WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 483: That Woman D X
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* * *
The word that fit "closed retreat" the worst was "group."
If you likened wuxia to Pokemon, it had evolved in stages, from classic wuxia to new wuxia to web wuxia.
And among those, the stage called MZ wuxia[1], also known as xianxia[2], was basically its Gigantamax evolution.
Anyone who'd encountered Pokemon back in the day, the moment they laid eyes on a Gigantamax, would let out an involuntary Lion's Roar[3] of "Hah! What kind of Pokemon is that?!"
Xianxia was bound to exactly the same fate.
Even so, there was one rule of grammar that hadn't changed from past to present.
The unwritten law that a "closed retreat" had to be done alone.
Obviously, if you did it not by yourself but as a like-minded group all hyping each other up, how was that a retreat at all?
Even if it happened at some little spring deep in the mountains, that wasn't a retreat. It deserved to be called a vaguely offbeat team-building lodge instead.
"...Hey."
In that sense, Noh Do-hwa was a flawless, perfectly normal person who had never read so much as a single volume of wuxia in her life.
But even she could sense that the present situation was deeply abnormal.
"We've been holed up in a hotel room for over ten days now without even getting to see the sun outside. Is this normal? Huh...?"
"Go get your sunlight on the terrace."
The Undertaker answered.
For the record, besides the two of them, several other people were sprawled out across this ridiculously spacious suite. Dang Seo-rin was over there, Cheon Yo-hwa way over there...
Damn it, Noh Do-hwa cursed under her breath. For someone with misanthropy as a passive trait, far too many people were living here.
"Outside. I said outside, you bastard..."
At that, the Undertaker's eyes flashed. They gleamed like a beast's in the dead of night.
"Why? You want to leave? You're saying you want to get away from me?"
"You, dog..."
It had been ten full days since the Undertaker had evolved into the most insane, obsessive man the world had ever seen.
As though the grammar of the genre were no concern of his, this atrocity called "team-lodge training" was being carried out with perfect composure.
Noh Do-hwa came to a deep, deep realization. Mostly a reflection on her past self, and especially on the way she herself loved.
The realization that maybe the sight of someone obsessing over another person like a lunatic could, from that person's point of view, be way more screwed up than she'd ever imagined.
* * *
To run quickly through the various incidents that occurred during those past ten days of madness, it went like this.
First, Lee Ha-yul ended up with a whole pile of mothers.
Even Silence Suzuka[4], seeing Lee Ha-yul as she was now, surely couldn't have spouted the nonsense, "It must be nice to have so many mothers."
[Hmm.]
Lee Ha-yul's attitude toward the mass-produced mothers was complicated too.
Dang Seo-rin, Noh Do-hwa, Jeong Ye-ji, Yu Ji-won. For people like that, Lee Ha-yul was willing to put on a thick face and cling to them going "Mama."
But little-sister Cheon Yo-hwa and big-sister Cheon Yo-hwa? Not so easy.
Sim Ah-ryeon? Get lost. Oh Dok-seo? Has the world ended?
[Now that I really think it over.]
Lee Ha-yul solemnly raised her sketchbook.
[I'm pretty sure I only ever had one mother to begin with.]
"You're only realizing that now??"
Oh Dok-seo, Lee Ha-yul's best friend, was dumbfounded.
If Lee Ha-yul's mother, who was probably tending the household plants in Busan right now, perfectly fine, had heard it, it was an unfilial remark scandalous enough to make her faint.
[More to the point, I never expected even you to make a move on Dad. I trusted my friend just as much as I trusted you.]
"No. I'm not in that closed-retreat crew, am I. Mister and I have a noble spiritual love. Author-to-reader platonic love, okay?"
[I'm gonna puke.]
"What's really gonna make me puke is the plain truth that Ah-ryeon unni walked into that gate of hell on her own two feet. She was even the most eager one about it..."
[Our Dad has something wrong with his head.]
That's right.
Lee Ha-yul and Oh Dok-seo, the only two who had not joined the genre-shattering atrocity of the group-cohabitation closed retreat, were savoring a trip to California in the United States together.
