WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 485: That Woman D XII (Fin)
──────
Now and then.
Dang Seo-rin would have a dream like this.
-...
A dream where she opened her eyes to find the Undertaker right in front of her, weeping.
An intersection.
The intersection where she had first met the Undertaker at the start of every cycle.
-...?
Naturally, there was no way for Dang Seo-rin to figure out why the man before her was crying, or who he even was.
His face, at least, was her type.
'Good. So this isn't real.'
Dang Seo-rin accepted it quickly.
The intersection itself had been strange from the start. Instead of living passersby, only bloodstains went clomping along on their own. It would have been harder to believe this wasn't a dream.
A dream within a dream.
-I'm sorry. Dang Seo-rin.
The man always held her close and repeated his words of apology.
-I'm sorry.
-Uh. Um..., excuse me. Who are you?
-I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was a fool. I went and used up your entire lifespan. I didn't know that a lifespan could not only be whittled down, but go into the negative.
-...? ...?
-I'm sorry. Even just talking with you like this is allowed only for a brief moment. Truly, I'm sorry.
It was nothing but riddles.
Still, the word 'lifespan' somehow landed with her.
Ever since she had opened her eyes at that intersection, her eyelids had been terribly, unbearably heavy.
'Ah, so in this dream, I'm dying.'
Why was that? She had surely never experienced death before, yet, strangely enough, she could feel it clearly.
It was as though her real self had died long ago, and that believing herself alive was, on the contrary, the illusion of the dream.
-I'm sorry, Dang Seo-rin. I'm sorry...
The man apologized.
Over and over.
Her eyelids grew so heavy that she couldn't bear it, and when she let them slip shut for just a moment, just the briefest blink, and opened them again,
-I'm sorry. Dang Seo-rin.
the man was repeating the very same apology, as if no time had passed at all.
It was eerie.
-...?
The eerier part was that, after each blink, she could no longer remember anything about the man.
-Uh. Um..., excuse me. Who are you?
-I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
The same question. The same answer.
The same forgetting. The same repentance.
Dozens of times, hundreds of times, thousands of times. She blinked and blinked again, far too many times to count.
-I'm sorry.
The man always held her close at that intersection and confessed nothing but his apology.
-...
Then, at some moment, Dang Seo-rin felt the self held in the man's arms split apart from the self watching that scene.
How should she put it?
Maybe the one over there gazing at the man's weeping in bewilderment was the 'real' Dang Seo-rin, and the one blankly watching the two of them was the 'dreaming' Dang Seo-rin.
In any case, Dang Seo-rin thought:
'He doesn't have to hurt himself that badly.'
It was clear that some mistake had occurred between that man and herself.
What kind of mistake had it been?
She couldn't know for sure, but it was probably because of it that she had fallen into an irreversible fate.
And yet, if it were her, if it were 'Dang Seo-rin,' she would surely forgive a person who was apologizing this hard.
'It's all right.'
Dang Seo-rin was someone who knew how to love.
She cherished her family. She held pride in herself. She knew how to sacrifice for the ones she held dear.
That proud life of hers had surely been built up for the sake of people who wept on and on, like the man before her.
Dang Seo-rin could say it honestly.
'I'm fine. Please don't cry so much.'
But.
-I'm sorry.
She couldn't reach out her hand.
No matter how much she wanted to send her voice across to say it was all right, the 'Dang Seo-rin' at that intersection beyond the fog couldn't put those words to her lips.
'I'm really fine.'
-I'm sorry, Dang Seo-rin. I'm so sorry.
'...'
After all, the Dang Seo-rin over there was a being inside a dream.
She was a being separate from herself here, within the dream inside the dream.
She couldn't reach her.
'...'
If asked which of the two was the false one, then naturally the one over here, watching the intersection from afar, would be the false one.
Dang Seo-rin thought quietly.
'I don't want to die.'
Once, it seemed, someone had wished such a wish.
But she actually knew the truth. Back then, that girl hadn't prayed out of some greed to never die, or to live forever.
'I don't want to die like this.'
So in what manner had she wanted to die?
With what kind of death could the being that had wished its wish upon her have smiled and accepted death with peace of mind?
Dang Seo-rin pondered it for a long while.
'I don't want to die leaving you behind like this.'
