WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Got a Gallery in the Wild ◈
Chapter 16: Health (1)
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There were many things in the world money could buy, but there were also many it could not.
Health, peace of mind, time, and so on. Most were abstract, yet they carried great weight in life.
Health, above all, was important because it was so directly tied to life itself.
High status, great wealth, or fame, none of it meant anything if one’s health failed.
Most people went through life without realizing the importance of health, only understanding it when it was too late.
Even if they tried to reclaim it then, the chance had already passed.
Even an emperor reigning in splendor was no more than human before failing health.
Once health had deteriorated, it was rarely restored.
As time passed, medicine and technology advanced, bringing new ways to preserve one’s health. Even so, such methods remained few in number.
Sometimes, when a person complained about discomfort in one area, the real problem lay somewhere completely different. Others had been born with problems from the start.
People were built to slowly lose their health from the moment they were born.
Humans were creatures granted life and promised death at the same time.
Some people, cruelly enough, had far shorter lives than others.
People sentenced to death from the moment they were born.
“Cough! Cough!”
A woman lying in bed broke into a harsh coughing fit.
She hurriedly covered her mouth with a handkerchief.
Snow-white hair and eyes. Pale skin.
Everything about her called to mind pure white snow, giving her an air of mystery.
“Haah…”
After coughing violently, the woman slowly lowered the handkerchief from her mouth.
Dark red blood stained the white cloth.
Her condition looked serious even at a glance, but she seemed unconcerned as she held the handkerchief out to the side.
A young maid with brown hair stood there.
“Mary. Please take care of this.”
“My Lady.”
The brown-haired girl looked back and forth between the bloody handkerchief and the woman, worry clear on her face.
Her large eyes resembled a deer’s.
Perhaps the white-haired woman had read her feelings in those innocent eyes, because she gave a faint smile.
Or rather, she tried to.
But she did not.
Her face was stiff and cold, as though frozen over.
“Wouldn’t it be better to tell the Duke again…?”
“It happens often. Don’t make a fuss.”
“But lately, you’ve been coughing so much…”
“I said I’m fine. Hurry and bring me something else.”
The woman spoke in a frosty, blunt voice.
Mary hesitated, then accepted the handkerchief and placed it in a basket atop a dresser.
The basket was filled with bloodstained handkerchiefs.
It showed just how much blood she had coughed up.
“…We’re running low on handkerchiefs. I’ll bring some new ones.”
“Fine. Bring tissues if there aren’t any.”
“Yes, My Lady.”
Mary left, but her worried gaze lingered until the very end.
The white-haired woman simply remained expressionless.
Once Mary had gone, the woman turned forward again.
A chill hung in the air, as cold as her expression.
“Haah…”
Selena let out a long sigh and leaned back against the bed.
Her face remained stiff, but despair shadowed it.
She raised an arm and looked at her wrist.
It was so thin that it seemed like the slightest touch would snap it.
Her skin was abnormally pale too, almost as if she had powdered herself white.
As the blood on the handkerchief had made clear, Selena’s health was in terrible shape.
Even that description was not severe enough.
‘There isn’t much time left.’
Selena thought it without changing her expression.
She had been born with an incurable disease.
It did not simply shorten her lifespan. It decided it outright.
It was a disease that would kill her without fail by the time she came of age.
According to a physician from the Central Plains, it was the worst of the worst illnesses, called Nine Yin Absolute Veins.
Her yin energy was so strong that it completely disrupted the balance in her body, gradually destroying it from within.
Its defining symptom was that her blood vessels, or rather, her mana circuits, became blocked one by one.
Mana circuits were essential for people to live.
They were especially tied to the health Selena had longed for so desperately.
People sometimes collapsed from cardiac arrest. It happened when the mana circuits near their hearts became blocked by illness or poor health.
In the past, there had been nothing to do when cardiac arrest struck, but recently, at least emergency treatment through CPR had become possible.
‘God really is cruel.’
Nine Yin Absolute Veins was different.
