WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈
Chapter 743: Episode 30: Twelve Zodiacs (5)
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Having killed a charging bear, Killer King caught his breath and said,
"This reminds me of the Demon Realm. Something similar happened there, too."
I gave a bitter smile.
Something similar had certainly happened in the Demon Realm in the main story. A crowd incited by a duke's lackeys had interfered with Kim Dokja, just like this.
"You talk as if you were really there."
"If you read a story about a hundred times, it becomes no different from actually living through it."
"Then you know something is strange about this situation, too."
I looked at the bears looting the houses. We had killed quite a few, yet there were still many bears. There seemed to be even more than before.
"The bears wouldn't launch an attack at a time like this."
"Why do you think that? If they're desperate for fables, they could easily..."
"No matter how desperate they are, their lives would matter more. Rumors that we have an Outer God on our side must have spread throughout all of Area 13."
Of course, Lycaon couldn't intervene in the battle under the terms of our contract. But the beastfolk of Area 13 and the Twelve Zodiacs didn't know that.
Knowing Lycaon was here, the northern bears wouldn't have carelessly invaded this place.
"Then..."
"Raiding fables is only an excuse. Their real goal is probably to cause as many casualties as possible in Area 13."
Some of those casualties would be beastfolk who supported us or thought favorably of us. If they died, our support rate would naturally fall as well.
Killer King's eyes narrowed.
"Did the Twelve Zodiacs order this?"
"Most likely."
The Twelve Zodiacs, wanting to avoid a direct clash with us, had moved the northern bears, who were currently killing the beastfolk of Area 13 who supported us.
That was the most reasonable explanation.
"Then should I kill their leader?"
I looked at the brown bear displaying monstrous strength in the distance, the Bear Who Spares Those Who Pretend to Be Dead.
"I'm not sure. If it wasn't the one that planned this invasion, killing it won't end the fight."
I narrowed my eyes and glared into the air.
The bear beastfolk had no fables of their own, so they were beings swayed by the fables of others. If that was the case, there had to be a fable that led them here.
If I could only find the source of that fable...
"I need time."
"How much?"
"Five minutes should be enough."
"No problem."
Killer King answered confidently, but everyone knew this wasn't a situation where anyone could make promises.
This was different from when we faced the wolves in "The Three Little Pigs."
The brown bear was a discarded star, but it still possessed some of a Constellation's authority, and there were hundreds of bear beastfolk under its command.
Meanwhile, the beastfolk on our side were all weak herbivore types.
"Graaaah!"
The fleeing southern beastfolk hurried into the Brick House, but it couldn't function as it had during "The Three Little Pigs."
"Those wolf bastards really couldn't destroy a house like this?"
"Idiots."
The bears weren't affected by "The Three Little Pigs." Their physical strength was also far greater than the wolves'.
More importantly...
[The fable Pack Coveting the Throne of Beasts continues its story.]
The brown bear's fable was no joke. It was normally a fable possessed by hyenas, yet of all things, that brown bear had it.
"Pack Coveting the Throne of Beasts" was a fable that grew stronger as the pack's numbers increased.
Perhaps because of that fable, the bears that had fallen were getting back up and charging at us again.
"We're being pushed back!"
The southern beastfolk fighting them began to retreat one by one.
As their formation rapidly collapsed, the crane owner cried out.
"Don't run! Fight them!"
Once a formation collapsed, it couldn't recover. They began getting pushed back like a broken dam. Just as even the crane owner lost the will to fight...
"Not one of them gets through!"
Gyeong Sein let out a booming shout and sprang up like a flying squirrel. [Way of the Wind] sent the charging bears tumbling down in a heap.
Cha Yerim burst the heads of the fallen bears.
No one in the group had mastered [Way of the Wind] more than Yerim.
Her kicks smashed the heads of every charging bear.
Then, a bear that had hidden beneath its companions' corpses spotted an opening and aimed for Yerim's flank.
Uncle Dansu, charging in like a tank, stopped it.
Bang!
The bear's torn torso flew through the air.
"Being gathered in the Brick House together felt just like being with my family..."
He moved at a speed unbelievable for a turtle.
Uncle Dansu gave me a faint smile.
"For the first time in a while, I'm angry."
At the very front of the group stood a man in a pitch-black coat.
"No one dies. I won't allow it."
Without looking back, Killer King added,
"That applies to you too, Kim Dokja."
[Way of the Wind] created small storms throughout the battlefield.
Only a few days ago, the group had struggled just to deal with Wolf Harvesters.
Now, they were pushing back bear beastfolk several times their number.
Their growth was truly remarkable.
Their collapsing formation quickly recovered, and even the brown bear began retreating under the group's relentless assault. It almost felt like we could keep pushing them back like this.
[Graaaah! You bastards!]
The brown bear, struck repeatedly by Killer King's crossbow, let out an enraged roar.
[Get them first! Take their masks!]
Ignoring the attacks hitting them, the bears cut off the group's retreat before charging at them.
I urgently shouted to them.
"Everyone, get away!"
We couldn't let them take our masks. If our masks were taken, beastfolk transformation would happen again, and we would be excluded from the Scenario. Our strength would be taken away.
[A mask exists to hide something.]
As if it had read my thoughts, the brown bear spoke.
[Identity, weakness, shame. Or truth. The desire to hide a weak heart becomes a mask.]
Wearing half a mask, the brown bear looked at me and smiled unpleasantly.
[Wearing a mask means hiding behind your own shortcomings. You fools wear masks without even knowing that...]
The brown bear burst into laughter, its eyes glinting coldly.
[You are practically begging us to attack your weak points.]
Sein was the first to suffer.
A mask was an item made of fables.
Sein's mask cracked under the bear beastfolk's attacks, and the fable within it began to flow out.
「Gyeong Sein wanted to become strong.」
Sein's mask was a squirrel.
「She built up her small body and trained her muscles. She thought that if she did, no one would look down on her.」
I remembered the muscular woman wearing the [Judge Huiwon] name tag.
「But could she truly say she had become strong?」
Sein reached a hand toward me, seeming to shout something.
A charging bear trampled her hand.
There was the sound of something tearing.
"Sein!"
Uncle Dansu was the first to rush into the bears. He charged in like a cannonball, curled around Sein, and held her close.
A fable flowed from Uncle Dansu's broken mask as well.
「I want to live a long time.」
Uncle Dansu's mask was a turtle.
「I want to live just a little longer.」
I remembered Uncle Dansu in a hospital gown.
Just as I could no longer hold myself back and tried to run toward them, someone grabbed my shoulder.
"I'll go."
It was Yerim.
"Yerim."
"Find the fable controlling the bears."
Using [Way of the Wind] like an acrobat, Yerim cleared a path toward Sein and Lee Dansu.
A massive shadow appeared behind her.
"Yerim!"
The brown bear's enormous paw struck Yerim's back. But she curled up at just the right moment, creating "Snail House" to block the blow.
[This worthless shell...]
The brown bear glared as it struck Snail House again and again. The corner of the house broke, and a fable spilled out.
「I need a place to return to.」
Yerim's mask was a snail.
「We need a home too.」
Her fable, of having grown up in an orphanage with her older brother, was being brutally crushed beneath the bear's paw.
Hyunwoo stepped in front of that paw.
The brown bear growled.
[How dare you, bamboo-eating bastard.]
The brown bear's heavy paw collided with Hyunwoo's fist.
Exhausted, Hyunwoo was easily overpowered. With the sound of bursting air, his body rolled across the ground.
The brown bear stepped on his chest and spoke.
[Kill him.]
The charging bears mauled Hyunwoo all over.
A fable flowed from his cracked panda mask.
「I have to live diligently.」
Hyunwoo had always been diligent.
「That is the only way to survive.」
At that moment, I understood why his mask was a panda.
「That is the only way not to go extinct.」
Perhaps someone as methodical and organized as him had wanted to rely on someone too.
「Actually, I don't want to do anything.」
Like a panda that could only live in a zoo, he wanted to peacefully chew bamboo in silence.
"Are you going to lie there so pathetically?"
[Urgh...]
A shadow flew in and knocked the brown bear away from Hyunwoo.
"Sky-Splitting Collapse Fist!"
Startled, the brown bear recoiled in horror.
[What...!]
"Phoenix Walk! Sky Splitter Sword Art! Sky-Splitting Meteor Sword!"
Killer King recklessly shouted Yu Junghyeok's technique names as he drove the brown bear back with [Way of the Wind].
"Meteor Slash!"
[Wolf bastard!]
The brown bear roared and struck Killer King in the head.
Crush.
A fable flowed from Killer King's crumbling mask.
「I am a lonely wolf.」
The brown bear gave a humorless laugh at the fable flowing out.
[Foolish wolf. Step back. Your companions are already finished.]
"My companions."
Killer King wiped the blood from his lips.
"Won't die from something like this."
[Your companions have already become beasts. And you too...]
