WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 650: Episode 19: Person from Long Ago (2)

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Three people had answered Yu Junghyeok's summons.

Lee Seolhwa, Shin Yuseong, and Lee Gilyeong.

"Hey, you gloomy bastard! Where the hell have you been all this time?"

The moment Junghyeok entered the conference room, Gilyeong pointed accusingly at him. It was a crude outburst along the lines of, Do you know how much we've suffered while you were gone? What took you so long?

Junghyeok looked down at Gilyeong, shook his head, and muttered, "You're becoming more like Kim Namwoon by the day."

"Hey, what did you just say?!"

Yuseong flicked Gilyeong on the forehead as he shouted back.

"Quiet down."

Gilyeong cried out as if it were unfair while Yuseong scolded him. Seolhwa watched the two children with a smile before asking, "But where did you really go?"

"Another worldline."

"Which round?"

"It can't be defined by a round. I went outside the Star Stream."

Outside the Star Stream.

They had never heard of a place like that.

"There's a place like that?"

"I was able to get there from here."

This world was a world without Kim Dokja.

As a result, the binding power of the Oldest Dream and the Star Stream was somewhat weaker here. Junghyeok frowned as though considering a troublesome matter, then asked, "Where are Han Suyeong and Yu Sangah?"

"They're in the forty-first round."

"And Jihye?"

"She's in another worldline. There are fragments of Dokja we haven't collected yet."

"There's no need to collect any more fragments. Don't tell me you interfered with a reincarnated Dokja, too."

"Of course not."

Kim Dokja Company traveled through worldlines, collecting fragments that had failed to reincarnate and remained in fable form.

The device created from those efforts was the Fable Connection Device.

It combined the masses of fables Dokja had left behind to track down the real Dokja.

Of course, calling him the real Dokja was somewhat misleading. No one knew what the real Dokja was.

Still, the direction indicated by the Fable Connection Device undoubtedly led to the main theme at Dokja's core.

"It would be best to tell Jihye to come back. She shouldn't stay near the edge of a worldline for too long."

"She's an adult now. She probably has a lot on her mind."

Junghyeok thought about Jihye for a moment.

Among Kim Dokja Company's members, Jihye was especially prone to emotional ups and downs.

Dokja's fragments were scattered across every worldline, and some of those worldlines still had Scenarios in progress.

Perhaps Jihye was watching one of them.

A place where unfulfilled dreams and dead friends were still alive.

"Just in case, track the worldline Jihye entered."

"Okay."

"What about Lee Hyeongseong and Jeong Huiwon?"

"Those two didn't come here."

At Seolhwa's words, Junghyeok, along with Yuseong and Gilyeong, who had been bickering, all fell silent.

Jeong Huiwon and Lee Hyeongseong.

Kim Dokja Company's sword and shield.

The two people who had always protected their companions hadn't made the same choice as the others this time.

"But I don't think they chose another portal, either."

"How do you know?"

"We can observe the possibilities of every worldline from here."

In other words, if Huiwon and Hyeongseong had entered a world where Dokja existed, they would have been able to tell from here.

Yet no possibility of such a worldline could be observed.

"The two of them haven't made a choice yet."

No one in Kim Dokja Company had chosen a world where Dokja had returned.

Maybe they had all instinctively realized it.

The simple happiness that had tempted them until now had all been traps.

Their journey had always been arduous, and they had always needed to take the long way around. They couldn't even know whether the happiness they sought awaited them at the end of that road.

Even so, they kept walking until they finally arrived here.

Perhaps Huiwon and Hyeongseong had grown a little tired along the way.

"What about the others who crossed over?"

"We don't know yet. Maybe the Constellations will come. They may have already arrived."

If any Constellations crossed through that portal to help Kim Dokja Company, it was obvious who they would be.

Junghyeok didn't seem to expect much help from them.

"Don't trust the stars. They are merely beguiled by fleeting stories and drawn to them like moths."

"Still, we wouldn't have seen the conclusion without them."

"How is the forty-first round progressing?"

Without a word, Seolhwa held out the Scenario records and connection logs.

They contained everything that had happened from the beginning of the forty-first round's Scenario until now, along with Kim Dokja Company's connection records.

Junghyeok calmly read through everything, then spoke with a cold expression.

"They're doing something pathetic. They had a chance to end that worldline. Why didn't they intervene more actively?"

When he pointed to part of the Scenario record, a Scenario screen appeared above the text. Inho Cheon's face appeared on it.

Junghyeok's eyes narrowed for an instant.

"This guy..."

"Who does he remind you of?"

Junghyeok gave no answer to Seolhwa's question. He only stared at the face for a long time, as though examining memories weathered by time.

As Junghyeok slowly advanced the screen, the Junghyeok of the forty-first round appeared next.

A being who hated the Constellations and dreamed of destroying the Star Stream.

The one responsible for sending the forty-first round's Shin Yuseong into the past and turning her into a Calamity.

"The forty-first round must be destroyed. It is destined to be so."

"...It could change, couldn't it?"

