WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 627: Episode 14: Master of the Throne (6)

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"I..."

I couldn't answer right away.

I clearly wasn't that Inho Cheon. I thought differently from him, and the things I liked and disliked were different.

My soul was different.

But could I really say I had nothing to do with that Inho Cheon?

I had taken Possession of his body, and before that, I had written sentences about him.

I had created "villain Inho Cheon" with my own hands.

Even if Han Suyeong had written the first draft, I had plenty of chances to change those sentences.

If that was the case, then perhaps I...

"You're a different person. Why are you hesitating so much?"

Huiwon frowned as though she couldn't understand.

"No matter how I look at it, you're a different person. I saw that world, too."

"..."

"Your personalities are different, and your looks are... This Inho Cheon is more handsome."

I had no idea what she was trying to say.

"You said it was another world. Doesn't that make it a world that doesn't exist here? Like a world in a novel."

A world in a novel.

"The reason I asked was because I just wanted to hear a predetermined answer. That's all. So tell me, Inho-ssi. Are you the same person as Inho Cheon from that world?"

I came to my senses.

Huiwon had been the first to hold out her hand. It would be rude not to take it.

"I'm a different person from him. At least, that's what I think."

"Right?"

But was that really enough?

Would she be able to accept it and move on with only that?

"The Inho Cheon I believe in is only the Inho Cheon standing before me."

Huiwon spoke as though she were using [Incitement] on herself.

"So, Inho-ssi."

Huiwon stepped closer, drove her blade into the floor, and spoke.

"Think of the me standing before you as Jeong Huiwon. Not the Jeong Huiwon who appears in the future you know."

Only then did I understand why she had brought this up.

「The Jeong Huiwon before me isn't the Jeong Huiwon of 『Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint』.」

Jeong Huiwon, Kim Dokja's sword.

Huiwon, who had killed Inho Cheon.

Huiwon, the one and only Incarnation of Demonic Judge of Fire and the guardian of Kim Dokja Company.

That Jeong Huiwon wasn't here.

Just as I wasn't Inho Cheon, she wasn't the Jeong Huiwon from the stories the Apostles kept talking about.

「There is only one Jeong Huiwon in the forty-first round.」

I nodded sincerely.

Huiwon smiled.

"If I fall off a bridge again, you'll save me, right?"

"As many times as it takes."

Huiwon caught her breath, bent down to pick up the canteen on the floor, and took a drink.

"I said something pretty complicated for someone like me. Honestly, I don't want to think about difficult things right now. I like simple things."

The Huiwon I knew wasn't someone who talked about things like this.

In that sense, perhaps I had already met a Huiwon different from the one in the main story.

"I just want to cut down what's in front of me, stab it, and somehow survive. That's all I want to do."

"For now, that's enough. Just do it by my side."

At that, Huiwon tilted her head slightly and looked at me.

"I might accidentally stab you, Inho-ssi."

"Then I'll die."

Huiwon must have thought it was a joke, because she laughed.

"That won't do. Help me make sure I don't stab the wrong person, Inho-ssi."

"Of course. But..."

As I slowly looked around the cafeteria, I asked the question I had wanted to ask for a while.

"You haven't already sent someone off, have you?"

There was one other person in the cafeteria besides us.

More precisely, at Huiwon's feet.

* * *

The man was still breathing.

He didn't stand out in any way, other than looking homeless. Then again, now that everyone was homeless, even that didn't mean much.

"The sniper you caught earlier? There really was a sniper?"

"There was."

The man, bound tightly from head to toe, let out intermittent groans as though he were having a nightmare.

"Though the gun was a toy gun."

I checked the man's [Character Profile].

He didn't have any remarkable stats or attributes, but one skill caught my eye.

[Bullet Enhancement].

It was a skill that turned toy bullets into something with the power of live rounds. He had probably used it to target us.

After I slapped his cheek a few times, the man jolted awake and began to beg through tears.

"P-Please spare me!"

"Which group are you with?"

I slammed a pot into the floor beside his head as I asked.

It was time to briefly enter villain Inho Cheon mode. After all, this bastard had tried to snipe us.

I was wondering if I should at least pretend to torture him when the man shouted as if he were having a seizure.

"T-The Beggar's Sect! It's the Beggar's Sect!"

He gave in more easily than I expected.

But... the Beggar's Sect?

Huiwon must have read my expression, because she asked, "Do you know that group?"

I gave a vague nod.

No web novel writer would be unfamiliar with the Beggar's Sect. It was a faction that appeared regularly in martial arts novels, one of the Nine Sects and One Gang of the Martial World.

The Beggar's Sect represented the "one gang" among the Nine Sects and One Gang.

That was only true in ordinary martial arts novel settings, of course.

The problem was that the Beggar's Sect didn't appear in the Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint I knew.

"Where is this group located?"

"Th-that..."

Huiwon drew her sword with a scrape.

"Th-the location is too broad for me to explain exactly! But our main Shelter Zone is near Seoul Station!"

"Who's the group's Representative?"

"Cheon Gae-nim!"

Beggar's Sect, Cheon Gae, Seoul Station.

The first two had never been described in detail in Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, but Seoul Station was different.

As I remembered it, Dokja had once said the following in a Monologue.

