WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 667: Episode 21: Kim Dokja (3)

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I immediately activated [Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint].

Surely, someone was thinking of me right now.

If even one person was thinking of me, I could find out what was happening.

[You cannot currently use this skill.]

My head throbbed.

Was no one thinking of me, or was this the aftereffect of using the skill for too long?

A flickering light in the distance shone in my direction.

"Writer?"

A woman stood in the darkness. She wore a court hanbok in antique colors and a crown.

Someone like that had called me Writer. My mind suddenly stopped working properly.

"Who are you?"

The woman looked at me as if I'd disappointed her, then asked in a voice like glass beads rolling together.

"You don't know who I am?"

Of course, I understood. There was only one person in this world who could call me "Writer."

Still, I needed to be sure.

"When was Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint first serialized?"

"January 2nd. It was the day I entered my second year after joining the company."

"What does 1,863 mean?"

"You write without thinking about things like that."

"Which round is this worldline?"

"The forty-first round."

I felt like I might cry.

There was no doubt.

The person before me was my one and only editor.

"Editor."

"Writer."

For a moment, we clasped each other's hands, our eyes filling with tears.

* * *

Not long after Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint began serialization, a reader once asked me a question.

―If you transmigrated into Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, which character would you want to possess, Writer?

Looking back now, that question might have been a small omen of what was to come.

―A character I'd want to possess... If I had to choose, there is a character I wouldn't want to possess.

I wrote a reply at the time, but I didn't press the confirm button.

I didn't want to interfere with readers' impressions by adding the writer's personal opinion for no reason. So I only answered, "I'll think about it until the ending."

After reading that comment, Ji Eunyu said this.

―I definitely wouldn't want to possess Kim Dokja.

―Because he keeps dying?

―Yes.

―Then, well... Jeong Huiwon or Lee Hyeongseong...

―They almost die too. Doesn't Hyeongseong die once as well?

That was true.

When I thought about it, not a single character in Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint remained unharmed until the end.

―The best character is one who survives until the end as quietly and inconspicuously as possible.

It was a statement worthy of a veteran web novel editor.

Perhaps that was why Eunyu had possessed that character now.

Then was she satisfied?

"No matter what, Min Jiwon is a bit..."

Apparently not.

The character Eunyu had possessed was Min Jiwon, the King of Beauty.

In the original work, she was an Incarnation whose Patron was Lady of the Sleeping Brocade, Queen Jinseong of Shilla.

She was among the most beautiful people in all of TWSA, and though only briefly, she had also shown affection for me.

"She seems like the character you wanted, Editor. She survives quietly and inconspicuously for as long as possible."

"No. Who would say that expecting to actually possess someone? This isn't your doing, is it, Writer?"

I protested to Eunyu as she stared at me with narrowed eyes.

"If I were behind this, would I really have possessed Inho Cheon?"

"I suppose not."

Eunyu nodded meaningfully, then added, "But did Inho Cheon really look like that? It seems you've received some appearance adjustments."

"I never specifically wrote that Inho Cheon was ugly."

As we glared at each other for a while, I suddenly remembered what kind of person Eunyu was.

She was someone who debated a single sentence with me for thirty minutes. Someone who couldn't tolerate sentences that didn't fit the context or flow of a story.

She supported my stories more than anyone, but showed no mercy whenever a plot was unstable or the balance of a story faltered.

"I'm glad you're alive, Writer."

She was someone who always said the things I needed to say first.

"I'm sure there are a lot of things you want to ask, but this isn't the time for us to catch up, right?"

I nodded.

Yet I couldn't organize what I needed to do first.

Fortunately, Eunyu knew better than anyone what I needed to do at a time like this.

[The Incarnation Min Jiwon has activated Canned Factory Lv. 3.]

The scenery around us rippled as if a filter had been laid over it, then changed into a familiar space.

"This is..."

"It's been a while, hasn't it?"

I never imagined I would see this place again.

