WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 465: That Woman C II
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* * *
Cheon Yo-hwa, in all honesty, had never once thought of herself as a chosen human being.
She was simply a bit smarter than most, prettier, blessed with abundant wealth, gifted with a silver tongue, brimming with charisma, and, the deciding factor, favored by a god.
She was not truly special. That was how she regarded herself.
If the commoners outside the manor had heard her, they would have switched their citizenship to French on the spot and put in an order for a guillotine. That was the level of nonsense it was.
'My life's going to get burned up as god-nim's Sacrifice Number One anyway if I can't deal with Father somehow. What's so special about that?'
Cheon Yo-hwa had her own logic, her own circumstances.
'If I'm special, it's the way two-plus hanwoo[2] is special. Are Yo-hwa or I even human?'
That was right.
In this silver-spoon young lady's estimation, she herself was not yet human.
Could a human ruled and bred like livestock by aliens be called human? That was just a monkey that had shed a little of its fur.
Whether one seized freedom for oneself or not, that alone was, for Cheon Yo-hwa, the measure of whether humanity was present or absent.
"Ahahahahat! Aha, ahahahaha!"
In that sense, the man before her, the one who had thrown himself into the road and brazenly demanded a one-on-one meeting, had at least succeeded in drawing Cheon Yo-hwa's interest.
"G, Go Yuri is a, a reincarnator?"
"Yes."
"R, reincarnation, that's, you know? Like Gung Ye?[1] Hmmmm. I know all about it, too. Our father used to use the Maitreya Buddha title now and then in the old days. And on top of that, Teleportation... pfft. Ahahat! Th, the setup is way too over the top!"
"I'm aware it sounds preposterous."
A reception room set off in one corner of the great manor.
Not Reception Room A but Reception Room B, a place built for somewhat less important guests. It was also one of the few spaces inside the manor free from her father's eavesdropping.
On the reception room wall, the certificates and trophies the twin sisters had accumulated over the years glinted with a golden sheen inside their glass display case.
"But I believe even you, young lady, have sensed in some subtle way that my sister Go Yuri was special."
"Yep. But that doesn't prove she was a reincarnator."
"An outsider, no more than a mere Oechul, won the Cult Leader's favor in the span of only a few years. She even monopolized the heirs' education from when they were very young."
"..."
"And there was no serious backlash or grumbling about it inside the Cult either. It defies common sense, and if so, that means she was a being beyond common sense."
Hmm. Cheon Yo-hwa let her gaze slide downward.
'That much is true.'
It had already been forty minutes since she had brought him to the manor.
Cheon Yo-hwa had launched a barrage of questions from every angle.
The point of attack was a single one. 'Is this man really, definitely Go Yuri's younger sibling?'
Cheon Yo-hwa's verdict on that was...
'Ninety percent. No, almost a hundred?'
She had already had her sister run a background check. The message that had just arrived on her smartphone was the result.
[Pet Sis♡: Sis, I got into the newspaper articles from a few years back and that school's records and checked.]
[Pet Sis♡: It's the same person the teacher said was her younger sibling. He went on a trip to Japan a little while ago, then rushed back home.]
Tap tap. Cheon Yo-hwa moved only her fingers beneath the tablecloth to send a message.
It was a dedicated messenger that ran only inside the Cult, impossible to hack by ordinary means. It was, after all, an object that borrowed 'god-nim's' authority.
[Heaven-and-Earth-Unique-One: The murder case said to have happened near Fukuoka?]
[Pet Sis♡: Checked through three separate channels via local Japanese Cult members.]
Blink. She must have already drawn up a list of the questions her twin sister was likely to ask, because the answers came back as if she had been waiting for them.
[Pet Sis♡: It's a dismemberment murder.]
[Pet Sis♡: A dumped corpse was found at the location you gave me. Identity unknown. I couldn't make out the body's features exactly. But the clothing it had on is definitely the teacher's.]
[Pet Sis♡: I'll send photos.]
A stream of them came through.
Photos that should still have been shared only inside the local investigation headquarters were uploaded as if it were nothing. Looking at them, Cheon Yo-hwa's brow stiffened.
'Teacher... it's her, yeah.'
A corner of her heart went cold.
'And she'd been such a self-contained person.'
'Once even the teacher is dead, she's just a corpse.'
She closed her smartphone.
At that, the man, who had been watching her with a serious gaze the entire time, gave a slight nod.
"You've confirmed it, it seems."
"..."
"To secure the data in barely thirty minutes. The Cult's power really is formidable. No, perhaps it's the power of you young ladies, who can pull the Cult's resources this far."
How much does this man know?
The corner of Cheon Yo-hwa's lips curved up of its own accord.
"All right. Let's set aside the whole reincarnator business and just look at the facts on the table for now. So Go Yuri was killed by none other than you."
