WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Seven-Time Hero Goes Live ◈
Chapter 47: Grains of Sand (2)
──────
Fairy Corporation consults a manual when selecting protagonists.
Some parts of the manual are mandatory, while others are recommendations.
For the most part, they follow not only the mandatory requirements but every recommendation as well.
After all, the recommendations are the flower of the manual.
“B-but the data said this was better.”
Countless stories created by countless fairies had produced a kind of “rule.”
How to get good results.
How to make Constellations easier to satisfy.
For example, avoid ugly people unless ugliness is the theme. Remove all family relationships unless the story focuses on family. Keep all personal history “blinded” until a certain point so the story can get moving quickly.
“I... I only followed them. Just like it said...”
Thud.
Ram cried out as she slumped weakly to the floor.
She had followed the manual to the letter.
Kang Hae-il was tall and handsome, full of justice and conviction. His parents had died for certain reasons, and his personal history was initially hidden from the Constellations.
To the Constellations, Kang Hae-il’s father had simply died in an accident. They would only see Hae-il grow into an S-rank Awakener as he carried on the legacy of his firefighter father.
The details were hidden.
Up to that point, it was a plan a Story Fairy could carry out.
But then...
[Warning! Powerful Flashback Energy Generated!]
After visiting the cemetery, Kang Hae-il’s emotions grew too deep, and he began slipping beyond Ram’s control.
Something like this happened all the time.
The narrative might suddenly shift on its own into a flashback of the protagonist’s past.
Ram had experienced it a few times herself.
But the problem was the information that had been revealed.
A father who died on Line 4.
Kang Hae-il, who had watched it through a recording of a livestream.
And Yulian, who had led people in blocking the door from the opposite side.
“All I did was write one line in the setting! ‘Mother died in childbirth, father died in an accident!’ That was it!”
Ram shouted at the top of her lungs.
She had every right to feel wronged.
How could things get this tangled?
“R-Ram, ma’am...”
Story Fairies held the initiative over a Story setting.
But they did not hold absolute authority.
They could guide characters in a certain direction, but they could not make them move in perfect unison like a synchronized dance troupe.
A Story setting moved organically through living characters. Perhaps it was a living thing itself.
Unexpected relationships formed.
Unexpected narratives emerged.
Unexpected characters became important.
[The Constellations recognize character ‘Moon Jun-il’ as a Major Character!]
“W-why?!”
No matter how much Ram shouted, there was nothing she could do.
-What, that’s what this was???
-Holy...
-This flashback, at this timing...
-Gasp
-This is insane...
The Constellations could not help recognizing Moon Jun-il, L4GS, as a major character now.
He was the target of Kang Hae-il’s deepest resentment.
Of course, he could not be an Extra.
Just as the Demon King could not be an Extra in a Hero story.
[Character ‘Moon Jun-il’ has risen in narrative rank!]
[Extra → Supporting Character]
“Th-this is too much! Isn’t fate messing with me too much?!”
Ram pleaded, nearly in tears.
Regardless, the notifications continued.
[Viewer Constellation Limit: 1,000 → 5,000]
[You will be portrayed in somewhat clearer detail.]
[You can create a Sub-stream.]
Thud!
Ram slammed her head into the desk.
“It’s my fault... I put too many Goblins on Line 4...! I put in more because I wanted to kill Yulian, so Kang Hae-il’s father died!?”
Of all people, Kang Hae-il’s father had died on Line 4, in the car right next to the one Yulian had been in.
Was this a side effect of spending too many Coins on Line 4 at the beginning?
“N-no, I don’t think so! He was already supposed to be dead! No matter what, he would’ve died somehow!”
There was always a hole in broken narrative plausibility.
And filling that hole required enormous sacrifices.
Story Coins did that work.
They were the currency of a Story setting, accumulating whenever Constellations were satisfied.
With enough Story Coins, every hole could be covered.
But no matter how many holes were patched, the traces of those patches could not be erased.
A thoughtless single line.
「The protagonist’s father died in an accident.」
This careless, plot-convenient setting had neither a point in time nor a process.
With that one line, Kang Hae-il lost everything.
Ram had never imagined what kind of repercussions would result when such a simple line took concrete form as someone’s life.
