WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 160: Possessed by a Play I Don't Know
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Man: The representative...
Woman: (Gesturing to the man, in a low voice) Shut up and go downstairs. (To the boy and girl) Fine, you go first.
The man exits.
Creak, creak. Wooden stairs groan.
Girl: We already did.
Boy: Sis, do you know the Nail Shell Story? The real Nail Shell Story.
Woman: If I did, I wouldn't be here, would I? I'd already be dead.
Girl: (To the boy) See? I told you I was right.
Boy: We're looking for the real Nail Shell Story. Aren't you curious? What kind of story could kill everyone who hears it?
Woman: That's obvious.
Girl: Do you know it, sis?
Woman: It's not my turn. You tell yours first.
Boy: Fine. We've been imagining what the real Nail Shell Story might be. I'll tell you what I imagined first. (Pause) A very beautiful woman moved in next door to a man...
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After going down the dusty stairs, I found an empty hallway.
A dim corridor. Wall sconces with only melted candle wax left in them. Dull curtains. Cold stone floors and filthy carpets.
Wasn't this supposed to be a story set in Korea?
The children were speaking Korean.
The mansion looked as though it had been built centuries ago.
There was no sign of anyone.
Was it because it was nighttime? Or because nobody was here?
Creeeak...
I opened the nearest door.
A room that was plain, if I put it nicely, and crude, if I did not.
At least, it did not seem to be a space used by the owners of this mansion.
Several beds had been crowded into one room, as though privacy did not exist.
The most unexpected thing was that people were lying in those beds.
It was so quiet, like a mouse had died, that I thought nobody was there.
I approached one bed and looked down at the face of a man sleeping soundly.
Was he having a nightmare?
“Wake up. I have something to ask you.”
The man did not move.
I placed a hand on his forehead, beaded with cold sweat.
He still kept his eyes closed, without any change.
His chest rose and fell with regular, soft breaths, like a pendulum.
I bent down and peered even more closely at his face.
“I know you're awake.”
Every bed in the room stirred.
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Boy: The man was curious about that beautiful woman who had moved in next door. But from that day on, he heard strange sounds every night.
Thud, thud.
Boy: The apartment had thin walls.
Girl: What's an apartment?
Boy: Just listen. (Pause) At first, the man thought she had only recently moved in and must have a lot to organize, so he let it go. When they met in the hallway during the day, he even asked her about it indirectly. (In a man's voice) “You must be busy unpacking, right?” Then the woman answered as she passed by. (In a woman's voice) “Yes. I have a lot of nails to hammer.” And that night, the sounds came again, as always. The next day, and the day after that...
Thud, thud.
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Thud.
The man suddenly sat upright in bed and began smashing his forehead against the wall.
Thud.
The other men continued lying there with their eyes closed, pretending to sleep.
Thud...
I quietly closed the door and left.
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Thud, thud.
Boy: One night, the man knocked on the next-door woman's door and demanded an explanation. But she did not open it, only speaking from the other side. (In a woman's voice) “I still have nails to hammer.” From the next day onward, the man could not run into her even during the daytime. She was clearly avoiding him. The man was going crazy. He had not slept in days. Finally, he could not stand it any longer and made up his mind.
The boy stands and takes a hammer from a box. I don't know when it got there.
Boy: As soon as night fell, the man took his hammer and headed next door. Then he broke the security grille...
Girl: (Interrupting) What's a security grille?
Boy: Just listen! (Pause) The man smashed the window.
Bang, bang! Crash!
Boy: The man climbed through the broken window into the apartment next door. The empty living room was completely quiet. The man realized he could no longer hear the thudding. Had the woman finally stopped because she was scared? But it was too late. He had to see this through. Then he heard a small sound coming from a room. Scrape, scrape. Snip, snip.
Girl: What kind of sound was that?
Boy: The man wondered that too. So he opened the bedroom door with his hammer, and then...
A piercing scream. Squelch.
Boy: The man was so horrified by the sight before him that he fell backward. (In a man's voice) “Y-you, what, what are you doing?!” Then the woman calmly answered. (In a woman's voice) “I'm peeling Nail Shells.” But they were not nails. They were men whose bodies had been crushed beyond recognition from the neck down. Men with the exact same face as his! The woman stared blankly at the man sitting on the floor, then muttered to herself. “I have even more nails to hammer now.”
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I entered another room.
This time, it was a room where female servants were lying down.
“Is nobody awake?”
No answer came.
“You're all sleeping quite soundly.”
I slowly circled the room once.
Every bed I passed flinched.
“Even with all that thudding.”
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Boy: That's the real Nail Shell Story I imagined. What do you think?
Woman: It is plausible.
Boy: Right?
Woman: (To the girl) What's your story?
Girl: Mine is a love story. One with a happy ending.
Boy: We said we were telling scary stories.
Girl: A love story with a happy ending can be scary too.
Woman: (Smiling) Yes. It can be scary.