"That's right."
"Then why should I lend an ear to a scoundrel who got rid of the teacher I served with affection deeper than I gave my own parents, no, deeper than my parents? No matter how I look at it, revenge seems like the right answer."
"..."
"I could distort the facts and claim my sister and I caught the culprit by our own strength alone. I'd earn some points with Father. I could also slice you up alive in front of the congregation and hand you out as salted fish paste[3]."
Cheon Yo-hwa propped her chin on her hand.
The truth was, she had no real intention of reclassifying that man's biological category into ground meat.
Well, she might at most work him like a slave under the pretext of 'granting you a suffering in life worse than death.'
'His voice was pretty when I heard it earlier. Even just locking him in the basement and playing his cries on loop would relieve some stress.'
Even now, just looking at the man, dozens of torture methods popped, pa-ba-bat, into her head.
Unlike the usual indifference with which she handled her 'Sacrifices,' today alone her creativity surged up like fireworks, bursting again and again.
'Justification, profit, and a hobby, all satisfied. A triple crown!'
A chance like this would not come around day in, day out. Today, for the first time, Cheon Yo-hwa realized her heart could water with greed too.
"I beg your pardon, but you, young lady, have more than enough reason to build a cooperative relationship with me."
"Huh? Why?"
"Because I killed your tutor, a person 'whose death you couldn't even imagine,' without a soul being the wiser."
"?"
Cheon Yo-hwa tilted her head.
"And why is that a reason to cooperate?"
"Because in your world, the people 'whose deaths you couldn't even imagine' number not one, but two."
"..."
In that instant, Cheon Yo-hwa's mind bristled as if jolted by static electricity.
Her heart began to pound, in an entirely different sense from a moment before. Her lips parted, and her eyes went wide.
The man simply looked her dead in the eye, calm.
"Doesn't it tempt you?"
"..."
"If it's me, I can take care of it for certain."
Who?
There was no need to ask.
'Father.'
The very apex of the Cult clan that had laid its foundations on this land and spread its religious power in every direction.
The great enemy that she and her younger sister had to annihilate without fail in order to breathe, in order to live as human beings.
Freedom.
"..."
After a long while passed, Cheon Yo-hwa parted her lips.
"How?"
"There's someone I'd like to introduce to you."
The man, Go Yuir, smiled.
"My family."
* * *
Not long after.
Cheon Yo-hwa came face to face with the secret of how a tutor who had seemed so perfect could have been wiped out in an instant without even putting up a proper fight.
Kwarrrrrr.
"..."
In the distance, a four-story derelict building collapsed in on itself. Watching it, Cheon Yo-hwa could only gape.
Huh? Could that building have been made of tofu instead of concrete?
No way. That was one our Cult used in the old days and then threw away.
"This child is called Yu Ji-won. As you can see, she possesses an ability that can destroy and cut through anything."
While a cloud of dust billowed up behind her, the girl bent at the waist in a bow.
"I'm Yu Ji-won. Young lady. You may regard and treat me as Mr. Matiz's tool."
"Ah. U, uh-huh..."
Cheon Yo-hwa's voice dropped in volume without her realizing it.
To be honest, she was rattled.
It was not solely because the child introduced as 'Yu Ji-won' was extremely pretty.
If you put a power-user who could turn a building into a 'build/ing'[4] from a full three hundred meters away right under your nose, anyone would be a little rattled.
"Uh. The devout believers in our Cult, and I myself, can play around in various ways, but your side is a little, how should I put it. A touch on the violent side...?"
"You flatter me. Young lady."
That wasn't a compliment, though.
Cheon Yo-hwa found it impossible to settle her pounding heart.
'It's simple. A really simple, efficient, easy-to-understand ability...!'
Violence about as intuitive as it got.
There was no need to laboriously cook up bizarre, intricate schemes. She just had to seize the chance and slice-and-dice her father away, and that was that.
'Good heavens! God-nim! If only you'd bestowed an authority this simple on us instead of data analysis and all that garbage!'
Cheon Yo-hwa found herself resenting the heavens all over again.
'What's the point of making talismans and offering Sacrifices a hundred days running! It's worse than the cutting power that girl swings around!'
It was only an emotional matter, of course.
If she had truly had an ability like Yu Ji-won's, there was no way her father would have meekly acknowledged her position as heir. The gaslighting would have come first, far more brutal than it was now.
'A, anyway, the enslavement plan is scrapped!'
'If I carelessly mistreat the man a crazy monster like that calls her comrade, who knows what calamity would come crashing down on us sisters?!'
Cheon Yo-hwa felt as if she had aged ten years. Rarely had her habit of not rashly showing her inner thoughts felt as much a blessing as it did this day.
"O, kay, um. All right."
Ahem. Cheon Yo-hwa cleared her throat.
"So Go Yuir and Yu Ji-won..."
