WeTried Translations
Translator: Joy
Editor: Joy
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Damned Transmigration ◈
Chapter 45: …
──────
Elena asked no more questions and listened to Yuri’s story.
That man had entered Yuri’s body before reuniting with Elena.
Back when Yuri lived in Oldor. Back when he was a low-ranking member of the third-rate Black Snake Gang.
On the day the Black Snake Gang was attacked and annihilated, forcing Gordon to send a letter.
One of the attackers who had stormed in as a group stabbed Yuri in the stomach, and Elena Heinderga’s childhood friend died that day.
The possession happened immediately afterward. The man who possessed him went to Gordon’s general store, reported the Black Snake Gang’s annihilation, and received treatment for his minor wounds. Then he lived in Yuri’s house for a month.
During that time, he met Elena, who had come after receiving Gordon’s letter.
“Yuri... is dead?”
Elena barely forced out the words. She knew what transmigrators were.
Beings who had crossed over from another world after being ensnared by the Evil God’s trap. They entered the bodies of people living in this world, killed the original soul, and took the body for themselves.
Ordinarily, the man before her would be one of those beings. A monster who had killed the real Yuri Elena had known since childhood, stolen his body, and imitated him.
The fact that the real Yuri had died before this man possessed him left Elena confused. She first wondered whether such a thing was even possible. Then she wondered whether he was lying to avoid her immediate resentment.
But what if he was not lying? What if, as he said, the real Yuri had already died before he possessed him? If, if that was truly the case...
“...”
Elena bit her lip.
That did not mean everything he had said until now was no longer a lie.
This transmigrator had lied to Elena from the very beginning. He was not Yuri, yet he had pretended to be Yuri. That alone was a horrible lie.
Elena had brought this transmigrator to her estate because he was Yuri.
Her childhood friend from the Oldor Orphanage.
Yuri had protected Elena when the other orphans bullied her. Yuri had given her the doll that was still in her room. Yuri had cried as he saw her off on the day she left for the Dersia Mage Tower.
Yuri had exchanged letters with Elena for ten years, and Yuri was the one she thought of and worried about whenever she wrote one.
The Yuri Elena had gone to meet in a pure-white dress and hat was the childhood friend she had not seen in ten years.
The Yuri who lived in that shabby one-room home, spent every day as the lowest member of a worthless gang, then returned to browse through worthless books and dream. The Yuri Elena could not bear to leave alone, the Yuri who made her decide to take him to her estate.
“You...”
The man who greeted her every morning in the living room and asked whether she had slept well, who sat at the same table to eat with her and told her to have a safe day.
The man who laughed with her over trivial conversations, went with her to the auction house, occasionally went out to eat with her, read with her in the living room, trained in martial arts in the garden every day, quietly knocked before bringing her tea when she spent too long in the study, and covered her with a blanket when she lay down and fell asleep during a short rest.
The man who made her heart race when he said he would leave the estate.
The person who had ridden in a carriage with her for fifteen days, visited many villages with her, given her a beautiful blue hairpin she could not bring herself to put in her hair because she did not want it to get dirty, ignored her cries to run, stepped forward, and killed that ugly old demonic fiend.
“...”
You are not Yuri.
Elena could not bring herself to say the words circling in her heart.
That man could have continued lying until the end. But he had chosen not to. He had not run, even when she told him to.
Was it because he thought he could not run? Because he thought their odds would be better if the three of them fought together?
[Run.]
When Yuri had been exhausted and unable to fight any longer. She could not hear him directly, but his moving lips had conveyed those words.
“Why didn’t you run?”
In the end, Elena could only ask something else.
“Because I thought I would regret it if I ran.”
She did not know what expression she should make. She could barely make any expression at all. It felt as though every muscle in her face had frozen.
“Regret? What would you regret?”
“I didn’t want you or Haryeong-nim to die.”
At that answer, Elena unconsciously clutched her robe.
“The Yuri I knew is already dead. Is that... true?”
“Yeah.”
The moment she heard that answer, the turmoil in her chest was awful. This conversation filled Elena with intense self-loathing. That hatred for herself was an extension of the helplessness she had felt on the mountain.
If Elena had been stronger, if she could have killed the Blood Fiend without Yuri needing to step forward.
Then the fact that Yuri was a transmigrator would not have been revealed.
As she had until now, Elena could have sincerely thought of that man as Yuri.
Her childhood friend Yuri was already dead.
