WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 467: That Woman C IV
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* * *
Being honest with herself.
In Cheon Yo-hwa's own estimation, this kind of honesty was her very nature, for better or worse.
After all, just because the desire to kill one's father had coiled itself around your heart, how many people could look that blackish viper dead in the eye?
Cheon Yo-hwa could never bring herself to commit the one sin of self-deception. She simply couldn't.
So she had no choice but to admit it.
The girl seated across from her now, beautiful beyond words. Yu Ji-won.
She hated her. No question about it.
"Ji-won."
Cheon Yo-hwa smiled brightly.
"Is anything troubling you these days? Anything at all?"
"Nothing at all. It's all thanks to you, Reverend, for looking after Mr. Matiz and me."
Yu Ji-won bowed her head, courteous to the very end.
"I'm especially grateful that you've gone so far as to care for my grandmother. Truly, I can only offer my thanks."
"Aw, come now, it's nothing! Between us, this much is only natural!"
Two months had already passed since the special event [Your Father Is in the Middle of Succeeding to the Throne] had occurred.
In that time, Cheon Yo-hwa had been frantically busy updating the Cult's content.
First, as the new Administrator, she shored up popular sentiment by declaring that their game would keep sailing smoothly from here on. The traitors who raised objections got turned into seasoned meat patties along the way.
At long last, formidable power and wealth had been placed in Cheon Yo-hwa's hands. This was what winning at life looked like.
Influential figures from home and abroad came swarming in, claiming they wished to pay their respects to this little Reverend, and thanks to them Cheon Yo-hwa's threshold gleamed and shone, polished bright by all their socks.
She had seized the freedom she had craved so badly. Surely it was about time she let herself feel satisfied.
But... why was it?
An ache and a tingle she couldn't wipe away still lingered. A tiny current of static crackled somewhere around Cheon Yo-hwa's heart.
Especially while she was looking at the girl in front of her.
"I might not look it, but I'm a generous sort, you know. Ehehe. If a top contributor like our Ji-won wants it, I'd happily make you an officer in the Cult, as senior a post as you'd like, and hand it right over."
"No."
Yu Ji-won shook her head. Firmly.
So firmly that, for a moment, Cheon Yo-hwa wondered whether the power she'd grasped was really that shabby.
"I'm truly grateful that you would extend such an offer to someone like me. But there isn't much time left now."
"There isn't much time left...?"
"World annihilation, Reverend."
Yu Ji-won laid out a point she had already raised several times, calm as ever, as though she never tired of it.
"This world will soon fail to escape annihilation. The power you've taken into your hands, Reverend. My grandmother's whole life. Mr. Matiz. Every memory I hold."
"..."
"From the moment Go Yuri was killed, Mr. Matiz and I have been thinking, all along. We've been trying. This very moment, our existence as we struggle endlessly. How we might carry it across the forgetting and the void, and pass even a sliver of it on to the 'future.'"
"Hmmm."
Cheon Yo-hwa fanned herself.
The fingers riding the folding fan brimmed with a Reverend's ease. Yet the impatience nesting in her heart grew hotter and hotter.
"When the world is annihilated, even the trace that we existed right now vanishes. How exactly do you plan to pass that on to the next cycle... to some other future? To turn Mr. Go Yuir into a regressor you need Teacher Go Yuri, and you killed her. You did."
"There's a flaw in the phrase 'next cycle.'"
Yu Ji-won rested her chin on her hand. Expressionless.
All at once Cheon Yo-hwa wanted to scratch a mark into that blank face. It wasn't a desire she felt for the first time.
It was also a desire she'd failed at every single time.
"To put it more precisely, what we're after isn't simply the [next cycle], but the [cycle of the happy ending] in which Mr. Matiz finally manages to stop the world's annihilation."
"Aha...?"
"Even if we deliver the record of our existence to the next cycle, it means nothing if the world's annihilation isn't actually stopped. Our record would just be lost together with that cycle's annihilation."
Yu Ji-won spoke crisply. Not once did her pronunciation stumble, not once did her breathing fall out of step, to the point that it felt almost inhuman.
"And so, the 'time capsule' holding our record must, no matter what happens, be delivered to the world that comes after the happy ending."
"..."
The gist was simple.
Go Yuir and Yu Ji-won. For whatever reason, these two believed this world's annihilation could absolutely never be avoided.
There was no hope of any kind.
In that case they might as well hurry up and kill themselves to spare the pain. But they didn't do that either.
Having accepted annihilation, the two of them resolved to deliver a kind of record toward the future that would arrive someday, toward themselves in the 'cycle that saved the world.'
