WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 518: Epilogue 1: The Zeroth World (2)

──────

Yu Junghyeok was looking at an article on a portal site the man beside him had opened.

―Pro Gamer Yu Junghyeok, How Long Will He Remain in Hiding?

Discord within the team, along with the coach's abuse of power. Several circumstances unknown to others surfaced at once and clouded his mind. However, it had already been years, and no answer would come from thinking about it.

―I've found their home address.

A text message appeared on his smartphone. Some time ago, he had hired a private investigator to look into his parents, and they had finally found traces of the two. That was why he had come outside after so long.

Junghyeok wanted to know where he came from. Who had given birth to him, who had abandoned him, and who had left him to care for his younger sister while he pursued success.

Junghyeok wanted to know that so badly.

―Huh? People like that used to live here?

―I wouldn't know. It was so long ago.

He had paid the private investigator an enormous sum, but all he received was the address of an empty house. The agency said there was nothing more they could find out.

His parents had vanished as though they had evaporated from this world. How could such a thing happen?

With no memory of his parents and no proper memories of childhood, twenty-eight-year-old Yu Junghyeok existed alone.

As if he had been shaped into an adult from the moment he was born.

Inside the rattling Line 3 train, Junghyeok faced a philosophical question for the first time.

‘Who am I, exactly?’

That was why he couldn't act right away.

"Aaaaaah!"

It was only a little later that he noticed the commotion.

There was a filthy, hulking man with a scraggly beard. A homemade bomb was clutched in his hand, and the flint wheel of his lighter clicked away.

It wasn't until someone bumped into his shoulder as they passed that Junghyeok recognized this unreal situation as reality.

「Terrorism」

The subway went dark the very next moment. The train came to a sudden stop, and darkness filled the area around them.

Junghyeok felt the hairs on his arms stand on end. His thoughts spun. Terrorism? Was terrorism, something he had only heard about, really happening in Korea? Where was the evacuation route? Should he call the police? Or...

[Now then, everyone. Nice to meet you.]

Junghyeok's concerns quietly vanished alongside a small clump of CG that appeared in midair.

[I'm getting tired of saying this greeting every time... Now then, this isn't a movie shoot or a terrorist incident... Huh?]

Those creatures would later introduce themselves as dokkaebis.

The unknown being watched the situation inside the train from midair and burst into laughter.

[What's this? Hahahaha! Constellations, look over here! Something fun is already happening before the Scenario has even appeared!]

The dokkaebi laughed in a languid, cruel voice.

[This place looks very promising. Please show us an entertaining story.]

[The Main Scenario has arrived.]

+

Category: Main

Difficulty: F

Clear Conditions: Kill at least one living creature.

Time Limit: 30 minutes

Reward: 300 coins

Failure: Death

+

And then hell began.

* * *

That bastard Bihyeong. Come to think of it, he was like this back then. Listening to the screams ringing through the train, I found myself feeling oddly sentimental.

「You're saying I should enter into a <Stream Contract> with you now?」

It felt like only yesterday that I had first met Bihyeong and made an exclusive contract with him.

I really had been lucky then. If I had failed to make that contract...

「"Kim Dokja. We aren't companions."」

Bihyeong wouldn't have died that day.

「"I wanted to watch your fable through to the end."」

This pain was probably what the ‘Yu Junghyeok’ trembling over there would come to feel after going through more than a thousand regressions.

"A Scenario? What the hell is this?"

The people in Car 3707, who had received the first Scenario, murmured among themselves.

Brawls in other areas were being broadcast on the panels in midair. A Scenario where they would die unless they killed each other.

"G-game... This is a game!"

The terrorist, Choi Hangyu, shouted.

"Hahahahaha!"

The terrorist Choi Hangyu. Information about him had once appeared through Junghyeok's recollection in TWSA.

「If Choi Hangyu comes back to life, he will later evolve into the ‘Explosive Slaughter Demon.’」

Hangyu pulled a hammer from his waist and struck the back of the head of the middle-aged man beside him. The man's knees buckled helplessly.

"I-if I do this..."

