WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 676: Episode 21: Kim Dokja (12)

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Han Suyeong looked at me, then gave a short laugh.

"You're good at lying."

So it didn't work after all.

Then again, Han Suyeong of all people wouldn't fail to recognize Dokja.

Fables continuously flowed from her fingertips, warming the surroundings. It felt as cozy as when Dokja had handed me warm tea in the Snowfield.

"How did you get here?"

There was only one way to cross from Earth, a Scenario area, to this place.

"Why ask when you already know?"

She had risked her life to cross the Great Hole.

But why had she done it?

For what?

Instead of answering, Suyeong looked up at the sky.

Something like an opaque barrier wriggled across the black sky. Things churned against it, using the barrier as an amniotic membrane. I immediately realized what they were.

Outer Gods.

Outer Gods of a higher order than any I had seen before crowded together so densely that they covered the entire sky.

If even one of them descended before me, I would probably bleed from all seven orifices and die.

"Don't worry. They can't cross over."

Suyeong added without the slightest trace of fear.

"This may be an outer region of the Scenario, but anything with a Status above a certain level can never cross that Void Curtain. And..."

The moment she stopped speaking, something began to push through the curtain.

One long tentacle pushed at the edge of the barrier and bulged out like a water blister. At that moment, a tremendous roar echoed from beyond the curtain.

Waves of Mana rippled through the opaque barrier.

Their paths resembled a meteor shower.

The Outer Gods struck by those trails either screamed and retreated or scattered into nothingness.

"Because someone is holding them back."

There was deep trust in Suyeong's voice.

I thought I knew who was facing the Outer Gods beyond the barrier.

"You said your name was Yi Hakhyeon."

I nodded.

"Did we introduce ourselves?"

"Do you have to tell someone for them to know? You know my name too."

That was true.

We had never told each other our names.

And yet, we knew each other.

Our stories had told us.

"Names are important. Every fable must be given a name to be complete."

[The fable Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint resonates.]

The sentences she wrote and I wrote drifted through the air, chattering.

「"A writer doesn't perfectly control their own novel. When they suddenly look back, they find holes everywhere. In the end, reading is the work of connecting those irregular holes in one's own way."」

The sentences burned in the air, giving off a gentle warmth. In this place without even a Scenario, that story alone protected us from the cold.

「"I don't know what you're talking about."

"...It means that, with enough time, I can see what I wrote as though someone else wrote it. In the end, every human is an Other to themselves."」

Suyeong burned fables one by one, like matches, to create warmth.

I couldn't ask whether she was okay with it.

Of course she wasn't.

So I said something else.

"I had fun back then."

Suyeong's eyes trembled briefly.

"You remember?"

"How could I forget?"

In any sense, those were my memories.

In my previous life, I lived through those days, and in this life, I wrote them.

That meant I had lived through them twice, once by living them and once by writing them.

And now, I was living them for a third time by reading them.

As I watched the fables flow silently by, I asked,

"Isn't it a waste?"

Suyeong pursed her lips.

"It's okay now. You must've read them."

I nodded.

"Dokja has a good memory."

"Yeah."

And so, we became readers once again, watching the sentences vanish into flames.

Within those sentences, Dokja was "King of a Kingless World," "One Who Opposes the Extraordinary," "King of Calamities," "One Who Slayed an Outer God," and "Demon King of Salvation."

"That damn salvation. Fucking salvation."

A bitter laugh escaped me without my realizing it. Suyeong smiled too.

Dokja's story continued.

He liberated the industrial complex, faced the Twelve Zodiacs, and fought the Gourmet Association's Constellations.

He visited the Island of Reincarnators, freed forgotten fables, and was acknowledged by the Final Dragon of the Apocalypse.

Within that story, Dokja was called by many names.

As we murmured those names that rolled so easily off our tongues, we shared every story together, as if we had become a single reader.

"Yi Hakhyeon."

When I turned my head, fables burning like a bonfire flickered in her eyes.

「"Kim Dokja! You say something too! When will you ever feel like this again?"」

「"I-I'm the protagonist!"」

I knew what she was about to say.

"Can I call you 'Kim Dokja' just one more time?"

I was about to tell her she could.

I thought she had the right to do that. Since I was good at lying, I thought it would be fine to play along with this roleplay as Dokja just once.

But then...

"Kim Dokja, I'm sorry."

A strange dizziness came over me.

A box of memories buried deep in the abyss opened, and scenes from the past rose one after another.

「"Kim Dokja, I'm sorry."」

I was about to ask whether we hadn't had this conversation before.

But Suyeong was faster.

"My apology came too late. You know I'm not good at apologizing."

In the 1,865th round, it took the allies two years to see the end of the Scenario.

For those two years, Suyeong had been with my previous self, the 49% Kim Dokja.

A lot had happened to us while we cleared the Scenarios.

「"What are you sorry for?"」

My previous self asked.

「"Well..."」

「"Trying to cut off my head, maybe?"」

My previous self spoke to Suyeong, who had lowered her head.

「"Don't worry about it. When did we ever not try to kill each other?"」

「"That was a long time ago."」

「"If I were you, I would've done something similar. If a Han Suyeong suddenly confessed that she had plagiarized TWSA, I would've cut off her head right away too."」

Two years wasn't a short time.

We had many conversations over those two years. We escaped death again and again, and ate the meals Junghyeok cooked together.

