WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈
Chapter 636: Episode 16: The Fifth Scenario (5)
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Just because [Incitement] made people believe I was Kyrios didn't mean I could freely use the real Kyrios's techniques.
If [Incitement] were such a ridiculous ability, Inho Cheon wouldn't have been so helplessly defeated by Kim Dokja at Geumho Station.
Still, [Incitement] had strengths of its own.
Unlike [Bookmark], it couldn't actually borrow a character's techniques. However, depending on how it was used, [Incitement] was a skill that could truly make me become that very “character.”
"What's with that bastard?"
"Is he provoking us?"
That was possible only so long as I could deceive everyone looking at me.
[The Exclusive Skill Incitement is being affected by your Attribute!]
Meeting the confused crowd's eyes, I pictured “Kyrios Lordgrime” in my mind.
One of the small people, born on the planet “peace land.” The strongest of the <First Martial World>, a Transcendent feared even by the stars.
The Paradoxical White Purity, who had grown so strong that he could no longer save his homeland.
A throbbing pain ran through my head, and Kyrios's image began to blur.
Not enough.
I had far too little text to become “Kyrios Lordgrime” with this alone.
Fortunately, I had excellent material to expand my imagination.
[The Exclusive Skill Three Ways to Survive the Apocalypse has activated!]
[Skill synergy has occurred!]
[The effect of Incitement has greatly increased!]
The sentences of TWSA began flowing into my mind. Kyrios's recorded mannerisms, hobbies, and even habits he himself didn't know about.
The expression he made when angry. The way he looked at his Disciples. His gaze when he seriously trained in martial arts. The smile he wore when he climbed somewhere high and played the viola alone.
Everything recorded about Kyrios was recreated in my mind, and the Kyrios I understood was expressed through my body once more.
「Kyrios drew his personal weapon, "Pure White Paradox."」
Just as I wasn't Kyrios, my equipment wasn't "Pure White Paradox," either.
[Thought of Almost Everything has mimicked Damaged Samyeong's Bamboo Staff.]
Still, this was enough for now.
「The day Kyrios brought all the masters of the Nine Sects and One Gang to their knees, the weapon in his hand was a wooden practice sword.」
Murmurs rose from all around us.
"It feels like the atmosphere's changed."
"Ark Master. Let me kill him myself. Please send me out!"
The Four Beggars and other Beggar's Sect members who had fallen for my earlier provocation shouted in fury.
To them, I probably looked like nothing more than a lunatic who had lost his mind and provoked the Beggar's Sect.
But what about the Ark Master?
"Stand back."
The Ark Master calmly held his subordinates back. He looked at me, and I looked back at him.
In the instant tension filled the air, his Dog-Beating Staff and my bamboo staff collided in midair after a fierce leap.
"You have a strange constellation artifact. Which star used that bamboo staff?"
"A Korean Constellation called the Bald Army General."
"The modifier is rather unfortunate, but the constellation artifact is excellent."
His Dog-Beating Staff was heavy despite holding no inner energy at all. I squeezed out every bit of my Strength to push back its weight and smiled.
[The Constellation Bald Army General shrugs.]
[The Constellation Bald Army General wipes his head.]
"Come on. Show me the skill of the White Flash."
The Ark Master's Dog-Beating Staff moved.
Although it contained no Mana at all, a mysterious energy surged from the staff he swung.
Since I knew the technique well, I said, "They say the first Dog-Beating Staff Technique was created, just as its name suggests, to beat stray dogs to death."
"It's a fitting technique for dealing with you as you are now."
"It also contains the sorrow of beggars who must live by begging for food."
"..."
"After all, beggars' sworn enemies were always dogs after discarded food."
The Ark Master's brows twitched sharply as he swung his staff with all his strength.
Dog-Beating Staff Technique, Second Form.
Staff Strike to the Head.
I twisted my body sharply, avoiding the Dog-Beating Staff falling toward my head.
"Not bad."
The Ark Master's eyes shone fiercely as he swung his staff. His gaze said he intended to thoroughly judge every movement and every form I used.
As if answering that gaze, I opened my mouth.
"Our White Purity Sect has foundational martial arts as well."
The power of [Incitement] spread through my entire body, and a vivid passage came to mind.
"White Purity Sect Disciples begin training while wearing cold iron bracelets as soon as they join, and from their second year onward, they learn the introductory swordsmanship."
Kyrios's personal martial arts barely appeared in Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint. Only [White Pure Star Energy] and [Electrification] appeared.
Once he had reached the rank of a Transcendent, the form of a technique held no meaning for him.
Yet to transcend form, one first had to understand it.
「Introductory Swordsmanship, White Flash Sword Technique.」
"This is simply pointing at a single point in the universe."
I drew the bamboo staff toward my torso, then thrust it forward with all my strength.
White Flash Sword Technique, First Form.
One Point.
At first glance, it was a simple thrust. But no one who knew the philosophy behind this thrust would call it “simple.”
White Purity Sect Disciples repeated the same training for hundreds, even thousands of days, all for this one simple thrust.
Only to master one sensation.
「"It has to feel like you're literally placing a dot."」
Placing a single dot in the vast universe.
