WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈
Chapter 678: Episode 21: Kim Dokja (14)
──────
When the wall collapsed, memories came rushing in from beyond it.
The memories I had pushed away.
Sentences that had kept their distance from me like a writer and a character seeped into my skin, my veins, and my mind.
I saw the Founder of the Absolute Throne approaching from afar. It had lost one wing, yet somehow survived the violent explosion.
Watching it stubbornly walk toward me to destroy this world, I asked myself once again.
「Who am I, then?」
As the cold slowly crept over me, I thought about my arrogance. How could I try to write this story when I didn't even know it properly?
"Han Suyeong."
I couldn't feel Suyeong's presence anywhere. Only the question she had left behind lingered like an echo.
「"Why did you want to become a writer?"」
Holding her sword, I slowly rose to my feet.
Han Suyeong's fable was no longer there to protect me. 「Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint」 had stopped its story, and 「Predictive Plagiarism」 could no longer predict the future.
The Founder charged at me from afar, and I charged at it.
We cut into each other's flesh with our swords. Feeling the living pain of blades piercing flesh, I thought,
「I can't just be a writer.」
To see the ending of this story, I couldn't stand in such a presumptuous place.
「I have to live in this world properly.」
I had to fight.
I had to live in this vivid world of blood and swords.
I had to become a complete character.
A character who knew this story better than anyone. The only character who had a chance of seeing the end of this world.
Amid the raging storm of Mana, the Founder of the Absolute Throne asked,
【Y ou Y ou Y ou Y ou Y ou】
"I'm Kim Dokja."
The Founder didn't seem to know who Dokja was.
"I..."
So I said it once more.
"I'm Kim Dokja."
I spoke that cursed name.
[The fable Recorder of Vanishing Things begins its story.]
A story destined to disappear settled within me.
Feeling the fable flowing through my veins, I recalled the moment I first entered this world.
I remembered the story I wanted to write. I wanted to write about extras, forgotten things, and things that received no attention.
I had to admit it now.
It had all been a lie.
I only wanted to tell my own story.
[The fable Recorder of Vanishing Things absorbs the scattered Fable Fragments.]
The sentences drifting around me gave off a brilliant light and seeped into me. The fragments mixed together as they pleased, telling me the words between the lines.
「"Don't run away, Kim Dokja."」
I didn't want to admit it. I wanted to run away. That was why I built a wall.
I'm a writer. I'm someone who can look at this story objectively.
With those words, I ran away from my past life.
I reincarnated as myself because I didn't want to become Dokja.
But the reason my past self didn't want to become Dokja was because I wanted to become Dokja more than anyone else.
Because I thought I could never become Kim Dokja.
【T hrone T hrone T hrone T T T】
I squeezed out every last fable and charged at it.
"Unbreakable Faith" shone brightly as it spewed white-and-blue sword aura.
Its Excalibur spewed flames as if resisting.
Sharp sword aura pierced the skin of my stomach, while the sword I swung cut through its torso.
【O o O o O】
Through the black dust rising in the air, I saw it stagger back more than ten steps.
It was clearly a fatal wound.
Its arm was no longer regenerating, and Excalibur was its only weapon. Even holding Excalibur seemed difficult for it.
I staggered toward it.
I only needed to land one final blow. One last strike, and I could refasten this world's very first button.
Tsstsst.
My vision flickered for a moment.
When I opened my eyes, my eye level had changed. I realized I was kneeling. "Unbreakable Faith," stripped of its light, lay on the ground.
Blue light flickered in the Founder's eyes as it glared at me from afar.
It was the king's fable.
Tsstsst.
I no longer had the strength to resist.
The Founder, who had been watching me from twenty steps away, cautiously took a step forward.
[The temporary channel has been restored!]
The channel opened at just the right moment.
It was Bihyeong.
"I got through, you bastard! Damn it, what is this now? No, what the hell..."
The Founder took another step. Bihyeong must have noticed it, because he shouted urgently.
"Hey! I'll summon you right away, so..."
"Don't."
"What?"
Swallowing the breath threatening to burst from me, I gripped the sword lying on the ground again.
"I'm not going back."
At least, not before I killed it.
I steadied my spinning vision and looked down at the ground covered in white fable ash.
I couldn't feel Suyeong's fable anywhere in the world. Even so,
「She's alive.」
I believed that.
I had to believe it to endure.
「Han Suyeong is still alive.」
She remained between every line she had written and erased.
Desperately reading between those lines, I slowly opened my mouth.
"Bihyeong."
I sent a short message through dokkaebi communication. After hearing my story, Bihyeong spoke.
"...It can't be helped. It's a breach of contract, but I'll let it slide just this once."
Bihyeong accepted my proposal.
"But I'll charge you double the fee from now on."
Then a Scenario descended from the air.
[A new Sub Scenario has arrived!]
Warmth began to return to the place where the story had bloomed.
[The Scenario Departure Penalty has been lifted.]
The cold retreated, and I returned to the Scenario.
+
<Sub Scenario - Founder of the Absolute Throne>
Category: Sub
Difficulty: ???
