WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈
Chapter 488: Episode 93: Omniscient Author's Viewpoint (2)
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[Your ■■ is ■■.]
When Jeong Huiwon first heard that message, she felt uneasy. She also recalled something Kim Dokja had once said.
Every being had a different ending.
She had thought she must have one, too.
But... ■■?
Huiwon knew someone who suited that word far better.
A person she had fought beside more closely than anyone else.
A person who made her want to become his sword without hesitation.
A person who cherished his companions. A person who always sacrificed himself first.
「And for that very reason, a person she couldn't help resenting.」
Huiwon ran through the waves of Nameless Ones.
Venom from a nearby explosion splashed onto her shin, and her flesh swelled black. She hurriedly pulled out the salve Lee Seolhwa had given her, applied it, and ran again. She shook off the Constellations attacking from both sides, crushed the Nameless Ones surrounding Dokja as though guarding him, and leaped forward.
Something came into view in the distance. Something that had once been Kim Dokja.
【■■■■■■!】
And something that had now become the Enemy of the Story.
"Huiwon-ssi!"
Hyeongseong, who had barely caught up, grabbed Huiwon's shoulder.
"Wait..."
Before Hyeongseong could finish, a message appeared.
[Streaming from every region of the Final Scenario has begun!]
Every channel in the Star Stream was opening.
Tzzzt, tzzzt...
The Scenario messages flickered uneasily.
[Do not panic, and focus on the Scenario. This is your final Scenario. If you hunt the Outer God King, your long journey will come to an end.]
[This story will be recorded on the Final Wall, and the journey of the stars will remain forever as a grand epic, passed down through the ages!]
The Great Dokkaebis cried out greedily. Their eyes gleamed with the desire to leave the fables they had guided on the Final Wall.
[The Great Fable Radiance of the Old Dawn dreams of the final story!]
[The Great Fable Owner of Asgard dreams of the final story!]
The Great Fables were stirring as well. To remain as "A Single Fable," they urged their Constellations and Incarnations onward.
[The Constellation Spear That Draws the Boundary of the Sea draws its weapon!]
[The Constellation Master of Abydos has descended upon the Scenario!]
[The Constellation Monstrous Bird of the Nile lets out a savage roar!]
Not everyone was carried along by their urging.
Despite Zeus's order as the First Seat, Dionysus and a few other Seats of Olympus hesitated to attack. The Incarnations were no different.
"Do we really have to kill him?"
The one who spoke was the Japanese Incarnation, Asuka Ren.
"The Kim Dokja I saw wasn't an evildoer."
They were among those who had fought against other Japanese people who chose to become Calamities during peace land, and Kim Dokja and his companions had helped them.
"I owe Kim Dogeza-ssi a debt."
Michio Shoji was among them. His Patron was the One Who Cuts Snakes. Once a righteous coward, he had become the leader of Japan's Hundred Ghosts.
"We can't let him die like this, Sister."
A few Incarnations affiliated with the Emperor and Olympus agreed with them.
[A considerable number of Constellations agree with the Incarnations!]
[The Plausibility of the Star Stream is wavering!]
When an ominous reverberation was detected in the Plausibility, the Great Dokkaebis stepped forward again.
[Do not forget. He is the Enemy of the Scenario.]
[You may not know this, but Kim Dokja has been clearing Scenarios from the beginning to ruin this worldline.]
Perhaps because the situation differed from usual, those arrogant Great Dokkaebis began broadcasting in rather polite tones.
Images of fables were projected across the vast sky.
The dokkaebis had begun doing what they did best.
[He betrayed this worldline and made a deal with the Outer Gods.]
On the screen, Dokja was making a deal with Secretive Plotter. Since their voices couldn't be heard, Dokja's expression looked all the more sinister.
That wasn't all. Everything Dokja had done until now was exposed for all to see.
The time he had released grasshoppers instead of saving people in the subway.
The time he could have saved more people at Geumho Station but left them behind.
A collection of someone's most wicked moments was creating a new Dokja for the world to see.
[If he achieves his goal, this world will only be destroyed.]
The screen soon shifted to "Journey to the West."
The Great Fable "Liberator of the Forgotten."
It showed Dokja, surrounded by Outer Gods, freeing the Nameless Ones imprisoned within the Scenario. Perhaps because of the dokkaebis' staging, Dokja in that fable didn't look holy in the slightest. He looked like the leader of a heretical cult, freeing demons to destroy this world.
