WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 524: Epilogue 1: The Zeroth World (8)

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Yu Junghyeok's Splitting the Sky Sword cleaved through the air. He cut down the Constellations blocking his path, along with the Incarnations acting as their hands and feet.

Junghyeok fought with everything he had.

Behind him stood the Allies who had endured the Scenarios alongside him. Jihye, Hyeongseong, Huiwon, Yuseong, Namwoon, Seolhwa, Pildu Gong...

"System Operation. We're ready over here, Captain."

The Seven Kings of Seoul were there as well. Han Donghoon, the King of the Hidden Shadows, and Min Jiwon, the King of Beauty.

"Go, Junghyeok!"

Jang Hayoung, the King of the Transcendents, was there too.

"We'll handle things here, Supreme King."

There were Incarnations from other countries as well, including Peihu and Rannvir Khan.

Even Anna Croft, his archenemy, helped him.

[The Constellation Prisoner of the Golden Headband cheers on Incarnation Yu Junghyeok!]

[The Constellation Demonic Judge of Fire...]

[The Constellation Abyssal Black Flame Dragon...]

No round could have been more complete than that one.

"Advance, Sky-Splitting Alliance."

Sky-Splitting Alliance. That was the name of the Alliance Junghyeok had created.

The ending I had completed, and the blueprint Han Suyeong of the 1,863rd round had shown me.

The fables that condensed the essence of every round of TWSA I knew were beginning their stories.

[The fable King of a Kingless World displays its splendor!]

[The Great Fable Spring of the Demon Realm begins its story!]

[The Great Fable Season of Light and Darkness begins its story!]

As if every story until now had existed for this moment alone.

[How, already...? You shouldn't be able to come here yet...]

At last, beyond the shattered Ark, I saw the astonished expression on the Dokkaebi King's face.

Junghyeok and the Sky-Splitting Alliance charged at him without hesitation.

[Foolish Incarnations, killing me is meaningless. If the Star Stream is destroyed, you will disappear as well. A worldline whose events have concluded is abandoned. Nobody wants to watch a worldline like that!]

The Dokkaebi King writhed. As though he meant to prove his words right, he fought with every fable he possessed. However, it wasn't enough. Spewing fables, the Dokkaebi King fell to his knees, yet he still laughed as he collapsed.

[You are finished. The destruction of this worldline will soon begin. That person would never want such a story...]

Contrary to his expectations, the destruction didn't begin. The Star Stream remained intact.

The Dokkaebi King's eyes widened.

[The Star Stream's final Scenario has ended.]

[It can't be...?]

In his final moments, the Dokkaebi King looked behind him, as if trying to gauge the gaze of someone watching him beyond the vast Final Wall.

Then, words appeared on the Final Wall.

「The legend of the Star Stream, Supreme King Yu Junghyeok.」

Subtitles floated across the screen.

Beep.

The panel shut off. A classroom scene reflected across its black surface.

Children sat huddled together, their bright eyes fixed on the man preparing to give a lecture beside the panel.

The man slowly opened his mouth.

"I am Yu Junghyeok."

.

.

.

"The children really liked it, Junghyeok-ssi. You were good at teaching."

"They all looked bored because it wasn't interesting."

Seolhwa gave a wry smile at Junghyeok's blunt reply.

"That's not true."

Without changing his expression, Junghyeok put on his coat.

「It had already been five years since the Scenarios concluded in the world of the zeroth round.」

After the Scenarios ended, Junghyeok and his Allies began rebuilding the world.

Donghoon made contact with government officials and established a new system, while Hyeongseong and Huiwon suppressed terrorist attacks by criminal groups.

Jihye guarded the borders and helped forge international agreements with foreign Incarnations. Seolhwa and Yuseong rescued children who had lost their parents in the Scenarios.

The facility, A Night of Counting the Stars, had been built that way as well.

As he left the facility, Junghyeok looked at the children staring up at him. They were orphans made by the stars, children who would grow up counting stars that no longer existed.

"Hey, mister."

One of the children grabbed Junghyeok's collar. When he turned, the child gathered their courage and pointed at his head.

"Your hair is sparkling."

* * *

Around seven years after the Scenarios ended, Junghyeok got married. He married Seolhwa.

Jihye dabbed at her tears, while Pildu officiated the ceremony. Huiwon caught the bouquet... Yuseong had even skipped her university classes to come and sing a wedding song.

They didn't have children because neither of them wanted any.

"There are already so many children in this world who need parents."

They built a facility and cared for the children.

It was a choice that suited them.

「Time continued to pass. Ten years, fifteen years...」

Like pages turning faster and faster to read the ending, time passed in the zeroth round. Junghyeok aged naturally. More precisely, Junghyeok alone aged. It was because of an Attribute he had gained by clearing the Scenarios.

A Legendary-grade Attribute, [Life of Full Power].

Through thousands of regressions, Junghyeok had never once chosen that Attribute. As the regressor, it was an Attribute he had never needed to choose.