His death was not caused by that man.
The one who had lived with Elena at the estate was the current Yuri.
“...”
Everything had begun with a lie. If Yuri had not been her childhood friend, she would not have met him, brought him home, or devoted herself to him.
But Elena liked that daily life. She fell asleep looking forward to every morning, and felt happy when she opened her eyes in the morning.
“I... I honestly... don’t know.”
Her emotions would not settle. Elena steadied her quickening breath and continued haltingly.
“I don’t know whether everything you said is true. But I do know this. You... you have lied to me until now.”
“...”
“I know you had no choice. But it’s hard to accept. You... you’re not Yuri.”
“Yeah.”
“Then why did you save us? Why did you tell me to run?”
“Because you’re my friend.”
Elena’s shoulders trembled.
“Right. Friends... friends. Yes, not childhood friends.”
A brief silence followed. Elena raised her head and looked at the ceiling. If she loosened her grip on her emotions even a little, it felt as though tears would spill out at once.
“Liar.”
The quiet murmur ended the silence.
“You’re a liar in the end. A liar who entered Yuri’s body and deceived everyone by pretending to be Yuri.”
It was impossible to deny. Most transmigrators were like that.
“What... what did it feel like?”
Her voice, mixed with ragged breaths, grew harsher. The face that had been turned toward the ceiling lowered. Elena stared at Yuri with eyes brimming with tears.
“It was all, all... a lie! Whenever I told you stories about the past. About when we were children, when we were at the orphanage, what I was like, what you were like to me...! When, when I told you those things. What did you feel when you answered me...?”
It was a question Yuri had no answer for, even if he had ten mouths.
“You laughed at me, didn’t you?”
Her trembling lips gradually twisted. Elena forced a smile through a face that looked as though she might cry, and that smile looked like a scar.
“You must have laughed at me. I never even suspected your lies. I was completely fooled, and I gave everything to you. You must have laughed at me, right?”
“No.”
Yuri could not listen any longer and had to speak.
“I swear I never laughed at you. It is true that I lied to you, but I never laughed at you.”
“Don’t lie!”
Crackle!
The moment her furious cry burst out, electrical currents surged around Elena.
“You laughed at me! You used me...! You weren’t Yuri, but you pretended to be Yuri...!”
“Please, Elena...!”
“Don’t call me that!”
Elena screamed and clutched her head. Crackle, crackle! Her unsettled emotions continued to create electrical currents. Haryeong stepped back, folded her arms, and watched with her usual expressionless face without rashly interfering.
“You, you can’t call me by that name. You’re not Yuri... you’re not Yuri...”
Tears finally flowed. The tears that ran down her cheeks and fell evaporated in the electrical current.
“What... what is this...? Why, why did this happen? I, I... I...”
The electrical current grew harsher. It felt like he could not leave her alone any longer. Yuri hurriedly reached out to Elena.
Elena flinched in surprise and swung her hand at Yuri.
“Don’t touch me!”
Crackle!
The electrical current that shot out with her gesture covered Yuri’s hand. Yuri bit his lip and swallowed a groan.
The acrid smell of burning flesh jolted Elena back to her senses. She covered her mouth and stepped back several paces.
“I-I’m sorry.”
The crackling current disappeared. Elena stared at Yuri’s hand, trembling from the shock, then tightly shut her eyes.
“I... don’t know.”
After a brief silence, Elena murmured.
“I know you saved us. You could have kept lying, but you did not. But... that does not make the lies you told me easy to accept.”
“...”
“Yuri.”
It was a terrible contradiction. The real Yuri was dead, but Elena could not call the man before her anything other than Yuri. Though she condemned him as a liar and a transmigrator, she still had no choice but to call him Yuri.
She did not want to call him that. The name and relationship had been that precious to her, had occupied that much of her heart.
That was why she felt even more betrayed.
“Are you going to keep calling me Yuri?”
Yuri gave a bitter smile as he clutched his aching hand. Elena hesitated, then let out a short breath.
“I... don’t know any other name for you, and I don’t want to know one. You may have a real name as a transmigrator, but to me... to me, you are Yuri. A liar, a transmigrator, a fake Yuri.”
Tears flowed again.
Were these tears for her dead childhood friend, or because the current Yuri was a fake? Elena was afraid to give a definite answer to what she felt now.
“Let’s end it like this.”
So she ran away.
“We are finished here. I... won’t return to Rutlan with you.”
