WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 459: That Woman J VI
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* * *
From that day on, strange things began happening to the Undertaker.
"G, Guild Leader."
"Hm?"
"My hair... could you brush it?"
Take this ordinary slice of everyday life, for instance.
Whenever he sat down on the couch in the guild Azit for a short rest, a head of green hair would come pattering over from somewhere and plop right down onto the Undertaker's lap.
"Sure. All right."
"Ehehe..."
The Undertaker was a master of aura. No matter how thoroughly Sim Ah-ryeon defied the entire hygienic history of human civilization all on her own, he could wield his aura with such precision that it ran the full course of shampoo, conditioner, hair dryer, and scalp massage, every step handled with care.
There was a reason Sim Ah-ryeon scurried over to the Undertaker like a hamster the moment she spotted him. Just sit on his lap and her hairstyling finished itself automatically. How was she supposed to resist that?
If word ever got out that the aura other awakeners coughed up blood to train was being used as a cheap shampoo substitute, more than a few people would faint dead away, but as far as Sim Ah-ryeon was concerned, that was none of her business.
So Sim Ah-ryeon had to pay a price.
What kind of price? The stern and self-evident truth that if you ignore others, others will ignore you right back.
[Time Stop].
"...Mm."
"..."
While the giddily smiling Sim Ah-ryeon froze like a stone statue, a faint sound of breathing stirred above her. For a good long while.
The Saintess, who had drawn close at some point, was sharing a kiss with the Undertaker.
"Mm, Saintess."
"Yes."
The Saintess laughed softly, as if embarrassed.
"Good morning... Mr. Undertaker."
A short while ago, the two of them had agreed not to tell anyone they'd started seeing each other.
It was mostly because of the Saintess's fervent insistence.
-If the Regression Alliance and our other companions suddenly found out about our relationship, the shock might be too much for them.
-And above all, love. How should I put it, it doesn't need to be that loud. There's no reason to go spreading word of it around.
In any case, the Undertaker would believe the Saintess even if she claimed she'd built the Eiffel Tower out of beans. He nodded readily, fully convinced.
'...But who would have guessed we'd end up carrying on a secret romance like this.'
And it wasn't only when he was with Sim Ah-ryeon.
When he was having a serious talk with Yu Ji-won in the hallway, when he was in a one-on-one meeting with Noh Do-hwa, when he was chatting on the roadside with Cheon Yo-hwa, [Time Stop] came regardless of time or place, and each time the Saintess and the Undertaker indulged in a 'secret romance' no one would ever witness.
'No. Surely not, but... Saintess, surely you aren't just enjoying the thrill...?'
You couldn't say that element was entirely absent, but it was closer to the screws in her head simply coming loose over her first romance.
The Saintess wanted to be with the Undertaker even a little more. And she had both the means and the method to make it happen. What reason was there not to press the [Time Stop] button to her heart's content?
And it was exactly the same for the Undertaker.
The Saintess and the Undertaker alike always looked composed and level-headed to everyone else, but crack open their heads and you'd find nothing but a pink hue spread out inside, plain and simple fools.
'It's fine. If it ever gets truly dangerous, Mr. Undertaker will surely know to stop on his own.'
So the Saintess thought as she kneaded and stroked the Undertaker's leg.
'It's fine. If a line ever truly gets crossed, the Saintess will tell me herself.'
So the Undertaker thought as he shared his twenty-first kiss of the day with the Saintess.
It was a miraculous relationship of trust.
Because each believed in the other's character, the result was a rollercoaster nobody could put the brakes on, and naturally, as time went on, the intensity could only keep climbing higher and higher until, finally, one day.
"Mm...?"
The Tower of Babel meeting room.
Noh Do-hwa, seated at the round table, tilted her head.
"That's a rare sight. You always join the meetings remotely by video, so why have you come in person today...?"
"I happened to be in Busan."
The Saintess answered with an unbothered face, the same blank expression as always.
"It'd be one thing if I were in Seoul, but it didn't feel right to skip when I'm right nearby."
"Hmm. Well. Not that it matters either way..."
Soon the Regression Alliance meeting began.
The Undertaker happened to sit right beside the Saintess, but no one found it the least bit odd. From the start, that seat had always been left empty out of consideration for the usually absent Saintess.
"I'm considering whether to ask the SwordMarquess and put into effect a plan to expand the farmland beyond its current size."
In the middle of Yu Ji-won's report.
"Thanks to His Excellency the Undertaker spending so much time with the SwordMarquess lately, the response is that the National Road Management Corps's request will be reviewed favorably."
And then Yu Ji-won stopped.
Frozen exactly as she stood. Still gripping the scrap-paper documents. Her silver hair turned to black-and-white too.
Over at one side of the round table in the meeting room.
"..., ..."
"..."
The Saintess and the Undertaker had clasped hands tightly under the table and were pressing their lips together.
"Saintess."
"Y, yes."
"So this is why you came to the meeting."
"Mm. No. But I think it's fine."
Why hide it.
