WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 633: Episode 16: The Fifth Scenario (2)

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Since I'd already come this far, I had to meet the Beggar's Sect Ark.

Our goal was to find medicine for Jeong Eunho.

If this truly was the Beggar's Sect from the Martial World, then no matter how far it had fallen, it should have a few useful elixirs.

Huiwon said, "Let's go together."

"I'll go alone for now. Please look after Eunho while I'm gone."

"If anything happens, call out right away. Got it?"

I nodded.

Normally, I would've taken Huiwon with me.

This time, though, that would be difficult.

I was currently a White Purity Sect Disciple, and Kyrios's disciple wouldn't be afraid of the likes of the Beggar's Sect.

In other words, I didn't need an escort.

"I'll just take this guy."

I gestured at the freckled boy, our hostage.

Perhaps he'd already given up, because he was being quite obedient now.

"Keep heading straight that way."

I began walking down the path toward the waiting room.

That was when the freckled boy on my back spoke up.

"Mister."

"Yeah?"

"Taking me with you won't do any good. Someone like me isn't worth anything as a hostage."

I paused, then set him down and untied the knots around his hands and feet.

The startled boy looked up at me.

"You're letting me go?"

I grinned.

"You said you weren't worth anything as a hostage."

"Should I run away?"

"Do you want to?"

The freckled boy lowered his head.

He knew it, too. There was nowhere in this world for children to run away to.

Scenarios were hell everywhere.

With no remarkable abilities, all this boy could do was use his young appearance to lure people into traps.

"Your name was Wonsik, right?"

"......"

"Are you scared of your dad?"

Wonsik jerked his head up.

Just as I thought. No matter how vicious a brat he might be, a child was still a child. He couldn't completely hide the emotions on his face.

"I heard your dad's a martial artist."

"He's not a martial artist. This is Korea."

"Then what is he?"

"After the Scenario started... he suddenly became like that."

I suppressed the creeping sense of foreboding and asked, "Tell me more."

"He just suddenly became a completely different person."

"Did his appearance change?"

"He looks the same."

I thought for a moment.

Perhaps the Beggar's Sect Ark, like Jeong Huiwon's father Jeong Munho, was a Reader.

Still, even if he was a Reader, could he suddenly become a Martial World master commanding a large faction?

Especially this early on.

"My dad was homeless, but he wasn't a bad person. He went bankrupt after his business failed, but he wasn't someone who hurt people. He changed after touching that strange stone..."

"A strange stone?"

"You know, the one that fell from the sky a little while ago..."

The information in my head came together in an instant. A cold premonition brushed past my chest.

「Perhaps Readers weren't the only ones who intruded into this world without ringing the doorbell.」

Before long, Seoul Station's waiting room came into view, covered by a massive cloth partition.

It looked as though someone had set up a relief camp in the middle of Seoul Station.

The Beggar's Sect Ark was inside.

I entered the tent with the trembling Wonsik.

A huge stone stood embedded upright in the floor at the center of the tent. Broken tables and chairs from the waiting room were lined up beneath it.

The Ark sat in one of those chairs, drinking tea.

He looked as though he were leisurely enjoying this time of catastrophe.

Though he had noticed my arrival, he deliberately acted as if I weren't there and muttered, "The Longjing tea here is strange. The Longjing I knew didn't taste like this."

The four beggars standing by his side bowed deeply.

"We apologize. It was all we could find here."

"It can't be helped."

The Ark took another sip of tea.

"Just as the Martial World we remembered has disappeared, the fragrance people call Longjing must have changed as well."

I felt as if I had suddenly stepped into the middle of a wuxia novel.

The place and time were clearly different. No matter where I looked, this place was far removed from the Central Plains and the Martial World.

Yet the moment he opened his mouth, this place became the Martial World.

He was someone who could change the scenery around him with his own language, wherever he was.

"Don't just stand there blankly. Come sit down. Welcome to the Beggar's Sect."

