WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈
Chapter 649: Episode 19: Person from Long Ago (1)
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rlaehrwk37 : I've been liking old stories lately.
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With a crackling sound, Shin Yuseong suddenly opened her eyes.
The last thing she had seen was the dungeon scattering into the light.
Her heart sank.
What if something had gone wrong?
What happened to ahjussi?
She blinked several times, but all she could see was darkness.
[The connection has been lost.]
Yuseong reached out and took off her connection goggles.
A white, circular connection device came into view, along with letters spinning fiercely around it.
[The connection error for the 41st round is being fixed.]
[A new connection point is being searched for.]
"Hey! We got kicked out because of you!"
When she turned, Lee Gilyeong was taking off his goggles with an annoyed expression. Yuseong narrowed her eyes.
"What nonsense are you talking about? It was because of you."
"We got kicked out because you used your ability too much! Suyeong noona told us not to use skills carelessly in the 41st round! And why did you connect with me in the first place?"
Yuseong shrugged, pretending not to care.
"You were the one throwing around Indirect Messages. Isn't that what caused the Plausibility error?"
"That was..."
"Still, you sure came up with a ridiculous modifier. Sinister Schemer?"
Gilyeong's face reddened, and he fumed as he shouted.
"Shut up and call Seolhwa noona already. We need to fix this!"
"You do it. I could've talked to ahjussi longer, but you got us kicked out."
"You said that person wasn't Dokja hyung."
"It is Dokja ahjussi. Dokja ahjussi reincarnated."
"He doesn't have any of hyung's memories, though."
How many minutes had they spent bickering like that?
Lee Seolhwa's voice came through the speaker installed above the connection device.
―You two broke it again? I'll fix it, so stop fighting. Go outside and take a walk or something.
At the voice from above, the two children answered together.
"Okay."
―And didn't I tell you not to connect at the same time? The device is still unstable, so if you both connect at once...
The two hurried out of the room.
As they walked down the long hallway, Gilyeong asked, "Where's Sangah noona?"
"Room Three. She's still connected."
Yu Sangah was visible beyond the glass door marked with a three.
She sat before a device like the one they had used, wearing connection goggles. Her eyes were hidden, so they couldn't make out her expression, but she seemed to be speaking earnestly.
Yuseong said worriedly, "She should eat first."
Sangah had already been connected for thirty-six hours.
A screen floating before her showed the scene she was watching. Ruined Gwanghwamun. The collapsed National Palace Museum. A lobby engulfed in flames. A beautiful Incarnation shouting something amid Incarnations running about in panic.
A familiar face was also stealthily surveying the area nearby.
Gilyeong recognized that face and asked, "Will Suyeong noona be okay?"
"..."
"She dived in herself. I heard she's already used a lot of Plausibility."
Unlike the others, who could only interfere indirectly with the 41st round through the Fable Connection Device created by Lee Seolhwa, Han Suyeong had infiltrated that round herself.
More precisely, she had used [Avatar] to send over part of her memories. Thanks to that, she had more freedom with the Scenario's Plausibility than the other members of Kim Dokja Company.
―Don't ever connect directly, understand? The 41st round isn't like other worldlines. I'm the only one entering that world directly. You know what happens to Constellations that descend into early Scenarios, right? Don't use Possession either. Save as much Plausibility as possible. I'll bring Dokja back somehow, so all you have to do is watch from here.
It was a method only Han Suyeong, a Writer, could use.
She had made her [Avatar] participate in the Scenario of the 41st round.
To bring Dokja back, she had thrown herself into that hellscape of Scenarios once again.
―Don't ever come in. If you really want to see it, just watch like the Constellations, understand?
Yuseong understood how Suyeong felt.
Still, the others couldn't just sit still.
Sangah and Gilyeong had made Behind-the-Scenes Contracts with Incarnations of the 41st round, while Yuseong had intervened in that round through Possession, all for that reason.
Gilyeong spoke as if it were nothing.
"You used Possession before."
Among the members here, Yuseong was the only one who could use Broken Film Theory to possess a character in the 41st round.
"What was it like?"
Gilyeong didn't ask specifically, but Yuseong understood exactly what he meant.
"You saw it, too."
"Watching it and going through it are different."
"It was all stuff we already knew."
There was a lot she could say.
The Star Stream was still the Star Stream.
Even more terrible Scenarios than the ones they had experienced were unfolding everywhere. Damn Constellations and dokkaebis mocked the desires of Incarnations and scorned human deaths.
A lot of people died.
Yuseong knew better than anyone why Suyeong had kept her companions from going there.
「It was a world she never wanted to return to.」
It certainly was.
And yet...
"I missed it."
That was how Yuseong answered.
After thinking for a moment, Gilyeong asked, "What if I secretly descend into the 41st round?"
"Do you want to die? The current Plausibility risk is already dangerous."
Gilyeong and Yuseong were Incarnations who had cleared the Final Scenario.
Their true Status had already surpassed even the stars in the high sky.
It was obvious what would happen if they descended in their complete forms into an early Scenario of another worldline.
"Dokja hyung only crackled a few times when he got hit by the backlash."
"That's because he's ahjussi."
Even for Dokja, who was strong against Plausibility, descending in his complete form into an early Scenario would be difficult.
Gilyeong grumbled.
"Tch, I want to have some fun, too."
"Fun? You think this is fun?"
