WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈
Chapter 674: Episode 21: Kim Dokja (10)
──────
A thought suddenly occurred to me.
This world was one massive act of Incitement.
Depending on who the narrator was, this world became a different story, a different reality.
And I...
"I can't accept that sword."
Unfortunately, the reality I believed in differed from Kim Dokja Representative's.
The Representative's brows arched sharply at my response.
【You can't accept it? Why not?】
He seemed puzzled, yet also as though he had expected that response.
【Didn't you want a story of your own?】
Whatever he meant, he was right.
As both a writer and a reader, I was someone who wanted a story of my own.
"Because this isn't how I want the story to end."
For the first time, confusion appeared in his eyes.
【Do you dislike receiving help from others? The Dokja I remember wasn't someone who refused the help of transcendent beings.】
I calmly examined his entire figure. Just as he claimed, the Status flowing from him was close to that of a transcendent being.
Power like that of an Outer God. A being who could shatter the Absolute Throne himself if he wished.
"Why are you trying to interfere in this situation?"
Yet he wasn't acting directly.
More precisely, he couldn't.
He was likely affected by Plausibility Backlash, just like the other Constellations.
That was why he was lending me his strength.
What he stood to gain from it was clear.
「A fable.」
A fable that would be completed by destroying the Absolute Throne. He wanted to obtain a share of that fable.
Come to think of it, there had been someone much like him in Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, too.
A being who had helped Dokja and lent him strength in exchange for a share of the Great Fable "Spring of the Demon Realm."
"I think I know who you are."
The demonic energy flowing from his body suddenly turned hostile.
I reflexively pulled Yu Junghyeok, who lay collapsed on the floor, closer.
Rumbblee!
The moment I crouched behind him as a shield, the rushing demonic energy shook the entire theater. Junghyeok's body trembled like an aspen leaf as he took the full force of its waves in my place.
Junghyeok opened his eyes wide and glared at me in shock before fainting again.
The Representative studied us closely, then snorted.
【The way you act, no matter how I look at it, is just like Kim Dokja.】
"I'm sorry, but."
There was no need to treat him politely anymore. I knew well enough that his intentions were impure.
Now it was time to tell my story.
"I'm not Kim Dokja."
I spoke as I looked at each of the little Kim Dokjas.
"My name is Yi Hakhyeon."
Some little Kim Dokjas tilted their heads at me, while others nodded as if they understood.
There were also Kim Dokjas who showed no reaction at all.
The Representative said,
【That isn't the answer we wanted.】
"It probably isn't the answer you wanted."
The Representative's mouth twitched as if he were amused.
I didn't miss the chance to fire back.
"Real or fake, revenge or liberation, it all sounds convincing. But."
I knew the story of 49% Dokja as well.
Among the memories I had seen were ones the Representative hadn't shown me.
Still, even if I was told those memories were from my past life, they didn't feel real.
Just as Dokja couldn't become Yu Junghyeok simply because he had read TWSA many times, the story of 49% Kim Dokja felt distant to me, like a story beyond a wall.
Even if my past life truly had been that Dokja...
"Why are you getting angry on behalf of that Kim Dokja?"
I couldn't accept this method.
"Whether he resents Kim Dokja Company, gets angry at them, or takes revenge on them, that's for Dokja to decide. At the very least, it isn't for you to decide."
【······.】
"Besides, you don't really empathize with Dokja either. You just want to steal his fables. Just as you did in the last world, in this world too, you simply..."
Demonic energy seeped out of him and crawled up the tops of my feet like insects.
Still, I didn't stop speaking.
"You just want to remain this world's major fable."
Perhaps that was the switch.
The smile on his lips became unmistakable. It held a different emotion from before.
【I had hoped for a little more.】
Was it because of the terrifying bloodlust he carried? Or the difference in Status?
My body stiffened, unable to move.
【Let's resume the screening.】
The little Kim Dokjas who had been looking at me were now looking past me, at the screen.
I wanted to speak. I'm not there. I'm here. Please look at me here.
But my voice didn't reach them.
