Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint - Chapter 357

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 357: Episode 67: The scenario's deceaseds (1)

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A week had passed since Yu Junghyeok disappeared.

During that time, the atmosphere in Kim Dokja Company had changed a little.

Everyone had noticeably grown quieter. Instead of expressing themselves or talking to one another, they silently focused on their own training.

Jeong Huiwon was one of them. She mingled with the others, pretending to train her skills or work out, but she was really gauging someone's reaction.

"I seriously can't take this anymore! How long are we supposed to keep this up?"

Lee Hyeongseong, who had been using [Mount Tai Shove] against the ground, flinched. Shin Yuseong, who had been training [High-grade Multispecies Communication], shuddered. Most startled of all was Lee Jihye, who had been practicing [Swordsmanship].

Huiwon pressed her.

"Jihye! Are you still not going to talk to Dokja-ssi?"

"I don't know."

"You're still upset? Whatever happened, you need to talk to him."

Jihye snapped.

"I'm not upset! When I think about it, it wasn't even a big deal. Something similar happened with the prophets, too. I know ahjussi is a good person. I just..."

"Just what?"

"I just don't like the word 'character'!"

It had already been a week since Dokja dropped that bombshell on the group.

They each thought about his words in their own way.

It went something like this.

On the first day, everyone was shocked.

On the second day, they realized something like that had already happened before. (Jeong Huiwon: "When you think about it, as long as there are Constellations, it's all the same anyway.")

On the third day, someone found it fascinating that they appeared in the novel. (Lee Seolhwa: "But how important was I in it?")

On the fourth day, someone declared that if Dokja had read such a novel, he might be the god of this world. (Lee Gilyeong: "I knew hyung was a god.")

On the fifth day, someone even argued that Kim Dokja, not them, was the one who needed comforting. (Shin Yuseong: "Maybe ahjussi is the one having the hardest time right now.")

Hyeongseong, who had been listening to the conversation, spoke up.

"I'm not sure how Dokja-ssi must be feeling right now. Junghyeok-ssi disappeared just a few days ago, too..."

The others nodded in agreement.

In the end, their gazes settled on Jihye again.

"Jihye."

Jihye's face reddened, and she shouted.

"I know! Ahjussi looked completely miserable, so how am I supposed to talk to him?"

"Still."

"Why did Dokja ahjussi have to say something like that in the first place? He could've just kept deceiving us like he always did..."

"Jihye."

At Huiwon's call, Jihye flinched and lowered her head.

"Just because we can't understand doesn't mean we should dismiss Dokja-ssi's choice. I don't know for sure, but there must have been something he absolutely had to do. I'm sure he had his own reasons."

"Do you think we're just 'characters' too, unni?"

"I don't know that either. But... with Scenarios already happening, what does it matter whether we're characters or not? It isn't Dokja-ssi's fault that such a novel existed."

She was right.

Dokja hadn't made the world this way. He was simply the only reader who happened to read that novel.

Characters in a novel. So what? Since this damned Scenario began, they had already been clowns for the Constellations. Hearing about it now didn't make it feel any more real.

After worrying her lip for a long time, Jihye finally spoke.

"Fine. I'll go talk to him. But Yuseong and Hyeongseong ahjussi are coming too."

Hyeongseong and Yuseong looked at each other and hesitated.

"Uh, well. I actually visited him yesterday evening..."

"I talked to ahjussi three days ago."

Jihye looked around the group, and her face went pale.

"What? So I'm the only one who hasn't gone?"

* * *

As the group came to see me one by one, I couldn't stop feeling conflicted.

Lee Seolhwa suddenly appeared in the middle of the night and stuck a Fable Pack into my perfectly healthy arm. Then, one morning, I woke up to find things like the hind legs of huge beast species and Monarch-Level Insects lying outside my door.

I was the one who had done wrong, yet the group was looking after me instead. I had no idea how I was supposed to react.

"If we're characters, then how many times has Dokja-ssi thrown himself into danger for characters like us? That's the only thing everyone else and I will remember."

That was what Huiwon said.

"Ahjussi, I'm young, so I don't really understand why you said those things. But I know you're having a really hard time right now."

That was what Yuseong and Gilyeong said.

