WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 496: Episode 94: Beginning of the End (4)

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The moment a dark, shapeless summoned entity exploded in midair, I threw myself flat over the children nearby.

A harsh metallic scraping sound grated against my ears over Lee Hyeongseong's steel barrier.

Then, after who knew how long, all sound and sensation vanished.

[Transmission has been completed.]

An unfamiliar message followed.

Every muscle in my body ached as though I'd been beaten black and blue.

The barrier Hyeongseong had spread through the air disappeared.

What happened?

I couldn't make sense of the situation. No matter where I looked, I was the only one in sight. The children in my arms, Hyeongseong and Huiwon, who had shielded me, even Junghyeok, who had leapt into the air while swinging his sword, were nowhere to be seen.

All I could see was a vast plain.

When I turned my head, I saw a wooded area made up of a tree reaching to the edge of the sky and dense woods, while a sulfurous wasteland occupied the opposite side.

The Great Dokkaebis had used the Administration Bureau's power to interfere with the Scenario. I remembered that much clearly. The Administration Bureau's coin sanctions had followed, and when that wasn't enough, those bastards had summoned something like a strange missile.

And then...

「[Ah. Ah. Can you hear me? Damn, I had a hard time without a Korean language patch.]」

A chill ran through me, and I reflexively looked around.

A familiar fable rang out from somewhere. It was one I knew very well.

「[This isn't a movie shoot.]」

Something appeared in the air. It was the tiny shadow that had blanketed the sky at the very moment that dark, shapeless summoned entity exploded.

I hurriedly searched the area.

「[This isn't a dream, or a novel, or the ‘reality’ you knew. Do you understand? So shut up and listen to me.]」

He was nearby. He had to be nearby.

After searching the plain for a while, I found him collapsed among the reeds.

“Bihyeong.”

I picked him up. He had grown as large as an adult man after becoming a Great Dokkaebi, but now he was small again, like a child.

Just like the day I first met him on the subway.

“Bihyeong!”

The beginning of all my tragedies.

If I hadn't met this bastard, I would still be an ordinary contract employee at Mino Soft.

「[Wait. Are you saying you want to sign a Stream Contract with me?]」

If I hadn't made that damned contract with him back then, I wouldn't have come this far.

Fragments of fables were steadily falling from Bihyeong's body.

「“What contribution have you made to the fables of Kim Dokja Company? How dare you involve yourselves in the coin supply?”」

「“Aren't you tired of that story by now? How long will you keep looking only for fables that fit the Administration Bureau's formula?”」

Fables of Bihyeong's that I didn't know were breaking apart.

I shook Bihyeong awake again. I even slapped his cheeks hard. Then a faint voice reached me.

“That hurts. For the first time, I feel sorry for Paul, whom you hit back then.”

Bihyeong opened his eyes with a bitter smile. It wasn't a constellation's declaration, but his ragged real voice. It had been a long time since I'd heard the true voice of the dokkaebi Bihyeong.

The voice I hated.

The bastard who had turned people into Incarnations, spread Scenarios across the world, and transformed it into a kingdom of lecherous gaze. I couldn't help asking him.

“Why did you save me?”

Bihyeong had ended up like this because he had touched Plausibility that should never have been touched. Like the Great Dokkaebis who had vanished after forcibly interfering with the Scenario, Bihyeong had thrown himself into a backlash he couldn't stop and been reduced to this state.

「Bihyeong will die here.」

The fables I possessed were trembling.

This wasn't my plan. This wasn't the fable I wanted.

[The Fourth Wall is shaking violently!]

Rather than answer, Bihyeong vomited up a pitch-black fable. His body was growing smaller by the second.

“I'd like to get up for a moment.”

I helped Bihyeong to his feet.

Beyond the pale night sky, I could see the stars sailing. Stars drifting this way and that with the flow of the Scenario. The distant current of stars.

Bihyeong was looking at the Star Stream.

“I sent all your companions away. Most of the Constellations and Incarnations nearby probably survived too. This place is safe from external shocks.”

“You...”

“You'll learn the details soon enough. You're a smart guy.”

Several stars fell from the sky. While I searched for something to say, the number of falling stars steadily increased.

Stars dying far away in the Nexus of the Constellations.

Bihyeong must have lived dreaming of those stars.

“Kim Dokja. We aren't companions.”

He must have loved the fables of the stars and watched their tragedies and comedies unfold. He must have seen the deaths of countless stars. And somewhere inside him...

“You're an Incarnation in the Scenario, and I'm only a Streamer.”

He must have considered the deaths of those stars beautiful.

It was true that I hated Bihyeong.

I tried to kindle that feeling into something stronger.

[The fable King of a Kingless World looks upon its Streamer.]

[The fable One Who Opposes the Extraordinary feels sorrow for its Streamer.]

[The fable One Who Hunted the King of Catastrophes mourns its Streamer.]

My fables scattered like screams, speaking to Bihyeong.

Bihyeong smiled proudly.

“I wanted to see your fables through to the end.”

Beyond the sky Bihyeong watched stood the Final Wall.

The dream Bihyeong had pursued. The place where the Dokkaebi King, king of all Scenarios, resided.

I wanted to ask him if he was really giving up here. Hadn't I promised him back then?

「“Dokkaebi Bihyeong, make a contract with me. Then I'll make you the Dokkaebi King.”」

I still hadn't kept that promise.

「He was the first reader of the fables Kim Dokja had built.」

My hands gradually grew lighter. When I slowly lowered my head, Bihyeong was already gone. Like the damned Streamer he was, he had left behind only his own story until the very end.

I staggered to my feet.

「I wanted to create a fable where no one was sacrificed.」

[Your epic has reached a transformative turning point!]