Girl: Right? (Pause) A blind woman was walking through a forest. A woman who had just come of age. She had not been blind from birth. When she was young, robbers broke into her home and hurt her. She lost her family then too. Thinking of her parents telling her, “Grow up strong and healthy,” the woman struggled desperately to live. But once she finally came of age, all her strength suddenly left her. Nothing had changed, and her future was still dark. So she entered the forest. Deeper and deeper. Somewhere nobody could find her.
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I entered another room.
All the rooms used as private bedrooms by the servants were empty.
I went down another floor.
The family's rooms were all empty too.
I went down another floor.
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Girl: Then she heard a sound from somewhere.
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A sound came from the kitchen.
―――――――――――――――
A growl.
Girl: The woman had entered the forest prepared to die, but she could not help trembling in fear. Without realizing it, she was running away. Since she could not see, she kept stumbling. No matter how hard she ran, she could tell that the beast was getting closer.
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A muttering voice could be heard.
A man's voice, hissing quietly.
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Girl: In the moment when the woman, who had badly injured her ankle after a hard fall, thought she was truly going to die... Bang!
A gunshot.
Girl: A hunter appeared.
―――――――――――――――
There was a butler in the kitchen.
They were wearing strange clothes.
A thick top with neither buttons nor a collar, neither a shirt nor a jacket, looking like some grotesque piece of underwear.
Rough, dark blue trousers that a miner might wear.
Unusual shoes, a remarkably pure white color, though I could not tell what they were made from.
The strangely dressed butler was eating an apple.
The fruit that brings knowledge of good and evil.
Something that changes from bright red to brown.
Something red and moist that slowly dries up and turns brown.
The butler ate it and spoke.
“Apples aren't red, and red is the forbidden color. What the serpent ate in the beginning is, a human is full. Gourmet! The kitchen must be washed. A mouse tail and a fork. Oh, that is a little god's trident. Who will stab the sea?”
They chewed it. Every last bit.
Clear juice ran down their chin as black seeds crunched between their teeth.
“Let's sew Hosoo to a sharp needle with thread! If Duke Zhou wakes, King Zhou's ligugae is this a dispute? The eyeball is jumping, will the hand reach it? Ten hands and saws. Cut the claws! Everything Mother gave me vanishes, without the nothing that says there is no nothing.”
They kept muttering without pause as they greedily chewed and swallowed.
The butler looked at me.
“Ah, there you are. When you were young, I had a daughter your size, and then the war that would never come comes? My son lost and was buried! Ah, here you are. Forgive the rudeness, us. Where do we sleep to get out? Lawson-Fitzherbert's Six Coffin-Bearing Methods.”
Whether they bit their tongue or not. Crushing the tiny piece of red flesh that had fallen off. Pouring all kinds of red things down their throat.
I quietly left the kitchen.
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Girl: The hunter who had shot the beast approached the woman. (In a man's voice) “You nearly became wolf food. How did you end up all the way here?” The woman was too flustered to answer properly, but the hunter eventually realized that she was blind and said this. “No explanation is needed. The reasons people and animals drift into this place are not so different. Outside this forest, among those people out there, we are all beings who cannot live.” Before tending to the wolf he had killed, the hunter observed a moment of silence and added, “But you are young and beautiful. There must still be a place for you out there. I will guide you outside.” At that, the woman came to her senses and cried out. (In a woman's voice) “A place for me? A blind orphaned girl like me has no such thing! I can't see any place for myself! I'm going to die here!” Then... (Clapping) Smack!
Girl: The hunter slapped the woman's cheek and shouted. (In a man's voice) “Then why did you run? This wolf was chasing you to survive.” The woman was speechless. “I killed a being that wished to live, and saved one that wished to die. What right do you have to meddle so with the natural order of life and death? Do you truly have the right to die?”
Woman: I do have the right.
Girl: This isn't your story, sis.
Woman: Ah, it sounded like my voice.
Girl: (Ignoring her) Scolded by the hunter, the woman burst into tears. In the end, the hunter sighed and carried the woman with the injured ankle on his back. The woman said she would not leave the forest, striking the hunter's back wildly, but the place he took her was his own house. The hunter treated her ankle, laid her in bed, and said as he left the room, “Stay until your ankle heals, then leave.”
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A faint light showed from inside the first-floor drawing room, along with a quiet sound.
Crackle, crackle. Firewood burned.
When I entered the drawing room, I saw a woman standing before the fireplace.
A middle-aged woman in a black dress like mourning clothes, her hair pinned up severely.
The Housekeeper responsible for running this mansion.
“What are you doing?”
“Burning a diary.”
The woman bowed politely, an old leather notebook in her hand.
Riiip, riiip...
She tore out the pages one by one and tossed them into the fire.
In her hazel eyes as she watched the pages burn, there were emotions too deep to measure.
“Whose diary?”
“He was an excellent gardener.”
“I'd like to read it too.”
“There is only one page left now.”
The woman handed me the thinned notebook.
I began reading the final diary entry, which had become the gardener's last words.
Swish.
The moment I read the first line, the Housekeeper had already vanished from the drawing room.
Everyone in this mansion was strange.
I only wanted to find a clue that would let me get out of here.
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