WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 757: Episode 32: King of the Beasts (4)

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To forget even the fact that I was reading a sentence.

To be drawn into a story, becoming the protagonist as the protagonist became me.

[Your Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint has reached a certain level.]

There was a term for the magical moment everyone experienced while reading a book.

[You have reached the realm of vicarious experience.]

Vicarious experience.

Crossing the wall of paper and sentences to perceive another person's experience as your own.

[The Void Curtain is watching you.]

All I had to do was turn one more page.

I had a premonition that the next story I had wanted to see so badly lay beyond it.

【■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ Y ou c an't c ros s over】

Someone grabbed the back of my neck then.

I was so close. The story I wanted was right there.

Then something inside me answered.

【Father King. It will only take a moment. I won't actually cross over.】

【N o o ne c an def y P lau si bi li ty】

Something inside me spoke once more.

【For the sake of the great ‘Record,’ turn a blind eye just once.】

For an instant, time seemed to freeze. It felt as though some distant, immeasurable part of the universe slowly nodded.

A page turned slowly. It was dark, thick, and so dense it took my breath away. When I barely managed to turn that page, I finally found the sentence I had been searching for.

「Yu Junghyeok, sitting cross-legged, recalled a memory from long ago for the first time in a while.」

I began to read.

* * *

Yu Junghyeok, sitting cross-legged, recalled a memory from long ago for the first time in a while.

It was a journey to recover Kim Dokja. Memories of drifting through space with Biyoo. Of scattering their story throughout the universe with Han Suyeong's novel.

The arduous journey gradually exhausted Junghyeok, and to forget that he was growing tired, he moved even more diligently.

He had to keep moving.

[Captain, let's rest here for a little while.]

With Biyoo, he sat on an unfamiliar bench in an unfamiliar town on an unfamiliar planet and looked up at a familiar sky.

As he watched the sky, the path they had walked began to feel strangely unfamiliar to Junghyeok.

Could they truly meet Dokja again at the end of this road? Was that pallid guy really alive somewhere with them?

[Sometimes you need to rest, too.]

Junghyeok thought about the stars that no longer spoke to him. He remembered his vanished Patron constellation and imagined another version of himself who had reached his ■■, ‘Secretive Plotter.’

Would a moment like Secretive Plotter's come for him, too?

At the end of this arduous life, did some form of salvation exist?

Junghyeok could hardly imagine it. His ■■ seemed as distant as Dokja's face, which had grown hazy in his memory.

Would he know once this journey ended?

Why he had been born into this world, why he had lived, and why he was still living.

[Captain. Have you ever thought about something like this?]

Junghyeok answered Biyoo's question half a beat late.

"What?"

[What if there is a happy universe where none of these tragedies ever happened?]

A happy universe. Junghyeok thought briefly about those strange words before replying.

"If none of those tragedies happened, we wouldn't exist as we are now either."

Biyoo pursed her lips as if that wasn't what she meant.

[Still, sometimes you can imagine another world.]

"What kind of world?"

[There are no Scenarios there, and the stars don't speak. But that world has tragedies too.]

"..."

[The greatest tragedy in that world is oversleeping and being late for school.]

Junghyeok silently listened to Biyoo.

[And then they serve terrible cafeteria food for lunch that day. Or you go to an internet cafe with money meant for school supplies and get caught by your parents.]

Junghyeok tried imagining the world Biyoo described.

But he couldn't picture such a world easily.

After all, he had never properly attended school, never eaten lunch while worrying about how it tasted, and had never had parents.

"You're the Dokkaebi King now. Why do you miss those things?"

[Why? Am I not allowed to miss them?]

Hearing that question, Junghyeok traced back an old memory. A face suddenly came to mind.

A girl who often smiled brightly. A child who had always followed him, calling him Captain.

"You were Shin Yuseong of the 41st round."

[Well, if you trace my origins, that's right.]

"Do you still resent me?"

Junghyeok remembered Yuseong, the Calamity of Floods. Yuseong, who had gone into the past to change the future, only to be disappointed in him. Yuseong, who had tried to kill him.

He would never forget the look in her eyes.

[No. I can barely remember that time anymore.]

The girl who had buried all her resentment and hatred before being reincarnated as a dokkaebi spoke.

Junghyeok felt an emotion he couldn't identify as he looked at Biyoo.

Then what had become of Shin Yuseong's 41st round? What would fill the place where all her hatred and resentment had vanished?

As if she understood his question, Biyoo said,

[Having gaps in your memories isn't entirely bad. You can fill those gaps with different imaginings.]

"My 41st-round self did something irreversible."

[Maybe. But that round couldn't have been filled with only bad things.]

As if tracing the remnants of the vanished 41st round, Biyoo murmured,

[So I try to imagine the happiest things I can. That there was actually a wonderful adventure in the 41st round. It's just that the Captain, me, and everyone else forgot.]

"..."

[Who knows? Maybe I went to school in that round. Maybe you came to my graduation ceremony.]

Of course, such a thing could never have happened, but Biyoo continued.

[Maybe Reader Uncle was there in that round, too.]

"That's impossible."

[I'm only imagining it. Imagining it is fun.]

Junghyeok thought about his 41st-round self.

He didn't know what his 41st-round self had been like or what he had felt.

Why had he sent Yuseong into the past? What tragedy had he faced that made him believe that method was the only answer?

[You're getting serious again. I said to imagine happy things! Don't you have thoughts like that, Captain?]

Junghyeok silently looked down the street. The sun was slowly setting. Students were heading home from school along the sunset reflected in the little stream.

"I don't."

[You must have had a life you dreamed of, too.]

A life he dreamed of. If he had one, his life should have changed when the Scenarios ended.

[Well, if you had, you wouldn't be living as an unemployed bum. You really are pitiful, Captain.]

"I'm neither unemployed nor a bum."

[Right. That's how you imagine things.]

"That's not imagination. I always trained with my sword."

[What were you planning to do by training with a sword?]

What had he intended to do by training with a sword? Junghyeok had no answer.

There were no Constellations left in the sky for him to cut down. No one would acknowledge him just because he trained with a sword.

[Were you trying to become a kendo athlete like Huiwon-unnie?]

"I never intended to."

[Then you're just a bum who's good with a sword.]

Why had he trained with a sword?

Just as Junghyeok, after pondering for a long time, was about to finally give an answer.

"I..."

Voices of boys and girls came from below the stream. One girl shouted, "Let's go to an internet cafe!" while another boy frowned. Then a slender, pale boy put the frowning boy in a headlock.

"Ah! Come on, let's go!"

The moment Junghyeok heard that boy's voice, he shot to his feet.

[Captain?]

Junghyeok started down the hill. His slow steps grew faster. Forgetting even that he was out of breath, he ran to the boy and grabbed his shoulder.

The boy frowned and turned around.

"Who are you?"

"What is it, mister?"

The stern-looking boy grabbed Junghyeok's arm, while a small girl who stood protectively in front of the boy frowned at him threateningly.

Junghyeok quickly let go.

"I'm sorry. I mistook you for someone else."

The children grumbled quietly before setting off again.

Watching their backs as they walked away, strange yet familiar, Junghyeok suddenly had a thought.

「What if that boy...」

Like Biyoo, perhaps that boy was Dokja, reborn after reincarnation and having forgotten every tragedy.

Junghyeok looked at the boy and girl beside him. A stern boy who somehow resembled him, and a girl with a beauty mark like Suyeong's.

Of course, those children were neither Yu Junghyeok nor Han Suyeong. Even knowing that, Junghyeok couldn't shake the strange feeling.

What if a story like that existed somewhere in this universe?

Biyoo's soft laugh tickled his ears.

[See? You have stories you imagine too, Captain.]

Junghyeok slowly opened his eyes and woke from the raging sea of memory.

White steam rose from his entire body as he sat cross-legged. The wounds he had suffered in his fierce battle with Odin had turned black.

'I overdid it.'

Junghyeok reviewed his last battle. Blocking Odin's spear, cutting down Asgard's fabled-grade Constellations, crashing his Incarnation body into the Void Curtain, and being swept up in the Plausibility Backlash.

If Jaehwan, the ‘Monarch Slayer,’ had not helped him, he would not have returned after being swept away by the torrent of Plausibility.

‘Monarch Slayer.’

Junghyeok thought about Jaehwan. He couldn't sense Jaehwan anywhere nearby. That unpredictable guy might be roaming all over Star Stream again.

'I wasted too much Plausibility. This wasn't where I should have used it.'

Originally, he had planned to save that Plausibility carefully and unleash it at a crucial moment.

He would never have made such a dangerous choice if he had not sensed Dokja at Washington Dome.

「Kim Dokja.」

The moment he thought of that name, Junghyeok suddenly felt something familiar.

The sensation of someone watching him. Junghyeok knew what it was.

The Exclusive Skill possessed by that loudmouth, who appeared like magic whenever Junghyeok thought of him, no matter where he was.

Junghyeok reflexively looked up into the air.

* * *

The instant Junghyeok looked at me, I panicked and switched the screen.

Holy shit, that startled me.

It really was that Junghyeok.

I couldn't believe it. I couldn't understand how this was possible. Still, if I had to explain the situation I was in somehow, it was this.

「I crossed the Wall of Worldlines with [Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint].」

A voice from another worldline reached my ears, and following that voice, I crossed the wall of worldlines and came here. To the place where Yu Junghyeok of Kim Dokja Company was.

I had no idea why, but my heart raced just from knowing this was actually happening.

What if I could use Observation on other members of Kim Dokja Company, just as I had on Junghyeok?

No, beyond observing them...

「"Reader Uncle."」

What if I could tell them my ‘story’?

「"Dokja-ssi."」

Could I meet the other allies if I followed these voices?

I concentrated once more. My vision slowly cleared, revealing a new scene.

Familiar voices came from the hazy surroundings.

"Unnie, why isn't this coming on?"

"Hmm. Biyoo definitely said we could watch it with this."

"Is the relay device broken?"

"Hey! Lee Gilyeong! Don't kick it!"

"That black guy did this before, and it worked."

"Master, seriously. Unnie, which relay region is it?"

"The Gourmet Association, apparently."

"Should I go beat up the Gourmet Association guys?"

"Ah, it's on! The screen's showing!"

Then, a moment later.

"Uncle! It's Uncle!"

"He really looks exactly like Dokja-ssi."

"But the situation doesn't look good..."

"Why is that man unconscious over there too? Shouldn't someone go to him?"

"Outside Constellations can't intervene in the Recycling Center."

"That doesn't mean we can just leave him like that!"

I groggily opened my eyes. Familiar backs of heads were clustered in front of a small display.

Without realizing it, I reached toward them...

...I have hands?

I could feel my entire body.

What was going on?

With great effort, I turned my stiff neck and checked my hands and feet.

Hands and feet so small that I couldn't believe they were mine.

Then a woman with beautiful brown hair turned to look at me. Her face looked even more like Ji Eunyoo in person.

"Little Dokja-ssi, you're awake?"

I suddenly understood exactly how the Monkey King must have felt when he was held in Eunyoo's arms as I was lifted into the air.

"Me too! I want to hold him too!"

"He's awake?"

Two children ran toward me. Watching them, an indescribable emotion welled up inside me.

"Shall we watch together?"

With that gentle voice, I saw the screen the others had been watching. It showed me unconscious, Eunyoo frantically driving a carriage, and Chae Yerin.

「"Yerin-ssi, do you know how to drive?"」

「"I'm underage."」

In that utterly unreal scene, I finally understood what had happened to me.

[The fable Heir to an Eternal Name responds.]

[The fable Heir to an Eternal Name is licking its lips at the Kim Dokja Fragment you have possessed.]

Small hands. Small feet. A small body too weak to even rise on its own.

There was no doubt about it.

[Exclusive Skill Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint Stage 3 is active.]

I had become the ‘Little Kim Dokja’ raised by Kim Dokja Company.

Footnotes:

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