WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 284: Episode 53: Demon King of Salvation (4)

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[The Fourth Wall is shaking violently.]

This wasn't what I had intended from the start.

It began right after the fierce battle with Surya.

That day, I obtained a Great Fable and protected the Demon Realm together with my allies.

―Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World (third revised edition).txt

I received the third revised edition of TWSA.

「When he opened his eyes, Yu Junghyeok thought. ...This is the fourth round.」

At first, I didn't think much of it.

I was even looking forward to it. The current "third round" was a more perfect round than any Yu Junghyeok had ever experienced. He had become a Demon King in the twenty-fifth Scenario and had even obtained a Great Fable. I thought maybe this revised version would record the "ending" I wanted. But then.

「He thought things were going well. That guy said so too. Until the Outer God appeared, everything was like that.」

「Why. Why. Why. Why. Why. Why. Why. Why. Why. Why. Why. Why. Why. Why. Why.」

Junghyeok was different from how he had been in the First Revision and Second Revision.

He was losing his reason, becoming rash, and no longer planning things methodically. Junghyeok, after going through the third round, had something seriously broken within him.

「That day, everything in the third round came to an end.」

Only when I read that part did I realize what was wrong.

Rumble.

Watching the black fog surge in beyond the ramparts, I bit my lip. [The Fourth Wall], writhing inside my head, was spitting out sentences.

「Kim Dokja thought. He might fail.」

If I died this time, I couldn't come back to life.

I no longer had a resurrection privilege.

If I was swallowed by that Outer God, I would be annihilated completely, along with my context of modifiers.

But if I could just stop it...

「No matter where I searched in TWSA, there was no way for me as I am now to defeat it.」

Han Suyeong said Earth's Scenarios were faithfully following the original track. If we could just get through this crisis safely, we could exploit the original's special circumstances and head toward the ending we wanted.

Below the clock tower, I could see my companions looking up at me.

「No, there is one way. A method that "failed" in the original.」

...I just had to do this right.

「He had to live. Even if he hated it, he had to live.」

I wouldn't let anyone die.

「Only then could everyone reach the "ending."」

The night sky split apart, and a gigantic eye looked down at the ground.

The Transcendents coughed up blood and crumpled.

Kyrios, who had coordinated this with me beforehand, looked this way and shouted.

"Hurry up, you stupid disciple!"

I nodded and went down beneath the clock tower. I couldn't waste the time Cheok Junkyung and my masters had bought for me.

"I won't let you go! Don't go alone again! Please!"

"Arghhh! No! Dokja-hyung!"

"You're the one who said we couldn't do it alone! You're the one who gathered us! You're the one who told us all of this!"

Amid my allies' cries, I said the things I needed to say.

Truly.

Truly, I said only the things I needed to say.

[Please live.]

The horns growing from my head itched. The wings growing from my back hurt. I could hear Jeong Huiwon's scream and Lee Hyeongseong's howl. The children reached out their hands toward me.

Yu Sangah, who had heard the story from me beforehand, didn't take her eyes off me even as she cried. Sangah would do well.

Thud.

The instant I struck the ground, the scenery rushed away. My allies' grief-stricken voices grew distant. Maybe I wanted to tell them.

「I want to see the ending with you too.」

Rooooar!

Along with an explosive roar that pierced the atmosphere, my wings let out a painful cry.

[The Constellation God of Wine and Ecstasy has dropped his wineglass.]

[The Constellation Queen of the Darkest Spring has let out a deep sigh.]

[The Constellation Prisoner of the Golden Headband wishes you good fortune.]

Some Constellations worried about me.

[The Constellation Commander of the Red Cosmos disapproves of you.]

[Some Constellations criticize your actions.]

Some Constellations criticized me.

And there wasn't a single Constellation sponsoring coins.

Maybe the Constellations knew, too, that this wasn't a story meant to earn coins.

「Wiping his cheeks, Kim Dokja gazed at the vast universe.」

At the center of the fog, I could see the small scar Cheok Junkyung, the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint, and Kyrios had made.

I activated [Electrification] with all my strength and hurled myself toward that scar. Under normal circumstances, it was a method I would never have attempted, but right now, there was no other way because Outer Gods didn't exchange words with beings that lacked the qualifications.

Whoooosh!

[White Pure Star Energy] flaring from my right hand lengthened the blade of Unbreakable Faith. The demonic energy forced out while scraping through every blood vessel in my body overlaid a black aura atop the white-and-blue stream of qi. The Mana in my right hand exploded, and a powerful shockwave burst at the center of the fog. For an instant, a tiny gap opened, and I didn't hesitate.

Rumble.

The moment I entered the pitch-black fog, the Outer God revealed itself.

Like white blood cells noticing an invading germ, thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of millions... particles, too numerous to count, all turned toward me at once. As if every single one of those particles were an eye.

Indescribable Distance, the Nameless Mist.