Study desks filled the cramped space of roughly eight pyeong. Each desk held a computer. Coffee mix and packets of biscuits were piled on the table in the center.

This was the writing room at Eunyu's management company.

"Maybe because I'm an editor, I have a skill like this."

It was called Canned Factory.

A place where writers with irregular serialization schedules, or writers who ran away after abandoning their deadlines, were locked up.

I had been dragged here several times to write while planning a new work.

"Time moves slowly in this space. One second in reality is about ten minutes here."

The time ratio was absurd.

"Still, the skill's cooldown is long, and its duration is short. Right now, we only have about ten minutes. In real time, that would be about one second."

Ten minutes.

It was a short time, but it was exactly what I needed now.

Thanking Eunyu for her consideration, I organized the situation in my mind before speaking.

"Then may I ask you a few questions?"

"Yes."

"What happened to the people who were with me?"

Right before meeting Eunyu, I had been with Killer King's group. Yet none of them were here.

"The Apostles, you mean."

So Eunyu knew about the Apostles too.

"They went to participate in the Final King's Qualifications. They said to tell you that they would prevent the world's destruction."

I didn't need to ask who had asked her to pass that along.

I looked through the message log I had received earlier once more.

[The owner of the final Absolute Throne is the Incarnation Yu Junghyeok.]

That message had appeared even though the Apostles had participated in the throne struggle.

The situation was clear now.

「Killer King and the Apostles had been defeated.」

None of them had been able to stop Junghyeok.

It felt as though my mind had gone blank.

「What happened to the Apostles? Killer King, Cha Yerín, Uncle Dansu, Ye Hyeon-u...」

「What if Yu Junghyeok killed them?」

「What happens to the story from here?」

「The Absolute Throne is an item connected to an Outer God. Now Seoul will...」

"Writer, you don't like how this is going, do you?"

Even in a situation like this, Eunyu spoke like an editor.

Perhaps that was why I answered like a writer.

"Well... Of course I don't like it."

"Why not?"

"Yu Junghyeok took the Absolute Throne."

"Is that a problem?"

"If Yu Junghyeok takes the Absolute Throne, this world will be destroyed. You know that."

"But that's how the story originally goes."

I fell silent for a moment.

She was right.

This was the predetermined development of the forty-first round of TWSA.

Yu Junghyeok took the Absolute Throne, and the world headed toward ruin.

Shin Yuseong became a wanderer from a destroyed worldline.

"Do you pity the characters? Are you trying to save them by changing the story?"

"..."

"Would that really be the right choice? This might simply be how things should be. The forty-first round is destroyed as planned, Shin Yuseong goes to the past, and then the Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint we know begins."

"..."

"You know better than anyone what kind of ruin a story can face when it's changed out of excessive greed."

At least when it came to manuscripts, Eunyu was always right.

Some stories fell apart in ten places when you changed one thing. Trying to protect one worldline could cause every worldline in the universe to collapse.

Still, this time I had a reason.

If this had been nothing more than a novel, I would have accepted Ji Eunyu's words.

But this world wasn't simply a novel.

"There are readers who transmigrated into this world."

"I know. I'm one of them."

Even with lives at stake, Ji Eunyu answered calmly.

"But this isn't something you started, is it? Did you bring the readers into this world?"

"No."

"Then it isn't your responsibility."

Had Eunyu always been this cold?

"Let me put it this way. Now that it's certain this world wasn't a novel, the tragedies that happen in this world aren't your responsibility, Writer."

Responsibility.

"You always said, jokingly, that Han Suyeong wrote this. Returning us to where we belong and ending this story aren't things we have to do."

Eunyu was saying that the responsibility for a story belonged to the person who began it.

Then who began this story?

Han Suyeong? Kim Dokja Representative?

I stared blankly at the computers in the writing room.

No one was sitting in front of them.

As I reached toward a chair without realizing it, Eunyu added, "If you change the story, this will truly become your story, Writer."

My story.

"If someone dies or gets hurt because of the changed development, all of it will be your responsibility. Can you bear that? You had a hard time even reading one malicious comment. This is on a completely different level."