[The Incarnation Choi Hangyu has achieved the First Murder achievement!]

Hangyu awakened as coins poured down before his eyes.

As always, those quickest to adapt to the Star Stream were the misfits of the real world.

"D-did you all see that? I-I just..."

"Aaaaah! Murder! It's murder!"

Watching the people recoil in terror, Hangyu tilted his head.

"W-why is everyone s-standing still? I-I'm the only one who looks w-weird."

"Don't come any closer!"

"M-maybe... D-do you need this?"

He grinned at the people and threw the tools hanging from his waist at them. Then he swung a wrench again, driving it into the dead man's back over and over.

"E-easy. L-like this. If you do it like this..."

Blood welled profusely from the man's back.

"E-everyone gets r-rich."

The timer in midair was steadily counting down.

[The remaining time has decreased.]

[10 minutes remain.]

Junghyeok stared blankly at the wrench that had rolled to his feet.

No one showed any sign of moving.

Hangyu shook his head as though they were pathetic, then rose from his seat.

"S-should I j-just kill you all?"

Then a man quickly reached out and grabbed the hammer Hangyu had thrown.

"F-fuck... I don't know anymore!"

"Sir! What are you doing?"

Clutching the hammer Hangyu had thrown, the man began striking the people around him indiscriminately.

「This was the scene in Car 3707, where Yu Junghyeok survived.」

"I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry...!"

"Aaaaaah!"

Amid the hollow cries ringing out, people began to grasp the reality of their situation. They didn't know what this situation was, but one thing was certain.

「They would die unless they killed each other.」

[Few Constellations are pleased by the scene in this car!]

[Few Constellations are showing interest in the Incarnation Choi Hangyu.]

[One Constellation whose modifier has not been revealed has sponsored the Incarnation Choi Hangyu with 100 coins.]

Hangyu smiled in satisfaction at the people.

And beside him, I watched it all.

「Kim Dok ja」

I slowly removed my hand from Hangyu's nape.

‘I know, so don't worry.’

I mustn't change this story.

All of this had ‘already happened.’

I looked at Junghyeok. Bent over, he picked up the wrench that had fallen from Hangyu's arms.

The anguish on Junghyeok's face was plain to see.

The expression of someone who had decided to kill.

But why? That expression was different from the Junghyeok I knew. The Junghyeok I knew flew into a rage at betrayal. He didn't trust people easily, nor did he make companions easily. He always sought the best path, and he didn't hesitate to kill people beforehand if they were bound to betray him anyway.

「That was why Yu Junghyeok of the third round could massacre everyone in the same car without hesitation.」

But the Junghyeok before me wasn't in the third round.

Nor the fourth, fifth, or 1,863rd round.

「He was in the zeroth round.」

Junghyeok of the zeroth round.

His feet began to run. Feet that couldn't use [phoenix walk] or [Way of the Wind].

There were plenty of targets. A college student trembling on the floor, a middle-aged man hiding beside the priority seats, an office worker too busy attacking someone else to look behind him.

Junghyeok ran past all of them. Then...

「He chose the most difficult opponent in this car as his target.」

"Ugh... Huh?"

Hangyu grinned nastily at the wrench flying through the air. He easily stepped back, and a sharp survival knife sprang from his waist.

Spat.

Junghyeok barely avoided the blade.

「Why did Yu Junghyeok make that choice?」

I didn't know. I didn't know why someone so terrified had made that choice.

Hangyu still had several tools, and he even had a homemade bomb. Junghyeok, on the other hand, had only a wrench as long as a child's forearm.

Even so, I wasn't worried.

I didn't know the full details of the zeroth round, but Junghyeok didn't die here.

Until he went through all those tragedies, until he finally entered that distant cycle of Regression, Junghyeok... wouldn't die.

[The Incarnation Yu Junghyeok has blossomed the Attribute Pro Gamer!]

His Exclusive Attribute was blossoming. It was one I knew well.

A skill that judged everything in this world by turning it into numerical values, like a game. A skill that controlled his own body as though he were moving a game avatar.