The two, having now reached the monumental milestone of a 'first romance,' had realized that the authority of [Time Stop] was an extremely convenient tool.
Want to hug? Just hug. Want to kiss? Just kiss.
The romantic escapades of lovers, who always seem to throw down a gauntlet against the etiquette of public order, posed no problem at all for the Undertaker-Saintess couple.
Since nobody could notice [Time Stop], no one had any reason to frown. And this couple had no need to read the room as they enjoyed their romance.
Of course, it was a luxury for the two of them alone. For someone in the position of always having to dial the filtering to an appropriate level when describing reality, it was quite a bother.
Just between us, this particular manuscript was patched a whopping three times.
And so a meeting that ended in thirty-five minutes for everyone else somehow took, for a certain two people, about three times that long.
"..."
When the meeting ended and everyone was heading back.
As the Undertaker and the Saintess walked side by side, a firm tug. Something caught the Undertaker's collar.
He turned to find Sim Ah-ryeon standing there.
"What is it, Ah-ryeon?"
"Uuung..."
"What's the matter, Ah-ryeon?"
Sim Ah-ryeon stared blankly at the two of them.
"Y, you two. Are you, by any chance, dating?"
"..."
"..."
It had been a foreseeable ending.
* * *
'E, extraaa, extraaaaa! Extraaaaa! The Guild Leader is dating! The Guild Leader is dating the, the Saintess!'
Stopping Sim Ah-ryeon, who was about to bolt out the door and kick up a nationwide-scale ruckus, took a great many promises and bribes.
One way or another, they succeeded in muzzling Sim Ah-ryeon. Muzzling her, at least.
-[Samcheon]WitchJudge: (photo) When it comes to the experience of a meal, maybe the company matters more than the taste of the food? The food I ate with a friend today was delicious again.
└OldManGoryeo: lol[1]
└[Samcheon]WitchJudge: ? Why are you picking a fight again?
-[Baekhwa]NinthGraderInHighSchool: I went to Busan! And I confirmed that Busan does not look down on Sejong! >_<);;
└OldManGoryeo: lololol
└[Baekhwa]NinthGraderInHighSchool: ??
Some other people who had no idea what was going on caught a little of the fallout, but as prices for getting a secret romance discovered go, this counted as pretty mild.
"Love really is beautiful."
A beach at sunset.
The Undertaker and the Saintess were savoring a day ten times longer than anyone else's again today, enjoying an evening stroll.
Time was stopped, of course. A black-and-white sea stained with an eternal sunset watched over the two of them without a sound.
"If I'd known I'd be this happy, I should have confessed to you a little sooner, Mr. Undertaker."
"I feel the same way."
The Undertaker smiled.
"A thought I keep having lately is, maybe the Saintess and I ending up together was inevitable. That thought keeps coming back to me."
"Why is that?"
"In the end, I'm living out my own timeline where I can't truly connect with anyone else. And it's the same for the Saintess. We're in similar circumstances."
"...Yes."
The Saintess kissed him. And the Undertaker kissed her back.
The two sat side by side on a bench in the sand and leaned half their weight onto each other.
"I don't want to leave this cycle."
"..."
The Saintess, who had been resting her head against his chest, looked up at him.
"Then..."
"Yes. Even if I can't save the world, I'll make this one my terminal station. No. I'll save the world thoroughly enough that I can say with confidence this one is my final destination."
"..."
"Don't make that face, Saintess. I just want to be with you right here in front of me, that's all."
"Me too."
In that moment the Saintess and the Undertaker were dwelling on a similar thought.
Saving the world might be impossible. But avoiding 'world annihilation' was always possible.
How?
Just engage [Time Stop] and never release it.
"For us, one year could become a hundred years, even a thousand. If we only wished it, we could spend even more years than that together."
"That's right."
"There are still at least ten years before the world is definitively annihilated. In the worst case, we just have to stop the flow of time so the scheduled ten years never arrives."
"..."
Was this right?
It couldn't be. Both she and he knew it. They knew this was, at the end of the day, nothing but a loophole. But.
They couldn't lose the one in front of them.
"I love you, Mr. Undertaker."
"I love you too, Saintess."
Beneath a sunset that would never fade for all eternity.
Stay, moment.
You are so beautiful.[2]
The two were ready, prepared to exchange a vow like that.
"Mm."
After the kiss, the Saintess muttered with a slightly flushed face.
"It's a little hot. I'll go grab some ice cream."
"Ah. I'll come with you."
"No! I'll go by myself. You rest here, Mr. Undertaker."
Pat, pat, pat.
The Saintess hurried off somewhere in a rush, so unlike her usual self. The Undertaker watched her go with a smile.
'Keeping up a secret romance like this is fun, but someday we'll have to tell the kids too.'
Sim Ah-ryeon had already caught on, after all. There was no telling when it might get exposed again.
In that case, it was better to lay the whole situation out cleanly. The Undertaker trusted his companions.
A little while later.
Trudge.
The sound of footsteps in the sand. Since there were only two people who could make a sound in a frozen world, he turned his head toward the other one.
"Ah, Saintess. You're back sooner than I thought...?"
