WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 456: That Woman J III
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Double standards.
That fateful streak in human nature, captured in the saying [When I do it it's romance, when others do it it's an affair], summoned challengers who longed to overcome it precisely because it was fate.
'Right. Isn't this just a matter of keeping it simple?'
The challenger of fate. His name was the Undertaker.
'When I go off on vacation, I tune out world annihilation and everything else and just enjoy myself. Seo Gyu dies too. Honestly, Seo Gyu is a victim who's died dozens of times thanks to my deliberate indifference.'
The Undertaker adopted the serene mindset of a high monk who had attained enlightenment.
'Let me take on Seo Gyu's mindset.'
The so-called Seo Gyu Theory.
Just think about it. When Seo Gyu's neck turned into a watermelon on a midsummer beach in some Japanese anime[1], did he really resent the Undertaker?
He did not.
Seo Gyu died knowing nothing. That very ignorance was salvation for the Undertaker on vacation.
'I too shall become an ignorant man like Seo Gyu before the Saintess!'
Starting the very next day after the counseling session ended.
As if she'd shaken off all the worry and torment she'd carried until then, the Saintess cast [Time Stop] more and more diligently, which is to say even more shamelessly.
"Hng, hup."
With far lighter, far more playful movements than before, the Saintess lifted up Sim Ah-ryeon.
For the record, Sim Ah-ryeon had been caught in [Time Stop] while positioned on the Undertaker's lap.
The Undertaker's lap and back had always been semi-public property. Whether the text bothered to describe it or not, one of them, Lee Ha-yul or Sim Ah-ryeon, was forever occupying them.
"Phew. All moved... Sim Ah-ryeon, you weigh a little more than you look."
If Ah-ryeon had heard that, she'd have topped up the red paint for her next painting with the Saintess's blood.
The Undertaker thought it to himself. Strictly to himself.
Viewed objectively, the Undertaker's body was as serene as the principal Buddha statue at Seokguram, a posture worthy of the UNESCO World Heritage list all on its own.
"Hup."
Plop.
The Saintess sat down with the soft give of a castella sponge cake lightly pressed by hand. And the moment she settled on the Undertaker's lap, she was rather surprised.
"...It's, hmm. Wider than I thought. Well, every time I happened to see it, I did think it was big."
"..."
The heart of Seo Gyu!
"And it's incredibly firm. So this is what the legs of people who work out hard are like. It almost feels like a separate living creature, how curious."
"..."
Only the heart of Seo Gyu!
'No. Wait a moment. Doesn't this risk sounding like Seo Gyu and the Saintess are an item?'
It was a problem that might have stirred up endless controversy, yet the Undertaker, true to a seasoned regressor, arrived at a solution at once.
'Right, I wasn't learning the heart of just any Seo Gyu, but the heart of a Seo Gyu whose neck had flown clean off. So it doesn't matter.'
Only the heart of a Seo Gyu whose neck had flown clean off!
That's right. Anyone would have noticed by this point, but the truth was that the Undertaker's level didn't come anywhere close to that of an enlightened high monk.
He was desperately reciting nonsense in his head to steer his mind elsewhere.
No matter how much of an aura genius he was, how could it ever be easy to multitask the feats of 'holding the breath,' 'stopping all movement,' 'halting the heart's pounding,' 'ignoring the sensation coming up from the knee,' and 'erasing all change in emotion'?
"Ah. That's right. I wanted to try this too."
By now it might have been time to stop, but having heard the verdict of 'you're fine' and 'let's keep going just like this' in her one-on-one session with the Undertaker, the Saintess was invincible.
She scurried off somewhere. And thirty minutes later, she scurried back. In her hand was a hairbrush.
Hairbrushes themselves were plentiful here too. Even Sim Ah-ryeon, who had just tasted the Saintess using her authority to teleport her, had one right there.
And yet the Saintess had gone out of her way to ride the Inunaki Tunnel[2] and rush all the way home and back. It was very much like the Saintess, who strictly distinguished between her own things and other people's things even when no one could possibly call her out on it.
So why was she doing this to the Undertaker? As stated, his body was generally public property.
If this world's genre had been yuri and the protagonist's gender had been different, she'd have earned a yuri-genius certification mark in a heartbeat (the bad-ending count would have multiplied too).
Anyway.
"Here, umm... Yes. Like this."
The Saintess carefully assembled the joints of the Undertaker's fingers.
The result of the assembly: the hairbrush ended up equipped onto his hand, not hers. The Undertaker thought to himself absently. Probably this was how a game character felt when a player forcibly made it wear a piece of gear.
"Hmm."
Creak, creak. As she worked the Undertaker a little more, even the angle of his arm finally came out just right.
The Saintess put on a deeply satisfied blank face and entered the head-pat-and-brush procedure.
"..."
"Mm. Mm-mm, mmm."
A quick aside here.
As mentioned earlier, the Saintess was perched on the Undertaker's lap.
No matter how painstakingly she'd adjusted the joints of the Undertaker's arm, the Saintess was no Puppeteer.