「"That way, your opponent won't recognize the true value of this technique."」
My Strength, at level 40, condensed and screamed.
One point was both the beginning and the end.
Only upon that paradox did the White Flash's question of probing the universe begin.
A strange light crossed the Ark Master's eyes as he faced that one point.
"Crude. Crude, but...!"
As if he had been waiting for it, the Ark Master spun his Dog-Beating Staff. Though he didn't use inner energy, shadows of the staff rose like clouds.
Countless clouds of shadow swallowed the faint ray of that single point.
It was the Dog-Beating Staff Technique at its peak.
[The Constellation King Heungmu snickers.]
[The Constellation Two-Faced Expert yawns at the boring fight.]
To the stars, our fight was probably nothing more than a pathetic clown show.
For superhuman powerhouses who had grasped the mysteries of form, techniques were no more than fixed calculations.
Even so, Cheon Gae, the Ark Master, was serious.
As though this insignificant spar were the decisive battle of his life, he swung his Dog-Beating Staff at me with everything he had.
Dog-Beating Staff Technique, Sixth Form.
Flicking the Dog Toward Heaven.
The Dog-Beating Staff scraped across the ground, then struck upward toward the sky.
The instant I saw the technique, I understood.
Whether it was a dog, a Ground Rat, a Groll, or the Representative of another station, every creature struck by his Dog-Beating Staff must have died.
Then, as though performing a trick, the Ark Master struck the fragments of floor floating in the air and sent them flying.
Whooosh!
Fragments of shattered floor shot toward me like sharp arrows.
White Flash Sword Technique, Fourth Form.
Blue Wheel.
A defensive technique of the White Purity Sect, where one held the sword with both hands and gently turned it in a circle to sweep through the zone, defending against incoming arrows.
A few fragments I couldn't fully block swiftly grazed my forearms and thighs.
"White Flash martial arts weren't limited to this."
Despite his words, a smile was slowly spreading across the Ark Master's lips.
[The Constellation Goryeo's Top Swordsman makes an interested expression.]
[The Constellation Naval Warfare God feels an unknown charm in your battle.]
The Constellations in the sky were watching our fight.
[The Constellation Abyssal Black Flame Dragon picks his nose, asking why everyone is getting so worked up over such a dull fight.]
[The Constellation King Heungmu snorts.]
Of course, not everyone viewed this duel favorably.
But there were certainly those who watched this chaotic fight.
[The Constellation Bald Army General cheers for your fight!]
[The Constellation Demonic Judge of Fire watches you.]
Once again, I realized how many stars existed in this world. There was probably no fable that could satisfy all of them.
But this story hadn't been for them from the start.
[A Constellation that has yet to reveal its modifier watches your story.]
My bamboo staff and his staff collided without pause. The consecutive strikes flowed like water, and I was driven back without even a moment to catch my breath.
Even while retreating, I didn't stop talking.
"Ark Master, do you know what Footwork is?"
The Ark Master surely knew responding to my words was a trap.
Even so, he answered.
"As the name suggests, it's the way one walks. Deciding where to place one's feet and where not to."
I nodded and added, "With one step someone thinks nothing of taking, one person dies and another lives."
The Ark Master's eyes slowly widened.
They couldn't help but widen.
Because,
「"Is that the Beggar's Sect's Footwork?"」
This was once a conversation he had shared with Kyrios.
「"The reason I didn't kill all of you was because of your final step."」
Kyrios in TWSA was speaking.
「"Because with that one step, you tried to protect them."」
For a moment, the Ark Master's steps stopped. Then he began pressing me with movements even more vicious than before.
"What matters is knowing the weight of a step. The lightest thing can be the heaviest. That is the Paradox of Lightness and Heaviness spoken of by the White Flash."
"You don't understand those words. Anyone who understands them would never walk as you do!"
In truth, my backward steps were clumsy beyond measure. Yet somehow, even with that Footwork, I survived by avoiding the Dog-Beating Staff.
Because the Ark Master withdrew his killing blows at every critical moment.
More precisely, because he had no choice but to withdraw them.
This was the power of [Incitement].
Cheon Gae, the Ark Master who had fallen into my trap, was now seeing something entirely different in his fight with me.
"What? What's happening?"
"Ark Master?"
"Ark Master! Please finish this already!"
The beggars who couldn't understand the situation grew louder. Ignoring their murmurs, the Ark Master swung his Dog-Beating Staff at me again and again.
"This isn't all. The White Flash I know is-"
Techniques were only vessels for a martial artist to contain meaning. They were like fingers pointing at the moon.
Most of my techniques were full of flaws. At my current level of [Incitement], there was no way I could reproduce Kyrios at the same level.
The Kyrios I had read was perfect, but my physical ability was endlessly pathetic.
But that gap was helping me now.
"You aren't Kyrios."
The Ark Master was now seeing the man beyond what my techniques pointed to.
Unable to forget that man, he couldn't bring himself to break the finger pointing at the moon.
"Kyrios was faster than that. He was heavier, and more frightening."
Repeating those words to himself, the Ark Master swung his Dog-Beating Staff toward me as though possessed.
