WE TRIED TRANSLATIONS
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 164: Fairy Tale [1]
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“Candy house?” the Gardener asked. “Do you mean a candy store? There couldn't be one in the forest...”
The Cook's gaze turned cold.
“Should I kill you?”
“Pardon?”
“I don't like seeing you like this.”
The Gardener thought the Cook looked sad rather than angry.
“Um...” The Gardener hesitated. “I'm sorry... What exactly is it that you don't like?”
“That I'm the only one who remembers.”
“I don't like it either.”
The words slipped out unconsciously.
“It's unfair...”
“That's life. Unfair. Too unfair.”
The Gardener stared blankly at the Cook.
Was it déjà vu? A strange feeling came over him, as though he had been in this situation before.
“Have you ever said something like that to me before?”
The Cook rolled her eyes, then shook her head.
“I don't remember. Oh, wasn't that my sibling?”
“You have a sibling?”
The Gardener's gaze suddenly fell on the Cook's pinky.
The silver ring set with a red jewel was beautiful. His eyes must have drifted there without thinking.
The Cook laughed irritably.
“That's my blessing.”
A blessing and a curse were merely different perspectives on the same miracle.
“Then, that ring...”
As the Gardener trailed off, the Cook's gaze darkened.
“You've really become a child.”
“Pardon?”
“You wouldn't have asked, if we were out there.”
Out there? The Gardener had no idea what she meant and merely opened and closed his mouth.
“It's like a trophy. I wear it to cover the scars.” The Cook sighed and spoke as though it were nothing important. Then, after a beat, she added, “It means a promise, too.”
A promise. The Gardener turned the word over in his mind. Something that absolutely had to be kept.
“Rules.”
The voice that slipped from between his lips sounded unfamiliar.
“You have to follow the rules.”
“Looks like you remember that?”
The Cook curled her lips and threw open the annex door.
Early morning sunlight slanted in over the Cook's shoulder.
Along with the darkness of Grimmwood, the cursed witch's forest.
“Stay home, then. If you don't want to come with me.”
The darkness of the blue-black forest loomed close enough to swallow the Gardener.
Clutching the scrap of paper tightly in one hand, the Gardener squeezed his eyes shut.
“Do we have to go into the forest? Why...? Can't you just not go? Don't go. If you go now, you won't come back... I know that too...”
“You don't know anything.”
For some reason, there was a faint pity in the woman's voice. Like an adult cherishing something very small and young.
“Open your eyes now.” The warmth of slender fingertips touched his pale cheek. “Lee Si-woon.”
Lee Si-woon. He flinched as though burned and opened his eyes wide.
“Why, why are you calling me that? That's not my name...”
“I said open your eyes if you know.”
“Ah, ah! Why are you pinching me? My eyes are open!”
“Not those eyes, idiot.”
The woman shook his pinched cheek a couple of times before letting go.
“You have to grow up.”
Her gaze turned cold again.
“Remember your name.”
I couldn't remember. I couldn't remember. I couldn't remember. There were holes in my memory. I couldn't remem ber. I couldn't remem ber. I couldn't remem. I couldn't. I can't. I. I can't. Can't. I can't. I can. I can't. Can. I.
“You're old enough to be done with fairy tales, right?”
Yu Mi-rae grinned mischievously as she looked into my eyes, and I silently nodded.
I had made a complete spectacle of myself.
“Earlier, when you said candy house, did you mean Hansel and Gretel?”
I changed the subject. It was also something we genuinely needed to discuss.
“I'm not sure. But the keywords fit.”
Siblings and a witch. Finally, the forest, Grimmwood.
“It must have been the motif.”
Hansel and Gretel, one of the folktales collected and compiled by the Brothers Grimm.
“...The person who left the note in my hand was you, CEO, right? Did you put it there when you came out of the attic after getting your role?”
Yu Mi-rae nodded twice, picked up a shovel from the garden, and headed toward the forest.
“Did you have no memory of this place, CEO? The manor, that forest, the witch?”
I took the pitchfork and followed her, continuing to ask questions.
Since Yu Mi-rae was limited in the number of characters she could use per sentence, it was better for me to ask specific questions and let her give brief answers than for her to raise the subject herself.
“Yeah. I don't know anything.”
That was surprising.
I had been almost completely assimilated into my role as the Gardener.
Even while still wearing this suit.
Maybe my memories would have returned just by taking out and reading the diary in my pocket.
But not only had I not thought to read it, I hadn't even remembered the diary existed.
Despite having talked with the Housekeeper about the diary.
'You let yourself be influenced too easily.'
That must have been what Yu Mi-rae meant.
“...”
Thinking back, I did seem particularly vulnerable to Labyrinth anomalies that affected the mind.
'You don't want to leave.'
A small piece of flesh came away from the inside of my cheek, which I had bitten without realizing it.
It left a fishy aftertaste.
“...Then how did you know to prepare breakfast this morning?”
“Isn't it obvious? I'm the Cook. It must be a rule.”
It was a foolish question.
This was Yu Mi-rae, after all.
Even when she acted recklessly, there was meticulous calculation beneath it.
It was just that strange formulas were mixed into her calculations...
“But how did you know we had to enter the forest, and start writing that note then? Was there some clue in what you discussed with those children last night, while I wasn't there?”
“The Nail Shell Story.”
