WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈
Chapter 593: Episode 8: Representative Kim Dokja (3)
──────
At Dokja Representative's words, the readers calling one another by name and username fell silent in an instant.
As a heavy silence settled over the hall, I became newly aware of the readers' appearances.
People ranging from teenagers to those in their sixties.
Some looked like friends or siblings. One person wore an apron, as if they had been cooking. There was a person in a neat suit, and someone in pajamas hiding beside a pillar as though embarrassed.
Apparently, this place showed everyone exactly as they had looked immediately before Possession.
Whatever the readers had done in their original lives, their attitude here was the same.
A deep silence, so complete that not even breathing could be heard.
Dokja Representative finally spoke again.
【You must all have many questions, yet no one is saying a word.】
They couldn't help it. Everyone who had survived until now was a veteran.
Readers who had made it through the first and second Scenarios, then desperately survived the hellscape.
【The first person to step forward at a time like this is always the one who gets their head smashed in. You all seem well versed in clichés.】
As though he understood them, Dokja Representative twisted his lips into a smile.
【But you may rest assured this time. I didn't call you here to harm you. The banquet will be brief, so don't hold back. Ask your questions.】
The readers glanced at one another.
No matter what Dokja Representative said, they couldn't trust him so easily.
More than anything, he possessed a terrifying Status, enough to summon every reader here.
He might even have been capable of killing everyone here with a single finger.
「Of course, that was only if he could bear that Plausibility.」
From the beginning of a Scenario, it was impossible in terms of Plausibility for a high-ranking Constellation to bring down its true body or summon this many Incarnations at once.
That was why I was able to raise my hand without hesitation.
Tzzzt.
Faint sparks had been running over his body for a while now.
Someone already pushing himself that far wouldn't put on a show like a dokkaebi by killing Incarnations.
Still, another reader raised their hand before I could.
Dokja Representative pointed at them.
【Oh, go ahead.】
A teenage boy who looked to be in his late teens. His distinctly serious gaze made quite an impression.
"Who are you, and where is this?"
【Questions about a person and a place. Good. That is how stories begin. Who is the protagonist, and where is this place?】
Dokja Representative took a light breath, then looked over the other readers.
【But who I am and where this is aren't important. Because I am not the protagonist of this story. I am only...】
"Are you Kim Dokja?"
Several readers drew in sharp breaths at the boy's unexpected question.
Most of the people here were probably curious about that more than anything else.
Was this "Dokja Representative" the Dokja they knew?
Dokja Representative's brows drew together slightly.
【I just said that who I am isn't important.】
"Come to think of it, you can't be Kim Dokja."
The boy's voice held a subtle hostility.
Dokja Representative paused.
【Why do you think that?】
"Kim Dokja wouldn't bring us somewhere dangerous."
The boy's voice was calm and rational.
A girl who looked like family stood beside him, and strangely, her eyes were closed.
It didn't seem to be because she had narrow eyes like Inho Cheon's. There seemed to be another reason.
After looking them both over, Dokja Representative smiled.
【Are you two siblings?】
"That's none of your..."
【How touching. You believe the Kim Dokja you know would never summon his blind younger sister into this world. Is that your innocent little assumption?】
The boy clenched his fist and frowned, but the girl tightly gripped his sleeve as if stopping him.
Dokja Representative smiled as though pleased by the sight.
【Kim Dokja is not the sort of person who pities someone over such a trivial reason. If he truly were, he wouldn't have let that grandmother die in the first Scenario.】
The line sounded strangely familiar. Then I remembered writing a similar scene in Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint once.
【At Geumho Station, he led people to stab one another to death.】
Had it been during the Duet of Good and Evil?
There had been someone who attacked Dokja with that same logic then, too.
【In the Final Sacrifice Scenario, he stood by until tens of thousands of Seoul citizens died.】
Everything Dokja Representative said was true.
Yet even after hearing it, the readers showed no particular signs of being shaken.
【Do you truly believe that Kim Dokja wouldn't bring you here for his own purposes?】
"He wouldn't."
【Why not?】
"Because..."
"Because I'm a Kim Dokja fragment."
A female student standing across from him interrupted the boy.
She was a girl around Jiyoon's age.
