WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 534: Epilogue 3: Author's Words (3)

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Han Suyeong kept writing. She devoted the brief scraps of time she was given at dawn entirely to Kim Dokja.

"Dokkaebi King."

"Yes, my god."

"I told you not to call me that. From now on, TWSA will be serialized at 7 p.m. The site doesn't have a scheduled-posting feature yet, so hold onto the manuscript and upload it then. If you post it at dawn, the kid will stay up waiting and won't get any sleep."

"I understand."

Suyeong let out a long sigh as she looked at the manuscript she had been writing.

「Yu Junghyeok reviewed the events of his previous round.」

She couldn't write out all 1,863 lives. 3,149 chapters were absurdly short for containing 1,863 lives. Some rounds had to be omitted, while others had to be condensed.

She knew life didn't unfold that way, yet she also had to admit that some lives could only be described that way. Once she accepted that, writing wasn't difficult.

There was the life Junghyeok of the 1,863rd round had passed on to her in its entirety, as well as the information she had received from Dokja of the third round. More than anything, she was an excellent writer.

The gaps she couldn't write would be lived by Junghyeok himself.

He would breathe within the context of those words and set foot upon the solid ground covered in black print.

All she could do was tell his story.

Each time she wrote an installment, Dokja's life was extended by another day. Each sentence she built carried her time forward, too.

Thirteen-year-old Suyeong became fourteen, then fifteen.

「A long serialization spanning more than ten years was beginning.」

It was hard. Her Constitution was lacking, and her young body was absurdly frail. Still, she endured. She thought of Dokja, growing older beyond her monitor just as she was. Dokja, who hadn't died, hadn't given up, and was enduring his life.

- Author. Today, Junghyeok...

Did you really find stories like this interesting?

Though she had her doubts, Suyeong kept writing.

「"The information I gave you will be useful someday. Look over it whenever you have time."」

As long as someone read a story, it didn't end.

It had been the same even in the 1,863rd round, which she had believed was the end.

- Author, I think it would be better to make a new character this time...

She checked the comments Dokja left every day. Since she could only be active at dawn, it was difficult to communicate in real time, but she replied to questions that needed answering.

- Should we make another protagonist?

- If possible, a pretty female character...

- Ah, you mean a beautiful girl.

「A beautiful blond boy, handsome enough to slap Yu Junghyeok across the face twice, glared at him and shouted, "Hey, dumpling man."」

- ...Author??

Dokja at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.

He would grow up consuming this story and become the Oldest Dream. Even knowing that, Suyeong enjoyed the time she had now. A world where words played across a pure white snowfield. Dokja was in that world, and Suyeong was there, too.

- Author. Junghyeok has been way too pitiful lately...

Sometimes, she put Junghyeok through hell. It happened because she was recreating the story she knew with too much realism. As she wrote, there were times when she became confused.

Had this really already happened? Or was it happening because I wrote it?

Either way, Han Suyeong did her best. She took responsibility for her work. Yet at the same time, she admitted she couldn't fully control it.

「Yu Junghyeok glared up at the heavens with blazing eyes.」

Someday, the Junghyeok created by her fingertips would truly meet that Dokja. Whenever she thought about it, Suyeong felt as if she were going mad.

- A smash hit like no other! 『SSSSS-grade Infinite Regressor』!

Around then, her Daytime Self also began seriously working as a writer. Of course, since that self had stolen her talent wholesale, there was no way the work could fail. The Daytime Self even left malicious comments on TWSA through an anonymous account.

- I'm worried about the life of the author writing this.

What was even more ridiculous was Dokja's message.

- Author! Do you know a novel called SSSSS-grade Infinite Regressor? The setting in this novel is so similar to TWSA...

Suyeong snickered and began typing her reply. Right, this was the kid who had even sent messages like this, yet he accused me of being a Plagiarist Author in the 1,863rd round.

- Still, it's nice that the views are going up because of it.

Once she had finished replying to every message, faint dawn light was shining through the window. For some time now, she hadn't felt refreshed even after waking up. Once she started writing, she often used up all the time allotted to her, and sometimes exhaustion overwhelmed her enough that she fell asleep before her Self-Directed Activity time had even ended.

Her memory was gradually getting worse, too. She couldn't clearly remember the information Junghyeok had told her or Dokja had given her. The events of the 1,863rd round were slowly becoming hazy.

And then...

[Your fable is being consumed.]

Her Self-Directed Activity time was gradually shrinking as well.

* * *

Time kept passing, and Suyeong wrote almost every day.

Sometimes, she couldn't wake up and lost an entire day.

There were also more days when heavy fatigue kept her from reading Dokja's comments.

- Author. I'm joining the military the day after tomorrow. I think I'll get stationed at the front line.

- This is Kim Dokja. I'm in Yanggu.

- Junghyeok... Have you ever shoveled snow?

Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two...

The 371st round, the 621st round, the 972nd round...

