WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈
Chapter 563: Episode 2: Rewrite (8)
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The Reader Uncle beside me stood rigidly, his shoulders trembling as he whispered.
"Don't try to fight. Count to three, and we'll run together."
For all I knew, this man had probably read Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint to the end.
He had to have.
No, I'd forgive him even if he hadn't.
"You should run, Uncle. Your Constitution, Strength, and Agility don't look very high either."
"No, I'll try to buy time too. There isn't much time left, so if we just hold out a little longer, it'll be over..."
Lee Cheoldu charged at the Reader Uncle's back with a boar-like roar.
I threw myself at Cheoldu with all my strength.
"Oof."
Cheoldu dropped his pipe from the impact. Maybe because of the difference in our weight classes, he didn't fall.
Just as I thought I'd messed up, I saw Cheoldu's gold teeth gleam white.
"Well, a hero's arrived."
Cheoldu easily pinned both my arms, then slammed his forehead into my face.
Fortunately, I remembered seeing the Headbutt skill in [Character Profile] and reflexively threw my head back, but the impact still rattled me. My vision spun, and my knees gave out.
By the time I came to my senses, Cheoldu was already on top of me, straddling me.
I opened my mouth, trying to look as calm as possible.
"Lee Cheoldu, leader of the Ironhead Gang."
Cheoldu's eyes widened.
"What, you know me?"
"Are you planning to live as a murderer for the rest of your life?"
"This bastard..."
Cheoldu smiled unpleasantly and whispered into my ear.
"You don't think that's better than dying?"
[Current remaining time: 2 minutes.]
Instead of answering, I turned my head and looked around. People were watching us from a distance. Some were crying, while others were praying.
Kim Cheolyang was singing a hymn with the others. From the sounds of "Oh bugs, bacteria," and whatever came after, they seemed to be mourning my death already.
"Are you smiling?"
Cheoldu frowned and clamped both hands around my throat. With a choked gasp, my breathing was cut off in an instant.
It struck me anew that there was no one I knew in this history.
[Current remaining time: 1 minute.]
There was no righteous Lee Hyeongseong here. No Yu Sangah who would rise for the weak, no Lee Gilyeong who collected bugs. No Jeong Huiwon who fought villains, no Yu Junghyeok driven mad by repeated Regression.
And...
The oxygen reaching my head rapidly dwindled, draining the strength from my whole body. Just as my vision darkened, I heard a dull impact.
Through my blurred vision, I saw Cheoldu staggering.
Behind him, someone stood unsteadily with a pipe raised.
It was someone I knew.
A man more ordinary than any character in Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.
A man who knew nothing well except for the novels he'd read for ten years.
My protagonist, who was actually a coward but had risked death time and again for the people he loved.
「Kim Dokja.」
Another dull impact rang out, and Cheoldu roared as he drove his fist into my face.
As I coughed up blood, Cheoldu chased after Dokja.
I rubbed my eyes. The back that had looked like Dokja vanished, and I saw the Reader Uncle running away.
[Current remaining time: 40 seconds.]
Cheoldu caught the Reader Uncle and took the pipe from him.
I wiped my lips and ran.
[Current remaining time: 20 seconds.]
As the pipe swung down, I shielded the Reader Uncle and rolled. A dizzying pain spread across my back.
Cheoldu shouted.
"You crazy bastard! If I don't kill you, you'll die too!"
[Current remaining time: 10 seconds.]
"You psychopath! Because of you, everyone's going to die now! Everyone..."
For the first time, I looked up at Cheoldu and smiled brightly.
"I don't care."
Cheoldu's scream, the people's shrieks, and the pounding of my heart blended together.
[Current remaining time: 1 second.]
Then.
[The time limit has elapsed.]
[Paid Settlement has begun.]
Every sound around us vanished.
The world spun as though it had turned once.
Gasping for breath, I raised my head. I blinked, checked my vision, then checked my breathing.
Everything was normal.
The time limit had elapsed, yet I hadn't died.
A faint emotion rippled deep in my chest.
The Reader Uncle, who had fallen beside me, pushed himself up and asked.
"Did... did we succeed?"
I nodded. Just as I slowly opened my mouth, something collapsed beside me.
It was Cheoldu's huge, headless body.
Startled, the Reader Uncle trembled and muttered.
"Uh...?"
Beyond Cheoldu's massive body lay the desolate sight of Geumho Station.
The first person I saw was Kim Cheolyang, the Life Church Leader.
He was saying something to me. I couldn't hear his voice, but it wasn't hard to imagine the words.
「My God.」
Then I looked at Lee Hye-gyeong, who had been bringing yogurt to their son, Jeong Hancheol, who had planned to meet his girlfriend, and Ji Hyeongdong, who said they would run a chicken restaurant with their wife.
I wanted to ask them.
「Does anyone here know what ‘1,863’ means?」
Popopop!
Kim Cheolyang's head exploded.
「Of course, none of you do.」
Starting with him, people's heads began bursting all around us.
Hye-gyeong, Hancheol, Hyeongdong...
The characters' heads disappeared one by one, as if they had never existed in the first place.
Staggering, I approached Cheolyang.
I stared at the empty space where Cheolyang's head had been, trying to recall his face, which I was already struggling to remember.
But I couldn't.
Because I had never described their faces.
They were beings never used in Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.
People who had been created in advance but never found a place in the story, remaining only as settings.
「The Life Church.」
According to its setting, the Life Church was a cult that recognized only beings it designated as “life,” massacring everyone else.
