WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 249: Episode 47: The Demon King Trials (1)

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A week had already passed since I visited the Gourmet Association. I had kept myself extremely busy during that time. There were only a little over four days left until the Demon King Selection. I had to finish all my preparations by then.

Besides the Black Heaven Demon Blade Junghyeok had obtained, there were still quite a few useful Hidden Pieces left in the martial world. I opened the First Revision of TWSA and looked through the Sub Scenarios where I could obtain them.

I'd read the revision whenever I had the time and gone over the important parts, but there was still a lot I'd missed.

"You've been really busy since you got here. You haven't even properly shown your face."

Jang Hayoung, dressed in a martial arts uniform with oversized sleeves, had been following me around in tiny, hurried steps for the past thirty minutes, grumbling nonstop. I frowned at Hayoung and asked, "Aren't you supposed to be training?"

Hayoung pouted.

"I am training hard, you know?"

"Hard, my ass. All you've been doing is stuffing your face with dumplings."

"Want to try secluded training while doing nothing but stuffing your face with dumplings?"

I wondered why Hayoung was being so annoying, then something occurred to me.

"Oh, I heard you got third place in the tournament. That's unexpected."

Hayoung's shoulders twitched. Pretending to look elsewhere, she said, "It wasn't a big deal."

The corners of her mouth kept twitching, so she must've been in a pretty good mood. Now I understood why she'd been following me around. She really couldn't just be honest, could she?

"Did you get your prize? It was the Demonic Soul Pill, right?"

"Yeah."

"Let me see it."

"Why?"

Hayoung took a wary step back. I sighed.

"I'm not trying to take it. You can't eat that as it is anyway."

Judging by Hayoung's dark expression, Junghyeok had apparently already said something to her. No doubt he'd said something like this while drawing the Black Heaven Demon Blade.

「If you eat that as it is, you'll suffer qi deviation. Every meridian in your body will burst, and you'll die. Only one person here can safely absorb that Demonic Soul Pill.」

I could understand why Hayoung hated the idea so much.

"You don't have to give it to me if you don't want to. You earned it yourself."

Our relationship still lacked enough trust, so it couldn't be helped if Hayoung didn't believe me.

Then Hayoung suddenly held out a small hand.

"...It's not like that. I wouldn't have gotten it without you anyway."

With a soft tap, a small pill fell into my hand. This was the Demonic Soul Pill, one of the three great elixirs of the First Martial World. I grinned.

"Just wait."

This blackish pill had a horrific history. The Blood Demon Cult had supposedly made it by refining the souls of a thousand martial arts masters. A single pill could open the Ren and Du meridians and grant first-rate internal power, but the curse of those souls turned its user into a madman saturated with demonic energy.

Junghyeok was already insane enough that he didn't count, but Hayoung would certainly die if she ate this.

"Let's see..."

Every Scenario had its loopholes, and a cursed item didn't mean it was unusable. In TWSA, Flying Fox had absorbed this pill, and I remembered that scene clearly.

「You only need three Greater Restoration Pills. In the end, everything comes down to balance and harmony. If demonic energy is the problem, you simply need to supply vital energy.」

If three Greater Restoration Pills were ground together with the Demonic Soul Pill and consumed, the curse could be avoided. That was easier said than done. The real issue was how to obtain three Greater Restoration Pills, which were counted among the three great elixirs alongside the Demonic Soul Pill. Fortunately, that wasn't much of a problem for me.

"Biyoo."

I called Biyoo and opened the Dokkaebi Compendium. As if it had been waiting for me, the Greater Restoration Pill appeared on the recommended product list. The dokkaebis' big data really was frightening.

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[Recommended Product List]

Greater Restoration Pill - 200,000C / Stock: 5

+

Two hundred thousand coins.

Normally, that would've been a price worth worrying over, but things were different now. I deliberately switched the screen to public view before buying the product.

[You have purchased 3 Greater Restoration Pills.]

[You have spent 600,000 coins.]

Channel messages appeared one after another.

