WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Occult World’s Coveted Blacksmith ◈
Chapter 96: Game Over.
──────
[Emergency Live Broadcast] Cheongun Stadium, 31,204 viewers.
[Aaaaargh!]
The speaker screamed as if in pain.
Writhing, writhing.
The crack squirmed like it was alive, trying to seal itself from within.
- ??? What's wrong with the scoreboard?
- Is it really broken?
- Why is there nothing inside it?
- What are you doing?! Run, Mu-yeong!
Mu-yeong ran with his bat in hand.
His legs felt like lead.
First base.
Bzzzt, bzzzt.
[Stop him!!!!]
An even more grotesquely warped voice tore from the speakers.
The ash-gray fielders on the ground charged Mu-yeong all at once.
The first baseman blocked his path.
Wham!
The bat smashed through his static-filled face at full speed, scattering it like grains of sand.
Second base.
The shortstop and second baseman came at him from both sides.
Whoosh. Crunch!
One swing brought them both down, and Mu-yeong ran straight over the pile of sand.
Third base.
- Run!!!!
- Run, Mu-yeong!!!!
- Third third third
- Holy shit, he's getting through that in this state
- Muuuu-yeong
- Jin Mu-yeong is fucking insane
* * *
It had felt strange from the beginning.
Even for a Mindscape Barrier, this range was abnormally wide.
A Barrier that swallowed more than twenty thousand people whole.
Was that really possible?
There were people beyond the norm, whether Special Grade or Heaven Beyond Heaven, but it still couldn't have been easy.
And when someone who received a penalty vanished. When a sorcerer branded as a player was moved to the batter's box.
That static afterimage.
The yellowed sky.
This hue, like an old film.
Why this of all things?
Then there was the moment Eun-chae had no scent at all.
'...'
I thought I understood that sense of familiarity.
Back then, in the repository vault.
The feeling of being trapped inside Teacher Cheongram's painting.
What if the spectators hadn't all been trapped?
What if this was a copied painting of a baseball stadium with tens of thousands of people inside it?
No matter how carefully it was copied, it couldn't have captured Eun-chae's perfume scent.
That was why there had been no smell.
Once I reached that conclusion, I read the texture of the Spell Formula over and over.
From the sky to the field. To the stands. To the dugout.
Thousands of circuits stretched like capillaries, twisting and bending until they all led to one point.
Just as I thought.
The scoreboard.
Right.
This wasn't a baseball stadium.
It was a painting of a baseball stadium inside the scoreboard.
Then...
The keyhole to this painting was that scoreboard.
Clang!
Baaang!
An explosion rang out from the field.
I looked up.
Hairline cracks spread across the middle of the scoreboard, revealing a white blank space within.
[Aaaaargh!]
'He did it.'
Mu-yeong had done it.
Now it was my turn.
I lowered my gaze.
The back of the seat in front of me.
On the hard plastic beneath the heads of people frozen in place, where no one would look.
There was a picture I had secretly drawn.
A pitch-black crow.
An eyeless crow sitting with its wings folded.
...Honestly, it was a little ugly.
But who cared? I was a blacksmith, not a painter.
Normally, drawing a painting Spell Formula inside someone else's painting would be insane.
The owner of this world would devour me.
But whenever this world created something new, the same wave of Spiritual Power spread through it.
When zombies rose from the ground, when pillars of light pulled people up.
It was like a signature.
I just had to imitate it.
Make it seem as though this world's owner had created it directly.
And now.
At the moment the scoreboard cracked.
The world was pouring all its strength into sealing that hole again.
'I can see it.'
Through eyes infused with Spiritual Power, the circuits beneath the canvas came into view.
Beneath the stands. Beneath the field. Along the grain of the sky.
Spiritual Power for repairs flooded through every capillary-like line, flowing into the scoreboard.
And within that torrent.
The Spell Formula that brought the painting to life flowed with it.
I could read it.
If I could read it, I could inscribe it.
I would ride this current.
I placed my fingertip on the nearest capillary beneath the seat back.
Bzzzt.
A thin circuit was carved into the spot my fingertip passed.
From the capillary to beneath the crow's feet.
A side branch connected to the original circuit.
I raised my brush.
This place was inside a painting.
This seat back and the crow on it were all on the same canvas.
So a painting drawn with the owner's signature would come alive inside the painting.
I loaded Spiritual Power onto the brush tip.
Not my own signature, but the signature of this world that I had traced and memorized over and over.
