WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Natty

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◈ Black Badger ◈

Chapter 82: The Old Spider and Atonement (2)

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I sat up, my face hollow.

As soon as Yoon saw I was awake, he stood. Today too, he wore a light windbreaker and joggers. He looked ready to head out for his morning workout.

He looked no different from usual.

I forced my heavy eyelids open and squeezed out a low voice.

“Yoon.”

“For the record, those two asked about this and that, so I made up a story.”

Yoon spoke as plainly as if he were telling me the day's schedule.

Then, in the same tone, he added,

“I told them you used to be the leader of a political party.”

“What?”

What?

The absurdity cleared my hoarse voice at once.

Sleep fled immediately. I opened my swollen eyes wide.

“What are you talking about? A party... as in a political party? Why would I be a party leader?”

“You needed a reason to know a major information broker.”

Yoon looked down at me as though I had asked something obvious.

As usual, his cold eyes showed no particular emotion.

“Remember the basic story. Before you lost your memories, you led a political party that no longer exists. Everyone in that party died, and you had a flashback because of them, then went to the bathroom and threw up.”

“Out of every possible occupation, why did it have to be politics?”

“Would you have been a lawyer or a doctor instead?”

“What about the game I appeared in?”

“I explained that along the same lines. I said it seemed to be something your party members had gifted you.”

“Did they believe it?”

“They probably didn't. But what are they going to do if they don't?”

My senior partner pointed that out coldly.

I started to respond, then closed my mouth again. He was right. What could they do if they did not believe it...? The Old Spider would never leak any more information, and there was nowhere else to dig.

This involved Colton. That dangerous old friend had surely eliminated everyone who knew what had happened then.

Walker was undoubtedly suspicious of me and would investigate on his own, but even a fixer as skilled as Walker would find nothing. Learning something the Elders were determined to hide was nearly impossible.

I let out a heavy sigh.

Once again, I had escaped a crisis with an unbelievable excuse. The lies had piled up, but there was no other way.

Anything involving the Elders and Titans belonged among the truths better left buried.

I was a little flustered because I had never imagined an excuse like this.

If my two seniors questioned me separately, I would have to keep a straight face and stick to it.

After steeling myself, I set aside the matter of my seniors for the moment.

Then I lowered my gaze and reflected on what I had learned yesterday.

Self-loathing surged through me.

“Until now, I thought I must have betrayed them for a reason.”

With my eyes lowered, I laughed quietly at myself.

“But I was a leader who abandoned my own people.... No matter what reason I had, I don't think it could justify what I did.”

“Show me the game first.”

Ignoring my gloomy muttering, Yoon held out his palm.

This man, seriously....

I raised my head and stared blankly at my senior partner.

“Please comfort your junior partner, who has fallen into despair.”

“Why?”

Yoon's eyes widened.

Confusion settled in those enlarged eyes. I parted my lips slightly as I watched the doubt in them.

Good grief.

He really did not understand.

I looked at my wide-eyed senior partner in disbelief.

“No.... It turns out I was a total piece of trash.”

“Why?”

“I was a leader, yet I betrayed my own people. Instead of protecting them with my life.”

“How did you betray them?”

...That is a good question.

I was silent for a moment before answering stupidly.

“I don't know the exact details.”

“Then why are you sitting around whining about something you don't even know properly?”

“But I definitely took the humans' side. I personally handed humans a sword and told them to kill Ray. It's similar to Ye-hyeon selling out the Badgers under his command.”

“Do you remember who started the war first?”

Yoon asked in an objective tone.

Still sitting on the cabin floor, I stared blankly up at my senior partner.

I carefully retraced my memories, but as expected, I could not remember anything important. Fragments from the memory that had surfaced in the ruined subway. All I could think about were the betrayal-filled looks in Kyle's and my people's eyes.

I stopped digging through my memories and shook my head.

“I don't remember.”

“Then you don't know who was at fault. Stop moping and get up.”

My senior partner did not withdraw his outstretched hand.

A hand with thick knuckles. A long scar ran diagonally across its palm.

I could tell at a glance that it was a long scar from a blade. Had he gotten it on the battlefield, or somewhere else? Either way, his hand was nothing like Colton Wiseman's smooth, elegant hands.

Why had I joined hands with Colton Wiseman...?

Just as I was about to lose myself in thought, Yoon's voice fell from above.

“If you keep this up, I'll hand you over to Richard.”

I immediately jumped to my feet.

I came eye to eye with my senior partner, who had one eyebrow crookedly raised.

Looking at his well-formed face, I smiled brightly.

“The game is in my pocket right now, respected senior.”

“Is it? Hand it over.”

“Would it be all right if I gave it to you after I finish it?”

With a smile fixed on my face, I blindly felt around me with my hands.

Soon, I found the cigar box on the bedside table. I snatched it up and neatly placed it on Yoon's outstretched palm.

“These are premium cigars Spitfire sent, Senior. They should be good, so have one.”

“You used to smoke cigars too?”

Yoon looked down at the cigar box indifferently.

“Smoking cigars is worse than smoking cigarettes.”

“If you don't smoke them often, they're not as bad as you might think.”

“What are you going to do by finishing that game?”

My senior partner took out a cigar as he asked.

I accepted the cigar box he held back out to me and blinked. I remembered the game I had encountered at Shu's house yesterday, when so much had happened all at once.

From E.

From E.

I set the cigar box back on the bedside table.

“I thought I might learn something if I played it.”

I idly fiddled with the game chip in my pocket.

“Something.... Looking at the title, it also feels like a letter someone left behind....”

“All right, then. Give it to me after you clear it.”