[Some Constellations envy your extravagant spending.]

[Some Constellations are curious about the effects of the Greater Restoration Pill.]

[A few Constellations say they will sponsor you with 500 coins if you reveal the effects of the Greater Restoration Pill.]

"S-six hundred thousand coins?!"

Han Myeongoh, who had been passing by with a dog bowl in hand, trembled. He seemed to be preparing food for the Sky-Splitting Divine Dog.

"I heard you had become wealthy, but..."

"Perfect timing. Please take these and grind them up too."

"W-what are these? Some kind of elixir?"

"Don't get curious and eat them. Take them the wrong way, and a demon king's curse will take hold of you."

At the mention of a demon king's curse, Myeongoh's face turned pale. He took the pills from me and quickly ground them up. The four pills became a fine powder. I held the bowl out to Hayoung.

"I can't take powdered medicine."

"Bear with it this once. Hold your nose and swallow it with water."

"But... can I really take this?"

"It won't help Junghyeok or me much, but you're different."

Junghyeok would already have a sufficiently developed Mana circulation system even without the Demonic Soul Pill, while I had the Broken Heart of a Young Gold Dragon. Hayoung, on the other hand, was probably suffering from a Mana shortage right now.

Hayoung kept hesitating, so I said, "Give it back if you're not going to eat it."

"I'll eat it!"

Hayoung poured the medicine into her mouth and swallowed its bitterness with water.

As soon as Hayoung set down the bowl, the Sky-Splitting Divine Dog, which had been waiting for its chance nearby, rushed over and eagerly licked it clean.

Hayoung examined her condition, then tilted her head.

"...I don't feel anything."

"The effects will show up around tomorrow. The energies of the pills need time to blend inside your body."

Hayoung nodded as if she understood. That was when Myeongoh, who had been listening nearby, interrupted again.

"Dokja-ssi."

I turned around to find exactly what I had expected.

"Is that car... something you received from the Gourmet Association?"

The car he meant was the X-grade Ferrari abandoned in one corner of the estate.

As I looked at its sleek black body, capable of crossing the layers of the dark dimension, Mass Production Maker's words suddenly came back to me.

"Don't make too many enemies."

He was definitely a Constellation with a different side from the ones I knew. It would've been a better memory if he'd given me the car for free.

"Do you think the Gourmet Association is a charity? I got it on lease."

"Lease? H-how much...?"

"Fifty thousand coins a month, I think."

"F-fifty thousand coins? Just how many coins have you earned?"

"About 4.8 million coins."

At the mention of 4.8 million coins, Hayoung and Myeongoh's mouths dropped open at the same time. Hayoung asked, "Um... aren't you going to take in any more Incarnations?"

"Why? Are you going to become my Incarnation?"

When I snickered, Hayoung shouted, "I was just asking! Besides, I already have a Constellation in mind!"

"A Constellation? Who?"

I asked with slight tension. I had no intention of taking Hayoung in as my Incarnation, but things would become complicated if she chose some strange Constellation as her Patron.

Then Hayoung said something unexpected.

"The Demon King of Salvation."

"What?"

"I'm definitely going to become that person's Incarnation."

Hayoung's eyes burned with determination. I wondered what kind of joke this was, but then I realized she'd never heard my modifier firsthand.

In the original work, Hayoung had an incredible instinct for catching on to things...

No, maybe she simply couldn't imagine that I was the Demon King of Salvation. Suddenly, I wanted to tease her.

"Did that person say they'd take you in? Have you contacted them?"

"Not yet..."

Hayoung blushed. She really didn't know who I was. That was when Myeongoh, who had been watching, spoke up.

"Don't tell me you still don't know this fellow's modifier?"

"I don't. Do you?"

Before I could stop him, the oblivious Myeongoh pointed at me.

"This fellow is the Demon King of Salvation."

* * *

For the next two days, Hayoung avoided me.

