WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 183: Episode 34: Something That Can’t Be Eaten (3)

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I can see my Attributes Window?

A few things I hadn't understood until now began to make sense. The reason I hadn't been able to see my Attributes Window all this time was [The Fourth Wall].

[The Fourth Wall] was a skill that protected me from other beings, but at the same time, it isolated me from myself.

[Checking your Attributes Window.]

[The current system configuration is unstable. Some skill names and skill level displays are restricted.]

Then, for the first time, my Attributes Window appeared.

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Name: Kim Dokja

Age: 28

Patron: None

Modifier: Ugliest King (Temporary)

Exclusive Attribute: Eight Lives (Heroic), Scenario's....

+

Before the Attributes Window could fully appear, the screen suddenly collapsed.

Crackle!

Additional urgent messages appeared.

[A few constellations are approaching your Mental Barrier.]

I suddenly realized something was wrong. Perhaps the constellations had been waiting for this opportunity all along.

[The constellations of the nebula Veda are approaching you.]

[The constellations of the nebula Olympus are approaching you.]

[The constellations of the nebula Papyrus are approaching you.]

The constellations that had tried to remake my existence according to their will were forcibly prying open my mind. Then...

[Exclusive Skill, The Fourth Wall, has been reactivated regardless of your will!]

+

Exclusive Skill: [Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint Lv.?], [Bookmark Lv.?], [Character Profile Lv.?], [The Fourth Wall Lv.?], [■■■■ Lv.?], ■■■■■■■■....

...

Overall Evaluation: ...■■You are■■■■■■...?

+

All the information that appeared was being hidden behind ‘■’ symbols. Like bricks being stacked one after another, the information concealed every detail of its true nature.

[The Constellation Progenitor of Humanity groans.]

[The Constellation One Who Gouged Out His Own Eyes retreats while clutching his eyes.]

[The Constellation Goddess of Scorpions protects her tail as she backs away.]

...

[Some constellations that approached you take damage and retreat!]

Countless letters swirled around me with reassuring force. [The Fourth Wall] protected me from the constellations as it threw off fierce sparks. As though it had never rebelled against me moments ago, the wall spewed a menacing aura at the constellations.

[The Fourth Wall bares its teeth at the Star Stream.]

I stared blankly at [The Fourth Wall]. The last message I heard came from a constellation I knew well.

[The Constellation Secretive Plotter smiles softly at you.]

His reaction was clearly different from the others.

...Could he have seen my information in that short time? Even if he had, he couldn't have seen all of it. I hadn't even been able to check every detail after opening my Attributes Window.

As the sparks calmed a little, the wall turned its gaze back to me.

[The Fourth Wall is angry at you.]

I faced the wall.

For a long time, I had thought this wall was the boundary between the novel and reality. Because I had this wall, I could adapt to a new world. Because I had it, I could maintain an abnormal degree of composure even in the face of all manner of terrible situations.

Yet if someone asked what this wall was, I still couldn't give a definite answer.

One thing was certain. This wall had protected me for a long time. There had been crises again and again, but I had survived because of this wall.

I had come this far because of it.

I placed my hand against the wall, which was swelling its letters toward me.

"I'm sorry."

[The Fourth Wall trembles.]

The feeling of letters winding around my fingers was unfamiliar.

Was this what [The Fourth Wall] felt like?

The letters written on the wall gathered at my fingertips. They seemed to lick me, and they seemed to bite me. I couldn't clearly distinguish between those sensations, so only imprecise metaphors were possible.

[The Fourth Wall] was like a puppy soaked by rain, like an abandoned child, and like a rebellious teenage boy.

[The Fourth Wall] was...

[The Fourth Wall] was like me.

Then a sentence appeared on the wall.

「Kim Dok ja is stu pid.」

It looked like a sentence a child who had only just learned Hangul might have written for practice. It wasn't a description of me, nor was it a description of the world.

It was [The Fourth Wall] speaking.

