WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈
Chapter 533: Epilogue 3: Author's Words (2)
──────
Suyeong had suddenly become a sixth grader. Why?
Throughout the early morning, Han Suyeong was in a daze.
At first, she wondered if she had regressed like Yu Junghyeok.
[Self-Directed Activity time has ended.]
[The next scheduled Self-Directed Activity time is in approximately 14 hours.]
[Control of the body is being reclaimed.]
However, once those messages appeared and she lost control of the body, she realized what had happened.
[You may exercise control only when the main body's consciousness is asleep.]
She had undergone Possession of her younger self.
‘Could this be a new Scenario?’
Yet no matter how long she waited, no Scenario message appeared.
She watched her disheveled younger self wash up, eat breakfast, and go to school. There was nothing else she could do.
Exactly fourteen hours later, new messages appeared.
[The main body's consciousness has fallen asleep.]
[Self-Directed Activity has begun.]
[You have received control of the body.]
She spent the day as a foolish thirteen-year-old, then regained control of her body every night as if by magic. And then she would cry out,
"What am I supposed to do?"
Her thoughts were a mess. If this truly was the First Worldline, then everything she did now might affect every worldline to come.
After taking a deep breath, Suyeong decided to examine her surroundings first.
Three rooms and a living room, furnished with expensive, simple furniture.
She knew this house.
There was the housekeeper who came to work early in the morning, the lazy guard who occasionally watched for visitors, and her parents, who took turns visiting in unfamiliar cars every weekend.
Her father was a member of the National Assembly, and her mother was an actress. Suyeong had never considered them family.
The world didn't know she existed. Her parents wouldn't want her existence exposed, either.
"It's all exactly the same."
Suyeong flipped through the pile of books on the thirteen-year-old's desk. Some were books she had liked, while others barely rang a bell. The hazy memories probably belonged to her other self. Still, judging by the worn pages, it was clear she had read every one of them.
「Everyone has a life of their own.」
Seeing that she had even underlined such a petty line gave her chills.
Maybe all those insignificant sentences had piled up to create Han Suyeong.
That was when the doorbell rang.
At this hour?
She immediately pressed the button to check the entrance. At first, she thought it was the guard, but on closer inspection, she saw the guard lying unconscious beyond the screen. A middle-aged man in a fedora smiled and waved at her.
― The Dokkaebi King.
* * *
"Why do you look like that?"
"When I came here, I suddenly became human. Most of my system authority has also been confiscated... Why have you become younger?"
"You made me this way."
"I did no such thing. It is the influence of profound Plausibility... Well, anyway, may I come in for a moment?"
With a sigh, Suyeong led the Dokkaebi King inside.
"Do you live alone?"
"Yeah."
"You have many spare rooms."
"Don't expect me to let you stay the night."
The Dokkaebi King looked dejected.
After steeping tea bags and serving the tea, Suyeong asked, "So why did you bring me to this worldline?"
"From now on, we will search for the Creator together."
"How?"
"That is what we must think about from now on."
"You came here without any plan?"
"I do have a few suspicions. For example, that novel."
Suyeong's expression stiffened. It seemed the Dokkaebi King knew about TWSA, too.
"The person who wrote that novel is likely the god who designed this universe."
tls123. The author of Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World.
Suyeong let out a quiet sigh and brought over her laptop.
"I already looked."
― No search results.
"That novel hasn't been uploaded yet."
"Hmm, has something gone wrong?"
"We must have arrived too early. I'm sure serialization starts this year."
"How do you know that?"
"If what I heard is right, Kim Dokja first read that novel when he was fifteen. I'm thirteen now, so he must be fifteen right now."
Suyeong recalled the crumpled notebook Dokja had once given her.
He must have been in a hurry, because he had filled it with all sorts of information.
The Dokkaebi King stroked his chin and muttered, "The great one at fifteen... That sounds rather cute..."
"There's something I'm curious about."
"What is it?"
"What happens if TWSA doesn't appear in this world?"
"Excuse me?"
The Dokkaebi King hesitated at the question, then continued.
"Hmm... Then that person would be unable to read the novel."
"If he can't read it, does that naturally mean TWSA can't become reality?"
"That may be so. At the very least, the new worldlines derived from here may never experience an apocalypse."
If that was true, then preventing Dokja from reading TWSA might prevent this worldline's destruction.
"I understand what you are thinking. You intend to stop the serialization of TWSA, don't you?"
"That's right."
Suyeong nodded. If tls123 wasn't some inhuman being, she might be able to prevent this worldline's destruction with her own power.
The Dokkaebi King objected.
"An interesting thought. But you don't even know who the author is..."
"Have you ever read that novel?"
"No, I haven't. Have you?"
"Yeah."
After thinking for a moment, Suyeong continued.
"That novel was terribly written."
"..."
"It's full of exposition from the very beginning, the pacing is a mess, and it has no regard for its readers. Dokja was the only person who read it from beginning to end."
"Ho, as expected of the great one..."
"Do you think that makes any sense?"