Yuseong was the one who said it.

"Uncle Dokja and all of us changed the stories we were supposed to follow so many times. We wouldn't exist without the altered 1,863rd round."

"You know this. If the forty-first round changes, the worldline will branch even further."

If they saved the few people before them, another world that had existed only as a possibility would be born.

A world where even more deaths and tragedies were assured.

"That world doesn't necessarily have to be unhappy..."

"It's the world I came from."

Everyone fell silent.

No one here could object to Junghyeok.

He had repeated the Scenarios longer than anyone else in this world, and he knew its tragedies better than anyone.

"It's better to end it as quickly as possible. That will prevent a greater tragedy. If the worldline branches further here, the balance of the universe will collapse. Too many derivative worldlines have already been created in this universe."

"But whether we intervene or not, won't more worldlines be created anyway? That gloomy bastard over there is a regressor, too."

Every Yu Junghyeok regressed.

And with his Regression, a new worldline was born.

It was both the tragedy and the absolute law at the foundation of the Star Stream.

Junghyeok shook his head.

"His forty-second round doesn't exist."

"What? How do you know?"

"If he had continued regressing, the following worldlines would have to exist, just as they did for Secretive Plotter."

Secretive Plotter.

After 1,863 grand regressions, Junghyeok had found the Patron who had made him regress.

If the Junghyeok of the forty-first round had continued regressing after sending Yuseong into the past, he would have become an absolute divinity like Secretive Plotter.

"But his next worldline can't be observed anywhere."

Nowhere in the universe could they find a worldline where the Junghyeok of the forty-first round had continued to regress.

After that, only the worldlines of TWSA, derived from Yuseong returning from the forty-first round to the past, continued onward.

"Then what happened to Uncle Junghyeok from the forty-first round?"

"This is my conclusion. My forty-first-round self stopped regressing of his own will."

"But how? Did he perhaps reach the end of the Scenario in the forty-first round..."

"That's impossible. The record of his failure is too clear."

Junghyeok recalled the words of the forty-first round's Yuseong, who had descended as the Catastrophe of Floods.

"My forty-first-round self fell into deep despair during the Scenario and realized that he couldn't see the end this way. That was why he sent Shin Yuseong into the past."

The Junghyeok of the forty-first round had tried to reach the end of the Scenario by using his companions as Sacrifices, but he ultimately failed to achieve his wish. Perhaps he knew that he would never achieve that goal.

So before his mind could break any further, he sent Yuseong to his past self.

That was how TWSA began.

"Then it makes even less sense. Uncle Junghyeok from the forty-first round didn't reach the end of the Scenario, so how did he stop regressing?"

"I don't know that either."

Junghyeok thought for a moment before looking out the window.

"Maybe that's why Kim Dokja is there."

The person who loved stories more than anyone in this universe.

He had found that forgotten worldline against all odds, then gone there to see its end.

"Still, there is one method I can surmise."

The surprised companions widened their eyes.

Thinking about it, perhaps it was only natural.

He was Junghyeok, who no longer regressed. Maybe he was the only one who knew the secret of Regression.

"I'll go to the forty-first round myself."

The regressor who had seen the end of the Scenario.

The strongest Incarnation aboveground, who had cleared the 1,864th and 1,865th rounds and defeated even those Mythical Constellations.

Because it was Junghyeok, of all people, they had no choice but to believe him.

There was one problem, though.

"Junghyeok-ssi, you can't go to that world."

"Why?"

Seolhwa sighed lightly and looked him over from head to toe.

Muscles far firmer than before. An immense Status naturally seeping out from between them.

"Junghyeok-ssi, you're too strong."

The current Junghyeok consumed an enormous amount of Plausibility just by existing.

The forty-first round was still only at the beginning of its Scenario.

Even when a Historical Constellation descended, a Plausibility storm swept in. If Junghyeok descended into the forty-first round now, a backlash on the scale of a world-ending Calamity would truly strike.

Junghyeok himself wouldn't be able to avoid being erased as a result.

As if he already knew, Junghyeok nodded.

"I don't intend to keep leaving this work to Han Suyeong."

"Junghyeok-ssi, Suyeong-ssi is doing her best right now..."

"Someone doing their best made such a pathetic mistake?"

Junghyeok pointed at the connection log he had been reading earlier.

"She squandered an opportunity to end the forty-first round."

The footage remaining in the Fable Connection Device began playing in real time.

「"Tell them I received it."」

On the rooftop of the Theater Dungeon, Han Suyeong glanced at the fallen Junghyeok of the forty-first round and Inho Cheon before disappearing beyond the rooftop.

"Tell Han Suyeong and Yu Sangah that they have only one thing to do."

As though there was no need to watch any further, Junghyeok turned away from the log and walked toward the window.

"Create the conditions that will allow me to descend."

Junghyeok stood before the large window and stared outside with his usual gaze. The companions silently watched his back.

Perhaps it was because of the pure white view beyond the window.

He looked like a single letter written on an endless blank page.

"I'll bring Kim Dokja back myself."

Footnotes:

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