Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint - Chapter 55

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 55: Episode 12 - First-Person Protagonist’s Viewpoint (1)

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They say burning to death is one of the most painful ways to die, and I had just experienced it. It felt as though every neuron in my brain were flaring at once.

[The Exclusive Skill The Fourth Wall is alleviating mental pain.]

The pain gradually ebbed. So it was [The Fourth Wall] again. Whenever I escaped a crisis with this skill's help, I always felt strange. TWSA had clearly become reality, and I was living inside it.

Then what exactly was this "wall" I kept feeling every time?

......

No, enough pointless thoughts. I had safely obtained The King of No Killing, and I needed to move again.

The King of No Killing was an attribute that could only be obtained by upholding the condition of not killing one's own kind all the way to the end of the path. Contrary to its name, the real benefit of this attribute was closer to "not dying" than "not killing." It was conditional, of course......

Anyway, I would soon return to my body.

Or so I thought.

[Due to an Exclusive Skill conflict error, activation of the effect of The King of No Killing has been delayed.]

...Huh? A skill conflict error?

[Due to death, your consciousness has been completely freed from the restraints of your body.]

[The Exclusive Skill Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint Stage 3 has been forcibly activated.]

A wave of dizziness hit me, accompanied by a startled feeling. No, wait. This wasn't the time for this.

「“Damn it, if only it weren't for that bastard.”」

For an instant, vertigo swept over me and the world brightened. Then I was looking at a certain "scene."

「Pildu Gong of the Ten Evils pursed his lips as he watched the people moving around inside the platform. What if he ran away right now? He considered it, but no one knew better than he did that he lacked the courage to actually do it.

“Mm...... Dokja-hyung.”

Feeling a weight lightly pressing on his knee, Pildu looked down. There was a boy there, perhaps just over ten years old, asleep with his head resting on Pildu's thigh.

“How did I end up like this......”

Pildu frowned slightly as he looked down at Lee Gilyeong's pale skin. Memories from long ago came flooding back for the first time in a while.

A child.

He, too, had once had a daughter around Gilyeong's age. Shaking his head, he let out a sigh.

―Pildu-ssi, let's stop now....

―Dad. How long are you going to keep going on about land?

There had definitely been a time when he was the head of a household. He earned money to support his family, bought land with that money, got into property speculation, got lucky and became a landlord, took on tenants......

He had finally become Chungmuro's "big hand," but it hadn't taken very long for him to realize that that "big hand" couldn't even protect one small family.

“It's nicer than you expected, right? Getting along with people.”

When he raised his head, he saw a beautiful woman with delicate features. Yu Sangah. The person who had become Chungmuro's Vice-Representative two days ago.

“Take this brat away already.”

“You were smiling just a moment ago......”

Pildu's lips twitched as if annoyed. With a small grunt, Sangah lowered herself beside him.

“You said you were Chungmuro's ‘big hand,’ right?”

“That's just a nickname other people gave me.”

“How much land did you own?”

“About as much as anyone else.”

“If that were really true, you alone wouldn't have gotten the ‘Land Rich’ attribute. There are plenty of people with land in the landlord coalition......”

Pildu let out a short laugh.

“Just because you've got a lot of land doesn't mean it's good land. It has to be good land. You're naive.”

“What kind of land is good land?”

“Expensive land.”

“What kind of land is expensive?”

“Land a lot of people want.”

“Was your land that kind of land?”

At the question, Pildu hesitated briefly before answering.

“......It was.”

Not that it had been land he wanted. Swallowing the rest of the thought, Pildu looked up at Chungmuro's collapsed ceiling. Sangah looked up at the same sight with him. Pildu hesitated and was about to speak again when,

Tuduk. Tuk.

From far away came the sound of very thin Threads snapping. Sangah's face hardened, and Gilyeong, who had been sleeping with his head on Pildu's knee, snapped his eyes open.

Parrr.

The cockroach clinging to the back of Gilyeong's hand twitched its antennae.

The tunnel toward Hoehyeon on Line 4. Something was approaching from that direction.

Sangah shot to her feet, and Pildu deployed his skill.

[The character Pildu Gong has activated Armed Zone Lv.8!]

Pildu bit his lip. It was, how should he put it, the sort of intuition only the land-rich had. Something like that existed. This was...

“Hey! Everyone, gather up!”

This was the feeling he got when someone was trying to take his land.

Dudududududu!

