WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 612: Episode 12: □□ (3)

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I had no chance in a head-on confrontation with Han Suyeong. Her mastery of Scenarios, the fables she had accumulated, even her experience as a human being, were all different from mine.

「But the sentence at my fingertips was telling me.」

Things were different here. I was still at a disadvantage, but here, I had a chance.

As I focused, I could feel the pulse of the letters drifting around me.

The sentences Suyeong had written, and I had copied down again.

The moment I reached into the air, I felt a story coil around my fingertips.

「Lee Jihye, the Naval Commander smiling brightly, pointed the Twin Dragon Swords at me.」

The instant I gripped the sentence, a sword appeared in my hand in a burst of brilliant light.

It was the constellation artifact of the Naval Warfare God.

Jihye's personal weapon, the Twin Dragon Swords.

「"Annihilate, Twin Dragon Swords."」

Jihye of the 1,863rd round, who had fought through hellish Scenarios, trained in the martial world with Yu Junghyeok, and finally touched upon a fragment of the ultimate sword.

「Having survived through the 95th Scenario, she was undeniably one of the hundred strongest people in TWSA.」

The fables Jihye had accumulated writhed in my hand.

"Lee Jihye."

Suyeong watched the sentence in my hand from afar and spoke indifferently.

"Fine. Come at me."

I stepped forward without hesitation.

There was no testing the waters against Suyeong.

I immediately activated Jihye of the 1,863rd round's strongest skill.

「Instant Kill.」

I became a streak of lightning and charged at Suyeong.

Kwadudududuk!

A violent strain ran through my right arm.

Black flames of [Black Flame] surged from Suyeong's left hand and deflected the sword strike of [Instant Kill]. As if she truly were the Abyssal Black Flame Dragon, the [Black Flame] she unleashed burned the ground around us black.

Even though this level of power had clashed in an early Scenario, I couldn't feel any Plausibility Backlash.

"I see what kind of world this is."

Suyeong smiled, apparently having reached the same conclusion as I had.

"So Plausibility doesn't matter here?"

The next moment, pure white flames flickered from her right hand.

「A sword wreathed in white flames appeared in her hand.」

I stared at the letters surrounding the blade of white fire.

「Before her sword, every flame nearby went out as though paying its respects.」

Cold sweat ran down my back.

I had realized what sentence Suyeong was about to invoke.

「hellfire inferno.」

「Flame of Karma.」

I hurriedly left Junghyeok and Huiwon behind me and summoned a new sentence.

「"Lee Hyeongseong doesn't need a sword. He is the sword."」

In this world, imagination mattered more than anything.

The power of a sentence was determined by how strong, sharp, and meticulous the imagination shaping it was.

「True steel is born through tens of thousands of temperings.」

The [Steel Transformation] Stigma of Hyeongseong, the Steel Sword Emperor, flooded out from around me and covered the area.

My immature imagination couldn't fully protect Huiwon and Junghyeok. In the end, the pouring flames struck the motionless Junghyeok. The blaze of [hellfire inferno] melted through the outer wall of steel, and I screamed as I endured the heat.

The [hellfire inferno] Suyeong imagined was far more solid and vicious than the [Steel Transformation] I had imagined.

Once the heat subsided a little, I panted and looked back at Junghyeok, covered in flames.

Junghyeok wasn't hurt at all.

The flames of [hellfire inferno] passed through the real Junghyeok and burned only the steel I had created.

Suyeong spoke as though my reaction was amusing.

"Looks like you still don't understand this world's rules."

Understanding finally came to me as well.

This was the Snowfield between the lines of a story.

Every sentence that existed here was made of words not yet written.

Until the record was decided, our fight couldn't affect anything outside the Snowfield.

Suyeong asked as I caught my breath.

"Why are you protecting him? You don't even know him properly."

"This Yu Junghyeok..."

Why was I defending this Yu Junghyeok?

"He was different from the person you wrote."

Suyeong had written about Junghyeok of the 41st round, about his ruthlessness.

Yet the Junghyeok of the 41st round I had seen was a little different from Suyeong's description.

"You've noticed it too, haven't you? I don't know why, but this Yu Junghyeok isn't an evildoer. He's not the kind of person who would abandon a companion, either."

"I already wrote him that way, and he'll become that way. We have to stop him here so there won't be any unnecessary sacrifices."

"Do you really mean that?"

Suyeong was silent for a moment before answering.

"Yes."

"I know what kind of person you are."

At some point in life, everyone faces a moment when they have to defend themselves by saying, "I'm not a bad person."

It was exhausting.

Your history became so long that even making excuses for everything that had happened felt overwhelming, and you began to wonder what the point would be even if you tried.

Was Suyeong thinking that way now, too?

"What kind of person I am doesn't matter. What matters is what kind of story I'll write."

I understood Suyeong.

