Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint - Chapter 732

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 732: Episode 28: Home (10)

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* * *

Jihye still remembered the day she first met Kim Dokja.

A pale-faced man who had appeared like a ghost amid the specter Areas in the pitch-dark Chungmuro Station tunnel.

「"Who are you people? Don't you know this Area is our hunting ground?"」

That's right. That was her first meeting with Dokja.

「"Did you people perhaps come after taking care of the specters?"」

Jihye gazed down at the Fable Fragment wriggling across the tunnel floor as it continued its story.

"Mister. You'll get cold staying in a place like this."

She bent down and picked up the Fable Fragment. This fragment was why she had visited this worldline.

[The Fable Fragment First Encounter with the Naval Commander has been acquired.]

After checking the fragment's name, Jihye smiled faintly.

"So something like this can become a fable too."

It made her a little happy.

The fact that their meeting had been recorded. The fact that the time she had spent living alongside that infuriating man made up a part of him.

"Hmm. It doesn't seem like there are any more here."

After retrieving the fragment, Jihye looked around several times before activating the Kim Dokja Tracker Lee Seolhwa had made for her.

[There are no Kim Dokja Fragments in this worldline.]

Her mission in Kim Dokja Company was to gather the pieces of Dokja scattered across the worldlines.

At first, she had worked with her Allies. However, after a large number of Kim Dokja Fragments were discovered in the forty-first round, only Jihye had traveled through other worldlines to collect Fable Fragments.

Several months passed like that.

At last, nearly all the fragments they needed had been gathered.

"I'll finally get to go home after so long. Biyoo! Send me back!"

Baat.

The sound rang through her head, and a moment later, a portal swirled into existence and swallowed her whole.

[You have arrived at the target dimension.]

Hup.

The transfer had taken no time at all.

When she had first begun traveling through worldlines, she couldn't travel back and forth this quickly. Had Biyoo's ability grown during that time?

Jihye stepped out of the portal, took a deep breath, and shouted loudly.

"I'm back!"

Yet none of her Allies appeared.

Feeling a little disappointed, Jihye dragged her feet as she went looking for them.

"I'm back! Where did everyone go?"

The moment she opened the transfer room's door and turned into the opposite corridor.

"Oh, Jihye. You're back?"

"Seolhwa-unnie!"

She ran into Lee Seolhwa, who looked tired for some reason.

Seolhwa immediately took hold of Jihye's wrist and muttered something under her breath. Then she nodded.

"You're healthy. Your fable balance is stable too. I was really worried."

"What are you worried about? Where is everyone else?"

"Huh? Jihye-noona!"

Gilyeong and Shin Yuseong were coming out of a room at that moment.

"Unnie!"

Yuseong ran over and threw her arms around Jihye.

"Oh my, you've grown so much. Our little one."

Jihye rubbed Yuseong's head.

Blegh.

Gilyeong reacted at the sight of Jihye and Yuseong getting along so well.

"Where's Sangah-unnie?"

Yuseong poked her head out and answered.

"She's in the observation room. We were all on our way there anyway."

"Is Master there too?"

"That black bastard is in the closed-door training room."

"Again? What could Master possibly have left to train for?"

"He's recovering from internal injuries."

"Master suffered internal injuries?"

"He fought a Mythical Constellation."

A Mythical Constellation.

Jihye's expression stiffened slightly.

"Which Mythical Constellation?"

There were hardly any Constellations left who could threaten Kim Dokja Company.

But if it was someone Mythical, things changed a little.

"Odin. And the fabled-grade riffraff from Asgard."

Jihye's mouth fell open.

"What? Has Master really lost it?"

"He's as strong as he is crazy."

"No, that's only when the conditions are equal! That's their worldline. What about the Plausibility Backlash?"

"That's why he got hurt like that."

"Suyeong-unnie just let that happen?"

The moment Han Suyeong's name came up, the Allies' expressions darkened noticeably.

Jihye carefully read their faces before asking.

"Why does everyone look like that? Why did Master fight Odin? Did Mister show up or something?"

Gilyeong and Yuseong looked at each other.

Jihye pressed them.

"Wait. Really?"

"More precisely, it was an enormous fragment of hyung."

"An enormous fragment?"

“A fragment with the fable "Demon King of Salvation."”

"Isn't that basically Mister?"

"It isn't 100 percent hyung."

At Gilyeong's answer, Yuseong shot him a glare.

Jihye watched the tension between them, then patted both children on the shoulders before speaking.

"Lee Gilyeong. As I've been going everywhere to collect Mister's fragments, I've come to realize something."

"What?"

"In the end, no human being can ever become a 100 percent existence."

Yuseong suddenly looked up at that grave declaration, and Seolhwa covered her mouth as she murmured, "Oh my."

Jihye spoke proudly to the blank-faced Gilyeong.

"What? Are you amazed by this noona's insight?"

"It's impressive that you managed to think of something like that."

"Do you want to hang upside down again after so long? Anyway, what I want to say is..."

"That we should accept hyung even if he isn't 100 percent hyung when he comes back."

"Um..."

"Do you think I'm an idiot? I know that much too. But..."

No person could be a 100 percent existence to begin with. People always lived while losing and forgetting something.

What Gilyeong feared, though, was this.

"What if the hyung we finally get back has forgotten you, noona?"

"Huh?"

"Could you still say that? Could you confidently say it's okay even if he isn't 100 percent hyung?"

Jihye quietly looked into Gilyeong's eyes. Then she looked at Yuseong, and finally at Seolhwa.

"That won't do. Mister has to remember me, obviously."

"What? Just now, you..."

"It'd be unfair. I can't even go on a college trip, and I'm stuck here doing this, so if that guy forgot me..."

"Noona didn't get into college."

"Whatever. Mister remembers me, so you don't have to worry about that."

"How do you know that?"

"You'll be surprised when you see what I brought."

Wearing a meaningful expression, Jihye reached into her backpack.

But what was going on?

The Kim Dokja Fragments she had definitely put into her backpack weren't there.

That couldn't be right.

She had certainly collected a whole bunch of them while traveling through worldlines...

"Huh?"

The startled Jihye dropped her backpack onto the floor, and something quickly sprang out from inside it.

Jihye's eyes widened.

"Oh my god."

Yuseong screamed.

"Mister!"

A doll-sized little Dokja was looking up at them.

Yuseong and Gilyeong moved first.

"Where do you think you're going!"

"Move, Shin Yuseong!"

Little Dokja dodged both children and scampered away somewhere.

"Catch him!"

The Allies hurried after little Dokja.

After they had run for who knew how long...

"Ah."

Little Dokja had headed for the observation room where Yu Sangah was.

Creak.

The door opened, and Yu Sangah's eyes met little Dokja's as she checked the monitors in the observation room.

Sangah opened her mouth in surprise and looked down at him. Little Dokja raised both hands toward her.

Sangah stared down at him for a moment, then asked with a bitter smile.

"Did you miss me that much?"

Sangah reached out, gently picked up little Dokja, and placed him on the table.

As his gaze rose, little Dokja looked toward the monitors in the observation room.

The story of the forty-first round was playing there.

A masked man on the monitor was speaking.

“I intend to take the fable "The Three Little Pigs."”

Through the parts the mask didn't fully cover, the man's shining eyes and pale skin flashed into view.

The Allies who had arrived by then were watching the screen too.

Sangah waved at them.

"Jihye, you're back?"

"Yes, unnie. But is that..."

Sangah looked at the man shouting beyond the screen.

The man who drove back the storm and negotiated with the wolf.

"That's right, isn't it? That's Mister, right?"

The man who hid his Allies in the Brick House and fought against the Scenario in a way nobody else had considered.

Sangah watched his story.

"Let's create a fable that will continue forever."

Even writing several books wouldn't be enough to explain exactly who he was.

Sangah wasn't someone who could write that book. Only the man himself could decide what belonged in its pages.

Still, Sangah could read the title of that book.

"Yes. That's Dokja-ssi."

"I knew it. Who else but Mister would do something like that? Shouldn't we help him? If he dies..."

"We can't right now. We don't have any spare Plausibility."

"Damn it, this is all because of that black bastard! That guy had to fight Odin..."

"What happened to the Constellations of our worldline? Couldn't we contact them?"

"Yuseong, it isn't easy for us to communicate with them yet..."

At that moment, little Dokja, who was in Sangah's arms, flinched.

At the same time, a fierce storm began blowing beyond the screen.

The Great Hole opened in the sky.

Beyond it, an Outer God was being summoned.

"What?"

The Allies' expressions turned strange when they saw the summoned Outer God.

"That's... that thing, right?"

* * *

The storm battered the Brick House.

Every time the wind struck the walls, the house seemed as though it would be uprooted at any moment.

The Outer God's power was even greater than I had expected.

[The Constellation First Pig to Die breaks out in a cold sweat.]

The pig Constellations supporting us seemed to be struggling as well.

Gyeong Sein asked, "What on earth was summoned?"

I thought back to what I had told the wolf Constellation.

To break through this situation, I had asked it to use a designated summon to call the Outer God I wanted.

"I think..."

"The fable is weakening!"

Mr. Dansu urgently shouted.

[The voice of the fable The Three Little Pigs is fading.]

That couldn't be.

If this fable collapsed, the Constellations would lose their origin fable. For those who were only Historical, their origin fable was what determined their Status. To protect their places, they would never give up until the very end.

Yet if the fable was weakening anyway...

[The reenactment conditions for Stage Transformation are incomplete.]

Damn it. So that was it after all.

The Stage Transformation had been incomplete from the beginning.

To fully recreate this stage, we needed the youngest pig who could stand against the wolf.

But we had fulfilled that youngest pig's condition through a shortcut.

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

One was my Fable Fragment, with me as the "youngest."

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

The other was Yu Junghyeok's Fable Fragment.

"Kim Dokja."

Little Junghyeok's expression had been strange for a while now.

"I'm hungry."

What?

[The Fable Fragment Man Who Eats Eight Meals a Day complains of hunger.]

No, wait. Could this be why the Stage Transformation had become unstable?

"Everyone! Food! Bring food!"

"Huh? Why food all of a sudden..."

"Hurry! We need to feed this guy!"

Now that I thought about it, little Junghyeok's cheeks had become noticeably sunken. Someone who needed to eat eight meals a day hadn't been able to eat even one properly, so of course he had ended up like this.

Fortunately, this was an inn.

"Food! Give us food, innkeeper!"

Gyeong Sein urged the crane innkeeper, who quickly brought out food.

Freshly made soup. Steamed sweet potatoes and potatoes. Wheat bread spread with jam, and more. Every dish looked delicious at a glance.

I shouted at Gyeong Sein.

"Feed him! Give him all eight meals at once!"

"Huh? Can I feed him that much?"

"Hurry!"

Little Junghyeok couldn't use his hands because he was supplying Mana to the Brick House.

Gyeong Sein hurriedly scooped up some soup and held the spoon out to little Junghyeok.

"Here, open wide. Ah!"

Little Junghyeok sharply turned his head away.