WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈
Chapter 669: Episode 21: Kim Dokja (5)
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The Absolute Throne gleamed in the distance.
A seat only one king could occupy.
Han Suyeong had once wanted to sit there too. She believed that if she did, she would be compensated for all the sorrow she had endured.
That was before she realized even that desire was nothing more than a game for the Constellations.
[A significant number of Constellations are aware of your existence.]
[Few Constellations are wary of your interference.]
[Some Constellations are requesting that the Administration Bureau review your Plausibility.]
She could feel the gazes of the stars beyond the distant sky.
Would those stars understand her story now?
[A Constellation that has yet to reveal its modifier looks at you.]
What she wanted lay even farther away than that throne.
So far away that even she could no longer tell what it was.
「She had no reason to intervene in this situation.」
This was the normal progression of the forty-first round.
Yu Junghyeok of the forty-first round would claim the Absolute Throne and walk the path of a Supreme King who ruled over everything.
No one would stand on equal footing with him.
He would have no companions.
「She only needed to let things be.」
By simply standing by, the forty-first round would move toward failure.
Despairing, Junghyeok would send Shin Yuseong into the past at the end of this round.
That would end the story of this worldline.
Kim Dokja, who had read every story, would return to her.
He had to return.
For his sake, she must not act. She must not write even a single sentence. She had to let the characters move as they would and let events unfold as they would. She knew that well.
"Yu Junghyeok. If you sit there, it'll all be over."
Then why had she picked up her pen?
"You've anticipated it too, haven't you? You know what kind of thing the Absolute Throne is."
Of course, she knew the answer.
Even now, the memory rose vividly whenever she closed her eyes. It was probably because she had seen something she shouldn't have.
「"What you're trying to do isn't end the story. It's giving up."」
The Dokja she had turned away from. The Dokja who didn't want to be born as Dokja again. The Dokja who still had to return to this story.
She had found that Dokja, and that was why she was here now.
"Are you Han Suyeong?"
Yu Junghyeok of the forty-first round was watching her, a black spear in hand.
Suyeong gave a bitter smile and asked back, "Who told you my name?"
She silently glared at Junghyeok.
"I owe you for last time."
This was her second time fighting Junghyeok of the forty-first round.
"You think it'll be different this time?"
"It will be."
"Looks like you're a poor learner. We fought once already, didn't we? You can't beat me."
She had clashed with Junghyeok once on the roof of the Theater Dungeon.
She had accepted the cost of Plausibility and drawn upon fables, then subdued him by exploiting the weakness of regressor's depression.
Could she do that again?
She didn't know.
"Well, I guess that's why you've regressed more than forty times."
She provoked him on purpose because she didn't know, hoping to gauge his reaction.
Yet Junghyeok didn't rise to it. His eyes, deep as a sunken sea, only watched her.
Every sound around them disappeared.
Tension pressed heavily over the area. Not even an insect chirped.
Suyeong moved first.
A beat later, she heard the ground being shoved aside as the black spear and white sword collided in midair.
Mana crashed against Mana, and a deafening crack rang out between the storm clouds.
Kaaang!
The spear strike fell like lightning and bore down on Suyeong's sword. It was a heavy blow. With a battle cry, she forced it away, and Junghyeok spoke.
"So you know about Regression too."
"Yeah. Surprised?"
"I expected it."
Junghyeok didn't even twitch a brow.
"There have been a lot of strange bastards in this round."
Strange bastards. Suyeong knew who he meant.
"Every last one of them said they knew me."
[The Incarnation Yu Junghyeok has activated Soul-Slaying Divine Spear Lv.10!]
Black Mana swirled around Junghyeok's spear.
Suyeong's expression hardened at the chilling pulse of Mana.
Now the real fight began.
Accepting the cost of Plausibility, she unleashed her primary Stigma.
[Black Flame].
It was the Black Flame Dragon's Stigma, the one that had earned her the name Black Flame Demon Emperor.
With a thunderous roar, the spear imbued with [Soul-Slaying Divine Spear] collided with the sword imbued with [Black Flame].
Suyeong had been confident.
Soul-Slaying Divine Spear was a powerful martial art, but it shouldn't have been able to stand against her Stigma.
Kururururung!
A wave of Mana blackened one side of the sky.
Suyeong was the first to be pushed back. Her face turned pale as she swallowed the blood rising in her throat and clenched her teeth.
'This is impossible.'
Even with the effects of Plausibility Backlash, she had seen the end of a Scenario twice.
The Junghyeok floating in the sky was only Junghyeok of the forty-first round.
So how?
「"Don't underestimate who I was in the forty-first round."」
A moment later, advice from a fellow regressor came back to her.
「"It's only the forty-first round. What's the big deal?"」
「"His forty-first round might be different."」
This was a world not recorded even in TWSA.
In a sense, it was a worldline that even Suyeong, its writer, didn't fully understand.
Junghyeok had lived a life in the forty-first round that no one had recorded.
And now, that Junghyeok was speaking.
"Do you know me too?"
Suyeong bit down on her lip.
「"He's the bastard who sent Shin Yuseong into the past because he thought he couldn't do it alone. How strong could someone who gave up that easily be?"」
「"That's the problem."」
「"What?"」
「"I couldn't have fallen apart that badly in only the forty-first round."」
Suyeong looked at Junghyeok in the sky. The fables imbued throughout his body spoke.
Fables were proof of the life he had lived.
A chill slowly crept down her spine.
「"The me of that worldline gave up on the possibility of the next round. He must have seen a despair he couldn't overcome no matter how much he struggled. I, someone who can regress on my own, came to the conclusion that I couldn't see the ending unless I sent Shin Yuseong to another worldline."」
A regressor doesn't regress.
