WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 480: Episode 91: A Single Fable (4)

──────

Sizzle.

Fable remnants clung to Unbreakable Faith.

The fable burned, giving off acrid smoke.

Something that had once been someone's history turned to ash and scattered.

Namwoon's blood-soaked white hair was caught on the blade's edge.

「That was Kim Dokja's choice.」

I opened my mouth as I watched his hair flutter away like ash.

"When I was younger, I really hated you."

Back when I was immersed in TWSA, Namwoon was the only character I couldn't bring myself to care about. If every character in TWSA was my older brother, father, younger sibling, or older sister, then Namwoon was a negative example to me.

"Your justice had no dignity, and your killing had no standards."

An eighteen-year-old boy who adapted to the abnormal world faster than anyone else. An Incarnation who swung his sword with arrogance and recklessness, surrendering his true nature to darkness.

Unhesitating evil deeds and childish lines.

Those traits were so obvious that, when I was young, I could hate him without reservation.

「An evil shaped so that others could hate and despise it to their heart's content.」

That was Namwoon.

"You're an evildoer. You were back then, and you still are now."

I muttered as if speaking to myself.

The fables clinging to my blade dripped down like blood.

「The grown-up Kim Dokja looked at Namwoon once more.」

Just as the characters in TWSA had changed within the Scenarios, I had changed too as the one reading their story. I was now old enough to consider why he had no choice but to become an evildoer.

「Perhaps Namwoon became an evildoer because of Kim Dokja himself.」

Because I had read TWSA back then. Because I offered my opinions to the Writer, evaluated him, and judged him as Constellations often did.

"Writer-nim. Do I really have to bring Namwoon in as a Companion again this time?"

Because I believed he wasn't alive, that he was merely a character created by the Writer.

Thinking about it now, the reason I hated Namwoon was simple.

"Junghyeok always recruited you as a Companion."

Namwoon resembled me more than any other character in TWSA.

"Even knowing you were a bad guy, even knowing you'd commit evil deeds again... he still took you in."

What if I had been Namwoon?

Namwoon, a second-year student at Cheongil High School.

An ordinary high school student living under the stress of schoolwork and conflict with his parents. If that student were thrown alone into an extreme environment where he had to kill someone to survive, without a guardian.

"At first, I thought Junghyeok was just pursuing practicality. You were an Incarnation with great potential. But when I thought it over, there were other people who could've grown as much as you. Even so, Junghyeok recruited you as a Companion every time a round began."

Could I have made a different choice from Namwoon?

Could I have lived through the first round, the second round, the third round... the 999th round, making choices different from that Kim Namwoon?

"Thinking about it now, maybe I was the one pursuing practicality, not Junghyeok."

Junghyeok had always been twenty-eight years old from the time I first read TWSA.

Junghyeok, an adult both then and now, may have already known that a life was an accumulation of choices, and that countless choices piled together to become one person's fable.

That no one was shaped into evil from the beginning.

That just as the first round and second round differed, the 998th round and 999th round differed too.

And that was the real reason he kept repeating Regression.

The blade stopped in midair.

Unbreakable Faith had faintly entered Namwoon's dazed skin before stopping.

I spoke in a voice half mixed with a sigh.

"That doesn't mean you can be forgiven. What I want to say is..."

【Namwoon!】

An overwhelming manifestation of Status surged from behind.

Someone tore through the raging sea of bombardment and charged toward us like a tank.

It was Lee Jihye of the 999th round.

Simply because Namwoon was in danger, she had abandoned her Island and forced her way through the barrage to reach us.

Even as Kim Dokja Company's attacks battered her entire body to rags.

"You're lucky. You've got a Companion who thinks of you that way."

At the word Companion, Namwoon's vacant eyes trembled.

Jihye wasn't the only one coming this way.

My back grew hot, and I sensed something threatening the nape of my neck.

It was the Flame of Karma.

【What are you plotting?】

Uriel from the 999th round, who had been fighting Junghyeok moments ago, was already standing behind me.

I slowly turned toward her.

Perhaps because she had hurriedly left the battlefield, her pure white wings were torn. Deep wounds covered her body. Even at a glance, they were fatal injuries. She had cast aside her grudge, hatred, and even the outcome of the battle to fly here because Namwoon was in danger.

Some things didn't change, even after becoming an Outer God.

Companions who would wager their lives for a single person.

That was why they had been able to witness the end of the 999th round without Yu Junghyeok.

"A plot? That's what I want to ask you."

Junghyeok landed lightly behind Uriel. His Black Heaven Demon Blade was aimed at her neck.

His gaze was complicated. He seemed to be reproaching me, yet also sympathizing with my choice. Perhaps it was both.

His eyes told me that, since it had come to this, I should do as I wished. I would've done so even without being urged.

"You and the Kings of the Outer Gods could've destroyed Earth if you'd wanted to."

Uriel's eyes trembled faintly at my words.

[The Great Apocalypse Scenario is currently in progress!]

This wasn't just any Scenario. It was the Great Apocalypse, carried out in the region of the 98th Scenario.

A Scenario even the Constellations in the heavens dared not enter for fear of eternal extinction.

At the very least, the Outer Gods who had descended as Calamities in this Scenario possessed absolute power that could humiliate Constellations.

「With a single gesture, every island in the Pacific was annihilated.」

I still vividly remembered that sentence from the original work.

Those Kings could call down meteors from the outer universe and make them collide if they wanted to. Having descended as Calamities, they were beings who could draw upon even greater Plausibility whenever they wished.

