WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 470: That Woman C VII
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* * *
“Excuse me.”
“Hm?”
The Cult's main headquarters.
Go Yuir was strolling down the corridor when he turned to look back. Standing there was the absolute authority and supreme dignity of this place, the Reverend... no, not quite.
It was someone who looked exactly like the Reverend.
“Ah. Sister-in-law! Good morning!”
“Yes.”
The Reverend's younger sister. Her name was Cheon Yo-hwa.
In other words, the one person whose name was pronounced exactly the same as the Reverend's, leaving him at a loss for what to call her.
But now that they were tied together as the Reverend and her betrothed, the convenient title of “sister-in-law” had become available.
The person on the receiving end of that title from Go Yuir, however, made a subtle face.
“What can I do for you?”
“No, it's nothing major... More to the point, brother-in-law. You can tell my sister and me apart really well, can't you? Even the servants who've worked at the house for years sometimes mix us up.”
“Ah. The atmosphere is different.”
“What? The atmosphere?”
“If you're like the sun, sister-in-law, then the Reverend is like the moon, I'd say. Whether that's the principle of yin and yang or whatever, I wouldn't know since I'm an Oechul, but even your way of walking is different, so I can't help but feel it. Haha.”
“...”
The younger of the twin sisters, the girl the Cult called the Grand Protector, made an even stranger face.
“...I think I'm starting to understand why my sister slapped a restraining order on you, so let's get straight to the point.”
“?”
“Brother-in-law. Lately my sister's been shut up in her room.”
Go Yuir blinked.
“Is that so?”
“Yes. You don't get involved in running the Cult, brother-in-law, so you probably didn't notice, but she's been a recluse for over a week now.”
“Uh... A week or so, can't we just treat that like the occasional vacation? It's summer, after all. The Reverend must be worn out too.”
“Without a word? My sister?”
Go Yuir's sister-in-law scoffed.
“Sure, I can keep impersonating my sister and putting on a show in front of the believers for a few more days. But go in there and ask her why she's suddenly so into this hikikomori act[1] she never used to pull.”
“Is that all right?”
“Is what all right?”
“I'd think the Reverend would be much more at ease if you went, sister-in-law, instead of an outsider like me...”
“Ughhh.”
For some reason, the sigh ran deep.
“I told you. I'm busy playing my sister. Can't you just go in place of your overworked sister-in-law, brother-in-law? We're family, you know, believe it or not.”
“Ah. My apologies. I failed to consider your situation, sister-in-law. Of course, I'll pop in right away.”
“No. You don't have to make it that quick...”
“?”
“Ah. Forget it, forget it. Seriously. Any longer and my own head's going to go funny too.”
Jingle. She handed him something. A key.
“It's the key to my sister's bedroom.”
“Uh. Is it really okay for me to just take something like this...”
“It's not 'just' anything. What's strange about a betrothed man carrying his betrothed's key? I've got a spare, so use that one, brother-in-law.”
“Mm... Understood. Thank you. I'd love for the two of us to get coffee sometime and grow closer.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Sorry?”
“Ah. No, I, it's nothing. Just talking to myself! I talk to myself a lot, see. I'm a total otaku! A complete weeb! If you knew what I watch on a normal day, brother-in-law, you'd be totally turned off. I've got a rotten personality too, always going around talking trash about people.”
“Ah. Uh, I, I see...”
That was TMI he had absolutely no desire to know.
Go Yuir walked off with a dazed look. He hadn't gone far when a voice came from behind him.
“Brother-in-law.”
“Yes?”
“My sister. On the surface she always seems smug and perfect and capable, but deep down she's someone who keeps a really tender soft spot in her heart.”
“...”
“Think about how many people my sister is actually close to. Me. And you, brother-in-law. That's it. Why a person like her would pull you into a relationship like a betrothal in the first place... just think about it once, even once, for me.”
It was a strange thing to say.
Before he could ask what it meant, she vanished off somewhere in a flash. The Cult's mansion had corridors tangled like a maze, and tracing the path of sisters who had lived here since birth was no easy feat.
‘Think about why she got betrothed to me?’
Go Yuir cocked his head and headed for the Reverend's inner chamber.
‘Isn't it because, as accomplices who murdered the previous generation together, we arranged a family bond so neither of us could betray the other?’
As Go Yuir approached, the servants waiting outside the bedroom all bowed their heads at once.
Every one of them had their tongues cut out and could not speak. They were close attendants who had served Cheon Yo-hwa since the previous generation. In the Cult they were called the Eight Trigrams.
Thin veils covered the faces of the Eight Trigrams, making it hard to tell one from another.
They seemed very old yet also quite young, and facing them left you with a thoroughly strange feeling.
To be honest, Go Yuir found these servants a burden. The way they treated him was always far too reverent.
“No, no. You may straighten your backs. The thing is, I came at my sister-in-law's request to check on the Reverend.”
