WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 613: Episode 12: □□ (4)

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I realized what I was seeing.

[The Great Fable Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint begins its story!]

It was "After the Ending," a story still unknown to the world.

A sight that had only been possible in a reader's mind was finally unfolding before my eyes.

The story's first sentence was as follows.

「Han Suyeong blinked blankly.」

* * *

Han Suyeong blinked blankly.

What on earth had happened?

「This is a story for just one reader.」

The words she had just thought floated before her eyes. Suyeong recalled, one by one, what had happened before.

Yu Junghyeok had returned after his long journey through space, and the fables they had thought had disappeared returned.

The system had revived.

Kim Dokja Company had gathered once more.

They stood before Dokja's hospital room, which they had visited every day for the past four years.

Together, they had opened the hospital room door.

She remembered up to that point.

Then what was this?

Han Suyeong had suddenly been thrown into the middle of a Snowfield.

Ahead and behind her stretched an endless snowy plain. She remembered visiting somewhere similar when she had used Group Regression with Junghyeok, but she couldn't tell whether this was that place.

"Where are we this time?"

It was Jeong Huiwon's voice.

When Suyeong turned around, the Allies who had visited the hospital room with her were sprawled across the ground.

"Whoa. What is this? Snow all of a sudden?"

Jihye got up in surprise, dusting off her butt, while Gilyeong surveyed the area with sharp eyes.

Yuseong asked, "Where's Reader Uncle?"

"I don't know either. I came to and suddenly found myself here."

"Could this be another Scenario?"

It had already been years since the Scenarios ended.

And now a new Scenario was opening?

Sangah, who had repeatedly clenched and unclenched her fists, added, "My skills have returned."

The scent of lotus flowers drifted from her white fist.

Suyeong could feel it too.

All five of her senses were sharpening again, just as they had in the days when they actively carried out Scenarios.

Junghyeok, who had already surveyed the area once, landed from the air amid a flurry of snow.

"I can't sense anything. There are no enemies nearby."

Had the Transcendent's power returned? A faint golden radiance shone over Junghyeok's entire body.

Suyeong glared sidelong at him.

"Why do you look so excited?"

"Unni, Biyoo isn't here."

At Yuseong's words, the Allies looked around. Of those who had gone up to the hospital room together, only Biyoo was missing.

What had happened?

She had definitely been with them until they opened the hospital room door.

Tzzzt.

That was when sparks burst from the air.

[Congratulations.]

The system message came softly.

Suyeong pressed her lips together, hiding the goosebumps rising on her arms.

[You have cleared all Scenarios.]

[You are qualified to see the ■■ of all things.]

Along with the message, two portals appeared before them, swirling into existence.

"Huh? Portals?" Gilyeong asked.

"Gilyeong, step back."

Hyeongseong moved in front of the children as if to protect them and inspected the entrances to the portals. Scenes rippled and wavered beyond them.

The shifting scenes resembled the hospital room they knew.

The difference was that a person's shadow could be seen in only one of the two rooms.

Hyeongseong muttered in confusion, "That shadow is..."

"No way."

Just as Gilyeong approached the portal with a dazed expression,

[Baaat!]

Biyoo, who had vanished into the air, appeared. She pulled hard on Gilyeong's hair and spoke urgently.

[Baaat! Don't just go in, listen to me first! There's a problem!]

"A problem?"

With the Allies' attention on her, Biyoo let out a small sigh. She looked at the portals with somewhat downcast eyes, then said something shocking.

[The universe's "ending" has split in two.]

.

.

.

A little later, after hearing Biyoo's entire story, the Allies wore blank expressions. Suyeong was the first to react.

"So, to summarize what's happening now, it's this."

Suyeong began speaking as she looked up at the snow falling from the sky.

"Firstly, Junghyeok spread the novel I wrote throughout the universe."

Suyeong recalled the day she first began writing Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.

Remembering and recording old fables with the Allies, she wrote a story mourning Dokja.

Junghyeok, who received the story, crossed worldlines and finally succeeded in delivering it to Kim Dokja fragments in other worlds.

"Secondly, the Kim Dokja fragments scattered throughout the universe began reading our story, and they imagined an ending that I didn't write."

The Allies' efforts successfully reached the end of the universe. The Kim Dokja fragments regained the story Suyeong had written, the memories they had lost.

"Thirdly, those portals in front of us are those endings."

The Kim Dokja fragments scattered throughout the worldlines had imagined the ending of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint as the Oldest Dream.

There had been no problem up to that point. If anything, it had gone according to plan.

The problem was this.

"Why are there two endings?"

Biyoo answered with a quiet sigh.

[Because they imagined two endings.]

Biyoo pointed to the first portal.

[One is an ending where Uncle returned.]

A shadow resembling Dokja swayed inside the portal's hospital room.

[The other is an ending where Uncle couldn't return.]

This time, Biyoo pointed to the other portal. It was clearly the same hospital room as the first, but Dokja's shadow wasn't visible on the bed.

The Allies remained silent for a long time.

"Why..."

Suyeong muttered.

"How can that be?"

How could they imagine two endings even after reading that entire story?

Though she knew the answer, Suyeong had to ask. The answer she expected came back.

