WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 506: Episode 97: Stars That Can’t Be Seen (3)

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「In the beginning, the universe was ‘one.’」

When I came to, that sentence stood before my eyes. I couldn't tell whether it was a sentence or a memory disguised as one.

「In that world, ‘one’ was omnipotent. ‘One’ was the universe, and the universe was ‘one.’ ‘One’ was perfect. Perfectly alone.」

Then, a dazzling explosion occurred.

「And so, ‘one’ became ‘two.’」

The first explosion. The phenomenon people would later call the Big Bang.

「And ‘one’ was no longer omnipotent.」

Overcome by terrible dizziness, I braced myself against the floor.

This was inside the door, the deepest part of the Final Wall.

The wall no longer tried to swallow me. That was probably because I had been swallowed completely.

When I looked beside me, Han Suyeong lay collapsed on the ground. I lifted her onto my back and stood. When I raised my head, I saw Anna Croft.

[It seems you have seen the first fable.]

The Hunchback King, possessing Anna Croft, smiled at me.

[When I first saw it, I wore the same expression as you.]

I didn't answer. There was no time for this kind of back-and-forth. Where had my allies gone? As if reading my impatience, the Hunchback King continued.

[Aren't you curious? Why something called a fable came to exist in this world.]

"I didn't come all this way to discuss that."

[But you can't move forward without discussing it. The same was true for me.]

I could hear Suyeong breathing on my back. Her breath became a fable and unfolded before my eyes. The world twisted, and a corridor lined with display cases appeared before me.

「When the universe became ‘two,’ ‘one’ grew lonely.」

「Things that had not been needed when it was ‘one’ came into being.」

Tiny beings, like little toys, fought atop the display cases.

The history of the Scenarios that had begun on countless planets, including Earth, was there.

「‘Good and evil’ were created to distinguish the two.」

Agares and Metatron were fighting.

The Great war of Angels and Demons, where angels and demons spewed red fables yet refused to bend their convictions until the end.

「‘Communication’ was invented to soothe the loneliness of the two.」

Industrial citizens and demons fought across the inner wall of the industrial complex.

Between those ramparts, I saw Jang Hayoung trying to stop the fight.

「‘Reincarnation’ was created from the desire to return to the days when they had been one.」

Shakyamuni stroked an Incarnation body inside a tank in his room.

It was the Incarnation body of the dead Sanzang, the person Shakyamuni had once loved.

「But ‘two’ could never return to ‘one.’」

Every fable I had ever read was displayed there.

Fights repeated within predetermined endings.

Suyeong seemed to be slowly regaining consciousness. I felt a small tremor from her.

「Soon, ‘two’ needed someone to connect what had split apart. An existence that would live through all these fables and act in their place for their good and evil, communication, and reincarnation.」

I stopped in my tracks.

「‘Characters.’」

I could no longer watch calmly.

The Hunchback King, walking beside me like a ghost, spoke.

[It's a truly vicious joke, isn't it?]

The Hunchback King cackled and slipped into my shadow.

More and more figures appeared atop the display cases. Some were trapped inside the walls with only their faces exposed, as if their forms had not yet been finished.

"Jihye... Yuseong..."

They were faces I knew. Without thinking, I reached for them, but the thick glass wall blocked my hand.

I hurried along the display cases.

Lee Seolhwa, Pildu Gong, Lee Gilyeong, Yu Sangah... Everyone in Kim Dokja Company was there. And then.

"Yu Junghyeok."

Junghyeok appeared within the thick mist. His eyes were closed, his entire body bound by copper-colored chains.

Beneath him, I could make out a faint doll.

「He was the King of Stories.」

His face was hard to see through the mist, so I slowly approached him.

[You have encountered the King of Stories.]

[The end of the Main Scenario is approaching.]

Nowhere in TWSA was information about the Dokkaebi King described in detail. But just because TWSA contained no information about him didn't mean there was none at all.

Because I knew those who had met them.

「But even they had never said what the Dokkaebi King looked like.」

At the end of the Final Mist.

The King of Stories was waiting for me there.

[The King of Stories is smiling at you.]

And then.

[The Fourth Wall is shaking violently!]

I couldn't believe my eyes.

「It was a very old memory.」

My entire vision shook with a pounding dizziness.

「That couldn't be. Such a thing couldn't possibly happen.」

[At last, we meet. Apostle of ■■... No.]

Small sparks flew before my eyes, and the filter was removed.

[Apostle of Eternity and Final Chapter.]

「Kim Dokja charged with a thunderous shout.」

I had no time to think. I grabbed him by the collar. I wanted to strangle him to death right then, but for some reason, my hands wouldn't move.

「He was tall. A person who had always looked down from far too high above.」

He shouldn't have been here.

「A person whose face had always been red. A person who was always drunk, so I had rarely met his gaze. A person whose gaze I had hoped never to meet.」

[Dokja. Kim Dokja.]

「When I met his gaze, the world turned into a nightmare.」

[I sure gave you a damn good name.]

I threw a punch with all my strength.

「The height that had once seemed so great was now nearly the same as his.」

It felt as though time had slowed.

「The veins standing out on the back of his hand only made him look more gaunt.」

My full-force punch stopped just before his nose.

「He thought he could win. He was no longer a helpless child.」

Dazzling sparks lit up the man's face. The Dokkaebi King stood there, smiling with blue light in his eyes.