By the plain facts of the matter, she had no real authority to force the Undertaker into a gentle head-patting motion inside a world frozen by [Time Stop].
And yet, if the Saintess demanded most-favored-nation treatment from the Undertaker, demanding the same patting he gave Sim Ah-ryeon, then an inevitable posture followed.
Hop. Hop, hop.
That's right. The Undertaker's arm and hand, and above all the hairbrush, were fixed in midair.
Only the Saintess raised and lowered her head over and over, jumping and landing on the Undertaker's knee, working the miracle of seizing a head-pat for herself by her own effort.
Had there ever been, in all of history, a great figure who accomplished the head-pat cliché by such a pitiful method? Let alone one who used the overwhelming power of [Time Stop] for nothing more than this?
There had not, he could declare for certain.
'Saintess...'
Facing this momentous historical instant before his very eyes, the Undertaker felt his mind nearly drift away.
'No, no. Saintess? What am I on about? Wasn't I just Seo Gyu, whose head got blown up by the tutorial fairy? The heart of Seo Gyu. I am nothing but a headless corpse.'
The Undertaker grabbed his runaway mind by the scruff and dragged it back into his skull.
He thought about the Saintess's suffering. About a life where her mind wore down and her trust in humanity ground away as she watched over the Korean Peninsula every hour of all 365 days a year.
If her inner demon could be soothed by this kind of 'play,' wasn't that something to be glad about, if anything?
'Use me as you please, like a ride at an amusement park, Saintess. I am nothing but a lump of stone that happened to be set down here. If a ride called me can help your spiritual cultivation even a little, that alone would be my joy.'
"Uh, umm..."
Before long the Saintess's poor stamina seemed to run flat, and she panted. She even broke into a sweat.
"Something. Something, hmm. I get the feeling that this... isn't quite it..."
'Well, naturally.'
"This is an awfully tiring motion. Why do Sim Ah-ryeon and Mr. Undertaker repeat it every day, and why did they react as though it felt good...?"
'Because it's an entirely different motion.'
"It isn't anything special. Perhaps just realizing that fact today means I've earned valuable Experience Points."
'You really had a blast, didn't you, Saintess?'
In any case, under the Undertaker's silence, the Saintess was able to relieve her stress.
And though it was a truth the Undertaker rather hated to admit... he too was secretly enjoying the strange and wondrous situation at hand.
If you can't avoid it, enjoy it. Wasn't that the old motto of the man called the Undertaker?
"Hello, Mr. Undertaker. Good morning."
"Yes. Good morning, Saintess. Enjoying your dawn walk again today?"
"Yes. Leaving the house, crossing the tunnel, drinking coffee, that whole stretch is my routine these days."
For example, just like now.
Until barely an hour ago, the two of them had pried open a new epoch in the field of head-patting.
But once [Time Stop] was lifted, as if no such history had ever happened, the Saintess visited the café Azit with a perfectly composed face.
"I'll make your coffee right away. Please wait just a moment."
"Yes. Take your time."
The regressor couldn't help admiring the Saintess's composure as she managed her expression without so much as twitching an eyebrow.
'...Now that I look, the Saintess's acting is as splendid as my own.'
Or was it? Was it not acting but the real thing?
The Undertaker nearly mistook the memory of an hour ago for an illusion some anomaly had maliciously implanted.
"Here you are."
"Ah, yes. I'll gladly drin...?"
She froze.
Seeing the coffee the Undertaker had made for her, the Saintess's eyes wavered slightly.
It was only natural. Her favorite menu item was always fixed. A packet of Maxim coffee[3]. Half a spoon of cinnamon powder.
Thanks to that, the Saintess could enjoy the romance of saying 'barista, the usual' without reciting a separate order.
But the coffee now placed before her was none other than a café mocha. Whipped cream. Loads of thick, gooey chocolate syrup.
It was Sim Ah-ryeon's favorite menu item.
"..."
And a moment ago, the Saintess had a track record of casting [Time Stop] and borrowing the ride Sim Ah-ryeon always favored.
Thump-thump.
The Saintess's heart began to race.
"Um, Mr. Undertaker. This is...?"
"Ah. My apologies. It seems some mouse crept in from somewhere and gnawed open some packets of Maxim coffee."
The Undertaker laughed softly, the answer he'd prepared in advance rolling off smoothly.
"There were some intact ones, but I could hardly serve a flawed ingredient like that to you, now could I, Saintess. I'll bring in a fresh batch tomorrow, so how about enjoying a different menu item just for today?"
"Ah..."
"As it happens, the chocolate syrup came out really well this time. How shall I put it, as if old man Sword Marquess had put a little more care into stomping it than usual? It's not too sweet and the flavor runs deep."
"I... see."
Thump-thump.
The Saintess also had quite a knack for aura control. The instant she realized her heart had strayed outside its normal range, she spread a soundproof barrier around her chest.
Thump-thump.
The same went for the Undertaker. No matter how great an actor he was, heir to Joshua von Arnim, when had he ever tried this kind of prank on a Saintess who was earnest about everything?