The massive brown bear's fist moved at blinding speed. Before Killer King could defend himself, his mask began to shatter helplessly.
[Will become a beast.]
Losing a mask meant becoming a beast.
The moment I could no longer endure it and took a step forward, Killer King shouted.
"Don't come, Kim Dokja! This is our story!"
I stopped.
"Don't make us miserable any longer!"
[Idiot.]
The brown bear laughed. Its fist struck Killer King's face faster and faster.
Again, again, and again.
Killer King's wolf mask was being horribly destroyed. Even so, Killer King refused to kneel.
I clenched my fists as I sensed the signs of a strange fable rising around us.
I couldn't explain it, but I had a feeling.
The group would be fine.
The fables they had built until now told me so.
「"Hyunwoo, how much longer are you going to train [Way of the Wind]?"」
「"Just one more hour."」
「"All right, then I'll do two more hours!"」
「"I've already been doing it for three hours."」
The sound of wind blowing in from somewhere.
「The group was now ready to remove their masks.」
What did a mask exist for?
The masks of Area 13 were items that prevented an Incarnation's beastfolk transformation.
Yet according to TWSA, that wasn't the only reason masks existed.
「A mask exists for the moment the face hidden beneath it is revealed.」
Killer King's face appeared through the broken mask. Killer King, his lip split, caught the brown bear's fist.
"Wearing a mask."
It was Killer King's bare face, Chae Seongwoo's face, which I hadn't seen in a long time. His lips curled into a grim smile.
"Means you want to hide something."
The stunned brown bear stepped back.
[How... You! Your mask should have broken...]
"Are you wondering why I haven't become a beast?"
When someone lost their mask and became a beast, it was a kind of immune response that protected a person whose weakness had been exposed.
Yet Killer King hadn't become a beast.
Which meant...
"Because I realized this world is full of people weaker than me."
[What nonsense...]
"I don't need to hide my weakness in front of people weaker than me!"
"Idiot, that's not it."
Hyunwoo had gotten up and was standing beside Killer King. His mask was broken as well.
The fables from his broken mask were slowly being absorbed into his face.
"I learned that weakness can become a story too."
"That is one way to put it."
Crush.
Yerim walked out from the shattered Snail House.
"You're both wrong."
She stood to Killer King's left, her mask gone as well.
"It's because we gained companions who will protect each other's weakest parts."
Sein shouted from atop a mountain of fallen bears.
"You all say such great things! Now that my mask is broken, I can see much better!"
Without her mask, Sein looked far more refreshed.
Uncle Dansu, standing beside her, added,
"So we are each other's masks."
The maskless companions stood tall like a breakwater against the bears' waves.
Seeing them, my heart began to pound as well.
[An Incarnation who has realized the meaning of the mask has appeared in Area 13!]
They had now become pillars that proudly supported one axis of this world.
"None of you have forgotten why we're here, right?"
At Killer King's words, the group nodded one by one.
They stood with their backs to me, facing the star.
Killer King spoke.
"Protect Kim Dokja."
I realized once again what the group had been fighting for.
"The Three Little Pigs," "Fox and Crane Hotel," and then "Goose That Lays Golden Eggs."
As they reenacted fable after fable, the story they had truly wanted to recreate more than anything was...
[Your fable resonates.]
What kind of expression did I have on my face?
Was my mask wearing an expression that fit among them?
I thought of the person who should have seen this sight in my place.
I would remember this scene for him. When we met again someday, I would definitely tell him.
There are people who gained stories of their own because of you.
"Kim Dokja."
Someone came to stand beside me. His mask had disappeared as well. He had overcome the mask's restraints too.
Of course he had.
He was the one who believed in his own fable more than anyone in this world.
"You all."
The protagonist of this world.
The regressor who had lost his memories and become a boy.
The boy, who had grown a little taller in such a short time, watched the sight before him. How would it look through the eyes of a regressor who had survived this same Scenario over and over?
"It seems you have something you want to protect."
I opened my mouth for a moment, then slowly nodded.
"Yes. Just as you did."
I watched the companions' backs as they moved forward.
There were countless universes, and even more planets.
One of those fleeting planets. Being born in the same era, choosing one story among countless stories, reading it and coming to love it.
If such a thing was truly possible, its wonder surely couldn't be explained by words like coincidence or miracle alone.
Because it couldn't be explained, it finally became a story.
A story that captivated the stars, set the night sky ablaze, and could ultimately change the universe.
[A new fable has begun to bud within your group.]
The stars of this world called such stories fables.
[The possibility of a nebula is budding within your group.]
Footnotes:
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