Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint - Chapter 347

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 347: Episode 65: Good and Evil (2)

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Asmodeus continued questioning him.

[Have you heard of Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse? Among Incarnations, it was likely known as the Revelation...?]

Han Suyeong's face turned pale at Asmodeus's words, and she stepped forward.

"What nonsense did you come here to spout?"

However, Asmodeus ignored Suyeong and studied Junghyeok's expression.

Tzzzt.

[An unknown force is restraining the imagination of the Incarnation Yu Junghyeok.]

Sparks flared around Junghyeok once more.

In reality, Asmodeus's words sounded like this to Junghyeok.

[Have you heard of Thr■■ Ways to Sur■■■■ the Apo■■■■■■■?]

Junghyeok asked through a throbbing headache, "Heard of what?"

Asmodeus sighed.

[Hmm, so it still isn't permitted for you.]

"What the hell are you talking about?"

[It's nothing important. More importantly, it appears our Demon King of Salvation is still asleep.]

Asmodeus smiled faintly and glanced toward the Factory.

[It's unfortunate, but I'll be leaving for today. Please tell the Demon King of Salvation this: The things you are doing are upsetting the balance between good and evil. And jackals will emerge to exploit that imbalance.]

"Wait!"

Junghyeok pressed a hand to his temple and called after Asmodeus as he turned away.

Without looking back, Asmodeus answered.

[Yu Junghyeok, the Regressor. Do you wish to know the truth of this world?]

"What?"

[If you do, come find the Seekers of the End whenever you wish.]

Leaving only those words behind, Asmodeus's Incarnation body suddenly vanished.

Suyeong hurried over to the staggering Junghyeok.

"Are you okay?"

"..."

"Junghyeok?"

Junghyeok didn't answer. He looked as though he was thinking about something, or perhaps he had gone blank under the weight of some great anguish. After glaring into empty space for a while, he shoved Suyeong aside and began staggering off.

"Hey! Where are you going!"

Junghyeok didn't answer her shout.

Suyeong yelled again.

"Dokja hasn't woken up yet!"

"This has nothing to do with him."

Leaving only those words behind, Junghyeok activated [phoenix walk] and disappeared.

That left Suyeong alone at the Factory entrance.

She stared blankly at the empty surroundings, chewing on her lollipop stick as she thought to herself.

The filters were about to start lifting, but even information about TWSA was beginning to slip through?

Because this happened while Dokja was absent, Suyeong couldn't hide her unease.

She couldn't begin to imagine what sort of disaster would occur if Junghyeok learned about TWSA. It was also a mystery how Demon King Asmodeus had learned of TWSA's existence.

Suyeong stood still, looking toward the southern sky, before spitting the lollipop stick onto the ground.

There was something she needed to do before Dokja woke up.

* * *

Yu Sangah enjoyed the feeling of being a new employee again as she sorted the books.

Over the past two days, Sangah had learned many things from her three seniors.

From what this "Library" was to what sort of beings her seniors were.

「(Take your time sorting them. Dokja will make a mess of everything when he starts thinking useless thoughts anyway.)」

Simulacrum, the master of the Theater Dungeon.

「(It'll take a long time to organize things with only two hands. I was hoping the new employee would have lots of hands. Or at least feet.)」

The Outer God, The One Who Devours Dreams.

「(Want me to teach you [Thousand-Armed Avalokiteshvara]?)」

Even Nirvana Moebius, the Reincarnator.

All of her seniors were a little strange in their own ways, but they were generally kind to her. Sangah thought it would've been nice if Mino Soft's HR department had been this good.

Shelves covered in countless books. They were all books Dokja had read or forgotten. Most of those books were a certain "novel."

『Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse』.

Sangah quickly grasped both her situation and the processes of her new workplace.

What this place meant to Dokja, and what this story meant to him.

When Sangah understood all of it, she felt both faint despair and sympathy.

Still, she didn't show it. She knew that sometimes, not showing it was a way to care for someone who had been hurt.

Instead, she thought about something else.

‘If the story follows the original plot...’

The next Scenarios to unfold on Earth could be narrowed down to a few possibilities.

The most likely one among them was...

「You wo rk ha rd, Yu Sang ah.」

Sangah looked up at the voice that came from the air.

「(Of course I have to work hard.)」

She felt like a lodger, but at least there was a chance she could come back to life. Sangah was also relieved that her cute boss was in charge here.