If only one area were blocked, as with cardiac arrest, that would be one thing. This was practically the same as having every mana circuit in her body blocked.
The vessel had a fixed capacity, yet there was far too much inside it, enough to break the vessel itself.
In exchange, it granted strength beyond that of ordinary people.
When Selena could still move her body, people had called her a genius.
They even said that when it came to magic, her talent was unmatched.
Her mind was also brilliant enough that even her father, Theodore, sought her advice.
‘It’s all meaningless.’
As time passed, it all began to feel meaningless.
She had been born into the most prestigious ducal house in the Messiah Empire and possessed incredible talent, yet she was still dying helplessly like this.
Before health, everything else seemed insignificant.
As the days passed, there was only one thing she wished for.
To leave this bed and run proudly on her own two feet.
Selena knew perfectly well that it was impossible.
She had received every kind of support available, but her health showed no sign of improving.
There were three ways to treat Nine Yin Absolute Veins.
Consume a spiritual treasure overflowing with yang energy, receive treatment directly from a physician, or lastly, take in yang energy through her body.
The first was virtually impossible, even with the ducal house’s power, wealth, and information network.
They constantly monitored the black market, but all they found were drugs, human trafficking, and that sort of filth. There were no spiritual treasures.
Every physician had given up on the second option.
The procedure was absurdly difficult, and none of them had the confidence to handle the consequences.
As for the third…
She would rather die.
She would sooner bite her tongue than sleep with some man she did not know.
She did not want to extend her life by throwing away her chastity.
‘There aren’t many men like that in the first place.’
To be certain, she needed a man worthy of being called the strongest.
Yet most of the people frequently mentioned in debates over the current strongest person were women.
There was Kadir, known as the King of Magic, but he was old.
There were also rumors that he was an eccentric, which made her uneasy.
‘I don’t want to die like this, but…’
Death frightened her. That was why she collected knowledge wherever she could find it.
To extend her life, even a little, she had taught herself alchemy and medicine.
The more knowledge she gained, though, the more she concluded that treatment was impossible.
Could anything be more hopeless? There had been a time when she cried until her voice gave out.
Her parents had also come to realize their own helplessness, and their faces grew darker with every passing day.
The emotions gradually disappeared from Selena’s face as well.
She had reached the stage of slowly accepting despair rather than hoping.
She could no longer remember the last time she had laughed without reservation.
‘It’s better than doing nothing.’
That did not mean she wanted to give up completely and wait for death.
Selena lifted her head and looked into the air.
A window soon appeared before her eyes.
The Gallery she had begun using only after accepting death.
‘At first, I didn’t even want to look at it.’
Anyone, young or old, male or female, could access the Gallery as long as they met the requirements.
That was also why many people avoided connecting to it.
Some disliked places covered in the grime of human desire.
Selena had once been one of them, but her thoughts changed after her health worsened.
‘So much time has passed.’
The period when she became absorbed in the Gallery was the same period when her health sharply declined.
Unable to leave her bed, she spent all day browsing the Gallery.
At first, she only lurked with nothing to do. Then, thinking she should leave some sort of record behind, she began posting entries counting the days.
It had already been five months.
In other words, her health had worsened for five months.
‘It’s not like everyone there is awful.’
When she received insults and mockery, she had been disappointed, thinking that was exactly what she should have expected.
As the days went by, people seemed to realize it was not an act but the truth, and more of them began encouraging her.
The Head Mod was strange, but just. Excessive abuse was met with immediate bans.
That made the Gallery easier to visit with greater peace of mind.
When people accepted death, they became endlessly free.
Selena had gradually grown accustomed to the Gallery, that pit of desire, and evolved into an excellent user.
A tiny bit of emotion returned to her dried-out heart.
Funnily enough, most of that emotion was envy or jealousy.
‘Those bastards can live with all four limbs intact, so why can’t I…?’
It was truly ironic.
Still, she could not stop visiting the Gallery.
Recently, in particular, an unusual registered user had appeared, and Selena could not help paying attention.
