WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Alyo
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Surviving Among the Anomalies ◈
Chapter 25: Why the World Ends
──────
『Whew, I dealt with a lot. All right, that's it for today's stream! Bros, ladies! See you again tomorrow evening!』
The broadcast ended. As I stared at the black screen, I remembered something I had forgotten.
‘What exactly is the Munchkin Mary Sue Constellation's bad ending?’
The Munchkin Mary Sue Constellation had never appeared in my game, but I knew its ending from screenshots users had posted on the community.
[A fucking strong Munchkin Mary Sue Constellation made an Avatar! Aaah! Run away! The fucking strong Munchkin Mary Sue Constellation's Avatar is coming! The fucking strong Munchkin Mary Sue Constellation wailed! Waaah! And then Earth was destroyed!]
That was it. Just a few lines on a black screen.
There was no way to know why or how Earth was destroyed.
‘There wasn't any problem with it back then.’
The Munchkin Mary Sue Constellation had been a ridiculous Anomaly created to mock a past community incident. Many people said that wording an elementary schooler might come up with suited a Munchkin Mary Sue better.
[Is this Transparent Dragon? LOL]
[If it cries waaah, Earth goes owie! LOL]
But now, I wasn't sure. I arranged everything I knew in chronological order in the notebook.
[1. The Constellation comes to Earth and creates an Avatar after five turns, or five days.]
[2. The Constellation's Avatar begins at a superhuman level, but as time passes, he can use the Constellation's power perfectly.]
[3. Judging from the ending text, the Constellation creates an Avatar and does several things, but Earth is ultimately destroyed. The date of its destruction is unknown.]
‘My prediction so far was wrong.’
Originally, I thought the Avatar would adapt to the Constellation's power. Then, the fickle Constellation would use the Avatar's body to run wild, treat Earth like a toy, and destroy it once it grew bored. The sort of thing a preschooler would do.
‘But today's stream changes things a little.’
The Constellation wanted to protect Earth. Like some American comic-book hero, it had used its Avatar to erase a supernova that would one day destroy Earth.
‘The Avatar's power is already enough to destroy Earth. If it wanted to control the Avatar and make Earth its toy, it could do so whenever it wanted.’
Hadn't it already destroyed the Foundation, Earth's only defense system? And now that I thought about it, the Avatar had said this during his first stream.
[I'd wanted to follow the Constellation's will and make the world peaceful, but this weird secret group called the Foundation or whatever tried to kill me, you know?]
I looked up at the night sky. A yellow full moon brightly lit the darkness.
“Make the world peaceful? The Constellation doesn't intend to destroy Earth?”
After going outside for a smoke and returning, I found a business card on my desk.
「Golden Omnipotence Corporation / Suit / Directions: XXX Gold Shop, Osan, Gyeonggi Province / Summoning Spell: Oh, gold, pure beauty, pinnacle of all things.」
“Perfect timing.”
A way to obtain information had opened up.
＊＊＊
“Welcome…….”
I entered Golden Omnipotence Corporation. Unlike before, the interior was a wreck.
“Was there a war?”
“Yes…… Something like that happened.”
The lobby was damaged everywhere. Bandaged Suits and Suits walking with crutches moved about. The walls had been smashed apart, and office supplies lay scattered across the floor.
“Shall I show you to the trading room……?”
“Please.”
I entered the trading room carrying bags containing thirty gold bars.
“Urgh, it's been a while, Mr. Lee Seung-hoon.”
A Suit with a bandage around their head was waiting inside. Apart from their genders, all Suits looked similar enough that I couldn't tell them apart. However, that comment told me this was the Suit I had traded with before.
“I feel bad coming at such an unfortunate time.”
“No, it's fine. We've taken care of all the dangerous problems.”
“May I ask what happened?”
“I require five kilograms of gold.”
I took gold bars from a bag and handed them over.
“This is more than enough. Shall I trade you information worth fifteen kilograms about this incident?”
“Please do.”
“First, the reason the company is in this state is that bastard called the Munchkin Mary Sue Constellation.”
The information I wanted had fallen right into my lap.
“It's a being from the highest dimension. Think of it as a perverted bastard who creates a channel of power called an Avatar to enjoy playing around in lower dimensions.”
“It must have attacked this place through its Avatar. Were you on bad terms to begin with?”
“Yes. It attacks us every time, calling us ‘evil villains who even buy and sell human lives for money!’ It's a real headache. There hadn't been trouble for the last several trillion years, so we were starting to forget about it, but our dimensions overlapped again after a long time.”
The Suit buried their nose in the gold bar I had given them.
“Huff! Hoo, sex…… Golden sex…….”
“I thought all of you had left.”
“Not quite. The Munchkin Mary Sue Constellation is strong, but it is no match for our chairman. This time, it was causing a scene, then ran away in shock the moment our chairman arrived.”
I had learned something new.
The chairman of Golden Omnipotence Corporation was stronger than the Constellation.
“May I know the chairman's name?”
“Bring us 5.93 nonillion tons of gold, and I will tell you.”
“Let's return to the subject.”
“Yes, well, anyway, that's what happened. We couldn't contact you because we were restoring the damage that bastard caused.”
I held out another gold bar.
“I have questions about the Constellation.”
“Oh! Yes! Understood!”
The Suit accepted the gold bar and tapped it with a finger. It turned into powder and spilled across the desk.
“Excuse me for a moment.”
Then they rolled up a banknote and snorted the gold powder through their nose.
“Yes, yes! Golden cocaine! Golden sex! Golden fantastic!”
“Are the dimensions where the Constellation descends, or the planets where it creates Avatars, destroyed?”