Blood ran from the fist I had clenched so tightly it nearly broke. All my fables were screaming. They cried out toward the Star Stream, toward the Final Wall.

「The story isn't over yet, Kim Dokja.」

Bihyeong was dead, but the fable he had left behind was still alive. The fable he had left before dying lingered around me, using up its sentences.

I barely pulled myself together. Bihyeong was right. The end I want begins now. I had to find out where Bihyeong had sent me and where my allies had gone.

And then...

Sparks of Plausibility struck through the air above the vast plain. Beyond them, a view of the outside faintly emerged.

The ruined stage of the Final Chapter. The battlefield where I had stood only moments ago, strewn with the bodies of dead Constellations and Incarnations.

The moment I saw it, I realized where I was.

[Welcome to the Final Ark.]

This was the inside of the very ship I had to destroy.

[The Final Ark has entered its takeoff process.]

[The final Scenario has been updated!]

+

Category: Main

Difficulty: ???

Clear Conditions: Destroy the fable core that powers the Ark and stop the Great Dokkaebis and Mythical Constellations' plan to migrate to another worldline.

Time Limit: 24 hours

Reward: Final Wall

Failure: Worldline destruction.

+

So that was it.

If this was the Final Ark, it made sense that a world of this size could be contained within it. The place where I stood was the primordial land where countless myths sleeping within the Ark had begun.

Rumble.

A violent tremor came from beyond that land.

Something was approaching.

「Run, Kim Dokja.」

Beings who had recovered their original strength with their own worldviews at their backs.

Mythical Constellations were rushing toward me.

* * *

「The Ark is a kind of ‘giant Fable Weapon.’ To destroy it completely, you need to smash the fable core inside it.」

I ran and ran through the Ark's interior while reading the fables Bihyeong had left behind.

[You have entered residential cabin D-21.]

[The influence of other myths is too strong in this area.]

[You are currently unable to contact your nebula members.]

Perhaps because the influence of other Great Fables was too strong, I couldn't contact my allies. Fortunately, one more ally had been dropped into the same cabin as me.

[The influence of the same nebula can be strongly felt!]

“Kim Dokja!”

Just as I reached out to say something, Han Suyeong shouted.

“Shut up and run! Don't come this way!”

The entire brush forest behind Suyeong was sliced apart. Something was chasing her. She swiftly fished a smoke bomb from inside her clothes and hurled it behind her.

[Mass-Produced SSS-Grade Smoke Bomb has taken effect!]

[Visibility in the nearby area will be blocked for 20 seconds!]

While the confused Constellations erupted into an uproar, we quickly escaped the brush. Suyeong seemed to have already grasped the situation.

“Is that bastard dead?”

I didn't answer.

Suyeong, breathing hard, spat on the ground.

“That damned dokkaebi bastard. He leaves us something like this as a final gift?”

Could this really be called a gift?

I looked up at the Ark's ceiling. There were probably countless owners of Great Fables sleeping inside this Ark besides us.

“Kim Dokja.”

“According to Bihyeong's fable, the fable core is in the Ark's center. We're probably near the bow.”

As soon as I said that, the Constellations' declarations rang out from within the smoke.

[Chase them!]

[They're nearby. We can't take them with us to the next worldline!]

Suyeong spoke through Midday Tryst.

―Should we just kill them all?

That was one way to do it. Still, the situation wasn't in our favor.

This cabin belonged to another nebula's worldview.

In other words, it was a place where their Stage Transformation applied.

[Residential cabin D-21 is where the roots of the World Tree Yggdrasil have been preserved.]

Suyeong frowned.

―Damn it, it had to be Asgard.

[The Constellation God of Harp and Horn plays a Requiem of Destruction.]

[The Constellation One Who Lost an Arm to the Wolf of Destruction searches for their missing arm.]

[The Constellation Thunder of Thursday displays his might.]

Constellations floated through the sky, searching for us.

Most were fabled-grade Constellations. But...

―Was Thor always that strong?

Thunder of Thursday, with lightning condensed in Mjolnir, looked up at the sky with blue eyes.

Thor was a fabled-grade Constellation. Yet on this stage, he could emit a Status approaching Zeus's.

I spoke to Suyeong.

―We need to find a stage that favors us.

―Is there even a stage like that in here?

Unlike them, Kim Dokja Company didn't have anything that could truly be called a worldview.

―There is one.

Even so, if I was right, there was one stage here where we could fight. There, all the other allies would be able to use their full strength.

The problem was how to get there.

[The fable Stone and Me begins its story!]

Of course, there was a way.

Suyeong's eyes widened.

[The fable Stone and Me tells the story of We're all nothing but stones!]

―What is this?

Holding Suyeong's wrist, I cautiously stepped out before the Constellations like a rolling stone. Just as I expected, the Constellations didn't notice us at all.

[The Constellation Goddess of Love and Cats looks gloomy.]

[The Constellation Guardian of the Great-Horned Bridge searches for someone.]

Suyeong's mouth fell open as she watched the Constellations fail to notice us, even as we passed right in front of them.

―That's fucking broken.

It was a cheat, all right. At least, a stone didn't stand out until someone consciously recognized that there was a stone there.

[A Constellation who likes changing sexes is giggling.]

A bad feeling struck me. Suyeong wore a similar expression.

But we were almost there. Even if Loki had noticed us, Asgard's main Constellations were already far away.

“Are you planning to run away using that method again?”

At the sudden voice, I stopped walking.

I had forgotten for a moment.

The fable Stone and Me didn't work on someone who had seen through its true nature.

And unfortunately, I had already used this fable on someone before.

When I slowly turned around, swirling crimson eyes were watching us.

Footnotes:

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