Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint - Chapter 585

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 585: Episode 6: Sacred Relic (2)

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"Demon King of Salvation! Watcher of Light and Darkness! Please!"

Light burst from the box alongside Gyeong Se-in's prayer for good fortune.

Then.

[An item of an unknown lineage has been inserted.]

[Someone's hair is inside the box.]

Hair?

No, wait.

Had some foreign material gotten mixed in?

[The synthesized item undergoes a strange transformation!]

[The lineage of the item offered as a Sacrifice has been determined.]

[A higher-grade item has appeared!]

[The number of uses remaining for the Random item Box has become 0.]

A moment later, the rays of light subsided.

Se-in, Uncle Dansu, and I looked at one another, swallowed, then opened the box at the same time.

Inside was a vivid sky-blue "Thought" about the size of an adult man's fist.

Se-in frowned.

"The color changed. It kind of looks like Biyoo's poop."

"Let's check it."

I immediately reached for the slime. Just before my hand touched it, the slime wriggled away.

Looking closer, I saw that the slime had narrow little eyes.

"Jwo-ba."

It even had a tiny mouth.

Was it my imagination, or did it look a little like me, Inho Cheon?

"Jwo-ba. Jwo-ba."

Se-in tilted her head.

"Is it cursing at us?"

"I don't think so. I think it's saying, 'Give me.' It seems to be asking for food."

"How do you know?"

"It sounds like when Jiyoon used to babble..."

After thinking for a moment, Uncle Dansu soothingly offered it the leftover Ground Rat meat from earlier.

The slime stared blankly at the Ground Rat meat, then jumped toward Uncle Dansu's hand. What it devoured wasn't the meat, but the bracelet on his wrist.

Uncle Dansu leaped up in horror.

"Wilson!"

It seemed he had already given the bracelet a name.

Apparently, the bracelet didn't taste very good. The slime promptly spat it out.

Ptooey!

Then it groaned and curled up.

The next moment.

"Huh?"

The slime had become the bracelet.

* * *

After organizing the remaining items, we immediately escaped the Dark Fold.

Fortunately, Uncle Dansu had put a cockroach in his pocket, so it wasn't difficult to find our way out.

Still... why did the back of my head keep itching?

"Inho, what's wrong?"

"No, it's just..."

I stared into the Dark Fold, where nothing could be seen, and added,

"I feel like someone keeps watching us."

"Come on, it's probably just your imagination."

"The bugs say there's nothing there, either."

If Uncle Dansu said there was nothing, there probably wasn't.

At this point, the only strong person [Inter-Species Communication] couldn't detect was Killer King.

I imagined Killer King clutching the box, whose uses had run out, and repeating, "I'll kill you, Inho Cheon."

Well... I hadn't given Killer King an entirely empty box, so surely it was fine.

If Killer King made good use of the note I had put inside, he would still make a decent profit.

Of course, whatever he got wouldn't compare to the bracelet on my wrist.

Name: Thought of Almost Everything

Grade:

Description: A mysterious jelly forged from an unfathomably profound obsession by a Constellation who once studied "almost everything."

When equipped, it raises Agility and Mana levels by 1 each.

The Thought can use the Stigma Mimicry.*

Stigma - Mimicry.

Thought of Almost Everything can imitate an item by coming into contact with it.

Higher-grade items can't be mimicked through simple contact alone. They can only be mimicked after certain conditions have been met.

Once it successfully mimics an item, that mimic form can be used continuously until it is destroyed.

However, Thought of Almost Everything can refuse its owner's "Mimicry command" of its own free will.

As the description alone made clear, it was an overpowered item. In theory, it could become "almost every" item.

Still, Thought of Almost Everything had two fatal flaws.

First, it couldn't be used unless its "Mimicry condition" was met.

Second, the "Thought" itself could refuse a "Mimicry command."

Looking at it that way, maybe it wasn't quite an overpowered item after all.

Beside me, Se-in looked enviously at the bracelet on my wrist.

"I'll get you a nice constellation artifact too, Se-in."

"Really? Ah, no, it's fine."

"What do you want?"

"Heracles' Shield."

What?

As we walked and made small talk, we arrived at the Geumho Station platform.

But Huiwon was nowhere to be seen.

"Where's Huiwon...?"

"Ah, she woke up thirty minutes ago and went to get food nearby with some people."

Food.

It was about time to worry about that.

I asked Bang Cheolsu what had happened while we were gone.

"Did anything happen?"

