WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Seven-Time Hero Goes Live ◈
Chapter 20: Big Hand (2)
──────
“C-crazy...”
Ram’s eyes lost focus.
This was not a simple accident.
It was a disaster.
“K-Kang Hae-il... just let th-that guy go?!”
“It looks more like that guy let Kang Hae-il go...?”
Kang Hae-il had not only had his target taken from him, he had let that guy go.
He had even been humiliated by him.
“He... he got hit with a ‘Too slow.’ At this rate, the Constellations will start seeing Yulian as the stronger one...”
Sam trembled beside her.
They could always create another debut stage, but this development was water already spilled.
They could not take it back.
Beeeeeeep!
A warning tone suddenly rang from the monitor along with a red light.
“...C-crazy?”
In contrast to the monitor’s color, Ram’s face had gone nearly blue.
Beep!
The warning sounded again.
[1 Constellation has left.]
[1 Constellation has left.]
This was the exit bell the Constellations pressed.
- Ah, fuck, I’m out.
- I’ll be getting off here~
They were leaving in droves.
- What’s with him getting hit with “Too slow”?
- This fucking plot? “Hell no.” I’m out.
- Lmao, this is such a frustrating plot.
- Did they just throw away his S-rank ability???
- They say his opponent is F-rank. Is that true? If it is, I’m seriously out.
Beeeeeeep!
Beep!
The exit bell kept ringing.
That was the effect of Jun-il’s single “Too slow.”
As befitted a Hero who had been thrashed by Constellations time and again, he knew exactly what they hated most.
They had picked the wrong person to mess with.
Ram muttered vacantly.
“I-it’s... it’s over...”
The Constellations’ exit bells dealt a fatal blow to a Story Fairy’s soul.
“This is the worst. I... I’m finished...”
Ram did not look well.
Her arms and legs trembled, and she could not take her eyes off the monitor.
Yet she did nothing.
She merely watched countless Constellations curse her out.
- Idiot.
- This is boring as hell.
- Has this guy never served?
- So the rooftop guy really died. What the hell was he doing?
- He’s the protagonist, right???
- He lets him go again? Lmao, wow. Throw in a thousand more frustrating plot points.
- Fuck, I’m grinding my teeth. He let that go?
These were not merely words.
To a Story Fairy, they were physical attacks that effectively denied their very existence in the world.
“U-urghhh...”
Ram’s eyes gradually turned black.
Her wings were losing their light.
A dark aura swirled around her.
Sam jolted in alarm.
This was an emergency.
“Get a hold of yourself, Ram!”
Smack!
Sam slapped her across the cheek.
“Huh...? Huh...? Wh-what is this?”
Only then did Ram seem to come to her senses, looking around in confusion.
“You mustn’t get too close to the Constellations. You were watching them for too long! If you do that, y-you’ll turn black!”
Turning black.
It was a state Fairies feared as much as a writing ban.
One Fairy whose soul had been torn apart by repeated exit bells had turned black, spent all their currency to drop a meteor on the story they were running, and received a writing ban.
It was a terrifying story.
“N-no!”
Shake shake!
Ram vigorously shook her head and looked away from the monitor.
“Ram, are you all right?”
“Y-yeah... Haa... I didn’t realize... I’d been looking for so long...”
This was why assistants existed.
The owner of a Story setting had the weakest resistance to the Constellations’ power.
That was why it was better for an assistant to watch their reactions instead.
They could get swept up in the Constellations’ energy, just like Ram had.
“Ram, it’s not over. The total number of Constellations in our Story setting is still rising!”
“...Yeah. You’re right.”
There was no strength in Ram’s voice.
“And now that Hae-il has begun rescuing everyone, the reaction is improving again. Only some Constellations were uncomfortable with it, Ram.”
In truth, quite a lot of Constellations had been uncomfortable.
Only some had pressed the exit bell so far.
Of course, both Sam and Ram knew that.
There was no choice but to let it slide.
“R-right.”
“There’s a saying in this dimension. No matter which way you go, as long as you get to Seoul.”
“Really? Is that why Yulian wanted to buy an apartment in Seoul so badly?”
“I think so.”
“But?”
“Ah. What it means is...”
Sam tapped one corner of the monitor.
On the rooftop, someone was filming the scene with a large camera.
