, the One Who Devours Dreams went mad and began rampaging in its insanity.

But it had nowhere to run.

Because this was inside its own stomach.

No one could run from themselves.

【Ooooooh!】

The rampaging text soon grew beyond what it could contain. The fables it couldn't absorb ran wild, and the overflowing stories swept through every corner of the outer universe like waves.

Fragments of destroyed fables lay scattered everywhere. The fables spilling from the One Who Devours Dreams' mouth began wrapping around it instead.

[The Fourth Wall slowly opens its eyes.]

[The Fourth Wall searches for something to devour.]

The startled One Who Devours Dreams looked in my direction.

[The Fourth Wall smiles at the One Who Devours Dreams.]

The relationship between predator and prey had reversed.

【Gwooooooh...】

Kwaddeuddeuk!

Having formed a massive wall of letters, [The Fourth Wall] twisted as it began swallowing the One Who Devours Dreams' fables.

It was a ravenous feast born purely from hunger, with no trace of fine cuisine.

The One Who Devours Dreams, symbolized by a school of fish, tried to flee in every direction, but it couldn't escape the wall's relentless pull.

Every fable it had consumed over eighteen thousand years was crushed, reduced to powder, and sucked into the wall. The letters on the wall shone with a brilliant light.

Shock filled the voice of the being that had read a story it was never permitted to read.

【■■...?】

Its thoughts, more than half of it already consumed, appeared as letters on the wall.

「Could this be ■■'s...?」

【Ooooooh...】

「Great Old Ones! Where are you all?」

At the last moment, it abandoned everything and tried to escape, but [The Fourth Wall] was one step faster. The wall bared its horrifying teeth, devoured its entire stomach, then turned the whole thing inside out and swallowed it whole.

【Oh... O Great Plot... Ooooooh.】

With a blinding flash, the wall's gaping mouth closed.

[The Fourth Wall has finished devouring its prey.]

[You have defeated an Outer God!]

...

[The Star Stream has failed to find a modifier worthy of your achievement.]

[An unnamed achievement has been added to your fifth fable.]

[Your status, which was about to be finalized, is undergoing reassessment.]

The fables that had composed the One Who Devours Dreams scattered away, leaving only a massive wall of letters behind.

I regained my senses in the empty void of the outer universe. Even though the One Who Devours Dreams had died, the space hadn't collapsed. I still hadn't returned to the original world.

[The Outer Gods have been greatly alarmed by the news of The One Who Devours Dreams' death.]

[The Outer Gods are investigating what occurred in this Scenario.]

[Some Great Old Ones glance at you.]

A dry heave rose in my throat. Maybe having that bastard gnaw at my mind had unsettled my stomach.

"Urk, urk... Bleeergh!"

It had been a horrible experience.

So Yu Junghyeok had gone through this in the 136th round.

"Bleeergh!"

After vomiting several more times, I pushed through the fragments of fables to search for my mother. Fortunately, her form had been preserved by the One Who Devours Dreams. She lay there with her eyes closed, her face drawn.

Was she alive? I couldn't tell.

I checked my mother's pulse and shook her shoulder.

"Get a hold of yourself."

First, I had to get my mother out of here. I looked around.

...Why hadn't this space fallen apart?

In the 136th round, the outer universe collapsed the instant Junghyeok killed the One Who Devours Dreams, and he returned to the original world. The outer universe operated on the power of an Outer God, so it should have collapsed alongside the deity's death.

Yet this outer universe remained intact even though it had died.

Why?

[The Fourth Wall looks at you.]

...Don't tell me.

[The Fourth Wall shakes its head regretfully.]

[The Fourth Wall is still hungry.]

It had eaten that many fables, and it was still hungry?

[The Fourth Wall begins sucking in the remaining remnants.]

Whoooooosh!

Like a vacuum cleaner starting up, the mouth bulging from [The Fourth Wall] began sucking in everything around it. The remaining pieces of fables, the dust, and...

"Wait! Wait!"

