WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS x FLAME COMICS
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint ◈
Chapter 823: Episode 41: Sophistry (7)
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What does it mean for a life to be written as text?
Someone's year could pass in a single sentence, and someone's entire life could be summarized in a single paragraph.
When I thought about the lives of characters, I sometimes felt a strange sorrow.
Had I sketched this character's life well enough? Could I not have told more of their story? Was this scene truly the "highlight" of that life?
Then where did all the rest of that life, the part that never became a highlight, go?
"I'm sick of this."
Maybe this very moment was one of those remnants that had vanished that way.
"You're spouting some idle nonsense."
Three months had passed since I rescued the 40th-round Yu Junghyeok from the Blood Cult.
Junghyeok and I had been thrown into the Hollow Earth together.
To roughly explain what the Hollow Earth was:
[You have entered the Hidden Scenario, Hollow Earth!]
There was another world beneath the mantle of the Earth we lived on.
The cliff we happened to fall from had been one of the entrances to that Hollow Earth.
The Hollow Earth was a place where beast species of at least grade 5 gathered, monsters powerful enough to rule as the sovereign of an entire species outside.
"Let's endure a little longer. Just count ten minutes in your head."
"If you keep talking like that, it'll hear us."
We held our breath and waited for the second-grade beast species, the Red Blood Dragon, to disappear.
It was absurd that we had landed in the Red Blood Dragon's nest, but in another sense, I was fortunate.
A little later, the Red Blood Dragon left to hunt, and we examined its nest.
"Found them."
The Red Blood Dragon's lava pool.
Several fish swam through its molten surface.
Ten-Thousand-Year Fire Carp.
One of the finest spirit creatures even in the Zero Martial World. A spirit creature whose inner core was coveted by Transcendents, even fabled-grade Constellations of giant nebulae.
I immediately caught a Ten-Thousand-Year Fire Carp and carefully slit open its belly. The recipe for Ten-Thousand-Year Fire Carp was detailed in the 81st round of TWSA.
Junghyeok, who had been watching me work, made a comment.
"That's not how you do it."
"No, this is right. I'm even using Mana correctly."
"If you prepare it that way, you'll lose half the Ten-Thousand-Year Fire Carp's inner core."
"But it'll be easier to consume. The patient should just shut his mouth."
The only reason I was cooking, despite not being good at it, was because of that damned 40th-round Junghyeok.
He had barely survived falling from the edge of the cliff, but because he had been so severely afflicted by Formless Poison, Junghyeok's inner energy had not returned.
"If you hadn't wolfed down my Blood Spirit Pill, none of this would have happened."
"Yes, yes. It's all my fault."
A little later, my crude Ten-Thousand-Year Fire Carp dish was finished.
Junghyeok turned the fish over with his fingers as if he were rummaging through garbage, then gave a brief review.
"Garbage."
"What? You haven't even tried it."
"I don't need to try it to know."
"Then why didn't you cook it yourself?"
"Ten-Thousand-Year Fire Carp requires inner energy to cook. And I can't use Mana right now."
Junghyeok made all sorts of faces as he forced down the Ten-Thousand-Year Fire Carp.
Still, it was moving. To eat that, Junghyeok was overcoming his fable of being unable to eat food made by others.
Anyway, now I understood why the 40th-round Junghyeok and Inho Cheon had become so strong.
They had eaten things like this every time, so they must have eventually acquired Incarnation bodies that could even humiliate the stars.
Thinking about it made me a little uneasy.
Maybe the reason the 40th-round Junghyeok and Inho Cheon had become so strong was because of me.
Was I interfering in the 40th round through this Fear and changing history? I didn't know whether that even made sense...
A little later, Junghyeok muttered as he crunched through the Ten-Thousand-Year Fire Carp.
"Some inner energy has returned."
At last, three months of effort were bearing fruit.
The Ten-Thousand-Year Fire Carp was one thing, but I must have killed dozens of spirit creatures while trying to restore that bastard's inner energy. I wanted to cheer right then, but I did my best not to show it.
「Maybe I can escape this Fear now.」
If I showed it for no reason, the Fear might detain me again.
This Fear did not have a clearly defined beginning or end.
Still, if Fear itself was a fable, it surely had a beginning and an end. If my instincts as a Writer were right, this Fear would end when the 40th-round Junghyeok's inner energy returned.
That was the sort of closure an episode needed.
"That's good."
I spoke with both relief and regret. If even a little Mana had returned, Junghyeok could regain his former prowess by repeatedly practicing Circulation and Breathing. More precisely, he could absorb all the elixirs he had eaten and acquire an Incarnation body far more powerful than before.
If that happened, escaping this Hollow Earth would be no problem.
"I owe you."
Junghyeok's unexpected words caught me off guard.
This bastard knew how to say something like that?
"Then repay me."
"All right."
"What?"
Junghyeok frowned.
"Tell me what you need."
A debt owed by Junghyeok. That was valuable.
After thinking for a moment, I said, "I don't need anything right now. Repay me in the 41st round."
Junghyeok glared at me as if I were absurd.