‘Wild Grylls… Why did this person end up in the Forest of Four Seasons?’
When browsing the Gallery, people were bound to witness things beyond common sense.
Recently, someone had appeared who had fallen into the Forest of Four Seasons.
The Forest of Four Seasons was a place where space changed from moment to moment, making Gallery access impossible.
Yet that person could still connect without any problem and had even provided proof several times, drawing enormous attention.
[Post title] Anyone want to bet on how long Grylls lasts?
[Post] I think they’ll survive about half a month lol
└ Half a month is generous lol
└ They might die tomorrow lol
└ A true mayfly
└ I think God hates Grylls
└ [Wild Grylls]: : Hey, you assholes. I’ll survive to the end.
└ So what did you eat today?
└ [Wild Grylls]: : Three Fasting Pills…
└ Have you tried meat? lol
└ [Wild Grylls]: : No…
└ Want some?
└ [Wild Grylls]: : Make a username first lol
└ lol
At first, Selena had thought Wild Grylls was simply pitiful. Her opinion changed after their trade.
He could have simply kept the compass, and Selena would not have minded, but he returned it in the end.
That meant he was not a rotten person, at the very least.
‘Being a mayfly gives us a strange sense of kinship too.’
Selena had a limited lifespan. Grylls was a mayfly.
That subtle dynamic had also begun to settle into the Gallery.
Sometimes, discussions arose about who would die first, but they quickly disappeared.
The Head Mod must have decided that crossed a line and banned them.
Weighing human lives against each other was more than enough to deserve a ban.
‘If the first herb this person found had been something else…’
She thought about it every time she saw one of Grylls’s posts.
The valuable herb he had stumbled upon, the New Moon Spirit Herb.
Unfortunately, the New Moon Spirit Herb specialized in stabilizing energy rather than providing any particular kind of energy.
She could not describe how disappointing that was.
If it had been an herb overflowing with yang energy, Selena would have pursued it by any means necessary.
‘Would the Heavenly Demon have been in danger if that had happened?’
Selena could infer as much from the Heavenly Demon’s behavior after presumably receiving the New Moon Spirit Herb.
The Heavenly Demon was one of the more famous registered users in the Gallery.
Selena had naturally picked up on her behavior patterns.
‘Seeing someone with that much pride treat him like that makes it certain. She received the New Moon Spirit Herb.’
The Heavenly Demon was famous for constantly posting shitposts.
No matter what anyone else said, she never cared and kept posting.
Thanks to that, Selena could infer plenty about her personality from the Heavenly Demon’s posts.
She was the type with extremely strong self-esteem and confidence.
Her self-esteem was especially striking.
Seeing her endlessly post all manner of shitposts made the answer obvious.
‘Did “gal” mean “to scold” in the language of the Central Plains?’
Yet during the New Moon Spirit Herb incident, that kind of person had shown clear urgency.
After receiving the herb, she even treated Grylls with great respect.
It was obvious that the Heavenly Demon had been unwell and received help from Grylls.
‘Grylls is… kind of a pushover.’
Selena analyzed Grylls with her usual blank expression.
His personality could be summed up in one phrase.
Kind words bring kind words in return.
That applied to his actions too.
Even after falling into the Forest of Four Seasons, where simply receiving food was important, he kept trying to repay what he had been given.
‘There are all kinds of strange creatures in the world.’
Selena checked Grylls’s posts constantly.
The feeling of kinship from his fragile life was one reason, but more than anything, she worried.
If his posts stopped, it would practically mean that he had died.
‘That’s why I’m even more curious.’
That was why she became more curious.
What kind of creatures would he encounter next? How would he overcome those hardships?
She had even begun leaving comments, something she rarely did before, and passed her days with a bit of enjoyment.
A faint ripple had begun to spread through Selena’s heart.
“Cough! Cough!”
Splurt!
If only her body had not worsened day by day.
A sudden coughing fit burst out of Selena, and she hurriedly covered her mouth with her hand.
Mary had gone to get handkerchiefs, so she had no other choice.
“…”
Fighting through the dizziness, Selena lowered her gaze to her hand.
Seeing blood pooled in her palm rather than on a handkerchief made death feel even more real.
It was a sign that she was finally reaching her limit.
Click.
“My Lady. I brought the handkerchiefs… My Lady?!”
Mary returned at just the right time.
The maid gasped at Selena’s appearance and rushed over.
“…Mary.”
“I’ll call the physician immediately. There’s so much blood today…”
“No. It’s fine. It’s enough now.”
“My Lady?”
At Selena’s order not to call the physician, Mary looked at her as though she could not believe what she was hearing.
Selena read the meaning in her face and nodded.
“I think there really isn’t much time left.”
“M-My Lady. You can’t give up so quickly…”
“I am well versed in medicine too. I know my body better than anyone.”
Once, Selena had learned every scrap of medical knowledge she could find in order to live.
It had brought her nothing except the certainty that she was dying.
Mary looked at Selena with trembling eyes, but Selena remained firm.
“Thank you for the handkerchiefs. Go rest too. I’ll call if I need you.”
“…My Lady.”
“I want to be alone, so go.”
At Selena’s cold dismissal, Mary reluctantly headed outside.
Even then, Mary did not forget to give Selena one last worried look.
Selena felt her heart warm at the maid’s kindness.
Her expression remained as cold as ice.
‘I should ask for Mary to be adopted.’
It would be both a final request and repayment for Mary, who had stayed at her side until the end.
Thinking that, Selena leaned back against the bed.
The dizziness had faded a little, but her body was growing heavier.
It was difficult to take even a single step out of bed.
‘Is Mr. Grylls… all right?’
As death drew closer than ever, someone came to mind.
If Selena was drawing ever closer to death, Grylls was someone who could be said to always hover right before it.
She barely opened her dimming eyes and connected to the Gallery.
‘Mandrakes… Adult Mandrakes? What’s this now?’
As expected of Grylls. He had found something strange again.
They were plants rather than animals, but that only made Selena more interested.
‘Mandrakes are supposed to contain yang energy…’
Could this improve her condition, even a little?
She left several comments with that thought in mind, then learned an incredible fact.
‘It looks like Adult Mandrakes could treat this.’
There was a condition, though.
An impossibly difficult condition.
She needed at least six Adult Mandrakes.
Seeing even one in a lifetime was difficult. Six was nothing but the torment of false hope.
Just as Selena was about to give up completely, a comment appeared that she could not ignore.
└ [Wild Grylls]: : There are a fuckton here, though?
└ [Starlight Princess]: : Huh?
She had been so startled that she left a strange comment.
It was difficult to believe.
Even if it was the Forest of Four Seasons, was that not too much? That was her first thought.
Yet a little while later, after seeing the post and photos Grylls uploaded, her thoughts changed.
‘Maybe?’
Could Grylls’s help free her from this hellish disease?
Selena had made Elixirs before.
She had devoted her life to repairing her body.
As it happened, Grylls wanted Elixirs more than money.
If she could be fully cured, she could supply him with Elixirs anytime.
‘Did the Heavenly Demon receive help in the same way?’
Did she suspect that he was a scammer?
Not at all.
The Heavenly Demon, a living witness, openly treated him as her benefactor.
Of course, Selena did not know for sure whether Adult Mandrakes were effective against Nine Yin Absolute Veins.
Selena was grasping at straws. The phrase fit perfectly.
‘Can Mr. Grylls catch them all in time?’
This was not a matter of a day or two. She might die as soon as tomorrow.
If Grylls had found them a little earlier, she would have had more time.
‘Harvesting Mandrakes must take a long time… Will it be all right?’
As anxiety began to consume Selena, a trade request suddenly appeared.
[System] Wild Grylls has requested a trade. Would you like to accept?
It was Grylls.
Selena blinked as she stared at the trade request window.