She traced the outline of the wish with her fingertips.
'Death is frightening. But...'
'If I'm with you, I think I'll be all right.'
That was Dang Seo-rin's wish.
It was her own wish.
'So, here.'
She reached out her hand.
And at last, she parted her lips.
-I'm counting on you from now on. My companion through time.
* * *
With a rattle and a jolt, Dang Seo-rin's eyes opened.
Her vision was a little hazy.
"Ah. You awake?"
A familiar voice came from right beside her.
When she turned her head, the Undertaker was sitting there, peeling a peach with practiced hands even as the train car swayed.
Had she gone and dozed off with her head leaning against him? The area around the Undertaker's shoulder was wet with drool.
"...Eugh."
The moment she saw it, the computer OS in Dang Seo-rin's head began booting up at high speed.
"Sorry. I dozed right off..."
"It's nothing. You only slept about thirty minutes. Call it a nap, and it was just the right amount of rest."
"Hwaa. Where are we right about now?"
Dang Seo-rin pulled a handkerchief from her front and wiped briskly around the Undertaker's shoulder. There wasn't any particular meaning to it, but a thing like this was really about wiping the heart, not the object.
The Undertaker smiled.
"We'll be in Venice soon."
"Where do you think the kids will be docking?"
"It's too big, so they'll probably have a hard time bringing it into the city center. I figure they docked out in the outer harbor through some agent."
What the two of them were calling docking was, of course, the matter of the 'Mobile Maritime Carrier Fortress Humanity's Final Defense Ark City' BusaN.
Even though she had gone to the trouble of acquiring an ultra-luxury yacht, there were times when Dang Seo-rin would do exactly this, sending the other members ahead and traveling separately with the Undertaker by train.
Traveling by boat wasn't bad either. But a train trip like this was exactly what stirred Dang Seo-rin's sense of romance.
'When I think about how I had to clean up after that Sim Ah-ryeon just to get to enjoy this romance, my head still spins...'
Well. It was already water under the bridge.
"We've arrived. Shall we get off?"
"Ah, yeah!"
The Undertaker and Dang Seo-rin shouldered their backpacks and got off at the train station.
By every measure, they looked like a backpacking couple. Who, seeing these two, would guess they owned wealth beyond imagination?
The life goal that crowds of people might envy, being a 'rich person nobody's heard of,' was something these two had already achieved.
A reward for the heroes who saved the world from an eternal apocalypse... perhaps that was too trivial a word for it.
But the two of them were satisfied, calling it more than enough, overflowing even. Then again, it was precisely because they'd had that disposition from the start that they'd been able to claw their way out of the apocalypse.
"Wow!"
A white breath rose, haa-, from the corner of Dang Seo-rin's mouth. She was wearing a thick fur coat.
"Look at that, look! Undertaker! People are actually walking around in masks!"
"Mm."
"I'd only ever seen it in videos! It's a real carnival...!"
Winter in Venice.
Even though the weather wasn't exactly great for traveling, this wintertime Venice was hitting its peak season thanks to the festival, the Carnevale di Venezia.
Look here. Look there.
Crowds of people walked around in cosplay, decked out in masks and costumes that probably cost a fair bit to rent.
For Dang Seo-rin, a master craftsman of cosplay, it was the kind of event to make her head spin.
"Hold on. I get that you're excited, but let's go to the room first and drop off our bags. If we walk around with our packs on, it'll be hard to rent costumes anyway."
"Okay!"
The lodging was right up against the Grand Canal.
Back in her student days, it would have cost a per-night fee she couldn't have dreamed of, but now there was no problem at all even if she rented out an entire hotel.
The staff served the two of them with the utmost devotion as well.
Especially when fluent Italian came spilling out of the Undertaker's mouth, it felt like their friendliness doubled in an instant.
(The best moment when traveling with the Undertaker was exactly this dramatic shift in courtesy.)
"Hng?"
At last, after coming to the room and setting down their backpacks, Dang Seo-rin tilted her head.
"Why is everyone else gone? Did they go out to play?"
As far as she knew, she'd been traveling around with just the Undertaker until now, but around this point they were supposed to be sharing the same lodging.
At that, the Undertaker shrugged.
