WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 610: Episode 12: □□ (1)

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「Stories aren't bound by the rules of time. They simply flow toward empty places.」

- Dokkaebi King

* * *

How could Han Suyeong be here?

Was that person really the Han Suyeong from Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint?

My intuition said yes, but reason demanded proof.

[Reader Comment List cannot be used on this target.]

[Character Profile cannot be used on this target.]

A target on which they couldn't be used.

"Are you really Han Suyeong?"

I'd never seen a message like that before.

「Didn't you expect it?」

When I learned that this world was the forty-first round, one that didn't exist in the original story; when I saw the Little Kim Dokjas in the theater; and when I met Dokja in the Snowfield of my dreams, perhaps I had imagined all along that a moment like this would come.

Suyeong watched me quietly before speaking.

"Yeah. I'm Han Suyeong."

[Someone is activating Lie Detection.]

[Lie Detection has confirmed that statement to be true.]

It had even been verified through Lie Detection.

Even that thoroughness was exactly like the Suyeong I knew. The only difference was that this Suyeong gave off a more untouchable air than the one I remembered.

It felt as though I stood before some great figure.

"You don't need to introduce yourself, right?"

"I..."

"I know who you are, Inho Cheon. No..."

Suyeong tilted her head slightly.

"The author of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint from the Z865123 Planetary System."

I clenched my fist without realizing it.

"How did you know?"

"You kept taking the items I had my eye on. How could I not know? You were either an avid reader or an author, but the way you acted was a little different from a reader's."

As Suyeong smirked, the strength drained from my fist.

"You did well on your own, didn't you? You must've read diligently."

I had read diligently.

Those words lodged in my ear like a thorn.

"It looks like the others are doing quite well, too. They're leagues beyond the prophets in our worldline."

She looked as if she already knew everything.

There was no hostility in Suyeong's voice. If anything, she sounded as though she sincerely wanted to encourage me.

"It must've sold pretty well in your worldline. It completely flopped in some worldlines."

"The response wasn't bad. It was my breakout work."

"Really?"

Suyeong smiled faintly.

"That's a relief."

A relief.

What was she relieved about?

I hesitated before speaking.

"Until I met you, I thought I had written this entire story."

Suyeong looked at me with pity.

"Yeah, but I'm the one who wrote it."

I couldn't deny it.

The fable flowing through her entire body told me that she was real.

That it was her, not me.

"You know this too if you've written stories. Every sentence you came up with was in the Cloud..."

"The sentences in the Cloud were delivered to me as inspiration. I believed they were my own ideas."

"That's right."

Was that really true? Had I not written even a single sentence in this world?

As if dismissing the question, the story's original author spoke.

"So stop here and step back."

It felt as though one of my knees buckled before I had even begun to walk.

Yet, at the same time, I felt a strange sense of relief.

"You don't have to take responsibility. I'll take care of the rest somehow. Go back down and rest."

Why did I want to believe her words and give everything up?

I staggered as I asked, "What do you mean by taking care of it somehow?"

"You're a writer too, aren't you?"

Suyeong asked as if I already knew the answer.

My vague foreboding became certainty, and my fingertips trembled anxiously.

As if to confirm that premonition, Suyeong said, "The end of this round has already been decided. I'm only trying to bring it forward a little."

The "end of the forty-first round" I remembered flashed through my mind in orderly sequence.

「Yu Junghyeok, who used the Absolute Throne, fails to progress through the Scenario.」

「After losing all his companions, he makes a contract with a Hunchback and sends Shin Yuseong to a worldline in the past.」

「Shin Yuseong wanders through worldlines for more than a thousand years, and...」

「She descends upon a worldline in the past as the Catastrophe of Floods.」

There was not a single good thing at the end of this story.

It had always been that kind of world.

As if to comfort me, Suyeong said, "You don't need to sympathize or feel sad. Some stories are just like that."

I knew.

This world was already a finished story.

The next event, brought about by the ending of the forty-first round, had "already" occurred, and the event's "end" had to remain fixed.

Only then could the Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint we knew finally begin.

I understood that.

Precisely because I understood, I couldn't understand it.

"Then why were we summoned to this worldline?"

It felt unfair.

Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint was certainly a story written by Suyeong.

But still.

"Ordinary people were suddenly summoned to this worldline and had to fight for their lives."

Could every moment the readers and I endured in this world also be called her sentences?

"We fought monsters we'd never seen before, struggled to get Food, and killed other people to survive..."

I believed there had to be a reason we came here.

That we hadn't simply been chosen by chance.

I believed there had to be a role we were meant to play in this story.

"It wasn't just me. Everyone who came here with me went through the same thing. So I think we deserve to know why."

I thought of Gyeong Se-in doing squats in a corner of Geumho Station. I thought of Uncle Dansu, who had nightmares while calling his daughter's name.

I thought of Killer King, who remained inside the film to send me upstairs, and Literary Girl 64, who trusted Killer King and helped me.

They were all people who had undergone Possession here for one reason alone: because they had read Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.

"Some people even died after being summoned here. Those people..."

"They didn't die. You know that."

Suyeong let out a light sigh before adding, "They just returned to being Dokja's fragments. They became what they originally were."

