WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 483: Episode 92: The Final Scenario (2)

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The crowd stirred at my declaration. Reporters clicked their shutters without pause, while the low-grade and mid-grade dokkaebis broadcasting the situation across various channels wore stunned expressions.

[Many Constellations find your statement interesting!]

[The Great Dokkaebis are listening closely to your statement.]

[All dokkaebis of the Administration Bureau are paying attention to your words and actions!]

"What exactly are you saying?"

"Representative Kim Dokja!"

It was quite a sight, seeing Constellations, Incarnations, and dokkaebis all wearing the same expression.

I smiled kindly and spoke again.

[That is exactly what I mean. I don't see any need to save you.]

"Are you saying you'll abandon Korea?"

"Then what will happen to the Incarnations who have supported you all this time?!"

Supported me?

[How exactly have you supported me?]

The uproar spread in an instant. At my evasive tone, reporters rose to their feet and shouted over one another. The power of the press truly was enough to stand against the Status of a Mythical Constellation.

"Who do you think tolerated the dictatorship of Kim Dokja Company?"

"Hasn't everyone followed your will until now?"

Tolerated a dictatorship...

Before I could react, the Constellations reacted first.

[Some Constellations scoff at the reporters' remarks.]

[Old Constellations of the Korean Peninsula lament!]

[The Constellation Goryeo's Top Swordsman glares at his descendants.]

Whether this was a dictatorship or not was beside the point. I had no idea what they thought they had tolerated. Even now, protests against Kim Dokja Company were apparently being held every day amid the ruins of Yeouido.

I looked calmly at the reporters shouting from every direction.

[What exactly is my will?]

"That...!"

[Have I ever once asked you to do anything?]

The reporters fell silent and looked at one another. The dokkaebis looked entertained. To them, even this was probably an interesting fable. The scene of the Demon King of Salvation abandoning his homeland.

The ones who rescued the confused reporters were a group of Incarnations waiting on one side of the industrial complex.

"Those with great power inevitably bear obligations. You've just thrown that obligation to the ground."

The old man abruptly stepped forward, a shabby hat pulled low over his head, and spoke. Sinister eyes gleamed beneath its drooping brim. I didn't recognize him right away, but he was a supporting character from TWSA, too.

Jihye's voice came from behind me.

"Wait, that old man came all the way here?"

He seemed to be a member of the alliance from the Busan area. While we had been away from the Korean Peninsula, a new force had emerged and taken control of the alliance.

Behind him, I saw the flags of the Veterans Association and a group wearing blue headbands. Regional alliance members standing to either side of the group raised their voices.

"Demon King of Salvation, you have the duty of the strong. Aren't you the only Mythical Constellation active on the Korean Peninsula?"

Some insisted on my duty.

"Please don't abandon the Korean Peninsula! If you act like this, what are the poor people of this land supposed to do?"

Others appealed to my sympathy.

"Face the Final Scenario with us! Everyone who has survived until now deserves a proper reward!"

"None of these people ever wanted the Scenarios! Are you saying you'll abandon every innocent person? And can you still call yourself a Constellation of the Korean Peninsula?"

In a sense, they were right.

None of us had wanted the Scenarios.

At first, that was true.

[It is fortunate that the alliance leaders are here as well.]

But was that still true now?

[I would like to ask you this. What exactly have you been doing until the Final Scenario arrived?]

At those words, the alliance members looked at one another.

"We protected the Korean Peninsula while you were gone...!"

"Are you disregarding the alliance's efforts? We were the ones who protected the Korean Peninsula while you were away!"

I knew what they had been doing.

A few alliance members exchanged looks with the reporters.

「Run the article. 'Demon King of Salvation declares abandonment of the Korean Peninsula.'」

They had probably been inciting public opinion.

「'Demon King of Salvation reveals his true nature as a demon king.'」

Headlines I could picture without asking.

I knew why they were going so far.

「Don't be scared. The Demon King of Salvation is human in the end. Just another Korean.」

「Once you're born here, there are things you can't defy.」

「No matter how much power and fame he has...」

They believed in the system. They believed in the fables humanity had upheld for a long time, such as 「democracy」, 「rationalism」, 「institutions」, and 「majority rule」.