"Since I'm a Kim Dokja fragment, I know. Dokja wouldn't do something like this."
There was such powerful certainty in her voice that even I felt stirred for a moment.
She truly believed in Dokja.
Maybe she wasn't the only one.
"Are you really Dokja Representative?"
So did the middle-aged man who had been watching the conversation.
"I've exchanged notes with Dokja Representative before, but he didn't talk like that."
Others who had been hanging back timidly added their own words.
"What exactly are you trying to say? We know better than you what kind of person Dokja is."
"Why are you dressed up as Dokja in the first place? Stop hiding who you are."
Dokja Representative, who had listened silently, drew in a deep breath.
He had only swallowed a breath, yet it felt as if all the oxygen around us had suddenly vanished.
When I looked around, not only I but everyone else had gone pale.
【That damned Kim Dokja.】
As though I could breathe again, Dokja Representative continued.
【Kim Dokja, Kim Dokja, Kim Dokja. You are truly noisy. Why do you all like him so much?】
He sounded as though he held a grudge against Dokja.
【The only thing he cares about is the survival of Kim Dokja Company. He is a heartless god who pays no attention, no matter how many extras die in his dream.】
It felt as though someone were pricking my head with needles.
Part of me knew it, too. From a certain perspective, someone could think that way.
【Was Kim Dokja truly a good person in the story you all loved?】
A massive screen rose behind Dokja Representative. It displayed scenes from a Scenario.
Judging from the atmosphere, it wasn't the worldline we had been in until moments ago.
「"I prayed to see the epilogue of a certain novel."」
It was the story of the novel I had once written and the readers had once read.
From the first Scenario to the final Scenario. The long journey Dokja and Kim Dokja Company had taken together.
「Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.」
Dokja's story, written from Dokja's perspective and for Dokja.
Dokja Representative spoke.
【You must have all wondered at least once what kind of lives those Dokja did not choose were living in that world.】
Beneath the feet of Kim Dokja Company, marching toward the end of the world, nameless corpses piled up.
Their souls were crying out.
That they had existed in that world.
That they, too, had been part of this story.
But Dokja never looked back at them.
【I trust that you, too, know what an extra's life is like in this world.】
The readers fell silent for a moment.
Even those who had defended Dokja couldn't say anything this time.
The screen zoomed in on an Incarnation dying alone at the edge of a Scenario. An Incarnation who died alone, unnoticed by any star.
The Incarnation looked at me and spoke.
「"Save me..."」
Perhaps one of us was currently in a state of Possession as that Incarnation.
That death was no longer just the story of an extra.
It was our story.
"What are you trying to say?"
I was the one who spoke.
"Do you want us to soothe the resentment of dead extras? Is that why you dragged us into this goddamn world?"
Dokja Representative smiled broadly.
Then a message appeared before my eyes, as if it were his answer.
[The Star Stream has agreed to register a new Sub Scenario for you.]
[A new Sub Scenario has arrived!]
+
<Sub Scenario (???) ― Qualification of Records>
Category:
Difficulty: ???
Clear Conditions: You are in a state of Possession in the relevant worldline through the Otherworld Covenant. Cooperate with the other possessors, prevent the predetermined destruction, and pioneer a new fable.
Time Limit: ―
Reward: Return to your original worldline and additional rewards.
Failure: Death
+
It was somewhat expected.
Like Dokja, who had gone to the 1,863rd round, we were beings from another worldline.
Naturally, there would be a Scenario to return us to our original worldline.
The problem was its contents.
「Prevent the predetermined destruction and pioneer a new fable.」
Prevent the predetermined destruction.
In other words, Dokja Representative had summoned us because he wanted to change this worldline's conclusion.
I heard the boy who had first spoken to Dokja Representative mutter.
"As expected, the Otherworld Covenant..."
When I looked around, several readers were already calmly assessing the situation and making calculations.
The hope that, if they could somehow stop this world's destruction, they could return to their original world.
Having gathered their thoughts, readers began raising their hands and asking questions from all around.
"Wait. You have to tell us what world this is. Is this Yu Junghyeok's third round?"
"Is Kim Dokja Company somewhere here, too?"
