WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 222: Episode 41: Real Revolutionary (6)

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The dark body of the Colossus landed with a deafening roar.

It had originally been the King of the Underworld's weapon, but Yu Junghyeok began using it in earnest in the later rounds. That ultimate weapon, which had slain giants in myth, was now being summoned before me with the Plausibility of the Great Sage Equaling Heaven and myself.

After coughing up a mouthful of blood, I looked up at Pluto through my violently swaying vision.

[Your Incarnation body has reached its limit!]

[Your Incarnation body has reached its limit!]

Shut up. I had to stay conscious for now.

At least until I gave it an order.

[What? Where is this?]

Then I heard a voice. It was one I'd heard before. As expected, this bastard had used his own soul as the final material.

I called his name.

“Kim Namwoon.”

Pluto's heavy body turned toward me.

[…Subway grasshopper man?]

“…That's right.”

Only then did Namwoon seem to understand everything, and he laughed.

[Hahahaha! What, you really used that activation phrase?]

The activation phrase for summoning the Colossus was something Namwoon had told me himself.

“Got it? I'm making this the activation phrase, so remember it well. If you say it properly, I might help you once.”

I never expected that I would actually use those words as the activation phrase.

Then again, dying probably hadn't changed his nature.

“So you really went inside it yourself.”

[Hahaha, of course! This feels fucking amazing!]

Every Colossus was implanted with a soul to oversee its main system. Namwoon had implanted his own soul as the Colossus's software.

[All right, special service. Get in, mister. I'll show you something good.]

“Sorry, but I don't have the strength right now…”

[What? Why do you look like that?]

I weakly raised a finger and pointed somewhere. Pluto followed my finger's direction with its gaze. Pluto's mouth rattled strangely. I ground out the words.

“Finish it.”

With the Plausibility allocated to me, I couldn't summon the Colossus for even a full minute. I might not even have thirty seconds left.

The terrified duke was charging toward me in Factory.

[Impossible! How, how can there be a real Colossus…!]

The fiercely spinning grinders flew toward Pluto's outer armor.

[What's this pathetic toy?]

Whoosh. Crack!

With a simple swing of its hand, the grinding and polishing machines the duke had boasted about exploded all at once. It was as effortless as tearing paper.

[You called me just to break something like this? That's seriously cruel.]

…Twenty-five seconds until the summoning ended.

[This is fucking annoying.]

Even while complaining, Pluto moved steadily.

Twenty seconds.

With an easy punch, it smashed Factory's arms.

Fifteen seconds.

With a swinging hand strike, it completely paralyzed Factory's moving parts.

Ten seconds.

With a simple knee strike, it crushed Factory's main power unit.

That terrifying Factory collapsed in place, spewing an enormous amount of fables. I couldn't tell whether the duke inside was alive or dead.

Pluto turned toward me.

[That's it, right? Haha, so what do we do now?]

“…”

[Mister. Want to fight me now…]

An enormous plausibility storm wrapped around Pluto. Namwoon's voice was drowned out by a roar that sounded as though the surrounding space-time were being torn apart.

The body of Colossus Pluto scattered into dust and vanished, as though it had evaporated. It had exhausted all of its allocated Plausibility and was being forcibly returned.

…One second.

[Damn it. In the underworld... meet m...]

You bastard. I'm never going back there, idiot.

[The summoning of Colossus Pluto has been cancelled.]

Even after the Colossus vanished from the air, people couldn't come to their senses for a while. Many industrial citizens had fainted from the shock, and even those barely awake were no longer in their right minds.

It made sense. The Incarnations here had just witnessed the largest grim reaper in the world.

I turned and looked up at the wrecked Factory.

Factory's outer shell, which even my [Electrification] couldn't tear through, was a complete mess, as though a savage beast had ripped it apart. Its joints had all been snapped, and its power unit destroyed. Factory was motionless.

The Colossus had done that in less than thirty seconds.

I slowly climbed up Factory and found the figure sitting in the cockpit.

Crack.

When I forced open the cracked cockpit lid, an old demonic species covered in blood was inside.

“Cough, cough!”

He was the Duke of Seisvitz. The duke looked up at me with eyes full of disbelief.

“You. Just what are you…?”

Factory was the duke's primary fable.

Since that fable had been destroyed, there was no way the duke could be unharmed.

I drew Unbreakable Faith and pointed it at him.

The duke opened his mouth.

“I heard stories about you from the Hunchbacks.”

Perhaps sensing his own end, the duke began babbling whatever came to mind.

“Unfortunate Constellation, even if you kill me, you will never survive… Because you…”

Without hesitation, I drove my sword into his heart. But I had no strength left, so I fell from Factory with his body still impaled on my sword. Agonizing pain swept through me, and I gasped as I looked up at the sky. Aileen, who had run over, supported me.

“…The duke?”

“He's dead.”

As soon as she spoke, system messages appeared.

[You have defeated the demon duke Seisvitz!]

[You have acquired 200,000 coins!]

I smiled faintly. It wasn't time to relax yet.

[You have defeated the Dictator of the industrial complex.]

[You are not a Revolutionary.]

[As you did not follow the normal Scenario progression route, the succession to Dictator has been cancelled.]