「Still, they're cute compared to those bastards in Chungmuro or Seoul Station.」

That was the only description of Seoul Station in all of 『Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint』.

I tried to recall other notes, but nothing came to mind.

That was because I had only mentioned the area around Seoul Station without giving it a concrete outline.

In other words, it was information Suyeong hadn't passed on to me.

After thinking for a moment, I decided to dig up some information first.

"Why were you watching us?"

"Ch-Cheon Gae-nim ordered us to watch that stretch of road to expand the branch's influence! That's really all it was. We never meant to hurt you!"

He did seem to be telling the truth. As I considered it, my eyes suddenly fell to his waist.

Three knots hung from his belt.

Well, well.

I looked at the knots for a moment before asking, "Can you swear an oath?"

* * *

The man was only released after repeatedly swearing an [Existence Oath].

The oath's contents were simple.

「No matter what happens, do not report anything about us to the Representative.」

As he left, the man kept bowing in our direction and repeating his thanks.

[You are currently contracted to an Existence Oath with multiple targets.]

[As the number of Existence Oath targets increases, the power of the Oath weakens.]

This was another penalty I hadn't known about.

Was that why Dokja hadn't used [Existence Oath] often in the main story?

Huiwon watched the man disappear into the distance, then asked, "Is it really okay to let him go?"

[The Constellation Abyssal Black Flame Dragon is taken aback by your idiocy.]

That damn idiot comment again.

"Do you think my judgment was wrong?"

"I just think it's something Inho-ssi would do."

"There is a reason I let him live."

That group had probably already acquired the authority of [Group Chat].

In other words, the moment Huiwon caught that man, there was a high chance he had passed information on to nearby group members.

Put another way, our information had already reached their group somehow.

"They aren't an ordinary group. They've already established a hierarchy within their organization."

"A hierarchy?"

I explained the knots tied around the man's waist.

The Beggar's Sect was originally a faction of beggars from martial arts novels. They showed their rank through the knots around their waists. An ordinary member had one knot, a Branch Leader had three, and a Hall Leader had five.

"That person had three knots. That means he was at Branch Leader rank."

"What's a Branch Leader?"

"Um... If you compare it to a company, think of it as something like an assistant manager or manager."

"That isn't very high, is it?"

"No. But the fact that they have ranks is what matters."

As far as I knew, the Beggar's Sect had as many as nine knots.

That guy had three knots, meaning there were six more ranks above him.

It was truly surprising that they had already formed a group of that size when the Scenario had only just begun.

"Do you think the group was made by someone who likes martial arts novels?"

"That might be the case, or..."

Their Constellation might be related to the Martial World.

Either way, they weren't an enemy we would benefit from making right now.

More than anything, Dokja had considered them comparable to Chungmuro, so we had to assume they possessed at least the strength of the Ten Evils.

Huiwon was on our side, of course, but her true strength was better suited to fighting monsters than people.

"What if they come back with a group? He swore an oath, but we can't know for sure."

"I'd actually prefer that."

"What?"

I had clearly shown them goodwill.

If they still came looking for us to attack, then it would be an unmistakable declaration of war.

"Then I can kill them without holding back."

I wondered if that had been too brutal a thing to say, but Huiwon smiled instead.

"I like that."

It felt like we had become a particularly vicious duo.

I answered with a bitter smile.

"Then let's get going, too. You said Yu Junghyeok went north?"

"Well, there was one thing I didn't tell you earlier."

Huiwon scratched her cheek as she added, "That Yu Junghyeok person said something else before he left."

I had thought that was possible. Junghyeok looked cool on the outside, but he held on to things more than anyone would expect.

"He said he can't acknowledge the current Inho Cheon as Inho Cheon. But..."

"But?"

"He said he'd consider acknowledging you as Inho Cheon if you recruit someone as a Companion and bring them back."

He wouldn't even acknowledge me, only consider acknowledging me?

What kind of nonsense was that?

"He said you'd know if I told you it was the Berserk Butcher."

"The Berserk Butcher?"

A sentence suddenly came to mind. There had definitely been an Incarnation with that alias in Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.

「Even the Berserk Butcher, one of the 100 strongest people in TWSA, eventually evolved from the Crouching One.」

Yet, surprisingly, this person had only been mentioned once before being forgotten. There wasn't even another mention of whether they had lived or died.

They were one of TWSA's 100 strongest people, too...

Suyeong hadn't told me about this either, so there probably hadn't been any further mention of them.

Still, Junghyeok was looking for the Berserk Butcher...

Things were getting interesting.

"Do you know this person?"

"I've heard of them."

Just as I was about to say that I didn't know them, a faint pain ran through my head again.

[A new skill is activating.]

A new skill?

「The Berserk Butcher was born at Seoul Station that day.」

The thought that surfaced bore unmistakable single quotation marks.

Since when had this started?

Goosebumps slowly rose along my arms.

It wasn't a sentence that had originally appeared in 『Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint』, nor was it a setting I had created, nor was it a sentence I would write in the future.

[The Exclusive Skill Three Ways to Survive in a Ruined World is activating.]

It was the story Dokja had loved more than anyone else.

It was a sentence from TWSA.

Footnotes:

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