“...”
“I have no intention of going around telling people that you are a transmigrator. I won’t think about you, and I won’t send letters either. So I hope you will do the same.”
There was still much to ask. The martial art Yuri had used when he killed the Blood Fiend. Even to Elena, a mage, it had looked exceptional, and it was a martial art Yuri had never learned before.
She did not ask. It did not seem like he would answer honestly, and those things would likely be part of the lies Yuri had told until now.
“I.”
Yuri let out a long sigh.
“Like you said, I’m a liar. That’s true. I’m not Yuri, and I’m not your childhood friend, but I imitated him and used you.”
“...”
“I lived in the room you gave me, wore the clothes you bought me, and learned the martial arts you bought for me.”
“What are you trying to say...?”
“I’m sorry.”
Elena stared at Yuri without even thinking to wipe away her tears.
“I’m sorry I lied, and I’m sorry I took your childhood friend’s body.”
“...”
“I don’t know how you will take this, but I... I liked the time I spent at your estate. I liked my relationship with you too. That’s why... that’s why I did not want you to find out that I was a transmigrator.”
He had been found out in the end, but Yuri’s feelings had been genuine.
“Me too...”
I did not want to know that you were a transmigrator.
Elena swallowed the words she could not bring herself to say. She rubbed away the tears pouring down her face. Yuri’s hand, burned by the electricity, kept drawing her attention. When she forced her gaze away from his hand, she saw Yuri’s face.
Afraid to look at that face and those eyes for too long, Elena eventually turned around.
“Goodbye.”
Those were her final words. She buried most of what she wanted to say in her heart. Her childhood friend Yuri, who had already died, and the current Yuri. Everything was only confusing to Elena.
Yuri stared blankly at the closed door. Should he have stopped her? Should he have begged for forgiveness? Or should he have offered some ugly excuse? He did not know. He did not know what the right answer was, or whether there was a right answer at all.
In truth, Elena’s reaction had been far kinder than Yuri had imagined. She had not poured out resentful curses, and he had not heard her wailing for her childhood friend to be returned.
‘Did she hold it in?’
He had seen Elena swallow her words several times. Were the things she swallowed the resentment Yuri had imagined?
“Ahem...”
As Yuri sat lost in gloomy thoughts, he heard someone clear their throat beside him. He came to his senses late and turned toward the sound.
Haryeong was sitting in the same posture as before, staring at Yuri.
“You look hurt. Are you all right?”
Haryeong’s gaze went to Yuri’s burned right hand. It truly stung, but he did not particularly feel the pain in the current situation.
“W-what is it?”
Her presence, expression, and gaze were so disconcerting that Yuri stammered without meaning to.
“Why are you still here?”
“I am an assassin with tact.”
Haryeong answered. With her usual expressionless face, she glanced at the closed door.
“I am Lady Elena’s guard, but what she needs right now is time to collect her emotions. If I stayed with her, she would not be able to cry as much as she wished.”
“...”
“Well, given how things turned out, you could say I failed as a guard. If I had been stronger, Lady Elena would not have been in danger, and the fact that Yuri-nim is a transmigrator would not have been exposed.”
“I need time alone to collect my emotions too.”
“Regrettably, Yuri-nim is not my employer, so I do not feel particularly inclined to show you special consideration.”
What kind of woman was this...? Yuri stared at Haryeong in disbelief.
“Do not glare at me like that. Lady Elena said plenty on her own, but I have not said everything I need to say. That is why I remained.”
“What are you going to say? Will Haryeong-nim condemn me as a liar too?”
“It is true that Yuri-nim is a liar, but I do not particularly care.”
Haryeong shrugged and continued.
“Yuri-nim and I are not childhood friends. I do not know Yuri-nim from ten years ago. The first image I have of Yuri-nim is of you coming down the creaking stairs of Oldor’s old communal housing. So it makes no difference to me whether Yuri-nim is a transmigrator or something else.”
“...”
“Hmm, that is not quite true. I was greatly surprised. But that is all.”
As she spoke, Haryeong felt around the belt at her waist.
“The reason I am still in the room Yuri-nim said you wanted to be alone in is to thank you.”
“Thank me?”
“Yes. Yuri-nim saved my life as well. If not for Yuri-nim’s courageous step forward, I would have died to the Blood Fiend before Lady Elena.”
“...”
“Having received such a favor, is it not only proper to give my thanks? I am such a moral assassin.”
