WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 508: Episode 98: Have you protected everything you wanted to protect? (1)

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「A man named Yu Junghyeok was there.」

From the 0th round to the 1,863rd round.

The years Junghyeok had accumulated overlapped and rippled along the hem of his coat.

As though representing his fable, Junghyeok's words appeared on the Final Wall.

「"I don't forget a single thing."」

[The special effect of the fable Companions in Life and Death is active!]

The fables of the third-round Junghyeok and Secretive Plotter resonated together. A terrifyingly brilliant power of chaos surged from the tip of the Black Heaven Demon Blade clenched in his hand. The entire wall trembled beneath the disorderly aura of chaos.

It was only natural. His story must have formed the most important part of this wall.

The protagonist of TWSA, Yu Junghyeok.

None of these worlds could have begun without Junghyeok.

The Dokkaebi King spoke with a mocking smile.

[Oldest Dream's puppet. Your film is truly long and distant.]

He spoke as though he had known Junghyeok would come.

[No one can stay with your tedious, bloated story until the end. Not even Oldest Dream.]

Junghyeok slowly blinked, and [Sage's Eye] opened with a golden gleam. His pupils shone as though they had swallowed all the starlight in this world.

Their owner spoke.

【Did I come too early again?】

The moment I heard Secretive Plotter's words, I remembered what I had seen through Broken Film Theory.

The memory of the Dokkaebi King he had met in the 1,863rd-round worldline.

「[Unfortunate puppet. You have come too soon. You cannot complete this universe.]」

As though he had received that memory in real time, the Dokkaebi King tilted his head.

[Is that so? It seems the me from another worldline said that.]

【Your way of speaking is different from the one I saw.】

[Just as your rounds aren't all the same, neither am I.]

The Dokkaebi King shrugged, pulled Junghyeok's Black Heaven Demon Blade free, and threw it. Junghyeok caught the flying sword in his bare hand.

A sword mark remained on the Final Wall where the blade had been pulled free, like a cursor.

Soon, the mark slid back a handspan at a time, and sentences appeared on the wall.

「But all those worldlines ultimately exist for the same conclusion.」

The Dokkaebi King spoke to Junghyeok as though immensely proud of that story.

[The completion of a great world is right before us. You, too, will finally achieve your long-held wish.]

I knew Junghyeok's wish all too well.

[The Great Fable Pilgrim of the Lonely Apocalypse begins its story!]

To break free from this terrible cycle of curses and become free.

The 1,863rd-round Junghyeok had lived only for that goal.

「But that wasn't Junghyeok's only goal.」

Secretive Plotter turned to look at me.

The meaning of his gaze was clear. Don't forget the promise you made to me.

「"I will get rid of the root cause of all these worlds."」

The Dokkaebi King read the sentence on the Final Wall.

[Get rid of it... Interesting. Do you still believe that's possible?]

【It is. And for that to become possible.】

He held a sword in each hand. The keen blade of Splitting the Sky Sword overlapped the pitch-black blade of the Black Heaven Demon Blade.

【You need to disappear first.】

Booom!

Sparks shook the entire wall. Explosions rang out one after another, and flashes of light erupted. Two figures clashed in midair.

A sturdy barrier of fables surrounded the Dokkaebi King.

A being that wielded the oldest story in this world as a weapon.

[The Great Fable First Messiah begins its story!]

The very fable possessed by the master of the nebula Eden flowed from his fingertips.

Tightly entwined sentences scattered sacred radiance. The light of a great Constellation poured down upon the creatures on the ground.

It was a Status so overwhelming that anything it touched would surely melt away and vanish.

"Dokja-ssi!"

Hyeongseong rushed toward me in alarm.

Steel extended from his entire body, spreading out to protect me and the others. I shook my head.

"You don't need to, Hyeongseong-ssi."

"Excuse me?"

Instead of answering, I pointed ahead.