「(Thank you for hiring me. I really like it here.)」

「Hmph.」

「(I mean it.)」

「Yu Sang ah, you li ke boo ks?」

「(I like them very much.)」

「Wh at bo oks?」

「(For example... I like ‘The Lord of the Rings,’ too...)」

「O ho.」

Fortunately, her cute boss seemed fairly interested in her.

Sangah decided to take this chance to ask what she had been curious about.

「(Um, may I ask you something?)」

「Wh at is it?」

「(What exactly does The Fourth Wall-nim do?)」

A snickering laugh echoed through the entire Library.

「I pro tect Kim Dok ja.」

「(You protect him?)」

「Kim Dok ja dies with out me.」

The voice was filled with unwavering certainty.

「Bu t stu pid Kim Dok ja tre ats me dis res pect ful ly.」

The whole Library trembled faintly.

「I ha ve been ha ving a hard ti me late ly, all be cause of yo u.」

「(Because of me?)」

「A par t of me lea ked out.」

Tzzzzt.

Sparks pointed toward one side of the Library. Where [The Fourth Wall] pointed, there was a hole slightly larger than Sangah's fist.

「I try to blo ck it, bu t it won't stay blo cked pro perly be cause Kim Dok ja bro ke it.」

An old book cover was blocking the hole. It looked like a temporary measure taken in a hurry.

Sangah carefully lifted the book cover and asked, 「(Does this hole lead outside?)」

「Yes.」

After studying the hole for a moment, Sangah spoke with a playful expression.

「(The Fourth Wall-nim, I have a good idea.)」

* * *

I had a good, deep sleep for the first time in a while. It was as deep as when I had once been forcibly imprisoned. It felt like something soft as feathers was gently wrapping around my head. Or like someone had entered my mind and neatly sorted away all my troubling worries.

「(Dokja-ssi, something terrible has happened. Dokja-ssi.)」

When an unknown voice rang in my head, I jolted awake and sprang out of bed.

The hospital room was empty.

The skin scorched by the sparks stung all over.

"Ugh..."

I looked around, but no one was near the bed. The allies who had been fussing over imprisoning me were nowhere to be seen either.

Then who woke me up?

I decided to assess the situation first. The aftereffects of Plausibility still lingered, but I could still move.

Something felt wrong, though. An ominous energy flowed through the hospital ward's corridor. It felt like something was about to happen.

It was only a little later that I realized there was a disturbance outside the Factory. When I opened the corridor window, people's shouts stabbed into my ears.

"Free Seoul!"

What?

"We will no longer be ruled by something like a ‘Demon King’!"

"The Factory's Dictator must step down! Open all Stigmas and Skills to the public!"

A vast crowd had gathered beyond the Factory's battlements. They were Incarnations from Seoul and nearby areas. Looking at the gathered forces, I quickly understood what sort of people they were.

Most had failed their Scenarios.

A few of the key figures were members of the Alliance.

"Demon King of Salvation and the corrupt corporation Kim Dokja Company, wake up! You monopolize capital and seize Scenarios!"

Monopolizing capital and seizing Scenarios... If they knew how hard my allies and I had fought our way through those Scenarios, they wouldn't say things like that.

My allies had gathered inside the battlements, looking lost.

After enhancing my hearing with a Skill, the first voice I heard was Pildu Gong's.

"Should I just shoot them all?"

"Are you crazy, mister? Most of them are beginner Incarnations."

"Everyone, please don't do this! It's a misunderstanding!"

Jihye and Hyeongseong stepped forward and shouted at the people, but there was no way their words would get through to them in the first place.

"Shut up! Open the gates! Hand over your items!"

"We don't have any items!"

"Hand over your coins!"

"What are they, a bunch of thugs...?"

Ordinary people couldn't gather and carry out Incitement on this scale.

The various alliances across the Korean Peninsula were being handled by my allies, and the Gyeonggi Alliance, the greatest obstacle, had been destroyed by Junghyeok not long ago.

Yet this many people had gathered again... There was a high chance an outside force had intervened.

By the way, where were Junghyeok and Suyeong? The Factory was in this state, so where had they all gone?

It seemed many things had happened over the past two days that I didn't know about.

[A considerable number of Constellations are interested in what is happening at the industrial complex.]

I needed to stop this before it grew any bigger.