That was the so-called 'time capsule.'
'Seriously, they're insane. Both of them.'
To Cheon Yo-hwa it was absurd.
"Well. It's interesting, though. How?"
For starters, believing without a shred of doubt in the world's annihilation was already off its rocker. Maybe it was abnormal for the leader of a sham cult to think that way, too.
But what was even more absurd was the part where, after accepting such a ridiculous premise, they went looking for a 'practical breakthrough.'
Any deranged cultist could believe in an apocalyptic end. But preparing 'practical countermeasures' to avoid the end?
Usually in cases like this, a cultist's answer came down to heartfelt 'prayer' or sincere 'donations.'
But the conclusion Go Yuir and Yu Ji-won had reached was neither.
"First, we were able to learn that the reincarnator's plan unfolds largely centered on the Korean Peninsula. No, rather, the reincarnator set the board up from the start so it would unfold centered on the Korean Peninsula."
Yu Ji-won unfolded a map.
Strangely, this girl always kept maps stowed in her bag. The one laid out on the table now was a world map.
"However, the odds that Mr. Matiz, who will one day evolve into a regressor, stays only on the Korean Peninsula are exceedingly low. Once each nation's government collapses, the regressor can roam the Eurasian continent relatively freely, going wherever he likes."
Yu Ji-won's eyes.
They seemed to gaze down at destinations and waypoints not yet visible on the map, as if they were the most obvious things in the world.
"Therefore, for the 'time capsule' not to be discovered by failed regressors, we must bury it not merely far from the Korean Peninsula, but in a place a regressor would hardly ever reach."
"...And where is that?"
"Across the Pacific. The American continent."
"..."
"And it can't be a famous place, even there. Niagara Falls, the Grand Canyon, the Uyuni Salt Flats, and so on. Tourist attractions risk a regressor dropping by to kill time."
"..."
"If a regressor were to find the time capsule there, even by accident. If they were to open it even once. And if that regressor reached a [bad ending] and lost themselves. Then our record, too, would stay buried in the soil and be lost forever."
This child.
Where on earth was she looking?
The memories and the bond she had shared with Mr. Matiz, with the man named Go Yuir. Why was she so desperate to pass them on to the future?
Why did eternity dwell only in the breath those two exhaled?
'Ah.'
A flinch. Cheon Yo-hwa's gaze had been snagged on Yu Ji-won's face the whole time, and she hurried to school her expression.
Luckily it didn't seem her dazed face had been caught. Yu Ji-won was still focused on pointing here and there across the map as she explained.
"...Hmm. But it's not exactly a famous place. And there's hardly a good way to deliver a hint about where the time capsule is buried to the [happy ending] regressor alone. It looks way too hard, doesn't it?"
"Yes."
Yu Ji-won nodded.
"That's why Mr. Matiz and I deliberated for a long, very long time about where to bury the time capsule. It was a long deliberation."
Condition 1. The place is far from the Korean Peninsula, and reaching it requires crossing the Pacific.
Condition 2. The place can never be found by a bad ending regressor, and only a regressor who reaches the happy ending can find it.
Condition 3. Leaving a concrete hint about the place is difficult. The moment a hint is left, it's exposed to the [bad ending] regressors as well, and the risk of discovery by the reincarnator Go Yuri rises too.
"And so."
Yu Ji-won said.
"The place must be one that Mr. Matiz 'absolutely' never visits until he has saved the world, but that he 'will certainly' visit naturally once he has saved it. It has to be that kind of place."
"And where is that?"
Just then.
For the first time, that is, for the first time as far as Cheon Yo-hwa was concerned, she found herself witnessing the girl before her wear a smile.
"..."
This time even Cheon Yo-hwa had no choice but to stare blankly at Yu Ji-won.
She had heard from Go Yuir that the girl's emotions had been cut away. That she was a little different from a psychopath, too.
And yet that smile held a feeling so vivid it was impossible to imagine it on the lips of someone who could feel no emotion at all.
Was it because that startled her so much?
"I will major in Latin and Ancient Greek."
Cheon Yo-hwa reacted a touch late to the words that spilled from Yu Ji-won's lips.
"Uh. Yes, yes?"
"Latin and Ancient Greek. They're the majors Mr. Matiz recommended. We plan to pool our funds, go study abroad, and learn them."
"Ah. Then the Cult will support-!"
"No."
Yu Ji-won shook her head.
Not as firmly as before.
She couldn't quite say how to put it, but to Cheon Yo-hwa it felt as though a faint hope and flutter had melted into the tilt of her head.