The middle of the sandy beach.
There stood the Saintess. Her face and her clothes were, without question, identical to the Saintess who had run off a moment ago saying she'd buy ice cream.
But.
"..."
The Undertaker shot up from the bench and backed away on his heels. He laid a hand on the hilt of his sword and took a stance ready to draw at any moment.
He glared at her.
"Who are you?"
"Oh my, my."
The lips of the one who looked exactly like the 'Saintess' parted in a wide half-smile.
Crackle. Some noise mixed in, and words came spilling from her mouth in a pronunciation that no longer carried any human tone.
"Impressive. You can tell even in a situation like this? Is it intuition? Is it instinct? Either way, the power of love is mighty!"
"...I'll ask one more time. Who are you?"
"The Saintess. I'm Jeong Ye-ji."
"Don't lie."
The Undertaker's voice turned cold.
"You aren't the Saintess. I can feel it."
"Yes. But it would only trouble me to tell you my name. My name has already been eaten. By all of you."
"...?"
"And my voice holding up like this won't last long either. At this rate, a week. Hmm, no. Three days and my voice will be eaten too, I suppose. It's a problem. It's really a problem."
Eaten? What did that mean?
The Undertaker couldn't understand, and because he couldn't understand, he furrowed his brow.
It was true that the 'incomprehensible' was the very nature of an anomaly. It was just that the sight of this anomaly appearing as a copy of his love was not the least bit pleasant.
"A doppelgänger."
"Ahaha."
She laughed.
"You really are a hard one to look after."
And then even more incomprehensible words followed.
"Because I attached no penalty to [Time Seal], you went around sealing people all over the world at random. A bad ending. So I hastily attached a condition."
"What?"
"If you monopolize Sim Ah-ryeon's attention, another problem comes up. So this time I made an appropriate hobby for you both. For Sim Ah-ryeon and you, the two of you."
"..."
"So what was the problem this time? No. Actually, I know. I'm the problem. It's nothing but a problem with myself, the self that can't be satisfied with this. And I'm forcing it onto all of you, so all I can do is feel sorry."
"What on earth are you talking about..."
"But I won't give up."
Trudge. She drew closer.
"I'll have to push Jeong Ye-ji a little harder. To still believe you can share your time with someone... Really. Your faith in humanity is far too stubborn, Ye-ji."
"..."
"I didn't want to take it this far either. But I have to plant the terror in you that you can never, no matter what, no matter what happens, intersect with another person."
He realized it then.
It was strange that the Saintess, who'd gone to buy ice cream, still hadn't come back. Even now she should have been sharing the Undertaker's field of vision.
Which meant the Saintess was dead. Or at the very least, incapacitated.
The instant that conclusion formed, the Undertaker attacked her without a word. He gave it everything.
This was an enemy who moved as though it were the most natural thing even in a frozen world, who had defeated that world's very master. He couldn't let his guard down for even an instant.
"You too."
But he didn't reach her.
After only a few exchanges of blows, the Undertaker's body lay collapsed on the beach. All his limbs pinned.
The one wearing the Saintess's face pressed him down, looking down at him with a beaming smile.
"You're the same."
"..."
"It troubles me if you let me slip away this easily. Then I'd become a monster, wouldn't I. My goodness. Me, having even learned [Time Stop]. If even the traces of having once been human vanish from a me like this, what means will you have left to beat me later?"
Slide.
She drew something from inside her clothes. A glass bottle filled with a red liquid. She popped the stopper out.
"Now. Ahh."
As if a lover were offering cake to her lover on a fork, she pushed it toward the Undertaker's mouth.
The Undertaker refused. So she pried his mouth open by force. He tried to bare his teeth and bite down on her finger, but it didn't work.
"Swallow it."
"..."
"Ah, sorry. I misspoke. You'll end up swallowing it anyway."
And so it happened.
Feeling a scent endlessly similar to human blood fill his mouth and throat, sensing his vision recede at a rapid pace, the Undertaker spoke.
"You... so you're Go Yuri."
"Correct!"
"Why... are you doing this to me?"
"I can't explain it. It can't be understood. But I suppose I can tell you this much."
Beyond his already dimming vision.
A small sensation touched his forehead. The Saintess's face was faintly smiling.
Her index finger pressed playfully against the bridge of his nose.
"Foolish couple. Forbidden."
An incomprehensible remark, as expected.
Still, one single fact served as a comfort to the Undertaker.
That, at the very least, he was glad the last face he saw in this world was the face of the one he loved.
That.
Was the end of the Undertaker, who never reached a certain day of the week.
-That Woman J. Fin.
Footnotes:
[1] The handle is "OldManGoryeo," a folkloric term for the legendary practice of abandoning aged parents in the mountains to die. As a username it reads as a darkly ironic troll persona.
[2] An allusion to Goethe's Faust: "Verweile doch, du bist so schön!" ("Linger a while, thou art so fair!"). Faust wagers his soul on the moment he ever wishes time to stop, fittingly echoed here as the lovers try to freeze time forever.
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