WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈
Chapter 446: Episode 84: 1864 (2)
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1,864th round.
This was not the third round. It was the worldline of the 1,864th round.
The moment I saw the Attributes Window, a realization too overwhelming to process at once crashed over me.
「This ‘Yu Junghyeok’ is the Yu Junghyeok who disappeared from the 1,863rd round?」
「How could that even be possible?」
「But that Junghyeok escaped from [Character]?」
「Yu Junghyeok of the 1,863rd round could escape being a character because the third round existed. But what on earth did it mean that he had been Yu Junghyeok of the third round from the very beginning...?」
Countless questions flashed through my mind. The last thing that came to mind was my conversation with tls123.
「“As thanks, Dokja-nim, I think I'll send you a unique gift.”」
The gift the author had mentioned then was perhaps...
Kwoooong!
Overflowing fable power.
The landscape of the hellscape was changing. The world screamed, while grief-stricken Outer Gods howled.
On that stage of despair was a tiny ray of light, thin as a thread yet unmistakable. It was the point of the Black Heaven Demon Blade.
【Have you regained your memories?】
Secretive Plotter asked. Junghyeok did not answer.
I knew why he was not answering. Explosive memories were tearing through Junghyeok's mind.
My reading was not complete. No matter how hard I read, even if Junghyeok read alongside me, it was physically impossible to fully restore the Junghyeok of the 1,863rd round.
Fragments of memory flowed into the mind of the staggering Junghyeok.
「“Eat dirt, Yu Junghyeok.”」
「“Happy memories! Happy memories!”」
「“Yu Junghyeok, sit.”」
"You bastard..."
「This isn't the time to think about that crap, idiot!」
I hurriedly brought Junghyeok back to his senses. The Splitting the Sky Sword, carrying the Status of the hellscape, was bearing down on us.
Clang!
The two swords collided once more. It was still a heavy blow, but not as heavy as before.
【I've wanted to fight you.】
For the first time, emotion flickered in Secretive Plotter's eyes, which had been calm all along. Secretive Plotter, the man who had lived through the original work I had read and finally seen its end, was speaking.
【Without a word, you vanished into that ‘beyond.’】
I did not know what he meant. Junghyeok seemed no different. The reading I had hastily performed was unstable, leaving gaps throughout Junghyeok's memories.
Junghyeok spoke as though chewing the words apart.
"I suppose I'll have to teach you how to speak so people can understand you."
[The Great Fable Spring of the Demon Realm begins its story!]
[The Great Fable Holy Flame That Devoured Myth begins its story!]
[The fable Eternal Hellscape continues its story!]
Our fables poured into the Black Heaven Demon Blade at once. The next barrage of strikes collided with the Splitting the Sky Sword again.
The moment the two hellscapes collided, a universe opened between them. It was a Big Bang of memories.
[Two excessively similar beings are colliding.]
[Broken Film Theory has activated!]
The moment I saw that universe, I understood what was about to happen.
This was Broken Film Theory. Something similar had happened when two Shin Yuseongs from different worldlines met.
「【A new worldline?】」
As two Yu Junghyeoks, infinitely similar yet walking completely opposite paths, collided, a memory was called forth.
「【Such a worldline cannot exist.】」
It was Secretive Plotter's memory.
The day Secretive Plotter discovered this third round.
.
.
.
【Interesting. This is the third round?】
Secretive Plotter could not take his eyes off the story of the third round unfolding before him.
A person he did not know was leading the story alongside his third-round self.
He could not understand how such a thing was possible.
【Success would be impossible anyway, though.】
Some things were done in ways familiar to him, while others unfolded through methods he had never considered. At times, that person seemed reckless. At times, he was simply lucky.
A fable he had never seen before. As though drawn in, Secretive Plotter watched the fable of that worldline.
How long had he been watching their fable?
Secretive Plotter realized he had become exactly like the Constellations he despised so much.
The Yu Junghyeoks he had absorbed spoke.
- Have you forgotten, Great Plot?
- We want death.
- That round will fail anyway.
Death. It was the wish of every Junghyeok cursed with Regression.
Secretive Plotter existed only to fulfill that mission.
- Killing the Oldest Dream is impossible.
- As long as we live, we will regress again.
- What if we can get infinitely close to it, even if death itself is impossible?
That was why he sent Han Suyeong's avatar to the 1,863rd round.
He would use the Irregular discovered in the third round to complete his own death.
He planned to use Broken Film Theory to seal every version of Junghyeok.
He would become one with Yu Junghyeok of the 1,863rd round and fall into an endless, eternal sleep.
Yet just before he completed that plan, his feelings changed.
「“I am someone walking toward the Final Chapter.”」
It was because of a Constellation who had found his own ■■.
The Final Chapter. The name of the ■■ he had desired so deeply, yet never once obtained.
[Yu Junghyeok of the 41st round is astonished.]
[Yu Junghyeok of the 416th round is astonished.]
[Yu Junghyeok of the 967th round is astonished.]