[He acquired knowledge of the future through some means and used it for his own benefit.]
Dokja held a smartphone as he gave his companions orders.
[His becoming the Demon King of Salvation and the Watcher of Light and Darkness were all part of his plan.]
The Streamers had joined forces to pull Dokja down from the position of protagonist and turn him into a villain. They were making his fables seem petty and cowardly.
[The Plausibility of the Star Stream moves!]
It was clearly against a Streamer's duty. Even so, the Great Dokkaebis didn't hesitate. Streamers, too, had the ■■ they wanted.
[And now, he has become the lord of the Outer Gods and is trying to destroy this world.]
Public opinion in the Star Stream changed in an instant.
Asuka Ren and Michio Shoji turned pale.
Anna Croft, whose expression couldn't be read, passed them indifferently and muttered, "It's already too late."
The Zarathustras began their charge, and the Constellations that had hesitated joined the battlefield as well.
Gaaaaaaah!
The Nameless Ones, crying out in pain, clashed with the vanguard of the Constellations.
「Every being connected to Dokja was pointing a sword at one another.」
Huiwon watched Dokja's battle from the center of that battlefield.
Even without her help, many Outer Gods fought at Dokja's side. Huge cephalopod monsters. Outer Gods with the bodies of babies and enormous flowers for heads. Great Beings that Huiwon couldn't be sure of defeating even if she borrowed Uriel's power and fought with everything she had.
Among them, Dokja truly looked like a great Calamity that would bring this worldline to an end.
「Jeong Huiwon thought she understood Dokja.」
Huiwon didn't know what conclusion Dokja truly wanted. Still, she had thought she knew without him saying anything. She had thought Dokja wanted the same end to the world that she did.
「But what if that was truly the ending he wanted?」
What if he had never had companions at all?
[The Constellation Demonic Judge of Fire...!]
She knew. Huiwon understood better than anyone what Uriel was trying to say. She knew Dokja cherished his companions, and that he had done this because he cherished them too much.
Dokja was likely trying to sacrifice his own life to send his companions to the end of the world.
「No matter how far she reached, she couldn't grasp him.」
It felt as if a huge wall stood before her. As if that wall were stopping her from approaching Dokja.
"Just what..."
Perhaps Huiwon was now too exhausted to keep yearning for the ending she wanted.
「Dokja was someone who couldn't hear anything.」
The grip of the sword she slowly clenched was cold. The sword Dokja had personally made for her and placed in her hand. The sword that had been her conviction from Paradise until now.
[The Sword of Judgement cries out!]
The sword that only cried when evil was near was weeping.
The Great Dokkaebis declared mockingly.
[This is the unknown truth of Kim Dokja, the Enemy of the Story.]
She wanted to confirm it. Whether you truly were the Dokja I knew. And if what you wanted wasn't the same as what I wanted.
「Whether I could truly bring you to an end with my own hands.」
"Huiwon-ssi."
As if he knew what she was feeling, Hyeongseong was there.
"I'll go with you."
Having become a shield of steel in every sense, Hyeongseong charged forward and opened a path.
He advanced through the waves of stars and the storm of Nameless Ones. Just as Huiwon had something she needed to confirm, Hyeongseong likely did as well.
Something they had to confirm again and again.
The two rode the waves into the air and reached Dokja's rear in an instant. It was possible because every other Outer God had gathered at the front.
"Huiwon-ssi!"
Perhaps because of the Ring of Chaos drawn on the back of her hand, the Nameless Ones only pushed forward even after spotting her.
Dokja stood there, towering like a massive building. A huge body dripping with black fluid.
Without realizing it, Huiwon reached out and touched that outer shell.
It felt unfamiliar.
Once, she had held Dokja's hand tightly while he slept. The hand of Dokja, who had returned as a Returnee and remained unconscious all day in the room his companions had prepared for him. What had that hand felt like?
As if sensing her presence, the Outer God King moved his enormous head and turned around.
Rumble...
White breath poured from his huge head.
"Kim Dok..."
Though she knew she shouldn't, Huiwon stepped back without realizing it.
A vast maw had opened toward her.
[The Plausibility of the Scenario moves!]
[All your fables warn you!]
Her reflection appeared in the black eyes of the enormous Outer God King.