[Old fables are looking at you.]

I could see them now. The fables everyone believed they possessed, but that no one truly possessed.

Even before the Star Stream arrived, Earth had been ruled by Great Fables. And those who believed in those fables would likely think they weren't wrong this time, either.

The alliance members continued shouting.

"Wasn't it Kim Dokja Company that monopolized the Scenarios in the first place? What could we possibly do in such unfair competition?"

[The industrial complex has always been open. The skills and fables we acquired were all made public.]

"But you entered the Scenarios first...!"

[There are many people overseas who entered the Scenarios late. Among Peihu and Rannvir Khan's divisions, there are many who joined the Scenarios only a few months ago and have already entered the later Scenarios.]

"That's overseas. Things are different here!"

[They did not have an industrial complex. Support was concentrated on only a few people. But what about Seoul?]

When I snapped my fingers, Biyoo created a panel in the air. The giant panel showed scenes from inside the industrial complex.

[We made strategies for the lower Scenarios public and announced the lists of Great Fable Scenarios. We also spared no special support for those who diligently participated in the Scenarios. There were no restrictions based on gender, age, or race. We wanted people with the courage to fight alongside us.]

The screen showed Incarnations repeatedly training. My mother was among them, directing the trainees. Jo Yeongran and Lee Boksun, working as instructors, were visible as well.

These were the people who had finished that desperate training, gained fables, and come here.

[Like the people standing right before you.]

The Incarnations guarding the center of the conference hall around me possessed firm determination and imposing Status. They were the Wanderers my mother had raised. These were the heroes who had helped my mother stop the tidal wave in the East Sea.

[Has anyone among you received less support than they did?]

No one answered. Everyone had been overwhelmed by the momentum the Wanderers gave off at such close range.

People bit their lips, hesitated, then shouted.

"It isn't like we were just sitting around! We were preparing many things, reorganizing institutions and facilities, and preparing to properly rebuild the nation after you finished the Scenario and returned..."

[Why did you make those preparations? Do you know what conclusion lies ahead?]

"What?"

[Why do you think this world's conclusion will be peaceful?]

This world had changed greatly from the developments of TWSA. Junghyeok, Hyeongseong, Jihye, Yuseong. Every one of them was a little different from the people I had known.

Yet some things had not changed.

「Everyone Yu Junghyeok met wished for everything to return to the way it was.」

Confusion filled their expressions. They looked like people betrayed by the hope they had believed in until the end.

I knew well what they wanted.

「But none of them truly wanted 'everything' to return to the way it was.」

What the crowd wanted was not peace for everyone, but 'their own peace.'

They had certainly endured hellish Scenarios and survived. Yet anyone who had gone through such Scenarios would never want everything to return to the way it was.

Even the hell they had endured had become their story.

「We only need to get through the Final Scenario. I have power now, too. At least among Incarnations, I'm in a position to become the Superior.」

「I can't go back to the old days. How did I survive until now...?」

「If only Kim Dokja Company didn't exist...」

Amid countless surging desires, I slowly turned my head toward the edge of the conference hall.

There were people farther away than the alliance members and reporters, looking up at us. Ordinary Incarnations in shabby clothes and equipment, their bodies covered in dust.

I saw a little girl, too. She was about as tall as Yuseong had been at the start of the Scenarios. A girl so young that her survival until now felt like a miracle. In that place ignored by cameras and channels alike, she muttered to herself in a voice only I could hear.

「Then are we all going to die now?」

Amid the barrage of shutter clicks, I stared at the little girl for a long time.

Then I spoke.

[I am not a hero. I never intended to save all of you from the beginning, and I have no plans to do so in the future. But...]

I slowly turned around.

[Another Representative might think differently.]

Yu Junghyeok stood there.

* * *

A little later, Han Suyeong and I listened to Junghyeok's speech from behind the stage.

"I don't know what conclusion he has in mind. But I, too, have a conclusion for this world that I believe in."