[Yu Junghyeok of the 1,472nd round is astonished.]
...
The Yu Junghyeoks of every round within him saw that sight as well.
Some were awestruck. Some despaired. Others grew angry.
Secretive Plotter was the last of them.
【There can be no other Final Chapter.】
His world had already ended.
It was the conclusion he reached after the trials and errors of the 1,863rd round. He had lost everything, seen the end of the Scenario, and reached the wall.
He was not wrong. He wanted that to be acknowledged.
【Say you reach the end of everything your way and save the world. What will you do about the 'other world'?】
【What will happen to all the worlds you couldn't save?】
That was why Secretive Plotter sent Kim Dokja to the 1,863rd round. He made Dokja see the end of that story there.
This was the true original work. The ending he had determined for the world, one that could not be changed by anything.
「“I'll end your story for you.”」
But Dokja...
「“I won't return to the third round. I'll stay here and see the ending with the people of this place.”」
Kim Dokja changed it.
Tzztztztztztzt!
Junghyeok's sealing failed, and the course of the story that had been set in stone veered away.
It was something never meant to happen, because Yu Junghyeok of the 1,863rd round should have become one with Secretive Plotter at the moment of sealing.
[Yu Junghyeok of the 1,863rd round has rejected the agreement with you.]
「“I want to live.”」
The Junghyeok who should have been sealed chose Regression and headed toward a new worldline.
Secretive Plotter recovered the memories of the dead Junghyeok and hurried after him. He passed through the dazzling starlight of the worldlines, chasing the white-coated Junghyeok as Junghyeok scattered memories behind him. He shouted at Junghyeok, who had shed the mask of a character and was heading toward an entirely new world.
【Stop! You cannot go any further!】
Only Secretive Plotter knew the ending of this world.
The 1,863rd round was the end of all these ‘stories.’ Beyond that...
「I want to see that world.」
There was no beyond that.
【Come back. This is where you belong! You...】
Secretive Plotter shouted.
Even if the Oldest Dream allowed that regression, Junghyeok would only repeat the nightmare again. Even if he played through the Scenarios from the beginning with his memories lost...
「That bastard clearly said it. That place is a universe that exists.」
[The Oldest Dream is curious about that story.]
Junghyeok stretched out his hand. He was imagining it.
It was a world far away, a world that had never existed in the universe of TWSA.
At the last second, Secretive Plotter caught Junghyeok's soul form. Yet all he caught was the white coat. Junghyeok's body had already vanished.
Secretive Plotter muttered blankly.
【Idiot...】
Junghyeok, having lost his memories, ultimately succeeded in regressing.
A futile story whose beginning and end had already been decided. There, he would repeat the eternal nightmare once more.
Secretive Plotter began searching the worldlines.
He wanted to see the worldline that arrogant bastard had fled to, even at the cost of his memories. He thought he would finally feel satisfied after seeing Junghyeok continue the Scenarios in ruin, consumed by regret.
Then Secretive Plotter found that worldline. Astonishingly, it was a worldline he already knew.
【This can't be.】
Only then did everything begin to make sense.
Why a worldline he did not know had suddenly appeared.
Why an entirely different worldline existed where the third round should have been.
The worldline above the wall, created by sacrificing every round he had lived through.
[The Oldest Dream is dreaming the final dream.]
An impossible worldline created when the result interfered with the cause.
His universe was shaking.
.
.
.
With an explosive roar, Junghyeok and Secretive Plotter were thrown apart. We readjusted our grip on the Black Heaven Demon Blade and glared at the enemy before us.
Secretive Plotter spoke.
【Now you understand. It was a universe that should never have existed.】
I understood what Secretive Plotter meant.
I could understand, at least a little, how this worldline had come to be. Why all this was happening.
The ‘beyond’ Yu Junghyeok of the 1,863rd round chose when he regressed.
It was this round, the one we lived in.
【How cruel. You barely escaped the puppet strings of the nightmare, only to choose to become a puppet once more.】
Deep sorrow colored his voice. Secretive Plotter's words held a resentment too profound for me to measure.
【The interpretation may change if you read the same book hundreds of times. But the sentence does not change. It has already ended, and it cannot be undone.】
Secretive Plotter's Splitting the Sky Sword carved a path through the air. It was a path bearing the weight of the 1,863rd round.
The one who had once been Junghyeok, and now lived as Secretive Plotter.
The being who dreamed of the deaths of every Junghyeok in the world.
He spoke.
【You survived because my life existed.】
That being swung his history at us.
【You should have died in the subway. You should have died in the Theater Dungeon. You should have died to Nirvana and in Dark Castle.】
He was right.
【You should have died in the Demon Realm. You should have died in Gigantomachia, in the Great war of Angels and Demons, and in Journey to the West, dozens of times, hundreds of times.】
Without his life, without his failures...
We could not have survived this long.
【Why did you survive?】
He asked us.
【Why is it you, instead of me?】
Footnotes:
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