WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 548: Epilogue 5: Eternity and Epilogue (3)

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「Day 4 of drifting.」

When Yu Junghyeok finally regained consciousness, he found a sharp fragment lodged in his abdomen. He calmly removed it, then inspected the Ark's hull.

「Day 6 of drifting.」

Junghyeok realized the Ark had completely stopped functioning. The navigation system was dead, and nothing was visible around him. Not even a nearby planet.

「Day 11 of drifting.」

As a few of the Ark's built-in safety devices disappeared, abnormalities began occurring in Junghyeok's body.

[The system's homeostasis has been disrupted!]

[The power of chaos is eroding your entire body.]

[Your fables are gradually collapsing.]

Something had gone wrong, and every function implemented through the system had been paralyzed. Junghyeok calmly checked his fables. Fortunately, all of them were safe.

[The fable Eternal Hellscape envelops you.]

The flames of hell protected his body from the cold.

「Day 21 of drifting.」

The spacesuit Anna Croft had put on him was certainly helpful. Without its built-in protective functions, his body would have deteriorated much faster.

Junghyeok somehow repaired the Ark's power source. It wasn't a particularly impressive repair job, but the Ark began moving again. However, the fuel tanks he had stockpiled had exploded in the collision, so the Ark now used his fable energy.

He couldn't repair the automatic navigation device or autonomous navigation system. He had to pilot it himself now.

「Day 34 of drifting.」

He had to find the route again somehow.

「Day 42 of drifting.」

As he spent more time consuming fables, fatigue gradually built up in his body. He often lost consciousness for brief moments. The darkness was gnawing away at his mind.

Why had he come this far?

At times, his purpose became hazy. He had come here to carry out a mission. To deliver a certain story to the reincarnated Kim Dokja. To restore the Dokja his Allies remembered.

Why? Because there was something he had to ask Dokja.

But what was it again?

「Day 58 of drifting.」

His haggard face was reflected in the Ark's window. The moment he saw it, Junghyeok remembered the question he had forgotten.

What was he supposed to live as in a world after the Scenario had ended?

Right. That was what he had wanted to ask Dokja. That bastard knew everything.

Dokja always thought about the end. A man who planned everything and would not hesitate to sacrifice his life to see the ending of a story.

Someone like that might know.

Dokja might understand Junghyeok better than Junghyeok understood himself.

What did a regressor become once Regression had ended?

Jihye had said she had nightmares every night.

His life had already been a nightmare for a long time. Even so, he had endured because there was still a goal he had failed to achieve.

But that goal was gone now, and the Scenario had ended.

The regressor Yu Junghyeok had become free.

Yet faced with the freedom he had finally gained, Junghyeok couldn't understand what he had truly obtained.

「Day 83 of drifting.」

As his drifting continued, the fables covering the surface of his skin rapidly dwindled. More and more fables scattered into outer space.

The voyage continued, but he didn't know where he was headed.

「Day 102 of drifting.」

Junghyeok began reading Han Suyeong's novel.

He thought reading it might help him endure this time, even a little.

「Day 111 of drifting.」

As he read Dokja's story, Junghyeok held onto a faint hope. Perhaps the Dokja in this story could answer his question.

Starting with the first episode, Junghyeok slowly followed Dokja's life.

There were things he knew and things he didn't. Sometimes, he stopped reading when he reached a certain passage.

「The protagonist and supporting characters walked into the sentence, ‘And they lived happily ever after,’ while I was left alone behind the story's period. Overcome by emptiness and betrayal, young I thrashed about because I couldn't bear the loneliness.」

What was happiness? Junghyeok found the word deeply unfamiliar. Perhaps he had once known. In the vague memories he had glimpsed of the zero round, he thought he might have felt something like it. But that was no longer his life.

「Day 128 of drifting.」

Dokja's reliance on TWSA alone to keep living felt unfamiliar to him. No matter how many times he read it, he couldn't understand.

How could something as trivial as a story sustain a life?

「Day 154 of drifting.」

Junghyeok gradually grew used to reading novels.

There were passages he began rereading often.

「I grabbed a hind leg with just the right amount of fat and tore off a whole chunk of meat. Juices subtly seeped from between the flesh... I forgot to chew and closed my eyes. As expected, reading about it in a book and tasting it for real were different.」

It was the scene where Dokja and his Allies, who had just entered the Scenario, grilled Ground Rat meat. Junghyeok took jerky from the coat inside his spacesuit and tore into it as he reread the passage. As he slowly chewed it with his eyes closed, it felt as though the Allies were with him in the damp darkness of the subway.

「Day 155 of drifting.」

When he opened his eyes again, Junghyeok was alone.

He stared blankly for a moment, then resumed reading.

「Day 211 of drifting.」

Junghyeok continued reading that story alone.

「Day 258 of drifting.」

He read the story again.

「Day 279 of drifting.」

Junghyeok came to understand Dokja a little.

「Day 316 of drifting.」

[Your fables absorb your emotions.]

Whenever he read Suyeong's story, his depleted fables briefly regained their vitality. Their recovery couldn't keep pace with their consumption, but if he hadn't read this story, he wouldn't have endured this long.

Still, he couldn't keep enduring like this forever.

Dokja in the novel was speaking.

「“That's why you should've read it to the end.”」

What did it mean to read a story to the end?

He couldn't fully understand it, but Junghyeok decided to follow that advice.

「Day 333 of drifting.」

Suddenly, Junghyeok realized why he was bound to fail.