She was a writer who had written a story solely for one person.

If she had regarded every character as a real person, she never could have written her story this far.

"If you want to persuade me, then write a sentence worthy of it."

I recalled the power rankings readers had made for Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.

Beings far beyond the current Suyeong, capable of overpowering her.

The Oldest Dream.

Indescribable Distance.

The Final Dragon of the Apocalypse.

Yet it was difficult to give their strength a precise form.

I pictured them and brought sentences to mind, but the sentences wouldn't manifest.

The same was true of the other Outer Gods, as well as Great Sage Equaling Heaven, the strongest among Mythical Constellations.

At that moment, I met the eyes of Junghyeok, who was blankly staring into the air.

Eyes holding a pitch-black night sky.

Almost instinctively, I seized the sentence that came to mind.

「The loneliest, most solitary Constellation in all of TWSA.」

It felt as though a black night were rushing in from behind me.

「The darkness that had kept silent for countless years was awakening.」

What about a sentence about him?

The adoptive father of the Demon King of Salvation.

If I borrowed the power of one of Olympus's Three Highest Gods.

「One of the Three Highest Gods of Olympus, the Father of the Rich Night.」

Pitch-black darkness seemed to cover my entire body, and my right hand began trembling wildly.

Even in a Snowfield where everything was possible, he was a being too immense for my imagination to manifest.

A pitch-black scythe of Hades, as though carved from the abyss itself, descended into my right hand.

I slashed.

Almost at the same time, Suyeong wrote a sentence with her left hand.

「Where his spear reaches shall become the boundary of the sea.」

My ankles suddenly felt wet, and waves flooded across the Snowfield's floor in an instant.

「Poseidon, God of the Sea.」

The pitch-black night and the vast ocean collided.

The horizon seemed to rip apart my field of vision, and the world spun several times.

When I came to my senses, I was on my knees, gasping for breath.

"Let's stop here. You can't beat me."

Suyeong looked down at me.

"I'll let you off if you go back now. It doesn't look like you even have the qualifications, anyway."

Qualifications?

"Can you use [Avatar]?"

At Suyeong's words, countless figures appeared beside her.

Lee Jihye.

Yu Sangah.

Lee Hyeongseong.

Lee Gilyeong.

Jeong Huiwon.

Shin Yuseong.

Pildu Gong.

I blankly stared at their faces. I knew every one of those figures was Suyeong's [Avatar], that they were fakes, yet I felt as though I were facing the entirety of Kim Dokja Company.

"If you've unlocked the Writer Attribute, you should naturally be able to use it. But it looks like you can't."

I didn't want to admit it.

So I shouted inwardly again and again.

「Avatar.」

But [Avatar] didn't activate.

Why couldn't I use [Avatar]?

Even in this world where everything was possible, why wasn't that sentence mine?

"It means you're not a proper Writer."

I screamed and charged at Suyeong.

Pshit.

A bullet fired by Pildu pierced my shoulder.

I spun through the air a couple of times and gripped new sentences.

「They shot arrows like rain and fired all manner of cannons, and the great chaos was like a thunderstorm.」

「"This is why, even though I curse this land, I can't leave it."」

「Therefore, the beginning is a single point. The smallest thing is the greatest.」

The Naval Warfare God.

Goryeo's Top Swordsman.

Kyrios.

The Naval Warfare God and Jihye's [Ghost Fleet] exchanged barrages at the same time. The successive bombardments filled my view with pale sea mist.

Using Kyrios's [Electrification], I closed in on Suyeong in an instant.

The moment her shadow swayed beyond the mist, Cheok Junkyung's [Third Form: Three Swords Cleave the Sea] activated in my right hand.

「This sword was made to contend with the sea.」

Before the sword form could activate, something grabbed my ankle.

It was Sangah's [Arachne's Web].

Hyeongseong's [Great Mountain Crush] then struck my shoulder, and Yuseong's Chimera Dragon unleashed its Breath at me.

I crashed into the sea, rolled several times, and vomited blood.

Uwaeeek.

Was this really my blood?

Or was this blood itself made of the story's letters?

Suyeong's voice reached me.

"Stop. It's impressive enough that someone who's not even a Writer made it this far."

I wiped my mouth with my sleeve and looked up at her.

There was still a way.

A rather effective way to persuade her, too.

I unconsciously reached toward my pocket, then stopped. For some reason, using that felt cowardly.

I had my own way.

If I was a Writer too, I had to settle this with the sentences I had written myself.

"No method will work. I can see exactly what sentences you're going to write."

A cold light shone in Suyeong's eyes.

「There is nothing new under the sun. Everything yet to be written is a transformation of what has already been written.」

Suyeong's main Stigma was finally showing its power.

「Predictive Plagiarism.」

There wasn't a single sentence Suyeong didn't know in this world.