"Why didn't you do that from the beginning?"

My entire plan had begun with that question.

Why hadn't they destroyed Earth immediately?

Uriel stayed silent for a long time.

【That is...】

In truth, I had already guessed the answer. Because they weren't the Outer Gods who appeared in the original work.

「Even if they came from another worldline, they were people who began on Earth and cleared the Scenarios.」

Earth was their hometown.

It was where their fables began and where their lives ended.

They had survived as tragedies. Foreign Gods from another worldline had stolen away those precious to them.

Beings already sick of invasions from other worldlines.

Could they... truly destroy every other worldline solely for their own goal?

"You don't intend to kill us."

Jihye said they would use this worldline as a Sacrifice to revive their Scenario.

But was that really true? Would she, already filled with distrust for the Star Stream, have believed the Great Dokkaebis' promise so completely and acted on it?

And had Uriel truly agreed to it?

"Because you aren't the kind of people who can do that. You lost this fight from the start."

That was the answer I had reached.

[An absolute majority of Constellations are greatly shocked by your judgment!]

A way to protect our round without denying the 999th round.

At my calm declaration, Uriel glared at me with conflicted eyes. Jihye staggered over and quietly placed a hand on Namwoon's head.

Namwoon, who had been blankly staring up at me, turned his head.

He was crying. Whatever made him so sad, he kept forcing out sobs.

Uriel looked down at the sight, unable to do anything.

【Let's stop this now.】

It was Lee Hyeongseong, who had approached them.

【Stop what?】

【You know it too, Uriel. This isn't what we want. Nothing will be resolved this way...】

【Then how can it be resolved?】

There was no rise or fall in Uriel's voice. It was the voice of despair worn down over a very long time.

【I did my best. As I promised him, I saw the end of the world, yet I couldn't save anything. I became an Outer God and lived dreaming of revenge. Even though I knew that revenge was meaningless, I denied it and came all this way. Yet now that I've come this far, what else am I supposed to give up? Tell me, King of the Silver Heart.】

【I don't know the answer. But I believe their story will show us something.】

【What? What could we possibly see after coming this far?】

【I don't know. But I have a feeling. Perhaps the reason we of the 999th round survived as Outer Gods all this time was for this moment. Don't you feel it too?】

Uriel looked up at the sky.

The sky was crying. The stars glittered recklessly.

[The Star Stream urges the conclusion of a fable it has awaited for a very long time.]

When I looked around, my Allies had already arrived.

Han Suyeong, Yu Sangah, Jeong Huiwon, Lee Jihye, Shin Yuseong, Lee Gilyeong...

They encircled the Outer Gods as though laying siege, prepared for battle as they waited for my signal.

Uriel asked.

【Why are they able to do it, but we aren't?】

The Flame of Karma roared fiercely.

【Why did we fail?】

There was someone who dared answer that heavy question.

"Why do you think you failed?"

It was Junghyeok.

Still aiming the Black Heaven Demon Blade at Uriel's neck, Junghyeok asked her, "Is every ending you didn't want a failed ending?"

To my surprise, I knew whose words those were.

「"Even if the end of this world is a tragedy... don't think that you failed."」

They were the words Junghyeok of the 999th round had said to his Companions before his death.

Uriel began to tremble. A faint joy seeped through her distant despair. In a shaking voice, she stepped toward Junghyeok.

【Are you truly... the Yu Junghyeok I know?】

Junghyeok didn't answer.

【I want to speak to him. Bring him to me! Just once, I want to see him again. I want to ask him. And...】

Uriel grasped Junghyeok's hand as if pleading. She must have felt it now too, that within this Junghyeok was the Junghyeok of the 999th round whom she loved.

In fact, when I devised this plan, the first thing I did was ask Secretive Plotter to call Junghyeok of the 999th round.

The one the Kings of the Outer Gods relied on was Junghyeok of the 999th round.

So I thought that if I could ask him for help, I might be able to persuade them.

"I'm sorry, but that's impossible."

But Secretive Plotter refused my request, as though the present Junghyeok were speaking.

"What are you planning to do by calling him?"

【That is...】

"If he tells you to surrender, will you do it? If he tells you to listen to us, will you obediently follow what he says?"

Uriel's face grew paler with every word. I wanted to tell him to stop, but Junghyeok didn't.

Words poured down like merciless sword strikes.

Then I realized something.

It wasn't Junghyeok or Secretive Plotter who had refused my request.

[The Yu Junghyeok of the 999th round remains silent.]

The one who refused to appear was Junghyeok of the 999th round himself.

A belated realization came to me.

"After all this time, are you still incapable of deciding anything without him?"

Only then did I think I understood everything. Why he had refused my request.

Why Junghyeok of the 999th round didn't appear before his Companions.

「The story of the 999th round was completed through Junghyeok's absence.」

His Companions had lived only to revive him, see him again, and avenge him.

They had endured by making that their sole reason to live.

「Then, once that reason disappears, what would happen to their lives?」

Foam made by the waves wet my feet. The now-still ocean. It was a strange sea, like an outsider who had drifted in from somewhere far away. At its center, the Outer Gods who formed an Island held their breath as they looked at their king.

Their king was speaking.

【I see.】

Like a ship that had finally found its destination after sailing the vast sea for many long years.

【Is that your will, Yu Junghyeok?】

Uriel slowly stopped trembling.

Footnotes:

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