Every world except the regressor does.
The regressor's soul continued to age, and memories accumulated.
A worn and sick heart.
Endless depression and madness.
Suyeong knew it too.
Regression wasn't a curse an ordinary human could bear, and Junghyeok wasn't an ordinary human.
An iron will and steadfast mental energy. A human too strong to be described by the simple word "strong."
Junghyeok had been written that way.
A protagonist made to endure more than 1,800 regressions.
「"If he made such an extreme decision in only the forty-first round."」
That protagonist had given up on his own future in only the forty-first round. Then he had entrusted the future to his past self.
「"He did everything he could, until he couldn't live another life."」
Fables rippled from the spear of [Soul-Slaying Divine Spear].
They were endlessly bleak and ominous fables, ones she had no idea when or how he had acquired.
"It seems you don't know."
Junghyeok was right. That Junghyeok was one she didn't know. A protagonist she had never written, with something fundamental twisted beyond recognition.
"Yeah. But I like stories I don't know better."
Suyeong answered calmly.
No matter how strong Junghyeok of the forty-first round was, he was still only from the forty-first round. If she used the fables of Kim Dokja Company, she could win.
The problem was that if she did that...
[The Star Stream is responding to your choice.]
This time, the Plausibility of this world would never forgive her.
Kagagagak!
Suyeong swung her sword at Junghyeok's incoming spear.
Once, twice, three times.
Each time spear and sword collided, she heard the skin of her palms tear. Blood streamed down, and her nerves slowly went numb.
Four times.
At last, Suyeong dropped her sword.
Unbreakable Faith lost its light and fell to the ground.
A momentary opening.
Junghyeok didn't hesitate. As though this world had no place for her, he thrust his spear forward in a cold, merciless motion.
Pshk.
The strike aimed precisely at her heart.
Suyeong looked down at her wound in disbelief, then raised her gaze to Junghyeok.
That was the end.
Her limbs went limp. It was an unmistakable death.
The moment Junghyeok confirmed that Suyeong's Mana wave had vanished and withdrew his spear...
"That hurts, bastard."
A voice came from behind him.
Junghyeok flinched and immediately swung his spear behind him. Suyeong was faster.
"Do you know how much memory you lose when an Avatar dies?"
Two small, soft hands gripped Junghyeok's head.
Tzzzzzt!
Blinding sparks flared as a terrifying shock invaded Junghyeok's mind. His entire body trembled like an aspen tree.
The fables imbued in Suyeong's hands dug into Junghyeok's consciousness.
「"The stronger he is, the heavier the despair he carries will be."」
It was the method her companion had taught her.
「"He'll probably sink beneath even a single feather."」
Suyeong knew the weakness of a regressor suffering from despair deeper than anyone else.
[The Great Fable Kim Dokja Company begins its story.]
Her stomach churned, and her whole body trembled as if she had been electrocuted.
"How do happy memories taste, bastard?"
Memories of Kim Dokja Company flowed from her fingertips.
「"Why is that bastard good at cooking too?"」
Memories of competing with Dokja to steal Junghyeok's cooking.
Memories of the outing Kim Dokja Company had gone on together.
Within their story, which had not yet ended, the Dokja she remembered spoke.
「"Next time, let's bring more beef."」
Suyeong stared blankly at that fable. It now felt unreal that those days had ever existed.
A square circle.
A person who could exist only in sentences.
Those stories were surely her memories, yet they now felt like lies in a novel written by someone else.
Seeing Junghyeok's eyes roll back, Suyeong smiled.
"He's about to die from happiness."
As she said the word happiness, Suyeong tilted her head for a moment.
What was that again?
Was it because an Avatar had died and she had lost some memories? The meaning of that word didn't immediately come to mind.
It probably wasn't the only thing she had lost.
Still, Suyeong believed.
[The Constellation Lotus Blooming under the Moon watches your choice.]
In the companion who would remember that word for her.
「"You told me to try persuading you, didn't you? Are you ready to be persuaded?"」
In the writer who would write the story in her place.
"Damn bastard."
Muttering a line she would never have written, Suyeong finally understood her own actions.
Every writer had been a reader before becoming a writer, and Suyeong was no different.
"I'm sick of tragedies now."
If Dokja was right.
If there was a sentence she hadn't been able to write.
If this world could be completed into a story different from its destined conclusion.
[The Constellation Lotus Blooming under the Moon looks at you with sorrowful eyes.]
Even knowing that this choice might ruin every plan she and Kim Dokja Company had made.
[The Constellation Sinister Strategist lowers their head.]
"You think so too, don't you, Junghyeok?"
Suyeong took a light breath and slung the unconscious Junghyeok over her shoulder.
There wasn't much time left.
Junghyeok would wake up soon.
Before then, she had to destroy the Absolute Throne below and sever the Constellation Bond.
Only then would this Scenario end.
「But there was something she did not know.」
The hair on the back of her hand stood up, and a sense of dangerous foreshadowing came over her.
Her ears became muffled.
The scale of Plausibility that upheld the world was tipping.
Suyeong realized what was happening.
She had entered this Scenario from another worldline, so the unnatural anomaly she caused would bring about Plausibility Backlash.
She hadn't expected the backlash to take this form.
A vortex of rampaging Plausibility in the sky.
Suyeong opened her mouth without realizing it. She knew this feeling well.
[The Great Hole is opening.]
Beyond the black, swirling sky, a gigantic hole was opening.
[The Outer Gods have noticed your existence!]
[The scale of Plausibility has reached equilibrium.]
The owner of the Absolute Throne was appearing beyond the Great Hole in the sky.
Footnotes:
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