The travel expenses they could foist off onto the Cult. The cultists would tag along as bodyguards and even interpreters. They had a friend whose heart matched theirs. It was just a gold mine.
And in the middle of the two of them savoring it.
"Hello?"
They ran into an irregular they never saw coming.
A being whose hair color should have gone back to ordinary after the final subjugation battle.
And yet, for some reason, here was someone with pink hair flowing down again. Go Yuri.
"Hwuhk!"
[Oh. Auntie, hi.]
Oh Dok-seo jumped like a Joseon villager who'd run into a tiger on a hillside, but Lee Ha-yul actually welcomed her.
Go Yuri gave a wry smile.
"I'm Auntie because I'm Go Yuir's little sister? Hmmm. Ha-yul. No, niece, the way you address people really does have a lot of depth to it."
"H-how did you get here?! You shouldn't be able to use your Teleportation anymore! And why has your hair color regressed again too?!"
"Ahaha. Dok-seo."
Go Yuri smiled demurely.
"I have a lot of money. I've got private jets in every major city, you know."
"..."
It was true.
These days, a mysterious investor going by the nickname "Saintess" had been showing off insane returns and slowly building a reputation on the dark side of Wall Street, but to Go Yuri, even that was just a cute newbie.
Add up all the assets she'd scattered across nominee accounts and countless organizations, and Go Yuri's wealth was on an overwhelming level. She hadn't been all talk about saving the world.
The moment she came to her senses after the final subjugation battle, what Go Yuri had said was this.
"Hmm." "I should head down to South America to manage the organizations." "And tidy things up while I'm at it." "There are a lot of useless places now."
Right after that, Go Yuri vanished for a while.
She wasn't missing, exactly. You could reach her by phone reliably enough.
But her number changed every single time you placed a call, a regular circus trick, so Oh Dok-seo cleanly gave up caring. Her life was precious.
So coming face to face with Go Yuri like this was a reunion after quite a while.
Go Yuri walked over lightly and sat down across from them at the cafe's outdoor table. Exactly like a friend you'd hung out with yesterday and parted from, only to meet again today.
"By the way, niece Ha-yul can talk in her own voice as much as she wants now, can't she? There's Uehara Shino's potion. And the surgery should have finished successfully too."
[Yes.]
[But to draw out my own voice, you have to clear the Lee Ha-yul exclusive route.]
[When you reach the route's climax, this me, who has only ever talked through a sketchbook and tablet, gradually opens her mouth and answers her partner's proposal...]
["Yes," like that.]
[Hwaaaahk.]
[That's when, for the first time, a line comes out in my own raw voice, and it's seared in clear as day that this Lee Ha-yul has been conquered.]
[Jackpot. Mega jackpot. Total mega jackpot.]
[The plain, undeniable fact that the one true heroine of supreme dignity is me, Lee Ha-yul, will be revealed to all the world...]
[From now on, I shall stand atop the heavens.]
"Ahaha. That route sounds fascinating. Though Go Yuir would probably get killed at the hands of the other members."
Watching the two of them talk in front of her, Oh Dok-seo's face soured into a "Bleagh."
It bore repeating. Lee Ha-yul and Oh Dok-seo were best friends.
Just as Lee Ha-yul would sooner choose death than call Oh Dok-seo "Mom," Oh Dok-seo too found the Lee Ha-yul route utterly revolting.
And likewise Lee Ha-yul found the route of being called "daughter" by Oh Dok-seo very, very revolting, and conversely, on the matter of being called "Mom" by Lee Ha-yul, Oh Dok-seo actually found it very, very, very, et cetera omitted. They were an ouroboros of mutual disgust.
There was a solid reason these two could become friends.
"So why'd you suddenly show up like a wild Pokemon? Weren't you busy as anything tidying up the organizations you'd scattered around the world?"
"Yes. I've about finished tidying up now."
Go Yuri demurely covered the corner of her mouth.
"Above all, my information network brought me some very interesting news. Not just Yu Ji-won and Oraboni alone, but the whole group going on a trip together! What on earth happened?"