"They aren't Dokja anymore. They were already living lives in other worlds. They had lives of their own."

"..."

"You summoned us."

"I didn't summon you."

Of course, it wasn't Suyeong but the 'Kim Dokja Representative' who had abducted us.

Still, could Suyeong truly be unrelated?

"I saw a video of you."

"A video of me?"

"You said, 'Everything until now was just a teaser.' You said, 'The side story will begin soon.'"

I still clearly remembered the theater where <Kim Dokja's Banquet> had been held.

The 'Kim Dokja Representative' who had abducted us played a video of Suyeong on the screen.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Suyeong narrowed her eyes as though she genuinely didn't understand.

"I never did anything like that. What are you talking about?"

Judging by her expression, it seemed that the person in the video hadn't been Suyeong herself.

Then someone really had used Camouflage to pose as Suyeong.

It wasn't impossible.

One of the Kim Dokja Representatives possessed the Myriad Transformations Stealth Suit.

The Kim Dokja Representatives knew information about Dokja and Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, so it wouldn't have been impossible for them to imitate Suyeong's manner of speaking.

Still, one question remained unanswered.

"Then you have nothing to do with us coming here?"

For the first time, Suyeong hesitated.

"Maybe I'm not entirely uninvolved, but I wasn't the one who summoned you to this worldline. I never intended to, either."

"Then why are you here?"

As Suyeong said, this story had already ended.

That applied to Suyeong herself more than anyone.

"Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint is already a finished story. Why did you return to this story?"

Countless universes had blossomed and faded for the completion of one story.

There had been countless tragedies, and they had reached their endings.

The worldline had closed.

Normally, she should not have been able to come here.

"I..."

Suyeong's eyes wavered. For the first time, agitation crossed the face of that proud, composed author.

"I... Kim Dokja..."

Tzzzt.

Sparks burst across her entire body.

The Plausibility Backlash.

The reason was simple.

「That is 'information' she cannot mention.」

Suyeong's expression hardened. She stared at the sparks running across her hand, then spoke in an even colder voice.

"I have no obligation to explain the details to you."

"Wait. You can't just brush this aside..."

"Hey."

It felt as though the blood in my veins had frozen.

"I'm really tired right now, you know?"

Her eyes glared at me.

"Do you know what I went through to get here?"

The cold emotion in her gaze made me take a step back without realizing it.

"I feel sorry for your situation. I think it's unfortunate that you were summoned to a place like this. Do you think I haven't been through Scenarios? I'll find a way, too, so just stay put for now. Didn't I say I'd make it work somehow?"

Her words alone felt overwhelming.

She was right.

Suyeong had already gone through the Scenarios. She had even reached the end of those Scenarios twice.

No matter how much the readers and I knew about Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, there was no way we could carry out Scenarios better than her.

「Wouldn't it be wiser to leave everything to Han Suyeong?」

A weak thought suddenly raised its head.

When I first underwent Possession in this world, I had planned to find Dokja or Junghyeok and rely on them.

Relying on Suyeong instead would change nothing.

So even now, I could trust her and leave everything...

Tap.

Had I unconsciously taken several steps back?

Something touched my back.

When I turned around, Junghyeok was standing there.

I stared blankly at his still-frozen face.

Then, at that moment.

「What I want to protect.」

Junghyeok's story reached me.

This was a Junghyeok unlike the Junghyeok I knew from Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, or the Junghyeok Dokja had read about in TWSA.

「Do I still have anything left that I want to protect?」

I could tell just by looking at his face.

[The character Yu Junghyeok is suffering from regressor's depression.]

The way Suyeong had subdued Junghyeok was the very method Dokja had used in the 1,863rd round.

"Is this what you mean when you say you'll make it work somehow?"

Something surged up inside me.

Even as I wondered whether I had any right to say those words, I couldn't stop myself.

"This Yu Junghyeok hasn't done anything wrong."

"I thought I told you not to worry about it."

I wanted to trust Suyeong, too.

But I couldn't simply let it go when I didn't understand what she was doing.

Why hadn't Suyeong killed Simulacrum?

[Your Exclusive Attribute effect has activated!]

Why had Suyeong subdued Junghyeok here?

I looked at the Simulacrum Suyeong controlled, then at Junghyeok, who was connected through Simulacrum.

「"Kim Namwoon, with that level of effort, you can't catch up to me."」

Junghyeok was dreaming.

「"Lee Hyeongseong. Sometimes, think, act, and decide for yourself."」

Even in his dream, he was carrying out the Scenarios with the resolve to die.

「"Fall back, Lee Jihye. From here on, I'll take over."」

He dreamt of losing his companions and failing the Scenario.

Unaware that all of it was an illusion, Junghyeok floundered.

Junghyeok would likely never see the "end" of the forty-first round.

When my thoughts reached that point, I realized Suyeong's plan.

This world had far too many variables that could interfere with the "ending of the forty-first round."

Me. The readers. And Junghyeok, who possessed abnormal strength compared to the main story of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.

What if there were a way to remove all those variables at once?

"You don't intend to clear this Theater Dungeon."

Footnotes:

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