WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈
Chapter 622: Episode 14: Master of the Throne (1)
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Yu Junghyeok strode ahead without the slightest hesitation. He didn't say where he was going.
Lee Hyeongseong, Kim Namwoon, and Jihye followed behind him, each keeping a step or two apart.
We followed Junghyeok's group at a steady distance.
After we'd followed them for a while, Gyeong Se-in, who had been walking beside me, cautiously spoke in a worried voice.
"Should we really keep following them?"
"They haven't told us not to."
Rather than joining Chungmuro Station, we had chosen to become Wanderers.
It was a dangerous decision, so before making it, I had asked Se-in, Uncle Dansu, and Huiwon for their opinions.
―Chungmuro would be safer for now, but I think Inho-ssi would be the one to save me if I were ever in real danger.
Gyeong Se-in.
―May I travel with you while looking for Jiyoon?
Uncle Dansu.
―If I leave you alone, I feel like you'll die somewhere.
And finally, Jeong Huiwon.
By this point, I wondered if we had been together in a past life, too.
"Inho-ssi, thank you for the new sword. I'm so late in thanking you."
"Do you like it?"
Huiwon swung Mikazuki Munechika through the air a few times.
"Very much."
Even so, her eyes never left the back of Junghyeok's head.
Even after seeing Junghyeok's strength, she still burned with fighting spirit. That was Jeong Huiwon for you.
Aside from exceptional cases like regressors and Reincarnators, Huiwon might be the strongest ordinary human.
The moment we fully emerged aboveground from Chungmuro Station, Junghyeok stopped walking.
He looked over the ruined city with indifferent eyes, then stopped his companions.
"Wait."
Junghyeok planted his huge spear in the ground and fell deep in thought as he looked back and forth between the streets to the west and north.
West and north from this point.
Something vaguely came to mind, but I didn't have enough information to be certain.
It would've been nice if I could look through TWSA.
All I had now were the readers' comments and the occasional notes that came back to me.
Namwoon, who had been kicking at the ground in the distance, looked our way.
He grinned and started toward us, but Jihye spoke in a chilly voice.
"Don't go picking fights for no reason unless you want to die by my hand."
"Huh? Okay."
Instead of Namwoon, who awkwardly pretended to be distracted, the gentlest and kindest man in Junghyeok's group approached us.
"Hello. Are you hurt anywhere?"
"Ah, no. Thanks to you."
"I'm sorry. Our leader isn't much of a talker."
"No, we're the ones following you without permission."
Hyeongseong smiled as he showed off his sturdy pectorals.
Looking at his honest expression made it sink in once again that I had really entered Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.
The real Steel Sword Emperor Lee Hyeongseong.
Earlier, I had been too busy fighting to appreciate it, but seeing him like this moved me all over again.
Something suddenly came to mind, and I immediately turned to Huiwon.
Yet Huiwon didn't seem to feel anything in particular after meeting Hyeongseong.
The odd reaction seemed to be coming from someone else.
"Se-in-ssi, did you work out by any chance?"
"Huh? How did you know?"
"I could tell from your shield movements. When you braced yourself, you seemed to use a wide squat stance, and when defending your upper body, it looked like you used a hammer curl stance. Am I right?"
"Wow, you noticed!"
[The character Lee Hyeongseong has taken a liking to the Incarnation Gyeong Se-in.]
Was this okay?
I looked at Huiwon again.
"Why?"
"It's nothing."
Then again, there was no rule saying Huiwon and Hyeongseong had to end up together.
The forty-first round and the third round were different.
Still, this was...
[A Constellation who likes changing genders makes an intrigued expression.]
I decided to stop worrying about it.
First, I needed to check the new Scenario that had arrived.
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<Main Scenario #4 - Capture the Flag>
Category: Main
Difficulty: C+
Clear Conditions: (The window is hidden because there is too much content.)
Time Limit: 14 days
Compensation: 2,000 coins
Failure: ???
+
As expected, the fourth Scenario was Capture the Flag, just like in the main story.
When I selected the Clear Conditions, a window filled with a lengthy message appeared, just as it had in the main story.
+
[Clear Conditions]
1. The Representatives of all stations possess a flag.
Only a station's Representative* may possess its flag.
2. If you seize another group's flag, you can seize every station owned by that group. Conversely, if your flag is seized, you will lose every station you own.
3. Even if you fail to seize a flag, killing a station's Representative will be considered the same as seizing its flag. In this case, you will receive additional points.
+
I had suspected it, and I was right.
A new rule had been added this time, too.
There was no need to seize a flag if you killed the Representative, and it even gave bonus points.
I had felt it during the Theater Dungeon Scenario as well, but the Scenarios in the forty-first round had a strange sense of dissonance.
It was as if someone had read the main story of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint and modified the Scenarios to suit their tastes.
...I was probably overthinking it.
+
4. There are locations outside stations where white flags have been hidden.
+
The second new rule.