[Uncle's fragments scattered throughout the worldlines aren't the Reader Uncle we remember.]

Countless readers had read the story and imagined its ending.

One ending where Dokja returned.

And another where Dokja couldn't return.

[Even if they read the same story, they're free to imagine what they want. It's already a miracle that the endings have been narrowed down to just two.]

Biyoo was right.

So many people had read the story and imagined it, yet there were only two endings before them. Even calling it a miracle wasn't enough.

Huiwon spoke.

"We had a hard time getting this far."

She spoke with her head lowered.

"Isn't this enough?"

There were two endings given to them.

At least one of them was clearly a happy ending.

Huiwon raised her head.

"I'm going through the first portal."

As if to reinforce her certainty in her choice, she looked around at the Allies.

"No one's having strange thoughts, right? If we go through the first one, we can meet Dokja-ssi again. Biyoo, isn't that right?"

[Probably.]

"The Dokja-ssi in there is the Kim Dokja we remember, right?"

[I don't know that either.]

"You don't know?"

[I'm not the Oldest Dream.]

Biyoo said that, then thought for a moment before adding,

[But he's the Uncle called forth by Uncle's fragments, so he probably is the Uncle we remember.]

"Then that's enough."

As if she was afraid to think any further, Huiwon urged the others.

"What are you all hesitating for? Aren't you going in? We can meet Dokja-ssi again. The Dokja-ssi we remember is beyond that portal."

Yuseong raised her head, tears filling her eyes. Gilyeong, Hyeongseong, and Seolhwa too... they all looked as though they had made their decisions.

Then.

"I'm not going."

Suyeong said.

Huiwon narrowed her eyes and glared at her.

"You, what do you-"

"The first portal is definitely a trap. Doesn't it look strange to you?"

"Biyoo said it isn't."

"Have you already forgotten what happened on the subway?"

Huiwon hesitated at Suyeong's words.

"It was like this then, too. Dokja tricked us into taking a fake with us."

The Allies' expressions changed.

Just as Suyeong said, they had once been deceived by Dokja's [Avatar]. On the subway after the Scenario ended, Dokja had left an Avatar containing 49% of his memories with them and set out on the Oldest Dream's journey.

"What if we go through the first portal and find another substandard Kim Dokja like back then?"

"Don't talk about him like that."

Huiwon replied as if holding back her anger.

"I said it then, too, but no matter how many memories he has, Dokja-ssi is Dokja-ssi. Even if it happens again like it did then, this, too, is Dokja-ssi's choice."

"Don't say something so frustrating-"

"What are you going to do if you're wrong?"

"What?"

"What if you choose the second portal and really can't ever meet Dokja-ssi again?"

"That won't happen."

"Han Suyeong."

After letting out a deep sigh, Huiwon spoke firmly.

"We can't have every Kim Dokja."

Suyeong's expression stiffened.

"No one can have all of another person."

Suyeong's lips moved slightly in a small murmur.

Who said she didn't know that? As if she didn't know something so obvious.

"I won't accept it."

Suyeong's tightly clenched fist trembled.

"How dare he not return after reading what I wrote?"

"Hey, you-"

Suyeong shook off Huiwon's hand from her shoulder.

"Go through the first portal if you want. Do whatever you want."

Suyeong knew too.

The choice she was making was probably the worst choice.

But this was how she had always lived. Even if she had to choose dozens or hundreds of times, she would make the same choice again.

Taking a slow step forward, Suyeong said, "If Dokja didn't return, there must be a reason he didn't. I need to know that reason."

She took another step.

"That bastard, I'll catch him somehow and bring him back. Whether it's 49% or 51%, I'm sick of playing with numbers. It has to be 100% now."

She took one more step.

"And those Kim Dokja fragments who imagined an ending like that, I'll find every last one of them and torment them until they imagine the proper ending."

"Han Suyeong! What on earth-"

"What I want to say is..."

Suyeong turned around.

The history she had lived through, the history that had been with her, was there. From the first Scenario to the last, those who had shared their lives with her...

Her Companions, whom she couldn't trade for anything.

That was why Suyeong understood their happiness.

"Everyone, take care."

Smiling, Suyeong stepped into the portal. Characters whirled through the air, and soon she blended into them.

Perhaps her assumption was wrong.

Maybe readers hadn't imagined a tragic ending. Maybe something had truly gone wrong, and Dokja hadn't returned because of bad luck.

Either way, Suyeong wasn't worried.

She just needed to write again.

She was a writer, and writing was her job. As long as someone would read it, she could keep writing forever.

The system's power had returned, so she could write the story again and persuade the Kim Dokja fragments.

She wouldn't leave any of the Kim Dokja fragments scattered throughout the worldlines room to imagine an unhappy ending.

When she came to her senses, Suyeong realized she was standing before a hospital room door. As she blankly raised her head, a voice came from beside her.

"How long are you going to stand there?"

Startled, she turned around to find Junghyeok standing beside the closed hospital room door.

"What? When did you get here?"

"When you were spouting nonsense for a while."

Something wriggled on Junghyeok's shoulder, and Biyoo poked her head out.

[Baaat.]

Suyeong stared with her mouth open.

She wasn't alone.

These two had crossed through the portal with her as well.

Footnotes:

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