WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈
Chapter 579: Episode 5: Villain (4)
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[You have invested 4,000 coins in Strength.]
[Strength Lv. 10 → Strength Lv. 20]
[Your Strength level has increased significantly!]
[Even passing Goblins will be startled and frightened by your Strength.]
First, my Strength obviously had to be high.
[You have invested 5,800 coins in Agility.]
[Agility Lv. 4 → Agility Lv. 20]
[Your Agility level has increased significantly!]
[Even passing Elves will turn around at your nimbleness.]
I was clumsy, so I needed high Agility to dodge well.
[You have invested 2,000 coins in Constitution.]
[Constitution Lv. 10 → Constitution Lv. 15]
I had to raise my Constitution this much, too.
[You have invested 1,800 coins in Mana.]
[Mana Lv. 4 → Mana Lv. 10]
Fortunately, my innate Mana stat was 4, so I could save a few coins.
[You have used a total of 13,600 coins.]
[Coins held: 3,500C]
I became broke in an instant, but I had no regrets. It was best to raise my stats whenever possible.
I realized it after meeting Yu Junghyeok.
I didn't have an S-grade skill, so if I wanted to withstand even one blow from monsters like Junghyeok, my body had to be sturdy at the very least.
[You have become the third Incarnation in this Scenario to surpass Strength level 20.]
[You have acquired 300 coins as an achievement reward.]
[You have become the third Incarnation in this Scenario to surpass Agility level 20.]
[You have acquired 300 coins as an achievement reward.]
Even though I had reached Strength and Agility level 20 so quickly, there were people faster than I was.
They were probably other readers. They really were incredible people.
Grrrrrrrr.
Soon, I began to hear Ground Rats. It seemed we'd finally entered an area densely populated by them.
Gyeong Se-in and Uncle Dansu, who were beside me, bustled about with tense expressions.
"The two of us are one body!"
Had the two of them already come up with some kind of formation? As Se-in stepped forward, Uncle Dansu stood behind her and awkwardly drew his sword.
Se-in looked at me seriously.
"There's also a version where the three of us are one body."
"I think... the two-person version looks better."
"There are seven of them ahead!"
Se-in let out a resounding battle cry and ran forward, only to immediately start getting bitten all over.
The flimsy one body quickly split into two bodies.
"Aaaah! It hurts! It hurts! Please save me!"
I had no idea how high her Constitution was, but Se-in wasn't seriously injured even as the Ground Rats bit her everywhere.
Then Uncle Dansu began showing off some strange footwork.
"Just hold on a little longer, hiyop!"
Judging by his needlessly flashy movements, it seemed like they wouldn't catch even one if I left them to it.
I took out the thorn I'd bought beforehand and lightly stabbed the nearest Ground Rat.
Its head burst like an overripe tomato.
Strength level 20 really was on another level. I started stabbing the Ground Rats in the head one by one.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
Thud.
After taking out five Ground Rats in an instant, I turned around to see that Se-in and Uncle Dansu had barely taken out one each.
Se-in realized there were no more Ground Rats around us and looked at me in disbelief.
"Inho-ssi, were you secretly strong all along?"
"Of course."
"I knew it! I knew it!"
[The Constellation Abyssal Black Flame Dragon points at you, saying you're puffed up over the strength you got through microtransactions.]
Maybe because it was my first time spending money in a game, but it was way too exciting.
We encountered several more groups of Ground Rats afterward, but they were no longer a match for me after my Strength and Agility exceeded 20.
"Wow, Inho-ssi, you're really the best."
"You're reliable."
Was this how a protagonist felt?
As I advanced, taking out one Ground Rat with each punch, I found myself grinning.
[The Constellation Monarch of the Small Fries says you can only play around like that at this point.]
[The Constellation Rice Cake-Eating Tiger says the early growth stage is the most fun after all.]
[The Constellation Abyssal Black Flame Dragon agrees, saying that's true.]
[The Constellation Sinister Strategist blinks as though nostalgic.]
How nostalgic...
Well, the other Constellations had probably all grown stronger by catching Ground Rats at first, too.
That thought made me think of Kim Dokja again.
"All of a sudden, I really respect Dokja."
Dokja must have crossed the same Yaksu Station tunnel as us.
And with stats far lower than mine.
He hadn't been afraid or retreated. He'd moved forward, trusting what he had read.
Could I trust what I had written, too?
Se-in asked, "Dokja isn't in this worldline, right?"
"This is TWSA, after all."
As I answered, a memory suddenly crossed my mind.
The image of Dokja I'd seen in my dream. One had been as distant as a real dream, and the other had been a little boy...
Was there really no Kim Dokja in this world?
"But he might be watching us from up there. Like we did."
