WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 457: That Woman J IV
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* * *
The Saintess, Jeong Ye-ji, was suspicious.
Of whom? Of the Undertaker. Of what? Of the doubt over whether she really was the only person who could move inside Time Stop.
Doubt. Doubt. Doubt that never let up.
'Isn't it possible that he already knows?'
Lately the Saintess could not escape this whirlpool of suspicion, no matter how she tried.
Even on ordinary days her head was crammed so full of this one thought that she could barely keep her hands on her work.
'...Mr. Undertaker is a regressor. He pulls off feats that surpass everyone's expectations without batting an eye.'
'In theory, there'd be nothing strange about him having a resistance to Time Stop.'
'So what if he really, truly knows everything, and is only pretending not to...?'
Take two weeks ago, for instance.
The coffee cup the Saintess had secretly pressed her lips to. What if the Undertaker had gone ahead and drunk from it knowing that? What if he hadn't refused? Then that would.
'What would that even mean...?'
"Saintess."
Jeong Ye-ji jolted.
"Oh."
She lifted her head, which she hadn't realized had dropped, only to find that most of the colleagues seated around the table were staring at her as if something was off.
The one who had just called her was Yu Ji-won. That face, so beautiful that admiration welled up in Jeong Ye-ji's heart whenever she looked at it, was watching her without expression.
"Mm. Yes, Ji-won. I'm sorry. I was lost in thought for a moment."
"Not at all. This officer is well aware that you labor day and night for the security of the Korean Peninsula."
"..."
It was a thought that crossed her mind every time they spoke like this, but neither the speech nor the word choice was anything you'd expect from a face like that. "This officer"? It was far too strange.
"In any case, if something troubles you, please confide in this officer, no. In us as well. We may have formed around His Excellency the Undertaker, but are we not one team?"
By "us," she meant Seo Gyu, Jeong Ye-ji, Cheon Yo-hwa, Yu Ji-won, Lee Ha-yul, Sim Ah-ryeon, and Noh Do-hwa.
As they were doing now, the Regression Alliance would gather all its members and share a meal at least once every six months.
By long custom, the distance between hearts is proportional to the distance between bodies.
Whether the Undertaker was present or not, regular gatherings were essential for the colleagues to maintain trust.
No. Quite the opposite. At gatherings like this, the Undertaker absolutely had to be absent.
"Aaare weee noot ooone teeeam-."
Plop.
Cheon Yo-hwa had flopped face-down onto the table and poked her head out, jeering in a heavily sarcastic tone.
A plastic straw balanced on the bridge of her nose, holding its precarious position like a tightrope clown at the circus. Quite the sense of coordination.
Yu Ji-won tilted her head.
"Student council president. Do you have something to say?"
"Yeah! A whole lot! One team my foot. It's just us schmoozing to the teacher like, 'We don't have any problems at all- running normally-.' All for show!"
"It is precisely the show that matters."
Yu Ji-won answered calmly.
"No one is forcing true friendship upon us. Cooperation. Trust. The deployment of predictable combat strength. If we can build these virtues, is that not enough?"
"Aaah, yes, yes. Fine words, fine words. But before that, can't we do something about the painter leeching onto the teacher over there like a parasite?"
"H, hiik."
Sim Ah-ryeon, seated in the corner, flinched.
For the record, at a table where everyone sat crammed shoulder to shoulder, somehow only the one meter to Sim Ah-ryeon's left and right sat completely empty.
"A, a parasite...? Calling a human. Like that, like a bug..."
"Hey. Fuck, that was you who drew that disgusting pic of the teacher getting strangled to death at 3:23 this morning and dropped it as a surprise upload, wasn't it? Huh?"
"I think a, anonymity has to be guaranteed in community activity..."
"Why does the teacher just leave a freak like that alone?!"
Cheon Yo-hwa slammed the table with a thud. And everyone thought the same thing at once. She's got a point, though.
