WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 451: Episode 85: The Final Wall (3)

──────

Secretive Plotter's words were as hollow as those of a being who had lost all meaning.

As if rebelling against that emptiness, I said, "Your life saved someone."

The fact that he had saved a boy whose name he didn't even know couldn't possibly comfort someone who had lost so much. That boy had nothing to do with him. He wasn't his Companion or family.

My lips moved several times, but I couldn't say anything.

The life I had lived hadn't helped save him at all.

Secretive Plotter, who had been watching me, spoke.

【When I first saw you, I thought I should take you in.】

Suddenly, I remembered the moment I had first met him.

+

<Patron Selection>

―Choose your Patron.

―Your chosen Patron will become your reliable supporter.

1. Abyssal Black Flame Dragon

2. Demonic Judge of Fire

3. Secretive Plotter

4. Prisoner of the Golden Headband

+

I remembered.

That was right. Secretive Plotter had been the third option in my first patron selection. Back then, he had wanted to become my Patron.

【I continued watching this worldline afterward. There were times I was surprised. Even that surprise surprised me. I hadn't been surprised in a long time.】

I knew it, too. As this worldline's story unfolded, Secretive Plotter had watched us while sending various Indirect Messages. Even now, I could find and read the Indirect Messages he had sent if I searched through the logs.

[The Constellation Secretive Plotter is interested in your choice.]

[The Constellation Secretive Plotter is impressed by your talent for being an idiot.]

[The Constellation Secretive Plotter is disappointed upon hearing your rash remark.]

[The Constellation Secretive Plotter's eyes light up at your plan.]

[The Constellation Secretive Plotter is curious about your scheme.]

……

That was why seeing him in person had felt so unfamiliar at first.

Now, I knew those were Indirect Messages written in his place by other Yu Junghyeoks, including [666]...

【I had to decide. Whether to watch this twisted world, or destroy it.】

"Is that why you sent me to the 1,863rd round?"

Secretive Plotter nodded.

His choice became the beginning of this worldline once more.

【Giving this round's Yu Junghyeok information from the 1,863rd round was for a similar reason. I needed to test which of you was more suited to seeing the conclusion, you or this round's Junghyeok.】

"So, what's your judgment?"

Secretive Plotter looked down at me without answering.

【At the end of this world, there is an enormous wall. The Final Wall, which can only be opened by gathering every key.】

―All questions and answers have been fully exchanged.

―The Sacred Three Questions have ended.

At that moment, I realized it. His answer just now had answered my three questions.

The sparks circling Secretive Plotter grew fiercer. Some information consumed a great deal of Plausibility just by being spoken. If it concerned the end of this world, it was only natural for the cost of Plausibility to be immense.

The Final Wall.

That was the conclusion Secretive Plotter had faced in his epilogue.

【The fragment you possess is the final key I have been seeking.】

I stepped back tensely. It was difficult to back away in my Murim Dumplings state, but I had to put some distance between us somehow.

If [The Fourth Wall] was Secretive Plotter's goal, then he...

Secretive Plotter's hand slowly clenched and unclenched. For some reason, it frightened me.

The other young Junghyeoks were looking up at Secretive Plotter with tense eyes, too.

【This worldline was born by twisting too many things. I cannot judge whether leaving you alone is the right thing to do.】

A twisted worldline. Broken Plausibility.

I'd heard those words countless times already.

"So what are you going to do about it?"

I threw out the first thing that came to mind. What mattered was buying time. I had to stall somehow and return to my original body.

"I don't really understand what you're saying. I don't understand complicated things like results swallowing causes or whatever. But my Companions and I gave everything to get here. The conclusion is right in front of us now."

I could see it now.

The conclusion of the story that had never been written.

【Seeing the conclusion isn't everything. What matters is creating the right conclusion.】

"The right conclusion? The one who decides that is..."

【A story with twisted Plausibility will eventually create a Calamity.】

For a moment, I was stunned by words that sounded like something a dokkaebi would say.

"That's not like you. Talking about something you haven't even seen yet..."

That was when the earthquake struck.

Thud.

Something toppled over.

The wineglasses on the round table spilled.

The entire forest was shaking. This wasn't a natural earthquake.

Secretive Plotter slowly rose from his throne and passed by me. His empty eyes gazed upon the forest.

Eungai's Forest, engulfed in a raging blaze.

His forest was burning.

