WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 208: Episode 39 — The Unidentified Wall (3)

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Jang Hayoung started grinning as they began seriously talking with Abyssal Black Flame Dragon. I watched them for a moment before chiding them.

"What's so funny?"

"It's just that the way he talks is funny."

Hayoung was strange enough for talking to such a lofty arch constellation as if they were friends, but the more absurd one was Abyssal Black Flame Dragon for replying in the first place.

That bastard should be paying attention to Han Suyeong. Why was he replying to some random message?

As if defending Black Flame Dragon, Hayoung shook their head.

"I don't think he's as bad as you think."

"What nonsense is that? Have you fallen for him already?"

"He's more gentlemanly than I expected."

"Gentlemanly? What kind of gentleman replies to a message saying, '15-year-old middle school girl looking for texting friends~'?"

I was about to snap that I shouldn't have to explain the filthy implications, but Hayoung answered first.

"He said he only replied because I'm fifteen."

"What? Then he's an outright scumbag."

I knew Abyssal Black Flame Dragon was cruel and out of his mind, but this was enough to make me worry about Suyeong.

"Why are you getting so worked up? He says he's happy to have a friend. He says he's fifteen too."

"What bullshit! I don't know how old he really is, but what kind of Constellation is fifteen years old?"

Then I suddenly remembered a setting.

「Constellations who live through the long flow of the Star Stream are accustomed to confining themselves within a certain framework to preserve their identities. One representative example is 'age.' They tend to project themselves into a particular age of a particular life form and believe that this is their age.」

...No way. Still, he identified with being fifteen? Seriously?

"Aaaaaaah!"

That was when a scream came from inside the infirmary. Han Myeongoh seemed to have woken up. I instinctively turned toward the startled Hayoung.

"Keep talking to him for a moment. I'll be right back."

"Okay. What should I ask him?"

"Just leave him alone. He's not even a Fighter. Talk to someone else instead. Remember the list I gave you earlier? Try talking to them again."

Hayoung nodded. Their excited expression made me uneasy, but it would probably be fine. This was their ability, after all.

The Unidentified Wall had awakened a little earlier than in the original, but this was the best I could do for now. A revolution in the industrial complex was impossible without the Wall's help.

When I opened the infirmary door, Myeongoh was staring at me with cold sweat pouring down his face.

"Why did I pass out?"

I quietly closed the door behind me and answered.

"You fainted while recalling the pain of childbirth."

He must have had nightmares while unconscious, because sweat streamed down his forehead like rain.

"Was that all?"

"I think you cursed out Asmodeus a little too."

"That son of a bitch..."

He was expressing his hatred for the Demon King more directly than before. Normally, that would have been dangerous, but he was outside Asmodeus's sight thanks to the Four-Tiger Evil-Cutting Sword. He wouldn't die just for cursing him.

I pulled over a chair and sat down again.

"Let's hear it again. What do you mean by giving birth, and receiving Asmodeus's favor?"

"...First, I need to explain how I came to have a child."

"I can roughly guess. Was it because of that Warden of the Dark we fought before?"

Right before we parted ways, Myeongoh had been parasitized by the tentacles of the Warden of the Dark in the Dark Fold. Usually, that sort of thing wouldn't immediately make someone conceive a demonic species, but it seemed he had taken the full hit.

"That was the trigger. But that wasn't what made me pregnant."

"Then..."

"It was the curse."

At the time, Myeongoh had contributed to the final blow against the Warden of the Dark and received Asmodeus's curse. Asmodeus's curse consumed Plausibility to bring about the most terrible thing its target could imagine. Which meant...

"I understand. But is that even possible? Giving birth with a male body..."

"Please don't ask about that part."

I lightly nodded.

It was the minimum courtesy I could offer an older man who had gone through something unbelievable.

We fell silent for a while. It felt strange that I was having a conversation like this with Myeongoh.

