WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 514: Episode 99: The Oldest Dream / The Most Ancient Dream (3)

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My mind kept slipping away.

「What if TWSA were reality?」

Whether it was my thought, something recorded in the Final Wall, or something else entirely...

「If there were a world where I could fight alongside the characters of TWSA.」

I couldn't tell if it was the Oldest Dream's imagination.

Memories rushed in like waves after low tide. The scattered fantasies that had spread through a young boy's mind became material for stories in another world. Living reality became tragedy.

「Come to think of it, what happens to the world after Yu Junghyeok regresses? I should ask the author in the comments.」

I thought I remembered TWSA better than anyone. I took pride in having read that novel more devotedly than anyone else. Then why couldn't I properly remember the me who had read it?

Maybe I...

[You have become a Character.]

Sparks flowed over my Incarnation body. [The Fourth Wall] was ceasing to function. My heart raced madly, and unidentifiable screams rang through my devastated mind. I lowered my trembling head and barely managed to take a deep breath.

[The Fourth Wall] was right.

Maybe I already knew.

There had been too many hints.

「I was unbelievably lucky in that world.」

「Everything in that world had been convenient for me.」

「At times, it had even been sloppy.」

What if it had all been because of the Oldest Dream's protection?

「The origin of all worldlines, the original worldline.」

I raised my head again. Slowly, I clenched my weakened fist. [The Fourth Wall] was gone, but my mind was calm. I chose to believe it was calm.

Only I knew this world's conclusion.

Unbreakable Faith cried out. I slowly stepped forward.

The boy looked up from his notebook and stared at me.

"Uh...?"

Eyes that knew nothing.

I couldn't avoid that gaze. They were the eyes of a child who had to survive each day however he could, a child who had nowhere in this world to depend on.

The child rubbed his eyes as if he had seen a ghost, then looked at me again.

「To destroy the Star Stream, the Oldest Dream must be brought to an end.」

I had vowed it from the moment the Star Stream began, and I had promised Secretive Plotter as well. I would remove the cause of all these tragedies.

At last, the chance had come.

[Demon King Transformation has been activated.]

Black wings spread from my torn shoulder blades. The child's eyes widened as he watched me.

"Ah...?"

Such an old voice. Right. I definitely used to have a voice like that.

I took one step after another toward the child.

[Angel Transformation has been activated.]

The closer I got to the child's face, the more I saw.

The notebook the child had been scribbling in. A chart recording the power balance of TWSA. It was the very chart I had made long ago.

Yu Junghyeok, Lee Hyeongseong, Shin Yuseong, Lee Jihye, Lee Seolhwa, Kim Namwoon, Anna Croft...

Their Stigmas and skills were recorded beside their densely written names. Bruises remained on the back of the child's hand, which covered the crooked handwriting as if to hide it.

I knew the time this child had survived and the years he would live through.

I knew what lay in the child's future, what misfortunes waited for him.

「How much meaning would those years have?」

The boy would be singled out by bullies and become an outcast. His relatives would abandon him, forcing him to become independent early, and reporters would follow him wherever he went.

He would make a mistake on his entrance exams and attend a third-rate university. A bad draw at training camp would send him to the front lines, and he would live off convenience store triangle kimbap every day. Then, somehow, he would barely get hired by some company and scrape by through life.

For over ten years, he would read a single novel to the end.

He would survive by reading that novel, only to eventually make every being he loved unhappy.

The boy would grow up to become Kim Dokja.

"M-monster..."

The child opened his mouth as he looked at me.

"Yeah, I'm a monster."

My figure reflected in the child's retinas.

「That monster was the child's future.」

The only chance to stop the monster was now.

Everything happened in an instant.

I raised my sword and rushed forward. Han Suyeong punched me in the face.

"――――!"

I couldn't hear her properly. Suyeong was shouting something. Tears filled her reddened eyes. She pounded my chest with her fists and grabbed my shoulders with strong hands.

"―Dokja!"

I shoved Suyeong away and moved forward again. The distance was only a few meters, but I couldn't easily get closer. Every fable within me was resisting.

Powerful sparks pressed down on my whole body, holding me in place. I couldn't lift my feet or move my hands.

The child's expression turned terrified as he watched me. His trembling chin. His shaking eyes. They were eyes trying to determine whether this was reality.

[The Oldest Dream doubts your existence.]

The child was a being who dreamed every world.

Within his dream, I was nothing more than a Character.

Tzzzzzzz!

[The Oldest Dream denies your existence.]

As if denying reality itself, the child covered his head and curled up.

"I am Yu Junghyeok... I..."

That chant he had recited tens of thousands of times.

「There's a shield around me.」

「No one can hurt me.」

「Nothing can touch me.」

The thoughts he had repeated to escape the pain whenever the bullies beat him flowed out.

The power that made reality cease to be reality.

Now, that power was working in the opposite direction.