"Dokja-ssi, my manual contains no way to deal with a situation like this. So please don't put me in a difficult position, and return to your usual self."

Hyeongseong was Hyeongseong as always.

"I'm no good at apologizing or comforting people. If I'm really in that novel, then you know too, don't you, ahjussi?"

And then there was Jihye.

Some comfort settles warmly, like spring rain, so quietly that you don't even realize it is comfort.

Snow was piling up beneath the city walls. The season had already begun turning into winter.

I looked down at the citizens hard at work clearing snow. The world had been turned upside down, and monsters ran rampant, but snow still had to be cleared. If it wasn't removed in time, it would harden into troublesome ice.

"Are the preparations proceeding well?"

I turned to find Kyrios floating cross-legged in midair. With their strength fully recovered, Kyrios had recently taken charge of teaching martial arts to the group.

"We're working hard."

The coming Great war of Angels and Demons was the eightieth Scenario. The highest Scenario we could currently access through the Nexus of the Constellations was the sixty-fifth.

That meant we had to gather enough fables during the time that remained, clear the sixty-fifth Scenario, and advance to a second Nexus of the Constellations. Only then would Kim Dokja Company earn the right to participate in the eightieth Scenario.

"We're steadily accumulating fables, and our Scenario clears are going smoothly. Aside from Gigantomachia, the Scenarios in the sixties are all similarly difficult anyway."

"Spring of the Demon Realm" and "Holy Flame That Devoured Myth."

With Plausibility unlike anything we had before, we cleared Scenarios with unstoppable momentum. We were rising so rapidly that there was no nebula left in the Scenarios in the sixties that could stand against us.

At the same time, we began the advertisement we promised Mass Production Maker, and Kim Dokja Company's stock price soared day by day.

Right then, Mass Production Maker's advertisement appeared on a panel in the air.

"Scenarios. Those countless paths."

My voice played in a reflective tone. On the screen, several cars raced toward portals on a Dimensional Path. Yet one car alone didn't choose a portal. It was the X-grade Ferrari carrying Han Suyeong.

"Everyone has their own path."

The X-grade Ferrari sped into the darkness, cutting through the cars scattering in every direction. A close-up showed Han Suyeong's face, the beauty mark beneath her eye standing out as her lips moved in sync with my voice.

"But the one who runs down a path where none exists is the truly strong one."

The screen darkened, and Mass Production Maker's logo appeared.

That old man really had a gift. After trying to scare me with those words, he was now using them as an advertising line.

There was no way an advertisement like that would appeal to the Constellations...

[The Constellation Abyssal Black Flame Dragon likes this advertisement.]

[The Constellation Prisoner of the Golden Headband wants the X-grade Ferrari.]

[Your advertisement has stimulated the purchasing desire of a few Constellations.]

Apparently, there was.

Kyrios, who had watched the advertisement with me, clicked their tongue. The Transcendent from the martial world seemed unable to accept the conveniences of modern civilization.

"I don't understand. If you use martial arts, you can run much faster."

"That's true."

"That brat, the disciple of Sky-Splitting, hasn't returned yet?"

I fell silent at the sudden question.

There was only one of the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint's disciples Kyrios could call "that brat."

"He's the kind of guy who can find a way to survive on his own, so I'm not worried."

I was worried.

What if he was pulling another sunfish stunt somewhere?

What if his depression had suddenly returned and he was thinking about Regression again?

Even as I reminded myself that there weren't many beings capable of harming Junghyeok as he was now, I couldn't completely shake off my uneasiness.

Still, all I could do was trust him.

Just as I had during those days when I knew him only through words on a page.

"When we head to the next Scenario area, he'll suddenly pop up somewhere. That's what he does."

"The Island of Reincarnators won't be easy."

"I know."

I nodded.

Kyrios was a Transcendent who had already visited the Island of Reincarnators before.

Kyrios looked down beneath the city walls. A short distance away from the others, Jang Hayoung was silently throwing straight punches alone.

"Bring Hayoung along on this journey. She has inherited Sky-Splitting's True Teachings as well. She won't be a burden."

"I was planning to bring her anyway."

Jang Hayoung was necessary for this Scenario. In the original story, the Island of Reincarnators was where she gained the name King of the Transcendents.

