WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Black Badger ◈
Chapter 54: Subway (3)
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Hadn’t he said he had blocked all the entrances leading to the other stations?
Of course, there was no time to ask. I kept my mouth shut and followed behind him. We retraced the route we had taken past the green mushrooms.
The sound from behind us gradually faded. Were they not that fast? More importantly, what had it been in the first place?
I had too many things I wanted to say, but I could not speak.
The unnamed man made no special effort to soften his footsteps. He ran lightly. Lightly enough that I wondered if we would be caught at this speed.
The platform screen doors appeared again. The senior passed by the place we had entered without a second thought.
I ran past the open screen door without looking at it either.
Before long, we came across something like a small cart resting on the tracks.
“A water cart.”
He spoke briefly.
“Hold on tight. I made it a little faster.”
I quickly climbed onto the water cart.
Clatter! The water cart started moving.
It was not as fast as I expected.
The moment I thought that, it began accelerating. Air tore past, painfully striking my ears. I reflexively gripped the edge of the cart tightly.
The water cart raced down the rails.
“Actually, if you have confidence, you could take them on.”
The senior suddenly said something strange.
I had been watching the gently curving tracks when I turned toward him.
“Pardon?”
“I’m saying you can fight the guys chasing you right now if you’re confident you can beat them.”
It took me a while to understand what he meant.
By the time I realized that what I had feared was, in fact, what he meant, we had reached the end of the station.
A wall blocked with earth stood before us.
The senior slammed on the brakes, bringing the water cart to a stop.
“Still, we can’t risk it when we don’t know how many are over there.”
Without waiting for my answer, the senior jumped off the water cart.
There were no mushrooms here. The surroundings were almost completely dark. Only a small glow-in-the-dark sticker attached to the water cart gave off a faint light. Keeping my senses sharp, I cautiously climbed down after him.
The senior was bent over in the darkness.
“...What are you doing?”
“Follow me in, then make sure you close the entrance.”
He suddenly disappeared straight into the wall.
I felt around with my arms, searching for where he had vanished. Since I could not see, all I could do was flail around. Only after a few minutes did I find where the senior had gone. There was a passage in the wall. My arm slipped into the darkness.
Not a single ray of light entered the passage.
Was this what it felt like to be blind? I staggered inside, felt around, and barely managed to close the door. Once it shut, even the light I had not known was there disappeared. I could not tell how high the ceiling was or how wide the passage might be.
When I stretched both arms out, my left hand touched the wall.
Taking in the sensation beneath my left hand and the sound coming from ahead with utmost care, I took a step forward.
This feels strange.
“What is this passage?”
Trying not to fall behind while also avoiding running into the Badger ahead of me, I whispered.
An answer came back through the pitch-black darkness.
“I dug it. It connects to three stations.”
“That’s impressive.”
“Which hand are you using to touch the wall?”
I was worried I would hit my head.
Suppressing my unease, I answered.
“My left hand.”
“Good. Keep walking without taking your left hand off the wall, and you’ll reach our destination.”
“How far do we have to go?”
“It’ll take a while.”
A brief silence passed.
Then the senior spoke again.
“We still won’t be able to escape completely, but we should put some distance between us and them.”
“I suppose that’s unavoidable.”
“Fake recruit.”
He was calling me, right?
I really needed to ask this person some questions. He definitely knew something.
Ignoring the churning in my stomach, I answered.
“Yes?”
“Do you still like humans?”
I was silent for a long time.
With my mouth closed, I went over my memories. There were not many to revisit. Fragments that surfaced here and there, and the memories I had made since then. Whenever I tried to sleep, I held them dearly and stroked them.
Where were my roots? I wished I had memories I could stand on. Ever since opening my eyes without anything to rely on, I had been stumbling along. I had barely avoided falling by leaning on sudden memories, instincts, and the goodwill of the people around me.
Still, there were the scraps of memory I clutched whenever an inexplicable sense of loss kept me awake.
They were my voice from long ago, surfacing at the moment I thought my life had ended.
I should love humans after all.
I pressed my hand firmly against the wall.
“Yes.”
“...That’s a relief.”
“Senior. Am I not human?”
I asked quietly.
The footsteps stopped. I stopped as well.
There was no way I could see his face, but I raised my head and looked ahead.
“...What are you talking about?”
“I have no memories.”
I calmly answered his stunned question.
“It has not been long since I woke up inside the Core without my memories. Please tell me everything you know about me.”
Silence.
Time passed with only touch remaining. It felt as though my sight, hearing, and sense of smell had gone numb.
If someone stayed here too long, they would go strange. Despite being the one who had dropped a bombshell, I calmly thought that.
Ah. It felt like the senior, who had stopped a few steps ahead, had turned to look at me.
