WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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Chapter 469: That Woman C VI
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The truth was, Cheon Yo-hwa already knew.
To put it as a metaphor, the Cult she reigned over was a demonic cult. And she was its Heavenly Demon.
A proper Heavenly Demon ought to strike down her own father and then seize her position purely by her own strength.
She, too, had done nothing more than faithfully follow the traditions of a demonic cult.
And so a trial that no high-ranking cultist of the demonic path could ever avoid had been handed to her as well.
The inner demon.
-The fact that I like someone now could end up wounding that person, couldn't it.
-So you wound them.
"...No, what the hell."
When had it started?
There was a voice inside her heart, whispering in an imitation of her own.
At first she truly believed it was her own innermost thoughts. But no matter how she looked at it, she would never act that filthy.
Probably. No, without a doubt.
This inner demon had to be the influence of the 'Outer God.'
-Really? You sneak glances at his lips every single day while talking with Go Yuir and fantasize about kissing him, and you're really not filthy?
"Eeeeeek!"
-Actually, Go Yuir might already have noticed. Mm, a hundred percent he noticed. Remember last time? How he suddenly switched the lip gloss he always used to Vaseline. Since you stare at his lips so much, he probably figured something was wrong with the product and switched to a different one...
"Eeeeeeeeeek! Die! Die! Please, die! Just drop dead, would you!"
The crash and clatter from the Reverend's chamber sent the door flying open, and her sister rushed in.
"Unni?! What happened? Don't tell me it's an assassin?!"
"No, it's... it's nothing..."
Sprawled across the floor, Cheon Yo-hwa groaned.
"M, more to the point. Yo-hwa, do you ever get a cunning demon whispering inside your heart these days too?"
"Ugh."
Her sister took a step back.
"Unni, even so, chuunibyou[1] at your age is kind of... I always thought you had a bit of an otaku streak from way back, but failing to keep your dignity even after becoming Reverend, I think that's a real problem."
-Are you an idiot?
The inner demon sneered again.
-This is an inner demon, Cheon Yo-hwa. Your heart for the Way warped and a gap opened up. It's like an asphalt road crumbling and weeds growing in the cracks. Do you think an inner demon could find room to slip into a girl who walks her own path as straight as your sister?
"..."
Cheon Yo-hwa dismissed her sister, who kept staring at her with a worried face, and was alone again.
But alone, she was not alone.
Cheon Yo-hwa muttered inwardly.
'I've given up on Go Yuir. At the very least I'm trying to give up. It hasn't gotten so bad you could call my heart broken.'
-Ahahaha.
A laugh she couldn't stand rang against her eardrum. It was a noise that vibrated not outside the eardrum but inside it.
-Want to open the second drawer over there and say that again? After you smoothed out that engagement document you'd crumpled into a ball, pressed it flat with your own hands, and enshrined it like some holy relic. Given up?
"..."
-You know what, Cheon Yo-hwa? I'm not the one deceiving you. You're deceiving yourself. I only speak on your behalf, and that's why you can't kill me. Because I'm honest.
'Shut up.'
-You shut up. I'm not some separate split personality. I'm you. I exist because you can't let go.
Cheon Yo-hwa's hair came undone.
The hair her attendants had so carefully styled at dawn each day fell into ruin, and from beneath it a groan leaked out.
"...Then what do you want me to do."
-Just honestly admit your heart.
The voice turned gentle.
-Whether you call it god-nim or Outer God, the one thing you can't deny is that it is one body and one heart with you. Which means the more upright and strong your heart grows, the stronger the god's authority grows too.
'Aha.'
Cheon Yo-hwa scoffed.
'So in the end all this bullshit was a scheme to seduce me and offer me up as god-nim's living Sacrifice? How cliche.'
-What's cliche is your interpretation.
-Seduction. Sacrifice. Plunder. Those words are nothing but the hopelessly one-dimensional readings of third parties who have never experienced the relationship between a god and a priestess for themselves.