He usually only spouted things like, "I'll kill you, Kim Dokja," but once he started talking, he could give a fairly convincing speech. Junghyeok wasn't the protagonist for nothing.

Suyeong watched me with a lemon candy in her mouth. I spoke as though making excuses.

"I can't stand at the front and control everything forever. Junghyeok suits that role better. That's how it was in the original, too."

I added when Suyeong snorted.

"We need a more certain focal point. That isn't my role."

"You could have done it."

"It's time for me to return to where I belong. I'm not the protagonist. I'm the reader."

"Well, look at you, saying that now."

With my hands hidden behind my back, I kept clenching and unclenching my fists. It seemed that even Kim Dokja after becoming a Constellation was still Kim Dokja. My palms were damp with sweat. Standing before cameras was never easy.

"Is that the 'proper conclusion' you had in mind?"

"It's the beginning."

"What's next?"

I didn't answer.

"Hey."

Suyeong strode over, stood on tiptoe, and grabbed me by the collar.

"You didn't forget you promised to read my novel, did you?"

"What?"

"You promised. Did you forget?"

Looking into her blazing eyes, I remembered the conversations we had once shared. Right. When we left the Kaizenix Archipelago, Suyeong had said something like that.

When all these Scenarios were over, she wanted to write a novel. And she wanted me to read it.

"Were you serious about that?"

"Would I lie about something like that?"

I smiled bitterly.

"My standards are pretty strict. Are you sure you're okay with that?"

"Someone with strict standards read TWSA for ten years?"

"I might leave nasty comments. I might point out that it lacks Plausibility, or write that I'm dropping it."

"Go ahead. Let's see what happens."

I quietly studied Suyeong's face. Her steady eyes looked at me without yielding an inch. Right. Han Suyeong had always been this kind of person.

"...I might hound you to post extra chapters every day."

"No problem. I've written ten chapters in a day before."

As we bickered while she held me by the collar, reality somehow felt faint. When I first met her, I had never imagined she would become a Companion. Han Suyeong. The person who had once been the King of the Prophets.

"There was once a time when I distinguished between those who had to be saved and those who could be allowed to die."

Junghyeok's voice carried to us.

"Some had to die, while others had to live. I lived thinking that way all this time. I thought it was necessary for this world. But now..."

As we listened to his speech, Suyeong and I both fell silent. Junghyeok's inner thoughts, which he had never revealed directly even once. We were hearing the inner thoughts that had never been properly revealed even in TWSA.

"Now, I don't know."

The protagonist of TWSA was speaking.

Behind him, the fables of the round we had lived through flowed out.

The only being in this world who did not forget the worlds that had passed.

The protagonist who had been betrayed and wounded in the distant past.

"In a past life, I received help from someone I believed was evil."

I saw Junghyeok fighting Asmodeus. Junghyeok meeting his death after a fierce battle in the second round.

"I fought once more on the same front line with someone who had betrayed me."

Anna Croft, helping us as she faced the Apocalypse Dragon.

Junghyeok looked at those fables for a long time before continuing.

"I haven't forgiven them. But that doesn't mean I intend to take revenge on them in this life. This life is not my past life. Just as this world is no longer the world you knew."

People listened to Junghyeok's story.

They were neither regressors nor protagonists. Even so, they wore expressions as though they understood something.

"Surviving does not mean that everything is permitted to you. On the contrary, you have responsibilities. The sin of surviving. The sin of surviving after trampling upon the stories of others. The sin of using the fables of others as fertilizer and daring to grow stems and put forth buds. If you survived, then take responsibility for those sins."

Those who understood his words and those who did not were all overwhelmed.

These were the words of a human who had lived by cutting down Constellations on the front lines of the Scenarios.

They were neither kind comfort nor warm encouragement, yet they reached people clearly.

It was a voice far more sincere than a constellation's declaration from someone like me.

"I cannot promise to save everyone. I will only live through my own Scenario, and I cannot live your Scenarios in your place. So there is only one thing I want to tell you."

That was Yu Junghyeok's place.

"Until every one of your Scenarios ends, I, too, will neither die nor regress."

Footnotes:

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