I gave her a small wave. Hayoung, who had been looking my way, sharply turned her head aside.

I looked back at the distant sky.

The ticking vibration of clock hands came from inside my sleeve.

Twenty-one days remained until the Great war of Angels and Demons.

I quietly turned on my smartphone and opened the TWSA file.

I had hurt my companions because of this novel, yet it was also because of this novel that I came to know them.

Caught in those contradictory feelings, I opened the section on the Great war of Angels and Demons and began to read.

The first sentence of the Great war of Angels and Demons began like this.

「At last, the season of destruction was slowly approaching this world as well.」

* * *

The nebula Eden.

For some reason, a great number of angels had gathered at the entrance to the training ground, a place that was normally deserted.

[Ah, so that Incarnation is...]

[That's a human body?]

Inside the training ground the angels were peeking into, a man stood bare-chested with a sword in hand, staring at the empty air. At first glance, he appeared to be simply holding the sword, but he was actually cutting through the air with it. Angels with sharp eyes could tell that the blade was moving downward at an extremely slow speed.

It was a training exercise Junghyeok repeated whenever he wanted to forget time.

Stretching a moment into a long span, then sensing the eternity woven into every thread of that time.

The air around him violently rippled with the strict rhythm of his movements. His Status was restrained like a crouching dragon.

Yet for something to be restrained meant there was something within it that had yet to burst forth.

[Impressive. In your current state, even most fabled-grade Constellations won't dare rush at you.]

Junghyeok frowned and turned his head. An Archangel with a pale face stood there.

The one who recorded everything in Eden.

Metatron gave a bitter smile at Junghyeok's gaze, which seemed to ask why Metatron had come.

[I've come to offer some advice. If you intend to keep taking your shirt off whenever you train, then you should choose another place...]

"The Plausibility density of Eden is best suited to this training."

[That is your concern, but your indecent exposure is affecting young angels...]

"Metatron, why did you show me that Revelation?"

Metatron smacked their lips at Junghyeok's complete refusal to listen and changed the subject.

[I believe I told you it was a transaction. In exchange for you siding with good in the Duet of Good and Evil. No more and no less.]

"Weren't you trying to divide Kim Dokja Company?"

[Why would Eden do such a thing?]

"I know you've been especially wary of Dokja. You want to keep his growing power in check."

[Is that why you're staging a protest with your upper body exposed here?]

"There's no getting through to you."

Metatron shook their head as if there was no telling which of them was impossible to communicate with.

Regardless, Junghyeok continued to swing his sword at the air. Very slowly, as if he were driving the blade into an imaginary opponent and cutting off their breath.

[If you intend to continue this illegal protest, formally leave Kim Dokja Company and join Eden. Then, we will permit you to go shirtless...]

"Give me the next page of the Revelation. Was that all the information you had?"

[You don't think I might give you false information?]

"You're better than those Demon King bastards who lie openly."

[Is that why you invaded our Eden instead of following Asmodeus?]

"If the Demon Kings know that information, you must know it too."

[Hah.]

Metatron still hadn't forgotten the day Junghyeok invaded Eden alone.

He had made a scene at the entrance of the Great Barrier guarded by Power Angels and Rebel Angels. Not even Demon Kings did such things. If Metatron hadn't stopped it, Michael would have cut off Junghyeok's head that day.

Junghyeok said, "Enough nonsense. Give me the Revelation. If I've played along with your aims all the way here, isn't that enough?"

Metatron's expression twisted. As Metatron stared at Junghyeok, a cold light flashed through Metatron's eyes.

[Incarnation Yu Junghyeok. Strictly speaking, the information I gave you wasn't a Revelation. It was information received from a special being.]

"A special being?"

[Do you truly want to know?]

Metatron watched Junghyeok for a moment, then slowly raised their head. Junghyeok followed Metatron's gaze.

For an instant, Eden's sky seemed to warp black.

A few angels gathered around the training ground let out small screams and collapsed.

Junghyeok instinctively gripped the Black Heaven Demon Blade.

A Demon King? No.

It was something closer to chaos than anything demonic.

[Your Patron feels discomfort toward an alien entity.]