WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 615: Episode 12: □□ (6)

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* * *

Han Suyeong couldn't understand the situation unfolding before her.

‘What the hell is this?’

She looked down at Inho Cheon, who had collapsed before her.

Blood flowed incessantly from the chest pierced by Unbreakable Faith.

It was an irreparable wound.

Too much blood had spilled across the floor. Whether she used Ellain Forest Essence or anything else, it was a wound he couldn't possibly recover from now.

"You... why?"

He wore Inho Cheon's face, but he was the author of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint from another worldline.

Suyeong understood his cause, his desire to save the readers.

"I told you... I'd find a way somehow."

This world was the Star Stream.

Once a Scenario began, someone's sacrifice was unavoidable.

The outcome of "ruin" had been decided, so Suyeong had decided to bring about a swift conclusion with the fewest possible sacrifices.

She knew it could be cruel to the characters.

However, this was a round where leaving things as they were would lead to an even greater tragedy. If she carelessly tried to change the ending, it could bring catastrophe to every worldline.

Suyeong had chosen to become the villain again.

She had mapped out a route to the ending with the least possible pain.

Along the way, she planned to retrieve the souls of the possessors caught up in the Scenario with as little loss as possible and somehow return them to their original worldlines.

Everything had been going smoothly until this guy appeared.

「If you're a writer too, then you know.」

The words he had left behind echoed in her mind.

「What you're trying to do isn't end the story. It's giving up.」

A ringing filled Suyeong's ears as she breathed heavily.

Why had he left those words behind before throwing himself in front of her?

「You told me to try persuading you, didn't you?」

She had never intended to kill him. If she had, she would've cut off his head long ago.

Even so, as if following the path of a predetermined tragedy, Unbreakable Faith pierced his chest.

「Are you ready to be persuaded?」

She had tried several times to change the sword's path midway through, but her muscles wouldn't obey her. It was as if the world itself was forcing him to die.

‘No way.’

The colorless scenery that had unfolded earlier came to mind.

What if that had been this guy's skill?

What if he had a skill that required him to pay Plausibility to create the events he wanted? What if he had sacrificed himself as the price for that Plausibility?

「Han Suyeong knew someone who had always sacrificed himself in that way.」

Amid a wave of dizziness, Suyeong staggered and slowly bent over Inho.

Before he died, she wanted to ask why he had done this.

Then Inho's hand slipped out of his pocket with a soft thud.

He held a lollipop with a strangely familiar shape.

Like someone who had found an incomprehensible sentence written in an absurd place, Suyeong stared blankly at the candy.

Slowly, she reached for it.

Tzzzzt.

Sparks flew from the lollipop in his hand. A fable was flowing out of it.

‘A fable?’

That couldn't be possible. The third Main Scenario was only about to end.

Unless it was an exceptional case like her, there was no way an Incarnation could have obtained a fable already...

「"What are you doing? Hurry up and get ready. Did you forget where we said we were going today?"」

Something incomprehensible was happening.

Those were clearly her words, spoken in her voice.

But why did this guy possess a fable connected to her?

「"Is this pizza?"」

「"It's chicken, idiot."」

「Today was the day Kim Dokja Company was going on an outing for the first time.」

The voices flowing out were familiar. Every one of them was a voice she knew, a sentence she knew.

「"It's so cold. Do we really have to eat by the Han River?"」

Her thoughts grew increasingly confused.

「"Kim Dokja."」

「"Yeah?"」

「"You haven't been reading that much lately."」

A memory came vividly to mind.

She had definitely had that conversation with Dokja.

「"Ah, right. I need to read it."」

An outing to the Han River one day.

Gathered closely with their Allies, she had spoken with Dokja about TWSA. She had asked him something about TWSA, and...

「"But, Kim Dokja."」

「"Yeah?"」

「"Nothing like that happens in the third round of TWSA."」

Dokja couldn't answer.

「"Hey. Who the hell are you?"」

Her heart slowly turned cold, and she couldn't breathe. She had thought he was strange from the moment she first saw him.

Who exactly was this "Inho Cheon"?

She knew he was the author of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint from another worldline, but there were too many strange things to dismiss it with that alone.

「"If that's an Avatar, there's a very easy way to confirm it."」

Suyeong brought her trembling fingertips toward the Lemon Candy.