Junghyeok's wrench struck Hangyu's wrist. Hangyu let out a brief scream, and the homemade bomb rolled from his grasp. Junghyeok's wrench moved toward Hangyu's neck as he panicked. It was an unavoidable blow, a perfect counterattack calculated through Junghyeok's talent.

But there was one thing even Junghyeok hadn't calculated.

[The Incarnation Choi Hangyu has invested 900 coins in Constitution!]

It was the system of this new world.

"A-ah, that hurts."

A dark red mark remained on Hangyu's neck, but it didn't break.

Hangyu's muscles swelled as he grabbed Junghyeok by the nape. Junghyeok's pale body dangled in the air.

Holding Junghyeok by the collar, Hangyu took out a hammer with his other hand.

"D-die."

At that moment, Junghyeok looked at the ‘homemade bomb’ on the floor.

I understood what Junghyeok was thinking. The moment he threw the wrench in his hand and the moment I moved were almost simultaneous.

Time moved very slowly.

The wrench flying sluggishly was headed straight for the center of the homemade bomb.

I silently watched the scene.

Even if the bomb exploded, Junghyeok wouldn't die. If what I had read was correct, that was certain. Then why?

Why was my hand trembling so much?

‘The Fourth Wall.’

Crackle.

I continued.

‘Does Junghyeok's Patron exist in this world?’

「It ex ists」

The Oldest Dream exists in this world.

A being that had become the Oldest Dream long before I had. My childhood self, or something presumed to be my childhood self.

‘Then why can't I feel anything?’

That was the strange part.

I could feel everything in this world. Everything about the Scenario. From a single Incarnation to every Constellation blanketing the sky above.

Yet there was one being I couldn't sense.

‘Where is the Oldest Dream right now?’

[The Fourth Wall] gave no answer. Junghyeok's wrench, spinning through the air, had now reached right in front of the homemade bomb.

‘Don't tell me...’

「How could the Oldest Dream have made a contract with Yu Junghyeok of the zeroth round?」

All the questions that had built up in my head exploded at once.

「The Oldest Dream dreams through TWSA.」

As a child, I read TWSA and imagined this world.

「And TWSA was a story that began with Yu Junghyeok's third round.」

Could that child have properly imagined Junghyeok's zeroth round?

Could he have imagined a story that wasn't in the original, a world he had never read?

「Then who was the Patron that appeared in Yu Junghyeok's zeroth round?」

The bomb exploded. Flying fragments lodged in Hangyu's back and in the bodies of people hacking at each other. Several pieces of shrapnel rushed straight toward Junghyeok's heart and neck.

The subway ceiling was collapsing with a roar.

[You are the owner of the Final Wall.]

[Your Control is insufficient to interfere with the worldline.]

[The Plausibility of the worldline is resisting you!]

Ignoring the Plausibility, I grabbed the flying pieces of shrapnel. With fierce heat coiling around my fingertips, the fragments crumbled away in my hand.

[A Deus Ex Machina unknown to the worldline has activated!]

[The world has noticed your intervention!]

「At that moment, Yu Junghyeok raised his head.」

Junghyeok, who had slipped out from beneath the fallen Hangyu, was looking at me.

「It was only for a moment, but Yu Junghyeok felt as though someone was standing before him.」

"Who...?"

[Main Scenario #1 - Proof of Value has ended.]

[You have acquired 300 coins as a basic Clear reward.]

[100 coins have been deducted as the channel usage fee.]

[Additional reward settlement has begun.]

The people's heads exploded along with the Scenario settlement. Amid the spray of blood, I silently looked down at Junghyeok. In the distance, I heard Bihyeong's excited voice and [The Fourth Wall]'s warning. I also heard messages from Constellations questioning the Plausibility.

Junghyeok stared with unsteady eyes at the message spread out before him.

[Patron selection has begun!]

+

―Select your Patron.

―The Patron you choose will become your reliable supporter.

1. God of Wine and Ecstasy

2. Nail-Eating Rat

3. Abyssal Black Flame Dragon

+

[A new Constellation has entered the channel!]

[A new Constellation is participating in patron selection!]

+

4. Demon King of Salvation

+

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried