Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint - Chapter 728

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 728: Episode 28: Home (6)

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Jieunyu once said to me,

"Your sentences are incredibly clean, Writer. There isn't any excess."

When I first heard it, I didn't think it was a compliment.

"I'm just not confident about writing long sentences."

I was a writer who couldn't craft beautiful descriptions or write sweeping, complex sentences. Even so, Jieunyu praised my half-baked sentences with her fluent way of speaking.

"No, that's not it. Do you know how difficult it is to choose only the words you need? Sometimes a sentence becomes better just by removing a few unnecessary words or particles, but that's harder than it sounds."

Jieunyu said it.

Take it out.

Even if it seems necessary, take it out. Think it over, then take it out. Look at it again, then take it out. Just take it out.

Good sentences were built upon that kind of solid empty space.

Those were good words.

Yet anyone who had written before would know that taking things out wasn't easy.

It wasn't easy to remove even a single particle, let alone a comma.

Perhaps because it meant erasing something you had spent time writing.

The empty space left by an erased sentence certainly felt different from empty space that had been there from the beginning.

It was as though the soul of the vanished sentence remained alive, drifting through that space.

Sometimes, while deleting sentences, I had thoughts like this.

Maybe it wasn't that I didn't want to erase the sentence. Maybe the sentence itself was telling me not to erase it.

Like now.

[The Fable Fragment House That Is Not a Brick House rejects your touch!]

The instant I touched the Fable Fragment, sparks flew.

A shock like my heart had stopped struck my chest, and I even drooled like someone being electrocuted.

"What are you thinking?"

"It's sparking! Stop!"

Gyeong Se-in and Uncle Dansu rushed over to support me.

Still, I couldn't stop. No matter how much I thought about it, this was the only way.

"I think I found the bricks."

"What? Really?"

The booming sounds echoing from afar were growing closer.

The Wolf Who Likes Red Riding Hood was charging forward, smashing every building in sight.

And barely staying ahead of it was Red Riding Hood Yu Junghyeok.

"Kim Dokja!"

There was no time left.

I grabbed the Fable Fragment once again.

The Fable Fragment was speaking.

「I am not a Brick House.」

I realized once more how difficult Jieunyu's work must have been.

Changing what had already been written wasn't easy. What was written was read, and what was read was remembered by those who read it. Memories became the foundation of reality.

Therefore, revising a story meant changing reality itself.

Tststststst.

I hadn't expected repairing even one Fable Fragment to be this difficult.

Each time the Fable Fragment in my hand throbbed, sparks flew.

[Your fourth fable has fully blossomed.]

That was when the message appeared.

[The fable One Who Rewrites Fate begins its story.]

「One Who Rewrites Fate.」

This was the new fable I had obtained along with Demon King of Salvation.

[Your understanding of the fable One Who Rewrites Fate is low.]

[You have gained a very slight resistance to Plausibility Backlash.]

Surprisingly, this fable's effect was a certain degree of immunity to Plausibility Backlash.

As the Fable Fragment's sparks became bearable, [Sentence Enhancement] shone once more.

[The subskill Sentence Enhancement has activated.]

[You are receiving the effect of the fable Recorder of Things That Will Disappear.]

[The trait Story Repair has blossomed within you!]

The Fable Fragment's struggle gradually subsided.

[The target is a low-grade Fable Fragment.]

[Would you like to modify this Fable Fragment?]

As I slowly touched the Fable Fragment, I could clearly feel the sentences recorded within the fable.

From the moment this fable had been created until now, the years piled upon those sentences came through vividly.

「I am not a Brick House.」

Holding the Fable Fragment tightly, I looked around the Crane and Fox Inn.

I had thought it strange from the start.

Killer King and the others had all said it. This house wasn't a Brick House. It was likely because the fable said so.

But at least to me,

[The Fable Fragment has failed to persuade you.]

This house was a Brick House.

The Fable Fragment trembled.

Holding it tightly, I reached for the sentence rising before me.

Kim Dokja said there was no Scenario that couldn't be cleared.

TWSA said this world was made of fables.

Still clutching the Fable Fragment, I persuaded it.

Or perhaps I used [Incitement] on it.

"You are."

I brushed away the history piled onto the Fable Fragment. I removed the words written on it one by one.

I removed the first half of "not," then the second. I removed the space between the words.

I took things out, and out, and out again, until I finally shaped one clean sentence.

I drew out the Fable Fragment's original form, stained by so many years.

"A Brick House."

The next moment, the Fable Fragment began melting in a brilliant light.

Within the melted fragment, a vividly shining fable stone appeared.

「I am a Brick House.」

The stone said.

「I am a Brick House.」

I nodded. Then I quietly inserted the Fable Fragment into the wall.

[The Fable Fragment Brick House begins its story.]

This world was made of fables. And fables were made of Fable Fragments.