"Schmoozing or whatever, you know? You need at least a halfway normal human being to build trust or anything! That green-head is just an anomaly, I'm telling you?! An anomaly!"
"Th, that's too... harsh."
Everyone at this gathering, save for a single person, conceded that Cheon Yo-hwa's claim was a proposition that truly could not be denied.
'I'm not sure why, but even I feel oddly restless whenever I look at Sim Ah-ryeon.'
It really was a strange thing.
Jeong Ye-ji didn't particularly judge Sim Ah-ryeon to be a wretched human.
She had a habit of looking inward before criticizing others, and each time she did, she would pick out her own flaws.
For all that it was for the sake of the entire Korean Peninsula's security, wasn't it a fact that she too spied on every move of countless people?
'Compared to that, the chaos Sim Ah-ryeon stirs up on SG Net is child's play, really... So why does it make me this angry?'
That wasn't all.
A glance. Jeong Ye-ji secretly looked at the one person who hadn't said a single word since the gathering began.
'Noh Do-hwa too.'
Her heart churned.
'Someone I respect. As upright as Mr. Undertaker, perhaps even more upright than Mr. Undertaker, someone I truly respect on a human level...'
For some reason. Something just didn't fit.
'...It's my own lack of virtue.'
Jeong Ye-ji thought.
'I can't protect everyone on my own. Everyone has to carry out their own role from their own position, and they are doing exactly that. And yet here I am, dissatisfied. ...Just what is it that I lack, that makes my heart turn so spiteful?'
"Oh, by the way."
Cheon Yo-hwa slurped at her lemonade and asked listlessly.
"What's the teacher up to today?"
"His Excellency is dining with the Samcheon World Guild Leader."
Zzt.
Just as Jeong Ye-ji had struggled to settle the turmoil in her heart, her chest ached all over again.
"Dining? ...Ah, the. What was it again? That, what, gourmet tour or whatever, that thing that isn't even funny?"
"Yes. Once every half month, His Excellency deliberately makes time to enjoy a hobby with the Samcheon World Guild Leader. Of course, by personally touring the markets together, the two of them attend to the people's livelihood while also reaffirming the citizens' support."
"Touring my foot. It's obvious she's just scheming to score points while she's out on a date with the teacher."
"President Cheon Yo-hwa has a bad habit of analyzing people too simplistically. Human emotion is layered, in its makeup."
"Wow, that's really something I don't want to hear from an actual psychopath..."
Cheon Yo-hwa laughed as if dumbfounded.
"Then want to make a bet? On whether that witch over there is secretly treating us like idiots while she's on her restaurant date with the teacher?"
"I respect the character of the Samcheon World Guild Leader. Though, regarding the analysis that she treats President Cheon Yo-hwa like an idiot, on that point alone I can agree."
"You really want to die?"
"..."
Zzt. Tingle, zzt.
Jeong Ye-ji bowed her head.
Why was it.
All the way until the gathering wrapped up, her heart could not find peace for a single moment.
The one consolation to her conscience was simply that she hadn't used Time Stop even once while all the back-and-forth went on.
* * *
The moment the gathering wrapped up, Jeong Ye-ji slipped out in a hurry.
She did so even when Cheon Yo-hwa linked arms with her and said, "Saintess unni, want to go for a second round and drink with us?"
"I'm sorry. There are some terrorists I have to keep a careful eye on today."
"Ah."
Cheon Yo-hwa grinned, hehe, looking disappointed.
"Then there's no helping it! It's thanks to you, unni, that we can leave our base empty and head out without a care in the world."
The truth was, the only person at this gathering who got along smoothly, if at arm's length, with everyone else was Jeong Ye-ji.
There was good reason for it. The Regression Alliance members were aware that Jeong Ye-ji watched them twenty-four hours a day.
At first they might shudder swallowing this red pill of a truth, but later on they could only come to feel an emotional closeness to her.