「"The one who's going to read my novel... isn't you."」

The fable flowed as though a wound had burst open and spilled blood.

It was a story even Suyeong, who had written TWSA, didn't know.

「He walked toward his own origin.」

It was a story hidden between the lines of the sentences she had written, one no one had ever read.

* * *

Almost no one remembered the moment they were born.

He was no different.

「Kim Dokja.」

That was simply what people called him, and it was how he introduced himself.

Dok, meaning alone, and ja, meaning son.

Bearing the name his father had given him, he lived a life that suited it.

He ate alone, worked alone, and slept alone.

He had always done everything alone.

Was that why?

When he stopped being "alone" for the first time, he heard something strange.

「"Hey. Who the hell are you?"」

It came from a Companion he had always trusted.

Someone he had thought might understand him better than anyone else in the world.

After easily subduing him, she threw him onto the cold floor.

Then she told the Companions that he was an Avatar.

He couldn't understand.

They had been eating together, laughing, and chatting until just moments ago. Why was she suddenly saying that to me?

The reason was simple.

He couldn't properly remember a certain novel.

Thinking it was nothing more than a trivial misunderstanding, he smiled as usual and said,

「"Han Suyeong. I'm sorry, but I really can't remember it well. I haven't been reading TWSA much lately either..."」

The woman's dagger flew through the air, and blood burst from his shoulder.

His Companions criticized her.

They defended him, saying he wasn't a fake and that Avatars didn't bleed.

Even so, she didn't back down.

「"We'll know if we cut off his neck. An Avatar can still move even after its head is cut off."」

The moment he met the eyes of the woman who spoke with such certainty, chills ran down his spine.

Then he thought,

「Maybe I'm not really Kim Dokja.」

His memories of that day weren't clear.

He only vaguely remembered that the wound hurt quite a lot, that the blood wouldn't stop despite it being shallow, and that he had collapsed.

「"Dokja-ssi, are you okay?"」

Even after that day, the Allies called him Kim Dokja.

But whenever he heard that name, he felt himself moving farther away from his own name.

「"You probably lost your memories because you're tired. Don't worry too much."」

He remained confused throughout their attempts to comfort him.

「What have I forgotten?」

He didn't know.

Someone who had lost their memories couldn't remember what they had forgotten.

Still, once he realized he had forgotten something, something about him began to change.

His complexion worsened by the day, and the memories that had once been vivid slipped away somewhere.

He gradually grew afraid.

「"Yu Sangah-ssi, I'm not a fake."」

「"Yes, I know."」

His Companion took his hand with a warm smile. For some reason, though, that smile felt unfamiliar.

It looked less like it was directed at him and more like it had happened to settle in the empty space where the "real Kim Dokja" had once been.

He slept longer and longer, and in his hazy dreams, he often heard the Allies speaking.

「"Dokja-ssi, can you wake up for a little while? Your back will be ruined if you keep lying down."」

「"How about doing some calisthenics with me?"」

「"Will Uncle really be okay like this? I'll bring a Fable Pack or something."」

The Allies didn't interrogate or pressure him.

They only spoke about a certain possibility.

「"Huiwon-ssi, did you hear Suyeong-ssi's plan?"」

「"If Dokja-ssi's memories were really divided, and there is another 'real Dokja-ssi'..."」

「"Unni, do you think that's possible?"」

The Companion who had first suspected him also visited his hospital room.

She usually came late at night.

Through his clouded consciousness, he would often feel someone pulling his quilt over him.

She watched him in the darkness for a long time, then quietly left the room around dawn.

「"Food's here, Kim Dokja."」

Sometimes, when he opened his eyes, another Companion would bring him food.

Devouring it in ravenous hunger, he thought that he must have eaten food like this several times while carrying out Scenarios.

Why couldn't he remember any of it?

「"Someone once said this."」

A man stared at him with an expressionless face and said,

「"Every human is an amnesiac."」

After saying that, the man stared at the clock hanging in the hospital room for a long time.

He looked at the clock with him, watching the second hand, then the minute hand, move.

「"You don't need to be anything. The only thing that matters is what you want to become."」

He didn't know whether those words had influenced him.

He only knew that when he woke the next day, he said something strange to the Allies.