Hayoung was normally too busy being lazy, but had suddenly locked herself in the training hall under the excuse of practicing martial arts and refused to come out. The one who suffered as a result was Junghyeok, who had been using the training hall all to himself.

"It seems you've done something pointless again, Kim Dokja."

"...Well, no."

Without saying much more, Junghyeok scraped the floor with the Black Heaven Demon Blade as he left the training hall. That was a movement he made when he was in a good mood. The bastard must've been thrilled to have a new sword.

Inside the training hall, the sound of Hayoung beating a training dummy rang out over and over. It sounded a lot like me kicking my blanket every night.

"Just like a Constellation, you seem to have a habit of spying on people."

I turned around. An exceptionally tall woman stood there.

Just as I opened my mouth, the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint said, "If you don't add -nim, I'll spank you."

"...Sky-Splitting Sword Saint-nim."

I couldn't risk ending up like Junghyeok over one syllable.

"Have you been to Tartarus?"

"Not yet. But thanks to you, I've made an appointment with the Queen of the Underworld."

"That's good to hear."

Perhaps she was looking forward to meeting her kin soon. A faint warmth crossed the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint's expressionless face.

At least gaining her had been one reward of this journey. The Sky-Splitting Sword Saint was a Transcendent who ranked among the strongest in all of TWSA. With her, we could somehow win the Demon King Selection.

"There's something I'm curious about. May I ask?"

"You may."

"Why did you teach martial arts to Jang Hayoung?"

"That brat has talent. Properly honed, that talent may lead to a new kind of transcendence."

I knew what she meant. The Sky-Splitting Sword Saint had probably sensed the Wall within Hayoung.

Still, that wasn't enough of a reason.

"You do know Hayoung is a man, right?"

The Sky Splitter Sword Art was originally a martial art passed down only to women.

Even if Junghyeok was somehow an exception, this martial art, bound by the principle of not passing one's art to the unworthy, had never had this many Disciples before.

"You are still a fledgling. Fables do not inherently have only one interpretation."

Her words were cryptic.

Perhaps the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint had noticed that Hayoung was a woman in a previous life.

That was when she began telling her story.

"I was reminded of a man I once knew."

"A man?"

"Yes. A man."

At that moment, I completely understood what the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint meant when she said fables did not have only one interpretation.

Just hearing the word "man" made it hard to tell whether she meant a lover or simply a male friend... No, there was no way the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint had ever had something like a lover.

"He was very handsome. That was his only virtue."

The Sky-Splitting Sword Saint had never spoken of a man in the original work, so I felt strange.

"You're not saying Hayoung resembles your former lover or something, are you?"

I said it as a joke, but unexpectedly, the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint answered seriously.

"The child certainly resembles him in the looks department."

At this point, I began to wonder if she'd accepted Junghyeok just because he was handsome too. Ignoring my disappointment, the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint continued.

"He was very handsome, but he was so small that I felt sorry for him."

"...Small?"

For a moment, I wondered if that was an elaborate way of insulting an ex-boyfriend. Then a thought suddenly flashed through my mind, and I was horrified.

Someone connected to the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint in TWSA. And among them, the person who suited the word "small" best.

No, wait.

Could it be that the reason those two had such a bad relationship was...

That was when a deafening sound came from outside. An ominous presence was taking hold of the estate and the entire area around Blue Dragon Castle. The Sky-Splitting Sword Saint and I ran out of the training hall at the same time, and Junghyeok was already looking in this direction as if he'd been waiting.

"Kim Dokja."

A black vortex was appearing in the sky.

It was a vortex I knew very well. A cursed outlet that only opened when a Catastrophe appeared in a Scenario. Junghyeok muttered in a low voice.

"...The Great Hole."

Catastrophe Scenarios normally appeared only in early Scenario areas.

There was no way a Catastrophe would suddenly appear in the First Martial World. Catastrophes didn't emerge in Scenario areas after the twenties. There was only one circumstance in which a Hole could open in such an area.

"Run."

The Great Apocalypse Scenario was about to begin in the First Martial World.

Footnotes:

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