WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 422: Episode 79: Secretive Plotter (7)

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"What the hell happened?"

At Han Suyeong's words, Bihyeong hung his head.

"You talked such a big game, only to get turned away at the entrance... Hey, dokkaebi, answer me already."

[Well... Huu...]

To put it simply, Kim Dokja Company had returned to Earth without reaching the Final Scenario. The reason was that they "lacked the qualifications."

[It seems the Great Dokkaebis interfered.]

"Is that all you have to say? What about all the time we wasted?"

[I'll give you compensation, so don't press me too hard.]

As Bihyeong grumbled and searched through his pockets, Suyeong sighed and looked around at her allies. They had somehow made it back to Earth after all that trouble, but none of them seemed right in the head.

"Kim Dokja might really have died this time... I'm sorry, hyung... I... because I wasn't qualified... because I didn't make a contract..."

Gilyeong had been crouched down and muttering strange things to himself for some time, while Yuseong had her eyes closed, pressing both index fingers to her temples as if meditating. Jihye and Huiwon were away, taking Hyeongseong to Aileen at the industrial complex.

"The house is still the same. Doesn't that woman ever clean?"

Suyeong muttered as she brushed dust off the old sofa.

This was the house where she, Sangah, and Sukyeong had once stayed together.

The place they had lived while Kim Dokja was gone...

Her brief thoughts vanished at the sound of the doorbell.

Suyeong opened the door remotely with [Black Flame] and snickered.

“Is there a fable called ‘Speak of the Tiger, and It Comes’ too?”

"It's been a while, Suyeong."

Sukyeong looked over the messy house and shook her head.

"You're still the same as ever. People need to air out their homes."

"I just got back, you know? After several years, too."

Suyeong stopped short. She had spent decades on the Island of Reincarnators, but that had only been time within the Island. She had no idea exactly how much time had passed outside.

With a simple gesture, Sukyeong threw open every window in the house and sent the musty dust out of the house. Even so, her eyes kept scanning the allies sprawled across the living room floor.

Suyeong subtly blocked them from view, then cleared her throat.

"Did Huiwon tell you anything?"

"Tell me what?"

Suyeong bit her lip. She had no idea how to explain it.

"Well, Kim Dokja isn't here right now."

"I see. I just noticed."

She regretted bringing it up, but it was too late to take it back.

Suyeong squeezed her eyes shut.

"The reason Kim Dokja isn't here is... Junghyeok, Huiwon, and I fought with everything we had to try to save your son..."

"Get to the point."

"Right, so your son went somewhere with someone. But..."

"Do you mean that?"

Suyeong turned toward where Sukyeong was pointing.

The news was playing on the wall-mounted television. A man in a white coat floated in the pitch-black sky, Kim Dokja dangling from his hand.

―Breaking news! The CEO of Kim Dokja Company has been kidnapped!

Suyeong gaped and muttered.

"What is that?"

Somehow, Earth's media already knew about this.

Sukyeong watched the screen with the same relaxed expression and nodded.

"That boy is popular."

"Ma'am, that's seriously bad right now."

"That looks like Yu Junghyeok. What's so serious about it?"

"That's the problem. He isn't Yu Junghyeok."

Suyeong let out a long sigh. Then the television screen suddenly rewound on its own and began broadcasting the same scene again.

―Breaking news! The CEO of Kim Dokja Company has been kidnapped!

Wondering what this was now, Suyeong turned around and saw Junghyeok blankly pressing the remote control. He kept rewinding it, playing the same scene over and over.

Suyeong asked, "Are you okay?"

"......"

"Rewinding that won't make you regress. Now you've even forgotten how to regress?"

Junghyeok ignored her, not even acknowledging that he had heard. His blazing eyes looked as though he were trying to burn Secretive Plotter's appearance into his mind. The Status of the regressor unable to accept his own defeat seeped out, making the living room air stifling.

Suyeong sighed deeply enough to make the ground sink.

"Damn it, who the hell leaked that footage...?"

[Ahem.]

When she turned around, Bihyeong was clearing his throat.

"You're still here?"

[Here's the compensation.]

Come to think of it, she had forgotten about the compensation. Suyeong held out her hand, and Bihyeong placed 500 Coins in it with his tiny hand.

"Are you kidding me?"

[The Seoul Administration Bureau's finances haven't been good lately... And there are so many things to take care of...]

Whistling, Bihyeong glanced toward the distant sky.

Seoul's sky, which should have been clear, was dyed with ominous yellow and red. The pitch-black Great Hole churned overhead, and sparks of Plausibility struck down like lightning.

Suyeong frowned.

"What's going on in Seoul?"

"The sky has looked like that for a while."

Seoul was no longer a major Main Scenario area. Yet an apocalyptic phenomenon like that was happening here...

[It's the Apocalypse Dragon's influence.]

Bihyeong looked at the sky with a bitter expression, then took a long smoking pipe from inside his clothes and put it in his mouth. Suyeong seemed to find the sight ridiculous, because she snatched the pipe away and pressed him for an answer.

"What kind of bullshit is that? Why would the Apocalypse Dragon's influence reach all the way here?"

[You didn't know? I thought Kim Dokja would've told you.]

"That bastard never tells us the most important information."

Bihyeong naturally took a second pipe from inside his clothes, lit it, and said, [The Apocalypse Dragon's resurrection is the first step of the Great Apocalypse. Once it awakens, the worldline begins racing toward its end. That's why I told you we had to get to the Final Scenario quickly.]

"What happens if we can't reach the Final Scenario?"

[We'll literally be destroyed. All of you, me, and this world.]