I truly felt as if I had come to the Beggar's Sect, one of the Martial World's Nine Sects and One Gang.

"Excuse me."

I calmly sat across from the Ark. After taking a sip of tea, he asked, "Why did you bring that child?"

Wonsik shuddered under his gaze.

I lightly wrapped an arm around the boy's shoulders and said, "He's a hostage."

"A hostage?"

It didn't look like the gaze of a father looking at his child.

I deliberately added, "You have a brave son."

The Ark gave a strange smile.

"All children of the Beggar's Sect are brave. They lose their parents young and beg for food on the streets, yet they can still take care of themselves."

"......"

"I don't know what you expected, but I have no intention of giving my son special treatment. From the moment one enters the Beggar's Sect, the distinction between children and adults becomes meaningless. We are merely equal beggars living beneath the same sky."

"Even among beggars, children are children and adults are adults."

"From the universe's perspective, the two are not all that different."

It sounded plausible.

But it wasn't something a human could say.

That was enough for me to realize who he was.

"I suppose it might be that way from a star's perspective."

Wonsik had said it.

His father had suddenly become a different person.

[The Exclusive Skill Character Profile has activated!]

+

Name: Myeong Se-un

Age: 44

Patron Constellation: Last Chief

Exclusive Attribute: Homeless (Common)

Exclusive Skills: [Camping Lv.3], [Fishing Lv.3], [Begging Lv.3]...

Stigma: [Dog-Beating Staff Technique Lv.3]...

Overall Stats: [Constitution Lv.25], [Strength Lv.25], [Agility Lv.25], [Mana Lv.25]

Overall Evaluation: This person is acting on behalf of the will of the Historical-grade Constellation Last Chief.

+

He was an Incarnation with respectable overall stats.

What truly bothered me, though, wasn't his overall stats but his overall evaluation.

「He is acting on behalf of a Constellation's will.」

In other words, the Ark before me was in a kind of Possession state.

"Why is a Constellation here in the first place?"

The Constellation Last Chief.

Judging by his modifier, he was the very owner of the Beggar's Sect who had been driven from the Martial World after losing to Kyrios and the Sky-Splitting Sword Saint in the Second Martial World and Third Martial World.

"Dragon-Head Ark Master Cheon Gae. This isn't the Martial World."

"What an interesting young man. You've already figured that much out?"

The moment the Ark set down his teacup, the air around us changed.

I knew instinctively.

The pressure I felt from the Ark was at least on the level of a Tier-6 beast species.

He was strong enough that I couldn't be certain of victory even if Huiwon came to help.

"That's right. I am Dragon-Head Ark Master Cheon Gae."

Was it an illusion?

With that declaration, it felt as if the Beggar's Sect's signboard had appeared before me.

This pressure must have been his fable.

The Beggar's Sect, a prestigious orthodox faction that had endured in the Martial World for over a thousand years.

A purple flag fluttered behind him.

He wasn't an opponent I could underestimate.

The flags in Capture the Flag began at white, then progressed through red, navy, brown, and purple before ending at black.

If he already had a purple flag, then every Representative around Seoul Station had likely died by this man's hand.

His growth rate was chilling enough to make even Yu Junghyeok wary.

I was sincerely curious.

If, as Dokja had said, this man had appeared in the main story of TWSA, then who had killed him?

"I don't understand. Why has a great star joined in the Incarnations' little game?"

I couldn't understand why a Constellation's possessed body existed in an early Scenario like this.

The Scenario's Plausibility shouldn't have allowed such a thing.

"A great star? You seem to know quite a bit about Constellations."

"A little."

"Could you be someone who knows the future as well?"

It seemed Master Sergeant Jeong Munho, whom they had captured as a prisoner, had revealed quite a lot.

"An acquaintance told me an interesting story. He said this world was actually inside a story, and that we were all characters in that story."