「"I want to help you find the 'real Kim Dokja' too."」

「"Dokja-ssi. Don't say that. What's real and fake? Dokja-ssi is..."」

Of course, it wasn't that he had truly come to believe there was a "real" one.

He simply wanted to know.

If no "real Kim Dokja" existed, it would naturally prove that he was the real one.

The claims that he was an Avatar, or that the "real Kim Dokja" was still wandering the worldlines without getting off the subway in the Final Scenario, would naturally disappear from the Allies' minds as the ridiculous delusions they were.

「"Please let me join the plan."」

Kim Dokja Company's journey to recover the lost Kim Dokja.

He crossed over with his Companions to the 1,865th-round worldline.

Group Regression, "Squid Capture."

He hadn't made any great contributions, but he watched the Allies carry out their Scenarios the entire time.

Seeing the Companions carry out hellish Scenarios from the beginning, he often felt something he couldn't understand.

「"Wow, that's the method Dokja-ssi used, isn't it?"」

The Companions carried out the Scenarios without a word.

With each Scenario that passed, they found the Kim Dokja each of them had been seeking.

「"Uncle taught me this recipe."」

In every moment they had shared, there was a Kim Dokja he couldn't remember.

「"Did Hyung always do all of this alone?"」

As he watched their story, he naturally came to realize something.

「This wasn't his story.」

Whether he was real or fake wasn't something he could decide for himself.

「"Dokja-ssi. Are you okay? Stay back for a while. Leave this to us."」

He was pitied.

「"We'll be fine on our own this time."」

He was shown consideration.

「"Now it's our turn to give back."」

But perhaps even that wasn't a part that rightfully belonged to him.

Years passed like that, and at last, the Allies stood before the world's ending.

He had a premonition, and for the first time, he spoke his true feelings.

「"The other me might not want this. That story... ended there..."」

It was his final struggle, his final plea.

Please don't open it.

Please don't open that door, the last car of the subway.

Then the woman answered,

「"Let's meet the other you and ask him."」

In that moment, he instinctively understood his role in this story.

「"If this is the story you want..."」

At last, the subway's final car opened, and he faced the sight he had feared.

「Kim Dokja, whom the Allies had searched for, was there.」

Kim Dokja, reduced to a child.

Kim Dokja, losing his memories just as he was.

But the instant he saw Kim Dokja, he understood.

That Kim Dokja was the "real Kim Dokja."

「"Ah... Ah, I..."」

Like a satellite drawn toward a star's gravity, his body moved toward Kim Dokja.

The memories he held shattered into tiny pieces and were sucked into Kim Dokja before him.

Feeling his body disappear, he thought,

Then who was I?

「"Dokja-ssi!"」

He was Kim Dokja.

「"Kim Dokja!"」

But he wasn't the Kim Dokja this world wanted.

「"Kim Dok..."」

In the final moment before his consciousness vanished, he thought,

「If I could be born again,」

It was a delusion that only the "real Kim Dokja," as the Allies had said, might have.

「Then I hope I'm not Kim Dokja, at least.」

He imagined a universe so distant that it could never be reached from this world, and an unnamed being born in that universe.

A life form no one in Kim Dokja Company could recognize, one with no connection to Kim Dokja at all.

「I want to have my own story too.」

He heard something explode, and in the next moment, his consciousness shattered into tiny pieces and scattered into the universe.

Yet the largest fragment of consciousness that formed his core didn't completely scatter. It became a meteor.

The meteor began a long journey.

It passed beyond the edges of worldlines, over and over, drifting into a universe no one knew.

How much longer did it travel like that?

The meteor stopped its journey.

「A planet that looked exactly like the one he had imagined was there.」

The meteor fell toward the planet and shattered into even smaller fragments of soul.

Then it entered the body of a newborn baby at the edge of that planet.

「"Why isn't our baby crying?"」

A muffled voice reached him.

With the last of his strength, he let out a tired cry.

Then someone gently wrapped him in their arms.

「"Oh, thank goodness. The baby's alive!"」

He lay quietly wrapped in swaddling clothes on the bed.

Was it because he had lost all his memories?

Or because the long journey had exhausted him?

He quickly fell into a deep sleep.

When he woke again, people called him by a name he had never heard before.

「"Lee Hakhyun. Your name is Lee Hakhyun."」

At last, his wish had come true.

Footnotes:

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