When Yuseong frowned, Gilyeong asked, "You seemed like you were having fun, too."
"I..."
Could she really describe it as fun?
Yuseong bit her lip, overcome by an indescribable sense of guilt.
Still, she couldn't deny what Gilyeong had said.
"You were happy to return to the Scenarios, even for a little while. Weren't you?"
Enduring terrible hardships, receiving the gazes of Constellations, carrying out life-or-death Scenarios.
The moment she was thrown back into that time she never wanted to experience again, Yuseong strangely felt her heart race and blood rush through her body.
Maybe they had become that kind of people now.
People who could only find a purpose for themselves in a tragic world like this.
The two looked out the window of the industrial complex. A cool breeze blew in and scattered their hair.
Gilyeong spoke first.
"Sometimes, it doesn't feel real."
"Yeah."
A white landscape stretched beyond the window.
A world that looked as though someone had stopped drawing it halfway through.
As she stared at that unfinished scenery, Yuseong remembered the moment they entered this world.
「She thought they could finally bring Dokja back.」
Having finally reached the story's conclusion, Kim Dokja Company opened the hospital room door.
Beyond that door were two conclusions.
One was a world where Dokja existed. The other was a world where Dokja didn't exist.
Faced with those divided conclusions, the companions chose the latter.
Choices like this were traps.
Instinctively, they all thought so.
Just like in that subway long ago, Dokja would once again leave them only a sweet illusion and wander alone beyond some distant Scenario.
「The companions set out to find Dokja themselves in the latter world.」
The problem was that the world without Dokja wasn't a proper world.
It was a dream Dokja himself had never imagined, a dream not even the Oldest Dream had managed to dream.
"It's already been half a year."
A lot had happened here during those six months.
Kim Dokja Company set a plan in motion to bring Dokja back.
―We can connect to every worldline from here.
The first to discover that fact was Sangah, the third person to cross over.
With the authority of Mandala's Protector, Sangah immediately extended the [Thread of Fate] and searched for fragments of Dokja's soul scattered throughout the worldlines.
But the worldlines were far too vast, and the fragments of Dokja were far too numerous.
The companions decided to first gather the fragments of Dokja that hadn't yet reincarnated.
Some fragments were in worldlines they knew, while others were in worldlines they had never seen before.
Every one of them was a trace Dokja had left behind.
Sangah said,
―Even if we gather all the fragments, the Dokja-ssi we know won't return.
Collecting someone's footprints didn't bring back the person who had made them.
The companions knew that, too.
―But if we don't even do that, what do we have left?
At Lee Jihye's words, the companions nodded.
Even if this amounted to nothing more than mourning Dokja, even if the Dokja they knew could never return.
Like when they had waited for Junghyeok after he left for space, they wanted to keep holding on to eternal hope.
So the companions kept gathering fragments of Dokja's fable.
The fragments gradually grew into a larger mass. Once it reached a certain size, it began moving somewhere, as if drawn by gravity.
The companions traced the direction the fable was heading and eventually found a worldline.
The 41st round.
That world wasn't one recorded in TWSA.
Like Junghyeok's zeroth round, it was an unrecorded world.
The companions instinctively realized it.
Maybe Dokja was here.
"Has that black-clad guy contacted us?"
"Not yet. And stop calling Junghyeok ahjussi that. It's rude."
Yuseong blankly stared out the window.
She stared and stared, as if a white coat might flutter somewhere within that white landscape if she looked long enough.
Gilyeong asked, "Do you think we can find him?"
"We can. We've already found one person."
"That's not hyung."
"Then what is ahjussi?"
"Hyung is..."
What was Kim Dokja?
Yuseong and Gilyeong knew the answer.
They knew a lot about Dokja.
What Dokja liked and disliked, the food he couldn't eat, his height, age, and weight. The expressions and smiles he wore when he looked at them.
But if they gathered all those things together, would that become Dokja?
If they gathered every single one of Dokja's memories, would that become a being they could call Dokja?
Once, Seolhwa had asked this.
―Do you remember what you ate for lunch a week ago?
Yuseong shook her head. Seolhwa smiled and added,
―Actually, I don't remember either.
Yuseong now understood that question a little.
Maybe the Dokja she knew no longer existed in this world.
Like a lunch eaten a week ago that she couldn't remember at all.
A story that had certainly existed once, but that no one remembered.
「There's still a story I haven't read. I'll be back soon.」
Dokja, who loved stories so much, had left behind that note and disappeared.
"Hyung is someone who loves stories."
Seemingly satisfied with his answer, Gilyeong nodded several times and added, "Hyung loves my story."
"He likes my story more."
"No, he likes my story more."
The two started arguing again.
Yuseong thought about it.
In this world, conflict became a story. And stories were what Dokja loved most.
If Dokja truly loved stories, then he would surely be watching Yuseong and Gilyeong as they were now. No matter what he looked like or how many years had passed, if he was watching this story, he was still the Kim Dokja she remembered.
How long had they been chattering like that?
Seolhwa's voice came through the industrial complex's broadcast system.
―He's back.
He was back. At those words, Yuseong and Gilyeong both held their breath.
Could it be?
But Kim Dokja couldn't have returned.
That meant...
A beep sounded, followed by the noise of someone grabbing a microphone.
―Gather up. I have something to say.
Yu Junghyeok had returned.
Footnotes:
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