"I'd love to ask what kind of information network that even is, but... well. It's a straw you stuck inside the Cult, I'm sure."
Oh Dok-seo shrugged.
She'd thrown her own weight around internationally trying to save even one regressor, but the spies Go Yuri had recruited really did operate in the shadows everywhere.
"I'll explain."
A little while later.
"Wow!"
Clap, Go Yuri brought her hands together.
If you put her current expression into words, it was nothing but all smiles. Her whole face was brimming with delighted laughter.
"Going along with everyone. I never expected that at all!"
"...Really? But Mister had tons of people with a thing for him from the start."
"It's a matter of Oraboni's personality. For Oraboni, the final stage of love is, in the end, 'the resolve and the decision to spend a lifetime with the person in front of you.' No matter who he was close with, or how close, up to that point, once he decides on love he unconditionally puts that person at priority zero."
Go Yuri smiled brightly.
"You peeked through the Infinite Metagame's mischief too, Dok-seo, so you'd understand. Even when he ended up with Sim Ah-ryeon, Oraboni vowed to give everything for that one person, you know?"
"..."
"That's why I predicted that no matter how Oraboni reached a happy ending, the conclusion would have him joined with no one... in other words, a no-romance ending, or an ending where he lives only with Ha-yul."
Go Yuri giggled and stirred her lemon tea with a spoon.
"My goodness. So that's it. Making a time capsule by taking advantage of the cycle where I was killed. As expected of Cheon Yo-hwa. Every now and then she leaps right past my predictions!"
"..."
Watching that purely, genuinely fascinated reaction, Oh Dok-seo couldn't help feeling it all over again.
Ah, the one whose way of thinking and emotions resemble Mister's most really is the person right in front of me.
Even if the members had ended up with other people, the Undertaker would have blessed it purely. Just like Go Yuri was doing now.
Only.
'Mister is someone who can change even his own way of thinking for the members' sake.'
That he would turn into an insane, obsessive man, even Oh Dok-seo couldn't have imagined, but in any case the Undertaker had abandoned a superior position of his own accord.
He'd lived loftily above the clouds as though lust and carnal desire had nothing to do with him, then deliberately fallen from heaven, you might say.
'Enlightenment is awakening. Go Yuri, who stays in the realm of enlightenment forever, and Mister, who hands down a death sentence even on his own enlightenment. Maybe that's the decisive difference between the two...'
In the end.
Oh Dok-seo had searched every cycle, mobilizing the Infinite Metagame and even collaborating with Cheon Yo-hwa's Taeguk, but there was no "Go Yuri route" to be found there.
Of course. If even a single bad ending with Go Yuri had ever come about, every worldline would have ground to a halt that very day.
"By the way."
Go Yuri said to Oh Dok-seo, who was lost in thought.
"I'm asking in case there's a cycle I missed again. Dok-seo."
"Y-yeah. Ask me anything."
"Among the observed bad endings. Was there a separate Dang Seo-rin route too?"
"Hm? No?"
Oh Dok-seo denied it at once.
"Seo-rin unni's bad ending was the cycle where 'Utopia' descended, right? So that bad ending already existed in the main story, not the side stories. There were a few cycles where Seo-rin unni and Mister got to flirt a little, sure..."
"There were?"
"Mm. Well, it didn't work out."
It couldn't be helped.
Unlike the other members, Dang Seo-rin had already 'been dead' by the time she met the Undertaker.
Only Hecate, who had inherited Dang Seo-rin's personality and memories, existed.
This death of hers, which could never be undone even through regression, was the very obstacle that blocked the progress of the "Dang Seo-rin route" time and again.
The deeper the relationship between the Undertaker and Dang Seo-rin grew, the more sharply the odds rose that she herself would realize she was a false existence.
A figure for whom only catastrophe was fated as an ending.
No matter how romantic the mood, no matter how much love there was, there simply was no route that ever joined them. The absolute "sub-heroine" in that sense.
That was the Dang Seo-rin Oh Dok-seo had looked upon.
"Ahaha."
After hearing out Oh Dok-seo's view, Go Yuri laughed softly.
