WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 196: Episode 37: The demon realm's landscape (1)

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"The Fourth Wall said, 'Wh ere is th is?'"

「Do n't co py me.」

I was walking along the horizon of the story. More precisely, I had done nothing but walk for four days already. Anyone would feel like talking to a wall after wandering endlessly through mountains of trash.

I muttered toward a fable fragment lying in my path.

"Kim Dokja thought, 'I should pick that up.'"

There was still plenty of room in the Subspace Coat, so I stored every fable fragment I picked up.

「Id iot.」

At least I wasn't really talking to myself. That was some comfort.

I didn't know what [The Fourth Wall] really was, but it clearly wasn't hostile toward me. If anything, it had even protected me from the Exile Penalty...

「Sle, e, py.」

"Hang in there a little longer. It's easier to keep moving when you say something."

Even after gaining an Incarnation body, the Exile Penalty was difficult to endure. The mountain of trash still showed no end in sight. This pain would probably continue until I returned to a Scenario.

[Some of the absorbed fables are causing a composition conflict.]

Even though I was using Lamarck's Giraffe, an evolution-type Attribute with relatively few side effects, the fable composition of my Incarnation body was creaking. It wasn't serious yet, but if I forced myself into strenuous activity like battle, my Incarnation body could collapse again.

...Nothing ever came easy.

I wondered when I'd finally get revenge on the nebulae, but rushing things would only ruin what might have worked.

[A Scenario area is approaching.]

The first thing I had to do was obtain a Scenario in the Demon Realm.

Those Hunchbacks had tossed me here carelessly, but I knew how to obtain a Scenario here.

I had already formed a rough plan.

The route I was taking now was identical to Yu Junghyeok's 111th round. Unless something unusual happened along the way, there was no reason for the plan to go wrong.

...Come to think of it, a lot had happened during Junghyeok's 111th round.

I thought that was around the time when the Writer of TWSA briefly fell into a slump.

It was a little past chapter 1,000, and I remembered leaving all sorts of comments that I thought were advice. I didn't know if it was because of my comments or something else, but a new character suddenly appeared then, and the story's viewpoint changed...

Brrrrr.

Dokkaebi's Egg, tucked inside my clothes, suddenly stirred. I fed it several fable fragments, then stroked it.

"Yes, yes. Aren't you adorable?"

It felt strange to think that the soul I had saved would awaken as a new lifeform.

The egg would probably hatch within a month at the latest. My plan would begin properly around then as well. Come to think of it, I couldn't keep calling this one Shin Yuseong after it hatched...

What should I name it?

「At that moment, Kim Dokja heard something near his ear.」

I crouched behind a mountain of trash and held my breath. There were far more than one or two presences. At least dozens, perhaps over a hundred individuals. After observing the situation, I cautiously raised my head to look.

Their movements held no trace of life. Creatures with roughly human appearances were searching through heaps of fables.

Their identities were obvious.

They were collection slaves.

They served the rulers of the Demon Realm, gathering fable fragments near the horizon to use as fuel. They possessed little intelligence, so they wouldn't attack unless threatened first.

「Kim Dokja thought, 'If collection slaves are wandering around, there must be an industrial complex nearby.'」

An industrial complex was like a city in this part of the Demon Realm.

It held a Factory that ground broken fable fragments into energy, along with the residential district surrounding that Factory. If I remembered correctly, the closest industrial complex should be Seisvitz Industrial Complex.

"Move it, move it! Today's fuel haul is behind schedule!"

A demon with small wings and a single horn fluttered around the area.

It was the industrial complex's supervisor.

The fact that it had come along meant this collection was fairly large-scale. Then, perhaps having lost its way, one collection slave approached the back of the trash heap where I was hiding. Before I had time to avoid it, our eyes met.

"Grrr...?"

The collection slave looking at me with dull eyes resembled a chimpanzee rather than a human. It was likely one of the species whose planet had been destroyed before being abducted to the Demon Realm.

Beings who had lost their own Scenario and come to depend on others to survive.

I saw the brand [6424] stamped on its arm.

[The effect of the Attribute Demon King Candidate has activated.]

Demon King Candidate.

It was the Attribute I had gained while progressing through the 73rd Demon King Scenario.

Then I began to make out the creature's previously incomprehensible words.

「I wa, nt to st, op.」

What?

「Ki, ll me.」

How many years had he spent suffering? His ragged body looked like a pile of moving scrap metal, barely held together by its skeleton. Fables flowed from him instead of pus. It seemed every history he had lived through had already vanished.

「Ki, ll me.」

His moving lips painfully forced out the words again. A being that had lost all its fables became like that. No one remembered him, and he couldn't remember anyone either. All he could do was wait for this terrible pain to end.

I watched his pitiful eyes for a moment, then let out a deep sigh.