She had actually experienced all these sentences and written them down.

"This world doesn't need new sentences."

Watching Suyeong approach one step at a time, I thought of Kim Dokja.

If I could become him, couldn't I break through this situation?

Yet no sentence about Dokja came to mind.

Thinking about it, even if one had, it would have been difficult to change the situation. Dokja wasn't particularly good at fighting.

Was there really no method left for me?

Did no sentence exist in this world that Suyeong didn't know?

"Get some rest."

Suyeong's left hand pointed at me again, and Jihye's and Pildu's gun barrels turned toward me.

There was.

A sentence she didn't know.

A thought struck my mind like lightning.

I needed time to carry out the plan.

I steadied my breathing and opened my mouth.

"...Kim Dokja hasn't come back, has he?"

Suyeong's expression stiffened.

Neither of us said it aloud, but I knew we were thinking of the same sentence.

The ending of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.

Dokja's fables returned, the system was revived, and Suyeong flung open the hospital room door with a wide smile.

Until now, I had believed Dokja had returned.

It was called an open ending, but every sentence in its climax pointed to Dokja's return.

Dokja's return existed in the reader's imagination, beyond the reach of the writer's sentences, and that was why the scene hadn't been described.

That was why I couldn't understand why Suyeong was here now.

If Dokja had safely returned, there was no way Suyeong would be here now.

"That..."

Suyeong's slowly parting lips spoke strange words.

"It hasn't been decided yet."

It hadn't been decided?

I couldn't understand what Suyeong meant.

Still, I had achieved at least one goal.

I had bought enough time.

"That guy..."

Tstststst!

Sparks engulfed Suyeong's entire body once again. At that moment.

「A dark crimson coat fluttering among the ruins.」

I grasped the sentence I had concealed.

「Black wings stretching out through that coat.」

A sentence that even Suyeong, who wrote every one of these worlds, didn't know.

This was a story that never appeared in the TWSA she had written.

「The One Who Deceived the Stars and the Sophist of Evil.」

I activated [Incitement], recalling with all my strength the story of the 40th round I had seen.

「I am Inho Cheon of the 40th round.」

Suyeong stared at me with her eyes wide open.

Terrifying power surged throughout my body.

The villain who had threatened the terrifying Junghyeok of the 40th round and driven the stars toward destruction.

An unprecedented member of the Ten Evils, who wielded Junghyeok's personal weapon, the Black Heaven Demon Blade, and fought the protagonist in a final battle.

Perhaps sensing something ominous, Suyeong gave a signal.

Pildu's turret spewed fire, and Jihye's [Ghost Fleet] unleashed a barrage. Sangah's Lotus Pedestal warped space, while Hyeongseong's [Great Mountain Crush] struck at me.

Then.

「[The fable When All the Stars Close Their Eyes begins its story.]」

All the stars closed their eyes.

「There was only pitch-black darkness all around. No starlight could illuminate Inho Cheon's figure. There was no presence, no smell.」

Startled, Suyeong hurriedly looked around.

「It was as if Han Suyeong were alone.」

The instant Suyeong raised her left hand sharply in alarm.

「The Black Heaven Demon Blade cut across her back.」

Along with an intense burst of sparks, I felt the sensation travel through the blade's tip. The sword made of sentences shattered apart, and I rolled across the ground in a mess.

It was shallow.

But I had definitely cut her.

When I hurriedly pushed myself up from the ground, Suyeong was staring at me with vacant eyes.

"You, what..."

The sound of something cracking came from somewhere.

[The Great Fable Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint shakes uneasily.]

Tiny cracks were spreading across the surface of the fable protecting her. Letters flowed out from beyond those cracks.

「"Suyeong-ssi! Over there!"」

It was a sentence I knew.

「Lee Seolhwa's hospital could be seen in the distance. Fables drifting leisurely along guided them. The fables were gathering in the familiar ward.」

The scene painted by the sentences stood vividly before me.

The people of Kim Dokja Company racing toward the hospital.

Their fables awakening again.

The final story of Kim Dokja Company, who had struggled for countless years to bring a single reader back to life.

「A door creaking open. Faint sunlight streamed through the wide-open window.」

「The manuscripts she had revised all night scattered in the wind. Letters scattering in a brilliant swirl.」

「The story she hadn't managed to complete was there.」

A story Suyeong wrote, I copied down, and readers read.

「A sentence she definitely wanted to write someday, even if not now. Thinking of that sentence, Han Suyeong smiled like an idiot.」

The final scene of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint as we knew it, the ending that had remained wholly in the readers' imaginations.

「This is a story for just one reader.」

"Wait. Stop! I said stop!"

Suyeong shouted and reached out. Brilliant light flowed from the fable.

Then, the next moment.

「Lee Hakhyun finally reached After the Ending.」

Footnotes:

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