WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 476: Episode 90: A Lone Person (5)

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An immense power of fables emanated from Yu Junghyeok's entire body.

[The Star Stream cannot take its eyes off the Incarnation Yu Junghyeok!]

The will of the world was watching him.

[The overwhelming majority of Constellations that had stood by during the Scenario have become keenly alert to the presence of the Incarnation Yu Junghyeok!]

[The Constellations of the Final Scenario are astonished by the fables of the Incarnation Yu Junghyeok!]

[Some Great Dokkaebis of the Administration Bureau demand a Plausibility Compatibility Assessment!]

[King of Stories rejects the demand.]

[The Plausibility Compatibility Assessment is restricted in this Scenario.]

The fables of every Junghyeok I knew felt as though they were filling him. It wasn't something that could be described as him simply becoming stronger. The Junghyeok before me was unlike any being I had ever seen.

A little tense, I asked, "What about the Allies?"

"They're safe."

"If you're here, then Secretive Plotter must've granted my request."

Waking the sleeping Junghyeok had been my final alternative if Plan B failed.

[The Incarnation Yu Junghyeok is activating Broken Film Theory in an abnormal form.]

Tsst...

[The connection between the films is incomplete!]

[If this connection continues to be maintained, all the films may be destroyed.]

I'd hoped it would never come to this, but if there was no other way, it was the final card we could play. Our strongest card.

[Every Yu Junghyeok across all rounds is watching you.]

Fathomless gazes emanated from within him.

A bad feeling suddenly came over me.

What if this Junghyeok wasn't the Junghyeok I knew?

"Hey. Which round's Yu Junghyeok are you?"

Junghyeok looked at me. A deep scar was carved into his cheek. It was a wound that third-round Junghyeok didn't have.

I tried to ask again, but sentences flowed from his body as if to silence me.

「Fear of All the Stars」

「The Strongest Incarnation in the History of the Star Stream」

「Steel-Blooded Monarch」

「Usurper of Scenarios」

The days he had lived rose up as the rough, crude sentences of TWSA.

The sentences gathered and became fables, and the story soon became the man before me.

A being who had endured 1,864 lives.

"I am Yu Junghyeok."

He wasn't Junghyeok from any one round. Neither the zero round, the first round, nor the 1,863rd round. He was Junghyeok from all those rounds.

【Captain?】

Her eyes were wide with disbelief. Lee Jihye of the 999th round stared blankly in our direction. Another Jihye shouted at her.

"Master! Go! Kill him! He's trying to destroy our whole worldline!"

Her voice was sharp with rage.

I was about to add something myself, but the moment I saw Junghyeok's profile, the thought vanished.

Without making a move to attack, Junghyeok looked at the two Outer Gods.

[The character Owner of the Sunken Island is gazing at the character Yu Junghyeok.]

[The character King of the Silver Heart is gazing at the character Yu Junghyeok.]

The two people from the 999th round were looking at him as well.

Lee Hyeongseong's eyes wavered.

【This fable... But that can't be... Could it really be...?】

Just as I had tried to find the Junghyeok I remembered within him, they were seeing the Junghyeok they knew in him.

[The Yu Junghyeok of the third round falls silent.]

[The Yu Junghyeok of the 41st round falls silent.]

[The Yu Junghyeok of the 362nd round falls silent.]

[The Yu Junghyeok of the 666th round falls silent.]

Despite everything it had taken for them to become one, the Junghyeoks were splitting apart within those gazes. Everyone looking on was pushing away the other Junghyeoks to find the one they knew. They rejected the Junghyeoks they couldn't understand, trying to find only the Junghyeok they knew.

How much time passed like that?

[The Yu Junghyeok of the 999th round is slowly opening his eyes.]

Someone found something among the fragments of that Junghyeok.

【Cap...!】

The moment Owner of the Sunken Island strode forward, a ray of light split the sky. Blinding flashes poured down like lightning, accompanied by searing heat.

Junghyeok casually swung the Black Heaven Demon Blade and blocked the flash.

【He isn't the Yu Junghyeok you know.】

There was no need to ask who it was.

【He is the Outer God who took our Yu Junghyeok from us!】

Living Flame. Uriel of the 999th round shouted.

She was a being who had lived only to kill Secretive Plotter.

She had finally come here to avenge her grudge. The blazing heat surrounding Flame of Karma grew even fiercer.

Owner of the Sunken Island stopped her.