"Who knows. Guess they haven't arrived yet. When I reached out yesterday, they said they might be a day or two late."
"Yeah?"
Dang Seo-rin nodded without much thought. If the Undertaker said so, then that was how it was!
Any other time, maybe. But she didn't want to go checking the schedule or making calls one by one when they were finally getting to spend precious time, just the two of them.
"You wash up first."
"Hmm? Aw, no. It's fine, it's fine. It takes a lot of time, so let's just wash up together. The bathroom's huge."
"Mm. Shall we?"
One hour later.
Her body, grimy here and there from travel, had been made cleanly refreshed.
As Dang Seo-rin came out drying her hair, the likewise freshened Undertaker gave a knowing smile.
"Take a good look, Dang Seo-rin. If you open up this wardrobe here... ta-da."
"Hraaagh."
"I didn't know which mask you'd like, so I had them gather every kind. The witch costume is perfectly prepared too. It's a present for you."
"Hraaaaaagh...!"
Looking closely, it was perfectly identical to the witch garb she had worn back in her days as the Samcheon World Guild Leader.
When she flipped the lining inside out, she could see traces of stitching done by hand, one careful stitch at a time, not by machine.
Dang Seo-rin's emotion, which had already been running at maximum from the moment she stepped off at the Venice train station, broke right through its limit.
"D-don't tell me. Undertaker. You...?"
"Aah. Managing the Guild Leader's wardrobe is, by tradition, a duty entrusted to the Vice Guild Leader."
"I love you!"
One hour later, again.
Inside the belly of the witch-costumed Dang Seo-rin, a biological-clock alarm went off with a growl.
"I'm hungry...!"
"Traditional seafood dishes? Pizza?"
"Hm. Is Venice pretty good at pizza?"
"It's Italy, isn't it? Wherever you go, it'll be way better than franchise pizza."
"Then pizza!"
"Always the right choice."
Filling her stomach inside her freshly cleaned body, there was no happiness quite like it. Add a glass of wine to that, and Dang Seo-rin had nothing left to ask of life.
"Hwaaaaa... This is nice."
"That café over there, Caffè Florian, is that famous spot Goethe is said to have visited too. In the masterpiece manga ARIA[1], they say you can refill café au lait however many times you want, but that's actually a load of bull."
"You really do let your otaku side slip out so casually sometimes... ARIA? What's that?"
"Ho. You're missing out on half of life."
"Then would you mind returning the other half of me I left in your keeping?"
"I've got all the volumes of Aqua and ARIA stocked in the yacht's library, so be sure to read them later."
"And what's Aqua now..."
A boisterous bustle.
Dang Seo-rin in her witch costume, the Undertaker draped in his cape. The two of them strolled freely through the alleys and squares of Venice, masks on.
A festival night.
Everyone was giddy. To Dang Seo-rin, who had at least wet her throat with wine, every breath she drew in now felt giddy too.
'Huh.'
Besides them, plenty of people were dressed up in all sorts of outfits. A few of them caught Dang Seo-rin's eye.
'There are more people in pointy hats and witch costumes like mine than I'd have thought. Hm, is it always like this?'
It wasn't a terribly strange thing.
Witches were, after all, a regular guest at carnival as a theme.
'But... Their outfits really do look so much like mine. Oddly familiar.'
While her attention was elsewhere, oop, her shoulder bumped into a traveler. Dang Seo-rin quickly took off her mask and met their eyes.
"I'm sorry."
"Ah, no. The fault's mine."
The other person took off their mask too.
"Huh?"
In that instant, Dang Seo-rin was swept up by a powerful sense of déjà vu.
The other person was wearing a witch costume similar to her own, and... their face, too, was familiar.
"Have a good night!"
But the other person didn't seem to recognize Dang Seo-rin. They gave a bow of the head and moved off.
They weren't alone. The other person had a friend traveling with them too, and that friend was wearing a witch costume as well.
Dang Seo-rin watched their retreating backs in silence.
"You finally noticed?"
said the Undertaker.
Beaming, with a face somehow brimming with mischief.
"Noticed...? Noticed what?"
"That person we just bumped into. Didn't they look somehow familiar?"
"Yeah. But... I can't quite place it. They were Korean, right? Who was that again?"
"My, my. To forget your old subordinates. The Great Witch of Samcheon World has fallen on hard times."
"...Huh?"
"They're your guild members."
He was smiling faintly.
"The witches of Samcheon World. Comrades who once ran across the sky with you and saved this world alongside you."
"..."
"The main players who held off the apocalypse may have been the Regression Alliance, but we still ought to remember their struggle. I kept it secret from you, but all this time I've been supporting them as Anonymous."
"Ah."
"Of course, those people have already forgotten us. They weren't deeply affected by unconscious memory the way you and I were, and they never opened a time capsule. That's why they didn't recognize you."
Only then.
Dang Seo-rin stood still and looked around the square.
There were many people. But among the crowds, there were so very many 'witches' walking about.
Some alone. Some in pairs. Some in groups.
That day, now grown as distant as a dream.
Just as it had once been, in a square of some Utopia that no one could remember anymore.
"The one condition I set as Anonymous, their sponsor, was just this. Each year at this time, I'll book lodging at the Venice carnival, and when you come to travel here, you have to wear the costume prepared on this end."
"..."
"As the price for living your whole life free of money troubles, a condition this light isn't half bad, is it?"
Dang Seo-rin understood.
That the reason Yu Ji-won and the rest of the members, who'd be on the yacht right about now, hadn't arrived in Venice today was no coincidence at all.
That sponsoring the witches of Samcheon World. Preparing the lodging and the costumes. Sending out the invitations. And then timing it all to the moment she, traveling the world, arrived in this city on this day, none of it was a coincidence.
That perhaps, even before she had first asked for time alone, just the two of them, the Undertaker might have been preparing for this day from far, far back.
A festival dream that existed for this one night alone.
'...I. I forgot something.'
No one remembered that the people walking around in witch garb now had once fought against the malice of the void.
Not even the people themselves.
'Forgetting is a deeply sad thing.'
How someone lived. How they died.
What wish they made looking up at the night sky. How desperately they wished it.
Nothing had been left behind.
'But... even if I don't know, I think it's all right.'
The fireworks bursting in the night sky cast a brief shadow across the side of her face, then died down.
Forgetting was still sad. It was sad, but.
If it were forgetting of this kind, if forgotten memories were scattered across a night sky where the breath of the festival had settled,
then she could accept it.
"Undertaker."
She was someone who loved.
With every rash love, a wound had healed over. And from the blood she had shed, she grew a red flower in her heart.
She couldn't love the wounds, but she could love the flower, and so she could accept the wounds as well.
"Mm."
If that was so, then for the petals that had died too soon, she could sing forever.
Without hatred, without contempt.
A song where neither this world hated humanity, nor humanity hated the world.
"I'll love you, forever."
Simply a story about a certain red petal.
-I'm an infinite regressor, but I've got stories to tell. END.
Translator's Note:
With today's release we're finally done with IRS. In the April 2025, on a random evening @resnut pinged me saying sinnoa has released another novel and I immediately went to LiteraryGirl and spam pinged her saying we have to translate this. I remember, I had semester finals back then but I still spent 2 whole days translating back then so we could get ahead of the mtl competitors then. I don't know how good of a decision that was but I'm glad that it got us here at the completion of this masterpiece.
I've never seen a community be as involved theory-making and sharing fanarts/fanfictions, props to everyone in the discord for that. If everyone wasn't eagerly waiting throughout the ups and downs this novel had, I don't think I would have had the motivation to continue it through the several takedowns it took.
I'm not going to take more of your time but please enjoy reading and check out Sinnoa's new novel, The Regressed Gangwon Hunter, which I'm also translating (and the other fabulous works we have here :)
A big thank you to LiteraryGirl for her proofreading and editing work on the novel, even though she may have gotten busy now, she's done more than I could ever ask of anyone for the novel.
The entire main story is available for free on the website and the side stories are all in advanced chapters right now which will be freed up at 1ch/day till completion.
Thank you everyone and enjoy reading!
-ZERO_SUGAR
Footnotes:
[1] ARIA (2002-2008) is a slice-of-life manga by Kozue Amano set in Neo-Venezia, a recreation of Venice on a terraformed Mars; it follows trainee gondolier-guides. Its prequel was originally titled Aqua, mentioned a few lines later.
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