"That's a mistaken view, Dok-seo."
"Hm? What is?"
"All the others were joined with Undertaker through the side stories. But only one single person. Only Dang Seo-rin's bad ending was included in the so-called main story..."
A grin.
"Couldn't that be read to mean that this worldline is, of all things, the route joined with Dang Seo-rin?"
"Uh... i-is that so?"
"Yes."
Go Yuri rose quietly.
"It's a relief for me too. Dang Seo-rin, surely, will face any hardship head-on together with Oraboni and press on. The two of them are the finest of companions."
She turned her back.
"W-wait. Where are you going?"
"My curiosity's been satisfied. I'm content. Now I have to go do what I have to do again."
"You came after so long, at least see Mister and the other members before you go, come on..."
"I can call anytime, after all."
Go Yuri turned her head slightly to look at Oh Dok-seo, the one who had dragged this route all the way here.
A being who was, in a sense, like a child born between the two of them, regressor and reincarnator.
"All of you are very, very precious to me. But as you know, among the people living and breathing on this earth, there isn't a single one who isn't precious to me."
"Ah."
"I'm not a god. And I couldn't become one, either. But I still want to try to save as many people as I can."
"..."
"Take care, Dok-seo unni. Ha-yul unni. Let's meet again next time."
Step.
Go Yuri's back grew distant.
It was an age where awakeners and anomalies alike had died down now, so that back didn't vanish in an instant the way it used to.
Instead, a jet-black limousine glided smoothly along the road and, as if it were only natural, stopped right in front of Go Yuri.
Go Yuri opened the rear door herself and got in. And the limousine departed without a sound.
Still the person with the faintest presence of anyone, and the densest presence of anyone.
So Oh Dok-seo thought.
[Hey, Ms. Oh.]
"Why?"
[That stuff you explained to Auntie Yuri earlier. Real? The simulations you ran. The ones you said you wrote as 'side stories'?]
"Yeah. Taeguk ran the simulations, but anyway it's a washed-up loser-god whose juice has all run out now, so I figured I'd better lend it at least a bit of the Infinite Metagame's power."
[Is there a route for me in the side stories?]
"As if."
[Why not?]
"Hah? Damn it, so you want me to write the part where you and Mister are left alone, just the two of you, chattering away in a destroyed world? My fingers cringed themselves into knots even writing the Final Weapon BUSAN part[5]! Are you insane?!"
[It's not Final Weapon BUSAN, it's the Mobile Land-Based Aircraft Carrier Fortress Humanity's Final Defense Ark City 『BusaN』. Don't ever get it wrong again.]
"Get lost! Hey! Get lost!"
The next day.
After enjoying their trip to the fullest, Oh Dok-seo and Lee Ha-yul returned to the hotel in San Francisco, where they got word that Dang Seo-rin had splurged on an ultra-luxury yacht.
After much deliberation, the naming rights for the boat went to Lee Ha-yul.
The name of this nice boat was, of course, the Mobile Sea-Based Aircraft Carrier Fortress Humanity's Final Defense Ark City.
It was 『BusaN』.
Footnotes:
[1] "MZ" is Korean shorthand for the "MZ generation," a popular media coinage lumping together Millennials and Gen Z; here it jokingly frames the newest wave of cultivation fiction as the genre's youngest, trendiest stage.
[2] Xianxia ("immortal heroes") is a Chinese fantasy genre about cultivators pursuing immortality through martial and spiritual training, an evolution of the older wuxia (martial-hero) tradition.
[3] The Lion's Roar is a stock wuxia martial-arts technique that channels inner energy into an overwhelming shout; the accompanying cry "Hah!" is a cliché villain/elder exclamation in the genre.
[4] Silence Suzuka is a character in Uma Musume: Pretty Derby, a media franchise personifying real racehorses as girls; the joke alludes to a well-known fan meme about her in-game story.
[5] A parody of Saikano ("She, the Ultimate Weapon"), a tragic manga/anime about a girl turned into humanity's final weapon; the gag swaps in the city of Busan, then bloats the name into an absurdly long mecha-anime-style title.
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