“...”
“I even brought the key, see.”
Jingle, and when Go Yuir drew out the key, the servants' heads snapped sharply toward it.
“...”
“Everyone. May I go inside for a moment to see the Reverend?”
The servants exchanged glances without a word.
Then, bowing at an even lower angle than before, they scurried off down the corridor without so much as a footstep. Would you believe it?
In an instant, Go Yuir was left alone in the corridor. The key dangled forlornly from his hand.
“Uh. I didn't mean to ask you to clear out entirely... though.”
No reply came from anywhere.
Go Yuir shrugged, then rapped on the door. But when there was no response at all, he reluctantly used the key.
“Pardon the intrusion, Reverend. I'm coming in.”
Creeeak.
The door rang out so loudly it almost seemed excessive, leaving the back of Go Yuir's neck cold. No. Maybe it was the chill that seeped in like a crosswind from inside the room.
“Reverend?”
The room was wide. Sliding paper doors lined both sides. It was called a bedroom, but this single room seemed to be a detached residence all on its own.
Completely cut off from the outside.
‘...Where is she?’
Gulp. Swallowing at the inexplicable tension, Go Yuir opened the sliding doors one by one in search of Cheon Yo-hwa.
“Ah.”
She was lying in the very last room.
This place was the true ‘bedroom’ in every sense. A bed large enough that four people, never mind two, could lie down with room to spare.
On a bed where black timber and white sheets formed a stark contrast, Cheon Yo-hwa lay quietly, without even the sound of breathing.
“...”
No matter that they were officially betrothed, peeking at another person's sleeping form like this should have been rude, and yet, unexpectedly, it wasn't.
Because even in sleep, Cheon Yo-hwa's face and the set of her clothes were immaculate. Exactly the same as always.
‘No way. Does the Reverend wear makeup even when she sleeps...?’
Thanks to that, Go Yuir, though her betrothed, was able to study Cheon Yo-hwa's face closely, probably for the first time since they had met.
‘Wait. Don't tell me... this is her bare face?’
It couldn't be.
It wasn't just a matter of her face. There were hardly any wrinkles in her clothes, and a faint fragrance drifted from her lips.
She was at a level where she could step straight into the day's schedule just like this, without any makeup, without even brushing her teeth.
‘Insane... For real? Is she always like this? Wow. So there was a reason the sister-in-law had no qualms about giving me permission to walk into the bedroom.’
Just then.
Right before his eyes, Cheon Yo-hwa opened her eyes.
“Ah.”
“...”
He was reflected in those deep red pupils.
Go Yuir flinched. Part of it was the closeness, but even so, her eyes were too transparent, far too transparent.
Like someone startled at their own reflection in a mirror that was too clear, Go Yuir was momentarily turned to stone.
Blink.
It was only when Cheon Yo-hwa's eyelids opened and shut once that the petrification finally broke.
He drew in the breath whose reservation had backed up because he'd forgotten about it for a moment, and.
“Ah, pardon me...”
Letting the breath out got pushed back a little further.
Because his lips were blocked.
“...”
Go Yuir's mind came to a complete stop.
His brain stuttered as it tried to interpret what was happening before his eyes.
‘Huh?’
Time was not passing. The future was not coming. Because of that, all Go Yuir could do was replay what had just happened, that is, the past.
‘Huh?’ ‘Huh?’ ‘Huh?’
Right. A moment ago he had drawn in a breath.
As he inhaled, a little of the orange fragrance steeped into the bedroom got drawn in too. But for some reason, the orange fragrance had now gone beyond a smell, standing out in outline like fruit juice, filling the inside of his mouth.
‘Is this’ ‘right now?’ ‘what's happening’ ‘I mean?’
Her eyes were close. He could feel her breath. It wasn't his own breath or his own scent, so Go Yuir couldn't tell whether he was breathing or having his breath stolen.
‘So...’
Stutter. Like an AI that hadn't been paid for, Go Yuir's sluggish brain struggled to deliver an answer to the user's question.
‘A kiss?’
There was a reason the answer was late. For that one beat he was "Go Yuri," and Go Yuri's database contained no entry for the term.[4]
In the language of the humanities, it was also called a ‘first kiss.’
“~~~~~~?!”
A beat too late, Go Yuir began to thrash. His breathing turned ragged. His pupils widened to their limit.
And Go Yuir realized just how flimsy a being his self had become in a worldline where he'd given up being a regressor.
No matter how he struggled, he couldn't escape, not in the slightest, from the grip of Cheon Yo-hwa's hand cupping the back of his head.
“Mn, mmnn... Sun, baeee...♪”
When their lips parted, a trace of laughter slipped through, and then Cheon Yo-hwa pressed her lips to his again.
This time pulling Go Yuir right onto the bed.
“~~~~~~~~!?!?”