-It isn't like that, Cheon Yo-hwa. It isn't like that.
-A god has no intention, no purpose. There isn't a speck of any aim to toy with you. As a priestess, surely you can feel it?
-The god simply wants to set you free.
"..."
Cheon Yo-hwa was silent, and also not silent.
-The 'time capsule' project Go Yuir asked for lately, the progress is a little sluggish, isn't it?
-That's all because your authority hasn't ripened enough. You still haven't reached the level where you can run simulations as freely as you'd like.
-As long as you treat me as an inner demon, you'll keep walking in place forever.
And then?
-Admit your own heart. Don't run away behind the word "given up," face it head-on.
-Will you repeat after me?
Repeat what?
-I love Go Yuir.
"..."
-Just repeat it once. Even murmuring it in your heart is enough. Repeat it just once, and tonight you'll feel your authority suddenly grow.
-And this isn't only for your own sake, it's for Go Yuir too.
For Go Yuir's sake?
-Of course. You have to grow your authority to finish the time capsule sooner, don't you? World annihilation is creeping closer by the moment, and you mean to lounge around obsessing over your own purity?
"..."
-Repeat it.
-Come on. Hurry.
Cheon Yo-hwa's lips pressed hard together.
'...I love Go Yuir.'
And?
'I probably... won't be able to give him up. Ever.'
Well done. Well done, Cheon Yo-hwa.
-Now I'll prove that my words aren't some bewitching lie.
That night.
Cheon Yo-hwa had a lucid dream.
Lucid dreams had always been thoroughly familiar to her. As the Outer God's authority grew stronger, 'simulations' had begun to manifest in the form of dreams.
But the sleepwalking dream she had this night was somewhat... no. Far, far higher in resolution than usual.
「People are dying!」
「This is the path to saving them. Yes, I know. It must sound like sophistry. But the moment I dared to spoil things for you, Oraboni, this life became a 'discard card' for me.」
A back alley where rain had started to fall.
On the dark, gloomy roadside, Go Yuir and Go Yuri were having an argument. The scene played out from a distance.
Cheon Yo-hwa felt exactly as if she had become a ghost.
She could see those two, but they couldn't sense her at all.
'This is?'
The inner demon whispered.
-The night Go Yuri died. The simulation has restored the scene of the murder. Yes, look there. See the kid hidden under a raincoat?
'Ah.'
-That's Yu Ji-won.
The girl, masked by the sound of the rain, ambushed Go Yuri. A kitchen knife. The blade, sheathed in aura, drove precisely between bone and bone and pierced through her chest.
-The moment everything changed. The fork in the route, if you want to call it that.
"..."
-Rewind it a little further into the past.
"Is that... possible?"
-Right now it is. You've heard the whole thing from Go Yuir dozens of times anyway, and you know every major character's face. Try it.
She turned back time.
How such a feat was even possible was a mystery, but with that brilliant mind of hers, Cheon Yo-hwa grasped the method at once.
'This isn't reality, it's a human's dream. A simulation. Which means I'm contemplating the world in a form [I can understand.]'
'In that case, a format that's a little easier to understand and easier to manipulate... For instance, what if I think of it as a [video?]'
Bzzzt-.
The world's image quality degraded somewhat. But in exchange, Cheon Yo-hwa could now press a 'fast-forward' button on the scenery before her, just like skipping a video back and forth.
-Heh.
The inner demon marveled.
-You grasped the principle of your authority without anyone teaching you? That's right. You have to weave the world into a form that's easy for you to control.
-The more cumbersome the form, the weaker the authority. But the easier it is to use. The less form there is, the stronger the authority. But the harder it is to use.
-You have to strike a good balance between the two, little priestess.
-Remember. You have to figure out for yourself which form suits you best. Free of shape or place.
Time rewound.
What spread before Cheon Yo-hwa's eyes was no longer the alley. A budget business hotel. The lodging where Go Yuir and Yu Ji-won were staying.