My mother, who was in my arms.

I flew toward the wall as if I were swimming through the air.

"Hey! Don't eat that!"

Before I could reach it, my mother was sucked into the wall.

The mouth opened wide and consumed her head, arms, and body.

"Fuck! I told you not to eat her!"

[The Fourth Wall smiles as if satisfied.]

[The Fourth Wall smacks its lips as it looks at you.]

There were things I wanted to ask. Things I still hadn't heard.

But that goddamned wall had swallowed my mother.

Where did beings swallowed by the wall go? I had no way of knowing. One thing was certain. None of the beings the wall had eaten had ever returned.

Not the simulacrum from the Theater Dungeon, not Nirvana the Reincarnator, not even the One Who Devours Dreams it had just eaten...

Could my mother possibly survive somewhere even an Outer God couldn't?

"Spit her out!"

I began punching [The Fourth Wall]. The wall kept smacking its lips at me, but it showed no sign of trying to eat me.

Kwaang! Kwaaang!

The wall's surface trembled faintly beneath my fists. I struck it, then struck it again. I knew it was pointless, but I couldn't stop.

I couldn't.

How long had I been pounding on the wall?

A message appeared across it.

「I remember the first time I gave that child a name.」

I stared blankly at the sentence. It took me a moment to understand what it meant.

「He wanted the character for 'alone,' while I wanted the character for 'read.' Perhaps that was where he and I had always differed.」

I groaned and struck the wall.

I had never wanted to hear this story like this.

「I wanted him to become someone who read something, rather than someone who was lonely. At least as long as someone was reading something, a person wasn't lonely. Maybe I wanted to believe that.」

The moment my fists stopped, countless sentences appeared all over the wall. There were so many that it was hard to believe a single person's life could contain this many words.

「"What makes you so great that you look down on me? Stop looking at me with those contemptuous eyes. Women like you are everywhere."」

「"Sukyeong, shouldn't you endure it? Think of Dokja. Men are only like that for a while."」

「"Mother, I think you should pay more attention to Dokja."」

Cursing aloud, I began striking the wall again. I remembered some of those things, while others I didn't. But the emotions from that time remained vivid.

「It was hard. Back then, I was suffering so much that I couldn't think of anything else. But when I think about it, that child must have been suffering as much as I was.」

They were the pains my mother had endured in those days. Violence that no one should have suffered, as a woman, as a mother, or as a human being.

「"Dokja. Stay inside here, all right? Until Mom tells you otherwise, you must never come out."」

Amid the merciless onomatopoeia and mimetic sounds that continued across the text, I relived my childhood from someone else's perspective.

They were things I had clearly gone through, yet they sounded like an entirely unfamiliar story.

So that was what had happened.

It had been so painful. So miserable.

Then why had I forgotten all of it?

Why had I only wanted to forget?

The wall continued speaking.

「I should have taken him and left. No matter what anyone said, I should have taken my child and gone far away.」

Why didn't you?

You should've left much earlier.

「Why couldn't I?」

It was a record of long remorse and regret. My mother, who had remained silent as my reality for my entire life, was finally speaking now that she had become a novel.

「It happened late in the evening.」

At last, the story began.

「"If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have ended up like this..."」

Father's unstable, trembling voice. Father, crushed by his own inferiority, blaming and accusing mother.

「"Put down the knife and talk."」

My memories were slowly returning.

Young me, hiding in the room, had peeked out in shock.

Right. Father had been brandishing a kitchen knife and causing a scene that day.

「"Dokja! I told you to stay in your room!"」

Mother shouted and rushed toward me. Drunk, father swung the knife threateningly.

「You two die, I die. Huh? Should we all die? We'll all end up ruined if we keep living like this anyway. Huh? Let's all die together!」

Then mother threw herself forward.

With a thud, father's body collapsed. The kitchen knife fell to the floor. Liquor spilled, and bottles rolled across the ground.