When Cheon Yo-hwa's fragrance invaded even the boundary line one must not cross carelessly, Go Yuir's thrashing grew fiercer still.
Of course, it amounted to no more than the desperate flailing of the German army holed up in Berlin with the Allied forces right at the door[2].
The more Go Yuir flailed, the deeper into the quagmire he sank.
The blanket coiled around him, and something that clearly wasn't the feel of a blanket coiled around him too, and the scent of Cheon Yo-hwa soaked into the blanket stabbed at the tip of his nose from all directions, and his two hands... huh. When had their fingers gotten laced together?
Something slid down his spine with a smooth glide, brushing it like piano keys.
“!?!?!?!?!?!?!?”
Go Yuir never could have imagined it in his wildest dreams, but.
At present Cheon Yo-hwa had sharply strengthened the authority of the Outer God, and day in and day out she was enjoying dates with Go Yuir in her dreams.
As a result, an exclusive skill called [Read Go Yuir's Weakness] had leveled up like crazy, and then leveled up some more.
In short, the present Go Yuir was a Pidgey living in the wilds of the Beginning Village[3]. And then some Pokémon trainer approached and abruptly whipped out a level 80 Pikachu, would you believe it.
The type matchup was bad on top of that. From Pikachu's standpoint, even a light little nuzzle of the cheek could be a fatal jolt of electrocution for a Pidgey.
A hellish five minutes passed.
“Ehehe... Mn, sunbaeee...”
The Pokémon champion seemed satisfied at last, and released the Pidgey from her arms. Then she drifted off to dreamland again, breath whistling softly in and out.
“...”
Without a word, Go Yuir carefully peeled Cheon Yo-hwa's two arms and two legs off of himself, one limb at a time, as they clung to him.
It was no easy task. Ten minutes per limb. Forty minutes in total before he finally managed to separate them.
At long last, Pidgey-yuir escaped.
Rattle, he closed the sliding door. Thud. He closed the main door.
Just as he had about an hour earlier, Go Yuir was once again left alone in the corridor.
It was a great mercy. If the Eight Trigrams servants had still been standing by, low-level-yuir might have killed himself out of shame.
“...”
Straightening his disheveled clothes, catching his breath, groaning at the orange fragrance smeared all over his dress shirt, vowing that before going home he absolutely had to shower and send these clothes to the cleaners.
Go Yuir squeezed his eyes shut.
‘Nothing... happened!’
It was a firm resolve.
‘Until I die. Uh, until the world ends, more or less! Right, Yuir. Just a few more years, that's all! Let's carry it to the grave as a secret...!’
Go Yuir's back as he staggered away down the corridor.
“...”
There were eight pairs of eyes quietly watching it from the corner of the corridor.
A sidelong glance. Sixteen pupils in all looked at one another. A nod. They nodded up and down, too.
Then they scurried off somewhere.
* * *
“Yo-hwa.”
“What is it, sister?”
“Lately it feels like Go Yuir has been avoiding me. Is it just my imagination?”
“Ahh. Yeah, it's your imagination. Just your imagination.”
“Is that so...?”
“Yeah. These days I'm playing the Reverend in your place a lot, you know. So brother-in-law strikes up all sorts of conversation with me, thinking I'm you. Oh, don't worry! There is absolutely no way I'll ever come to like brother-in-law!”
“Mm...”
“More importantly, rest a bit more, sister. Rest up properly. You ran yourself ragged after being such a dutiful daughter to Father.”
“But I worry it'll be a burden on you...”
“Aw, I'm just gaining some experience this time around too! Anyway, sister. You're taking your sleeping pills properly, right?”
“Ah. Yeah. The ones you gave me last time work really well on me. Thanks to them I keep training even in my dreams.”
“It's not just in your dreams you're doing that, though.”
“Hm?”
“No, no, it's nothing. Anyway, you've got to rest properly while you rest, or there's no point to the vacation. Let's keep at it for just two more weeks, sister!”
“...Do you really need to keep at it just to rest?”
“Yeah. The way I see it, absolutely.”
“?”
“Ugh. Honestly... You work so hard, so hard. There's nobody in this world who looks out for family as much as I do.”
“??”
Footnotes:
[1] Hikikomori is a Japanese term for people who withdraw into total social isolation, shutting themselves in their homes (or a single room) for extended periods.
[2] A reference to the Battle of Berlin (1945), the final major offensive of World War II in Europe, in which the encircled German forces fought a hopeless, last-ditch defense before surrendering.
[3] Pokémon references. Pidgey is the weak, first-route bird Pokémon; the "Beginning Village" is a riff on Pallet Town, the starting town in the games. The joke casts Go Yuir as a low-level wild Pokémon ambushed by a vastly overpowered, type-advantaged opponent.
[4] The Korean deliberately switches from Go Yuir to Go Yuri here for the joke, as if his brain crossed wires in the middle of the kiss.
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