As I ran through different calculations in my head and was about to quietly head toward my allies, a dokkaebi's voice rang out from the air.

[A revolution. Just as expected from members of a world that advocates democracy.]

It was an ominous opening.

[With Plausibility gathered on this scale, shouldn't I open a Scenario for you?]

Category: Sub

Difficulty: ???

Clear Conditions: Seoul is currently under Kim Dokja Company's rule. A large number of Incarnations opposing that nebula's control have now appeared. Many Constellations want the two groups to fight over control of Seoul.

Time Limit: None

Reward: 300,000 coins

Failure: ―

The moment I read the Scenario, my sense of foreboding deepened.

After the previous fierce battle, Kim Dokja Company had accumulated two Great Fables and had become fairly well-known in the Star Stream.

Yet Junghyeok and I, the nebula's Representatives, were both absent.

Someone was deliberately causing trouble because they wanted to steal the fruits of others' labor.

"There's no failure condition! This is worth trying!"

"Three hundred thousand coins! Let's make some money too!"

Jihye shouted in frustration.

"Idiots... All this over an amount that won't even be much once it's divided among everyone."

Just as I thought this couldn't continue, someone stepped forward.

It was Huiwon.

Using the [Voice Amplification] Skill, Huiwon shouted in a voice filled with overwhelming force.

"Your Representative should stop hiding and come out!"

The people climbing the wall were startled by Huiwon's words and fell back down.

"Even if we fight a war here, it'll only create meaningless casualties. Wouldn't it be better for our leaders to fight and settle this?"

Looking at the murmuring crowd, Huiwon continued.

"If we lose, we'll hand over the Factory as you wish!"

"Huiwon-ssi! Why would you make a promise like that...!"

Huiwon spoke calmly to the flustered Hyeongseong.

"Most of those people haven't even cleared the tenth Scenario. What do you think will happen if a real war breaks out?"

Hyeongseong closed his mouth at Huiwon's words. Instead of adding anything, the allies looked at one another in silence.

After some time passed...

"I think Huiwon-ssi is right."

The allies began nodding.

Hyeongseong, Jihye, Yuseong, and Gilyeong.

Everyone silently agreed this was the best way to minimize civilian casualties.

The dokkaebi watching everything unfold in the air let out a hollow laugh.

[Very well. Shall this event proceed as a Representative Match?]

As soon as Huiwon nodded, the contents of the Sub Scenario changed.

[Some of the contents of the Sub Scenario Seoul Revolution have been updated!]

[The owner of Seoul will be decided through a Representative Match between both forces!]

Huiwon called out to the people beyond the battlements.

"All right, have your Representative come up now. We're ready on this side."

There was a confident smile on her face. Perhaps Huiwon's resolve came from all the meaningful time she had spent.

The people who had been shouting about revolution and Seoul Spring until moments ago seemed flustered by Huiwon's confidence. Their murmurs only grew louder.

"R-representative! Where are you! Get out there already!"

"Fight and win! Take back our rights!"

But no one came forward.

Of course they didn't. They had stirred up a crowd because they wanted to exploit an irrational, incited situation. If things went this way, there was no point.

The frustrated Incarnations shouted.

"Someone, please...!"

As I watched the crowd members who had broken rank begin to scatter, I felt a little moved. It showed me how much my allies had grown during the three years I had been gone.

Huiwon had probably been aiming for this from the beginning. She had learned how to uphold justice without losing sight of practical gains.

This side already had the strongest members in Seoul.

There was no way we could lose a one-on-one Incarnation battle.

The dokkaebi stroked their chin in the air and asked, [Both Representatives of Kim Dokja Company are absent. Who would like to step forward?]

My allies raised their hands at once.

But Huiwon was the first to step forward.

"I'll do it."

"Huiwon-ssi."

"Don't worry. You know I'm strong."

Huiwon was certainly close to the strongest combatant in our nebula besides Junghyeok and me. Hyeongseong, Gilyeong, Yuseong, Pildu Gong... No one could surpass Huiwon in individual combat strength.

Besides, Huiwon looked as if she had noticed something.

There was a reason Huiwon had to step forward as the "Representative" among our allies.

「I have to go.」

The reason lay with the three "Incarnations" parting the crowd and approaching us.

One of their faces was especially familiar.

That bastard.

The one who crossed the battlements in a single leap opened their mouth.

"I'll face you as the Representative."

Footnotes:

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