As Pildu's turrets opened fire all at once, something in the darkness collapsed, spraying blood. Ground Rats.

“It's an ambush! Everyone, take position around Pildu Gong-ssi! We'll use the formation we practiced this morning!”

At Sangah's shout, the people scattered around the platform came running.

“Team A, near the forward turrets! Team B, cover the barrage's blind spots! Team C, stay beside Pildu Gong-ssi!”

The people moved in perfect coordination and formed the ranks they had practiced beforehand. The Ground Rats charging at them were cut down helplessly by the group's swift response. Their movements were far smoother than they had been during the Emergency Defense.

As dozens of Ground Rats fell to the floor, the members of the Chungmuro group all had the same thought.

This is easy. So if everyone works together, it's manageable.

Then a voice came from beyond the tunnel.

“So even something like the Pied Piper's Flute isn't enough?”

“This is a place Yu Junghyeok took. Did you think a mere Tier-9 underground species could measure up?”

A group of men and women emerged from the darkness.

Four men and one woman. Pildu's expression hardened.

He didn't know why. But of one thing, he was certain.

These bastards were different from everyone they had faced so far.

“Goddamn it...... Call the little general already!”

“I'm already here.”

Just as he felt a chill in the air, Lee Jihye descended with a blue long saber in hand. Despite her grumbling answer, Pildu felt a little calmer. Jihye was that big a fighting force.

Even so, something still made Pildu uneasy.

“Who the hell are you? Where did you come from!”

“So it was true. The Naval Commander and the Armament Lord really did end up on the same team.”

Instead of an answer, what came back was a mutter that sounded almost like a soliloquy. Pildu barked,

“What kind of bullshit is that? Pull back your line right now. If you don't, I'll shoot every last one of you to death!”

But the five men and women kept talking among themselves without even glancing at Pildu.

“Who's been drafted into dragon-slaying right now?”

“The fifth, sixth, eighth, and ninth. Plus one pretty useful bastard, even if he isn't an Apostle.”

“Then aside from the ones outside Seoul, the five of us are what's left.”

“Five is enough. Let's sweep them aside quickly.”

The first to step forward was a pot-bellied man in his thirties. The number 7 was written on his shoulder. With thick eyebrows and a greasy face, he looked the well-groomed Jihye up and down and smacked his lips.

“I'll take the Naval Commander. Without the sea, she's nothing special.”

“What did you just say, you bastard?”

Jihye let out a sharp shout and charged first. Realizing there was no other choice now, Pildu poured Mana into the turrets.

“Damn it, just die already!”

Dudududududu!

The man with a 4 written on his cape gave a nasty grin.

“A member of the Ten Evils is still one of the Ten Evils. If we'd come any later, we'd have been the ones getting swept away.”

“Third and Fourth. You handle Pildu Gong. Don't let your guard down, and start with the outer turrets one by one.”

The man with a 3 written on his forehead nodded.

“Well...... All right. If it's one of the Ten Evils, it takes the two of us.”

“And Second, you wipe out the rest.”

At that, the woman with a 2 written on her cheek frowned. She was holding a small flute in one hand.

“Why do I get the small fry?”

“You're the most suitable for it.”

“What are you going to do?”

Then the man with a 1 written on his dark cape opened his mouth.

“I'll seize the ‘flag stand.’”」

My immersion wavered for a moment, and my consciousness returned.

Now I finally understood everything. The ability of the Exclusive Skill [Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint]. I had experienced something similar before, inside that sea dragon's belly.

Back then, I had seen Junghyeok.

Even so, I was surprised. I had expected those Apostle bastards to come prepared, but not to this extent. Just from the items they had brought, I could tell how thorough they were. A Mana Bullet Decomposition Shield that could defend against Pildu's attacks, and even the Pied Piper's Flute to control Ground Rats. They really intended to conquer Chungmuro, get their hands on Yu Junghyeok, and swallow up this world.

But it wouldn't be that easy.

「“Wh-what the hell! Was the Naval Commander this strong this early on? Hey, isn't something wrong here?”

The first one to let out a groan was the Seventh Apostle. Jihye's sharp swordsmanship was gradually pressuring the Seventh Apostle. It had to be that way. At this point in time, Jihye was overwhelmingly stronger than the Jihye from the third round.

“Damn it, were Pildu's turrets always this tough?”

The Third and Fourth were in the same predicament.

