WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 545: Epilogue 4: Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint (10)

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Han Suyeong shouted.

"You stupid bastard! This worldline's Ark was destroyed long ago..."

Yu Junghyeok's sword attack entered Suyeong's opening. In an instant, the dagger in her hand flew through the air. Blood spurted from the cut.

Junghyeok's blade pointed at her throat.

"Junghyeok-ssi! Wait!"

"No, Master! Have you lost it? What the hell is going on?!"

The allies who had followed them came running over to stop the fight.

Junghyeok didn't even turn to look at them as he swung his sword. A terrifying wave of Mana burst from the Black Heaven Demon Blade, drawing a burning line a step in front of the approaching allies.

"Nobody cross it. If you do, I'll cut you all..."

Suyeong's left foot shot up and struck Junghyeok's wrist. The Black Heaven Demon Blade spun through the air before embedding itself in the ground.

Suyeong said, "Junghyeok. You know this, but I really hate it when one loach muddies the water."

"..."

"Until a little while ago, I was in a pretty good mood. More specifically, until you pulled this shit. I guess these past two years of peace were too sweet. I'd completely forgotten what kind of bastard you are."

It was impossible to tell who her boiling rage was for.

Suyeong remembered the allies' expressions as they read the novel. Their faces had gradually found peace as they read that story. Suyeong, the allies, everyone else... they had only just found the courage to take one step forward from that day.

Suyeong held out her palm toward Huiwon and Sangah, who were about to cross the line.

"Everyone, stay back. Looks like I need to settle things with this bastard today."

With those words, Suyeong and Junghyeok disappeared. They reappeared dozens of meters above the ground. Their fists collided with a thunderous boom.

The edge of Suyeong's hand struck Junghyeok's waist, while Junghyeok's right foot kicked Suyeong in the solar plexus. Even the Constellations' eyesight would have struggled to follow their exchange. Blood gathered at Suyeong's lips, and bruises bloomed on Junghyeok's raised arms.

Watching the battle, Jihye finally reached for her sword. Sangah stopped her.

"Unni?"

"Let's leave them alone for now."

As if she sensed something, Sangah restrained the allies and unfolded her Lotus Pedestal. She intended to protect the civilians from the backlash that would soon follow.

The next moment, the weather in the sky began to change.

[The Great Fable Holy Flame That Devoured Myth haltingly begins its story.]

[The Great Fable Liberator of the Forgotten has opened its eyes in the darkness.]

Ancient fables were awakening from the clash between the two. Suyeong shattered Junghyeok's fist with all her strength and said, "Tell me. Why today? You stayed quiet for the past two years, so why the hell are you pulling this bullshit today of all days?"

"You don't need to know."

"Ah, is that so?"

She hadn't intended to go this far. But seeing Junghyeok refuse to yield with that expressionless face made her fury impossible to bear.

"I always hated you. I always regretted it. Why did I write the story of someone like you with my own hands?"

Words she would never normally say. Yet today, Suyeong spat out every one of them.

"I cursed the other me. If that story hadn't existed, nothing would have happened. Nobody would have died. And Dokja..."

Junghyeok's fist entered that split-second opening and cut off her words. He kept fighting in silence, his lips tightly sealed. She didn't get a proper answer, but Suyeong knew why Junghyeok was seeking the Final Ark.

"We already failed. If we failed and came back, we should've quietly accepted that fact. Have you forgotten everything [The Fourth Wall] said back then?"

That was why she couldn't bear it.

「You shouldn't have been greedy. You should have been satisf ied with hav ing 4 9 % of Kim Dok ja.」

It was the voice of [The Fourth Wall], one she had never forgotten even once since that day.

Junghyeok opened his mouth.

"You're talking like a loser. You simply gave up."

Whenever their fists collided, worn-down fables scattered through the air. Fragments glowing with faint light settled on Junghyeok's cheek.

Only then did Suyeong notice Junghyeok's ruined appearance. His hair resembled a magpie's nest, and his face was filthy and unsightly.

Suyeong stepped back, swallowing hard as memories flashed through her mind.

Yu Mia crying that her brother had suddenly disappeared. Junghyeok vanishing after walking away from the Pro Gamer career he had barely managed to resume.

「Should I have asked how he'd been doing?」

Golden Aura gathered in Junghyeok's right hand. The Secret Technique of [Sky-Splitting Collapse Fist]. Junghyeok was serious now.

Suyeong quickly opened her right hand.

[The Stigma Character Summoning has activated!]

At least if she used this Skill to send him flying far away...

[That individual is no longer a character.]

Only then did she realize it. Junghyeok before her was no longer a character from the TWSA she had written. After Dokja's Final Chapter arrived and the story of TWSA ended, Junghyeok had completely escaped the status of a character.

A golden fist tore through the air toward her. Suyeong activated every evasion Skill she could use at once.

The near-miss grazed her shoulder. The aftermath of that powerful fist sent a tingling through her body.

Junghyeok muttered, "You have barely lost any of your Skill's power. Is it thanks to the system's protection?"

Suyeong's Skills could still exert such great power because she had the Administration Bureau's fable, which she had received from Bihyeong in the 1,865th round.

Junghyeok asked in a numb voice, "This world no longer needs a system. Why did you take that fable?"

"Obviously, to sustain Dokja's life."

One reason they had attempted [Group Regression] was because Dokja's Avatar was weakening. Suyeong had taken the Administration Bureau's fable because she feared the same thing might happen to Dokja.

"Why bother? You know as well as I do that he can never wake up again."

"Dokja isn't dead yet..."

"If you truly believe that, why are you stopping me?"

For a moment, she had no answer.

Junghyeok instantly moved behind her and struck Suyeong's back with his fist. She crashed onto the ground, coughing up dust as she rose. Staggering, she shouted, "Yu Junghyeok, get a grip! Do you think Dokja would want you doing this? Dokja told us not to abandon this world. You agreed with him too!"

"That's why I decided not to regress."

"Don't make me laugh. You just can't regress anymore. If Regression still existed, you would've gone back again!"

"Maybe I would have."

Junghyeok's golden eyes shone through the dusty haze. They were asking Suyeong a question.

"Are you any different?"

Suyeong couldn't answer. Instead, Dokja's fables remaining in her hands answered for her.

[The fable One Who Opposes the Extraordinary is saddened.]

They were words she hadn't been able to let go of. She had endured life by writing those words somewhere. Don't regress. Live in the present. Repeating such trite words from the bygone past, Suyeong endured each moment. That was how she spent two years.

"So you're no different. You haven't forgotten anything either."

"Shut up."

Suyeong leaped forward in an instant and punched Junghyeok in the face. Each time their fists met, the fables they shared, the fables they had built together, shook.

[The fable King of Kaizenix is disturbed.]

She thought she had endured well. She thought as much time had passed as the sentences she had written. Breathing, eating, sleeping. That was how Suyeong survived.

「A regressor isn't only someone who regresses.」

But could that be called living?

「Some people live their entire lives in the bygone past.」

Whenever the bones in her fist shattered, fables scattered a little more. Raw memories preserved without a single revision. Without realizing it, Suyeong gathered the scattered fables.

Because she didn't want to lose even one. Because she didn't want to forget even one.

「For the past two years, she hadn't moved forward a single step.」

Suyeong caught her breath and said, "What would change if we did this now?"

"..."

"Even if we leave this place, we can't find Dokja. And we can't leave."

"..."

"This worldline's Ark is already destroyed. Have you forgotten what happened in the Final War? That isn't an Ark. We can't leave this worldline!"

Their powers clashed once more.

Rrrumble!

With that sound, their Mana created a storm. At the center of that storm, Junghyeok said, "I've gathered so many fables, but I still don't know what my ■■ is."

Ferocious fables burst through the air. Junghyeok swung his fist without caring that his precious fables were being damaged.

"You wrote my story. Then you must know the place where my story is meant to end."

At that moment, sentences flowed through Suyeong's mind.

「Did Yu Junghyeok really come here to find the Final Ark?」

A belated realization washed over her.

The regressor, exhausted by the Scenarios, had actually survived because the Scenarios existed.

Junghyeok gathered all his fables. The fables of Junghyeok, who had finally escaped the curse of Regression, revealed their hostility toward Suyeong.

"Give it everything you have, Han Suyeong."

「This was Yu Junghyeok's final battle.」

Every cell in her body sounded an alarm.

A regressor who had repeated a long life.

An emotion appeared in the eyes she had described dozens, hundreds of times. Suyeong knew what that emotion was.

Junghyeok wanted to die here. At the hands of the one who had written his first sentence.

"You've never moved the way I wanted you to, not even once!"

Kabooom!

Junghyeok, unleashing his full power, swung his fist once again. It was a strike containing Great Fables. The final mark of their battle was about to be made. Suyeong also unleashed all her fables. And then.

A roar like an exploding star erupted.

Her whole body hurt as if it had been beaten. Every bone in her outstretched right fist had shattered. Her allies shouted and people screamed. Through the pain that tore at her ears, Suyeong endured the impact. Her entire body was in tatters.

Junghyeok had collapsed before her.

Her heart pounded.

"Yu Junghyeok?"

Junghyeok's fingertips trembled faintly. He slowly opened his eyes and looked up at Suyeong. Gasping for breath, Suyeong forced out the words.

"A little different from Dark Castle, isn't it?"

As she said it, both her legs buckled beneath her. When had she been hit? The bones in her knees had been completely shattered.

"Doesn't seem that different."

"You bastard..."

The two fell facedown side by side. Suyeong crawled toward Junghyeok. She felt she wouldn't be satisfied unless she hit him at least once more.

Just as her trembling hand was about to strike the back of Junghyeok's head, Junghyeok's equally trembling right arm caught her wrist. Their arms strained against each other in the air for a long time before drooping as though crossing over one another. Now, they truly had no strength left.

Above them, scars where their fables had collided and torn remained in the sky. Through the grotesquely ripped heavens, they could see the distant Star Stream. The few stars remaining in the night sky cast faint light upon them.

After watching that sight for a while, Junghyeok spoke as if in passing.

"They said Dokja scattered across the universe."

Dokja's shattered soul. How much of Dokja was within those tiny fragments? Suyeong didn't know.

Still, those tiny Dokjas would have been born as something at the edge of worldlines she didn't know. Perhaps they had been born human. Perhaps in a place like Earth. This time, perhaps they had been born on a continent other than the Korean Peninsula.

"Do you think he became happy?"

The moment she heard those words, Suyeong felt as if something had ended.

Her heart ached terribly. She heard something breaking. The sound of one story ending. The sound of their long mourning finally ending. The sound of someone who had lived only in the past finally letting that past go.

At that moment, Suyeong was seized by a strange sense of transgression.

"Dokja..."

「Wasn't the truth that she wanted him not to give up?」

Even if everyone else let go of this long sorrow, perhaps she had wanted at least one person to keep doing this damned thing, ruining his own life.

Listening to Junghyeok cough, Suyeong said what she needed to say.

"He's probably doing well. He's strong."

"..."

"He's probably built a life for himself there and is living happily in his own way. Maybe he's reading some strange book again."

"Even if we find him, he won't remember anything."

Their mourning ended here.

There was no meaning in crossing worldlines. Even if they found that Dokja, what could they possibly do? They couldn't force the past onto someone who remembered nothing.

The reincarnated Dokja wasn't Dokja. Now, nowhere in this universe was there a Dokja they knew.

Yet Suyeong said something strange.

"You never know. If TWSA exists where he was born too."

She didn't know why she had said that.

"TWSA exists there too..."

As if rejecting her will, her mouth continued to mutter.

「Kim Dokja, who became the Oldest Dream, scattered across the entire universe.」

Her mind spilled out confused sentences.

「This universe is maintained by the imagination of such an Oldest Dream.」

「Then what dream is the Oldest Dream dreaming now?」

Goosebumps rose across her arms. It was a thought she had tried not to have.

「"The uncle from another worldline probably likes books too, right?"」

It was truly an absurd fantasy.

Yet Suyeong couldn't stop thinking about it.

Dokja, reading someone's novel on the other side of the distant universe, with an expression she didn't know.

"Would he... still be curious about how this story ends?"

"What are you talking about?"

"If the countless Dokjas scattered across the universe were all to read the same story at once..."

「Why do Constellations try to spread their fables far and wide?」

「Why is the foundation of this world a story?」

"If every Dokja who has forgotten that he is the Oldest Dream dreams the same story."

A way to get Dokja back without ruining the lives of Dokjas reincarnated in other worldlines.

Suyeong continued in a dazed voice.

"If the story he dreams... is the same story we want...?"

Her thoughts were shattered by the black shadow cast over her.

"This was supposed to be a park, but the two of you turned it into a complete mess."

How long had Anna Croft been standing there?

"Are you planning to cross worldlines again?"

The moment Suyeong saw Anna's face, she came to her senses. Only then did she realize what nonsense she had been imagining and felt ashamed.

It was absurd from the start. Making Dokjas in other worldlines dream of the novel she had written? It was the most ridiculous nonsense imaginable.

Above all, there was now no way to cross worldlines in this world.

Yet Anna's expression was a little strange.

"I thought a day like this might come someday."

Anna's eyes glowed red. Her gaze was fixed on the museum's spire.

The model of the Final Ark.

Suyeong's heart slowly began to pound. It couldn't be possible. It couldn't, so why...?

Rumbleee!

Very slowly, the model above the museum began to rise into the air.

Junghyeok, eyes wide, had already risen and was looking toward it.

An Ark. It was very small, but it was undoubtedly an Ark.

"Just in case, I gathered parts for twenty years and tried to repair it. If you didn't return, I wanted to try finding you at least once. There weren't many usable parts, so I couldn't restore it properly, but..."

The slowly floating Ark opened like a capsule, revealing its interior. It was a tiny Final Ark, barely large enough for one person to board.

"It can be used. But only one person can board it."

Footnotes:

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