【Wait. Stop, Uriel. That Captain is...!】

【Don't be fooled. Secretive Plotter has taken root inside him. That bastard is the enemy we've been searching for!】

Then, in the next moment.

【Damn, that's the captain of this worldline? He's still insanely awesome, even after all this time...】

The final King had arrived at last. He swept his gaze over the battlefield, then spoke with eyes that looked ready to pop out of his head.

【J-Jihye, there are two of you?!】

Great Abyssal Lord.

It was Kim Namwoon of the 999th round.

[All the Kings of the Outer Gods have gathered in one place!]

[All Constellations of the Star Stream are watching the battlefield!]

[All nebulae of the Star Stream fear the Descent of ruined beings.]

[A great number of Constellations reveal intense hostility!]

Yet no matter what the stars said, they silently looked at one another.

「Living Flame rising in the east.」

「Owner of the Sunken Island, Calamity of the western world.」

「Great Abyssal Lord, ruler of the northern universe.」

「King of the Silver Heart, ruler of the southern interstellar realm.」

「And Great Plot, crawling from nowhere.」

Ever since I first found those names in the book left behind by the Recorders of Fear and began to guess at their identities, I had slowly been building this plan.

I glanced at Junghyeok.

This was where my original Plan A began.

Junghyeok.

At my signal, Junghyeok stepped forward. Enveloped in the chaos of the Outer Gods, he personally uttered a constellation's declaration.

【You've all gathered.】

There was an emotion in those words that I couldn't read. But someone here did.

Amid the confusion, Owner of the Sunken Island's fables trembled. Her overflowing voice burst out through her declaration.

【Captain. It really is you, right? How...】

【What kind of devious trick is this...!】

Flame of Karma cut through the air. The Black Heaven Demon Blade, filled with the power of a Transcendent, rose to block the flame. Amid the sharp cracks of colliding Mana waves, Junghyeok spoke again.

【It's been a long time, Uriel. My old comrade.】

【Shut up! You aren't Yu Junghyeok. You are...!】

As though she had been humiliated, Uriel of the 999th round screamed. Flames spreading in every direction burned the oxygen from the air. In that hell of extreme heat, where even breathing was difficult, Uriel continued.

【The Yu Junghyeok I knew died there.】

Her fables growled like wounded wolves. It was the expression only someone who had lost something precious beyond measure could make. With that expression, Uriel pointed her sword at him.

【You killed him.】

Her fable was shouting.

「[I will kill you. I will kill you. No matter what, I will kill you.]」

Holding onto Junghyeok's Incarnation body as it was destroyed by the Otherworld Covenant, Uriel of the 999th round wept bitterly.

「[By whatever means, even if I must cross worldlines, I will avenge this grudge. Even if I abandon goodness and become evil!]」

That was how Demonic Judge of Fire became Living Flame. An Archangel who became an Outer God solely for her revenge. That was why she was here.

【Yu Junghyeok doesn't die. He only regresses.】

【Shut up! Don't use words like that...!】

Junghyeok deflected the flames stained with deep rage and continued speaking.

【After he woke up, he lived through the 1,000th round. He died, then lived through the 1,001st round. He lived, and lived, and survived again.】

I knew that life, too.

A life no one remembered, a life no one could share with him.

Junghyeok had continued living that life alone.

【And so, he became me.】

Like someone who had heard words they should never have heard, Uriel charged him. Flame of Karma swung wildly, cutting Junghyeok's waist and shoulder. It circled around in an instant and aimed for his neck.

As though it was a punishment he deserved, Junghyeok didn't block it.

Then, as if by magic, Uriel's sword strike stopped.

【Y-you, you...】

Uriel probably knew as well. Her revenge could never be fulfilled.

Because the being who had taken away her most precious comrade was that comrade himself.

Junghyeok said, 【If you want, kill me. The Secretive Plotter who took your worldline from you is me.】

Uriel let out a shriek, roaring as if in grief. Her sword moved again.

Boom!

The seawater exploded.

Uriel's sword flew through the air.

Thud.

Her Flame of Karma plunged into the sea, vaporizing the water as it sank.

Junghyeok hadn't done it.

Whoooosh...

Gun smoke rose from beyond the tidal wave. It was a bullet fired by the 999th-round Jihye.

【That's enough, Uriel.】

The 999th-round Jihye's voice was colored with ecstasy and madness. She continued.

【Yes, I knew. I knew all along...】

The 999th-round Jihye staggered across the sea toward us.

Junghyeok didn't avoid her pale hand.