Even the Second Apostle, who was playing the Pied Piper's Flute, was struggling because of Sangah's [Thread Binding] and Gilyeong's Mjolnir's Thunder.

In the end, the one who stepped forward was the First Apostle.

He frowned, pulled something out of his coat, and lit it.

Then he threw it at the people of Chungmuro.」

Kwaaaang!

A deafening blast swallowed the entire Chungmuro platform in an explosion.

For that one instant, even I was startled.

...That fucking bastard?

Mass Slaughter Mana Bullet.

It wasn't something that could deal serious damage to higher beast species, but against humans, it was an incomparably lethal item. It was a weapon that could only be made with certain materials found in the Gangseo and Gangnam areas, along with rare materials purchased through the Dokkaebi Compendium.

That bastard was the Apostles' "king."

The purple flag sticking out of his back proved it. Chungmuro's platform emerged through the pale dust. My chest tightened.

As the dust settled, I saw the fallen members of the Chungmuro group.

People coughing up blood after being struck by sharp fragments.

Sangah and Gilyeong were sprawled on the ground. Even Pildu, who had [barrier], was covered in wounds, as if he hadn't been able to avoid the surprise attack completely.

「“Whew, now that's more like it. Right?”

The Seventh Apostle grabbed Jihye by the head and forced her back up. She had taken the explosion from the front, so she had suffered the worst damage out of everyone in her group.

“If you're a supporting character, then act like a supporting character, hm?”

“You bastard...... Khk!”

Jihye bit her lip until it bled after taking a punch to the stomach.

“I'll kill you slowly.”

“Seventh. I said we don't have time.”

“It'd be a waste to kill her that easily. I haven't read far enough ahead to know what happens later, but isn't a character like this doomed to be used as a fake heroine and thrown away anyway?”」

Jihye's small body swayed in the air like a broken doll. Her trembling lips. She was looking at me.

「H... elp... me.」

A surge of impulsive rage wrapped around my mind. It wasn't like me.

Jihye was definitely a "character."

[The Exclusive Skill The Fourth Wall trembles faintly.]

But...... just because she was a "character."

[Due to excessive immersion, some functions of The Fourth Wall have been restricted.]

My vision lurched for an instant, and a sickening wave of nausea hit me.

[Due to excessive immersion, proficiency in Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint has greatly increased.]

[Changing viewpoint to first person.]

The world spun once, and my consciousness stretched like a rubber band. Then, when I opened my eyes the next moment, I was really in Chungmuro.

...How?

Jihye's shaking eyes were looking at me. It wasn't just her. In that instant, everyone on the platform was looking at me.

Everything in my sight was moving slowly.

I walked toward Jihye. More precisely, my body was moving regardless of my will.

One step, then another. Slowly, but steadily. The distance between us closed. The Seventh Apostle frowned and asked,

“Who are you......?”

It felt uncomfortable, like wearing clothes that didn't fit my body. My viewpoint was at a subtly different height than usual, and my five senses felt alien.

At that moment, "I" realized who I was.

A hollow laugh escaped me. I hated this. I really hated it.

Jihye's lips moved slightly.

“Ah......”

My hand gripped the hilt as if it were doing something it had repeated millions of times. The feeling of my fingers wrapped around the grip was unfamiliar. The draw was so natural, it was almost beautiful. I shivered at the fantastic sensation, something I had never felt in my life.

The silent blade moved, and no one could see it. Only,

something brushed past, something was severed, and something fell to the floor.

Some people recoiled in shock, and others simply stared with their mouths hanging open.

The Seventh Apostle holding Jihye slowly crumpled to the ground. Blood gushed from the bastard's exposed severed neck.

My hand moved and caught Jihye's small body as she fell.

“Ah, ah......”

Jihye made a choking sound as I gently set her down on the platform. When I straightened up, the Apostles were staring this way with wide eyes. The first to speak was the Third Apostle.

“You...... Who the hell are you?”

Ridiculous. Was there any question more stupid than that? My mouth moved slowly. As if I had been this man from the very beginning.

“I am Yu Junghyeok.”

The coldest, loneliest voice in the world.

At last, the prince sleeping in the forest had awakened from his deep slumber.

“And all of you will die here.”

Now Chungmuro would be safe.

I felt the consciousness that had slipped out of Junghyeok's body slowly returning to my original body.

[The Exclusive Skill Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint Stage 3 has been deactivated.]

[The skill conflict error has been resolved.]

......

[The delayed effect of The King of No Killing has activated again.]