Tap. Tap.
I dotted eyes onto the crow.
Hummmmm.
The torrent flowing through the side branch surged into the crow.
The ink lines on the plastic swelled with black smoke.
The flattened strokes rose one by one into feathers.
Finally, the two eyes I had just drawn.
Plop.
Rolled toward me.
Blink. Blink.
'It worked.'
Inky wings fluttered free from the seat back.
Tap-tap.
[Caw. Caw.]
The crow tilted its head from side to side as it looked up at me.
'Good.'
I stroked its head once.
Then I took four sheets of Yellow Talisman Paper from my pocket.
Bzzzzzt!
A blazing red Spell Formula was inscribed precisely where my fingertips passed.
Ssssss...
Soon.
It was complete.
Just like the one I had inscribed onto the dagger in the repository vault.
The key that would unravel this Spell Formula and get us out of this damned painting.
I put the talismans in the crow's beak.
"Go."
Flap.
The crow flew up.
Over the heads of the frozen people. Over the infield. Over the outfield.
Toward the scoreboard spewing out this entire illusion.
Toward the white crack that kept writhing shut.
Above it.
Smack. Smack. Smack. Smack.
The four talismans stuck in place one after another.
Then the crow landed in the middle of them.
The black crow's body dissolved back into ink, and the Spiritual Power it contained flowed into the talismans.
From the talismans, it seeped into the crack.
Bzzzzap!
The circuits meshed with the grain of the world and spat sparks.
Crack, crackle...
The entire yellow sky cracked around the scoreboard.
At the same time.
On the far side of the field, Mu-yeong shoved aside the last ash-gray thing with his shoulder and slid into home.
The moment he stepped on home plate.
Whirrr.
The world curled up like a strip of film.
The field. The stands. The yellow sky.
My vision went white.
Then the cheering.
The smell of popcorn.
The citrus scent from the seat beside me.
All rushed in at once.
[Today's game goes to the Cheongun Titans!]
Waaaaah!
Confetti scattered through the air.
Players on the field.
People screaming the cheering song until their voices gave out. Middle-aged men in the front row hugging each other.
On the stairs by the aisle, Mu-yeong lay sprawled out, clutching his bat and gasping for breath.
And in the middle of it all.
Only Eun-chae was crouched in her seat.
Her phone clenched tightly in both hands.
Her eyes were red.
"..."
Slowly, Eun-chae turned toward me.
"...Oppa?"
Her voice cracked.
"W-where did you go...?"
"The game's already over... I looked everywhere, but you were gone..."
'...'
I slowly looked around.
A clear blue sky.
Confetti.
Faces that knew nothing.
'Right. That was it.'
The real game had been continuing here from the start.
These people had simply been watching baseball from beginning to end.
The ones trapped in the painting inside the scoreboard.
Were only us.
Bwaaaang.
A long buzzer echoed through the stadium.
[The game is overrr!]
Waaaaah.
"We won!"
* * *
Outside the stadium, at the center of the formation array.
The Bureau's barrier sorcerers poured Spiritual Power into their positions while Heo Dam, standing at the center, read the Barrier's Spell Formula.
The deeper Heo Dam went, the clearer it became that there was no answer.
'...Damn it.'
It was a kind of Spell Formula Heo Dam had never seen before.
Its mechanism was entirely different from every Barrier encountered so far.
He couldn't read it.
Whenever Heo Dam barely found and severed one strand, the strands around the break writhed and connected into new ones.
Like severed blood vessels growing new veins.
Right. This Barrier was definitely alive.
'...Damn. Is there no other way?'
Keeping his left hand on the Barrier, Heo Dam grabbed the sleeve of his left arm with his right hand and tore it open.
Riiip.
Dense black Chinese characters and symbols covered his exposed forearm.
Old scars crossed between them.
And over them all was an old strand of prayer beads, wrapped around his arm several times.
Just as Heo Dam was about to tear off the beads.
'...?'
Something came undone beneath his palm.
It wasn't Heo Dam's doing.
Starting with the deepest strand, layer after layer of tangled Spell Formulas collapsed one by one.
"Fall back! Everyone, fall back!"
The sorcerers jumped away.
The pale violet Barrier covering the sky rippled once, then began to disperse.
"Did you break it?!"
Kang Mujin came running over.
Heo Dam stared down at his palm.
"...No."
"I didn't do it."
"What?"
"It was undone from inside. And..."