I gave a small laugh and stroked the wall.

「......$#^#$^#$%@#$......」

[The Fourth Wall] displayed incomprehensible letters as if confused, then soon displayed another orderly sentence.

「Kim Dokja thought. [The Fourth Wall] was, after all, a being with a will of its own.」

...Here we go again.

「Then were the words that appeared in brackets earlier also written by [The Fourth Wall]? That doesn't seem right, since the wording was too orderly.... Then who wrote those words? If this really is a ‘wall,’ then what exactly is inside this ‘wall’....」

"Stop reading other people's thoughts."

[The Fourth Wall turns its head away petulantly.]

[The Fourth Wall says not to forcibly turn it off again.]

Keeping my hand on [The Fourth Wall], I continued.

"All right. But I have a favor to ask."

[The Fourth Wall looks at you.]

I took a short breath before speaking.

"Give my mother back."

The wall trembled briefly, as if weighing whether I was sincere. Then a sentence appeared on it.

「Kim Dokja hated his mother.」

"That's right."

「Kim Dokja learned what had happened to his mother all this time. He learned what she had gone through, what kind of life she had lived, and what she had hidden. But learning those things didn't mean he understood all of it.」

"...That's right too."

「Therefore, Kim Dokja still hates his mother. That is what human emotion is like. There is no magic that makes all the wounds I received suddenly heal just because I learn that someone had concealed deep wounds of their own.」

"That's some impressive insight. I agree."

「Therefore, Kim Dokja could not understand himself. Why was he trying to save his mother?」

"I can't explain it."

「.......」

"Not everything can be put into sentences."

I spoke to the wall again.

"I don't have much energy left now. So help me out. Please."

[The Fourth Wall] remained silent for a long time, then only displayed the following sentence.

「Kim Dokja....」

Could a being that had entered [The Fourth Wall] ever come out again?

I didn't know whether it was possible. Still, I had to try.

Then the wall began to move. Something wriggled as it was vomited from the slowly opening mouth of the wall.

They were countless letters.

The letters gathered into words, and the words gathered into sentences. The sentences gathered into paragraphs, and the paragraphs gathered into a story.

The story soon became a person.

I lifted my mother, who lay amid the vomit of letters. Then I spoke to [The Fourth Wall].

"Thank you."

[The Fourth Wall] shuddered, then began to disperse.

「Sleep, y.」

Little by little, the surrounding space began to break apart.

[The Constellation Secretive Plotter drives away the Great Old Ones that were spying on you.]

The darkness of the outer universe was clearing. Space and time shattered, and the scenery around me changed into the second floor of the Dark Castle. Then the delayed messages poured in.

[Your Dark Castle ranking has changed.]

[Your current Dark Castle ranking is 2nd place.]

...

[You have fulfilled the hidden objective of the Main Scenario.]

[You have gained the right to challenge the final Scenario of Dark Castle.]

* * *

Two days had passed since the battle on the plains ended.

Amid the grim atmosphere of the ruined battlefield, all the Incarnations seemed to have lost their will to fight. The same was true of the Wanderers' forces and Paradise's forces.

In a sense, what brought them peace was the overwhelming terror and despair displayed by a transcendent being.

The command centers of each camp recovered the dead and brought the situation under control. With the needless unrest gone, the second floor of Dark Castle was gradually stabilizing. The rankers who would advance to the next floor were chosen one after another, and people agreed to entrust Dark Castle's future to them.

And now.

Those rankers were huddled in front of a small coffin.

"This ahjussi really makes a habit of dying."

Kim Dokja had stopped breathing immediately after returning from defeating an Outer God. His Allies considered it only natural, since he had fought against such a powerful being.

Huiwon said, "He'll come back to life tomorrow, right? It took three days last time too."

The Allies, who had become fairly accustomed to Dokja's deaths, didn't look especially shocked. Sangah bit her lip slightly.

"...But did we really have to put him in a coffin?"