Even through my pounding headache, I couldn't take my eyes off the scene before me. The other stars had been right. Maybe I was nothing more than a Constellation, too. Perhaps I had endured for more than ten years just to witness this sight.

[The Exclusive Attribute Fear of the Stars has activated!]

The Dokkaebi King's radiance scattered before my eyes.

The man in the black coat was blocking, with two swords, the Messiah's light that destroyed all evil in the world.

Tzzzzzz.

The wall's fables melted where the light touched them. Secretive Plotter, no, Junghyeok, defied that light and stepped forward one step at a time. Sweat beaded beneath his chin and fell, and the blades of the Black Heaven Demon Blade and Splitting the Sky Sword dulled beneath the rays, but he didn't retreat even a little.

By then, the Dokkaebi King's expression had begun to change.

[Very well. Then what about this?]

[The Great Fable Oldest Evil begins its story!]

Oldest Evil. It was the fable of Baal, the great demon king of the Demon Realm who had ascended.

A tyrannical power that no good in this world dared oppose.

With the entire Demon Realm at his back, the Dokkaebi King brought black lightning down upon Junghyeok. Fallen lightning that not even an Archangel could withstand.

Seolhwa shouted from afar.

"Junghyeok-ssi!"

Junghyeok didn't avoid the oncoming lightning. Instead, he raised his sword like a lightning rod and received it head-on. But that wasn't the end.

[Stage Transformation has activated!]

The souls of demon kings were being revived through Stage Transformation. Some were ones we had killed, while others had died at the hands of the Apocalypse Dragon. Every one of those demon kings was summoned back to the battlefield by Oldest Evil, roaring at Junghyeok.

Graaah!

The weapons hurled by the demon kings were enveloped in wicked Mana, creating a purple storm of lightning. It was a storm powerful enough that even a Mythical Constellation couldn't endure it.

Junghyeok's pale face gleamed like an evil spirit amid the surging lightning. Even within that storm of sinister Status, he remained calm, like someone who had waited a long time for this moment.

【I've killed every one of you.】

[The Exclusive Attribute Demon King Slayer has activated!]

Junghyeok leaped into the air and advanced, deflecting the weapons. Wherever his swords carved their paths, the fables of evil shattered. Like a monster born only to destroy, Junghyeok swung his swords again and again. Every strike carried the resentment of the worlds he had lived through.

Tztztztz!

Great cracks formed in the sky of the fallen Demon Realm.

It was martial might enough to dismantle Stage Transformation single-handedly.

The monster made by the Star Stream was now moving to destroy the Star Stream.

Graaah!

The blade of the Black Heaven Demon Blade severed the neck of the revived Marbas, Lion of the Black Mane, while the trail of Splitting the Sky Sword pierced the heart of the charging Barbatos, Unmerciful Hunter Who Defies Heaven.

No demon king could call himself a king before him.

The Dokkaebi King growled and shouted.

[Arrogant puppet, you aren't the protagonist of this worldline.]

At the same time, the terrain around them began to change once more.

[The Great Fable Star Stream Game System begins its story!]

[Stage Transformation has activated!]

The scenery on the wall was becoming pixelated.

Junghyeok's body began to shrink. The path ahead of him turned into a maze, as though he had been trapped in Daedalus's Labyrinth. A monster with an enormous mouth followed behind him. [Automatic Turrets] sprang up from all over and began firing, while the terrain beneath his feet turned into a deep mire.

As though he had entered a game.

「Junghyeok was smiling.」

[The Exclusive Attribute Master of Play has activated!]

Junghyeok easily broke through the traps, and his body shot forward like an arrow. He tore through the crown of the approaching monster and shattered the maze walls. As though he had long known every strategy for clearing this world, he didn't allow a single hit to land.

[This stage cannot withstand the target's Status!]

The maze collapsed, and before long, Junghyeok stood right before the Dokkaebi King.

The Dokkaebi King's pupils filled with bewilderment.

