WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈
Chapter 252: Episode 47 — The Demon King Trials (4)
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The earth and sky groaned like misaligned gears. A gigantic being was being summoned down from the sky, and someone was trying to stop it. Waves of Mana collided with the power of a Great Fable, and dazzling sparks burst forth.
[40 seconds remain until the Destruction Scenario begins.]
The opponent was an Outer God.
Little by little, the sky's ceiling was drawing closer.
Tzzzzzt!
Even beneath the pressure crushing the entire fortress, the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint didn't retreat.
No, she couldn't retreat.
Never retreating from the path her convictions pointed toward. That was the banner of a Transcendent who had staked everything on one single fable.
"Fight back!"
The Sky-Splitting Sword Saint's desperate stand revived the martial artists who had been drowning in despair.
[Many Constellations are interested in the situation of this Scenario.]
[A few Constellations are taking notice of the Transcendent Namgung Minyeong.]
I could hear the stars gathering in the night sky.
Like a school of piranhas drawn by the smell of blood, the Constellations lit up the red night sky. The dokkaebis also revealed themselves as if they had been waiting for this.
[Constellations, the time has come for destruction to arrive!]
Some Constellations watched the world's destruction with grave eyes, while others were plainly excited. Each of them felt something different, but in the end, even the fall of a world was no more than entertainment to them.
...Just like it had once been for me.
For a moment, all kinds of thoughts tangled inside my head. The thoughts that had piled up since the Gourmet Association were tearing through my mind in disorder. If I abandoned Murim here, then how would I be any different from them?
"Sky-Splitting Sword Saint! I-"
The moment I raised my status as a Constellation, something unexpected happened.
[The Constellation Prisoner of the Golden Headband awaits your choice.]
[Many Constellations are taking notice of your existence!]
The attention that had been gathered on the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint shifted toward me.
【You are......?】
If the Outer God noticed me here, I would no longer be able to leave Murim. Knowing that, the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint stopped me.
"This isn't your battlefield."
As if this page had never been granted to me.
"Leave this world to the people of this place."
I didn't know what Murim had been to the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint. A place that had arbitrarily exalted her as a god, revered her, and then ruined her.
Even so, at this moment, the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint chose to protect Murim.
[The fables piled up in Scenario region no. 29, First Martial World, are running wild.]
Then Murim answered the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint as well.
[Scenario region no. 29 is seeking its guardian.]
[First Martial World is looking at Sky-Splitting Sword Saint Namgung Minyeong.]
[The possibility of a Great Fable is beginning to sprout.]
I saw the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint waver faintly at those messages. They were probably messages even she had never heard before. If someone tried to destroy a world, then that world would naturally respond to its own destruction.
「Everything that has built history in this world possesses will.」
Land thick with the blood and flesh, sweat and effort of martial artists.
The fables carved into that land were gathering around the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint. From her brilliantly shining body, I could feel the majestic spirit of Murim.
The possibility of a Great Fable.
It hadn't blossomed yet, and there was no telling when it would... but...
It was unmistakably the possibility of a Great Fable.
【Ga ga ga ga ga ga ga】
A bizarre language with no discernible emotion poured out through the air.
At last, five tentacles were spilling over from the sky.
Even if she had obtained the possibility of a Great Fable, it was still impossible for the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint alone to stop the Outer God. Those beings had lived for an immeasurably long time while facing Great Fables just like this.
Perhaps realizing she couldn't stall any longer, the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint shouted.
"Go, now!"
With a Lion's Roar, my body was shoved back into the car.
[The portal has activated.]
Junghyeok came to his senses too late and tried to get out of the car, but the X-grade Ferrari had already started up.
It was only a single moment.
As we passed through the portal, the Sky-Splitting Divine Dog let out a long howl like a wolf. The scenery of Murim slowly receded, and before long, everything was buried in darkness.
The survivors couldn't say anything for a long time.
* * *
[You have arrived in the 73rd Demon Realm.]
[Three days remain until the Demon King Selection.]
Maybe it was because we'd gone through too many overwhelming things one after another. Even after returning to the Demon Realm, the others stayed silent for a while. Once the car's engine shut off, only a heavy stillness remained.
"...I'm going out for a smoke."
Myeongoh left his seat, and Hayoung buried her head in her knees. The Sky-Splitting Divine Dog whimpered, and Junghyeok...
Damn it.
I drew a slow breath and thought about what I had gained from this journey.
The Demon King Selection was now right in front of us. We'd gone to Murim to recruit the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint as an ally, and in the process we'd also stopped by the Gourmet Association.
We hadn't managed to bring the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint back with us.
We also hadn't been able to persuade the Constellations of the Gourmet Association.
If there had been any gain at all, it was that Junghyeok and Hayoung had become stronger, one dog had reached Transcendence Form, and...
[Coins held: 4,890,875C]
......
[The update to the Second Revision has been completed.]
I didn't have the courage to look at my smartphone.
Even so, I was disgusted with myself for needing to look, and for the part of me that was actually looking forward to it.
"Kim Dokja."
When I blankly lifted my head, Junghyeok was looking at me. I couldn't bring myself to read the anger pooled inside him. Honestly, if Junghyeok killed me on the spot right here, I wouldn't have had a single excuse.
"What are you going to do now?"
His voice carried no particular rise or fall.
With a vague fear, I activated [Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint].
And I regretted it at once.
「.......」
「.......」
「.......」
The overflowing emotion made it hard to breathe.
Some emotions couldn't be described with words.
Sorrow that was too arduous and too deep crumpled before it could ever become language.
Junghyeok was already a madman.
Maybe he had been like that for a very long time.
This incident would wear him down even further. The emotions he couldn't let explode would carry over into the next round, and they would urge him toward death. They would erode away his time alive and isolate him.
The Sky-Splitting Sword Saint of the third round would be forgotten like that.
I opened my trembling lips. I had to say it. That the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint would be alive. That she would surely survive and return.
But I couldn't say it.
[The Constellation Demon King of Salvation requests to view the First Martial World region.]
[Viewing of that Scenario region has been denied.]
[The First Martial World region cannot currently be viewed.]
Like a reader staring at pages left blank in a defective copy, I stayed silent for a long while. If I had been tls123, if I had truly known every single aspect of this world, would it have been different?
"I'll... have to do something."
That was all I could say.
"I'll have to struggle, fight, and overturn it."
Junghyeok, who had been quietly looking at me, left only a single "Is that so" before getting out of the car.
I knew without asking.
He had probably gone to make preparations in his own way.
That was Yu Junghyeok. He might give up on life, but he would never give up on his goal. No matter how great the despair, he would challenge it again and again until he overcame it. That was how he had lived, and that was how he would go on living.
And in the end, he would become unhappy.
In the place Junghyeok left behind, only a single line, the one sentence I had managed to read from his thoughts, remained with me.
「That wasn't like you.」
Turning that branded sentence over and over in my mind, I turned on my smartphone. I knew what Junghyeok meant.
Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse (Second Revision).txt
The Sky-Splitting Sword Saint's life or death was probably written in there. Whether this round would succeed was probably written there too.
Maybe even the changed ending was written there.
[The Fourth Wall trembles faintly.]
My trembling fingers wandered across the screen again and again.
Junghyeok's words came back to me once more.
「That wasn't like you.」
What did that bastard know about me to say something like that? I'd watched Junghyeok for over ten years, but Junghyeok hadn't even known me for a full year. What did a guy like that know about me...
Click.
I turned the screen off.
What did it matter what was written there? The story I was trying to create wouldn't be in there anyway.
"Hayoung. You said you wanted to save Murim, right?"
Hayoung, sitting beside me, wiped her eyes and looked up. Looking at her, I slowly opened my mouth.
I didn't know whether this would work or not. But as always, trying something first was better than not trying at all.
* * *
The holding cells of the Administration Bureau's Enforcement Bureau held all kinds of beings.
Most of those imprisoned there were Constellations or Transcendents who had been caught in a Scenario Plausibility compliance review. But unless the case was fairly serious, it was rare for the Enforcement Bureau to step in directly just because someone had violated Plausibility. Constellations who ignored Plausibility usually got swept up in the backlash and died on their own, or quietly laid low to save their own skins.
But in this man's case, the Enforcement Bureau had no choice but to intervene.
The dokkaebi Yeonggi sighed as he looked at the man trapped in the holding cell's Plausibility net.
"Please look this way."
The small man turned to look at Yeonggi. Seeing the man's handsome face, Yeonggi continued speaking.
"It's about time you returned to your original Scenario region. Isn't your homeland safe now?"
"......"
"Because of you, progress in that star system's Scenario has become impossible."
The small man gave a derisive snort.
"If I leave, you bastards are just going to unleash another Catastrophe on peace land."
"Haven't I already told you that won't happen?"
"I don't believe a word you bastards say."
At the man's growling tone, Yeonggi grumbled and backed away.
This was why Transcendents were troublesome. Constellations, at least, generally understood as soon as you talked to them, but Transcendents who were still mortal and made of nothing but sheer stubbornness sometimes caused absurd uproars like this.
"There's someone I'm waiting for. Until that bastard returns, I'll stay in my homeland."
"Waiting? Who are you talking about?"
"When that bastard comes, I'll leave on my own."
Just as Yeonggi was about to say that wasn't possible, the door to the holding facility opened and a new prisoner appeared.
[Grrrrr....... You damned dokkaebis!]
The whole holding facility rang with that fierce constellation's declaration. A Constellation bound by the Enforcement Bureau dokkaebis was walking in from the entrance. It was a Constellation with a lizard-like appearance.
[That son of a bitch scammed me! He's the one who stole my coins, so why are you arresting me instead of him?!]
"If you cannot find a way to repay your debt, then we will have no choice but to seize your fables."
Yeonggi let out a light sigh and shook his head. He could roughly tell what had happened.
Another coin debtor.
Cases like that came up from time to time. Those who ended up here after failing to repay the interest on reckless loans. Even while Yeonggi clicked his tongue to himself, the Constellation kept shouting. The dokkaebis were used to that sort of noise, but there was one person here who wasn't.
"All that yapping is noisy."
At that chilly voice, Predator of the Hasty Swamp whipped their head around.
[What? You little rat-flea-]
The next moment, a tremendous current whipped up around the small man's entire body. His body seemed to float into the air, and before anyone knew it, brilliant blue lightning had swallowed the room.
[What in the...? Ngh......?]
Predator of the Hasty Swamp let out a baffled sound. The power of a mortal was pressing down even on their status. It was something they had never experienced before.
Krrrraaaash!
The holding facility's net let out a painful scream. A force greater than the Plausibility assigned to the holding facility was surging up from within. Yeonggi and the other dokkaebis were startled and quickly increased the output of the installed net, but the situation didn't change.
In an instant, the man's body shrank even further and slipped out through the gaps in the net. The lightning, rampaging with terrifying force, shot straight toward Predator of the Hasty Swamp.
With an explosive roar that shook the entire building, pale dust billowed up.
[Ugh... Ughhh......]
When the cloud cleared, Predator of the Hasty Swamp was sprawled ridiculously across the floor. Paradoxical White Purity's fist only barely veered off its course after no fewer than five dokkaebis rushed in at once. The dreadful mark his fist had made remained plainly on the wall of the holding facility. But instead of blaming the owner of that fist, the dokkaebis delivered urgent news.
"Congratulations, Predator of the Hasty Swamp. You are being released."
[Huh? What?]
"An order just came down to release you. Someone has repaid your debt for you."
[What? Who?]
At the news that followed, Predator of the Hasty Swamp forgot what had just happened and blinked in confusion. As soon as the dokkaebi spoke a name, Predator of the Hasty Swamp asked incredulously.
[...That bastard paid off my debt?]
It was at that exact moment that the lightning of [Electrification], bright enough to fill the entire holding facility, turned toward the dokkaebi. Grabbing the dokkaebi by the collar, the man asked,
"What did you just say?"
"N-no, what are you..."
"The name you just said. Where is that bastard right now?"
Before the dokkaebi could even answer, a message flew to the man's ear. The man stared blankly up into the air for a moment, then started walking toward the entrance, passing right by the dokkaebis.
Yeonggi shouted urgently.
"Wait! Stop, Kyrios! If you return to your homeland again-"
"I'm not going back to my homeland."
Paradoxical White Purity, Kyrios Lordgrime, continued with a smile full of fury.
"I'm going to beat the hell out of my disciple."
Footnotes:
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