The ceiling of the pitch-black tunnel was as dark as a night sky without stars.
Se-in looked up for a moment, then suddenly waved and shouted.
"Kim Dokja! Kim Dokja!"
She called out several times.
Naturally, there was no answer from the empty air, but Se-in looked much more refreshed.
If Dokja was really watching this world, then his position and ours had now been reversed.
Could I reach the end of the Scenario like he had?
I wasn't confident. But Se-in was here, and so was Uncle Dansu.
There were probably other readers, too.
It might be difficult alone, but perhaps it would be possible if everyone worked together.
If they, too, were "Dokja's fragments," as Han Suyeong had said.
[The Constellation Sinister Strategist nods.]
That was when something like starlight flickered beyond the darkness.
"Huh?"
I hurried toward it and found a flashlight lying on the ground. Evidence that someone had been here until just moments ago.
And beside it...
"Here it is."
We looked down at the pitch-black cave opening beneath our feet.
"I think we found it."
It was the Dark Fold.
* * *
We entered the Dark Fold in a line, holding hands.
It was clearly a passage leading downward, but the moment we entered it, gravity magically changed direction toward the wall.
It was exactly as described in TWSA.
In this space filled with black Aether, light lost its meaning, leaving a darkness in which we couldn't see even an inch ahead and had to rely solely on our senses to move forward.
Uncle Dansu, who had the [Inter-Species Communication] ability, volunteered to lead.
"This way."
Perhaps he'd finally decided he was taking on an important role, because his voice was noticeably buoyant.
Bored, Se-in spoke to him.
"Uncle."
"Yes."
"How old are you?"
"I'm fifty-three this year."
"You mean your original age, right?"
"Yes."
"You can speak casually to us. That's okay with you too, right, Inho-ssi?"
"Yes. Feel free to speak casually."
I could feel him shake his head in the darkness.
"'Cause polite speech feels more natural to me."
That hadn't sounded like polite speech just now.
Either way, he really was a courteous man.
"May I ask what you used to do?"
At my question, he seemed to hesitate for a moment.
"Right before coming here, I was unemployed."
I wondered if I shouldn't have asked, but he immediately continued.
"I was in the hospital."
The moment he said hospital, Uncle Dansu's hand around mine tightened strangely.
"Perhaps because of that, this world sometimes feels more like an opportunity to me."
An opportunity.
I thought I understood what he meant, but it felt rude to ask further.
This time, Uncle Dansu asked, "Why do you think we came here?"
It was the first question anyone who had undergone Possession into this world would think of.
Se-in answered first.
"Maybe they brought us here so we could experience it once, too?"
Her tone was playful, but it wasn't a possibility we could completely dismiss.
"What do you think, Inho-ssi?"
After thinking for a moment, I answered, "Maybe because someone is needed to complete this story."
"Oh... I've never thought that deeply about it. Then was it TWSA that summoned us?"
"I don't know that either."
"Could it have been Kim Dokja Company? Kim Dokja? Yoo Jonghyuk?"
"Yu Junghyeok, Uncle."
Who had brought us here?
At first, I had thought it was Kim Dokja Company, but now I wasn't so sure.
Would Kim Dokja Company truly bring readers into this dangerous place for any reason?
"Could it be Han Suyeong after all? She is TWSA's author, after all."
Se-in's words gave me a strange feeling.
So other readers also thought Han Suyeong was this world's "Writer."
It was a little miserable that even I felt no particular resistance to that fact.
Come to think of it, TWSA was quite a strange novel.
I'd never even thought of a story like that before. Yet one day, that story had suddenly come to me.
As though someone had really smacked me on the back of the head and left.
Se-in continued.
"Of course, TWSA's author in our worldline is someone else..."
My palms suddenly felt sweaty. It was fortunate we were in complete darkness.
"I wonder what happened to our author. Did they undergo Possession with us? They always wrote notices saying they were sick, so maybe they're already dead. I even sent them a message before about how to stretch."
That person was holding your hand right now.
"Shh. There's someone ahead."
At Uncle Dansu's words, we fell silent.
The black Aether around us visibly thinned, and little by little, we began to see ahead.
It meant we were approaching the Root of Darkness, the core of the Dark Fold.
"Someone is fighting."
The faint clashing sounds of weapons reached us.
[You have entered the Ground Rats' Treasure Trove.]
[Someone is carrying out a Sub Scenario.]
Ground Rat corpses were scattered across the floor. Judging by how cleanly they had been split from head to stomach, whoever did it was highly skilled.
As we moved closer, I saw Darkfire burning in the darkness. A blackish box sat beneath its light.
It was the Random item Box we had been looking for.