Feeling along the fading grain of the Barrier, Heo Dam muttered in disbelief.
"...How did they do it?"
Just then.
Creeeak. Clank.
The closed stadium gates opened.
Waaaaah.
People began streaming out, singing their cheering song.
Hands carrying chicken boxes. Cheering headbands. Towels around their necks.
"They finally opened it. How does every entrance break at the same time?"
"That's insane. What if there'd been a fire?"
"At least we got to see them come back and win after I got so pissed off I was about to leave. Heh."
"True! What a steal."
"Man, how long has it been since we won?"
"Why's it like this outside? Is there construction going on?"
At the control line, Mujin watched them before looking down at his smartphone.
The emergency live broadcast on Goblin Fire had cut off.
On the KBO broadcast he hurriedly opened, spectators were cheering beneath falling confetti.
"...It was a blockade Barrier," Heo Dam said hoarsely.
"What?"
"The people inside were just watching baseball."
"How does that make any sense?"
"..."
Mujin's gaze swept over the crowd pouring out.
Twenty thousand people.
If the culprit blended in with them, they would never find them.
"...Damn it."
Mujin gritted his teeth and shouted.
"First Investigation Division, all personnel! Move inside!"
* * *
- ????
- What???
- What happened?
[The KBO broadcast is playing again just now?]
└ ??? What the hell is going on?
└ They said the game just ended, and the Titans won?
└ Holy shit, the game had been going on the whole time??
└ Apparently everyone's phones inside stopped working.
└ What???
└ They said they're airing a recording.
* * *
"So you're saying the two of us suddenly disappeared?"
"That's what I'm saying!"
Eunchae puffed out her cheeks.
"I thought you'd gone to the bathroom, so I waited forever, but you didn't come back. I couldn't call you, every entrance was broken, and all they did was tell us to wait! That was so mean!"
"...Sorry."
I calmed Eun-chae down and glanced upward.
The pale violet Barrier that had covered the sky was beginning to break apart.
'...Is it over?'
Then I scanned the stands.
The seats where the sorcerers dragged away as players had been sitting.
'They're gone.'
The missing people hadn't returned.
"Mu-yeong."
"Yes, sir."
"Take care of Eunchae."
The guy sprawled on the stairs pushed himself up, using his bat as a cane.
"...Yes. Of course."
"Oppa, where are you going now? Huh? And why are you such a mess, mister?!"
I moved up the aisle against the flow of people.
When I sent Spiritual Power around my eyes, I saw it.
A thin, threadlike lingering trace of Cursed Power leading from the scoreboard toward the back of the stands.
'...Of course.'
At some point, that thing must have put a painting on the scoreboard instead of the video feed.
At the moment the camera panned across the stands, it used a Spell Painter's painting, copied exactly from that image.
Then it used the painting as a medium to deploy the Barrier.
I ran down the corridor, following the trace.
It led beyond a door marked [Staff Only].
A narrow hallway. Stairs.
Then.
[Scoreboard Control Room]
Bang!
I kicked the door open.
"..."
Something covered the whole room. Glistening mucous membranes.
It pulsed like a single mass of flesh.
And at its center.
A man in a team uniform was tightly bound by tentacles.
Beside him were all the sorcerers who had been retired from the batter's box.
Squelch. Squelch.
I cut through the tentacles.
'...They're all alive.'
Fortunately, they were still breathing. A few were hanging on by a thread, but still.
Now then, what was I supposed to do with all these people?
Just then.
Step. Step. Step.
Rat-a-tat-tat.
With my senses open, I felt people approaching from below the building.
The Bureau.
'...Good.'
The rest was their job.
Things would only get complicated if we ran into each other.
I left the door wide open, suppressed my presence, and slipped away.
.
.
.
"You're back?"
Leaning against a pillar by the exit, Mu-yeong raised one hand.
"Um... what about the people?"
"They're all alive. They should be getting rescued by now."
"Haa..."
Looking relieved, Mu-yeong sank to the ground.
"Eun-chae, let's go. I need to get this guy to a hospital."
"Yes! Hurry! Seriously, how do you get hurt this badly just from rolling around?!"
"You did well."
I supported him.
"Does it hurt a lot?"
"No. Nothing's broken."
Mu-yeong grinned and slung the bat over his shoulder.
"A shower and a few days of proper rest, and I'll be fine. I'm pretty tough."
"...You punk."
Next time, I should make him something else.
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