"Please feel free to address me however you like. Young lady. I am no more than Mr. Matiz's tool, so there's no need at all to mind your words."
"...Yu Ji-won."
Only then did the girl give a nod of her chin.
'Scary!'
Not so much as a single spoonful of emotion came through in her eyes or her face, so Cheon Yo-hwa's delicate heart shrank back even further.
"...I'll admit now that you can wreck my father all you want."
Color came to Go Yuir's face.
"Then you'll cooperate with us? Young lady?"
"Yes, of course. Roughly, I'll use my authority to register Go Yuir and Yu Ji-won as Oechul, then when the angle presents itself, we kill Father. We'll designate the specific time and place from our side."
"Thank you! Young lady!"
Go Yuir threw himself down in a bow.
Yu Ji-won, who had been plastered right up against Go Yuir's side, knelt down on the bare earth without hesitation. Cheon Yo-hwa was horrified.
"No no no, uh. Ah, c, comrades! We're cooperating comrades now! There's no need for you to use such formal honorifics!"
Go Yuir didn't budge an inch.
"We'll keep relying on your help, young lady, to accomplish the great undertaking ahead, so how could I dare hold my head up stiff? I only ask that you look kindly on us."
'Why is a duo that could assassinate the President of the United States just by getting close so abjectly humble?!'
Cheon Yo-hwa was going out of her mind.
'She can assassinate a target hundreds of meters away with no presence, no stance! If she can attack, she could surely be used for defense too!'
'Since there's no telling when that blank-faced girl might slice us sisters apart...! I absolutely have to keep them happy. Absolutely!'
After a whole round of fuss, she finally managed to get the pair back on their feet.
A sigh of relief slowly slipped out of her.
'Father. ...I really can kill him.'
A feeling hard to put into words.
While they made their way down, leaving the 'build/ing' behind, Cheon Yo-hwa glanced back at Yu Ji-won.
"Oh, right."
"...?"
"I forgot to ask. What reason did you have for killing the teacher?"
"You mean Go Yuri."
Yu Ji-won answered, blank-faced.
"Go Yuri seized Mr. Matiz's life and wouldn't let it go."
That the bizarre title 'Mr. Matiz' pointed to the man, she had already guessed.
The part that pulled at Cheon Yo-hwa's interest lay elsewhere.
"Seized his life and wouldn't let it go?"
"Yes. Go Yuri was a reincarnator. To stop the danger of the world annihilation that was going to come blowing in, she chose Mr. Matiz as a chess piece."
"Hehh..."
"And to keep the chess piece from moving as it pleased, she went and turned the whole world around Mr. Matiz into a chessboard."
Yu Ji-won reached out and took Go Yuir's hand.
"But the world is not a chessboard."
"..."
"At the very least, I cannot permit Mr. Matiz's world being treated that way. So I removed her."
It was clear language.
'Freedom.'
Cheon Yo-hwa could recognize that transparency.
It was not because she herself was as transparent as the girl before her. It was the very opposite.
Because she was murky from head to toe, she could, by contrast, recognize the transparency she lacked.
'The condition for a human to be human.'
Just then a remarkable thing happened. Trivial, in a way, but to Cheon Yo-hwa's eyes an astonishing event unfolded.
A smile had come to the lips of the girl who had seemed as if she would stay blank-faced forever and ever.
That smile was looking up at the man whose hand she was holding.
The man, too, with a faint smile of his own, stroked Yu Ji-won's head.
'Ah...'
Not a single word had passed between them, but Cheon Yo-hwa's keen mind understood everything.
Respect, regard, love, trust, affection, tolerance, understanding. Whatever the word.
In the 'bond' set before her now there existed something different from the relationship she had formed with Go Yuri, or the one she shared with her younger sister, some texture in the very air.
And that she might, perhaps, never for all eternity have any part to play in that bond.
A sharp pang.
"..."
Cheon Yo-hwa pressed a hand to her chest without thinking.
A wound she didn't even know she had was already waiting there, a little ahead of her.
Footnotes:
[1] Gung Ye (c. 869-918) was a real Korean warlord and founder of the kingdom of Taebong who proclaimed himself the incarnate Maitreya Buddha and claimed to possess the supernatural power to read people's minds. He is a byword in Korea for a megalomaniac who believes himself divine.
[2] A reference to hanwoo (premium native Korean cattle) graded '1++' (read 'two-plus'), the top quality tier; the joke is that the sisters are 'prime livestock' bred by their god rather than people.
[3] Jeotgal, Korean salted and fermented seafood, traditionally chopped fine and distributed in jars; she is threatening to mince him up and share him out among the congregation.
[4] Wordplay in the original: the Korean word for building, romanized as 'geonmul,' is split into 'geon/mul' to evoke being sliced clean in two by the girl's cutting ability.
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