WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 750: Episode 31: Yu Junghyeok (2)

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He would take the other one?

Just as I was about to shout and ask what that meant.

"Dokja-ssi, over there..."

Gyeong Sein's voice.

We looked toward the red sorghum field at the same time. Someone we knew was standing there.

"Why..."

Maybe I'd expected it. But I hadn't been certain.

「Someone other than me had made a contract with the Rice Cake-Eating Tiger.」

As always, understanding came a little late.

Only then did I understand why the Constellation Rice Cake-Eating Tiger had wasted so much Plausibility here.

「The Rice Cake-Eating Tiger had invited two Incarnations to the Twelve Zodiac Ball.」

"Hyunwoo-ssi!"

Ye Hyunwoo's entire body shone brightly at the center of the red sorghum field.

I immediately ran into the field. [Way of the Wind] pressed down the sorghum.

Tiger fur scattered through the air.

Hyunwoo held out a hand, telling me not to come closer.

"Hyunwoo-ssi."

As if he knew what I was going to say, Hyunwoo nodded.

"I know it could be a trap."

Hyunwoo was smart. He already knew. Even knowing that, he had chosen it.

Before I could ask why, Hyunwoo answered first.

"When I'm with you, I can't become the person I want to be."

Hyunwoo turned his gaze behind me. Our stunned Allies were watching us from there.

Killer King asked, "Seventh Apostle. Are you really going to make that choice?"

Normally, Hyunwoo would have said something in response. But he was a little different today. His expression seemed caught between a bitter smile and grief twisting his face.

Within the glow, Hyunwoo's feet slowly began to scatter.

The Rice Cake-Eating Tiger's authority was carrying out the summoning.

At last, Hyunwoo looked at me as if he had made up his mind.

"Honestly, I'm not the type to get attached to people easily. You already know that."

I did.

Even Pildu Gong, his former partner, had felt that way.

"But for the first time, I think I understood what it means to grow attached to someone."

Hyunwoo, now half gone, was smiling.

"I'm scared now. I don't want to watch someone precious die again. But I will, won't I? We entered a world like that. So..."

I realized what he was going to say.

"I'll become Kim Dokja."

I understood why he wanted to become Dokja. That was why I had to stop him.

But Hyunwoo was almost gone already.

As Killer King ran toward Hyunwoo in shock, someone moved before him.

Feeling a chill, I looked up. Yu Junghyeok, emitting black battle aura, had already arrived right in front of me.

Junghyeok's palm reached for Hyunwoo's vanishing neck.

[Puppet of the Oldest Dream.]

The Rice Cake-Eating Tiger's constellation's declaration rang out. There was an ominous note of laughter in his voice.

[I will pass the pain that fell into the sorghum field on to you as well.]

A small explosion rang out before us, followed by pale smoke.

The startled Allies covered their mouths and stepped back. Yu Junghyeok and I, however, were within the smoke's range.

[You have been exposed to the deadly poisonous fog.]

Deadly poisonous fog.

It was fortunate. It was a deadly poison, but we could endure this much for a while.

"Junghyeok!"

I called his name through the fog, but I couldn't see him.

A premonition warned me. This fog couldn't be the end of it.

"Junghyeok..."

Something shone brightly within the fog. It floated where the tiger and Hyunwoo had vanished, an object glittering with endless beauty.

I immediately knew what it was.

Junghyeok, his eyes blank, reached for it.

"Junghyeok! Don't!"

[The Unidentified Fragment begins its story.]

The world was dyed in bright light.

「Kim Dokja Fragment.」

Damn it.

It seemed the Rice Cake-Eating Tiger knew what had happened at the Washington Dome. He also knew what had happened to Junghyeok after he came into contact with the Kim Dokja Fragment there.

I couldn't let Junghyeok have that. He would become the Black Beast again.

I had to absorb the fragment before Junghyeok did.

"Junghyeok!"

But Junghyeok's hand touched the fragment first. With a burst of bright light, the scenery rippled wildly.

Then, the next moment, a message came to me.

[You have entered Snowfield.]

The last time Snowfield had opened was when I met Dokja.

Dokja, who left footprints in the snow and liked drinking tea, who was gentle yet strangely cold.

