WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 276: Episode 51: Great Fable (3)

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Surya was beyond the final door.

When Yu Junghyeok's fist smashed through it, an empty gust of wind rushed in, revealing a vast opening in the sky. The final train car, where Surya stood, had been severed at the rear as if something had torn it away.

[You came sooner than I expected.]

Surya spoke with his back turned.

Beyond the severed train lay a square-shaped universe. The gaze of the exalted god measured the depths of that darkness, as if he were sifting grains of sand across a vast beach with his palm.

I deliberately spoke in a respectful tone.

"Surya, let's end this here."

The eyes of a god unable to reach the principles of the universe turned toward me. That gaze spoke plainly. It might not be able to understand the Star Stream, but there was no way it couldn't read the likes of me.

[A man who knows the endings of every world... A truly arrogant fable.]

It seemed Surya had also heard the lines of my Great Fable.

Before I could answer, Oedipus King, who stood beside Surya, replied.

[It is only a metaphor. A play on words.]

It was better if he thought that.

The fable's lines directly revealed information about me, which had already made me uncomfortable.

[The Constellation Mass Production Maker is curious about your lines.]

[The Constellation God of Wine and Ecstasy is curious about your Great Fable.]

Surya's gaze upon me was changing.

[The Constellation Prisoner of the Golden Headband tells you to stay alert.]

[The Constellation Naval Warfare God clenches his fist.]

[The Constellation Secretive Plotter looks at you.]

No matter what I said here, I probably couldn't stop him.

[Child, come at me. You have been given ten minutes.]

Surya's four arms assumed a battle stance. His body gradually grew larger as he released his Status. He used no weapons. He intended to eliminate me with nothing but the pure power of his fables.

[In ten minutes, this train will collide with the Demon Realm.]

As if there was no reason to delay any longer, Junghyeok attacked first.

A dark blue aura reminiscent of the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint rose from his entire body. The perfected [Sky Splitter Sword Art] blossomed, scattering ominous rays of light.

I wasn't the only one affected by the Great Fable.

Junghyeok also held a share in the fable. Even with his incomplete body, he could now wield power comparable to a Constellation.

Crash!

The sharp clash of a blade and a long staff rang out. It wasn't Surya who blocked Junghyeok's attack.

[Khk...!]

Oedipus King groaned in pain as he faced Junghyeok.

[Graaah!]

Though he was drawing out every ounce of strength from his overheated Incarnation body, Oedipus King seemed to be struggling against Junghyeok.

"Kim Dokja!"

At Junghyeok's shout, I broke through Oedipus King's defense and leaped toward Surya. In the open air around the train, Surya, whose body had grown several times larger, met me.

[Exclusive Skill Electrification Lv. 12(+2) has been activated!]

The light of Electrification wrapped around me, and white-blue lightning struck Surya in the chest. Before, Surya had blocked my [Electrification] with one hand.

This time was different.

The white-blue lightning scorched the skin it touched. It was slight, but I had hurt him.

Surya's startled brow twitched, and his radiant fist collided with mine. My body was flung backward as if I had been hit by a ten-ton truck. The impact shook my heart, but I could still endure it.

[The power of the Great Fable protects you.]

The lines of the world's fables swirled around me.

The power that allowed me to contend with such a mighty fabled-grade Constellation. This was the Great Fable.

Even so, Surya stood firm.

[...I told you. You cannot win with skills you stole and learned.]

Maybe Surya was right. I had always fought with the techniques of others.

"I didn't steal and learn this. I read it."

[Read?]

As Persephone had said, existence itself was a story.

The memories of lines I had read every day for many years.

Everything I had read and seen had become who I was now.

[Exclusive Skill The Fourth Wall has been strongly activated!]

Over [The Fourth Wall], the lines of the Great Fable rose.

「This is the fable of a reader.」

I ran toward Surya. Along the path I ran, countless hours spent reading stories alone flowed with me.

It was an ordinary life.

The time I shut myself in a dark room and read TWSA alone.

On the bus after my part-time job, in the army internet cafe, in a classroom during a break between lectures, then again on the subway ride home from work...

「At the same time, it is the fable of an only son.」

I lived alone in that world.

I immersed myself in countless characters and became someone else over and over again.

[With nothing but such a fable...]

That was why I was a regressor who had never regressed.

[Exclusive Skill Way of the Wind Lv. 11(+1) has been activated!]

A Returnee who had never returned.

[Bookmark No. 3 has been activated.]

[Exclusive Skill Beast Lord's Sensitivity Lv. 10(+1) is active!]

Perhaps I was a Reincarnator too.

Booooom!