White flags had been hidden in places outside stations as well.
They were probably this Scenario's Hidden Piece.
+
5. You must obtain the flag of your target station within 14 days. If you fail, every member of your group will die.
You currently have no target station.* You are unable to carry out this Scenario.
+
The final condition was largely the same as I remembered.
[You are currently a Wanderer with no station affiliation.]
[You cannot participate in Capture the Flag.]
[A Hidden Scenario has been assigned.]
I checked the Hidden Scenario window that followed.
+
<Hidden Scenario - Wanderer>
Category: Hidden
Difficulty: C
Clear Conditions: Join a new group, or kill a group's Representative and seize their flag.
Time Limit: 3 days
Compensation: Obtain the right to participate in the Capture the Flag Scenario.
Failure: ???
+
The Wanderer Scenario.
It was a kind of second-chance Scenario.
I called over Uncle Dansu, Se-in, and Huiwon, then began to speak.
"Everyone checked the Scenario, right?"
"Yes."
"For now, we have three options. First, we find another station and ask its Representative to accept us."
As long as we found a group, we could escape the Wanderer penalty, so clearing the Scenario itself wouldn't be difficult.
Se-in shook their head.
"If we were going to do that, we would've just joined the Chungmuro group. What's the second option?"
"The second is attacking another station and taking its flag. And the third is..."
"Finding a hidden white flag, right?"
"Yes. That's right."
"Then it has to be the third option, doesn't it? Usually, the third one is the answer."
It had been, in Kim Dokja's Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.
Se-in glanced around, then whispered in my ear.
"Do you know where the hidden white flag is? Like how Kim Dokja knew the location of the hidden Green Zone."
If only things could go that smoothly.
"No, I don't."
"What? Then what are we going to do?"
"We'll have to take another station's flag."
In the end, Capture the Flag was a fight to claim each other's flags.
Conflict was unavoidable, and we would have to destroy another station.
Only then would the Hidden Scenario, King's Path, open, allowing us to earn the right to challenge the Absolute Throne contest later.
Uncle Dansu spoke in a dark voice.
"It looks like it'll be a difficult fight. It would be nice if we could simply take their flag, but things won't go that easily."
A station whose flag was seized would lose its ruling authority to the station that seized it.
There had been conflict over that even at Chungmuro Station. Other stations would be worse.
Huiwon added her own thought.
"If we have to kill people anyway, we'll feel less guilty if they're people we don't know well."
Uncle Dansu and Se-in flinched at the killing intent in her cold voice.
I spoke as if to reassure them.
"It would be best if we don't kill anyone, but there will definitely be situations where we have no choice. Everyone, prepare yourselves."
Compared to the fights ahead, the battle we had experienced at Chungmuro Station was nothing but child's play.
Our enemies would be craftier than Ye Hyeonu, less considerate than Han Suyeong, and crueler than Pildu Gong.
The Odokhyeop we had met recently were proof enough.
They were persistent, impossible to count, and a criminal group with no regard for basic social norms.
[The Constellation Snake That Cuts Off Its Tail sneers at you.]
An Indirect Message arrived the moment I thought of them.
They were Odokhyeop's Constellations.
[The Constellation Rat That Calls the Plague tells you to struggle as much as you like.]
I remembered Asmodeus driving that rat bastard away last time, but it seemed to have crawled back in already.
[The Constellation Snake That Cuts Off Its Tail warns that even if you die, you won't be able to step on even a star's husk.]
It was a completely unfair fight.
The Odokhyeop bastards could watch us whenever they wanted while the channel was broadcasting, then leak information to their Incarnations.
After thinking for a moment, I called Bihyeong through dokkaebi communication.
―What is it? What do you want?
'I have a favor to ask.'
I listed the Constellations of Odokhyeop I had identified so far and asked Bihyeong whether he could block their access to the channel.
―Are you out of your mind? How dare a mere Incarnation like you try to block Constellations as exalted as ours...!
'Listen first. I heard the channel's finances have worsened considerably recently. Is that true?'
At the sudden mention of finances, Bihyeong swallowed his words for a moment.
―Insolent bastard. That's none of your business.
'It's because of the donations. There should be far fewer donations than before, right?'
―They have gone down, but... I'm still looking into the cause.
The channel's finances had worsened because the Apostles only talked in messages that got filtered, driving the Constellations away.
That idiot Bihyeong still seemed not to know it.
'Did you check the list of Constellations I mentioned? Those bastards probably won't have any donation records.'
―They certainly don't have donation records, but...
Just as I thought.
'Shouldn't you start managing the channel's quality soon?'
―Hmm. That's not wrong, but penalizing them just because they don't have donation records is a bit...
'Of course, you can't penalize them for that reason. What worries me is... I heard the Administration Bureau's channel was breached recently.'
―Where did you hear that?
There were things I could know without hearing them from anywhere.
'I don't think those bastards entered through normal channels.'
Footnotes:
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