I knew what happened next. Mother would pick up the knife and stab father. Then she would tell me that, from then on, we would reread everything.

「"Aaaaaah!"」

But...

「"Dokja, no! Put that down!"」

What was that?

「"Dokja!"」

Young me was trembling as I held the knife and looked at father.

Little me, tears streaming down my face. The sneer that spread over father's face, his drunken fist swinging at me. Mother taking the blow in my place, father slipping after stepping on a bottle, and then...

A burst of blood accompanied a wet stabbing sound.

「If I had called for help immediately, he might have survived.」

It was a truly unbelievable coincidence.

「I was the only one who could save him, and I was the only one who made that choice.」

That coincidence changed our lives.

「So the words I told my child weren't a lie. I was the one who killed that person.」

Mother took the knife from unconscious young me. After taking several deep breaths, she quietly woke me and said,

「"Dokja. From now on, we're going to reread everything."」

「"Your father committed a sin worthy of death. It was self-defense. You understand?"」

「"No matter what happens, don't forget that you're the victim."」

Mother's gentle voice seeped into my ears.

「Perhaps many things were decided then.」

Young mother searched for legal precedents about murder and fabricated evidence. She removed every factor that could implicate me and made the accidental killing look like a premeditated crime she had committed.

「That someone had to live as a murderer, while someone else had to live as the murderer's son.」

After that, everything unfolded exactly as I remembered it.

"...Was that all?"

I stood there with one hand on the wall and my head bowed for a long time.

...The truth was, I knew.

I had thought it might be like this. I had thought this was the only reason that could make sense of mother's actions.

Why she had suddenly written that incomprehensible essay.

Why I had to become the murderer's son.

「I often think.」

「Maybe all of it is only an excuse.」

「There might have been a better way.」

「No matter what happened, I shouldn't have left that child alone.」

「As a mother, I never should have acted that way.」

...

「In the end, I'm only a mother who ran away.」

That was the last sentence.

I waited in case there was more, and I pounded on the wall again and again. But no more sentences appeared.

Kwaang!

This wouldn't do. I couldn't let it end like this, after hearing a story like that.

Kwaang! Kwaaang!

"Spit her out! Spit her out!"

I began striking the wall like a madman.

"Fuck!"

[The Fourth Wall] licked my fist. The blood, memories, and stories covering my fist were sucked into [The Fourth Wall] and became a story. No crying came.

「Kim Dokja was crying.」

[The Fourth Wall] spoke.

「Kim Dokja clenched his bloodied fist.」

「He struck the wall.」

「And struck it again.」

"Fuck!"

「Kim Dokja was sickened. Sickened by the fact that everything was becoming a story. Every action he took, every word he said, was becoming a Scenario and turning into a sentence on the wall.」

"Shut up!"

「Kim Dokja wanted to know. What should he do? How could he break this wall? Was this the price of reading TWSA? Had reading it turned even all of my reality into a novel? That was when a noise like pages tearing apart rang out.」

Chiiiiiiik!

「Kim Dokja thought. ...(Hey)... What is this now?」

Words had been forced unnaturally into the wall's continuing sentence. They looked like notes left behind by someone who had been reading a novel.

「Kim Dokja was surprised. ...(Get a grip)... Who's talking to me? ...(This is your skill)... Who are you? ...(Don't let your own skill devour you)... What...(You idiot, pull your hand out, now!)」

I looked at the wall sucking in my fist.

「...(Deactivate the skill, Dokja)...」

A realization like lightning flashed through my mind.

I didn't know whose voice it was. I didn't know whether it was even possible.

But I knew exactly what I needed to do.

"I will deactivate [The Fourth Wall]."

As if an electric current had run through it, the wall's letters trembled violently. With a cracking sound, something that had been lingering around me began slowly disappearing for the first time.

The wall was collapsing.

Then a message appeared.

[A system error caused by an unknown reason is being temporarily corrected.]

...

[Your Attributes Window has been restored.]

[Would you like to check your Attributes Window now?]

Footnotes:

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