WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 553: Prologue: This Is Not a Notice

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Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint Side Story

Thank you all for waiting so long. At last, the Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint side story begins.

I've started it, but honestly, I have no idea what I should write about. I never wrote the original story with a side story in mind.

During my break, I read the feedback you all left on the main story, and I was truly shocked.

You are all geniuses.

Unlike you, I have no ideas at all. I have so little planned that, in fact, I still haven't even decided on a protagonist.

The main story had practically written itself, but now my mind was blank, as if someone had smacked the back of my head as hard as they could.

Even so, I was writing this notice because I thought that if I at least wrote a notice...

.

.

.

I stopped typing there and held down the backspace key.

Damn it. What was I doing?

No matter how bad things were, this wasn't something a professional writer should say.

By now, those of you reading this were probably wondering.

Who exactly was writing this? Who was this person claiming to write an ORV side story?

My identity did appear in Episode 549 of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, but nobody would remember a name like mine anyway, so I'll kindly tell you again.

Simply telling you wouldn't be any fun, so let me put it the way Dokja would.

My name is Lee Hakhyun.

My father went to a naming shop and spent the enormous sum of 300,000 won to have my name made.

Hak, meaning crane, and hyeon, meaning to fly.

I suppose it meant I should soar like a noble crane.

The naming shop that gave me my name went bankrupt a few years later. Only then did my father discover the parentheses hidden before the meaning of hyeon, "to fly."

Hyeon, meaning to fly

1. (lightly) fly.

I didn't know whether that damn name was the reason my life had turned out this way, but in short, I was this kind of person.

Hakhyun, 33 years old.

A (lightly) hit web novel writer.

For the record, the title of my only hit was the very work you had read.

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Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, 551 episodes

Author: Lee Hakhyun

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A long Fantasy novel spanning 551 episodes, Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.

ORV, for short.

That's right. It's my work. But did the author's name seem a little strange? Had you never heard of Hakhyun?

Then you were probably an ORV reader from another worldline.

In my worldline, I'm ORV's author.

...

You want me to stop with the introduction and start the side story already? You want to know why I'm rambling about the author?

I know. What you want to know is Kim Dokja's story.

Did Dokja return to his Companions? Or did he fail to return?

That's what you want to know. That's why you opened this novel. Why you clicked Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.

I have something to tell you.

Congratulations. You've been fooled.

Because this isn't a story about Dokja. It's a collection of nonsense spouted by some nobody named Hakhyun.

I'm sorry, readers.

I didn't want to deceive you, either. I wanted to tell you Kim Dokja's story, too. But what could I do when no story came to mind at all?

All I could do now was hope for a miracle.

For Yu Junghyeok to suddenly appear and smack the back of my head, like in ORV Episode 549.

Or for Han Suyeong to send me the story after the ending, as in ORV Episode 551.

If not that, then...

Bzzzt.

Ah, that wasn't the sound of a Plausibility Spark. Those sound like Tss-tss-tss, don't they?

Bzzzt.

That was my phone vibrating.

Let's see. The caller was...

[Assigned dokkaebi]

That startled me. In case anyone had hoped otherwise, the person calling me wasn't Bihyeong.

Who would a writer's assigned dokkaebi be?

―Writer.

Of course, it was my assigned editor.

"Her name is Ji Eunyeu. She's a veteran PD in this industry, and she's the reason I, once a literary fiction writer, got dragged into it."

―Writer? What nonsense are you talking about?

"Yes, Editor. Listen to this. I just came up with a brilliant premise for the side story."

―What is it?

"What if I became the protagonist of the ORV side story?"

After a brief, ominous silence, Eunyeu replied.

―Go on.

"A tragic ORV author chugged beer and fell asleep, then Tss-tss-tss! He got transported to another world..."

―Writer.

"Yes."

―Do you remember the last thing you wrote before ORV?

I recalled a memory I didn't want to remember.

"It was a story about a writer."

―What happened to it?

From then on, I decided I would never use the word "flopped."

―What happens when you write a story about a writer?

Of course, a writer's resolutions rarely lasted three days.

"It flops."

―So, should you write one or not?

"I shouldn't."

―Lesson learned.

We sighed at the same time.

―What exactly are you planning to do? You said you'd set a serialization schedule. When are you giving me the manuscript?

"Well, what if Han Suyeong wrote the side story?"

Lately, I've seriously been thinking that.

What if Han Suyeong was the real author, and I was just some kind of writer terminal that transcribed the manuscripts she sent me?

Otherwise, how could no manuscript come out of me like this?

―You weren't playing a game just now, were you? A notification said you had started one.

I shut down the game that had been loading.

"Do you think I play games just to play games? I'm trying to get ideas."

