WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 462: That Woman Y III
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* * *
There were two sentences here.
A. Go Yuri had died.
B. Yu Ji-won had committed murder.
Either one was an absurd thing to face on a first trip abroad.
But if you asked which of the two shocked Go Yuir more, the answer was clear.
Go Yuri had died.
Go Yuri could die too.
And this easily, at that.
"..."
Go Yuir stood there blankly, soaking in the rain.
The corpse sprawled on the pavement, the hair scattering strand by strand into the puddle, none of it felt quite real.
Ever since he was a child, she had felt invincible to him.
She was family. She was a teacher.
Whether she was calling him by that odd title, "Guild Leader," or by the even odder one, "Oraboni," or whether she occasionally used his real name, "Go Yuir."
There was always mischief and confidence hovering at the corners of her mouth.
Ah, with her at his side he could surely keep going right up to the day the world ended. Before he even realized it, that was the kind of thought she inspired.
But now she lay there bleeding. She had made her exit, long before the "world annihilation" she always had on the tip of her tongue ever came.
"Hm."
Another member of the family.
A girl whom Go Yuir, in his heart, felt closer to as a younger sibling than even Go Yuri, though they had never called each other older brother or younger sister.
But objectively she was simply "the kid next door," Yu Ji-won, who crouched down and searched through the corpse's clothes.
"Just as I thought."
Yu Ji-won nodded. Strangely, in the madly pouring rain, only her voice came through clear.
"There's no passport."
"..."
"Now and then I found it strange."
Why did you kill her.
When did you start tailing me. When you decided to follow me, it shouldn't have been raining yet, so why did you bring a raincoat first. Are you in your right mind.
Go Yuir could have asked a great many things. With family murdered right before his eyes, he hardly lacked the right.
"...Strange? What was?"
But the fact that not only the victim but also the perpetrator was as good as family made him automatically cut away those pointless questions.
Swallowing so much without ever asking "why." For better or worse, that too was a property of the bond called family.
"Now and then, I noticed an unidentifiable fragrance in Mr. Matiz's room."
"..."
"There were times Grandmother gave off the same fragrance, faint as it was. Grandmother even mumbled to me on occasion that I had a 'younger sibling.'"
Yu Ji-won set down her backpack.
Zzzip. As the zipper opened, familiar tools came into view. Gloves. A large sheet of vinyl.
In an instant, Go Yuir's mind flashed back to one summer night a year ago. These were none other than the "work tools" he had taught her about.
"Did you know, Mr. Matiz? I installed a small CCTV camera so I could keep an eye on the alley. My parents had 'gone missing,' and Grandmother is a dementia patient on top of that. In any worst-case scenario, I had no shortage of excuses."
"..."
"So even before Mr. Matiz confessed about the 'reincarnator,' I had already confirmed this woman's existence."
In Go Yuir's eyes.
Yu Ji-won's true talent was neither the looks nor the intellect she was born with.
It was her capacity to act.
Imagine, for instance, that you reached out to drink some water.
A glass of water sat on the table right in front of you. Would you often stop your hand halfway?
Almost never.
For the girl Yu Ji-won, every action worked that way.
She decided, "I will drink water." Therefore, "I reach out my hand." It was an utterly natural process, so there was no reason to hesitate. There wasn't even any reason to put the task off.
Murder. Even an act that for most people would be the greatest of events fell, for Yu Ji-won, under that same category of "action."
"With the stepping stones gathered this far, I can now make a bold leap toward a conclusion."
Yu Ji-won wrapped up the corpse and set off.
It was a thoroughly natural movement. Come to think of it, Go Yuir thought, they had shared with the girl before him exactly when and at which lodging they would be staying.
A business hotel out away from the city center. A night road without a single streetlight in sight.
Even if an investigation got underway, surely no detective would imagine that foreigners had abruptly committed murder on "the very first day of their trip."
If you were going to kill, do it the first day.
That was Yu Ji-won's judgment.
"I respect Mr. Matiz's opinion. I respect Grandmother's too, not quite as much, but still. I have no memory of ever having a younger sibling, but if I assume this being is a 'reincarnator,' the two testimonies fit together cleanly."