“Look here. As Hae-il rescues people, he’ll ultimately get even more attention. The savior of this crisis will be remembered not as L4GS, but as Kang Hae-il.”
“...I-I can’t believe it. You stationed a rekka too!?”
“N-not a rekka, a reporter!”
“R-right?”
Ram pulled out the dictionary again.
“What’s the difference?”
“...”
Sam could not explain it.
“A... a reporter is a narrower term. Rekka has a broader meaning.”
“I see.”
Nodding in understanding, Ram grabbed Sam’s cheeks and shook them.
“You stationed a reporter, anyway! You really are a capable assistant! Sam-Sam!”
Streeetch.
His cheeks stretched.
“N-now it’ll spwead awl ovew dis pwace. Who da weal hewo is, I mean.”
Fwoosh!
Ram flew up again with an excited flutter, laughing.
“Kikik! Better yet, an article should come out saying L4GS killed someone too!”
“Th-that...”
Even Sam could not be sure about that.
Would it not be better if no story about L4GS came out at all?
‘I just have a bad feeling about getting involved with him.’
It would be good if they could get such an article published, as Ram said, but Sam felt uneasy.
“Do it! Ruin him completely! That’s what rekkas specialize in, right? This won’t cost many coins!”
That was true.
Guiding the actions of Extras whom the Constellations had no interest in did not consume many coins.
“Th-then... should I?”
* * *
“Wow... Wh-what was that fight?”
Click!
The reporter photographed the scene, where fierce flames and murky smoke rose into the air.
The reporter also photographed the man landing once more among the swarming goblins through that smoke.
Click! Click!
It was the very image of a hero from behind.
“But why did those two fight?”
The reporter could zoom in from far away, but could not hear them.
The reporter did not know why the two Awakeners on the rooftop had fought.
What mattered was that, in the reporter’s eyes, the man who used flames had a far flashier skill.
“Any A-rank or above is an exclusive.”
The entire world was already on edge over Awakeners.
Articles tailored to Korean tastes, baiting readers with claims like S-ranks were Hermès and A-ranks were Chanel, had already begun pouring out.
Yet none of them had ever printed a photograph of a genuine A-rank or higher Awakener.
“Because it’s dangerous.”
Such Awakeners were usually fighting hordes of goblins.
They were in dangerous places.
Reporters did not have the courage to personally go somewhere like that.
Considering how many people had died to goblins during the Tutorial, it was only natural.
There were already ten-odd colleagues at the company whose funerals had been held.
But reporter Do Ju-hye was different.
[Potential Rank: D]
[Class: Thief]
She was a D-rank Awakener.
A Thief.
Her movements were far nimbler than those of other Classes, and she was excellent at concealment and taking cover.
Those movements had been etched into her instincts the moment she awakened her Class.
Perhaps that made her perfectly suited to a reporter hunting exclusives.
Moving across the rooftop, she kept zooming in on Kang Hae-il’s back.
He was sweeping aside goblins with flames in an instant, opening a route for the residents.
Buoyed by his arrival, the other Awakeners were advancing quickly as well.
“Wow...”
Boom!
Booom!
She continued recording Kang Hae-il as he cleared a path with fiery punches.
Her finger frantically pressed the shutter.
‘But...’
Even amid all that, something bothered her.
‘What exactly is that man doing?’
He seemed strong enough to fight the flame user on equal terms.
So why was he not helping with the rescue at all?
* * *
Meanwhile, Jun-il stood on the rooftop.
He was staring intently at something.
He narrowed his eyes and tilted his head, as though he could not see it clearly.
[Hidden Quest]
==== ====
Objective: Rescue VIP
Details: @($)@()!)!(###
?#@(#($@&$
*@$?38@()
==== ====
It was the quest window.
No matter how he changed the angle, he could not see it properly.
‘I need to do this quest if I want to level up...’
He had to reach Level 10 just to survive.
He desperately needed levels.
Level 1 goblins alone would not be nearly enough.
He needed to clear quests.
‘I can’t see it.’
He could not see.
‘Hmm...’
He could not see any of it.
Only the objective was clear.
Rescue VIP.
‘What the hell is a VIP?’
VIP.
Short for Very Important Person.
A very important person.
‘Who is that supposed to be?’
It was not a hint at all.
He could not exactly ask the Constellations, either.
- Lag?