Hye-gyeong, Hancheol, Hyeongdong... Everyone in this history was the same.
「The people in this Area become the Life Church in every round where they survive.」
Those who had never been recorded would remain unrecorded.
They would stay here as “settings,” never read by anyone.
「For the sole reason that someone had designed them as villains.」
When I looked beside me, the Reader Uncle stood with his mouth hanging open. The sight of Geumho Station was being imprinted on his retinas like printed letters.
Looking at him, I thought.
The thought kept coming.
「I want to write a novel.」
The blood that had flowed out covered all of history like spilled ink.
No one besides us had survived, no matter where I looked.
My legs slowly gave out.
The Reader Uncle muttered blankly.
"How could this..."
"..."
"You were trying to save those people, weren't you...?"
After a brief pause, I answered.
"Yes."
Actually, halfway through, I'd sensed that the Bacteria Strategy would fail.
No matter how I thought about it, the Constellations wouldn't find a development like this entertaining.
Even so, I hadn't told the others.
With this, Cheolyang, the members of the Life Church, and Cheoldu would no longer appear in the story.
I didn't know about other Areas, but the history of Geumho Station would not differ much from the main story.
「There is only one survivor in this Area.」
I looked up at the ceiling. Bihyeong was looking down at me amid the dazzling radiance. He looked genuinely impressed.
Looking into the eyes of a dokkaebi intoxicated by a story, I muttered Yu Junghyeok's favorite line.
"Goddamn Star Stream."
I knew what would happen to me soon.
I felt blood trickling down the back of my head.
[The will of the Star Stream is looking at you.]
This damn world, which showed only what the stars wanted to see, was far too contrived in its staging.
That was why my head would only burst after everyone else's had.
[Few Constellations are looking at you.]
[The Constellation Monarch of the Small Fries is entertained by you.]
I tried to shake off the fear of death rushing in.
I wasn't afraid. Once I died, even this fear would disappear.
I looked at the Reader Uncle one last time.
"Uncle."
Perhaps knowing what was about to happen to me, his hands trembled. Tears welled up in his eyes.
"N-no. Friend, no."
At least until I met Dokja, until I saw the protagonist of my story, I wanted to survive.
But perhaps...
"Make sure you live to the end."
Maybe I had already met him.
I prayed that the Reader Uncle would live a long, long time, all the way to the end of this story.
Something ran down from my head, and a pure-white darkness washed over me.
In my final moments, I wondered how this scene would be written if it were a novel.
What would readers say about my death? There was no need to ask.
They would think it was only natural for me to die.
There were countless reasons why I should die.
Not killing the first bug I caught right away.
Failing to take control of the situation more coldly.
Feeling clumsy sympathy for the characters I had created.
...
That this story was written from an omniscient “reader's” point of view.
No matter how many reasons I listed, they were enough to justify my death.
I was dying because I had failed to prove my value.
That was why I was confused.
Why.
Why wasn't I dead yet?
* * *
rlaehrwk37 : Waiting for the next chapter.
* * *
I suddenly came to my senses.
I wiped away the blood streaming down from my head. It was from the wound Cheoldu had given me earlier. Fortunately, it wasn't very deep.
My fading mind cleared again. My breathing and pulse were both normal.
「I didn't die.」
Why?
[You have cleared the First Scenario.]
I looked down at my bloodstained palms.
Neither bugs nor bacteria had been recognized as living beings.
Then how?
[You have massacred a total of 19 living beings.]
[Massacre record: 19 humans.]
[You have acquired a total of 1,900 Coins.]
[You have successfully killed in a unique way no one has ever attempted.]
[Some Constellations are amazed by your killing strategy.]
When I turned my head, I saw the Reader Uncle's face. He was crying as he held my hand, unable to believe it.
Looking at him, I realized what had happened to me.
[The Star Stream recognizes your wicked method of killing.]
[You incited people with false information, causing them to commit suicide.]
.
.
.
[The Administration Bureau has given limited recognition to your method of killing.]
[The Administration Bureau has named your method of killing Incitement Murder.]
.
.
.
[Some Constellations support the new Scenario you have shown.]
[You have acquired 4,000 Coins.]
[You have achieved a nonexistent achievement.]
[You have achieved the Incitement Massacre achievement through an astonishing massacre.]
When I turned my head, I saw my face reflected in the screen door.
He was asking me.
「Did you really not think it would turn out this way?」
Kim Cheolyang of the Ten Evils, who had existed only as a setting, had failed to survive at Geumho Station because of this man.
I now knew who he was.
The man who had ruled Geumho Station before Dokja arrived.
The man who used Incitement freely, controlled people, and formed a “group” in the shortest time possible.
The Incarnation who, in some rounds of TWSA, survived to the very end and rose to the highest position among the Ten Evils.
The reason this man was a narrow-eyed character I had never seen before.
It was because I had never once described his appearance.
Because this person was...
「“Everyone's good except for bastards like...”」
Among the many characters in Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, he was the only one I disliked.
From somewhere, I heard a sound like a drum being torn apart, and the lights throughout the history flickered wildly. Something collapsed with a loud crack.
I could tell from the sound alone.
[Main Scenario #1: Proof of Value has ended.]
It was the sound of the reality we knew collapsing.
[You have acquired 300 Coins as a basic clear reward.]
[100 Coins have been deducted as a channel usage fee.]
[Additional reward settlement has begun.]
One episode had ended, and the next was beginning.
[The person you are currently possessing is Inciter Inho Cheon.]
Footnotes:
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