A person who 'knew every shameful part of you yet never spilled the secret,' whose 'attitude toward you never changed,' and who 'would listen to your troubles whenever you wished.'
That was what a Saintess was.
So it was only natural that, within the Regression Alliance, Jeong Ye-ji commanded nothing short of absolute respect and reverence.
Even Cheon Yo-hwa, who was damn hard to get close to, showed the Saintess affection without hesitation, and that said it all.
"See you again next time, unni!"
"...Yes. Cheon Yo-hwa."
"Hey. Lee Ha-yul. You're old enough to drink now, right? Let's go."
[This one had been waiting for nothing but those words.]
The Regression Alliance members drifted off in twos and threes.
There was even the astonishing sight of Lee Ha-yul dragging along Noh Do-hwa, who had insisted she absolutely did not want to go and was scowling like a vengeful demon.
"..."
Jeong Ye-ji, alone and apart, walked off somewhere.
She walked, passed through the Inunaki Tunnel[1], returned to her own home in Yongsan, and then stopped time.
Then she retraced the path she had walked, in reverse. She arrived in Busan, loitered for a while, then loitered some more. In front of a certain restaurant.
As though chance itself had guided her, she stepped inside.
A corner of the restaurant. Dang Seo-rin sat at the table by the window, and across from her the Undertaker had frozen like a stone statue.
"..."
Zzt, thump. Zzt.
Watching the two of them seated at the same table, her heart ached all over again.
But there was not only ache.
Thump. Zzt, thump.
A rhythm that was clearly not pain but closer to its opposite hue was slowly spreading out from the edge of her heart.
'Ah.'
The Saintess was clever.
Far too bright to keep pretending she didn't understand her own feelings. Clever enough to shape the reason for that joy into words.
"You stopped... it, didn't you? Mr. Undertaker?"
Wise, she was not.
The feeling she had assembled into words, she could not, in the end, keep locked away inside.
She set herself loose in the world of Time Stop, where every line became a soliloquy.
"With Dang Seo-rin... for years now. The date you've carried out like a ritual ever since you first met her, you're in the middle of it, and yet."
"..."
"You stopped time, didn't you...?"
Soft and low.
"You mustn't stop it, Mr. Undertaker."
Careful, careful.
"Because then I'll get the wrong idea. Do you realize? Mr. Undertaker, you like Dang Seo-rin. And she likes you too. For something like me to barge in between the two of you, that, that's not a good thing."
Right now.
Whom was she speaking to?
"...A human like me is hideous."
What did she want the truth to be?
Did she want the Undertaker to truly be able to move inside Time Stop, to be the one and only spectator of a one-person play, secretly listening in on the soliloquy she now murmured?
Or did she, after all, want Time Stop to be absolute? To still be reflected in the Undertaker's eyes as a flawless human being. Did she want him never to find out that she was a fool getting worked up over this strange, silly game?
She didn't know.
Whether she wanted him to understand, or didn't, Jeong Ye-ji found it hard to tell.
For it was the very first time she had ever felt anything like this.
"Dang Seo-rin is unfair."
And the first time she had ever recited words like these, too.
"I could have expressed my affection any amount I liked. And I held back. Because it isn't the time for that, is it? The world is going to end."
"..."
"Dang Seo-rin is the only one who doesn't know about regression. So without the slightest awareness that moments like this will later remain as wounds for you, Mr. Undertaker, she shows her affection without restraint. That's really..."
Huh?
Speaking without thinking, Jeong Ye-ji gave a start. It was an outrage so absurd even she could scarcely believe it.
"...No. No. Please forget it."
Shake. Shake, shake, shake.
Jeong Ye-ji hurriedly shook her head.
"Dang Seo-rin only sacrificed herself, to the very end, so that you could use her ability at maximum efficiency, Mr. Undertaker."
"..."
"To call such a noble heart unfair. ...The truly cowardly one was me. I'm ashamed."