"But the readers who transmigrated..."

"Whether people transmigrated into a novel or not, they die someday."

Pushing the half-pulled chair back in, Eunyu said, "I think it's rotten luck, but since we've already possessed people, we can live as the people we've possessed. Who knows? Maybe somehow surviving here for a long time could be a happier life than living as the editor Ji Eunyu."

I looked at Eunyu.

She was telling me not to begin this story.

That some stories had endings you could see before they even began.

I recalled the countless stories I had worked on with her.

The countless works that began ambitiously but were never finished.

"You can't go on hiatus and run away just because this one isn't popular."

And yet, I kept being drawn to those stories.

Even as I suffered while reading the stories I wrote myself, I forced myself to write the next sentence.

I spent my time writing stories about the lives and deaths of beings other than myself.

"You're telling me not to write this story?"

"Yes."

"Then why do you still call me a writer, Editor?"

Eunyu's eyes wavered.

I continued.

"I have already written a story."

At Geumho Station, Chungmuro, and Seoul Station, I had written stories.

"Because of me, some people have already died, and some people have survived."

There was no excuse for that fact.

"So I have to write it through to the end somehow. Even if it isn't interesting, even if it isn't popular. Even if only one person reads this story."

"..."

"So please help me, Editor."

Eunyu looked at me.

It was a look I knew well.

Whenever I recklessly handed her a new work, Eunyu always reviewed the manuscript with that same look in her eyes.

Was the subject fresh? Was the plot meticulous? Did it suit the current trends?

After finishing her brief review, she always asked me in the same tone.

"You want to write it, don't you?"

"Yes."

I didn't want this world to be destroyed.

I wanted to save people.

I would return the readers to their original world.

I wanted to give this story, which had not been properly written, its rightful complete conclusion.

Eunyu let out a small sigh.

"Although the owner of the throne has been decided, it might not be too late yet."

It wasn't too late.

"Do you remember when you wrote the episode 'King of a Kingless World'?"

Brief piles of memories passed through my mind.

"Until Dokja sat on the throne, the Absolute Throne did not activate."

Dokja had proven the final qualification and become Seoul's sole king.

But because Dokja refused to sit on the throne, the Absolute Throne had not activated.

"If we can stop Yu Junghyeok from sitting on the throne."

If we could stop the coronation.

"If we can sever the Absolute Throne's Constellation Bond before he sits on the throne..."

I slowly nodded.

There were two things I needed to do.

First, get out of this dungeon.

And second,

"I need to obtain the Four-Tiger Evil-Cutting Sword that can destroy the throne."

[The Exclusive Skill Canned Factory has been deactivated.]

I looked down at the final Star Gem rolling across the floor of the Star Labyrinth.

I now had six Star Gems in total.

「If I gathered seven Star Gems, I could summon the Four-Tiger Evil-Cutting Sword.」

But to summon it, I had to endure Berserk Stage 7.

[Rampage Stage 6 is consuming you.]

[An unknown power is suppressing your berserk state.]

We looked at each other.

A faint pain tightened around my head, while a strange sensation ran through Eunyu's body.

The things Eunyu had not said and the things I had not asked fell into place in my mind.

When I picked up the Star Gem on the floor, Eunyu said, "Show it to me when you write it."

I nodded.

I didn't know whether the story we changed would succeed.

[The Incarnation Inho Cheon has acquired all seven Star Gems.]

Still, I would write the story,

[Berserk Stage 7 is consuming you!]

and she would revise it.

Along with Eunyu's spell, something tightly gripped my head.

[The Golden Headband's power controls your berserk state.]

I reached toward the brightly glowing sentence in the air.

A sword hilt settled softly into my palm.

The sentence I had rewritten over and over was finally becoming reality.

[The Incarnation Inho Cheon has summoned the Four-Tiger Evil-Cutting Sword!]

Now it was time to face Seoul's king.

Footnotes:

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