―A writer who plays games to get ideas will keep playing games even after getting those ideas. Did you forget?

"I have written a bit. Though it probably isn't what you want to see, Editor..."

―You were obviously writing a side story hiatus notice. You haven't even started serializing it yet. Does it make any sense to write that first?

At times, Eunyeu spoke like a real dokkaebi.

―You said you were going to write a crossover with your previous works. What happened to that?

For the record, her "previous works" meant the novels I had written before. A brief list went as follows.

Orc Philosopher

Infinite Warden

System Breaker

The Wizard of an Undying World

Method Master

How to Become a Star Writer

...

"They're all flops. If I clumsily link their worlds together, I'll ruin ORV too."

―I liked all of them.

"Even if you say that..."

―There are lots of readers waiting for your story.

"Where?"

It was embarrassing to admit, but ORV had once reached first place on the platform's Free Best list and enjoyed a pretty good run.

Readers who liked my novel appeared, and people talked about it in all kinds of communities.

Sometimes, I secretly searched for Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint and felt pleased as I read readers' reactions.

That was all in the past.

Now, nobody remembered my novel.

―Stop twisting my words. I'm telling you there are. A lot of them, too.

I gave a bitter smile.

How many readers could there be for a novel that had ended three years ago?

"I'll do my best."

I answered glumly and ended the call. Then I thought I should have a drink today.

I closed my laptop, went to a nearby convenience store, and picked out a can of beer and something to eat. At first, I picked up potato chips, but I put them back and chose protein biscuits instead.

I was old enough to worry about things like that now.

After quickly paying and drinking my beer, I remembered what Eunyeu had said.

"There are lots of readers waiting for your story."

Could there really still be readers waiting for my story?

I drained the beer and logged into the web novel platform again.

A flood of message alerts had piled up. System messages asking me to keep serializing, messages from fellow writers announcing the start of their own serialization.

And messages left by readers.

―I'm a 14-year-old middle school student this year...

Some were cute, while others were earnest.

―Reading this novel is what gets me through my military service...

They were all fragments of fables readers had left for me.

And three years had passed.

The reader who had been in middle school would be in high school now. The high school reader would be in college, the soldier would have been discharged, and the job seeker would have found a job... I hoped.

In any case, the readers had become something and left this story behind, while I remained here, a boring person who chose protein biscuits over potato chips.

―It was fun, Author.

I choked and spilled a little beer.

An alert had gone off, so it must have been a message that had just arrived.

I couldn't believe someone was still sending a message to an author three years after the ending.

―Sender: Kim Dokja Representative

The moment I checked the sender's ID, someone came to mind.

Kim Dokja Representative.

Back when I had been actively serializing, there had been a reader with that nickname.

―It's already been three years since ORV ended. Every year around this time, I remember the old days and reread it from the beginning. I enjoyed reading it again this year. It's strange, because every time I reread it, it feels like I'm reading a different novel.

Suddenly, I remembered three years ago. I had so much fun following the serialization back then.

They were the words I wanted to say.

This reader had commented every day and sent a message with their impressions every time.

In short, they were someone who suited the nickname Kim Dokja Representative.

―You might not remember me.

Of course I remembered.

I remembered writing desperately until every deadline, then reading the readers' messages and comments with my exhausted body before I went to sleep.

If not for the people who endured that time with me, I couldn't have endured the loneliness or written the last sentence.

After hesitating, I reached for the keyboard. This time, I wanted to reply to a reader not with a novel, but with my own words.

But then...

―There will be a small fan event tomorrow at seven in the evening. If you have time, I hope you'll come and enjoy it with us. We also plan to give you a special gift as thanks, Author.

A gift?

―I'm sorry, but the event Entry Ticket is paid. I need to make a living too.

The prologue of ORV suddenly came to mind.

In the prologue, Dokja received a message from the author tls123.

It said the epilogue would be released as paid content.

It seemed this longtime reader had prepared a small joke.

I began typing a reply.

―Thank you so much, Reader. But I'll accept only the thought behind the gift. And if the Entry Ticket is paid... that's a purchase, not a gift.

Surely they hadn't prepared a separate gift for me?

Even if they really had prepared one, I couldn't just happily accept it. How could I take a gift with the shameless face of someone who hadn't even written a side story in three years?

By the way, maybe I should remove this "(Muahaha)" after all? Did people still use things like that these days?

In my innocence, I sipped beer and thought about such things.

Without knowing what would happen to my life the next day.

...

Those of you who read this far were probably confused.

You had clearly clicked on the ORV side story, so what was this even about?

You might have been thinking that.

For all of you, I'll give you an important spoiler about the story to come.

This story is a side story of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.

This is the story of the "Kim Dokja" we had forgotten.

Footnotes:

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