WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 389: Episode 74: Great war of Angels and Demons (4)

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I would become the official heir of the underworld.

Even after saying it myself, it didn't feel real.

Apparently, I wasn't the only one who doubted my words.

Hades, the King of the Underworld who ruled Tartarus and all nights, was looking down at me.

[You have told a lie in the underworld.]

A cold sensation froze my toes as death stood before me.

[You've only just become my child, and you've already learned how to deceive your parents.]

Hades gave me a cold look, rose from his throne, and walked straight toward me. I wanted to get up immediately, but my body wouldn't move.

The Status of a Mythical Constellation was constricting my entire body.

Fortunately, nothing happened. Hades came right up to me, then calmly passed by and left the hall.

I barely managed to catch my breath before looking up. Persephone was smiling as she stroked her chin.

[Hmm. A father-son conflict I'd only ever heard about...?]

For someone who looked troubled, she sounded remarkably entertained.

[The age-old battle between father and son, with the mother caught in the middle...]

It was a narrative warped in a profoundly Olympian way.

Persephone patted my shoulder as if telling me not to worry. I felt the muscles throughout my body, stiffened by Hades's Status, loosen.

[Don't worry too much. Your father has always been like that.]

"..."

[Still, you were also quite wrong to lie first. You never intended to remain in the underworld in the first place, did you?]

She had hit the mark too precisely for me to say anything. In truth, I had no desire to succeed Hades and become the king here.

What I wanted was the power of the underworld, not the position of King of the Underworld.

Hades had probably seen through my intentions long ago.

[I think it'll take him some time to calm down.]

"I'm sorry."

[You have nothing to be sorry for. Hades and I both knew that you wouldn't remain here anyway.]

Persephone's eyes curved into lovely crescents.

[If you'd like, let's have a meal first.]

* * *

Persephone's table, which I hadn't seen in a long time, was unchanged.

There was a mouthwatering grilled steak and a salad piled high in a large bowl. At a glance, they looked like ordinary foods, but I already knew they weren't.

[Courage of the Sword Queen Who Pacified the Martial World]

[Wisdom of a Third-Circle Mage Who Spent a Lifetime in a Library]

[Will of a Swordmaster Who Could Use Neither sword aura nor Sword Aura]

I read the menu again, wondering if I had seen something wrong.

[Go on, eat. Don't you like the menu?]

"It's not that, but..."

[Now that you've become a Constellation, you need to eat proper fables. Human food alone can't provide enough nourishment. You haven't failed to outgrow your picky eating habits, have you?]

The way she said that made her seem like a real mother.

[Your mother worries a great deal about whether you're eating your meals on time and sleeping well.]

My hand stopped on its way to the fork.

"Have you met my mother?"

[Hehe, we keep in touch from time to time.]

Knowing Persephone, I could believe it.

Even the foie gras placed before me had the following name.

[Heart of a Mother Who Sent Her Child Away]

This couldn't possibly be my mother's heart, could it?

I put down my fork. "The kind of food you eat has changed. There used to be things like Swordmasters and Archmages."

[The Island of Reincarnators has opened, so shouldn't I enjoy some special fare for once? I'm a member of the Gourmet Association, after all. I can't always eat the same food.]

Persephone moved her fork and knife. The fables she cut with ease released their juices and exhaled fragrant sentences, while Persephone gracefully filled her mouth with them. What she had just eaten was [Will of a Swordmaster Who Could Use Neither sword aura nor Sword Aura].

[And some fables will disappear unless someone makes an effort to consume them.]

Dying fables crumbled at the tip of her fork.

Fables no one had sought for a long time poured out rapturous sentences from Persephone's tongue until the moment they were eaten.

Persephone smiled at me as I watched with mixed feelings.

[I know you have many complaints about the tastes of Constellations. You must dislike how easily we consume the joys and sorrows of Incarnations.]

"..."

[But every event in the universe is bound to remain as a fable. You, me, every other Incarnation and Constellation. In the end, everything is consumed by something.]

Every living being's life became a story in the Star Stream.

[If that's inevitable, then I think the best thing Constellations can do is act in a way that preserves the broadest possible spectrum of fables.]

Leaving behind diverse fables, preserving diverse stories.

Perhaps Persephone wasn't wrong. She was pursuing justice in the Star Stream according to her own principles. That was probably why she was active as a member of the Gourmet Association.

Still, she probably hadn't invited me here just to tell me about her philosophy of fables.

"What did you really want to say to me?"

[Actually, Hades doesn't want you to remain here.]

"You mean he doesn't want to name me his successor?"

[It's different from that. If I had to put it into words...]

Persephone cut the food on the plate between us as she spoke.

[Hades and I... don't want you to end as the King of the Underworld.]

"What do you mean...?"

[Olympus has fallen, and the underworld has also lost its former standing. To be satisfied with the position of King of the Underworld now would only mean placing your name at the end of a fading fable.]

"The underworld is a good fable."

[It's also a fable that is falling into ruin.]

The power surrounding the underworld truly wasn't what it had been. A worn, ancient fable. Stories that were spoken of less often gradually lost their power in the Star Stream.

A strange, deep melancholy filled Persephone's eyes as she looked down at the food. As she savored so many fables, perhaps Persephone had always been thinking about it.

The fear that one day, the underworld she shared with Hades might be lost to the forgotten recesses of history and preserved as a specimen on the Island of Reincarnators.

[As long as we live in the Star Stream, that is only the natural order of time.]

The moment I heard those words, I felt an inexplicably fierce sadness. It was a kind of sadness I had never felt before.

Persephone and Hades would disappear. From people's memories, from my memories.

I didn't like Constellations. I hated the things they did, and I hated their voyeuristic way of watching the world.

Then why did I wish Persephone and Hades wouldn't disappear?