"Mis...!"

A tiny absolute being was treating all of this as his delusion.

An opaque membrane formed around the child, shaped like a black sphere. The strongest shield created by the Oldest Dream.

Howling like a demon, I approached the shield and swung my sword. Worlds collided, and a blinding flash burst before my eyes.

The blade of Unbreakable Faith snapped weakly and flew into the air.

I stared blankly at the fragment of the blade as it soared away.

「I can't kill him.」

There couldn't possibly be a way to kill him. If this entire story originated from the dream of my younger self, every law of this world depended on that child.

A fierce wind blew from somewhere, violently flipping through the child's fallen notebook. The page where it finally stopped contained the TWSA setting I had written as a child.

Broken Film Theory: This theory, which explains the overlapping worldlines of TWSA...

Within the faintly flickering sparks, I blankly read the words.

I read them again and again. I bent down, picked up the broken sword, and made every fable remaining within me resonate.

Looking at the black sphere surrounding the child, I said, "I know you better than anyone in this world."

「Don'thurtmedon'thurtmedon'thurtme」

"I'm not trying to hurt you."

「I want to run away」

"I know."

「But where to?」

The child's story reached me, and my story reached the child.

Tzzzzzzz.

The broken blade of Unbreakable Faith was now less than two handspans long. Still, those two handspans were enough to carry out my plan.

「A way to end the Oldest Dream.」

[Broken Film Theory has activated!]

[Your existence resonates with the Oldest Dream!]

With all my strength, I drove the sword toward my own throat.

Puuuk.

I heard the sound. Bright red blood fell to the floor like tears.

"Kim Dokja."

It was Yu Junghyeok's blood. The sword was frozen in midair right before my throat, unable to move even an inch. Blue veins stood out on Junghyeok's hand as he gripped the blade.

"Everyone, hold him tight!"

It wasn't just Junghyeok. Someone was restraining me from behind.

"Dokja-ssi. This isn't right!"

It was Hyeongseong.

Others held my left and right arms. They were Huiwon and Sangah.

"Please!"

"There's another way. There has to be!"

Jihye clung to my waist, while Yuseong and Gilyeong each held one of my legs. Suyeong was pounding on the Oldest Dream's shield in my place.

"Open this! We didn't come to hurt you! We just, we just wanted to talk for a moment...!"

Even so, the shield only grew thicker.

I knew. It wouldn't open.

I gripped the sword hilt tightly again.

"This is the only way."

Hayoung shouted, "Please, please stop! There's still time. Still...!"

There wasn't any time. The sparks around us grew denser with every passing moment.

[The Oldest Dream is denying your existence.]

The child would eventually deny us. He would erase his own delusions.

He would make the reality of another world into something unreal.

So the one who could do this was...

Rumbblee!

Dense mist rolled in from somewhere, and I felt the ominous power of chaos.

A strange look was coming over Junghyeok's face as he held the blade.

"Y-you bastard..."

As Junghyeok staggered, a black fable flowed from his mouth. It crept down to the floor, eventually taking the shape of a person.

The shining blade of Splitting the Sky Sword showed between the folds of a black coat.

Someone who had lived for this moment alone stood there.

「Secretive Plotter.」

After countless regressions, he had finally forgotten even his own name.

Someone who had lived life after life for revenge alone stood there.

He glanced at me, then slowly began walking toward the shield.

Secretive Plotter walked on, effortlessly ignoring the sparks leaping around him.

At that moment, the Oldest Dream's fable flowed into me.

「I want to become like Yu Junghyeok.」

Goosebumps slowly rose along my arms.

Why had I forgotten the memory that had ruled my childhood?

「The strongest protagonist in the entire universe.」

It was only natural that Secretive Plotter wasn't affected by the sparks.

In fantasies that had continued like an obsession, how often had I thought such thoughts?

「No human can control every fantasy.」

Whenever bruises formed on my arms and thighs, whenever my lips split open, how often had I called out that name?

「So the person most suited to end this dream had already been decided.」

I slowly let go of the sword hilt.

This was no longer my part to play.

I couldn't interfere with the most rightful revenge in this world.

"Secretive Plotter!"

Suyeong shouted and rushed forward. Huiwon, Jihye, and the children did too, as if they had realized the terrible thing he was about to do.

But as if an invisible wall blocked them, the others couldn't get any closer. Only Secretive Plotter crossed the platform and reached the bench where the child sat.

He swung the sword filled with the power of [sky splitter] and cut through the black circle. Inside, the child was curled up like a baby bird.

Burying his face, the child repeated the same words.

"I am Yu Junghyeok. I am Yu Junghyeok. I..."

The child trembled beneath the faintly shining rays of light.

【You aren't Yu Junghyeok.】

The regressor who had forgotten his own name through endless regressions.

He spoke his own name.

"I am Yu Junghyeok."

Footnotes:

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