At his calm declaration, Suyeong snapped, "What kind of... If this world is destroyed, what use is the Final Scenario? Why would anyone create a Scenario like that?"

[The Great Apocalypse isn't a Scenario created by dokkaebis. It was simply made to happen that way. And because the Great Apocalypse exists, the Final Scenario finally has meaning.]

Bihyeong gazed at the distant sky with a face full of regret.

Star clusters were hurrying somewhere. The stars in the sky were growing distant.

* * *

【Ooooooooh!】

【Aaaaaaaah!】

As the Outer Gods spewed pitch-black Status, N'Gai Forest was engulfed in utter darkness.

The child Junghyeoks who had pulled me out of the vines surrounded me from every direction.

Child Junghyeok [999] said, "Protect Kim Dokja."

"I told you over and over. I knew this bastard would cause trouble."

"Should we have killed him from the start after all?"

Even as they said terrifying things, every Junghyeok gripped the Splitting the Sky Sword and remained on guard. They cut down the approaching tentacles and slowly advanced.

Maybe because I had just seen so many shocking things, a chill lingered throughout my body. Child Junghyeok [999] draped his black coat over me.

"I told you to read the book. When did I tell you to mess with them?"

I didn't know what to say.

[999]'s eyes wavered.

"You bastard."

【Ooooooooh!】

The declarations of the roaring Outer Gods thundered through the sky. The insects in the forest spat out ichor and died. Some were even killing one another.

[999] spoke in a grave voice. "They are those whom no one has understood for a long time. You provoked them."

The Outer Gods were running wild.

【Give him to usgive him to usgive him to usgive him to us】

【Kim DokjaKim DokjaKim DokjaKim DokjaKim Dokja】

What was even more serious was that not every Outer God felt the same way.

Some higher divinities that had noticed my existence unleashed undisguised hostility toward me.

【That damned Constellation was spying on us】

【Kill him】

【We will not forgive even the Guest of the Plotter】

"Fall back, Shantak's kin!"

"I'll cut down every last one of you if you come closer."

The child Junghyeoks resisted by releasing their Status all at once, but the Outer Gods didn't retreat. The beings advanced one step at a time, releasing overwhelming Status as they roared.

【Plotter! We can wait no longer】

【How long must we wait? The end of the worldline is approaching】

I knew what they meant.

The end of this worldline.

They were aware of the Final Scenario as well.

【This world must understand us】

"Fall back!"

The approaching tentacles grew even more forceful.

When their Status became too much for the child Junghyeoks alone to handle, the forest split apart and he appeared.

A being who walked through tentacles that no one had been able to stop. Every step carried eternal loneliness and the years of the 1,863rd round.

Once, his name had been Yu Junghyeok. Now, he was Secretive Plotter.

A being who knew the sorrow of every worldline.

Before that overwhelming grandeur, the Outer Gods fell to their knees.

【Great Plot!】

Not all of them did.

Some beings refused to yield, even in the pain of their own existence fading away.

【Great Plot, we can wait no longer】

Those whom no one had understood were weeping. They were angry and grieving.

Yet no one understood their anger and grief. These feelings did not belong to this worldline and had never been told through existing fables.

To understand their rage, their sorrow, and their misery required effort.

【We want to be understood】

【We want to become fables too】

Stories that required effort to understand could not become fables. Stories that could only be felt by throwing oneself into them could not be consumed.

Secretive Plotter opened his mouth.

【You will not be understood.】

He looked over every one of them with a careful gaze as he delivered a cruel truth.

【You will not be understood because this Star Stream calls you Fear. You will not be understood because this world depicts you as chaos that destroys order, as incomprehensible calamities.】

Only now did I understand why Secretive Plotter had taken their side.

「Why does a being who already knows every conclusion repeat all those stories once more?」

When I thought about it, the answer was simple.

「Because he didn't like the conclusion he saw.」

In the original work, Junghyeok defeated the Outer Gods alongside the Constellations.

He reached the end of the Scenario and destroyed the Star Stream.

【You cannot shine in the same sky as the Constellations. You cannot become the protagonists of this world either. As long as the Star Stream exists, you will only ever be Outer Gods.】

But he didn't obtain what he wanted.

Now Junghyeok, who had become Secretive Plotter, stood on the same battlefield once again.

【The war of destruction will begin. The stars will fall, the world will collapse, and the final destruction in which every fable disappears will begin.】

I saw Secretive Plotter's eyes looking at me from afar. [Sage's Eye] spun within his pitch-black pupils.

【Great Plot...!】

【Ooooooooh!】

If things followed the original work, they would lose.

「For the conclusion Kim Dokja wanted, they had to lose.」

The Star Stream would become ruins, and the stars in the sky and the lonely Outer Gods would die without being remembered.

The defeated would die in misery, and the victors would not enjoy their victory.

I walked toward Secretive Plotter.

"Kim Dokja?"

I heard [999] calling me, but I didn't turn around.

When I deactivated [Miniaturization], the world shifted to my eye level. The black coat [999] had draped over me swayed with my steps.

[The Plausibility of the Star Stream is moving!]

[The flow of a massive Main Scenario is settling within you.]

The Star Stream's galaxy was visible in the sky above the forest, now cleared of vines. On one side, stars shone brilliantly. On the other, the Great Hole and an ominous galaxy flowed.

Half light and half darkness.

Soon, the Final War would begin.

And I would probably have to stand on one side and witness the world's conclusion.

[Your second modifier has been decided.]

A small point of starlight flickered on the other side of the sky.

I watched that starlight for a long time before slowly turning my head toward the ground.

The Outer Gods were looking at me.

I faced them and chose where I would stand.

[Your second modifier is Watcher of Light and Darkness.]

Footnotes:

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