Judging by the strange expressions on everyone's faces, something seemed to have happened.

Cheolsu began his report in a slightly tense voice.

"A few things happened."

The first report concerned strange lifeforms lurking around Geumho Station.

"They weren't monsters or people..."

According to Cheolsu, the creatures had begun wandering around the area a few hours earlier.

Something immediately came to mind.

"Did they look like rats, by any chance?"

"Some looked like rats, and some looked like lizards."

I had a rough idea of what they were. They were probably Incarnations acting on orders from the Misreading Association.

"What else?"

"A Scenario penalty was added."

A Scenario.

Come to think of it, I had messages waiting too.

When I opened the notification, messages appeared one after another.

[A Scenario penalty has been added.]

[Food stockpiling will now be restricted.]

[All previously stockpiled Food has disappeared.]

[The Survival Fee category has been added.]

[From now on, 100 coins of Survival Fee will automatically be collected at midnight every night. If you cannot pay your Survival Fee, you will die.]

[The Survival Fee penalty will remain until the second Main Scenario has been cleared.]

A ban on stockpiling food, plus a Survival Fee penalty.

So that was why Huiwon had gone to find food.

"Gather everyone for a moment."

Even though all our stockpiled food had vanished, the people didn't seem desperate.

That was probably because this group's starting point differed from the third round.

They had shared food together, and they had united in the face of danger.

"Everyone, gather up! The boss is looking for you!"

"Come quickly!"

The people who had scattered, hungry, began gathering one by one.

"Uncle Inho!"

Dayeong, sitting on Cheolsu's shoulders, waved at me.

As I lightly took her hand, I suddenly thought of Yu Junghyeok.

The day the Fish Dragon had eaten me, Junghyeok had come to Geumho Station.

「"Inho Cheon is already dead. So the minor groups can come out without worry. From now on, I'll teach you how to obtain food."」

Junghyeok hadn't come here to kill people then. He had come to save them.

Thinking about it, I couldn't understand.

This was the forty-first round.

The worldline with the most ruthless Junghyeok in all of TWSA.

Yet Junghyeok had tried to save these people.

"Inho?"

"Yes. Is everyone here?"

When I looked around, I counted more than eighty people.

The number had dropped a little. Aside from those who had gone with Huiwon to find food, it seemed some had left for other areas.

I began to speak.

"You've probably all received the Survival Fee penalty."

A few people reacted to the words Survival Fee.

"That's right! It suddenly told us to pay something every night..."

"How are we supposed to earn these coins?"

I calmly explained.

"You can earn coins through Constellation sponsorships or by clearing Scenarios."

"Scenarios... you mean the thing we did at the beginning?"

"Do we have to kill people again?"

Fear once again filled their eyes.

Most people here had already killed someone in the first Scenario. But almost none of them had killed for the sake of killing.

[The Constellation Abyssal Black Flame Dragon despises the weakness of the Incarnations.]

[The Constellation Nail-Eating Rat says those who haven't come to their senses need to be put through the wringer.]

[The Constellation Monarch of the Small Fries advises you not to waste time on the wrong things.]

The Constellations weren't wrong.

But if I raised only the elite that way, most of these people wouldn't survive.

I would no longer see Dayeong tugging on Cheolsu's ears, or Dayeong's mother scolding her.

[The Constellation Dog Who Threw Himself into the Flames understands your intentions.]

[A Constellation that has not yet revealed its modifier watches your choice.]

Thus, this choice was the least courtesy I could offer the extras who died without ever being allotted pages of their own.

"Taking coins by killing people is one way, but I wouldn't recommend it. Honestly, no one here wants to do that, right?"

"Is there another way to earn c-coins?"

I nodded and looked toward the tunnel.

"Our food has run out too, so this works out well."

"Huh? What do you mean...?"

Just then, Huiwon and the citizens returned from the tunnel, dragging Ground Rat corpses behind them.

"Ah, Inho!"

I waved back at Huiwon as she happily waved at me.

* * *

"No matter how hard we looked, there wasn't any food. We couldn't go aboveground because of the poison gas... so we brought these back. We thought they might be edible..."

"You did well."

I instructed the Ironhead Gang to move the Ground Rat corpses onto the platform.

A few citizens recoiled in surprise.

"From now on, this will be your food."

"W-we're eating this? We don't even know what it is..."

"It's just meat. The cooking method is a little different, that's all."

I used Incitement to present myself as a "professional butcher," then began cutting meat from the corpses.