"..."
"In that case, it's highly likely the reincarnator had gathered an abnormally rich amount of information about me. It also made sense, in a number of ways, that Mr. Matiz intervened so neatly in my parents' 'disappearance.'"
A supplement.
Ordinary people did not listen so closely to others' opinions.
That the world would end. That reincarnators existed. That there had been a younger sibling who didn't exist in one's own memory. There was no way to trust such tall tales, such unrealistic testimony.
Yu Ji-won was different.
To her, "realism" was unimportant. To Yu Ji-won, reality had always been something without any sense of reality to begin with.
The two propositions "humans exist" and "reincarnators exist," Yu Ji-won knew how to weigh equally, without any prejudice.
A conclusion.
"Mr. Matiz and I. The case the two of us thought we alone knew about actually had one more person involved, an instigator and a witness."
Yu Ji-won faced the fact calmly.
"And Mr. Matiz. I don't think there's any need to spell this out, but just as I trust Mr. Matiz, I do not trust this reincarnator."
"...So."
"Yes, so I killed her."
Of course, that isn't the only reason, Yu Ji-won mumbled.
Then she set the corpse down lightly.
"Hm. Heavier than I expected."
"..."
"Would you help me?"
To help family bury family.
That utterly simple summary suddenly felt heavy to Go Yuir. As heavy as the corpse's silent weight.
A heaviness he could explain to no one.
* * *
Compared to the "disappearance" that had unfolded one summer a year ago, the way the corpse was buried this time was rather slipshod.
But Go Yuir sensed it.
Even if the corpse were found, the odds of the two of them ending up in an investigation's net would surely converge on zero.
"...The police won't even be able to confirm the corpse's identity."
"Yes."
Dawn.
As planned, Yu Ji-won and Go Yuir set out on their bicycle ride. Before departing, the two of them stood side by side in front of the lodging, warming up.
"That's why whether there was a passport mattered."
"Did you actually figure out that Go Yuri was a Teleporter too?"
"No. I only guessed that a reincarnator preparing for world annihilation would naturally keep her identity hidden. Even if she had a passport, there was a strong chance it was fake."
"..."
"But, well. So she had the ability of Teleportation."
Every strength came with a weakness.
Teleportation. That ability, which had been Go Yuri's strongest weapon, in a case like this had turned into the very cause of a "perfect crime."
Where did this corpse come from? How did it suddenly appear? Who is it?
From abroad. By teleportation. A reincarnator.
Naturally, no one would arrive at that answer. There was no alibi to speak of.
The investigation was as good as closed before it ever began.
"If the ambush hadn't succeeded, it could have gotten dangerous. I'll have to broaden the scope of my imagination a bit more."
The bicycle wheels rolled briskly along.
For two hours.
By then it had become a time you could call morning, and the two stopped at a restaurant in some town along the way.
"It's sweet for my taste."
The moment she took a bite of the chain restaurant's gyudon[1], Yu Ji-won gave her flat verdict.
"I'd heard plenty of rumors that Japanese food is generally sweet. They weren't lies."
"...So the one who spent a year's worth of buildup on this trip wasn't me, it was you."
"Ah, yes. That's right. To be precise, I just repurposed an already scheduled itinerary as buildup."
"She's a cautious sort. Thorough to the core. But she surely never dreamed that a trip planned a year in advance, the first day no less, would be used for your plan. Here, the karaage[2]."
"Thank you. Mr. Matiz takes out a girl who'd been confined by her household. By anyone's eyes, it would come across as a romantic story. It wouldn't have been easy to spot a planned incident hiding in there. Mm. The karaage is decent."
"Yeah? Isn't the pepper a bit strong?"
"It's surely a franchise trick to keep the taste consistent regardless of the chicken's condition, isn't it. A reasonable enough method."
On the surface it was the picture of an ordinary breakfast, yet the topics passing back and forth across the table were truly bizarre.
Go Yuir sighed.
"...I'd been hoping for something romantic too. For family to meet a fate like that. It's the worst."