-This is the situation right before the route diverges.
Cheon Yo-hwa knit her brows.
'This? Nothing about it looks special.'
-Soon, Go Yuir is going to reveal a secret to Yu Ji-won. He's going to open up the information about the reincarnator.
-Foolish, foolish, foolish. At this point in time Yu Ji-won is the strongest priestess, who has climbed to the level of being one body and one heart with the Outer God by her own power.
-From the girl Yu Ji-won's standpoint. From the Outer God's standpoint. There's no way they'd let a prime chance to kill the reincarnator slip by.
-You have to stop it, Cheon Yo-hwa.
How?
-Simple. Just keep Go Yuir from staring at Yu Ji-won, deal with nothing but his gaze.
'Huh?'
For a moment Cheon Yo-hwa was dumbfounded.
'Turn his gaze away? ...You're saying that alone changes the route?'
-Don't ask me back.
The inner demon's voice sank low.
-I'm not delivering information you don't have. You just grasped how to use your authority entirely on your own.
-I only restated and repeated the fact you realized. I didn't create something out of nothing.
-You know it already, so don't ask back.
-Block Go Yuir's gaze as it falls on Yu Ji-won. It's dangerous.
"..."
Crash!
A glass tumbled off the table.
「Oh.」
Go Yuir was flustered. At that, Yu Ji-won, who had been sitting at the desk, quickly rose too.
「I'll fetch a towel and gloves, Mr. Matiz. Do not pick up the glass.」
「Uh, uh-huh. And socks too!」
「Yes.」
Yu Ji-won and Go Yuir, perfectly in sync, cleared away the glass in no time.
The subtle air that had been flowing between the two of them moments earlier had vanished somewhere too.
Just then Go Yuir's smartphone buzzed, and after confirming it was a text from Go Yuri, Go Yuir hurried out of the lodging.
-Follow him.
She followed.
「Anyway, congratulations on your overseas trip, Oraboni. It's a trip you planned a whole year in advance, isn't it?」
「Well. Yeah.」
「I'm only saying this out of a worrywart's caution, just in case, but you have to keep my existence a secret from Miss Yu Ji-won, all right?」
「...Y, yeah. Of course.」
A warm, friendly conversation between siblings.
Unlike the 'past' where they had argued fiercely, in the newly diverged 'route this time,' Go Yuir and Go Yuri talked together in nothing but an ordinary way.
What's more.
'...Yu Ji-won's tailing is gone.'
-Mm.
The inner demon chimed in.
-If the glass hadn't dropped just now, Go Yuir would have kept looking at Yu Ji-won, and they'd have had some important conversation.
'And that conversation... triggered Teacher Go Yuri's death?'
Cheon Yo-hwa swallowed hard.
'The teacher's life or death was decided by whether or not one single conversation happened?'
-Every necessity is chance. Chance is necessity. Necessity is the world. Now fast-forward and check what's changed.
She checked.
In the worldline where the reincarnator didn't die, Go Yuir soon appeared before the Cheon Yo-hwa twins as the successor tutor.
And.
There was no Yu Ji-won at his side.
-He moved to Sejong to teach us sisters.
'Yu Ji-won...?'
-He left her behind in Seoul.
The inner demon analyzed calmly.
-They still contact each other by phone now and then, but they don't cling together like rice cakes the way they do now. Of course. In the worldline where Go Yuri is alive, the goal of saving the world hasn't been given up yet.
-Yu Ji-won's route is over. Now it's our sisters' turn. So with Yu Ji-won out of the picture, for a whole 'few years,' we sisters build a bond with Go Yuir.
"..."
Before her eyes.
The relationship Cheon Yo-hwa came to share with Go Yuir was quite different from the reality she originally knew.
-Sunbae!
She no longer called Go Yuir by the stiff title of 'Mr. Go.'
Under the pretext that they'd be attending the same university anyway, she used the word 'sunbae.'