The Dokkaebi King narrowed his eyes as if asking what she meant. Suyeong continued.
"No author avoids rereading their own novel. And since web novels can't be edited perfectly before publication, they would have clicked on what they uploaded over and over again, if only to fix typos. But... after chapter 100, every chapter of that novel had exactly one view."
At last understanding what she meant, the Dokkaebi King's eyes widened.
"Surely not..."
"That's right. That guy is the author of TWSA I'm thinking of. I don't know why he wrote it himself and insists he didn't, but there's no doubt."
A blank document remained open on her laptop out of habit. Looking at the blinking cursor, Suyeong said, "Find Dokja. Before that bastard starts TWSA."
* * *
The problem was how to find Dokja.
"Do you not know where he lives? Since I have no system authority, we must find him ourselves."
"Somewhere in Seoul, probably."
"Are there any other distinguishing traits?"
"He'll probably be hiding somewhere, reading fantasy novels like crazy..."
"How are we supposed to find him with that?"
"I don't know. You figure it out. I'm just an elementary schooler."
After saying that, Suyeong immediately passed out. When she woke again, the Dokkaebi King was nowhere to be seen.
"So that's why I was always falling asleep at school."
No wonder sleep overwhelmed her every time she went to school... Had her other consciousness been waking up and acting?
Waiting for the Dokkaebi King was rather boring, so Suyeong did what she could during the early morning hours.
Mostly, she explored social media.
"That guy probably had a blog or something..."
Whenever she got bored, she created a secret folder on her laptop and tried writing fiction. They were usually short pieces to keep herself from losing her touch.
The day after she finished one of those short pieces, something truly strange happened. Her thirteen-year-old self, active during the day, had caused trouble.
"Suyeong, since when were you this good at writing?"
She won the grand prize at a school writing contest that had suddenly been held. The story was even identical to the short piece she had scribbled out at dawn.
"It just suddenly came pouring out."
Come to think of it, people had started saying she could write when she was thirteen. From this point on, Han Suyeong would begin walking the path of a Writer in earnest.
One month passed, then two.
Suyeong began to find living while watching her thirteen-year-old self rather enjoyable.
Fifteen-year-old Dokja was probably living somewhere in this world, too.
Whenever she thought of that, Suyeong felt strangely happy.
What should she say first when she met that obnoxious bastard?
Time flew by until it was September, then October.
Her parents occasionally came home and left behind gifts she didn't even like.
Finally, December arrived. Suyeong began to feel something was wrong.
― No search results.
Why hadn't tls123 started serializing yet? Had she done something wrong and changed the future?
That couldn't be. She hadn't even met Dokja yet.
What would happen if TWSA wasn't serialized before the year ended?
Would this world continue without TWSA ever existing?
Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad world. If TWSA didn't exist, then the world would never face its destruction. Then...
The phone rang at that moment. Thinking it was obviously one of her parents again, she picked it up.
― I found him.
"What? Where? No, where are you right now?"
Her heart began to pound. He had found Dokja. Finally.
What she heard next, though, was something even [Predictive Plagiarism] hadn't foreseen.
― Well, this place is... an emergency room in a hospital.
* * *
Suyeong took a taxi at dawn, avoiding the guard's eyes. The hospital wasn't far away. Doctors and nurses moved about busily even at that hour. The screams of patients were intermittently heard. The empty gurneys carried the deeply rooted scent of death.
Even in places without Scenarios, someone continued to die.
Tiny apocalypses. A place where unrecorded lives faded away.
Half out of her mind, Suyeong examined the gurneys.
"Ah..."
Fifteen-year-old Kim Dokja lay there.
His face was pale and gaunt. An IV needle was stuck into the wrist of the boy wrapped in bandages.
"I'm telling you, it wasn't our fault! This kid, at school..."
A couple with faces unlike Dokja's, who appeared to be relatives, shouted irritably at a doctor. Suyeong looked at them, then pressed the Dokkaebi King.
"What happened to him?"
"They say he jumped from a classroom window."
Suyeong slowly reached out and examined Dokja's body. His body was wrapped in crude casts and bandages. Dark bruises remained on his face. His arm, with no trace of muscle, lay limp at his side.
Suyeong took the boy's hand.
It was as small as her own.
"Do something... Do something about this."
"Don't worry. The injuries aren't fatal. Fortunately, it was a low floor, and he struck a tree on the way down..."
"That's not what I mean!"
The couple could be seen approaching from afar. They had noticed Suyeong and were shouting something.
But Suyeong couldn't hear them.
Why?
「"If it hadn't been for that novel, I probably would've died back then."」
She didn't know whether that was her memory or a memory from the third round.
「"There you go overreacting again."」
「"I'm serious."」
Old memories washed over her like waves through a distant ringing in her ears.
With the Dokkaebi King supporting her, she left the hospital. Medical staff and paramedics carried a new patient into the emergency room.
"At any rate, we found him."
"..."
"Seeing him in person, he truly lived up to his reputation. Did you sense the terrifying aura emanating from his entire body? Once he opens his world..."