“Sometimes they are, and sometimes they aren't. That bastard is fickle and lacks perseverance, so when something goes wrong with its Avatar, the Constellation simply gives up and leaves. We've driven it away early by taking advantage of that fact before. This time, we let our guard down too much and couldn't respond…….”
“When you say something goes wrong with the Avatar?”
The Suit took a syringe from an inner pocket of their suit.
“When the Avatar develops mental problems, or when the Avatar makes a mistake and gains an extremely poor reputation, the Constellation runs away.”
“The Constellation cares about reputation?”
“Yes, because it is a stupid, foolish bastard who wants to play hero.”
They stabbed the syringe into a gold bar and pulled the plunger. The gold turned liquid and was drawn into the syringe.
“It seems childish for a being from the highest dimension.”
“Humans sometimes make a mistake. They believe higher-dimensional beings must be superior and noble. But that isn't true at all. Just as heroes in comics are more noble than criminals in reality, dimensions have no effect on intelligence or nobility.”
At some point, the Suit had rolled up their right sleeve, tied a rubber tube around their upper arm, and inserted the syringe.
“Oh, g-golden! Golden fuck yeah! Golden super doobidubab!”
“Then how are they destroyed when destruction does happen?”
“We don't know. We withdraw from that dimension or planet before then. And Avatars in destroyed dimensions or on destroyed planets have already become too strong for us to perceive, making observation impossible.”
“I understand. The current Avatar seems very strong. He must be able to use all of the Constellation's power by now, correct?”
“No, he cannot even use one percent.”
He had erased a supernova with a single clap, yet that was less than one percent. The answer was shocking.
“How long will it take before he can use all his power?”
“Half a year. As time passes, the Avatar's body is reconstructed to resemble the Constellation. The more it is reconstructed, the faster the process becomes. Of course, he can never become completely identical, since he is still a being of a lower dimension.”
I had experienced that myself.
‘The Girl with Her Eyes Closed.’
I had only made contact with the girl and spoken with her, yet I now possessed this power.
‘……Then what about the Avatar that continues to hold the Constellation inside his body?’
I thought I understood something. Why Earth would be destroyed, and what kind of destruction would come regardless of the Constellation's disposition.
“One last question. Tell me which Anomalies can affect the current Avatar.”
I emptied out every remaining gold bar.
“There are five at present.”
“Among them, how many can I use safely and control?”
“If your standard for safety presumes faithful compliance with the contract, then there is one.”
“What is it called?”
“The Most Convenient, Simple, Fantastic, and Truly Fair Contract for You, Allowing You to Freely Use the Power of God.”
It was the Anomaly I had been thinking of.
“Can the gold bars I just gave you buy its location?”
The Suit said,
“Of course.”
＊＊＊
[The next stop is Dongducheon, Dongducheon Station.]
Autumn was ending, and winter was steadily approaching. I got off the subway and raised my smartphone.
『Bros, ladies! Today, we're going for some light content! Where are we? Jongno 3-ga, of course! From what I've heard, Jongno 3-ga has a terrifying legend, you know!?』
After making my way for over ten minutes while watching the Avatar's stream, I entered an antique shop near the American military base and found what I wanted.
『What legend, you ask? The legend that a crazy psycho driver lives on the Jongno 3-ga highway! They call them the Magician Who Crosses Lanes! The Snake That Bites Tail After Tail After Tail After Tail! The master of a reverse driving technique who freely travels both against traffic and with traffic! Today, I'll wait here and see whether that bastard appears!』
Just as the information said, it was here. After buying a scroll made from clean parchment, I got back on the subway.
『Huh? What if they don't show up? Hey, I've already thought of that.』
“It's practically a celebrity.”
The Avatar lived off people's attention. Maybe the Constellation had ordered him to do so.
‘But he doesn’t get much attention considering what he does.’
He did receive negative attention. After his supernova-deletion space outing last time, people had begun treating the Avatar as an attention seeker.
[It's edited. That magic he did last time was probably edited too.]
[LOLLOLLOL a supernova LOLLOLLOL he said he deleted one LOLLOLLOL]
[This is what taking a joke too far looks like…….]
The scale of his actions was so large that people couldn't accept them as real.
[That magic he used last time was edited too, right?]
[Of course it was LOL. Hey, but the CG is really natural.]
[This deserves an effort award. His acting is insanely good to match the CG.]
The Avatar seemed upset by the online reaction, but he didn't try to explain himself.
『All right, then, if that bastard doesn't show up! What will I do!? That is…….』
The Avatar snapped his fingers, and a chair, a desk, and a banner appeared in the elevated parking lot.
『My fan meeting!』
The banner read, 「BJ Constellation's First Fan Meeting! Your Only Chance to Receive the First Autograph!」
『Ah, bros, ladies, seriously! You'll regret it if you don't get one now, I'm telling you! My autograph! It's going to be crazy valuable! It'll make a Major Leaguer's hundredth home-run signed ball look like nothing!』
‘This is a good opportunity.’
I had no desire for his autograph, but I did need to meet him in person.
‘The right eye that sees the future.’
Yesterday, I instinctively realized that I could activate it again.
‘If I don't know how the future ends, I can see it for myself.’
I took the subway to the place the Avatar had been talking about on his stream. It took a while, but fortunately, he was still there.
“Ah, seriously, bros and ladies, you're being too much! I told you that you'd regret this, didn't I? You're letting a chance to make money slip away like this!”
I could see the Avatar in the distance.
“As for the value of my autograph…… Oh! The first viewer has arrived!”
And I saw something else as well.
“The first fan at my first fan meeting! Oh! Could I get an interview?”
“Yes, of course.”
“First, please introduce yourself while looking at this camera.”
I see.
“Hello.”
This was how the world would end, so absurdly.
“My name is Lee Seung-hoon.”
Footnotes:
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