Standing guard before it was the Warden of the Dark, just as expected.
The battle had apparently been going on for quite some time, because the enraged Warden of the Dark was wildly using its tentacle pattern.
"Kaliduu!"
Someone was fighting the Warden of the Dark alone.
Se-in whispered, "That's the person I saw earlier. The one riding the bike."
A woman with short sky-blue hair and sunglasses was locked in a breathtakingly close fight.
She avoided the tentacles with strangely flexible movements and landed blow after blow. Her movements were as clean as if they had come straight from fighting game commands.
What was even more shocking was the faint blue-white Aether flowing from the steel fists she wore.
Se-in groaned quietly.
"That's it, right?"
"I think so."
Even looking again, I was certain.
What she was using was Dokja's [White Pure Star Energy].
So she was the one who had bought out the stock.
White Pure Star Energy was one thing, but it was incredible that she was fighting the Warden of the Dark like that.
What had she done to grow so rapidly from the very beginning?
I became curious about her identity.
[Exclusive Skill, Character Profile, has been activated!]
[Character Profile cannot be used on this individual.]
[This individual is a character, but not a character.]
That person was undoubtedly a reader.
She might even be one of the veterans Se-in had mentioned.
[You have used Reader Comment List on this individual.]
I immediately checked the reader's information.
+
ID: ansgkrthsu64
Platform: Sirius
Total Comments: 0
Reader Level: 21
Number of Completed Reads: 0
This reader has not written comments, so there are no comments available to view.
+
My mind went blank for a moment.
Number of Completed Reads: 0.
In other words, she had never read TWSA even once.
Yet she could fight like that?
[There is no record of this reader having read Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.]
[Additional information about the target has been updated.]
[Part of the Profile Information has been modified.]
When I checked again, part of the information had changed.
+
Number of Completed Reads: 0 (12.8)
+
A 12.8 had suddenly appeared in parentheses.
What was that?
That was when I felt a cold sensation at the back of my neck.
Something sharp touched my nape.
"None of you move. If even one of you moves, I'll kill you immediately."
Goosebumps rose on my skin. I hadn't sensed anything at all.
"Drop your weapons on the floor and slowly raise your hands above your heads."
Since I didn't know the other person's Strength stat or skill information, it was best to do as instructed for now.
If they had enough stealth ability to get behind us at this moment, they could attack us anytime.
Spat!
That was when something unexpected happened in the fierce battle ahead.
The woman, who had dodged the tentacles with ghostlike movements, was injured on the forearm for the first time.
I opened my mouth.
"We can help. We didn't come here to be enemies."
"We don't need help."
"Don't be greedy. You know it'll be hard for just the two of you to catch it."
"We can catch it by ourselves."
The man calmly spoke to the woman.
"Yerin. Don't panic. Keep fighting. The pattern is cycling again."
Then astonishing words came from his mouth.
"The upper right is where the pattern begins. There'll be a gap after that, so land a flurry of hits right away."
It was exactly how Dokja had countered the Warden of the Dark in TWSA.
Could he really remember all that?
"All the tentacles have been cut. Finish it now."
Blue-white Aether surged from the woman's fists. She intended to gather Mana and end it in a single strike.
But that was clearly a misjudgment.
It hadn't been written about in detail in TWSA's main story, but the Warden of the Dark had one final hidden pattern.
The final pattern Ji Eunyu had edited out because the battle scene was getting too long.
I sucked in a breath and shouted at once.
"Dodge! There's one more! The last one is from the floor!"
The moment I finished speaking, a hidden tentacle shot out from the floor.
The woman hesitated for an instant, but fortunately dodged the tentacle and landed the final blow.
Graaahhhhhh!
The Warden of the Dark, rendered unable to fight, soon fell to its knees and collapsed.
The woman noticed us only then and turned our way. I couldn't see her eyes because of her sunglasses, but she was clearly quite surprised.
The man's voice came from behind us.
"Turn around slowly."
We slowly turned around with our fingers interlaced behind our heads.
The first thing I saw was a man holding a Stone Hog's Thorn.
His unfamiliar appearance made it clear he was an extra, but his strikingly handsome face left an impression.
In TWSA terms, he was handsome enough to rival Yu Junghyeok.
I immediately activated my skill.
[You have used Reader Comment List on this individual.]
+
ID: killer_king
Platform: Sirius, print edition
Total Comments: 491
Reader Level: 99
Number of Completed Reads: 99.8
You can use coins to view comments written by this reader.
Number of comments currently available to view for free: 3.
+
I doubted my eyes.
Number of Completed Reads: 99.8.
This wasn't some kind of error, was it?
The man, who had been glaring at me with a strange look, suddenly said something odd.
"7942."
Footnotes:
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