For a brief moment, hope bloomed in her chest. Had he gathered them all already?
Then she shook her head.
‘He’s probably giving me the ones he caught earlier.’
That was the reasonable assumption.
She pushed down her expectations and accepted the request.
[Wild Grylls]: Hello, Starlight Princess.
[Wild Grylls]: I gathered seven Adult Mandrakes.
[Chat participant] Starlight Princess
[You]: Huh?
Selena was startled by what Grylls said as soon as she accepted.
All she did was blink with a blank face, but she was startled nonetheless.
‘No. He gathered them all already? How?’
She had assumed it would take at least a day. This was completely beyond her expectations.
[Chat participant] Starlight Princess
[You]: You already gathered them all? Is that even possible?
[Wild Grylls]: I punched them before they could scream, and they got quiet.
[Wild Grylls]: I stuffed dirt in their mouths too, so they should be safe.
[Chat participant] Starlight Princess
[You]: ;;;
Selena felt strangely unsettled.
She blinked a few times.
Was catching Mandrakes normally supposed to work like that?
Normally, using silence or sleep magic was best.
‘Is this what people on the Gallery call magic (physical)?’
Still, he said he had gathered them all, so she should accept them.
Selena swallowed and continued the conversation.
Unlike her stiff expression, her messages showed a variety of reactions.
[Chat participant] Starlight Princess
[You]: Are you really sure?
[You]: You’re giving me all these precious things…
[Wild Grylls]: You looked really sick.
[Chat participant] Starlight Princess
[You]: What if I’m lying?
[Wild Grylls]: Then we stop trading next time.
That was the thought process of a complete sucker. If she was lying, he would simply stop trading.
Selena let out a small breath, then returned to her blank expression.
Yet the corners of her lips had risen ever so slightly.
So that was why the Heavenly Demon had been courting(?) him so intensely.
Even if he did strange things sometimes, he was kind at heart.
[Chat participant] Starlight Princess
[You]: Thank you so much.
[You]: But this was so sudden that I don’t think I can give you Elixirs right away. Is that okay?
[Wild Grylls]: Send me a trade request later. That’ll do.
[Chat participant] Starlight Princess
[You]: Thank you.
[You]: Thank you so much.
It felt like the flame of hope, which had survived as only an ember, was slowly growing larger.
Selena’s heart filled with hope, then a question suddenly came to her.
Grylls was someone closest to death, just like her.
Someone who might die tomorrow, and it would not be surprising.
[Chat participant] Starlight Princess
[You]: Mr. Grylls. May I ask you one thing?
[Wild Grylls]: What is it?
[Chat participant] Starlight Princess
[You]: If you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do?
There was a saying.
Even if the world were ending tomorrow, I would plant an apple tree.
It was such an obvious answer that it had become tiresome by now.
Selena had thought Grylls might give a similar answer, but his response went beyond her expectations.
[Wild Grylls]: Why think about dying tomorrow?
[Chat participant] Starlight Princess
[You]: Then what should I think about?
[Wild Grylls]: Think about what you need to do to live today.
“…”
Think about what she needed to do to live today.
Those words pierced Selena’s heart.
Once, she had wanted to live too.
But this cursed body had shattered that feeling to pieces.
Since then, she had only waited for the day she would die.
‘But now…’
She stared blankly at her thighs.
Several bright red Adult Mandrakes lay there, having appeared when the trade was completed.
‘I want to live.’
Ding!
Without hesitation, Selena pressed the call bell.
The moment it rang, Mary, who had been waiting outside, hurried into the room.
“Do you need something, My Lady?”
“Mary. Take me to the laboratory.”
“The laboratory?”
“Yes.”
Selena made another request of the confused Mary.
“With these too.”
She pointed at the Adult Mandrakes.
Mary tilted her head as she looked at them.
“What are those ugly plants? Where did they come from?”
“Um…”
Selena thought about how to explain it, then quietly opened her mouth.
“There’s something going on.”
For now, that was the only answer she could give.
Footnotes:
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