Whenever my bamboo staff collided with his Dog-Beating Staff, I thought I could hear someone typing on a keyboard somewhere.
Following the trajectory of the weapons cutting through the air, the world's landscape changed.
「The man he had wanted to fight for so long stood beyond those techniques.」
Like someone chasing that illusion, the Ark Master swung his Dog-Beating Staff madly, again and again.
Even through the dizzying pain ringing through my shins and torso, I gritted my teeth and withstood his techniques.
I wanted to protect his illusion.
Joy had begun to ripple across the Ark Master's face.
Anyone watching would have called it an awful spar. I performed ugly rolling evasions because I had nowhere to run, and sometimes staggered before bracing myself against the ground with my weapon. There was no fierce sword aura or dazzling Sword Aura.
But the scene of the spar unfolding in the Ark Master's mind was probably quite different.
[The Constellation Goryeo's Top Swordsman stares with his mouth open.]
[The Constellation Naval Warfare God nods.]
[The Constellation Bald Army General doubts his own eyes.]
Some stories opened only to those who understood their context.
A sentence useless to one person painted a desperate scene for another.
[The Constellation Abyssal Black Flame Dragon asks what on earth everyone is seeing.]
The completely entranced Ark Master muttered as if reciting a poem.
"Kyrios."
Every Constellation was mad about stories.
And I knew what story had driven Cheon Gae, the Last Ark, mad.
It was the event that had made him a Constellation.
"Kyrios, are you still there?"
It was the story of an absolute powerhouse he couldn't defeat even if he died and came back to life, a powerhouse who had destroyed his sect.
Even after becoming a Constellation in the heavens, he hadn't moved a single step from the final sentence of that fable.
That was why I answered.
"If you believe so."
I didn't know whether the Ark Master heard my answer. He only let out an empty laugh and looked down at his old Dog-Beating Staff.
"Is that so."
The moment he slowly blinked, the scenery around us rippled. I realized something was happening.
"It looks like I'm seeing things-"
"Is he using an illusion technique?"
With a crackling sound, the scenery around us overlapped and changed amid rippling sparks.
「Stage Transformation.」
There was no doubt about it. Since it wasn't an outstanding fable, the level of reproduction wasn't high, but this was undeniably Stage Transformation.
The Martial World of the past. The story of the day Kyrios appeared, when the Beggar's Sect was still at the center of the Nine Sects and One Gang.
「Then Kyrios's sword split the sky.」
The fight taking place here was an illusion built from lies.
Within that elaborate illusion, the Ark Master raised his head.
"Kyrios. Did you truly wait for me there?"
「The Ark Master's Dog-Beating Staff struck the earth in response.」
Yet the moment he believed it, it became reality.
[The Constellation Goryeo's Top Swordsman clenches his fist.]
[The Constellation Naval Warfare God lets out a regretful sigh.]
[The Constellation The Last Hero of Hwangsanbeol becomes engrossed in the duel.]
[The Constellation Bald Army General pants.]
[The Constellation King Heungmu reluctantly curls his lip.]
The martial artists who had once roamed battlefields holding their weapons silently watched our fight.
[The level of Stage Transformation is not high.]
[The reproduction of Stage Transformation has not gained the Plausibility of the fable.]
They knew, too.
This story was fake.
Kyrios wasn't here.
The Beggar's Sect had fallen, and the Martial World was no longer great.
The Martial World of Cheon Gae, the Dragon-Head Ark Master, had already vanished from this world.
Even so, the stars who had once lived as martial artists saw their own remembered scenes in our fight.
They envied him.
They envied Cheon Gae, the Ark Master, who could cast everything aside, descend to the surface, and experience this fable once more.
[The Constellation Goryeo's Top Swordsman has sponsored 100 coins.]
[The Constellation Bald Army General has sponsored 100 coins.]
[The Constellation The Last Hero of Hwangsanbeol has sponsored 100 coins.]
All the stars could do was sponsor this fight.
[The Constellation Prisoner of the Golden Headband has sponsored 100 coins and says he thinks he can see something too.]
[The Constellation Abyssal Black Flame Dragon scolds him, asking what he could possibly see.]
"Come! Kyrios!"
The Ark Master's final technique unfolded, and I also squeezed out all my strength to swing the bamboo staff.
Crack!
The Ark Master's Dog-Beating Staff broke. At the same time, the Mimicry of my bamboo staff was undone.
We panted as we looked at each other.
Neither of us had used Mana, so breathing was difficult.
[Stage Transformation has ended.]
The Ark Master was staring at me as he staggered. The dreamy look in his eyes returned to normal.
As the scenery of the Martial World faded, the truth of the story was revealed to all.
The Kyrios who had left him breathless wasn't there. The Martial World that had let him dream once more had now disappeared forever.
"You..."
What remained here was one lonely star unable to forget the regrets of the past.
And a shabby story that couldn't even become a fable.
"You aren't a Disciple of the White Purity Sect."
A sweet story written only for him.
The star awakened from that dreadful dream was crying like a child.
"Why did you show me such a scene?"
Footnotes:
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