The smallest particles that changed the world.

The moment that particle embedded itself in the wall, reality changed.

Tststststst.

The wooden interior of the inn rippled like waves. The old timber transformed into sturdy, tightly packed orange bricks.

My companions gaped.

Cha Yerin closed her eyes as though listening to the Fable Fragment's story, while Gyeong Se-in and Lee Dansu touched the Brick House here and there in wonder.

"I-it's a Brick House! It really became a Brick House!"

"How did this..."

Killer King nodded as though he had expected it.

Ye Hyunwoo turned to me in shock, as if asking how I had done it.

"The Recycling Center is a world made from old fables."

The setting of this event Scenario was 『The Three Little Pigs』.

For this fairy tale to be reenacted, it absolutely needed a Brick House.

Yet this world had no bricks.

"Then naturally, the bricks must be made of fables too."

What we had needed to find from the beginning wasn't real bricks, but the fable called bricks.

"We need to close the door!"

The wolves had reached our doorstep.

But Junghyeok still hadn't entered.

As I shut the Brick House's door, I shouted with all my strength.

"Junghyeok! The chimney!"

I saw little Junghyeok nod through the narrowing gap in the door.

The Brick House shut with a bang. Something repeatedly slammed into it from outside, followed by the sound of something like a flying squirrel scurrying across the roof.

A short while later, little Junghyeok leaped out of the fireplace beneath the chimney, covered in black soot.

"Kim Dokja!"

Ignoring Junghyeok's fury, I shouted to my companions.

"Boil water in the furnace! Hurry!"

『The Three Little Pigs』 was only beginning.

Soon, water began bubbling beneath the chimney's fireplace.

[The Constellation Nail-Eating Rat looks forward to what will happen next.]

[The Constellation Primeval Ox says it is pleased to see this reenactment again after so long.]

[The Constellation First Pig to Die says its heart is pounding for the first time in a while.]

A fierce gale was raging outside.

The wolves were probably filling their lungs with as much air as they could.

[With a house like this...!]

In the original 『The Three Little Pigs』, the wolves blew down the houses built by the little pigs.

The first pig's house of straw and the second pig's house of wood were both destroyed by the wolf's breath.

But the youngest pig's Brick House was different.

Kugugugugu!

A violent gust struck the house.

Once, twice, three times, four.

The wind was powerful enough that the Brick House swayed dangerously.

Each time, I whispered to the Fable Fragment.

"You are a Brick House."

「I am a Brick House.」

[The Fable Fragment Brick House becomes even sturdier.]

[The Constellation Wolf Who Likes Red Riding Hood is shocked!]

I could feel the wolves' agitation beyond the wall.

[How did they build a Brick House?]

Only now did they realize something had gone wrong.

[That can't be... They shouldn't have been able to find that fable.]

I had expected this.

The Fable Fragment of 「Brick House」 surely wasn't normally obtained this way during a Scenario.

What I had done was a kind of shortcut.

It worked on the same principle as when Dokja had impersonated a Revolutionary in the Revolutionary Game.

Strictly speaking, I had transformed House That Is Not a Brick House into Brick House.

[Few Constellations ask if that was really possible.]

[A Constellation that has yet to reveal its modifier nods at your solution.]

A Constellation that hadn't revealed its modifier.

As far as I knew, the only one who had sent messages in that form so far was Demon King of Salvation.

But Demon King of Salvation wasn't currently able to send Indirect Messages.

Then who was the owner of that message?

Perhaps that being, too, was like Demon King of Salvation...

Thud thud thud thud.

Something leaped onto the brick roof.

Just as expected, the wolf Incarnations had begun moving.

Wolf Who Likes Red Riding Hood shouted.

[Stop, you idiots! I said don't move carelessly!]

Even so, the wolves didn't stop.

[The reenactment requirements for Stage Transformation are being reviewed in this Area.]

For a fable's Stage Transformation to be fulfilled, several conditions related to the stage, including the fable itself, had to be met.

For example, for Kim Dokja Company's Spring of the Demon Realm to be reenacted, it needed key members of Kim Dokja Company, including Dokja, as well as the chariot of Surya, a fabled-grade Constellation.

Then what about 『The Three Little Pigs』?

[The Fable Fragment Leader of the Wolves begins its story.]

First, the wolf, the villain of the story.

[The Fable Fragment Brick House begins its story.]

Then, the Brick House, the story's key element.

Finally, it needed the youngest pig, the protagonist of the story.

Unfortunately, there was no youngest pig here.

[The Fable Fragment Last-Born begins its story.]

Instead, there was me, Dokja, the youngest.

[The Fable Fragment Man Who Eats Eight Meals a Day begins its story.]

And for some reason, there was someone with a Fable Fragment that could replace the fable of a pig.

Little Yu Junghyeok frowned and was about to cry out.