"After Mr. Matiz saves the world, I'll go to the United States to study. Depending on the timing, I might even go as an exchange student."
"..."
"Among the universities along the Pacific coast there's Stanford University. It has a classics department that systematically teaches Latin, Ancient Greek, and the like. The philosophy encyclopedia treated as the philosophy department's wiki[1] is managed by that university too. We plan to plant the time capsule on its campus grounds."
Yu Ji-won was still smiling.
"If the world's annihilation is stopped, I'll surely go there. And Mr. Matiz will certainly come with me, no doubt about it. So. No matter what happens, we will find the time capsule at the end of the happy ending."
A trust close to infinite.
Happiness. She could feel it.
"..."
Cheon Yo-hwa's lips parted.
And a mutter slipped out before she knew it.
"What if you fail?"
Yu Ji-won tilted her head.
"Pardon?"
"What if you fail. You said this cycle has no hope at all, didn't you? World annihilation. Then even if you try hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of times, your odds don't exactly just shoot up, do they?"
"..."
"One percent if you're being generous. No, honestly it's under 0.01 percent, right? So why do you, Yu Ji-won, bet your whole life and your future on those odds? Why does Mr. Go Yuir do it too? If there's no chance anyway, then either try to stop the world's annihilation in this cycle, or... rather than waste time on pointless effort, wouldn't it be a lot more reasonable to flex and live it up as hard as you can?"
For a moment silence settled over the parlor.
Feeling the chill of that silence, Cheon Yo-hwa regretted it, thinking, ah, I went and did it.
'I didn't want to say something like that.'
She hadn't wanted to reveal herself to this person.
Because, well, there was no chance of winning at all, was there.
Yu Ji-won had met Go Yuir far earlier than she had. Not merely met him, but formed a bond so deep it was hard for her even to imagine.
She was late. She was tardy. At the decisive moment she had been shoved back in the order of time.
So, what Cheon Yo-hwa had really wanted to say was this.
'You're just... you're just lucky, that's all.'
What she had wanted to swallow back down was this.
'If I'd been born into a flimsy family like yours, forget middle school, I'd have killed my parents back in elementary school already.'
'Then the event would've been moved up by that much, and the timeline where Teacher Go Yuri assigned Mr. Go Yuir to me would've come sooner, wouldn't it?'
'Ahaha.'
'...You got lucky being born into a home like that, you got lucky meeting that person early, and yet.'
'Why... am I the one who has to give up?'
Cheon Yo-hwa bit her lip.
Her heart churned. Without either of them noticing, foul water resembling a taegeuk yin-yang pattern[2] was pooling inside her chest.
'What? You'll live not for this cycle but for the cycle that reaches the happy ending? Then what, you're going to keep Mr. Go Yuir all to yourself forever, is that it?'
'Why? Why, why? Why? Why does it have to be her?'
'If I had met him sooner.'
'For a heartless machine like you, when I like him this much. When this is the first time I've ever felt anything like this. Why-.'
"I don't understand the question."
Right before the foul water could stain her soul.
Yu Ji-won spoke up. Only then did Cheon Yo-hwa come back to herself.
The girl's words went on.
"I believe in Mr. Matiz."
"...No, believe in him or not. I'm telling you it's going to fail."
"It doesn't matter."
"What?"
"If Mr. Matiz fails, there will surely be a reason that failure was unavoidable. It will be a reason neither Mr. Matiz nor I can do anything about, and so there's no use in my worrying over it now."
"..."
"What matters is the simple fact that I believe in Mr. Matiz."
Cheon Yo-hwa.
"Mr. Matiz's failure, his success, his giving up, his hope, his resignation, his smile. I will accept all of it as the finest beauty."
She could say for certain she had never once thought of herself as a chosen human, because.
She was simply smarter and more beautiful and more abundant and more excellent and more favored by the gods than others, that was all, so.
She didn't think she was a truly special person, but even so she had never cursed her own lot while looking at someone else, so.
Now that she had killed her father and ascended to the throne, all the more there should have been no reason to curse anyone.
"That is the life I have chosen for myself."
"..."
For the first time in her life.
Cheon Yo-hwa felt inferior to another person.
'There's no way.'
There was no way she could win.
Footnotes:
[1] A reference to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), a free, peer-reviewed online reference work on philosophy maintained by Stanford University and widely used as a go-to resource by students and academics.
[2] The taegeuk is the red-and-blue swirling yin-yang symbol at the center of the South Korean flag, representing the balance of opposing cosmic forces.
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