「Kim Dokja thought. What a strange feeling.」

Before the apocalypse, back when I was office worker Kim Dokja, Myeongoh had been a difficult person for me. One of the bosses I most wanted to avoid. There had definitely been a time like that. A time when I was happy or miserable over a three-thousand-won convenience store lunchbox and had to count my remaining youth through the pay stubs that arrived every month.

But all that time had disappeared.

Now, Myeongoh and I, neither employee nor department manager, were meeting to talk about a Demon King.

"Kim Dok... No, Mr. Yu Junghyeok. Do you know what it means to become a father?"

Myeongoh's sudden question caught me off guard.

"I wouldn't know."

"I understand it now."

In Myeongoh's case, it was awkward to decide whether he should be called a father or a mother, but it wasn't important, so I let it go. Manager Han wore a serious expression.

"It was painful."

That single sentence sounded more painful than the hundred pieces of nonsense Myeongoh had spouted until now.

"And I was happy."

I was surprised that Myeongoh could make that expression. At that moment, I understood the unfamiliar feeling I had been carrying. Maybe I hadn't wanted to admit it.

People changed. Whether they were evil or good, children or adults.

"She was such a beautiful girl."

"I'd like to see her once. Is she in the Demon Realm?"

"She isn't with me right now."

As his expression darkened, I had a bad feeling.

"Then...?"

"It's a long story. Can you listen?"

"Go ahead. I like listening to stories."

Myeongoh hadn't immediately become a vassal of the Demon King. Away from where my Allies and I could see, his tenacious story had continued. With the daughter he had given birth to, he had broken through the Scenarios alone. Capture the Flag. The War of Kings. The Five Catastrophes.

I couldn't believe such a story had unfolded somewhere I couldn't see. I couldn't believe Myeongoh could devote himself to someone like that. Yet I couldn't deny it either.

Just as I was no longer the person I had once been, the man before me was no longer the Myeongoh he had once been.

I didn't know whether giving birth had been the catalyst. But one thing was clear. He had changed too.

"It must have been difficult."

"It was. I almost died many times. At the end, I fell into a crisis that was truly beyond saving."

He was finally driven to the edge of the cliff when he became trapped in the Dark Castle Scenario, which hadn't even officially begun at the time. Amid swarming demonic species and demonic nobles, Myeongoh realized he could no longer protect his child.

For the first time in his life, Myeongoh prayed.

If someone would protect this child.

If someone would only let this child live, he would do anything.

And surprisingly, there was someone who answered that prayer.

"What a pretty child."

"That was Asmodeus."

"...Don't tell me the Demon King took your child from you?"

A disgusting thought crossed my mind, making me feel sick.

Asmodeus was the Demon King of Wrath and Lust. If a human fell into that bastard's hands, it was obvious what would happen. Yet Myeongoh remained calm.

"She should be safe. After all, she's a child born from Asmodeus's curse. And... fortunately or unfortunately, the Demon King is in no position to touch my daughter."

"What does that mean?"

"The Demon King made my daughter his Incarnation body."

Only then did I understand what had happened. For whatever reason, the Demon King Asmodeus had made Han Myeongoh's child his Incarnation body instead of killing her. Naturally, Myeongoh, the child's parent, must have been granted a demonic noble title.

"...That's why I became a demonic species."

After hearing this much, Myeongoh's life had been quite a journey. Should I call it a successful life because he had received a title, or a failed one because his daughter had been taken from him...?

Myeongoh looked grief-stricken as he spoke again.

"I want to save my daughter."

For a moment, I thought I had misheard him. What did he want to do?

"I won't drag this out. Please help me. Help me just once, and I'll never forget what I owe you."

What kind of situation was this? He had been busy starring in his own life drama, and now he wanted my help?

"You've watched me for a long time, so you know well. I'm the kind of person who can be endlessly cowardly when I want to be. But even I have something I can't give up."

"..."

"And last night's events were beyond my expectations. I told them to scare you, not hurt anyone. The Executioners acted on their own after getting excited when a Guard suddenly appeared."