「"Still, I almost killed you."」

We went to the Han River and the sea with our allies, and ate chicken and pizza.

We couldn't live together in one very large house, but we certainly lived in that world together.

Together with them, I saw another world's conclusion.

At the end of that world, Suyeong said,

「"I'll die for you once too."」

The Suyeong who had spoken as though she had several lives stood before me now.

"I'm sorry."

She repeated the same apology once more, like someone who had never apologized before.

That was why I had no choice but to ask as though I had never received an apology before.

"What are you sorry for?"

"Well..."

Suyeong couldn't answer with her head lowered.

I was confused as I looked at her.

She had already apologized for the same thing to my previous self.

Then why was she repeating the same apology now? What could it possibly mean?

The fables scattering into flame before us gave off a quiet warmth.

Only belatedly did a sentence flash through my mind.

「"There was a duplicate I created when I first used [Avatar]... I gave it too many memories, and it suddenly went out of control, so I couldn't retrieve it."」

I raised my head instinctively.

Only then did I notice the emptiness in Suyeong's eyes. Everything slowly began to make sense.

I see.

She...

「"I don't know. But seeing as I'm fine now, they must have been unimportant memories."」

She had lost those memories.

"It's all because of me."

To come this far, you had to lose that fable.

"Suyeong."

I wanted to tell her.

I wanted to tell her that she didn't need to apologize, that my previous self had already forgiven her.

But for some reason, I couldn't make myself speak.

Was I truly qualified to convey those words?

Today's me and yesterday's me were different. Between the 49% Kim Dokja and me lay an even thicker wall of todays and yesterdays.

After an immeasurable amount of time had passed, Dokja had become me.

A phantom-like shadow swayed in the flames of the burning fables.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me. You know what I'm like."

Suyeong apologized as she watched that swaying shadow.

"Sorry for that too."

Our shadows stood side by side in the wavering flames. The fables kept burning. Whenever the burning fable changed, the shadows grew and shrank as they pleased.

At times, they looked as though an arm had been cut off or a leg had vanished.

Suyeong asked,

"Why are you smiling?"

"No reason."

There was no such thing as a one-hundred-percent existence.

She had forgotten her memories, and I couldn't fully remember my previous life either.

We, who resembled each other strangely, stood here in place of our past selves, who no longer existed.

"Because it's such an old story."

Perhaps it was a very easy forgiveness.

"So..."

Just as Junghyeok, who had tried to kill Dokja, was forgiven, just as my previous self had said, we could have let it pass as though nothing had happened.

But I knew.

That wasn't the kind of development Suyeong wanted now.

Because she was,

"I can't accept that apology."

a writer who had to write the next story.

"Yeah, I know."

Suyeong smiled.

As if she were satisfied that she could never be forgiven.

As if she were happy that her eternal atonement could continue because of it.

「"Do you think I'm really some monster without any emotions?"」

I wanted to say something to her.

Whether I was Dokja or not, I wanted to say something.

I wanted to ask whether she was really okay with that.

Suyeong's flickering shadow was rapidly fading.

Only then did a chill come over me.

No matter how capable Suyeong was, it would become dangerous if she kept burning fables.

"Hey."

That was when something strange happened in the sky.

Something began to emerge near the Void Curtain, where it had rippled earlier.

Suyeong shook her head, reassuring me.

"Don't worry. Like I said..."

A very faint tearing sound came from the curtain.

Then something truly emerged.

A figure far too small to be an Outer God.

Something resembling a human spread black wings in the air.

"Suyeong."

Suyeong's expression stiffened.

"That..."

The humanoid divine being that had spread its wings in the sky dove straight toward us.

The Void Curtain was a barrier affected by Plausibility. Absolute beings with overwhelming Status could never cross that wall.

Then what was that thing?

「What if there were an individual capable of adjusting its own Status enough to pass through the curtain?」

【O O O O O O O】

A cry that made my skin crawl.

I never thought I would encounter a real Outer God when there wasn't even a Scenario.

"I think I know what it is."

It had the appearance of a human skeleton.

Looking closer, it had accessories from many different cultures hanging from its neck and arms. Metal ornaments jingled whenever its wings moved.

Tststststst.

The moment white light burst from the crown it wore, I realized its identity too.

"It's the one who made the Absolute Throne."

There was one clear reason it had descended beneath the Void Curtain itself.

It was looking for an agent to inherit its throne.

In other words...

"Yu Junghyeok."

It felt as if scattered puzzle pieces clicked into place in my head.

Could the reason this forty-first round had been destroyed be...

"You."

Suyeong stepped forward.

"You said you wanted to stop this world's destruction."

There was a strange heat in her voice. When I stood beside her, an unreadable smile spread across her lips.

"There's a way to keep this world from being destroyed even if Junghyeok sits on the Absolute Throne."

Junghyeok of the forty-first round had sent a message through Catastrophe Shin Yuseong.

That one could never see the right ending by using the Absolute Throne.

That was because the Absolute Throne was a passage connected directly to an Outer God.

Then...

"Is that possible?"

What if we removed the reason the Absolute Throne was the Absolute Throne?

"It is. If I help."

I slowly gripped my sword hilt as I watched the Outer God descend through the air.

There were two writers here.

But there was only one sentence to write.

「We kill the Founder of the Absolute Throne here.」

Footnotes:

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