The Dokkaebi King chattered on as though eagerly anticipating the apocalypse that would soon come to this worldline.
Suyeong staggered as she muttered, "Dokja said he read that novel when he was fifteen."
"Yes, so soon..."
"What happens if that guy can't read the novel?"
"Excuse me?"
If TWSA didn't begin, the world wouldn't be destroyed.
But what would happen to Dokja?
"Excuse me?"
"..."
"Are you crying right now?"
Dokja's tragedy was common. If small glances accumulated, if slight goodwill gathered, it could have been overcome. But this wasn't a situation where he could expect even that small attention or kindness.
Whom could a thirteen-year-old elementary schooler, who could only barely come to her senses at dawn, possibly save?
"Why?"
She couldn't leave him to that Dokkaebi King, either.
His way of speaking was strange, he couldn't use the system, and he was an unemployed dokkaebi with no proof of identity. How could she trust him...?
Suyeong blankly looked down at her hands.
「"That novel saved me. So I have to repay the protagonist."」
Something that could save Dokja.
"Do you have any money?"
"Excuse me?"
"Give me five thousand won. No, make it ten thousand."
Suyeong immediately took the Dokkaebi King's money and ran to a nearby PC cafe.
The Dokkaebi King ran after her, screaming.
"That's all the money I have!"
Secretly taking a postpaid card from the drowsy PC cafe owner, Suyeong logged in and opened an internet browser. She entered the address of the web novel platform she always used, then searched for the author's name.
― No search results.
tls123 still hadn't appeared. Even as the final day of the year drew near, serialization hadn't begun.
Suyeong stared at the screen for a moment, then clicked the platform's Apply for Membership button.
She didn't know who tls123 was. But as long as tls123 wasn't Dokja, as long as someone else had written that damned novel... Then.
― No one is using this nickname. Would you like to use it?
Did it really matter who that person was?
The hand gripping the mouse trembled. The button of tragedy lay beneath her fingertips. If she clicked it, the destruction of countless worldlines would begin.
But if she didn't click it...
― Yes.
The little world she had seen would disappear.
― Congratulations, tls123! Your account has been created!
Suyeong checked the time.
[You have 3 hours remaining in Self-Directed Activity.]
[Once the main body awakens, your control will be forcibly reclaimed.]
Opening a document, she immediately began typing. Her fingers moved brilliantly, as though pouring out a manuscript she had long considered in her mind.
Typing without a single typo. Sentences so precise that they seemed to have cut out an entire world. Yet there was no reader-friendly structure, no device to draw them in. She wrote and wrote such a boring story.
Hoping that one person, and one person alone, would certainly read it.
「This is a lie.」
Countless worlds fell apart beneath her fingertips.
Countless characters died.
「At least, until this becomes the truth.」
Every possibility she could gauge through [Predictive Plagiarism] flooded her mind.
Some became narratives, and some became settings.
How much time passed? At last, Suyeong's fingers stopped.
「Faced with the unfathomable calamity that had struck him, Yu Junghyeok spoke.」
Not every story could be learned through [Predictive Plagiarism].
「"Until I see the end of the Scenario, I will never give up. So..."」
She didn't know whether Yu Junghyeok had truly said those words or not. This was all a fictional story, after all. She had created it.
That was why she wanted to write those words. She wanted to put them in Junghyeok's mouth.
「"You, too, must not give up."」
Taking a deep breath, Suyeong slowly raised her head. When she turned around, the Dokkaebi King was staring at the screen with an enraptured expression.
"Dokkaebi King."
The Dokkaebi King slowly knelt and waited for her words.
"I'm going to sleep."
[You have consumed too much mental energy in a short time!]
[Your ego is turning into the subconscious...]
.
.
.
When she regained consciousness, she was lying in bed.
Midnight. It seemed an entire daily cycle had already passed while she was unconscious.
Damn it, what did I do?
Suyeong got up, clutching her head. The blue laptop desktop was visible on the table. Without thinking, she opened the internet browser and connected to the serialization platform.
Several comments had already been posted on the chapter she uploaded at dawn yesterday. Most said it was no fun or called her an exposition junkie.
"I rushed it out in barely two hours, of course it is... Besides, I wrote it that way because I was trying to make it as similar to TWSA as possible."
One comment stood out among them.
― Author, this is really interesting. What is the upload schedule like?
The sheer innocence of using his own name as a nickname was absurd. Suyeong stared at it for a long time. Looking closer, she saw another comment.
― Will you perhaps upload another chapter tomorrow, too?
Again and again, Suyeong clenched and unclenched her fists. Sweat covered her small hands. Could she write these words?
Would it really be all right?
After hesitating for a long time, Suyeong wrote a reply.
Thinking of someone who was still alive beyond this monitor. Thinking of a boy who breathed, ate, shouted things like "I am Yu Junghyeok," and somehow endured his own apocalypse.
And so the story of the regressor, spanning 3,149 chapters, began.
― Yes. I will upload another chapter tomorrow.
Footnotes:
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