[What are you doing to your father?]

I shouted. I couldn't properly understand what I was saying or doing. The Fourth Wall was collapsing.

"Kim Dokja! Get a grip!"

Then I heard a voice. A warm touch pressed against my back. Suyeong's fable was reaching me.

「This is the fable of a reader.」

It was the story that had protected me.

"Fourth Wall! What are you doing? Get up!"

[The Fourth Wall has activated powerfully!]

[The Fourth Wall has grown as thick as an iron fortress!]

At that moment, the Dokkaebi King's expression changed.

[Are you interfering?]

He seemed to be looking not at me, but at something inside me.

[The last fragment of the Final Wall. Your duty is over now.]

[The Fourth Wall growls fiercely!]

[You have safely reached the end of every story, bringing with you a qualified successor.]

The Fourth Wall was speaking inside me.

「Th at is for Kim Dok ja to dec ide」

As I heard those words, I gradually regained my senses.

「The being before me wasn't my father.」

A memory of my mother became a fable and rose before my eyes.

My mother's memories, which had been swallowed by the Fourth Wall. My mother's sentences, spreading across the wall like stains, spoke to me.

「He died that day.」

"You're not my father."

[How can you be so certain?]

"Stop playing around. It's implausible for you to be my ‘father.’"

[Implausible? Haha, hearing that leaves me speechless. I thought this was the most natural face for me to appear with at a time like this.]

The Dokkaebi King, still held by the collar, smiled. His face changed.

[Or how about this face?]

He became my mother.

[This face isn't bad either.]

Then he wore the faces of Persephone and Hades.

I swung my fist again. This time, intense sparks burst out and flung my body backward.

"If you show their faces one more time, I'll kill you."

[Hehe, it seems I took the joke too far.]

"Change your appearance right now. Show me your true form."

[I want to, too, but I can't. I forgot what my original form was long ago. I've lived as too many different beings.]

Still wearing Hades's face, he slowly blinked.

Then fables flowed out from behind him. They were somehow familiar.

「That day, the oldest demon in the world ascended amid reverence.」

[I was once the king of the Demon Realm.]

「Every Archangel of Eden worshipped him without end.」

[I was the messiah of the Archangels.]

Cold sweat ran down my back.

They were fables I had heard before.

The vanished Arch-Demon King of the Demon Realm, and Eden's messiah.

I could sense the creation fables of other Mythical nebulae from him as well. Pangu of the Emperor, Cronos of Olympus... Goosebumps rose all over my body.

The being before me was on an entirely different level from any Mythical Constellation I had faced until now.

「The oldest being in this world.」

Without letting down my guard, I gripped Unbreakable Faith tightly.

"Was all of that you? Eden, the Demon Realm, they were all you? Is that what you're trying to say?"

The Dokkaebi King shook his head from side to side.

[In the end, everything is only a variation of stories that have already passed. We are nothing more than reincarnations of a great story. You and I alike.]

He was watching the distant flow of the Star Stream. A sky from which the stars had fallen stretched out, empty. It looked like an enormous wall.

The Final Wall, stretching endlessly onward.

This world was ultimately a story inside that distant wall. I saw faint stars falling like ink that had run down the page as someone wrote.

Even though so many stars had fallen, stars still remained. Stars that couldn't be seen without looking closely.

I remembered the names of those stars. And I recalled what I had to do.

"Release my allies."

[They are only tools whose use has ended. What meaning is there for you in releasing them?]

"They are everything to me."

The Dokkaebi King slowly approached me.

Suyeong moved closer and spoke through Midday Tryst.

―Kim Dokja.

She tightly wrapped tattered bandages around her arm, burning with her last will to fight.

―I'll count to three. When I give the signal, subdue him together. One, two...

[You don't have to whisper. I can hear everything.]

We exchanged glances, our bodies stiff.

Every setting of the Star Stream had passed through the Dokkaebi King's hands. There was no sentence in this world that he couldn't read.

Suyeong and I glared at him, gripping our weapons.

With our moves already read, rushing him couldn't even be called a surprise attack.

The Dokkaebi King watched us as if we were amusing, then slowly reached a hand toward me.

[Successor of stories. Only you arrived here at exactly the right time.]

"What? You can't even see me here..."

Tzzzt.

Suyeong's voice disappeared. As though trapped inside a tank, she pounded on the transparent wall surrounding her.

[You have cleared all Main Scenarios.]

[You will be recorded in the universal Star Stream aggregate.]

Along with the system messages, the Status of my existence was being elevated.

[After showing such wonderful fables, why are you still trapped within an outdated frame of perception? Despite possessing a fragment of the noble wall, why can't you look upon this world from afar?]

His voice sounded like an accusation. Yet deep within it lay reverence for all these stories.

He looked at the wall where he stood. More precisely, he seemed to be imagining something beyond that wall.

[Everything you value has no meaning. This world is only a story dedicated to a great being. Everything in this world is nothing more than that great being's daydream.]

The daydream of a great being.

"Does the Final Wall record the dream that being dreams?"

[That's right.]

I thought I knew who that being was.

The culprit behind all these tragedies.

I recalled the first fable I had seen upon entering this place.

「In the beginning, the universe was ‘one.’」

The first ‘one.’

The being that made Junghyeok regress and gave birth to every myth in this world.

"Is that bastard tls123?"

Footnotes:

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