「“Even if you save the world, you won't be saved. The moment you save the world, the worlds you abandoned will come crashing down on you. Even if you save one world, every other world you abandoned will drag you to hell.”」

Looking into distant space, Junghyeok thought.

What if this had been the first or second round? What if he had forgotten every memory of his previous lives? If he knew nothing at all about the lives he had lived in other rounds, would he have found an answer instead of wandering as he did now? Would he have suffered less?

Could he have understood what a "happy ending" was, like those in other stories?

Could he have lived in order not to die?

Rumbblee!

The Ark's hull shook. Wondering what had happened, he heightened his senses and felt the backlash of immense energy rushing at him from behind. He hurriedly turned around and saw a swarm turning space completely white. They were beings he knew well.

【Ooooooooooh...!】

Beings abandoned by worldlines and rejected by Scenarios. An enormous wave of Outer Gods surged toward him in a mass. He could faintly smell Fear. They were being chased by something.

Crack!

One of the Nameless Ones fleeing at the rear was pierced through. At least several thousand Hounds Chasing the Abyss were pursuing the Outer Gods as though herding sheep.

Every time a Nameless One was hunted, immense sparks flared amid the tidal wave. The storm of energy grew stronger and stronger. If this continued, he would be swept away in an instant.

【Save save save save save save】

The vanguard of the tidal wave eventually overtook the Ark. The Nameless Ones were desperately fleeing. The eyes of one resembling a cephalopod glanced at Junghyeok.

Crunch!

The monster's body was helplessly pierced by a Hound's fangs. A lump of pitch-black fable it spewed spread over the cockpit window like paint. The cephalopod monster died while looking at him as though it resented him.

Junghyeok had seen those eyes before.

「“Then what were the others and I? What about Jihye unni, Hyeongseong oppa? And Seolhwa unni? What were the people who fought for you supposed to be to you?”」

At that moment, Junghyeok thought he understood what his ■■ was.

What a regressor who had ended Regression should live as.

What conclusion he truly had to reach.

From the beginning, it wasn't something he could decide through his own will.

[Opening the Ark's cockpit.]

The moment he opened the cockpit, a Hound lunged at him. Holding the Black Heaven Demon Blade's hilt in a reverse grip, Junghyeok severed the Hound's neck. The parting wave of Outer Gods clawed past him.

【What what what what what what what what】

【You you you you you you】

As he watched the Nameless Ones flow past, Junghyeok thought of the story he had been reading until moments ago.

Perhaps Suyeong had known, too.

「“You wrote my story. Then you must know where my story should end.”」

That this story would never reach the reincarnated Kim Dokjas.

That was why he must never return to Earth. He must not reveal his survival to his Allies. His absence had to become their eternal hope.

Perhaps this was the Final Chapter fitting for a regressor who had destroyed countless worlds.

【Grrrrr...!】

As he struck away the lunging Hounds, Junghyeok thought about the story that was disappearing.

"Get lost!"

The Lion's Roar burst forth through Mana, and the Hounds hidden among the Outer Gods raised their heads. The Hounds formed ranks and charged Junghyeok all at once. A hole opened in his arm, and the protective gear on his leg was torn away. Fables leaked from the spacesuit that had become rags in an instant. His strength was slowly leaving him.

His long journey through Regression.

Junghyeok knew this was his conclusion.

‘This is the end I wanted to see.’

Could it have been a better conclusion?

If he had made a different choice then, or chosen a better path. If he had, then... Junghyeok gave a bitter smile.

In the end, he was a regressor until the day he died.

He knew it, too. There was no better conclusion than this. No matter what choice he made at any branch, he would have regretted it all the same.

Even so, regretting and regretting again, then reversing the result.

【You you you you you you you you you you you you you】

【Who who who who who who】

That was his life.

"I am Yu Junghyeok."

And at least a few people could be saved because of his life.

Over several thousand Hounds charged at him. Junghyeok swung his sword again and again, as if atoning. With every strike, unknown Nameless Ones were spared.

Cold began spreading through his whole body. More and more fables escaped through his ruined spacesuit. His head spun and his vision flickered. Junghyeok squeezed out his Mana.

Sky Splitter Sword Art.

Ultimate Technique.

Sky-Splitting Meteor Sword.

Fierce fragments of sword light shot out like a meteor shower and pierced the Hounds.

But some Hounds had avoided the sword strikes and rushed in.

【Grrrrrr!】

The next moment, something struck his head, shattering the gear protecting his face.

[Warning! Your fables are scattering. Return to the Ark!]

[Your fables...]

Floating drops of blood were freezing. The Hounds tore at his entire body. Between the fragments of fables being ripped away, the stories Han Suyeong had written for him were breaking apart.

‘Mia.’

Fables scattered like stardust. Watching them, Junghyeok quietly thought of the lonely universe no one imagined.

The Nameless Ones watched his end with vacant eyes.

The story they had built up would be forgotten someday, too. It would become a story no one read.

With his last strength, Junghyeok gripped his sword hilt. He stabbed the neck of the Hound biting his thigh and cut through its body.

A regressor only regrets, but never gives up.

「“Perhaps this round you are trying to abandon is the ‘only round’ where you can see this world's end as a ‘human.’”」

The last way he could live as a human.

It was to not give up on this story.

Crack!

Something tore into the back of his neck, and his vision turned red.

His eyes slowly closed. This was truly the end.

Tssss...

Through his fading vision, he saw the darkness before him distort. Was it a hallucination? Something was on the other side.

The hem of a black coat fluttered among fragments of pure-white fables.

【What a pathetic sight, third round.】

Someone was speaking there.

【This is the last time I'm helping you.】

Footnotes:

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