What Haryeong took from her belt was a dagger that looked extraordinary even at a glance. She held up the palm-sized dagger as if to show it off.
“This is Black Fang. It is a dagger I treasure greatly and never use for throwing. In truth, I could use it for throwing because it returns on its own when thrown.”
“...”
“Even so, I do not use it for throwing because I treasure Black Fang that much. Black Fang does not need to be sharpened, and even if thrown carelessly, it flies to and strikes its target on its own.”
“You are giving that to me?”
“Did you think I took it out merely to brag?”
Black Fang spun in Haryeong’s hand. She held out the handle, rather than the blade, to Yuri and lifted her chin.
“I am such a kind assassin that I do not hand over a weapon blade-first.”
“Can I really accept this? You said it was something you treasured.”
“It is fine. I have another.”
Haryeong’s left hand held a pure-white dagger different from Black Fang.
“Is that dagger called White Fang, by any chance?”
“How did you know? Chilling.”
“It was too obvious...”
“As Yuri-nim said, this dagger is White Fang. Together, the two are called the Twin Fangs. Any martial artist trained in concealed weapons would want them, so please treat it with care.”
Yuri quietly nodded and accepted Black Fang.
“I will emphasize this again. Yuri-nim must treat Black Fang with care. Do not throw it unless absolutely necessary. Do not lose it either.”
“Alright.”
“If possible, do not use it as a weapon. Carry it on you at all times.”
“How many times are you going to emphasize that?”
“It is because I treasured it that much. Yuri-nim, please think of Black Fang as me and always treasure it. I may take it back later, so you must carry it with you.”
“Take it back later?”
“Lady Elena acted as though she would never see Yuri-nim again for the rest of her life, but I have no reason to do the same. You never know what will happen in this world. Yuri-nim and I may run into each other by chance someday, and if I need Black Fang then, I may take it back.”
For the rest of her life, would it really be that way? Haryeong considered her own words again. Even to Haryeong, Elena seemed to be doing nothing more than avoiding her feelings and running away. It seemed certain that she would regret it someday.
“Separate from giving you Black Fang, I have no intention of spreading word that Yuri-nim is a transmigrator.”
“Thank you very much.”
“But even if Lady Elena keeps silent, Lady Orca will likely suspect Yuri-nim.”
Yuri’s face stiffened at those words. Heavenly Thunder Orca. Yuri could not help being wary of her.
When he recalled his earlier interview with Orca, she had seemed to harbor suspicions that he was a transmigrator even then.
Lacey Yuzha was a transmigrator. Yuri had not confirmed it, but he was certain of that much. It made no sense for Lacey not to be a transmigrator.
There was no way Orca could fail to be certain of something Yuri himself was certain of. Yet she knew and still kept Lacey in the Mage Tower, favoring her as a candidate for a disciple. Judging from that alone, Orca was not inclined to be hostile toward transmigrators.
“Well, I do not think Yuri-nim needs to worry too much. Even if Lady Orca learns that Yuri-nim is a transmigrator, I do not think she will harm you.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Is it not simple? Yuri-nim saved Lady Elena. And if Yuri-nim were to die by Lady Orca’s hand, Lady Elena as she is now would never try to understand Lady Orca.”
After making sure Yuri put Black Fang away, Haryeong rose from her chair.
“I believe I should go wipe away my lady’s tears now.”
Yuri considered Haryeong’s words, then called out to her as she was about to leave the room.
“Haryeong-nim. My memory is hazy, but when the Blood Fiend died, did it not say something to me?”
It was a lie. Yuri clearly remembered what the Blood Fiend had said when it died. He asked because he was worried whether Haryeong had heard those words.
“Did the Blood Fiend leave last words?”
Haryeong asked back with her usual expression.
“I think so, but I cannot remember clearly.”
“My apologies, Yuri-nim. I was focused on tending to my internal injuries at the time, so I did not hear the Blood Fiend’s last words or anything of the sort.”
Haryeong said that and gave a small bow.
“Then, Yuri-nim, if fate brings us together, let us meet again.”
The door closed, leaving Yuri alone in the room.
‘Was she telling the truth...?’
Yuri stroked the Black Fang he had placed inside his clothes and thought. He could not tell whether Haryeong had told the truth or lied.
“...”
Honestly, he did not want to think about it anymore.
I got found out in the end.
Yuri sighed and flopped down onto the bed.
Footnotes:
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