"Where is Dokja right now? Is he here with us?"
At that moment, everyone was thinking something similar.
The surest way to stop the world's destruction.
It was to borrow the strength of those who had already prevented the world's destruction.
But.
【Why are you curious about that?】
Dokja Representative didn't seem pleased by those questions.
【Don't tell me you're thinking of relying on the likes of Kim Dokja Company even here. You truly still haven't come to your senses.】
The readers who had been pouring out questions flinched at his chilling tone.
Dokja Representative let out a small sigh and shook his head.
【Remember this. You are the protagonists of this world, and this world exists solely for you.】
His strangely flickering gaze swept across the readers. Then he added with a faint smile.
【Please create a fable great enough to be recorded in the Final Wall, so this world will not simply be forgotten.】
For some reason, those final words alone sounded sincere.
【This banquet is over. I will see you again.】
Dokja Representative vanished from the air, and pillars of light began appearing throughout the hall.
The summoned people were being returned one by one.
Startled readers called out one another's names.
Se-in and I came to our senses and looked at each other.
We still hadn't found Uncle Dansu's daughter.
We hurried through the remaining people, calling Jiyoon's name.
Then I bumped shoulders with someone.
When I turned, it was the boy who had confronted Dokja Representative earlier.
The boy frowned.
"Hm? Could you be..."
The boy vanished with the girl beside him, swallowed by a pillar of light.
In an instant, fewer than half the people remained.
Now there were no readers who looked around Jiyoon's age.
"Inho-ssi..."
A pillar of light swept down right beside me, and Se-in disappeared.
Almost at the same time, the weight of Uncle Dansu, whom I had carried on my back, disappeared as well.
A deep emptiness washed over me.
Had I failed to find anyone after all?
That was when I spotted a familiar back in the distance.
A small back, with a short bright brown bob reaching her shoulders.
My heart pounded.
「The person who had made me a writer was there.」
The person who had never given up on me, even when the entire editorial department had.
My editor.
"Ji Eunyu-ssi!"
She was alive.
I knew she would be.
The moment Eunyu turned toward me, a pillar of light descended from the air.
Eunyu's startled eyes were fixed on me.
It felt as though my breath had stopped.
There was no time. We didn't even have the chance to ask who each of us was in a state of Possession as.
All we could do was...
"Gwanghwamun!"
At most, we could choose a place to meet.
After Eunyu vanished, no one remained in the hall.
I was alone.
I would disappear soon, too.
I let out a small sigh and waited for my turn.
One minute, two minutes...
Something was wrong.
No matter how much time passed, my body wasn't swallowed by a pillar of light.
What was this?
I looked up without thinking and saw the ceiling lights flickering intermittently.
"Hello?"
No one answered.
"Hey!"
I shouted louder, but still received no answer.
After thinking for a moment, I made a decision.
Since things had turned out this way, why not explore this place a little more?
There had been something bothering me for a while, too.
...
When I listened carefully, I heard a faint sound.
I hadn't misheard it.
Someone was still inside this theater.
The sound came from the entrance to a screening room in one corner of the lobby.
[Theater 1 Entrance].
A sign reading "Now Showing" hung in front of the theater door.
What was showing?
A movie?
The moment I cautiously opened the door, a sense of déjà vu crossed my mind.
「"Inho-ssi? Inho-ssi! Wake up!"」
A familiar cry.
Goosebumps slowly rose along my spine.
I knew this place.
「"Why isn't Inho-ssi waking up?"」
The vast screen showed Chungmuro Station and my Allies trying to wake my fallen body.
And then.
The backs of countless Little Kim Dokjas watching that scene.
It was the very screening room I had seen in a dream once.
The Little Kim Dokja I had met that day hadn't been a dream.
As I staggered forward a step, one Little Kim Dokja turned around.
The name tag hanging from the left side of his chest swayed.
rlaehrwk37.
The Little Kim Dokja's eyes widened. Just as he tried to say something to me, something grabbed the back of my neck and pulled me hard.
The grip was so cold it sent a chill down my spine.
【Oh dear. You saw something you weren't supposed to see.】
The voice was infinitely cold.
When I turned my head, Dokja Representative was looking at me.
Footnotes:
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