As Junghyeok's rounds accumulated, Dokja grew older as well. Dokja, who had grown up consuming Junghyeok's tragedies, became a high school student, then a university student, then a soldier.

Suyeong watched him grow.

After becoming an adult, her Daytime Self began staying awake more often during the early morning hours, leaving her with even less spare time. As she naturally lost time to revise her writing, the Dokkaebi King's role grew larger.

"Don't worry. I'll correct the typos."

"You know spelling and grammar, right?"

"I do. I plan to make a living from it. A publishing house was looking for a proofreading part-timer, so I applied with confidence."

She didn't trust him at all, but there was no other way to get help right now. It wasn't as though she could ask her Daytime Self for help. Her strength had weakened greatly lately, and her forgetfulness had worsened to the point where even writing replies to Dokja's comments was exhausting.

「Years passed like magic.」

As she wrote that sentence, Suyeong thought that perhaps her life wasn't so different from Junghyeok's.

Sometimes, lives really were omitted like that. But just because a life passed that way didn't mean it had left nothing behind. Looking at the nearly three thousand chapters piled up before her, Suyeong thought so.

One day, shortly before the conclusion, Suyeong opened the platform window to leave a comment for the first time in a while.

- Stay strong, Dokja.

Had I written a comment like this before?

At first, she thought she had written it half-asleep and forgotten. But there weren't just one or two comments she couldn't remember.

- To answer your question...

When had she written this? No matter how hard she thought about it, she couldn't remember.

What was more, the time the comments had been posted was strange.

- So, rather than a setting error...

Suyeong immediately called for the Dokkaebi King.

Tzztzt.

The Dokkaebi King appeared wearing a fedora. Suyeong asked him,

"Did you write these?"

"Yes."

"Who said you could?"

"I'm sorry I couldn't ask your permission beforehand. You seemed very tired."

Suyeong stared quietly at the Dokkaebi King.

A being who had come to this world in search of his god. Now, he knew who his Creator was.

"What exactly is your goal?"

"I am a Streamer. And like all Streamers, I enjoy telling a great epic. The world you created, I mean."

"This story has only one reader."

"Do you truly believe that?"

Suyeong narrowed her eyes and snapped back.

"I already know what you're planning. You're going to turn the novel I wrote into paid content."

Ever since she had come here, Suyeong had been thinking about that day.

The novel she wrote would someday become a Scenario that destroyed the universe. But who could possibly commit such a terrible act? When she thought about it, the answer was simple.

There was only one being in this worldline who could possibly do such a thing.

"You brought me here from the beginning for that purpose."

"I won't deny it. Though it has not been long since I realized what my role was."

Faint sparks were leaping across the Dokkaebi King's body. It was proof that the system's Plausibility was steadily increasing. The power he had possessed as the king of Streamers was gradually returning. Suyeong watched the sparks and said,

"So the destruction is really going to begin."

"Yes."

"I honestly don't understand it. The order of time doesn't make any sense, either."

"The order of time?"

"I can write this now because Junghyeok lived his life first, and Dokja read the novel. But then I, who exist because of that, write the novel Dokja will read..."

"A time paradox. That is what humans call it. But there are universes that operate only in that way. Universes where the future is written before the past, where causes are created for the sake of their results. You already know of such a universe, don't you?"

Suyeong furrowed her brow as if asking what he meant. Smiling softly, the Dokkaebi King tapped the monitor.

"You're writing that way too, aren't you?"

The scattered ideas Suyeong had thrown out and fragments of words were inside it.

Countless scenes waiting to connect outside time and outside the world. Some scenes had been written first, yet became the future. Others were written later, yet became the past.

Suyeong's gaze wavered.

"Are you saying this universe is a single novel?"

"Metaphorically speaking, yes."

The words on the monitor rippled. One by one, words longing for someone's love flowed out from the screen and found their pairs.

Sentences glittering like stars.

Some sentences willingly became darkness for another sentence, while some became light through that sentence. Some sentences existed for the next sentence, while the next sentence gained meaning because the first sentence existed.

"This universe has no before or after. That is why the First Worldline is completed last."

Within that vast, interlocking chain, the Dokkaebi King smiled in rapture.

"The universe was created moments ago, and at the same time, it has existed for hundreds of millions of years. And some beginnings are born only after the end has arrived."

Sentences poured down like a meteor shower.

The Star Stream was singing to its god.

Because Suyeong wrote TWSA, Dokja read it.

Because Dokja read TWSA, Junghyeok began his Regression.

Because Junghyeok began his Regression, Suyeong could write TWSA.

They were words she had written, yet they had left her hands and become complete.

「A story that would save someone, destroy someone, and let someone live.」

As she watched the terrible path those words traced, Suyeong keenly realized she had been thrown into a vast cycle that would never end.

She was an author who had created a world, yet a powerless god. A god who couldn't properly save even one reader. A god who was only one part of this distant story.

[The Star Stream smiles at you.]

"Look. Isn't it a perfect story?"

Footnotes:

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