She didn't want to make that expression. She didn't want to look at Dokja with those eyes. Yet, against her will, her hand was already moving.
"Aaaaaaaaaah!"
The Sword of Judgement cut through the approaching tentacles. Her sword moved frantically, as though she were facing a mortal enemy.
A fable gushed from the severed tentacles.
「“Dokja-ssi, you're happier now than you were then, right?”
“If you mean that now is better than then, then yes.”」
It was a fable she knew well.
「“Me too.”」
As she staggered, she listened to that story. The story only Dokja and Jeong Huiwon remembered held her mind together. When she cleared her blurred vision, she saw the scene around her. She thought she had cut off many tentacles, but no notable wounds remained. In the meantime, Dokja had grown even larger. It was impossible to believe this was only one person. Dokja was like a lone wall stretching endlessly across the world.
【■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■...】
A wall no sentence could ever fill. Huiwon despaired before it. What did the Final Wall matter? She couldn't even cross the wall of a single person.
Han Suyeong came running toward her from afar, shouting.
Could Suyeong cross this wall?
"You're lucky you're a writer."
During a holiday for Kim Dokja Company, Huiwon had said that to Suyeong as she lay on a mountainside.
"Yeah, right."
"No, why? People who write well are good with words, too. I wish I were like that."
"So you can write Hyeongseong a love letter?"
"That's not it."
Huiwon had looked silently toward Dokja. Suyeong seemed to understand what Huiwon wanted to say from that look alone.
Dokja was flustered in front of his companions. Looking at the man foolishly carrying out a joke of a Scenario called "Worker's Holiday," Suyeong said this.
"Anyone can write."
Huiwon looked up again at the thing that had once been Dokja.
Jeong Huiwon wasn't a writer like Han Suyeong. Nor was she a diligent reader like Dokja. She couldn't write like Suyeong or read like Dokja.
That didn't mean Huiwon couldn't write or read anything at all.
"What if you can't write well? Like you said, you're not a novelist."
Maybe this world truly was a novel called TWSA. Maybe it was a story in a novel written by some author and read by someone else.
But to her, this novel was life.
「That was why she had the right to write the next sentence of this world.」
Huiwon slowly lowered her sword and asked, "Dokja-ssi, you remember then, right?"
She didn't know whether Dokja could hear her. Still, Huiwon placed her hand over the tiny scratch she had made on the vast wall. Through that scratch flowed the scenes Dokja and Huiwon had walked through together. The two of them, wearing suits and climbing the stairway to heaven.
"I was really happy then. When we went to the department store together to buy clothes, and when we visited Eden in style."
She liked this world. Everything was being destroyed, and all she could see were ruins. Even so, because it was this kind of world, Huiwon had found her own worth.
"You said so yourself. You said this world was better. We're people like that."
Dokja gave no reply.
Huiwon pulled open the wound in the tentacle. As if telling him not to forget that wound, as if asking him to remember a part of her equal to that wound.
"That's why this is all you can do. Right?"
Huiwon understood Dokja.
「If she didn't kill Dokja, this world would be destroyed.」
The enormous Outer God King's eyes were watching her. His head seemed to move as if agreeing with her will. Huiwon met those eyes and said, "I can't kill you."
Her vision remained blurred as her body trembled.
Dokja's salvation was cruel. Like saving a drowning person with the tip of a sword, those he saved were left with irreversible wounds.
"Don't make me laugh... What kind of salvation is this...?"
Huiwon staggered as if leaning against the wall.
In a world where no one saved anyone, where only victims existed and even their wounds were put on display, the only hand extended to her had been covered in scars.
「Dokja had always been there, holding out his hand.」
It took courage not only to hold out a hand, but to take it.
The courage to take a scarred hand. The courage not to give up.
Though she knew it wouldn't heal her, though she knew taking that hand would leave her with even greater wounds, the courage to hold onto it and live once more.
「Some salvations are completed not by the one who gives them, but by the one who receives them.」
Huiwon's palm left a mark on the surface of the Outer God where she pressed it firmly.
She stared at that mark for a long time, then quietly looked down at her sword.
A message then rang out beside her ear.
[The ■■ of Incarnation Jeong Huiwon is nearing completion!]
As though taking someone's hand, she gripped her sword tightly.
[Your ■■ is salvation.]
Footnotes:
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