Myeongoh had sworn an Existence Oath that he wouldn't lie to me. If so, that wasn't a lie. Still, I decided to respond rationally.

"I'm sorry, but I have no plans to fight Asmodeus."

If I picked a fight with one of the seventy-two Demon Kings now, things would become complicated. It would mean bringing an outside power into this before the revolution had even begun.

Myeongoh's reaction was unexpected.

"There's no need to fight Asmodeus. You just have to do what you were going to do. Start the revolution and kill the duke. That will help me."

"...Weren't you on the duke's side?"

"I was, but now that things have turned out this way, I think helping you would be fine too."

"What do you mean?"

"Asmodeus didn't ask me to help the duke. He made me an offer. He said he would return my daughter if I created a fable he wanted. The reason I stayed close to the Duke of Seisvitz was because of that."

This hadn't happened in the original story. Of course it hadn't. Myeongoh himself didn't exist in the original. I thought for a moment before asking.

"What kind of fable does the Demon King want?"

"The King of the 73rd Demon Realm."

Han Myeongoh slowly raised his head and looked at me. His eyes reminded me of the time I had first joined Mino Soft, when Myeongoh had been one of the interviewers.

"The Demon King... told me to create the King of the 73rd Demon Realm with my own hands."

* * *

Yu Junghyeok stared at the night sky with indifferent eyes.

The sky held constellations unlike those of Earth. Junghyeok leaned at an angle against the Splitting the Sky Sword, counting the stars. His body was exhausted. He was drenched in blood, his face covered in wounds. Before him lay a beast of the second-grade species he had just killed.

"...The fifteenth Scenario is over too."

Planet Rugratia.

Junghyeok had come here through a personal Scenario requested by one of the otherworldly Constellations. Normally, he would have been proceeding through Earth's Scenarios, but strong Companions were on Earth in this life. Leaving the Scenarios in the teens to others didn't seem like a bad idea. His growth was already faster than in his previous round. It was right to stockpile as much strength as possible while he could.

Once the Scenarios entered the twenties, there would be no room for this kind of leisure.

'I need to grow stronger.'

With that thought alone, Junghyeok had replaced the Main Scenarios with personal Scenarios ever since the eleventh Scenario. He selected only personal Scenarios with the highest difficulty and the best rewards. Sometimes, he even took on Scenarios so reckless they were unlike himself.

He fought, fought, and fought again.

As always, he believed that if he pushed his body to its limits and trained his mind, it would be enough. He thought this inexplicable sense of loss would disappear soon enough. Yet strangely, the more he fought, the greater the emptiness became.

[The constellation Demonic Judge of Fire looks at you with pity.]

Junghyeok frowned and glared at the sky.

Demonic Judge of Fire. Junghyeok didn't understand why that Constellation had been speaking to him so often lately. In his previous round, it had barely had any connection to him...

[The constellation Demonic Judge of Fire asks why you aren't looking for Kim Dokja.]

"Kim Dokja is dead."

[The constellation Demonic Judge of Fire shakes its head with tears in its eyes.]

Junghyeok couldn't understand why a Constellation would be so attached to the death of a mere Incarnation. What he understood even less was the next message.

[Your infamy in the 73rd Demon Realm is increasing.]

...Again?

A message that appeared whenever he was about to forget it.

No matter how much he thought about it, Junghyeok couldn't understand why his infamy was growing in some irrelevant place like the 73rd Demon Realm. At first, he wondered whether Dokja had survived and was impersonating him, but even if Dokja were alive, he would have no reason to do that.

...No. What if Dokja was alive and in danger?

What if he had escaped that damned Fate and survived alone on the Horizon of the Story, where there were no Scenarios?

What if he had survived and was asking for help?

...

Once that thought began, it led to another and another.

What if that guy, who had always surpassed him through bizarre methods, had fallen into danger for the first time and was asking for help? But there was no way to ask for help somewhere without a channel...

Having reached that point, Junghyeok looked back at the sky with an even more complicated expression.

"The 73rd Demon Realm..."

Footnotes:

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