Instead, I turned my creaking neck like the little Kim Dokjas and looked back at the screen.
A version of myself that wasn't me was reflected there.
The me on the screen said,
「"I'll accept the Four-Tiger Evil-Cutting Sword."」
The me on the screen gripped the Four-Tiger Evil-Cutting Sword.
When I looked forward again, the real Four-Tiger Evil-Cutting Sword was in my hand.
My body was moving regardless of my will.
[The Theater of the Beginning has resumed screening.]
The true power of this theater was to recreate a manipulated story as reality.
A chill ran through part of my chest, even as an incomprehensible sensation rose within me.
There was no way such power could exist.
This level of abnormal coercion clearly went against Plausibility...
[You have received 300,000 coins as payment.]
[Your body obeys the narration's command.]
Damn it. So that was it.
【The Scenario has already been completed. Accept your role obediently.】
My joints creaked like a broken doll.
I looked down at the unconscious Junghyeok.
The Four-Tiger Evil-Cutting Sword in my right hand cried out. The Otherworld Fable dwelling in its blade was commanding me.
「Cut him.」
I gripped the sword with both hands.
「Cut him.」
A faint Constellation Thread was visible above Junghyeok's head.
That Thread was likely the link connecting him to the Absolute Throne.
「This is for the world.」
Both my hands shook violently. My will not to cut clashed against the fable's will to cut.
If I let go now, many people in this world might be saved.
Not everyone would survive until the Final Scenario, but at least they wouldn't live in a world whose destruction had been decided.
But what would happen to the characters of the other universe?
What would happen to the characters of Kim Dokja Company, who had repeated their long pilgrimage while looking only toward a single Dokja?
I certainly wanted to stop this world's destruction. Yet...
This wasn't fair.
The muscles throughout my body twisted. Blood vessels stood out in my eyes, and my abdomen hurt as if it were being wrung out.
The Mana flowing through my veins boiled as if it were expanding.
「Cut him.」
My movements were being displayed on the screen in real time.
The story playing on the screen had been manipulated according to the Representative's wishes.
Yet his power alone couldn't possibly create such a miracle.
The power to turn imagination into reality. That authority didn't belong to him.
It was a power granted to only one being in this universe.
With the last of my strength, I looked around the audience.
Readers with the same faces but different name tags.
Among them was likely Jeong Jaewoo, whom I had failed to protect.
Jiyoon, Mr. Dansu's daughter, was likely there too, as was the reader who had possessed Jeong Huiwon's father, Jeong Munho.
They were innocent people.
People dragged into the audience simply because they had read this story.
As the price for liking Dokja's story, they had now even been robbed of the freedom to watch what they wanted.
My lips twisted as I slowly opened my mouth.
"Everyone."
I didn't know whether they could hear my story. Even so, I continued.
"You all probably know this already."
Like Dokja on the day he had persuaded the Constellations.
"This world is a novel."
Deep in the theater's darkness, the readers were still looking not at me, but at Dokja on the screen.
Yet I could feel that they were hearing my voice.
【Wait. You.】
Sensing something was wrong, the Representative reached for me.
But it was already too late.
"A novel that you know, and that I know."
At that moment, I was grateful this place was a theater.
I was grateful that readers had gathered here.
"If it's a novel, it has to be entertaining above all else. So..."
I was grateful that I was Inho Cheon.
This was a complete fiction that everyone believed was true.
And if this was fiction...
[The Exclusive Skill Incitement Lv.10 has activated!]
I was confident that I could tell that fiction better than anyone.
"From now on, let's imagine a more entertaining story."
When I closed my eyes, memories surfaced.
Memories I had turned away from.
「Inho Cheon.」
Stories beyond a wall that had felt as distant as stories in a novel.
「How long have you been there?」
「A very long time.」
I gathered those stories together, sentence by sentence.
「I'll keep watching.」
Each time those sentences reached me, it felt as though warm snow was piling up.
The snow soon gathered on the ground and formed a snowfield.
Suddenly, I felt like I knew who Dokja in the snowfield was.
「Still, should this story never have begun?」
The person who had read my story. The person who had waited more than anyone for this story to begin.