"Why are you so kind to me?"

[...]

"I came here to use you."

If I couldn't obtain the power of the underworld, Kim Dokja Company would face a great crisis on the Island of Reincarnators.

Even so, I said it. Perhaps because, not as Kim Dokja Company but as the human Kim Dokja, I wanted confirmation of something.

[The Fourth Wall is trembling faintly!]

[The Fruit of Good and Evil stimulates your guilt.]

Even if that confirmation was utterly meaningless.

Persephone looked at me for a while. Then she lightly wiped her mouth with a napkin and reached out toward me. She gave me a gentle, warm look without the slightest hostility. Before I could even rise from my seat in surprise, Persephone's Status touched my shoulder.

[Long ago, Hades and I received a Revelation from the Three Goddesses of Fate.]

"A Revelation?"

[「A descendant of the darkest night, who will end an ancient myth, will appear.」]

Suddenly, I remembered something Dionysus had told me long ago.

"A few Constellations and I believe that you can reach ■■."

Perhaps the few Constellations he had mentioned then included Persephone and Hades. Persephone continued.

[When I first received that oracle, I was angry.]

Angry?

[Because I had a fable that said I couldn't have children.]

I hadn't known that such a tradition concerning Persephone was being passed down.

Could that have been why she had never been able to have children?

Persephone lightly brushed my hair aside.

[At first, I waited, hoping against hope. Perhaps this time, a miracle would happen. Perhaps we would have a lovely child who would remember our story. Though this place held nothing but darkness, hell, and prisons, if we were given that chance, I was confident we could raise a child better than any of Olympus's twelve gods. I would teach that child how to understand the darkness in others, teach them about the hell of failing to empathize with others, and show them the prisons that would severely punish evil that tramples justice.]

"..."

[I lived under that illusion for hundreds of years.]

Persephone's fingertips trembled slightly.

I didn't dare claim to understand what that trembling meant. I couldn't even begin to measure the pain contained in every word, or her hatred for Olympus.

Persephone barely let out a breath before continuing.

[Hades and I have faced everything together for a long time. Even after learning that we couldn't have children, we weren't unhappy. Even if the underworld ended with our generation, even if no one remembered the fable we had lived. We thought we were different from the other twelve gods, different from parents who forced their own fables onto their children. We thought we were whole as ourselves.]

"..."

[Then one day, you appeared.]

Persephone looked directly at me.

[Actually, he found you first.]

In a voice that sounded as if she were dreaming, Persephone continued.

[From the moment you survived in that subway, he has watched your history. At first, he couldn't believe a child like you existed. He thought fables like that had already ended in this world. I still can't forget how excitedly he told me about you.]

"..."

[We watched as a small fable that had grown up alone fought against the world, competing with powerful Constellations, facing an Outer God, resisting dokkaebi Scenarios, and ultimately gathering five fables to be born as a small Constellation.]

I remembered the moment, long ago, when I had first created Kim Dokja Company.

Persephone had been one of the five Constellations who supported me then.

[That was when we first thought it. That we wanted to become your parents. Even if we couldn't be your real parents, we wanted to become supporters like that.]

I barely swallowed down the lump in my throat.

Only now did I feel as though I understood, just a little, the affection Persephone had shown me all this time.

[Hades and I don't want you to become the King of the Underworld. We don't want you to be bound to us, and we don't want the lives we lived, the history we lived, to define your life. You only need to keep moving toward the end of all Scenarios, just as you always have.]

"I..."

[You are our son. That is enough.]

I had nothing with which to repay those feelings. All I could offer was a future that hadn't even been written yet, with no guarantees.

"When I reach the ■■ of all these Scenarios... I'll make sure your story is there with me, too."

Persephone smiled faintly.

[Go to the terrace. Your father is waiting for you.]

* * *

I didn't have a single good memory of my father.

My father, who beat me when he was drunk. His complaints about the world, rattled off as if speaking in tongues, and the inexplicable hostility he aimed at me. They were only memories of having to endure and survive.

"Um..."

Hades stood at the edge of the terrace, bearing the shadow of the sublime night. He was looking at the underworld spread beyond the palace.

Not knowing what to say, I could only stare endlessly at the view.

There were tributaries of the river of hell, and souls on the other side looking up this way.

[Do you see it?]

The deaths of countless people were there. Their grief was there, along with their joys and sorrows. Long-cherished wishes left unfulfilled were flowing down the river.

[That is the underworld.]

While Constellations pursued their desires in the Scenarios, the souls sacrificed to those desires were swept down here. A world for those abandoned, wounded, and broken within the Scenarios.

I looked at Hades.

He understood that darkness and became the King of the Underworld.

He didn't turn away from the sorrow swept in from the living world. He saved those souls one by one, spending thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years doing nothing but looking into other people's stories.

At that moment, I felt like I could say something I hadn't said for a very long time.

"Father."

Hades didn't answer. Perhaps that word was unfamiliar not only to me, but to him as well. Then Hades spoke.

[Take the army with you.]

I turned to Hades in surprise.

The next moment, I heard a sound like darkness roaring.

The souls near the battlements were rushing toward the palace all at once. Some looked determined, while others wore solemn expressions. Before them stood three judges.

A vast army surged in like a wave.

I struggled to hide how my heart trembled before the Status of an army greater than any I had ever seen.

[For the underworld!]

The first judge shouted.

[For the Prince of the underworld!]

The second judge prostrated themselves and looked at me. As the third judge's spear pierced the sky, all the souls cried out together.

[For the Eternity and Final Chapter of all Scenarios!]

Amid those cheers, the King of the Underworld spoke.

[Go.]

Hades spoke without turning around. He didn't turn around, but he was looking at me.

He had always been looking at me.

[From this moment on, the underworld is on your side.]

Footnotes:

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