【Is that all?】

It was only natural that Secretive Plotter would defeat the Dokkaebi King. His entire life had existed to fight and overcome the Star Stream.

Even in the original story I had never been able to read, Junghyeok must have killed the Dokkaebi King like this.

The Dokkaebi King stepped back and glanced at me.

「What is Junghyeok's weakness?」

The moment I read the sentence appearing on the Final Wall, a chill ran down the back of my neck.

A scene from distant space appeared in the Dokkaebi King's eyes. Memories from another worldline flowed into him. As though he had found the answer, the Dokkaebi King looked at me before turning to Junghyeok with a chilling smile.

[Puppet. Is your mental energy as sharp as your sword?]

[King of Stories forcibly reenacts your fable!]

[Stage Transformation has temporarily activated!]

[The similarity of the nearby terrain raises the stage's level of reenactment!]

The corpses of dead demon kings lay scattered everywhere. Junghyeok, his face ravaged, slowly looked around atop the ruins of dead stars.

「The final world he had lived in was unfolding there.」

There was no way he wouldn't recognize that world.

Secretive Plotter was the one who had sent me there.

「The 1,863rd round. The final world of TWSA.」

The Dokkaebi King approached Junghyeok, who blankly stared at the sky, like a shadow. No, he was no longer the Dokkaebi King. With every step he took, his face and build changed.

「Pale cheeks. Two eyes shining like stars looked at him.」

A white coat identical to mine fluttered in the wind.

[Do you remember? The 33rd round. What Jihye said after clearing the 40th Scenario.]

The same voice as mine spoke.

Sparks burst in the air, and Junghyeok's body tensed rigidly.

The Dokkaebi King casually reached out, grabbed Yu Junghyeok by the collar, and continued.

[Think about it. It wasn't always miserable. Right? In every one of those rounds, there were times when you were happy, even if only briefly.]

Splitting the Sky Sword and the Black Heaven Demon Blade trembled violently. The two swords sagged helplessly.

「Regressor's depression.」

Junghyeok's sole weakness after repeating Regression for so many years.

[The 173rd round. You protected Earth for quite a long time. You saw Jihye receive her high school diploma, and Seolhwa smile while holding someone else's child.]

Junghyeok's eyes wavered.

「What breaks Junghyeok isn't despair.」

「One by one, memories like tiny feathers settled in his mind.」

The Dokkaebi King was using the very method I had used.

「Breathing becomes difficult, and the lungs tighten.」

「A drowning person can sink deeper beneath the surface from the weight of a single feather.」

I couldn't keep watching any longer.

I shouted at Junghyeok, telling him to pull himself together and not to fall for such illusions. But as though a barrier had formed, my voice couldn't reach him.

Only the Dokkaebi King smiled, mocking all those stories.

[Junghyeok. Have you protected everything you wanted to protect?]

Junghyeok's knees slowly sank.

I raised the Status of my fables. I had to dismantle that Stage Transformation immediately. But how could I...

Grip.

A hand still held mine tightly. It was Han Suyeong.

"This isn't a battlefield you should enter."

"But if we leave him like that..."

"You said even a star that can't be seen still shines."

A star that can't be seen?

At Han Suyeong's words, I looked back at Junghyeok.

Junghyeok's lowered gaze had stopped. Dazzling sparks consumed his entire body.

Tztztztz...

Something was awakening his fading mind.

[The Great Fable Those Who Remember Destruction begins its story!]

It was a fable I didn't know well.

Faint figures appeared amid the sparks that gradually died down.

Looking closer, Junghyeok wasn't alone. Four figures stood beside him.

A tall man, a white-haired young man, a woman with a ponytail, and...

【He couldn't protect a single thing. That's why he's here now.】

An Archangel with dazzling wings.

The Dokkaebi King's expression filled with shock.

The fable of the destroyed 999th round burned from the Archangel's sword like a raging blaze.

【Because he still believes there are things that must be protected.】

Footnotes:

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