Huiwon, Se-in, and Uncle Dansu had already seen this once, so they began helping me without panic.

"Take one each!"

Huiwon handed chunks of meat to the citizens.

Once everyone had received a piece, I took out the Mana Brazier we had obtained in the Dark Fold.

"This is called a Mana Brazier."

I placed a piece of meat I had cut on top of it. When I raised the brazier's output, the meat was browned to perfection in just over ten seconds.

Dayeong murmured, her face lighting up.

"Mom, it smells good..."

When I tore off a bite of meat as if demonstrating, people rushed toward the Mana Brazier as though they had been waiting for it.

Cheolsu and the Ironhead Gang rolled up their sleeves and began grilling meat for them.

"Does anyone have salt?"

"Where are we supposed to find salt, man? Just eat it!"

Exclamations rose from all around.

It was only natural. They probably hadn't eaten any meat at all in the last three days.

But my true goal wasn't to fill everyone's stomachs.

[You have completed the Sub Scenario Food Acquisition early.]

[You have acquired 500 coins.]

The Sub Scenario Food Acquisition could only be completed by cooking a monster that had been hunted directly.

The corpses Huiwon brought back this time were Ground Rats hunted by Se-in, Uncle Dansu, and me.

The others probably hadn't received the reward we had.

"From now on, all food must be obtained by hunting monsters."

The expressions of the people tearing into meat stiffened at the word hunting.

"For now, my Companions and I gave you meat we caught, but we can't keep doing this forever. You must learn to hunt for yourselves. That's how you'll survive."

What I said was no different from what Junghyeok, who had come here some time ago, had said.

He had been right, and he had tried to give these people what they needed.

They simply hadn't been ready to accept it.

"Those of you who read the Scenario know this, but if you hunt and cook a Ground Rat yourself, you can earn coins. Even if you don't have any coins now, if you hunt one today, you'll receive 500 coins."

After checking their Scenario windows, people spoke up.

"It's true. It says it'll give us coins."

"But how are we supposed to catch monsters like that?"

"Everyone, don't be afraid. I caught one. So did this uncle."

Se-in and Uncle Dansu stepped up beside me to back me up.

A few people nodded as they looked at their small builds.

Before anyone could object, I quickly added, "We'll teach you how to catch them."

* * *

Uncle Dansu, Se-in, Huiwon, and I carefully taught people how to hunt Ground Rats.

It was valuable information we had learned through bloodshed, which never properly appeared in the main story of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.

Se-in, whose body was still covered in bite marks, puffed out her chest and said, "Ground Rats have very simple patterns. As long as you stay calm, you can catch them easily!"

She had been bitten quite a lot for something that simple.

[The Constellation Commander of the Red Cosmos is pleased by your actions.]

[The Constellation Commander of the Red Cosmos spreads word of your good deed.]

[Constellations of the absolute good alignment view your actions favorably.]

[You have been sponsored 1,200 coins.]

In this world, good deeds became coins.

No matter what I did, the results of my actions led directly to coins.

Was this how Kim Dokja felt?

There wasn't time to dwell on it. We were too weak and too unprepared for the Scenarios to come.

I felt I understood a little why Dokja had been so obsessed with coins.

Having lots of coins right away didn't mean we could do anything extraordinary, but more coins meant more choices.

Our next destination was Chungmuro.

Even if we began gathering coins frantically now, it would be dangerous to face the bald man in Chungmuro.

The Ten Evils of Chungmuro Station.

Pildu Gong, the Armament Lord.

In the main story, he was a character with about as much presence as a single hair, but Pildu Gong was quite a frightening villain in the beginning.

[Coins held: 11,800C]

In a world where even an early skill like [Moonshadow Swordsmanship] cost 8,000 coins, the coins I had gathered weren't enough to improve my overall abilities, much less take care of my Companions.

It would be nice if a bundle of coins fell from the sky.

Dokja earned coins just by breathing.

[The Constellation Lily Blooming in Aquarius has entered the channel.]

At the notification sound, I quickly looked up.

[The Constellation Lily Blooming in Aquarius looks around Geumho Station.]

Lily Blooming in Aquarius.

Gabriel, an Archangel of Eden, had entered the channel.

I wondered why she had come to such a backwater channel, but her gaze was aimed somewhere strange.

[The Constellation Lily Blooming in Aquarius looks at the Incarnation Gyeong Se-in.]

"No, hold the sword like this."

"Like this?"

"Stay still. I'll fix your posture."