Time stopped.
The instant he sensed the black-and-white tone unfold, the Undertaker froze his facial muscles right in that laughter-tinged smile.
She shot up.
The Saintess stood and ran off. Probably she'd gone to check the food storage the Undertaker kept for barista use only.
But it was useless.
'I've already taken countermeasures, Saintess.'
The Undertaker had secretly drawn his aura out long and thin like a snake and damaged the coffee packets so they really looked gnawed by a mouse's front teeth.
He hadn't even left them damaged in the storage. He'd thrown them in the storage trash can.
He'd stayed faithful to the setting of 'given the Undertaker's personality, when ingredients meant for serving guests get ruined, he never leaves them be.'
The devil was in the details. And the Undertaker was a splendid devil.
"..."
Sure enough. Having run to the storage and witnessed all the evidence, the Saintess came trudging back with an expressionless, endlessly expressionless face.
"It's a... coincidence, isn't it?"
She mumbled as she sat back down at the table.
"Yes, it's a coincidence. That's right. It's a coincidence. There's no way Mr. Undertaker remembered what happened this morning and deliberately made me Sim Ah-ryeon's café mocha... no way."
"There's absolutely no way," she mumbled.
"There mustn't be."
"..."
"...Time Stop, release."
Color returned to the world once more. The Undertaker, too. The Saintess, too. Both held the exact same attitude as before time stopped.
The Saintess fought down the tremble that threatened to take her hand and took a sip of the café mocha as though nothing were the matter.
"How is it?"
The Undertaker, too, asked as though nothing were the matter.
"Not bad to enjoy a different menu item like this once in a while, right?"
"...Yes. Just as you said, the chocolate syrup isn't too sweet, so it's delicious."
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
"I think I finally understand why Sim Ah-ryeon likes it."
"The flavor changes again depending on whether you eat the whipped cream separately or mix it in as you drink. Being able to adjust the intensity however you like is the charm of café mocha type coffees."
"Ah... It really does."
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
The Saintess looked at the Undertaker. The Undertaker smiled with pure innocence.
The Undertaker looked at the Saintess. The Saintess smiled faintly.
'Mr. Undertaker. You couldn't possibly?'
'I know nothing at all.'
There were depths even within a gaze. And so beneath those depths there could only be a fierce submerged battle being waged.
'It isn't true, is it?'
'Isn't it, though?'
'If it really is that, then why?'
'And what if I'm only having my fun too?'
'I can't be found out. At the very least, if it's my fate to be exposed, then it shouldn't be me but...'
'You're the one who should raise the white flag first.'
Clink.
The Saintess set down her cup.
At the same moment, time stopped.
"..."
This time the Saintess didn't run off somewhere else. Instead she came closer.
As it happened, the Undertaker was also drinking a café au lait. The Saintess lifted the coffee cup with a grave face.
Gently.
So that it wouldn't show, she took a tiny lick. Really just a tiny bit, she stole a sip of the Undertaker's café au lait.
"...!!"
At that profound martial art, the Undertaker shuddered.
'I see. So if I drink the coffee now as though nothing had happened, it'll be cemented!'
An indirect kiss.
The cliché that would be a letdown if it didn't follow right after the head-pat.
There was a reason a cliché was a cliché. The Undertaker was learning the sternness of that law firsthand.
Gulp. The Undertaker swallowed the spittle of his heart, not down his throat but down the hole in his heart.
'If by any chance I show even the slightest hint of awkwardness here...'
Time resumed. Play.
Without a single trace of awkwardness, without a shred of hesitation, the Undertaker lifted the coffee cup and drank the café au lait.
He didn't even rotate the cup. His lips came in to land on the very spot where the Saintess had deliberately, carefully pressed hers.
"...!!"
Time Stop again. In a frantic rush.
The Saintess quickly snatched the coffee cup from the Undertaker's hand and wiped the rim back and forth with her sleeve.
Whoo, hwah, whoo.
Tense diaphragmatic breaths rippled from the Saintess.
"..."
Once again, she looked at him.
"..."
And of course, he was looking at her too.
'Why? Mr. Undertaker. Why do such a thing?'
'Who are you talking to? Right now?'
'...What the truth is doesn't matter. It might be so, it might not, but I can't be the one to back down first.'
'Same here.'
A battle waged by two acting geniuses.
A miraculous matchup with no victor, only a lesser loser and a greater loser, was established here.
Footnotes:
[1] A nod to suika-wari, the Japanese summertime beach game of smashing a watermelon while blindfolded, a stock scene in anime beach episodes; here Seo Gyu's head being split open is likened to the bursting watermelon.
[2] The Inunaki Tunnel (Fukuoka, Japan) is one of Japan's most notorious 'cursed' / haunted locations in urban legend; the name is used here as a creepy nickname for the teleportation passage.
[3] Maxim is the dominant Korean brand of instant 'mix' coffee, sold in single-serve stick packets and treated as the default everyday coffee in Korea.
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