- He’s just standing still again.
- Just go watch Hae-il again, that’s where things are fun right now.
- Why is he doing mime by himself?
- What is this, lol? A bug?
- L4GS is practicing his pose again~
Even they did not know about the Hidden Quest.
So, to them, Jun-il must have looked strange and frustrating.
[Current Constellations Watching: 198]
The number of Constellations had dropped a little too.
Still, he could not rush just because a few had left.
‘Important person...’
Jun-il slowly repeated those words to himself.
‘The rest is blurred out, but if I can see just that... doesn’t it mean I can figure it out from that alone?’
Whether by coincidence or not, only the objective was clear.
It might mean the quest could be completed with that information alone.
Of course, it could simply be a broadcasting malfunction.
But from Jun-il’s perspective, he could not just ignore a window that clearly said Hidden Quest.
‘Rescue... important...’
The quest was to rescue an important person.
‘Huh?’
A memory from his first run suddenly passed through Jun-il’s mind.
It was when they had gone to rescue people kidnapped into a goblin den.
“Send the children out first.”
Tou, the martial artist, had said that while striking a pose.
“They are the most important asset.”
Children were the most important.
“Uh...?”
Something flashed through his mind.
‘Important...? Children?’
Dark Mage.
VIP.
Children.
Sacrifice.
Those keywords rearranged themselves in his head.
‘This bastard...’
Jun-il’s eyes turned toward the corpse of the man with a hole blown through his chest.
‘Did he kidnap children?’
His gaze swept across the rooftop in an instant.
‘Not here.’
It would not be somewhere so conspicuous.
Probably somewhere he could control, yet somewhere others could not easily access.
Somewhere goblins had gathered in such numbers that no one would dare approach.
‘The first floor of this building?’
That was the first floor of this villa.
The goblins had gathered around the villa.
They had not merely been gathered to draw aggro. They had also been acting as guards, protecting the sacrifices.
‘No way. They’re alive, right?’
Bang!
Jun-il raced down the stairs in an instant.
- ?
- What’s wrong?
- What is it all of a sudden??
Ah, right.
The Constellations had no idea what was happening.
“Doesn’t Dark Magic... require s-sacrifices or something?”
As he ran down, he hurriedly delivered the line.
As if he did not know for certain yet.
- Holy shit.
- Is that true?
- Huh? Really?
- Sacrifices? Damn.
Bang!
After reaching the bottom, he broke down the door of an apartment on the villa’s first floor and entered.
“...”
No one was there.
Had everyone evacuated?
There was no one in Apartment 1 or 2.
“Where the hell are they?”
One of the Constellations posted this.
- Is there something in the basement here?
‘I see.’
It was not the first floor.
‘There was a basement too.’
Jun-il left the first-floor apartments and headed into the basement.
Booom!
Jun-il smashed through the door as he entered.
Far behind him, someone on the rooftop zoomed in with a camera.
Whirr.
* * *
‘That person is suspicious.’
Reporter Do Ju-hye had gone up to the rooftop and was zooming in intently.
Jun-il’s back filled her camera screen.
He headed into the villa’s basement.
He entered by violently breaking down the door.
‘What is he doing?’
It looked like he was conducting some sort of search operation.
Yet he did not look awkward in the slightest. He looked practiced, as though he had once been in special forces.
He opened every door with smooth, flowing movements.
‘The flame guy seems unable to control his own firepower very well... but this person is completely different.’
Her reporter’s eye told her so.
The man who had entered the basement knew exactly what he was doing.
He looked like someone who did this almost every day.
‘Is he a firefighter?’
As she entertained that absurd thought because he had been fighting a fireball.
‘Huh?!’
Do Ju-hye’s eyes widened.
“Waaaaah!”
“Sniff... sob...!”
Several people emerged from the basement door.
They were crying.
‘Children?’
They were children.
The man who had just entered was bringing them out.
The children, who had apparently been bound somewhere, still had chains dangling from their hands.
Click!
She hurriedly pressed the shutter.
‘This can’t be. This is...’
Countless children being led out by the unidentified masked man.
Click!
As they entered the camera frame.
‘This is a complete exclusive.’
It was the very image of a hero.
Footnotes:
Rekka is Korean internet slang for a controversy-chasing content creator or outlet, originally named after tow trucks that rush to accidents.
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