"He's dead for now."

Huiwon spoke as if making excuses. Each of the Allies looked at Dokja's coffin with a different feeling in their eyes. Hyeongseong's eyes were filled with determination, Yuseong's with guilt, and Sangah's with complicated emotions.

And then...

"What brings you here, Master? I thought you went looking for another Hidden Piece...."

At Jihye's words, everyone looking at the coffin turned toward one spot at the same time.

Junghyeok frowned at the attention. "Only insignificant Hidden Pieces remain in Dark Castle now."

"That still doesn't explain why you'd come here...."

"We need that bastard to move on to the next floor."

"That's strange. Haven't you two gotten awfully close lately?"

Junghyeok's expression turned vicious, and Jihye shut her mouth in alarm. Huiwon lightly patted Jihye and scolded her.

"Stop teasing Junghyeok-ssi. They finally got close, and it's nice to see. Don't interfere."

"...Come on, though."

"And you know why he came here without even asking him. Anyone would feel the same."

At those words, the Allies' expressions became strangely solemn. They quietly looked down at Dokja's coffin.

Huiwon spoke again.

"Just because someone can come back to life doesn't mean they aren't afraid of dying."

Having multiple lives didn't mean everyone would use them for others. Yuseong, who was stroking the front of the coffin, said, "If it weren't for Dokja ahjussi, I'd probably be dead by now."

It wasn't only Yuseong. Hyeongseong, Huiwon, Gilyeong, and Jihye had all been saved by Dokja at least once.

Jihye sighed. "I wasn't going to say this because it's so embarrassing.... If I had two lives, I might have given one to you, Dokja ahjussi."

"Why, noona? Your Affinity score is only six points."

"You little brat.... If you wear those weird clothes, it's all the same anyway, right?"

Hyeongseong let out an awkward laugh as Jihye and Gilyeong bickered. It was hard to believe they were the same people who had wept and despaired on a battlefield swept by bloody winds until two days ago.

Junghyeok alone didn't fit into that scene. He watched them from a short distance away.

Dokja's appearance had changed his plans considerably.

Scenarios that should have been easy became difficult, and a simple story became complicated.

People who were meant to die survived.

Junghyeok quietly looked down at his hand. Perhaps he himself had also been one of those people who were meant to die. The thought felt deeply strange to him.

This scene could be created by one person who wasn't even the regressor.

This round might become better than any round he had lived through so far.

That made his feelings immensely complicated.

"Oh, but that [Fate] thing.... It's over now, right? Dokja ahjussi died."

At Jihye's question, a few Allies replied.

"Oh. Right. Come to think of it, that's true."

"It said he would die at the hands of someone he loved, so hasn't the [Fate] been fulfilled? He died because of his mother, if you think about it...."

"You're right. Why didn't we think of his mother?"

Their voices were lively. From afar, Sangah was looking at Junghyeok with a complicated expression. Junghyeok met her gaze and thought.

‘The [Fate] hasn't ended.’

This time, it had worked out somehow because of the variable named Cheok Junkyung, but the nebulae weren't such easy enemies.

The nebulae couldn't possibly be unaware of Dokja's resurrection attribute. The [Fate] would never end like this. Moreover, because their anger had intensified after this incident, the nebulae were likely to actively intervene in the malicious fulfillment of the [Fate] one way or another.

Above all, the next Scenario, which would arrive soon, was a major hurdle.

Junghyeok had to make a choice now.

He quietly looked up at the sky, as though searching for something there. Then, after a moment, he withdrew his gaze from the empty air.

[The Constellation ??? looks at its Incarnation.]

Constellation ‘???’.

Junghyeok had already gone through three regressions, yet he still didn't even know who his Patron was.

The being responsible for all these regressions, and the being that had brought him a terrible tragedy.

Junghyeok ground his teeth, took a short breath, and opened his mouth.

‘Patron. I have something to ask.’

Footnotes:

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