-Yeah, yeah. Don't go scoring a zero on purpose on this exam. What face am I supposed to face your father with?
-Ehehe.
Go Yuir, too... did not treat her with distant, formal speech as 'young lady' or 'Reverend.'
He spoke casually, just like someone truly close to her.
In the eyes that looked at Cheon Yo-hwa, though it wasn't a lover's affection, there remained the warmth of someone looking at a disciple and friend held endlessly dear.
-My father needs a jolt of tension whenever he goes slack. Only then does your value go up right along with it, you know?
-You're overflowing with nonsense today, disciple.
-Woof woof?
-Grrrrr.
-Huh. You caught on that I was imitating a Shih Tzu and immediately possessed a bulldog...?! As expected of you, sunbae. Tremendous reflexes... I can't beat your sheer dog-bastard power either.
-Why you little.
She casually slipped her arm through his, and he casually patted her head.
Right before her.
A conversation so completely different. An air so completely different. A smile so completely different.
"..."
Cheon Yo-hwa could only watch that scene blankly, for a long, long time.
Until she woke from the dream.
"..."
The ceiling came into view.
The ceiling blurred.
Cheon Yo-hwa covered her eyes with her forearm.
-Well? Your authority got stronger, didn't it?
-This is the simulation 'sunbae' mentioned. The true substance of the Outer God's authority. The more information you have. The more transparent your heart. The higher the simulation's resolution.
-Naturally... you can run as many simulations as you like of scenes completely different from the 'reality' you live in now.
-But.
The inner demon whispered.
-The further and further you stray from reality, the higher the level of authority demanded of you climbs too. Of course, the computation a simulation consumes is different.
-Just admitting that you love sunbae is, sadly, only enough to take you this far.
-To run more varied, longer simulations, you'll have to push yourself a little harder. Mm.
Silence fell. Dawn. Outside the window it was still dark.
Beneath the face hidden by her forearm, Cheon Yo-hwa's lips slowly parted.
'...More. To strengthen the authority further, what do I have to do?'
The inner demon answered in a low voice.
-When you speak with me, make a sound out loud, not in your heart.
-The human heart is like an object submerged in water, refracted into vagueness.
-Refine your heart into language. Speak your heart into the open. Surrender your heart to the keen-edged air.
Cheon Yo-hwa's lips parted again.
"...To strengthen the authority further, what do I have to do?"
The inner demon answered in a low voice.
-Use honorifics. Your heart is an altar for yourself. Your tongue is the ritual implement placed upon the altar. Your language will itself become a rite for you.
Cheon Yo-hwa's lips parted once more.
"To strengthen the authority further from here... what do I have to do?"
The inner demon answered in a low voice.
-A rite isn't an everyday occurrence, it's a ceremony always held at a set time, in a set place.
-Time and space. The very attempt to grasp the space and time that humans cannot truly catch with their fingers is the essence of a rite. This is sik, the form.
-When you speak with me, hold to proper decorum. Just as you refined your heart with language, refine my rite with objects. This is gyeok, the rank.
-Hold to a proper gyeoksik, a formality of form and rank, in dealing with me.
-In your room, in a place where no one, not even your sister, can interfere, prepare a single mirror. The heart is, in the end, a mirror and an abyss no one can approach.
She did so.
The Reverend's bedchamber. In the deepest place, where neither her sister nor her attendants could set a foot without permission, Cheon Yo-hwa stood up a single vanity mirror.
-Well done, Cheon Yo-hwa.
Within the mirror.
-Now I will become a god for you and you alone.
The corners of Cheon Yo-hwa's mouth were twisted.
Footnotes:
[1] Chuunibyou (Japanese: "eighth-grader syndrome") is otaku slang for an adolescent who acts out grandiose, edgy delusions, such as believing they harbor secret powers or a dark alter ego. Here the sister teases Cheon Yo-hwa for talking about a demon whispering inside her.
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