[The right of succession is automatically transferred to the being with the highest reputation in the current Scenario.]

[A Hidden Scenario is currently in progress.]

[Kill the Real Revolutionary to enter the Main Scenario.]

…As expected. Killing the duke alone hadn't allowed me to enter the Main Scenario.

Since I had been using Yu Junghyeok's name, perhaps the right of succession to the industrial complex had gone to him.

“What's my condition?”

Aileen, who had been frantically repairing my fables, bit her lip tightly.

“It'll be all right. I'll fix you.”

“…How much time do I have left?”

Aileen didn't answer.

“Tell me quickly.”

“Ten minutes, no… Five minutes.”

My five senses had already begun to go numb. My lips wouldn't obey me, and even the feeling in my fingertips was gradually fading. My Incarnation body must have been too damaged to repair, because I could no longer hear system messages.

I didn't know why I was ending up like this even after coming to the Demon Realm.

Aileen asked in a trembling voice.

“You said you were looking for the Revolutionary…”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because I need to kill them to enter the Main Scenario.”

There was no reason to hide it anymore, so I answered honestly.

Aileen looked at me.

“I see…”

As though she had made up her mind, Aileen continued.

“You can live. Because I…”

“The Revolutionary was somewhere in that group earlier, right?”

My strained words cut Aileen off.

“They must have wanted to hide badly. They probably wanted to run away too.”

“…”

“But they still came out and fought hard. I'm sure they did.”

Aileen stared at me for a moment, then turned away. I knew what expression she was making without looking.

“Don't cry. I'm not going to die.”

I smiled weakly.

「Kim Dokja thought. If I kill the Revolutionary here, the story I've built until now will lose its meaning.」

There had to be another way, even if I couldn't become the Revolutionary.

Just as there always had been.

“Aileen. You remember what I asked for before? The thing I asked you to make…”

Aileen quickly took something from her clothes. It was a rectangular communication device fitted with a panel. The smartphone I had asked her to make.

“Turn it on for me…”

When the panel lit up, a message automatically appeared on the home screen.

[You have acquired a new device. Synchronization begins.]

Once the synchronization ended, a file appeared on the home screen, just as I expected. My eyes kept blurring, so I couldn't see it clearly, but it was definitely the file for TWSA.

「Kim Dokja thought. I am a reader. All the answers are here.」

I somehow forced my eyes open and looked at the novel.

But my vision kept blurring, and I couldn't read the words.

I had to read TWSA to find a way out of this situation, but absurdly, I couldn't read it.

「For the first time, Kim Dokja thought.」

…Damn it.

「Is this really the end?」

At last, even Aileen's face began to fade.

And then.

[You have cleared the Hidden Scenario, Self-Proclaimed Revolutionary.]

I heard a phantom voice.

[You have become a Revolutionary.]

I was certain it was a hallucination.

[Congratulations. You have officially entered the Main Scenario!]

[The Exile Penalty has ended.]

[Your Incarnation body begins automatic repairs.]

[Your fables, which had been collapsing, are beginning to recover.]

It was impossible.

My fading senses returned, and my clouded vision began to clear. I hurriedly opened my eyes and looked around. Aileen was safe. So were Jang Hayoung and Mark. No one had died. Then why…?

The messages didn't end there.

[The name Kim Dokja resounds throughout the 73rd Demon Realm!]

[All members of the demonic species in the Gilobat Industrial Complex fear your name.]

[The industrial citizens of the Gilobat Industrial Complex join your revolution.]

For a moment, I thought I had misheard.

…Gilobat Industrial Complex?

This was Seisvitz Industrial Complex.

[Those who regard Kim Dokja as a hero have appeared in the Gilobat Industrial Complex.]

Gilobat Industrial Complex was quite far from Seisvitz. There was no way my name could be resounding there. Yet as I heard the messages pouring in, I thought of a faint possibility.

But it was an impossibly faint possibility.

[Someone has defeated the Dictator of the Gilobat Industrial Complex!]

[You are currently the being with the highest reputation in the Gilobat Industrial Complex.]

[By Scenario Plausibility, you have become the master of the Gilobat Industrial Complex.]

Still, just because something was impossible didn't mean it couldn't happen.

“Haha…”

A hollow laugh escaped me, along with relief spreading from deep within my heart.

Why?

At that moment, I was looking at Aileen's wristwatch.

A clock that moved forward rather than backward.

Time that didn't rewind, but steadily continued onward.

Hands that could turn back as much as they wanted, but hadn't this time.

“…He's here.”

I was so glad that I wanted to call his name for once.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

I smiled.

“The real Yu Junghyeok is here.”

I couldn't see or hear him, but I could feel him clearly.

He was in this world. The bastard wielding the unwavering Splitting the Sky Sword and slaughtering demonic species had just arrived beyond the horizon of this land.

Overwhelmed by that feeling, I dropped my smartphone.

「But perhaps Kim Dokja should have checked that smartphone first.」

At [The Fourth Wall]'s words, I reflexively picked up the fallen phone.

As always, the file title was displayed on the screen.

Only after a moment did I realize something, and a chill ran through my chest.

Something had changed.

More precisely, strange words had been added to the end of the file name.

Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse (First Revision).txt

Footnotes:

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