「Mm, I shouldn't really be doing this, but...」
The person who had prepared candy for Han Suyeong.
「I am Yu Junghyeok.」
The person who had already known what I wanted to say.
「Every story I know is a story you know too.」
「······The you standing before me isn't the real you, is it?」
Those memories had been there all along.
「Hakhyeon-ah.」
Dokja in my dreams.
Vague, distant, and dearly missed.
My origin.
Just as Kim Dokja Company had gathered fragments to find a single Dokja, I too grasped the past life I had forgotten.
「No matter what it is, this time, tell a story where you're happy.」
If I gathered all these memories, would I become myself?
[Incitement has demonstrated powerful strength after meeting special conditions.]
I didn't know.
All I could do was lie.
A lie that would deceive me, deceive you, and eventually deceive the world itself.
「If you believe that lie.」
My breath slowly caught, and old sorrow filled my mind.
Who was I?
Why had I come to this world?
I could now answer that question.
My fable was answering it.
"I am Kim Dokja."
My whole body shook as if electrified, and sparks flew.
The sparks soon flowed across the floor, spreading like flames along the countless footprints the little Kim Dokjas had left behind, all the way to the screen.
The blue sparks eventually colored the entire screen.
The screen turned white, like a brilliant snowfield.
The little Kim Dokjas, who had come to their senses, began looking at me one by one.
Dokja was reflected in their small eyes.
The Dokja who had stood in the snowfield that day.
"Therefore, I."
49% Kim Dokja was speaking.
"I want to decide my own story for myself."
A silence as quiet as heavy snowfall fell.
In that silence, the Representative snorted and opened his mouth.
【Who do you think will listen just because you say something like that...】
[rlaehrwk37 supports your story.]
As though someone had taken the first step into a pure white snowfield, someone looked at me.
A very small but certain light.
That light glittered toward me.
[rlaehrwk41 supports your story.]
Startled, the Representative looked around.
【What is this...】
The flow of Plausibility was reversing, as if a projector's film were running backward.
The theater's binding force that had suppressed me weakened.
The Plausibility binding my hands weakened.
[rlaehrwk213 supports your story.]
The Plausibility constraining my legs faded.
[rlaehrwk99 supports your story.]
[rlaehrwk124 supports your story.]
······.
[The Theater of the Beginning has temporarily encountered an error!]
I slowly turned to look at the Representative.
Then the little Kim Dokjas looked at him too.
I called his True name.
"Asmodeus."
Asmodeus sensed that something had gone wrong. His expression hardened, and he lightly snapped his fingers.
[You have broken the rules of the Theater!]
[The prop given to you has been retrieved!]
The awakened version of the Four-Tiger Evil-Cutting Sword in my hand disappeared.
But I had another Four-Tiger Evil-Cutting Sword.
An item I had received as a reward for clearing the Star Labyrinth with the readers.
It wasn't the awakened version, but it was still a Four-Tiger Evil-Cutting Sword made solely from the fables of this worldline.
【No one is interested in your story. Back then, and now, such a crude story...】
Dokja of the main story had blossomed the Four-Tiger Evil-Cutting Sword by borrowing the power of North Star Divine Lord.
But there was no Constellation here to help me.
No star would likely be able to lend me its strength.
There was only one.
「A Constellation connected to me through a fable.」
He was the Constellation whom all stars had ignored.
A man who had cast aside his authority, descended to the surface, and wanted to carry out every Scenario once more.
A star who had wanted to change his own story more than anyone.
[The fable Persistent Martial Arts Master begins its story.]
The fable he left behind dwelled in the blade of the Four-Tiger Evil-Cutting Sword.
It was only the Plausibility of a Historical-grade Constellation.
Power capable of lighting only one of the Four-Tiger Evil-Cutting Sword's seven constellations.
Yet that power was enough.
Because I now had the readers' Plausibility.
I could probably use this sword only once.
I decided to use that one chance here.
When I looked back, I saw the screen holding our story.
I swung my sword straight at the screen.
Footnotes:
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