"Mmm."
Yu Ji-won let out a low groan. Her expression looked somehow ashamed.
After the meal, they bought Pocari Sweat[3], and in front of a convenience store Yu Ji-won picked up the thread again.
"Mr. Matiz."
"What."
"A person who speaks of others' deaths as if they were nothing must also accept a death of their own as if it were nothing."
"..."
"Above all, Mr. Matiz had been living a life half-brainwashed by her."
"Brainwashed..."
"You could call it gaslighting too. Living the way that person planned, building your own character the way that person laid out for you. It doesn't look like a very healthy relationship."
"..."
Go Yuir fell silent.
The ride again.
Three hours later the conversation resumed, over a simple convenience store bento for lunch.
"She says the world's going to end. And she says she needs me to stop it, so honestly, isn't a little brainwashing worth putting up with?"
"Hmm. That's no concern of mine."
"You psychopath..."
"I couldn't understand why Mr. Matiz was suddenly set to leave, saying he had to go teach some pair of sisters. That too must have been a schedule she had booked in advance, like the 'disappearance' in my household. Am I wrong?"
"You're right."
"Drop it."
"..."
"Mr. Matiz. Has there ever been even a single time you made a plan purely from your own thoughts, with no input from her?"
There had been.
It was this very one.
"Isn't this trip the first time?"
"..."
"Go Yuri, was it? From her standpoint, this trip must have looked like an utter waste of time. Whether you bothered to take a trip or not, the weight Mr. Matiz holds in my heart wouldn't change in the slightest."
"...That's true."
"But Mr. Matiz went through with the trip all the same. Why did you do that?"
"..."
"If I may presume to tell you the reason."
Yu Ji-won finished her bento and set it down. After wiping her mouth with a napkin, she looked straight at Go Yuir across from her.
"Because Mr. Matiz wanted to make the relationship with me wholly 'a relationship between just the two of us.'"
"..."
"The girl Yu Ji-won will kill her parents. The girl Yu Ji-won can play a crucial role in the world annihilation project. And so, choosing a time while her heart is still soft, win Yu Ji-won over and draw her in as an ally. I'd guess that was Go Yuri's plan. Mr. Matiz was nothing more than a chess piece moving according to it."
"..."
"But Mr. Matiz meant it sincerely."
No, Yu Ji-won shook her head.
"More precisely, the very person who could 'treat me sincerely' was Mr. Matiz. That's surely why you were chosen as the chess piece."
"..."
"Mr. Matiz felt guilty toward me. He blamed himself, wondering if he had deceived me. So, to be sincere with me, and to prove his own sincerity to himself as well, he set off with me on a 'completely useless trip.'"
"..."
"I'm sincere too."
Yu Ji-won pulled out another napkin.
Then she rose, came closer, and with her own hand wiped away the streak that had run down at the corner of Go Yuir's eye.
"She was precious to you."
"...Yeah."
"I'm sorry. Will you forgive me?"
"Yeah."
Yu Ji-won embraced him.
Burying her head against his shoulder.
"I'm sorry I didn't consult you beforehand."
"Because there's no way I would have agreed."
"I didn't fix murder as a constant either. I listened to the conversation. I judged that killing was the better choice."
"She's a reincarnator. She knows everything about what you did. There's no telling what she might do to you in the next life."
"I'm not afraid. It's no concern of mine."
Yu Ji-won stroked the back of Go Yuir's head.
"Right now you are here before my eyes."
"..."
"Let's set off on a trip, Mr. Matiz. Just the two of us."
Go Yuir thought to himself.
That it would, most likely, be a long trip.
Footnotes:
[1] Gyudon is a Japanese dish of simmered beef and onions served over rice; ubiquitous as cheap fast food at chains like Yoshinoya and Sukiya.
[2] Karaage is Japanese-style deep-fried chicken, marinated and coated in starch; a common side dish and bar/restaurant staple.
[3] Pocari Sweat is a popular Japanese ion-supply sports/electrolyte drink (made by Otsuka Pharmaceutical), widely sold across East Asia.
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