No, honestly, she probably would not have cared regardless of what consequences it brought.
That grief and contradiction were Kang Hae-il’s burden to endure, not a Story Fairy’s.
To her, they were merely insignificant creatures being toyed with inside a Story setting.
She had simply wanted the protagonist to have no parents for the sake of convenience.
Since they had to die anyway, she had only wanted his father to be a retired firefighter who died in an accident, giving Hae-il a purpose.
But as if the Story setting had sensed her complacency, it stabbed her with a dagger.
“Ughhh...!”
“R-Ram, ma’am?”
Ram writhed in pain.
“Noooooo!”
[Current Constellations Watching: 1,037]
Yulian’s audience of Constellations was exploding now that he had moved beyond the status of an Extra.
It had passed one thousand.
He was now an entirely different being from the Yulian of before.
* * *
Amid the flood of countless lines of text rushing past him, Jun-il barely managed to pull himself together.
‘Supporting Character? Did I go from an Extra to a Supporting Character?’
He had always been the protagonist, so he had no idea what kind of effect this would have.
[Current Constellations Watching: 1,037]
Still, his viewing Constellations had finally broken through the wall of one thousand.
[Inheritance of Incarnation ‘Hero - Yulian’]
[10.37% Complete]
He had gained one-tenth of Yulian’s power.
Then the world stopped.
Bzzzzzt!
Noise filled the surroundings, and all time froze.
The Constellations’ chat, Kang Hae-il’s expression, even the birds flying through the sky all stopped.
Only one thing moved.
-You...
Letters.
The letters the Constellations wrote.
Tap tap tap tap.
A sound like someone typing on a keyboard rang out, and the message was completed.
-You’re Yulian...
Jun-il’s eyes went wide.
-You’re Yulian, right?
Crazy.
Jun-il had to force down the curse that nearly slipped out.
Was he supposed to answer here?
No.
Had Pam not warned him again and again?
Never speak to a Constellation.
Never let them know he was aware of them.
The moment he broke the fourth wall, everything would be over.
“...”
Jun-il simply stayed silent.
-Wow, you’re Yulian, right?? It was Yulian again! No matter how different you look, you do such similar things that I can always tell!
Jun-il stood still as though time had stopped for him too, but the Constellation kept talking alone.
-Why are you ignoring the princesses so hard now? It’s seriously frustrating.
Huh?
From that point on, Jun-il felt something was off.
‘Princesses?’
What were they talking about?
There were no princesses here.
There was only the annoying S-rank Kang Hae-il and an Elf who loved mushrooms.
As he read the messages that followed, Jun-il grasped what was happening.
-Honestly, the first installment of the Yulian series was a masterpiece lol. Everything after that was mass-produced.
-Still, I’m following it because it’s Yulian hehe.
-What is it this time, The Birth of a Rogue Hero? Seriously lol, it really lives up to the name.
Gulp.
Jun-il thought he understood.
The lines he had seen before.
‘Th-this is...’
They were comments from the Constellations during his days as a Hero.
That was right.
This was a memory.
Whenever his Inheritance reached a certain level, had he not always seen memories?
This phenomenon was the same.
It merely took a slightly different form.
Rather than watching a scene, he was seeing a Constellation’s comments.
-Yulian is so funny lol.
-Yulian’s cute lol.
-Why does he suddenly run away whenever he sees a woman? It was so funny when he used to come on so strong lol.
Only one person was writing.
It had been showing him everything that one person wrote.
This Constellation remembered Yulian and had always recognized him from the beginning in other stories.
Just like now.
‘You... It was you.’
Jun-il remembered this Constellation.
‘The First-Run Villain.’
-I enjoyed watching it~ But no matter how I look at it, wasn’t the first run a masterpiece? lol. If you disagree, you’re right lol.
They were the one who always said the first run was a masterpiece.
There was no way to distinguish IDs or anything else in the Constellations’ comments.
Yet somehow, he could tell that one apart.
Later, he could recognize them just from lines like this.
-Hello^^
Their distinctively cheerful manner of speaking was clearly different from everyone else’s.
-The first run was a masterpiece, then the second run lol.
Both their manner of speaking and their opinions were truly unusual.
‘But why is this memory coming out now?’