"I forgot for a moment that you know about Regression. But I can't keep that promise."
"Why not?"
"The you in the next round won't be the you of now."
"How do you know that?"
"When the round changes, everyone except me returns to the past. Memories disappear, and history is forgotten. Only a few lines of fable remain."
Only a few lines of fable.
"Why make it sound so solemn? Isn't that what our lives are like anyway?"
"What?"
"Some things are forgotten, and only what is remembered gets remembered. They become scenes, sentences, fables. Precious moments and sad moments alike ultimately remain as no more than a few lines of story."
Junghyeok seemed to consider my words for a moment before replying.
"Why are you saying this?"
"It means you shouldn't take those few lines of story lightly."
Perhaps changing a life did not require that many sentences.
One line, then another.
A single line, written with great difficulty, changed someone's life.
"Ridiculous. To hear that from a bastard who won't remember anything."
"Yes, my apologies."
"Now tell me what you really want. If you keep spouting nonsense, I won't repay the debt."
"Even aside from the next round, you can't repay your debt to me."
Junghyeok frowned again.
"What sophistry are you going to spout now?"
"I'm not spouting sophistry. I'm stating a fact. Say you repay the debt you owe me now to the me from a month later. Are the Inho Cheon of now and the Inho Cheon of a month later the same person?"
"What..."
"Someone would say they are the same person. Because fables that recognize them as the same person are widespread throughout the world."
"..."
"Then let's think of it this way. If I lose all the fables I have now a month from today, and lose all my memories as a result, are the Inho Cheon of now and the Inho Cheon of a month later the same person?"
"..."
"They look the same and have similar personalities. They often spout sophistry and grin obnoxiously with those slitted eyes. Can you call them the same person?"
Perhaps Junghyeok knew this contradiction better than anyone.
That he could not repay a debt from this round in the next round.
That the companions who had sacrificed themselves for him would never return.
He would be crushed again and again beneath the debts of those distant memories.
I looked at Junghyeok for a while, then continued.
"But you can do that."
"What?"
"You can think of the me in the next round as the same person. That bastard may have lost his memories, but he's the Inho Cheon I know. Think of him that way. And treat him as you treat me now."
"Why should I?"
"Then you won't be alone, will you?"
Junghyeok's eyes wavered.
I continued.
"It means don't live acting as if you're so lonely, as if you're the only protagonist, as if you're hugging all the darkness of the universe to yourself. So what if people forget a little? Just shamelessly think, that bastard is the bastard from the previous round. He forgot, but I remember. So I'll take revenge. Haven't you lived by applying that standard well to evildoers? Though I am an evildoer too."
Junghyeok said nothing for a while.
The Red Blood Dragon's pool bubbled, and several Ten-Thousand-Year Fire Carp leaped up before disappearing again.
A question suddenly came to me.
Did the Ten-Thousand-Year Fire Carp know it lived in lava? Since they had been born in lava, perhaps they did not even know that it was hot.
"Even if I help the you of the 41st round, it won't benefit the you of now at all."
"Why wouldn't it benefit me? The me in the 41st round would receive help."
"What..."
"I want to ride the regressor's coattails and live easy for once in my next life."
Junghyeok gave a small, incredulous laugh at that. Even if it was a sneer, it had been a long time since I had seen Junghyeok laugh.
"Madman."
"Not as mad as you."
I heard the nest shake lightly. It was a sign that the Red Blood Dragon was returning. It was time to leave.
Then Junghyeok said something unexpected.
"Inho Cheon."
"Yes."
"The 40th round still has a long way to go."
Junghyeok was not looking at me, but I had the feeling he was looking straight at me more directly than ever.
"So?"
"I have no intention of giving up on this round easily."
The moment I heard that, I understood what Junghyeok was trying to say.
"Help me in this round."
He was asking me to become his companion in the 40th round. That proud bastard was saying it himself.
However, the moment I met the eyes he turned toward me, I was seized by a strange feeling.
「What he's looking at isn't me.」
I was merely an illusion created by this strange Fear, and what Junghyeok saw was only the shell of Inho Cheon, not Kim Dokja or Lee Hakhyeon.
The person he was asking to become his companion was not me.
The moment I truly felt that fact, something inside my head became tangled.
"Yu Junghyeok."
Since things had come to this, what if I told the 40th-round Junghyeok important information?
Even if he failed in the 40th round, what if I told him everything I knew so he could change history in the 41st?
"Yu Junghyeok, my real name is..."
The moment I tried to say the next words, the world was dyed in brilliant sparks.
The Red Blood Dragon rushing toward us in the distance disappeared, and the landscape of the Hollow Earth disappeared. Junghyeok disappeared, and I disappeared.
In a world where everything remained as only a few lines of sentences, I shouted my name toward Junghyeok.
[The first chapter of the ■■-grade Fear Devilish Sophist has ended.]
[You have contributed decisively to the completion of this Fear.]
Whether Junghyeok heard it or not, the conclusion of the 40th round was recorded as only a few lines of sentences.
[You can now read the Forgotten Ending of the ■■-grade Fear Devilish Sophist.]
Footnotes:
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