He agreed more easily than I expected.

When I looked at him with wide eyes, my senior partner gave me a look that asked why I was so surprised.

“I have no interest in clearing a game. I only want to take apart its structure. Are you done wallowing?”

“...Yes, well.... But can't you think that your cute junior partner is overwhelmed with grief for a very valid reason? I wasn't even asking you to comfort me.”

“You're old enough to know better. What's cute about you?”

Yoon cut off my complaint in a voice as cold as a winter wind.

Then, in a voice without a trace of warmth, he drove the point straight home.

“Didn't you choose all of it yourself?”

My senior partner's eyes were sharp as a pale scalpel.

They were eyes that had never known warmth. In my life, which could not be called short, I had met many people with eyes like that. Colton had been one of them. Kyle had immediately recognized Colton's coldness and hated and despised Colton.

So Kyle could never have imagined that I would join hands with Colton.

People who remained eerily composed even on the battlefield, and therefore people I did not want to get close to.

I looked at the man who reminded me of something inorganic and smiled bitterly.

“Yes.”

“Then accept it. Nobody's going to give you credit for being consumed by guilt now, and nothing will change.”

After speaking in a dry tone, my senior partner tucked the cigar into his pocket.

“What do you want to do? Atone?”

“If I could atone, I would grind away my soul to do it. But it isn't the kind of sin that can be atoned for. Could I be forgiven for what I did?”

“Then there's no reason to keep doing this.”

The man with neat features stood at an angle, his hands still in his pockets. It was how he always looked before heading out for his morning workout.

Standing there, my senior partner, who did not know how to empathize, added a cold judgment.

“If I were you, now that it has come to this, I'd cut away even the traces of the past that remain. Didn't you choose to take the humans' side and draw your sword? If you've drawn your sword, you should cut down everything you decided to cut down.”

Good grief.

I remembered Colton saying something very similar to me.

Unable to hold it back, I burst out laughing.

“You sound exactly like Falcon!”

“You're crossing a line.”

Yoon answered without changing his expression.

“Still, I'm better than that bastard.”

“Oh, right. At least you don't kill people.”

Colton had brutally killed anyone in the way of rising higher....

...Then why was there no response?

Silence had settled in the cabin.

Perfect silence.

The smile on my face gradually faded.

No.... Wait.

“Do you kill people too?”

“What are you suddenly talking about?”

Yoon smiled lazily.

The slow, lingering smile was cold. I stared at my senior partner standing before me, my mouth open.

“If I had killed innocent people, would Ye-hyeon have left me alone?”

I was not stupid enough to miss the meaning hidden between the lines.

I looked at him in astonishment.

Then I blurted out what I really felt.

“I miss Ye-hyeon.”

“Cut the crap.”

“The me from the past must have taken the humans' side because of people like Ye-hyeon and Ami. If I had only met people like you and Falcon, I would have wanted to wipe out humanity.”

“My stupid junior partner is back. Let's go work out.”

As if he did not understand the impact of what he had just said, this madman pointed his thumb at the door behind him.

Yoon lazily turned and even added this.

“After we run the track, stop by the house and take some pumpkins. They're too much trouble. Take them all and eat them, or I'll hand you over to Richard.”

“If you had been assigned as my senior partner in the past, I would never have become a traitor.”

I answered gloomily and staggered after my senior partner.

“Because I would have led the charge to exterminate humanity.”

Once again, it was time to be run ragged under Yoon's guidance.

In the end, I got stuck with the unwanted pumpkins.

* * *

Walker and Shu did not come to see me right away.

I did receive one message from Shu. I held my phone for a long time, agonizing over what to reply to my senior with the colorful hair.

Because Shu had sent this message.

[Shu Diamond: Were you in politics?]

What even was this party leader nonsense...?

I vaguely remembered meeting all kinds of politicians back then, and eating with them often, but fundamentally, I had no interest in politics.

It did not seem like I had become a leader through politics, either.

Though I could not remember exactly how I became the Titans' leader. Maybe I was unconsciously suppressing the memory because I was afraid I would roll around in guilt again if I remembered....

Anyway, after staring at my screen and thinking hard, I replied.

[I heard I was, but I don't remember it very wellㅠ]

Thankfully, Shu did not press any further.

Instead, Shu said to play the game and share my thoughts afterward. Of course, I planned to do that.

Even if I found something connected to my past, I would choose my words carefully when I gave my review. It would not be hard to give an ordinary review. I could list what I thought of the game's story, music, length, difficulty, and so on.

Though I was still too afraid to start the game.

I was afraid of that game.

Despite what I had told Yoon, I could not bring myself to turn it on for weeks.

“You did throw up everything in your stomach from guilt, did you not?”

Two weeks after getting the game, Yoon came up to me after training, as I was about to head to meet Hessi and Tom.

With an eerily expressionless face, my senior partner continued.

“You said you might learn something if you played it, did you not? You said you wished to atone even if it meant grinding away your soul, sir. Just how long do you intend to keep putting off playing it?”

“...Why are you doing this to me?”

Frightened by Yoon's strange way of speaking, I stepped back.

I was seriously scared.

“Are you drunk?”

“If you don't turn on the game tomorrow, I'm going to cut you open.”

He suddenly returned to his usual manner of speaking.

After answering coldly, he took something from his pocket. I immediately recognized it. I had seen it in the slums when I went there with Shu and Walker.

Green liquid inside a transparent syringe.

It was Green Dream.

“This is what we use when cutting into an enhanced body.”

My senior partner shook the syringe back and forth before my eyes.

“I've already booked an operating table.”

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