Clear Conditions: Kill the Founder of the Absolute Throne.
Time Limit: -
Reward: ???
Failure: -
+
The moment I saw the Scenario's details, I realized what an absurd enemy I had been fighting.
An opponent so absurd that even its difficulty wasn't displayed.
Yet I had pushed it to the brink of death.
It was now only eleven steps away.
I didn't have even a handful of Mana left.
It must have known that, which was why it was slowly approaching.
But I still had one final method.
The channel was open now, so the stars should be watching me.
"I'll form a Behind-the-Scenes Contract."
Despite my declaration, the stars in the night sky didn't respond.
I quickly found out why.
[The nebula Asgard mocks your judgment.]
The nebulae that bore a grudge over the earlier incident were getting in my way.
[The nebula Olympus declares that it will be hostile to Constellations that form a Behind-the-Scenes Contract with the Incarnation Inho Cheon.]
I laughed toward the empty air.
I see.
So that was your choice.
The Founder, now nine steps away, called my name.
【Kim Dok ja】
「"Names are important. Every fable must be named to be complete."」
Everything in this world was made of fables, and every fable had to be named to be complete.
A coordinate that designated a single Constellation in that vast universe. The only language that could gather the scattered lights in the pitch-black night sky.
「At least, in this world, there is one star that will help me.」
A Constellation that wouldn't covet the fables I would build or force an unfair contract on me.
He had many names.
「The first name was so immense and distant that I couldn't know exactly what it referred to.」
The Founder's steps began to quicken when it was eight steps away.
「I still couldn't fully pronounce the second name with my current Status.」
Seven steps.
「He did not exist in the place that should have held the third name.」
Six steps.
「And only one final name I could call remained.」
Five steps.
The moment it entered my attack range, the Founder swung Excalibur at me. It had decided I no longer had the strength to counterattack.
I opened my mouth.
[The subskill Sentence Enhancement has activated!]
[You may enter your action.]
[The action you enter will be enhanced.]
[You can invest additional Plausibility to increase the enhancement stage.]
[Current Plausibility: 580]
[All your Plausibility is being used.]
「"I'll form a contract."」
He would definitely read those words.
I squeezed out all my remaining strength and swung my sword.
Claaang!
"Unbreakable Faith" collided with Excalibur and flew through the air.
As the startled Founder changed its sword's trajectory toward my waist, I sprang to my feet and drew the Four-Tiger Evil-Cutting Sword from my waist.
My sword cut into its side first, by the narrowest margin.
The Founder looked surprised, as though it thought I had almost no strength left.
Its guess was right.
But it wouldn't know what was about to happen before its eyes.
【O o O o O o】
Perhaps sensing something strange, it rattled its skull and stepped back.
I took a step forward and drew in a breath. The fable of my Patron overflowed through my whole body and gathered around the blade.
「It was my favorite fable.」
I thrust my sword without hesitation at the Founder as it charged at me with a roar.
Sword Aura, honed far more perfectly than the [White Pure Star Energy] I used, pierced its upper abdomen.
【Th O o O o O】
Panicked, the Founder tried to communicate with the other side of the curtain through a link in the air.
I had no intention of allowing that.
"Four-Tiger Evil-Cutting Sword."
At my words, the constellations engraved on the blade of the Four-Tiger Evil-Cutting Sword began to light up one by one.
Normally, seven Historical Constellations were needed to light every constellation on the Four-Tiger Evil-Cutting Sword.
But right now, one Constellation was enough.
The horrified Founder staggered and trembled.
It was a great Outer God.
It wasn't afraid of the constellation artifacts of mere Historical Constellations.
It recognized the fable dwelling in this sword.
[The fable King of a Kingless World begins its story.]
I drew the sword embedded in its chest vertically, splitting its head apart.
Its split body split in two, scattering with a scream.
The severed link spewed sparks in the air, then burned away and vanished like a candle with barely any wick left.
[You have cleared the Sub Scenario!]
[The Fourth Main Scenario has ended.]
...
[You have achieved an achievement that does not exist.]
[A considerable number of Constellations have entered the temporary channel!]
One by one, stars appeared above the pitch-black curtain.
Constellations who had risked danger to come to the Great Hole and watch me.
[The Administration Bureau sends praise for your achievement.]
[The Administration Bureau is preparing a reward appropriate for your achievement.]
[You have acquired a new fable.]
Countless stars shone in the night sky where the king had disappeared.
Looking up at those stars, I thought of the man who must have seen the same view long ago.
「This story is still Kim Dokja's story.」
The name I had hated, despised, and loved.
「But it still isn't a story for only one Kim Dokja.」
[A Constellation that has not revealed its modifier reveals its modifier.]
[The Behind-the-Scenes Contract has been completed.]
Carrying the fallen Yu Junghyeok of the forty-first round on my back, I looked up at our star.
There were so many stars that I thought I would never be able to find it.
The star Yu Junghyeok had wanted to find so badly.
The star Han Suyeong had wanted to meet so badly.
[Your Patron is Demon King of Salvation.]
Footnotes:
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