Yu Mi-rae stopped walking.
At the entrance to the cursed forest.
“The forest was the setting. The girl's story. The house in the woods.”
“What about the boy's story?”
“That was an apartment.”
“An apartment...? Isn't this supposed to be a modern setting? I thought it had the feel of a Gothic novel.”
“You should listen to their stories, too.”
“...Yes.”
Yu Mi-rae did not enter the forest. Still standing there, she merely rolled her eyes.
She seemed to be thinking of a way to tell the story within her character limit.
“What was the interesting thing?”
“Pardon?”
I stupidly asked her to repeat herself at the abrupt change of subject, with no hint of what train of thought had led to it.
The person with hyperthymesia frowned irritably again.
“You said so yesterday! That there was something.”
Only then did I remember returning last night after exploring the manor alone, having come down from the attic.
'Did you find anything interesting?'
'Well, there was something. Those kids...'
I had been about to explain the scene I saw in the clearing, but before I could, the lights suddenly came on and the two children began to move.
“Ah, I meant to tell you about that.”
I pointed in the opposite direction as I continued.
“In the clearing over there, there was a place that was something like a graveyard. Anyway, there were lots of children buried there. Children who looked exactly like the attic kids. I didn't uncover their faces, but I'm sure they were the same children. It was as if they had been killed and buried nearly every day...”
The further my explanation went, the brighter Yu Mi-rae's expression became.
“That sounds like the boy's story!”
“You mean the boy told a story about killing identical people? While the girl's story was set in a house in the woods?”
“It was a love story. I liked it.”
Whatever kind of story it was, it was surely far from ordinary taste.
“...Either way, we really do have to enter the forest.”
“I told you that!”
Yu Mi-rae hated having to say the same thing several times.
Was it because, paradoxically, remembering everything made everything confusing?
“Yes. Let's go in now.”
Yu Mi-rae carried a shovel and I a pitchfork as we stepped into the forest.
When I looked back at the manor one last time, I thought I saw a dark shadow in one of the windows.
I didn't particularly like places with lots of trees, but the human beside me made me feel strangely safe.
Whatever lay ahead, few things could startle me as much as Yu Mi-rae.
...If anything did, I'd welcome it.
Besides, if something truly irreversible happened to me, Yu Mi-rae would not hesitate to restore me to how I was...
“Let's aim to return before dinner.”
Swish, snap.
I took the lead, clearing away the small branches blocking our view.
It was not obvious, but there were signs that someone had passed through recently.
A narrow path that was flatter and had less wild grass than the surrounding area.
It seemed Yu Mi-rae had a reason for choosing this way into the forest from the start.
“We need to go back to that attic anyway. This forest is a clue, but I think those children hold the real answer to getting out of here.”
The Housekeeper had said there was usually work to do after sunset, and there were identical bodies buried in that clearing.
I thought of the two children wearing yellowish sacks over their heads.
'It started out well.'
'Yeah. Why did it end there when it was going so well?'
Last night, those children had made me a servant of this manor because they said my story had not ended properly.
'How about a story about children who don't stay dead even when they die?'
'Go on.'
They had responded well when I first started telling it.
“Those children...”
So what the boy and girl wanted was not simply a scary story.
“I think they want someone to understand their story.”
“They don't need anyone to understand.”
At the firm response, I glanced back. Yu Mi-rae looked around the forest with an expression of boredom.
“You just have to finish it properly.”
“...You mean we only need to give it a proper ending?”
“It needs a beginning, development, turn, and conclusion. That's what a story is. You couldn't do that.”
I slowed for a moment to match Yu Mi-rae's pace.
“Isn't that still wanting someone to understand their story?”
Yu Mi-rae turned to me with eyes like a dry well.
“Do you want someone to understand you?”
I could not answer.
I thought I had wanted that once.
But not anymore...
“You don't need anyone to understand, right?”
Yu Mi-rae smiled like a child, as though to say, See?
“They couldn't anyway.”
They could not possibly. Ordinary people.
All my life, I had suffered because I could not truly be “good,” felt lonely because it was difficult to share in the feelings of others, and felt ashamed because I was not “normal” like everyone else.
They were “ordinary” people because they could not know, understand, or empathize with that suffering of mine.
And they cast people they could not understand beyond the boundaries of humanity...
“It's the same thing. Intent doesn't matter. Actions do. You don't need sincerity. You don't need understanding, either. You only need one thing.”
“...A solution.”
At my murmured words, Yu Mi-rae nodded.
“Liberation, too. That's what a Labyrinth is.”
In other words, Yu Mi-rae meant that there was no need for a romantic, patronizing act like “understanding” the boy and girl's story.
We simply had to figure out their story, with a beginning, development, turn, and conclusion.
“...”
For a while after that, only the soft crunch of footsteps filled the space between Yu Mi-rae and me.
I did not want to deliberately break the comfortable silence.
After some time had passed...
“So it isn't a candy house.”
Yu Mi-rae suddenly muttered in a disappointed voice.
“Pardon?”
In response to my question, Yu Mi-rae pointed diagonally to the right.
Far in the distance stood a shabby wooden cabin.
Footnotes:
In Korean, the word for “fairy tale” can also mean “assimilation,” reflecting the Gardener's immersion in the role.
[1] The Korean title means both fairy tale and assimilation.
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