The strange part was why this particular memory was surfacing.
Usually, Inheritance memories were related to the event that had just occurred.
-I cried my eyes out when he awakened Mana Blade in the first run... I miss those days.
With those final words, the Inheritance memory ended.
Ding.
[You have learned a new skill!]
As always, he gained a skill when the Inheritance ended.
But this time was different.
‘Huh?’
Before, it had only confirmed skills he had already learned or was already using.
[Mana Blade]
It was a new skill.
Of course, it was one he had learned in the first run, but it was a skill he had never used in Moon Jun-il’s body.
==== ====
Attainment: ★
Potential: A+
Description: A skill that left someone deeply moved. Condense mana onto the sword, hone it into an edge, then cut. It boasts a sudden increase in reach and tremendous cutting power.
==== ====
‘Why all of a sudden?’
How would the Constellations react to seeing him suddenly learn a skill out of nowhere?
-What lol
-Why did this bastard suddenly awaken this???
-Huh?
-Did Kang Hae-il’s words hit you that hard? lol
-Did you awaken it to kill Kang Hae-il?
-Die, you trash L4GS bastard.
-What the hell is his identity?
-He’s not L4GS, he’s just Kang Hae-il’s friend, fuck.
-He learns skills just standing there lol.
-He killed Kang Hae-il’s dad and got a Mangekyo awakening lol.
They were interpreting it however they pleased.
Really, the timing of awakening a skill was entirely up to the individual.
Even the famous cry of “Eureka!” had not come while solving a math problem, but while bathing.
‘Either way, my senses are definitely different.’
Jun-il clenched and unclenched his fist, feeling the difference.
His sense for mana, its boiling purity and quantity.
Everything had changed.
His body also felt completely lighter than before.
[Current Constellations Watching: 1,037]
[Inheritance of Incarnation ‘Hero - Yulian’]
[10.37% Complete]
He could use 10 percent of Yulian’s power.
One-tenth, as people commonly put it.
He had become 0.1 Yulian.
‘At this level, I really could use Mana Blade.’
Mana Blade was an ability even first-run Yulian had only learned late in the story after considerable hardship.
It was the kind of dependable staple skill used all the way through his battle with the Demon King.
Jun-il had used mana to reinforce the blades of a box cutter and a Goblin dagger before.
But extending that mana further, honing it into a blade, and cutting with it was an entirely different matter.
Mana Blade was undoubtedly a skill to be proud of, and a powerful one.
‘But... I have a bad feeling about this.’
Still, he did not want to remember the process that had led him to learn this skill.
That memory was something raw to Jun-il, enough to make him question why this skill had been granted at this moment.
It was practically trauma.
There was a reason the First-Run Villain had said they remembered that time so vividly.
‘Could it be?’
Jun-il found himself wondering.
Was the First-Run Villain... watching even now?
Could something similar happen again soon?
Just as Jun-il’s thoughts grew more complicated...
“Do you smoke?”
Hae-il’s voice cut through them.
“Ah... No.”
“Really? That’s unexpected.”
‘What’s unexpected about it?’
Sizzle.
Kang Hae-il lit his cigarette with fire from his finger.
-Nice.
-His swagger is insane lol.
-Wow, that’s genuinely cool lol.
-Damn.
-Style over substance MAX.
Kang Hae-il no longer spoke about his father and simply kept exhaling smoke into the sky.
“Ah. Come to think of it, what was that Sub Quest the Elf gave you?”
“Ah... That was...”
If he said it, it would only come off as rubbing it in again.
‘Fuck. I still have to do it.’
Jun-il had not forgotten what his eighth request was.
“It was incredib-”
“Was it you two?”
At that moment, a chilling voice came from behind them.
“Are you the rats who raided my hideout?”
-Gasp.
-Damn.
-He’s here.
-The Necromancer boss, damn.
-Kang Hae-il got tied in as a culprit too, fuck lol.
-Is L4GS finally dying?
-Please kill L4GS already, fuck.
-Boss???
-It wasn’t Hae-il though lol. What is this responsibility with no pleasure lol.
-Ooh.
-It’s the Necromancer boss, fuck.
Footnotes:
“Mangekyo awakening” references Naruto, where traumatic loss is associated with a major power awakening.
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