It was only a feeling. Still, it seemed as though he was staring right at my face.
“It must be true.”
“Yes.”
A long while later, a subdued voice came back. I readily responded.
“Unfortunately, it is true. How do you know me, Senior?”
Another long silence.
It was fortunate there was no light, so I could not see his expression. Would I get an answer? No. Did I even want one? I did not know whether I should feel fear or hope.
His answer came slowly.
“How did you become a Badger?”
“Ye-hyeon took me in.”
“Ye-hyeon? Commander-in-Chief Ye-hyeon? Why? Because he could not bring himself to discard your enhanced body?”
“I thought that was the reason, but it seems that was not all.”
“Why? What did he say?”
“...He said I was something like his joker card. That only time would tell whether I would become a winning card or a losing card....”
The senior inhaled.
Was that too embarrassing for me to explain out loud? It was awfully grand for describing someone like me, who had nothing to offer.
Feeling awkward, I stared into the darkness where the senior’s head should be.
Until he suddenly burst into laughter.
“That bastard knows too!”
After laughing for a while, the man finally spoke. It was a little frightening.
“I thought he knew nothing. But he knew it all. Well, he’s in that position. He must have seen the truth and prepared for it from the start. Right. I forgot because I haven’t seen him in so long. He’s that kind of guy. He always was.”
“Uh, Senior, I’d like to know that truth too.”
“Ye-hyeon didn’t tell you?”
He did not.
More precisely, it seemed like he wanted me to recall my past by myself. He always gave me time to ask questions, after all.
When I explained that, the senior made a thoughtful sound.
“What did he say when you told him you had lost your memories? You must have told Ye-hyeon you could not remember anything.”
“Well, the others filed reports, so he did not say anything special to me....”
Ah.
That was right. Our first meeting.
Forgetting can be a blessing.
He had said that. Words that had sounded like they were meant for himself. Even now, I could remember that moment as clearly as a photograph.
Sunlight pouring through the floor-to-ceiling window onto the desk. Long white fingers gently closing the papers.
When I explained, the man ahead of me snorted.
“You’ll have to remember everything eventually. What blessing?”
“Then please help me remember all of it. I really mean it.”
“Let’s get back to walking first. At this rate, they’ll catch us and kill us.”
Answer me!
Perhaps my desperate cry got through. Not long after we began walking again, the senior spoke.
It was a massive bombshell.
“You’re not human.”
Damn it.
“At least, your former colleagues I met here claim that they are not human. I don’t know how much of it is true either. They did not tell me everything. They don’t trust me.”
“...Who are they?”
“Are you crying?”
I am trying not to.
Could you at least pretend not to notice that I am desperately trying to control my shaking voice? I tried to force back the tears threatening to spill out. Ricardo had said I probably was not a Level 10 creature. Ro had answered, But you look human, do you not?
Were those two wrong, and were the seniors who looked at me like I was an alien right?
I felt a slope beneath my feet. I walked silently for a long while.
The senior broke the silence again.
“When we reach the other station, do not touch the walls. They have mouths.”
“...Why are we going somewhere like that?”
“If we go somewhere our lives are hanging by a thread, the lives of those chasing us will be hanging by a thread too.”
That was not wrong. Though it did overlook the possibility that we might die before they caught us.
I did not say my inner thoughts aloud. I was not confident I could speak without my voice breaking.
I was also too busy trying to process the massive bombshell dropped by the deserter Badger. Avoiding it did not make the situation better. Let us think about this rationally. This senior seemed to have met someone he called my former colleagues while living as a deserter. And it seemed he had heard information about me from them. Apparently, I had been introduced as their traitor?
And I was not human like them.
Seriously, damn it. How was I supposed to face Ami and Ricardo from now on?
“But I look human....”
“We’re almost there.”
The senior abruptly said.
I had been walking with my head down, but I stretched out my neck. I still could not see anything, but I could feel the tension in his voice.
The man added in a low voice.
“No matter what happens, do not touch the walls.”
“Yes.”
“You probably will not see any creatures, but if you do, shove them into the wall and run instead of fighting.”
“Yes.”
“And do not listen to the sound of bells.”
“Pardon?”
What did that mean?
A faint light appeared. A long sliver of light, as if it were leaking through a crack in an open door.
Tears welled up at the welcome return of my sight. Not that I had ever lost it.
As the door slowly opened, the light grew larger. The senior’s back was now a clear silhouette. As he stepped toward the light, he muttered,
“You can hear bells in this station.”
“The sound of bells?”
“Everyone who followed the sound never came back.”
He did not turn around.
The dark passage came to an end. My sight flashed and then returned clearly. I followed the senior as he ran into the light, committing his fear-tinged voice to memory.
“Close your ears and run.”
Gritting my teeth, I ran after him.
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