【Aaaaaaaah!】

【Helpmehelpmehelpmehelpmehelpme!】

The trees that had towered toward the sky burned as they scattered ash. The Outer Gods hidden in the forest screamed. The hall's temperature was rising rapidly from the overwhelming firepower.

This wasn't simple arson.

Even in my dumpling state, I could tell. Someone with immense Status was attacking this place.

But who?

It was impossible. This was Secretive Plotter's sanctuary. Who would dare invade this place?

Was it the work of a massive nebula?

Veda? Olympus? Or Asgard?

I thought over the Constellations associated with fire, but no familiar modifiers came to mind.

Heat enough to burn the entire vast forest.

Had there been another being with this kind of power in the original TWSA?

【MyKingmyKingmyKing!】

【Runrunrunrunrunrunrun!】

Small Outer Gods gathered around Secretive Plotter. Many had left him, but many still remained. They were like citizens guarding their king as they sensed the fall of their kingdom.

Secretive Plotter looked down at them before speaking to me.

【Demon King of Salvation. I have made the same mistake as you.】

His voice remained calm despite the urgent situation in the burning forest, as if he had expected all of this.

【Foolishly, I tried to change a fixed past.】

"What are you talking about all of a sudden? The story of the 41st round?"

If that was what he meant, I knew that story, too.

The Yu Junghyeok of the 41st round had made a contract with the Demon of the Horizon and sent Shin Yuseong to the third round. In return, Shin Yuseong became the Calamity of the third round.

If the Calamity Secretive Plotter feared was something like that, I wanted to tell him not to worry.

But [41], standing beside me, shook his head.

"It isn't the story of my round."

"What? Then..."

[41] didn't answer. He only looked at Secretive Plotter.

My mind was in chaos. As far as I knew, the 41st round was the only round in TWSA that had interfered with a fixed past.

But there had been another round like that?

When was it? Was this a story outside the original?

A sun wrapped in flames rose in the open sky above the hall. Yet it belonged neither to Surya nor Apollo. Ominous sunspots in grotesque shapes were growing at the center of that blazing sun.

None of the Constellations I knew possessed a sun that horrifying. That was the power of a being I didn't know.

[The 999th-round Yu Junghyeok sighs as he looks at the sun.]

The 999th round?

Words suddenly came to mind.

「Yu Junghyeok of the 999th round. I respect your life. You were the only being other than me who came close to the conclusion.」

One was something Secretive Plotter had said.

「“Even if I regress, this world won't disappear. My death doesn't mean the world resets.”」

The other was something Junghyeok had said.

Even if Junghyeok died, the world didn't disappear.

Even after he regressed, the world remained.

「What if Secretive Plotter wasn't the only one who had seen the conclusion?」

「What if there was another story that never appeared in the original?」

「What if someone remained in that world after Yu Junghyeok died and continued the Scenarios? If they fought and fought again.」

The sun burning black cracked open like an eggshell, releasing a dazzling flash of light.

「What if there was another being who reached the end of this world and saw their own conclusion?」

At the center of the flash was the one who had set the forest ablaze. The silhouette was so beautiful that calling her an arsonist felt wrong.

A being with power comparable to Secretive Plotter. Before my eyes, she unfolded pure white wings.

Secretive Plotter looked up at her and spoke.

【Living Flame.】

Living Flame.

The Recorders of Fear's records definitely contained that name.

「The Living Flame that rises in the east.」

One of the Kings who ruled the Outer Gods alongside Secretive Plotter.

Yet I had never considered who that king was or where she had come from.

I was stupid.

All Outer Gods came from abandoned rounds of TWSA. Then I should have known the other Kings had come from TWSA, too.

Rumbblee!

My fingertips shook wildly.

I didn't want to imagine the chain of cause and effect. I didn't want to accept it. I didn't want to understand that a world this horrifying existed.

Secretive Plotter spoke in his usual indifferent voice.

【Now you understand. This is the price of twisting the worldline.】

As Secretive Plotter spoke, a sword shrouded in burning radiance pointed toward me.

It was the Archangel's sword I knew very well.

Why hadn't I realized it? Or had I simply not wanted to?

That these flames could be so hot and cruel. That flames which burned demons could burn other things, too.

The Flame of Karma, wrapped in [hellfire inferno], shone pure white.

The sword's owner was smiling. With a frightening expression I had never seen before, she spoke.

【It took me a very long time to find you. Yu Junghyeok of the 1,863rd round.】

The eyes of the Archangel who had judged all things burned black.

【Foreign God who ruined my world.】

Uriel.

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried