Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint - Chapter 768

WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS

Translator: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈

Chapter 768: Episode 33: The Ball (7)

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“What were you thinking, Uriel, bringing that ‘sheep’?”

Archangel Uriel still remembered that day.

“Does she not know what kind of ‘sheep’ the Scribe told her to bring?”

The voices of the seraphim whispering as they looked at the sheep she had dragged in.

Uriel frowned at them and thought, How was I supposed to know what kind of ‘sheep’ they meant? Instead of wasting time thinking about that, wouldn't it be better to take one more demon's head?

“Anyway, I brought ten.”

Her calling was to hunt demons and kill demon kings. Archangel Uriel had been born for that alone.

Countless demons met their end beneath her blade.

Demon Kings. Demon Emperors. Demon Gods.

No star with “demon” in its name could escape her sword. For hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years, the lights of stars belonging to Absolute Evil had gone out.

As immeasurable years of lawlessness passed, the universe Uriel belonged to slowly grew darker.

“Why do you kill demons?”

When had she been asked that question? Had it been when she heard a new demon king had appeared in the borderlands?

“Because I was ordered to.”

“Will you kill anyone if you're ordered to?”

“Yep.”

Just as she had said, Uriel killed the demon king's lover. That had been an order she received, too.

“Archangel. You are like a demon.”

Holding their breathless lover, the demon king quietly cursed her.

“Archangel who loves nothing, someday you will love something too. When that day comes, the flames you have kindled will judge you.”

“Fine by me.”

Uriel laughed at those words and cut off the demon king's head.

Demonic Judge of Fire.

That was how the modifier revered by the Archangels and feared by Absolute Evil was decided.

She killed demon kings just as her modifier said. She cut them down, stabbed them, and beheaded them. How many demon kings had she killed that way?

“Uriel. Stop hunting demons.”

One day, her mission was suspended. Too many demon kings had died.

“A truce agreement has been made.”

When she first heard of the agreement, Uriel naturally assumed the Scribe was making a fuss again.

But one year passed, then ten years, then half a century, and the war did not resume. Uriel finally realized something was wrong.

“Wait. It's really a truce?”

“Uriel. I believe I told you that quite clearly fifty years ago.”

“No, really really?”

“Really really.”

“So I can't kill demon kings anymore?”

“You cannot.”

Uriel was dumbfounded.

She was a being born to destroy every demon king.

She had not come this far merely to gain such a half-baked peace, merely to face an ending like this.

“No. I'll keep killing them. I'll kill every last one!”

Only after being bound and dragged in by Jophiel's [Shackles of Good and Evil] did Uriel write a pledge.

“I swear on the name of an Archangel that henceforth, without orders from the Scribe, I will never touch a demon king... ■uck. Then what am I supposed to do now? If I can't even kill demonkind...”

“Must you kill something?”

“Then what?”

“Why not tend sheep?”

At first, Uriel thought it was a joke.

“Sheep? What sheep?”

Uriel was assigned to Eden Garden Area 8, the Sheep Ranch.

“Wait, seriously?”

“Seriously. Please don't ask again in fifty years.”

What had happened?

Why had an Archangel who had hunted demons until the war's end become nothing more than a shepherd?

Baa.

A sheep charged toward her.

Uriel reflexively brought a knifehand down on its head. The unconscious sheep collapsed, and a low-grade angel who witnessed it came running with a scream.

“U-Uriel-nim! What do you think you're doing?”

“It attacked me first.”

“It was happy to see you! It was happy to see you!”

Uriel answered in an irritated voice, as though she did not care about any of that.

“Who are you?”

“Didn't the Scribe tell you anything?”

That was the shepherding low-grade angel whose name she no longer remembered.

“Please just call me Teacher Yang.”

That was her first meeting with Teacher Yang.

* * *

Originally, no sheep lived in Eden Garden. Until Uriel brought in those sheep, Eden's “sheep” had only been a metaphor.

“Descendants of those sheep?”

But now that metaphor had become real.

“Yes.”

“Don't joke around. I brought ten.”

“How many years do you think have passed since then?”

Uriel stared blankly at the sheep racing around the garden.

One, two, three, four.

There were so many that she could have fallen asleep while counting them.

She suddenly came to her senses and asked,

“What happened to the ones I brought?”

“Uriel-nim, I ask again, how many years do you think have passed...?”

The sheep she had brought were already dead. They had died long ago.

Without Uriel even noticing, they had lived out their lives and died. But they had also borne many offspring.

Thus, the ten sheep of Eden Garden became twenty, then thirty, then more than a hundred. And now...

“You really didn't know? Our sheep are quite famous.”

There were so many sheep that they even made guest appearances in human dreams.

“Not long ago, we even gave some lambs to Goddess Artemis when she visited.”

Sometimes, they gave lambs to gods from other nebulae.

Half-listening to Teacher Yang's boasting, Uriel asked,

“How many ranches like this are there?”

“Seventy-two in total.”

Uriel tried to imagine sheep hopping around more than seventy-two gardens. She could not.

“It is all thanks to you, Uriel-nim.”

“What is?”

“It is peace gained because you defeated the demon kings.”

The sheep that had been struck on the head earlier got back up. After shaking its head, it staggered toward Uriel again.

Teacher Yang bent down and stroked its head. The sheep looked up at Uriel with a vacant expression, then began chewing the grass again.

Watching it, Uriel slowly sat down.

She had certainly never seen this sheep before. Yet when she looked closely, it seemed like a descendant of one she had once brought here.

“I see.”

She did not know whether the time she had lived through held any meaning.

Still, as she counted the endlessly multiplying sheep, Uriel admitted that she had been “temporarily” freed from her mission for the first time in half a century.

That was the problem.

What was an Archangel who had spent thousands of years taking demon heads supposed to do now?

Watching sheep and counting sheep was fine for a day or two, but she could not remain a shepherd forever.

“Hm?”

Uriel noticed Teacher Yang watching a video on a handheld device beside her.

“You. What's that?”

“G-Give it back!”

“What are you watching with this?”

“S-Sheep.”

“Sheep?”

Uriel later learned that Teacher Yang was addicted to Star Stream broadcasts.

“The... sheep in the metaphorical sense.”

Uriel narrowed her eyes and stared at Teacher Yang's tiny device.

A video was playing on the screen.

“Calm down, Yu Sangah-ssi.”

Not long afterward, Uriel understood for the first time what Metatron had meant by “sheep.”

* * *

It was now a story from the distant past.

Not that much time had passed, yet whenever Uriel recalled that time, it somehow felt impossibly far away.

“Uriel-nim.”

Many things happened afterward.

The Great War of Angels and Demons broke out again, and she returned to the battlefield.

Eden was destroyed.

The Scribe and the other Archangels died. The seraphim who had laughed at her when she brought the sheep died as well.

“What will happen to the sheep?”

Teacher Yang spoke.

“Today was supposed to be the day we sheared them...”

With those foolish final words, the low-grade angel died without leaving behind a single fable.

Even now, Uriel did not know his name.

In the small garden where every Scenario had ended, she remained alone in an Eden without a single sheep.

Sometimes she went aboveground and interacted with Incarnations. Sometimes she met Gabriel. When she felt like it, she danced or sang.

But most of the time, she remained in that garden.

She slept there, and sometimes ate something.

Then she watched a story.

“Uriel, you know. This is only that kind of story.”

She watched a star die, again and again.

It was the sole fable she had preserved in that ruined world.

The man at the center of that fable was no longer in this world. No star knew where he had gone.

Even knowing that, perhaps because she knew it, Uriel did nothing but keep watching the fable.

And sometimes, she thought about sheep.

She dreamed that the man who had become a sheep was living somewhere unknown to her.

In that world, the man would meet new companions and live through new histories. Without her knowing, he might have built another family.

[It has been a long time, Great Good of Eden.]

For a moment, Uriel thought she had misheard. Was this a dream?

[My, my. Are you still watching this fable?]

No matter how she thought about it, he should not have been able to appear here. In her memories, he had found his ■■ and vanished.

No, had he really died?

She did not know.

Uriel knew nothing of his end after he reached ■■.

She had not cared much, either.

[You still like this story. You really are steadfast.]

In any case, he spoke to her in a familiar tone.

[But after watching this much, aren't you starting to wonder about the next episode?]

The next episode.

[There is a place where you can see the next story.]

Maybe this was an illusion. Perhaps she was hearing things because she had watched one fable for too long.

Even so, Uriel wanted to believe him.

[But remember this. There, you will only be able to watch the story. You cannot intervene or interfere in any way.]

Even an illusion was fine. If she could only see that star one more time.

[Ah, one last thing. To enter that place, you need a new modifier. It has some unusual rules.]

The owner of the voice looked over the dreamscape and nodded.

[Hmm, there are many sheep in your dreams. How fortunate. To enter that place, your modifier must include an animal.]

And that was how Uriel came to this Scenario.

[Your temporary modifier is One Who Brought Ten Lambs.]

[You are performing this Scenario's role.]

[Your role is Teacher Yang.]

[You cannot interfere with the Scenario's progression under any circumstances.]

Uriel was grateful for her history.

How fortunate that she had brought ten lambs to Eden that day.

How fortunate that she had met Teacher Yang.

How fortunate that she was the Demonic Judge of Fire, the Archangel of Eden.

“Thank you, Uriel.”

The teachers' office door was closing.

Uriel staggered toward it.

“Dok...”

Tzzzzt.

A faint spark flickered.

Though it was a name permitted in this world's setting, the omen of a Plausibility Backlash rippled through the air.

Perhaps this world had noticed. The name she had called just then was not merely the role that existed within this world.

[This world is warning you.]

It was the story she loved most.

Uriel shouted that name with all her strength.

The door did not open.

* * *

The teachers' office door closed, and from beyond it echoed the voice of the Archangel I knew.

My heart pounded.

So Teacher Yang really was Uriel.

More precisely, not the Uriel of this worldline, but the Uriel of the third round I remembered.

The Demonic Judge of Fire who had loved Kim Dokja's story.

I had wanted to call her name at least once.

Even if I could not become the real Kim Dokja she had been searching for, I wanted to repay the history she had lived through. Even if I received this world's punishment for it.

I squeezed my eyes shut and waited for the Plausibility Backlash to surge in from the empty air.

But no matter how long I waited, the backlash did not come.

[My, my.]

Instead, I heard someone's deep voice.

[Calling that “name” here is against the rules.]

The principal's office was steeped in pitch-black darkness.

“That sounds like a rule violation too.”

[Ah, well, that is...]

Light slowly filled the principal's office, revealing the principal's face.

[Only this “principal's office” is an exception.]

The Recycling Center Director was seated there.

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