Just how much had you blabbed, Dokja-nim?

"It is an interesting analogy. It reminds me of Zhuangzi's words. Was I a man who dreamt of becoming a butterfly, or am I truly a butterfly dreaming of becoming a man? I often have similar thoughts myself."

I admired the wise Ark's sound judgment.

Fortunately, he had taken reality as a metaphor.

"If this truly is a story, then what story will my Beggar's Sect be remembered in? Has the history of the Beggar's Sect ended now? Will it be remembered only as an ordinary den of beggars, no longer spoken of by anyone?"

A faint scent rose from the half-filled cup of Longjing tea. It was so faded that it was difficult to tell what leaves had made it.

Before the old star's reminiscence could continue any longer, I cut him off.

"It seems nostalgia has confused you about whether you're a Constellation or an Incarnation, but you're a star. Have you forgotten?"

"I only seized an opportunity."

"An opportunity?"

"An opportunity to begin again. An opportunity to raise up a forgotten fable and engrave the Beggar's Sect upon the Star Stream."

"Then you've come to the wrong place. You should've done that in the Martial World. What kind of havoc are you causing in a lower Scenario?"

"I, too, gave up much in return. Can you feel a Constellation's Status from me now?"

Come to think of it, something had felt strange.

The Ark was certainly strong, but he wasn't comparable to the Constellations I knew.

If he truly possessed a Constellation's Status, I wouldn't have been able to endure the pressure of his fable. My limbs would've burst apart the moment we met.

I thought I understood what this Constellation had done.

If my guess was right, the situation was at its worst.

"Let's get to the point. I heard you're a White Purity Sect Disciple."

"And?"

The Ark's eyes grew cold.

It seemed the bluff I'd made was finally about to threaten my life.

"Can you prove it?"

I wasn't a White Purity Sect Disciple, so I had no identification tablet or constellation artifact to prove it.

But.

[The Exclusive Skill Incitement Lv.6 has activated!]

Fortunately, I knew a real White Purity Sect Disciple.

「I am Kim Dokja.」

The moment I recited those words, I truly felt as if I had become a White Purity Sect Disciple.

I feared nothing.

The smallest was the greatest.

And I wanted to hit Yu Junghyeok on the back of the head.

Perhaps sensing the change in me, the expressions of the beggars lined up behind the Ark changed.

The final touch was the [White Pure Star Energy] Literary Girl 64 had taught me.

[The Exclusive Skill White Pure Star Energy Lv.1 has activated!]

The Ark's eyes widened as he sensed the bluish Mana flowing from my entire body.

"So you really are Paradoxical White Purity's disciple."

The beggars guarding him stirred loudly as well.

"For that bastard's disciple to come here... You know what that means, don't you?"

A faint, murderous pressure spread through the tent.

I grinned.

"I do. And I know your rampage injured someone I know."

"So?"

I wondered whether I should really say this.

But my mouth was already beyond my control.

Because I was that Dokja right now.

"Please hand over a Lesser Restoration Pill."

[The Constellation Prisoner of the Golden Headband is astonished by your boldness.]

Kim Dokja, the living mouth of Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint.

"A Lesser Restoration Pill? Why are you looking for Shaolin's elixir at the Beggar's Sect?"

"If you don't have a Lesser Restoration Pill, then a Jasodan or anything else will do. Hand over an elixir that can heal internal injuries. If this is truly the Beggar's Sect, you should have at least that much, shouldn't you?"

The Ark opened his mouth as if my words were absurd.

"Is that your business?"

"No, I have one more matter to discuss."

I wanted to cover my own mouth.

The person before me was a mad beggar possessed by a Constellation. If I kept talking, my head might burst.

Yet my tongue wouldn't stop.

"Hand over that flag as well."

Because I was the mad Dokja right now.

"Otherwise, our master will visit this place personally next time."

[The Constellation Sinister Schemer nods contentedly.]

Footnotes:

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