【Captain. You're in there, right? You're something else now, but you're still in there, aren't you? Right? You were alive after all, weren't you?】

Chaos poured from Jihye's eyes instead of tears. It was powder that looked as though it had been carefully shaped from pitch-black darkness.

Junghyeok nodded at her.

[The Yu Junghyeok of the 999th round looks at his old comrade.]

Still clutching Junghyeok's collar, Jihye slowly collapsed. I looked at Junghyeok's back. It was a back from which I couldn't read any emotion.

「The reason Yu Junghyeok had become many was a trick of the worldlines.」

The Junghyeok who lived through the zero round became the Junghyeok of the first round, then the Junghyeok of the second round. The Junghyeok of the second round became the Junghyeok of the third round, and the Junghyeok of the third round became the Junghyeok of the fourth round.

Abnormal events where the past and future interfered with one another had become so common that I had briefly forgotten that obvious fact, but that was the truth.

「The regressor doesn't actually regress. It isn't him who regresses, but everything except him.」

Though everyone else's time moved backward, his time always moved forward. The worldlines split, and one became the Junghyeok of the 1,864th round while another became Secretive Plotter, but...

「From the beginning, he was one person who had always walked a connected path.」

But could they truly bear that truth?

「Someone had lived to avenge him.」

Uriel, burning her flames.

「Someone had lived to carry on his will.」

Hyeongseong, who could no longer cry.

「Someone had lived to fight him one more time.」

Namwoon, standing crookedly in the air and glaring in our direction.

「Someone had lived to bring back every moment they had spent with him.」

Jihye, who had crumpled before my eyes in stunned despair.

Junghyeok had said that Regression couldn't change anything.

But his Regression had changed someone's life.

To them, Junghyeok was a world. A world that had kept them alive even after their worldline was destroyed.

「Kim Dokja's plan lay in that world.」

If they still remembered their world.

If they accepted this Junghyeok as their captain once more.

「Then perhaps this fight no longer needed to continue.」

【If you're really the Captain... then you know what I want.】

Jihye smiled brightly.

【Let's go back, Captain. We'll all start over.】

Gripping Junghyeok's wrist, she continued.

【Let's destroy this worldline together. Okay? I made a promise with the Dokkaebi King, too. They said if we destroy only this worldline, they'll send us back to that time. If we make contact with Oldest Dream, the Captain's Patron...】

I hurriedly looked at Junghyeok.

Junghyeok.

We could never provoke them here. We had to coax them with the best words possible. Even if it meant pretending to agree with her for now...

"Jihye."

Junghyeok looked at Jihye as he spoke. It wasn't a constellation's declaration, but his own voice.

Before his gaze, the 999th-round Jihye shrank back, as if she were back on the day she had first learned the sword from her master.

"Is that really what you want?"

【...】

"If everyone returns to that time, do you really think they'll be happy?"

【The Captain I knew... wouldn't talk like that.】

Jihye bit her lip and let go of Junghyeok's hand.

【H-he regressed 999 times. He never fell, even through all those countless years. That person would never say something so weak...】

"Even a person who has repeated Regression 999 times can grow tired by the 1,000th."

Junghyeok's voice was so honest that even I was surprised.

"Even if he endured 1,000 lives, he might give up in the 1,001st."

The fathomless exhaustion in his voice left even me stunned.

【That can't be... That can't be. The Captain I know...】

"He doesn't give up. But if that's all you remember of Yu Junghyeok..."

I had to say something. I had to tell him that he couldn't talk to her like that now.

But I couldn't speak.

"That Yu Junghyeok is dead."

That was how Junghyeok truly felt. It was the hidden truth of someone who had lived 1,864 lives and never confessed it even once.

Jihye screamed as if in despair.

【That can't be. That can't be!】

"He won't regress anymore."

Something glittered in the distant sky. It was the stars.

[The Constellation Demonic Judge of Fire looks around with an urgent expression!]

[The Constellation Oldest Liberator asks after the safety of the youngest!]

[The Constellation Abyssal Black Flame Dragon declares that he will use both hands this time!]

The stars who had watched our story for so long were coming toward us.

Beyond those stars, the Allies were running toward us.

Han Suyeong, Yu Sangah, Jeong Huiwon... The people of Kim Dokja Company, who had lived through this world with us. In the darkness of the setting sun, they looked like one vast constellation.

Taking in the entire sight, a single Yu Junghyeok spoke.

"I can't go back. My final round is here."

Footnotes:

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