The name of the Calamity drifting through the interstellar reaches of this Star Stream.

I opened my mouth toward that existence.

[O great Outer God.]

Strictly speaking, this fog probably wasn't even that godhead's original form.

Only one of the terrible avatars born from its original form.

And yet even that avatar possessed such enormous power.

[Please. Withdraw.]

At my words, the particles trembled.

Of course, I had expected communication to be impossible.

Tssssss!

The fog particles gathering around me began gnawing at me.

[The Great Fable Spring of the Demon Realm protects your Incarnation body!]

[The Fourth Wall protects your mind!]

Thanks to the influence of [The Fourth Wall], I could keep from going mad even before this distant existence. But it couldn't stop the Great Fable from being ground away bit by bit.

【■■■■…… ■■■■】

The fog babbled in an incomprehensible otherworldly language. Even if it had been translated, I probably wouldn't have understood it. Indescribable Distance was a being akin to the unconscious itself.

A starving predator with only the instinct to chase stories left.

Within the fog pressing in as if to suffocate me, my existence gradually grew fainter.

[...You damned bastard.]

Even if Uriel descended, she couldn't stop this thing.

At this point, even Great Sage Equaling Heaven or Abyssal Black Flame Dragon wouldn't be enough.

Maybe if all three came, but that wasn't going to happen.

「That was why there was only one being who could help Kim Dokja now.」

A being that had never appeared in TWSA.

But also the only being who might be able to help me now, and the only being who might be able to stand against that fog.

Through the rough fog particles, I could faintly see otherworldly starlight. I came all the way here so my voice could reach him properly.

[Secretive Plotter!]

The constellation's declaration I unleashed with all my strength pierced the fog and crossed the interstellar reaches. For an instant, the fog convulsed and roared, and something glittered beyond a faraway galaxy.

I shouted one more time.

[I will make an Otherworld Covenant with you!]

* * *

Every round in which Yu Junghyeok made an Otherworld Covenant became unfortunate.

He faced trials he couldn't bear, or had to fulfill an absurd contract.

But this was the only way. This life was my first and my last.

The fog didn't stop feeding.

It didn't stop feeding on me or devouring the 73rd Demon Realm. As I watched the fables being torn away, a bad feeling came over me. Don't tell me Secretive Plotter can't stop this thing either? And then.

Space-time creaked, and the movement of everything began to slow.

All nearby space-time was controlled by a power that could only be described as overwhelming. The fog howled, and the life activity of everything around me rapidly ebbed away, as if they were creatures frozen inside a glacier, as if they would remain trapped in that time forever.

The next moment, I was standing in an unfamiliar galaxy.

When I looked below my feet, I saw the scenery of the Star Stream.

At the outskirts of the Star Stream, at the farthest place from the nebulae of those stars, countless stars illuminating the stellar currents were spread beneath my feet like a mat, shining beautifully.

【It's a tedious sight, isn't it?】

Unlike the voices of other Outer Gods, his voice was exceptionally clear and distinct. A shadow in human form flickered.

【I have been waiting for you, one who pursues the Final Chapter.】

Inside his gaping mouth, I could see pure white darkness.

Simply listening to him calmly made my Incarnation body tremble dangerously.

Darkness without end. At the center of that darkness, evil coiled and stared at me. Yet the ominous Status possessed by Secretive Plotter wasn't the only reason I trembled.

【No, perhaps I should call you one who longs for Eternity.】

I kept my mouth shut for a moment and glared at him.

"...How did you know?"

【■■.】

His words held two meanings for me.

Eternity.

Final Chapter.

Two opposing words were contained within a single expression.

And it was the same as the messages I heard when I obtained the Great Fable.

―You have obtained the qualification of Eternity.

―You have obtained the qualification of Final Chapter.

Strangely enough, my "end" held those two opposing meanings at once. When Constellations, including Mass Production Maker, asked me about the true nature of my filtering, I answered "Final Chapter" only because it was easier to persuade the Constellations that way.

I had never told anyone that my ■■ had two meanings.

【If you live for a very long time, what is left unsaid can be heard more loudly.】

[The Fourth Wall is shaking ominously!]

[The Fourth Wall is expanding as it protects you.]

[The Fourth Wall bares its teeth at Secretive Plotter!]

【A fragment of the Final Wall...? Don't worry. I have no intention of harming you.】

An unknowable smile brushed past the shadow's lips.

Secretive Plotter.

Alongside Great Sage Equaling Heaven, Uriel, and Abyssal Black Flame Dragon, he was one of the Constellations who had watched me for the longest time. A being even I, who had read TWSA, did not know.

I had rehearsed our meeting several times, but I never imagined it would happen like this.

"This is our first meeting, Secretive Plotter."

I didn't know him. But that didn't mean I had no guesses at all.

"O Crawling Chaos of the depths of the Scenario."

Footnotes:

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