「And Kim Dokja made his decision.」

* * *

A little later, I stood at the entrance to the industrial complex with the other collection slaves. I had hidden my items, including the Subspace Coat, deep within the pile of fables I had brought.

In other words, I was now wearing little more than rags.

It couldn't be helped if I wanted to make myself look as much like a collection slave as possible. Just in case, I had also woven the brand of the dead 6424 onto my left arm with fables.

"Next!"

The plan was simple. I would slip in among the numerous collection slaves and enter the industrial complex. The operation relied on the fact that slaves weren't inspected as thoroughly as other travelers.

"What's this? Today's harvest is pathetic."

Unfortunately, the supervisor was fussier than I had expected.

Crack!

The head of the collection slave directly in front of me burst apart.

"Hey, take this one too. Toss it into the fuel tank."

The supervisor threw the collection slave toward a bin as though it were a machine part, then snickered.

Demon Baron Chechepen.

It was only a demon at the level of the low-ranking nobles I had met in Dark Castle. It might possess more fables than those Dark Castle demons, but a baron was still a baron. If I was determined, it wasn't an enemy I couldn't kill.

"Next!"

The problem was what would happen after I killed it.

The owners of industrial complexes were the highest-ranking dukes of the Demon Realm. If I directly harmed an industrial complex supervisor, the duke was more likely to notice.

Needless to say, facing the highest-ranking nobles of the Demon Realm while my Incarnation body was incomplete would be dangerous. I could use the Demon King Candidate Attribute if necessary, but I didn't want to draw attention from the very beginning.

For all those reasons, I swallowed hard and held out my basket of collected goods. If things went wrong here, my plans from now on would become much more difficult.

"Oh, what's this? You brought back quite a lot!"

Perhaps because I had filled the basket with fable fragments, the supervisor's expression brightened. I worried it might search through the pile and discover my hidden items, but it didn't seem that meticulous. The supervisor beat its wings vigorously like a tsetse fly, then slapped my back as it shouted.

"Everyone, learn from this one! Huh? You all know the recent harvest has been pathetic, right? Keep this up, and you'll be the next fuel!"

A faint fear appeared in the collection slaves' eyes at the supervisor's threat. Even if they had lost their intelligence, fear of death remained. Not all of them were like 6424.

"Good work, 6424! Go on in!"

[You have entered a Scenario area.]

* * *

Avoiding the supervisor's gaze, I left the group of slaves at a suitable side road.

I searched through the collected goods, putting my items back on one by one. I kept what I needed and discarded the rest.

Once I emerged onto a main road, an open plaza soon appeared. Humans wandered around it. There were elves, demi-humans, and even some who appeared to be demonic species.

The Hunchback had been right when it said the Demon Realm was a place where people lived.

Humans from different dimensions lived here alongside countless races sharing a single town. I saw merchants selling goods and people haggling over them.

It was the first village I had seen since Paradise. A place where people lived and stories gathered.

I suddenly remembered a description from TWSA.

「A city district surrounded by enormous ramparts. Low slate roofs formed an uneven skyline. Occasionally, transport vehicles equipped with steam engines passed along the main road.

It was a cityscape where civilizations of various levels seemed mixed together. Even if it was a stage the constellations did not pay close attention to, this was still a place where people lived.

A place outside the Scenario areas where those living through Scenarios had gathered.

It was an industrial complex.」

It was exactly as the description had said.

Someone seeing an industrial complex in the Demon Realm for the first time might say this. It was called the Demon Realm, so how could such a peaceful scene make sense? Wasn't this place too similar to Earth, where humans had gathered and lived?

For those people, I wanted to tell them a line from TWSA.

「Seen another way, perhaps that only meant the human world was just as terrible.」

Yes, that line.

For the first time in a while, I remembered the contents of TWSA and felt deeply moved.

Seisvitz Industrial Complex of the 73rd Demon Realm.

Here, I had to meet the people who would fight the nebulae alongside me. Of course, they had no idea they would do such a thing...

[Some of the absorbed fables are causing a composition conflict.]

I might need to move faster than I expected. To make matters worse, [The Fourth Wall], which had stubbornly endured until now, made a weak sound.

「Sle, epy.」

Huh? Hey, wait a second?

[The Exclusive Skill The Fourth Wall has temporarily entered a silent state.]

Damn it, here of all places?

A chill rapidly seeped through my entire body, and sparks began to fly from different parts of my Incarnation body.

Tzzzt.

As the Exile Penalty destabilized my Incarnation body's phase, some of the people nearby noticed my presence.

"An-an exile!"

People hurriedly backed away from me as if they had spotted a source of infection. I quickly moved away from the main road.

There wasn't much time left now.

『Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse』.

Here, I had to find the story's second protagonist.

Footnotes:

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