「An Attribute that unleashes all of one's talents in exchange for living out a fixed lifespan.」

But he was in the zeroth round now. He lacked both the experience and talent gained through Regression. That was why he had chosen the Attribute. He needed it to clear the remaining Scenarios.

"Master, how old are you this year?"

"I've forgotten things like age."

"Um, it's been twenty years since the Scenarios ended, so... Good grief. Already..."

"All humans grow old and die."

"Master, seriously...!"

The dream of immortality wasn't impossible as long as the Star Stream's system remained. After all, people like the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint and Kyrios, who lived for hundreds or even thousands of years, weren't uncommon. Beyond that, one could accumulate fables and become a Constellation, enjoying eternal life in the truest sense.

Yet Junghyeok didn't do that.

「There is no story where nobody is sacrificed.」

The Administration Bureau had been annihilated, and the Constellations had fallen from the night sky.

Looking up at that sky, Junghyeok lived through the world's days and nights.

「And then, twenty-five years passed.」

One day, with his hair finally half white, Junghyeok left the city.

"Captain, are you really going to shut yourself away in a backwater like this?"

"I hate noise."

"What about Seolhwa-unnie? Isn't that too selfish?"

Without a word, Junghyeok polished the Splitting the Sky Sword. Training with a sword that had lost its purpose in a world where nothing remained to be cut. That was how Junghyeok spent the life he had left.

"You can train with your sword perfectly well in the industrial complex..."

Yuseong couldn't finish what she was saying. Junghyeok's face reflected in the clear blade of the Splitting the Sky Sword. Nobody would take him for a man in his sixties.

And yet.

Junghyeok would certainly die one day.

Then Seolhwa, left alone, would have to live a very long life without him.

Yuseong moved her lips several times, about to say something, when Namwoon cut in.

"Supreme King, you've really gotten old! I think I'll beat you this year!"

Namwoon shouted triumphantly, loosening the bandages around his fists as he charged at Junghyeok.

"Aaaargh! My arm! My arm! No, my eyes!"

Namwoon was sent flying with a single blow and lay face down on the ground, groaning. Their Allies snickered. Huiwon and Hyeongseong talked with their hands clasped together. Jihye and Yuseong bickered.

As I watched the scene, I read the sentence laid over it.

「Perhaps I could have seen a scene like this too.」

It would have been a slightly different scene because, in the world I had lived in, the Star Stream had been destroyed and the system's power was weakening.

The people in my world would grow old like Junghyeok. Among the Companions growing old that way, I might have grown old with them too.

Junghyeok's white hair fluttered in the wind as he watched his Allies leave.

Though he had become an old man, his back hadn't bent in the slightest. His skin was still firm, and the muscles in his arms remained strong.

Even so, Junghyeok's eyes clearly lacked the sharpness they once had.

「Kim Dok ja, you've been he re too lo ng.」

[The Fourth Wall] spoke.

「If you stay in o ne dream for too lo ng, it be comes ha rd.」

I knew what that meant.

I was the Oldest Dream, and I had a duty to look upon every world fairly.

Still, I couldn't easily leave the zeroth round. If I ended this story here, it felt as though every tragedy would begin again.

But if I kept holding on to this story forever...

"Demon King of Salvation."

Junghyeok raised his head and looked at me.

"Are you still curious about this story?"

I hesitated for a moment before answering.

[The Constellation Demon King of Salvation answers that he is.]

"There are no more Scenarios in this world. No thrills, no upheavals. So why do you still want to watch this story?"

[The Constellation Demon King of Salvation answers that this is the story he wanted to see.]

"You're a truly strange bastard."

Fables floated behind Junghyeok's back.

[The fable King of a Kingless World looks at Demon King of Salvation.]

[The fable Spring of the Demon Realm looks at Demon King of Salvation.]

[The fable Season of Light and Darkness looks at Demon King of Salvation.]

The fables spoke as they looked at me. Fables I had once acquired. The memories those fables had created unfolded behind Junghyeok.

A world I had designed and Junghyeok had put into practice. The completed story of the zeroth round.

"Sometimes, I think this peace is an illusion. There are times when I feel as if someone else completed my life."

[The Constellation Demon King of Salvation...]

"I'm not saying I'm unhappy."

Junghyeok smiled faintly. I had never known he could smile like that, so I stared at him blankly for a moment.

"I always wondered how I should live."

Junghyeok continued as he lightly swung his sword through the air. His fables were contained in that sword strike.

An Incarnation who handled fixed rules better than anyone else.

Junghyeok had fought the system throughout his life, but he was actually someone who could do better with that system in place.

"A fight I couldn't win had no meaning to me."

The ability to judge a situation faster than anyone else and distinguish what benefited him from what didn't. The talent to calculate a battlefield's advantages and disadvantages.

"These days, though, I sometimes wonder. What would have happened to me if you hadn't helped me? What kind of life would I have lived if I couldn't win?"

I knew better than anyone how Junghyeok, who had failed the zeroth round, was living. I knew what happened to him afterward, what life he lived, and what conclusion he reached.

"You know too, don't you? I don't have much life left now."

Footnotes:

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