Surya's face gradually twisted as he faced my Status. Whenever our Statuses collided, I could feel our Incarnation bodies breaking apart. Both Surya and I drew out every bit of power we could muster and clashed.

[This is impossible. It is nowhere near enough to obtain the qualification for the end!]

I shook my head.

"You seem to be mistaken. Great Fables aren't the only ones that can reach the end."

Surya probably wouldn't understand. It was a realization I had learned through Junghyeok's countless failures.

Surya's face hardened as he gathered enormous power into his four arms. That would likely be Surya's final attack.

As his four hands moved brilliantly and shaped light, all sound vanished as if the area had become a vacuum. A tiny sun was being born at Surya's fingertips. A distant heat that could melt everything seized all five of my senses.

[The Great Fable of the nebula Veda descends upon the fingertips of the Constellation Exalted God of Light.]

It was, in other words, a blow forged from a god's fable. It was the first light of the world, which the history of humanity, a creation of the gods, could never oppose.

I was being pushed back. If I faced something like that head-on, I would certainly lose.

Then the light descended.

It was neither slow nor fast, but it was the precise light of an ending that would surely destroy everything.

Without retreating, I gripped Unbreakable Faith tightly. The blade, strengthened by the power of fables within its white-blue aura, drew a straight line toward the light. Violent sparks burst from the end of the sword strike that cleaved through the light, and my hands shook dangerously. Gritting my teeth, I gripped the sword with both hands.

It was beyond me.

One step, then two. My feet were pushed back in an instant, and my bloodied hands finally gave out, dropping the sword. I didn't give up and gathered Mana in both hands.

The lightning of [Electrification] collided head-on with Surya's flash, and a shock as if my limbs were twisting rushed through me. Sparks burst without pause. At their center, the fables of god and human stood locked in a fierce struggle.

Endure. I had to endure.

Surya was smiling beyond the rays of light.

[...At most, you are only-]

Tzzzzzz!

[Human history...!]

...Could I not endure it?

The moment Surya, wearing a triumphant smile, raised his Status again, my vision was erased by an enormous storm of light. It felt as though my existence itself was disappearing. I barely blinked and let out a shout.

My vision returned.

Amazingly, I was still holding on.

The shocked Constellations' declarations and Surya's roar. In the gap between them, I felt the power of a strong fable blooming. Looking closely, a rough and lonely fable wrapped around my entire body and endured the light with me. I didn't need to ask whose fable it was.

The sparks flashing between Surya and me grew even more violent, and the balance of the battlefield began to shift once more.

Slowly, my retreating feet came to a stop.

Then, for the first time, I took a step forward.

[The Constellation Master of Steel looks at you.]

[The Constellation Master of the Sky Walk looks at you.]

I felt the fables of Lee Hyeongseong and Yu Sangah. Along with them came Jeong Huiwon's fable. The histories of everyone who had struggled to survive dwelled wholly within me.

「A woman who awoke from a long crouch and grasped the Sword of Evil Extermination smiled.」

There were also those who weren't here, but who shared our history.

「A boy who lost his mother and held insects in his hands cried,」

「And a man who built a fortress for the family that would never return roared.」

Lee Gilyeong and Pildu Gong.

「A woman who built truth from lies willingly became his shadow.」

Even Han Suyeong was there.

[Exclusive Attribute Scenario Interpreter has been activated!]

Every path I had walked became a story and formed a road. I walked that road forward.

Before I knew it, Surya's shocked Incarnation body was right before me.

Surya's weakness, something I couldn't read even with Admiral Yi Sun-sin's Stigma. Yet strangely, at that moment, I felt as if I knew exactly where to strike him.

[Exclusive Skill Reading Comprehension has been activated!]

Unbreakable Faith shone brightly, and concentrated white-blue lightning pierced Surya's chest.

With an explosive sound like something shattering, my body, which had exhausted all its Mana, flew through the air. Through the fable fragments pouring into the sky like a fountain, I saw Surya's huge body collapse.

[Surya! Exalted God of Light!]

With Oedipus King's shout, the scene collapsed.

Like a meteorite burning away as it collided with the atmosphere, Surya's train began to crumble.

I fell toward the ground.

"Kim Dokja!"

Junghyeok flew toward me like the wind and caught me, while the Chimera Dragon carried the falling Allies. It was a close call. Several fragments from the shattered final car headed toward the ground, trailing long tails behind them.

Rumble!

The fragments that struck the ground roared with explosive force. Fortunately, they weren't powerful enough to damage the industrial complex. Shin Yuseong was looking at me from atop the Chimera Dragon's head.

"Mister!"

Joy was plainly visible on the faces of my Allies.

Then a voice came from the dusty ground below.

[Not yet! It isn't over yet!]

It was Oedipus King.

Beside the fallen Constellations, he shouted at us in a miserable state.

[Demon King of Salvation! I know the inheritance of the Great Fable has not yet ended! If you transfer the fable to us even now, we will withdraw from here.]

Though the battle was already over, he refused to give up. Junghyeok answered in my place.

"Why would we do that?"

After landing, Junghyeok set me down on the ground and drew the Black Heaven Demon Blade with a growl. Oedipus King spoke.

[Otherwise, your precious world will disappear.]

"Are you going to start talking about Fate again? You know you don't have enough Plausibility left to invest in the Demon Realm."

[What if it isn't the Demon Realm?]

He snapped his fingers, and a massive panel appeared in the air.

On it was the blue planet we knew so well.

Junghyeok frowned.

"It looks like you've sold off every last bit of a Constellation's pride. Is this your final struggle?"

Even if Olympus poured out all the Plausibility it possessed at this point, it couldn't destroy Earth. Junghyeok knew that too, so he didn't look shaken in the slightest.

Then Oedipus King smiled.

[Destroying Earth would be difficult. But what about this much?]

He snapped his fingers again, and the panel's screen changed. At the sight that appeared, Junghyeok and the others' faces stiffened.

The Korean Peninsula, engulfed in flames, was there.

* * *

"...If I'd known this would happen, maybe I should've gone to the Demon Realm too."

Han Suyeong frowned as she looked over Gyeonggi, burning in red and blue flames. There was a reason she hadn't gone to the Demon Realm.

[You are currently afflicted by the curse of Demon King Andras.]

Suyeong had once fallen for Kim Dokja's scheme and been cursed by a Demon King. If she carelessly visited the Demon Realm, she might end up becoming a Demon King's meal. Lee Gilyeong, who had been anxiously pacing nearby, shouted.

"By now, everyone must be with Dokja-hyung, right? Lucky you, Shin Yuseong..."

"Probably. But it's likely even harder over there than it is here."

Feeling the approaching disaster within the flames, Suyeong swallowed.

After Dokja's Allies left for the Demon Realm one after another after receiving personal Scenarios, a Disaster Scenario had descended upon the Korean Peninsula.

[30 minutes remain until the Disaster Scenario's time limit.]

The problem was that the disasters that had arrived this time were Constellations.

"Damn Olympus."

She didn't know what backroom deal they had made with the Administration Bureau, but the disasters sent for this Disaster Scenario were Constellations of Olympus.

Since the difficulty was so high, the Scenario would end if they endured for thirty minutes. At the moment, though, it seemed more likely that the Korean Peninsula would disappear from Earth within those thirty minutes.

"...What are you going to do now?"

Pildu Gong asked, blowing cigarette smoke from his thick lips.

The only reason the Gyeonggi region had endured this long was Pildu's [Armored Fortress], whose proficiency had risen sharply. Suyeong answered.

"Hold on a little longer. I have a way."

"They're Constellation Incarnation bodies. There are more than five of them. How are you planning to win? Even if that bastard Kim Dokja came, this would be impossible."

Judging by the energy she felt, every enemy was a Historical Constellation. They were likely ancient heroes of Olympus or beings comparable to the lowest-ranking divinities.

[It seems this tiny land has only people with equally little mettle!]

The resounding Status alone made her head throb. Suyeong calmly took several pitch-black stones from inside her clothes.

Abyss Crystals.

They were the items Kim Dokja had told them to gather before they parted.

Thanks to these items, they could send their Allies to the Demon Realm despite their lack of Plausibility. They had used three crystals so far, leaving six. It was a little short of the necessary amount, but this was the only way.

"I hope we don't burn down the whole house trying to catch a bug."

While Gilyeong's insects protected the fortress and artillery fire continued from Pildu's fortress, Suyeong began a Descent ritual using Abyss Crystals as Sacrifices. If she could summon the one being capable of balancing these tilted scales, even for a single moment.

Tzzzzzz!

Sparks flew as the Abyss Crystals disappeared one by one as Sacrifices of Plausibility.

A terrifying being whose fraction of power could only be summoned by using six Abyss Crystals.

The sky over Gyeonggi turned pitch-black as thunder poured down. An enormous Status revealed its shadow behind Han Suyeong. Suyeong let out a small sigh, slowly opened her eyes, and spoke.

"Flame Dragon. Do whatever you want."

[The Constellation Abyssal Black Flame Dragon smiles, baring his white teeth.]

Footnotes:

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