Right. Let's stop.
For now. For now, even though she had laid bare such a hideous side of herself, she had not crossed the decisive line.
The Saintess could feel it.
That coming here today, of all days, on purpose, to the place where Dang Seo-rin and the Undertaker were spending their time alone together, and pouring out her 'true feelings,' had been the very limit she could just barely manage.
'...This is my rock bottom.'
To think such a sticky marsh lurked within her own heart. The Saintess was on the verge of being utterly disgusted with herself.
Of course, the Undertaker would be disgusted too.
'If Mr. Undertaker was listening, then he won't go along with my game anymore.'
'And if he couldn't hear it, then that's fine in its own way. It just means the conclusion is that this was all a delusion of mine alone.'
'So.'
This was as far as it went.
The Saintess turned her back without lingering, no. She turned her back, leaving her lingering attachment behind in this place. Then she came home and released Time Stop.
'...And from now on I'll have to hold back as much as I can from watching Mr. Undertaker with Clairvoyance, too.'
She brewed chamomile tea and drank it.
She did a round of monitoring the awakeners she had classified as dangerous elements. She fed the fish. She wrote up the notable points in a computer document. She cleaned the fish tank. She remeasured the risk scores according to the scoring chart she herself had made.
Just as she was about to finish her routine that way.
Knock, knock.
"...?"
The Saintess's fingers, drifting over the keyboard, came to a stop.
'A knock?'
She checked the clock without thinking. Since she lived by a different flow of time than other people, a clock was, if anything, an essential item.
One in the morning.
'At this hour...? An anomaly?'
The Saintess lightly used Time Stop.
Hand axe in hand, she opened the front door. Fully intending to split the skull in one stroke of any anomaly that dared do nothing more than knock.
The Undertaker stood in front of the door.
"...?!"
Clunk! The Saintess quickly shut the front door.
"Huh? Eh? Huh?"
Mr. Undertaker? The real Mr. Undertaker? At this hour?
Could it be a doppelgänger? It was a reasonable inference. Leaning her back against the inside of the front door, she quickly activated Clairvoyance.
Sharing the Undertaker's field of vision.
She could see the scenery right outside the very front door she was leaning against. Proof that it was an awakener and not an anomaly.
"Eh."
This time she shared Dang Seo-rin's field of vision.
It was pitch dark. She had probably gone back to the Samcheon World Azit at Busan Station and fallen asleep.
Considering that the Undertaker and Dang Seo-rin usually drank late into the night, it was a somewhat strange situation, but.
"..."
She could understand it. After all, a person wouldn't crave drink every single day. Sometimes they might just eat a meal and part ways cleanly. Only, the problem was.
'Why... at my house?'
Thump.
"By chance, there's something he urgently needs to tell me... Ah. Because I wasn't watching with Clairvoyance today. Mr. Undertaker tried to contact me, but I didn't manage to see it..."
This was it. This had to be the answer.
She had set Clairvoyance aside for a moment out of consideration for the Undertaker, and at that very moment something had happened to him.
With the easy route of contact through Telepathy cut off, the Undertaker had come on foot himself. It was a perfectly reasonable analysis.
'What if.'
And yet.
'What if he heard the things I said earlier today...?'
Thump.
'And so, if he came to answer the words I laid out thinking they were a soliloquy...?'
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
"..."
Time Stop, released.
"Who is it?"
"Saintess. It's the Undertaker."
Creeeak.
"Ah, Mr. Undertaker."
"My apologies for the late hour."
"Not at all. Sleeping hours have no meaning for me anyway."
Thump.
"Please, come in. So..."
Thump-thump-thump, thump.
"What brings you here?"
Thump.
Footnotes:
[1] The Inunaki Tunnel in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, is one of the country's most infamous real-world urban-legend sites, long rumored to be cursed and haunted; its name is shorthand in horror/subculture circles for a forbidden, otherworldly passage.
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