"Dokja?"

But Dokja was nowhere to be seen.

The Snowfield I remembered was gone as well. There was only pitch-black darkness.

"Junghyeok?"

[The Exclusive Skill □□ has activated.]

[The Exclusive Skill □□ resists the rules of the Recycling Center.]

Only then did something occur to me.

Come to think of it, the first time I entered Snowfield wasn't when I met Dokja. It was when I described Kim Cheolyang's next action at Geumho Station.

Back when I was still allowed the ability to describe the blank spaces in a story.

Yet, as I remembered it, this skill had originally activated only under special circumstances.

「□□ is a skill that only activates when survival is at risk.」

Did that mean I was in danger of dying now?

Then what sentence should I write?

Should I persuade Junghyeok to throw away the Kim Dokja Fragment? Or should I use additional Plausibility to...

[You cannot write a sentence.]

I couldn't write?

Why...

"Arrrgh!"

Someone's head exploded before my eyes. While I stupidly stared at the spraying fountain of blood, the scenery around me slowly changed.

「Acrid smoke rose everywhere. The heavy stench of blood filled the gunpowder smoke of the battlefield.」

They weren't sentences I had written.

Swept away by a torrent of sentences forced upon me unilaterally, I suddenly found myself standing in the middle of a battlefield.

The stench of burning flesh filled the air.

When I came to my senses, both my arms had been scorched black by flames.

What was happening? Why had I suddenly ended up like this?

Feeling a chill, I looked up. Even more terrifying things floated in the sky.

[The Constellations of the nebula Asgard reveal hostility towards you.]

My mind felt foggy.

[The Constellations of the nebula Veda mock your struggle.]

I had clearly been in the Recycling Center. Those bastards couldn't enter the Center.

Then why?

[The Constellations of the nebula Olympus watch your final moments.]

Why were those damned stars above my head right now?

Maybe it was only my imagination, but the shining sun in the sky seemed bigger too.

No, it wasn't an illusion.

The sun was drawing closer.

I could see its blazing corona. Beyond it, a Great Being of unfathomable Status gazed down at Earth.

[The Constellation Sun at Noon burns everything on the surface!]

The solar wind blew. Scorching flames covered every living thing on the surface.

Someone burned alive before my eyes and reached a hand toward me.

"Save..."

I would die.

[You cannot change this story.]

As magma burst forth, I grabbed the hand.

[You have died.]

Without even knowing why I had to die like that, I died.

When I opened my eyes again, I was running down a dark road.

[The Constellation Master of the Book of Death spills silent rage.]

I felt an immense Status writhing behind me. My feet kept sinking into the ground, and hands rising from the dirt grasped at my ankles.

Kyaaaah!

「The smell of death filled the air. The smell of those who had died and could never return to life. Every soul that had lost its fable stretched out a hand, grasping at the stories of the living.」

Instinctively, I knew where this was.

[Catch him.]

A cold voice came from behind me.

For some reason, I held a book I had never seen before.

「Book of Death」

The Book of Death?

Something came to mind.

「The King of the Underworld's Book of Death.」

The Revelation that recorded the lifespans of everyone in the world.

I was running away with that Revelation in my hands.

[His name has been written in the Book of Death three times. Capture him without fail.]

Damn it, I had no idea what was going on.

No matter what, I couldn't die here. I ran and ran again.

But a cliff soon appeared before me.

[You cannot write a sentence.]

Once again, I couldn't write a sentence.

[You cannot change this story.]

With the sensation of a sharp dagger piercing my stomach, I fell down a thousand-fathom cliff.

[You have died.]

When I opened my eyes again, I was sitting in a chair.

What was it this time? I couldn't move my body at all. Someone had tied me to the chair.

Chains made of no less than fable metal.

Who could be doing something so terrible...

"Are you awake?"

I looked up and saw Anna Croft.

I hurriedly tried to say something, but my mouth was gagged.

"Tell me your secret."

Yes. I'll tell you. I will... Just please, untie me first.

"Everything you're hiding."

I'd never seen Anna Croft like that before. Her eyes were steeped in madness. She took a long nail from inside her clothing and brought it close to my heart.

"Otherwise."

No, wait.

"You'll suffer pain harsher than death."

The first nail was driven in right beside my heart. A cold, heavy sensation pierced my chest, and I felt like I would faint at any moment.

Anna Croft immediately took out a second nail.

"Speak."

She drove it in.

"Speak."

Then she took out a third nail.

"Speak."

She drove it in again.

And then.

[You cannot write a sentence.]

[You cannot change this story.]

······

[You have died.]

I was starting to lose my mind.

Anyone would lose their mind if they suddenly died three times in a row like that.

Was death a joke?

How could a person die over and over in that way?

"You bastard."

When I opened my eyes again with that thought in mind, someone was slapping me across the face.

Once, twice, three times, four times.

The blows, loaded with inner energy, felt like they would knock me unconscious. No, perhaps I had already blacked out. Blood was pouring from all seven orifices in my face.

"I have no use for a trash disciple."

Wait.

[You cannot write a sentence.]

[You cannot change this story.]

Please, listen to me.

[You have died.]

That way, I died five, six, and seven more times.

Something was wrong.

Why was I going through this pain?

What had I done to end up like this?

When I opened my eyes again, I was in pitch-black darkness.

Yet it wasn't the same darkness as before. It was far denser and lonelier, a darkness where the order of time itself seemed to twist.

In that darkness, I was thrusting.

Once, twice, three times.

After thrusting, I repeated slashes.

Once, twice, three times.

A tedious task of thrusting and slashing in rhythm.

I continued.

In the lonely darkness where no one existed, I imagined invisible enemies and kept thrusting and cutting. Ten thousand times, a hundred thousand times, a million times... Training continued as though I meant to tear the darkness itself apart.

How many times had I thrust and cut?

When I came to my senses, I had forgotten time, forgotten my body, and eventually forgotten myself.

「Perhaps that talent had not been inborn.」

It felt as if the impurities of my mind were draining away and the excess from my soul was falling away.

「A talent that one person had attained by carving away at their soul for countless years.」

I became able to thrust without thrusting, and cut without cutting.

「Transcendence.」

A tremendous realization overwhelmed me.

I knew what that realization was.

This was the sensation of Transcendence Junghyeok had spoken of.

Something seemed wrong, though. A burning heat rose from the back of my head. It soon flashed my consciousness white and led me into ecstasy.

[You cannot write a sentence.]

Uh...

[You cannot change this story.]

No, right?

[You have achieved Ascension to Immortality.]

[You have died.]

I was so dumbfounded that I had nothing left to say.

Only then could I clearly explain what was happening to me.

「I was experiencing Yu Junghyeok's Regression journey.」

Pitch-black despair weighed down on my shoulders at every turn.

An ending where I died no matter what I did.

A hell I couldn't escape no matter how hard I tried.

It was agonizing and painful, but I kept forcing my way through that hell.

I could force my way through it.

Because I knew that his Eternity wasn't truly eternal.

「"Eternal Hellscape" does not exist.」

One day, this hell would end.

At the end of that hell, Junghyeok would reach his conclusion.

So...

「There is a conclusion in this world.」

How many times did I die, live, and run again?

Even knowing there was an end, I eventually began to think I couldn't go any farther. Then the surroundings slowly brightened.

At last, I had escaped the hellscape.

「There was a Snowfield there.」

A pure-white Snowfield.

For a while, I looked toward the end of the barren world as fine snow drifted through the air.

Then I saw something pale moving in the distance. I instinctively waved and tried to approach, but stopped short.

Until now, only three people had been able to move within this Snowfield.

Me, Dokja, and Han Suyeong.

Then what was that?

A small living creature was curled up on the Snowfield.

When I approached, it soon took the form of a child. A child crouched on the Snowfield that had burned white.

The moment I met the child's dead eyes, I realized who the child was.

「There was a man who had to live through a long story to save one person.」

I had always thought Snowfield was Dokja's space.

「The one who lives in the spaces between the lines is not the reader.」

Snowfield.

The graveyard of those who could not be recorded.

「There was only one being who could live in those spaces between the lines.」

A place where every story was written, yet perhaps nothing was written at all.

This Snowfield was...

"Yu Junghyeok."

From the beginning, it had been one person's world.

Footnotes:

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