WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈
Chapter 110: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (110)
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“This is what I think. People who are that broken may be the ones who deserve pity most.”
Onik spoke with a gentleness that closely resembled that of his beloved teacher.
Again, people who cherished each other naturally came to resemble one another.
“If someone was born strange from the beginning... that would be sad too. It wasn't their choice to be born that way, was it?
“They were born strange even though they didn't want to be. People hate them because they're strange.
“And if no one understands them or helps them...”
A sigh followed his trailing words.
“Wouldn't that person's life be terribly sad? You can't say being born was their fault.”
There was a faint sorrow in the words of a boy born frightening, carrying unwanted supernatural abnormalities within him.
Logically, he was right.
No one could call a person's birth a mistake.
But even though he understood that in his head, his heart did not always agree. He often found himself wondering whether his very birth had been a mistake.
The listeners did not know of the ominous abnormality and self-hatred the frightening boy had kept tightly hidden.
So they could not grasp the true source of the sadness in his words.
Still, everyone calmed their anger and listened.
For some reason, they strongly felt that they should.
“On the other hand, what if someone was born ordinary, but went through so many terrible things that their heart bent, broke, and became ruined? Wouldn't that person be pitiful too?”
The boy continued calmly.
“People who haven't broken yet can at least receive sympathy from other people around them. If they're lucky, they can receive help too.
“But people who have broken, people so badly broken that they claw wildly at other people's hearts, can't even receive sympathy.
“Even though they may be pitiful people, if you knew their story.”
Legal Hunter let out a low groan.
It was a sound of discomfort, frustration, and disapproval all mixed together.
Onik gave the kind adult who cared for him a bright smile. It meant that he understood why Legal Hunter felt frustrated.
“Of course, people broken like that find it difficult to receive help.
“Why would other people care why they broke? All they can see is one bad person...
“The only help those people can receive is probably help from the government. The kind given when someone is truly struggling financially.”
Even after committing his second murder, Onik had never stopped thinking about the path he should take.
If anything, his worries and reflections had become more intense than before.
They were also a desperate effort to endure his self-hatred.
Whatever one thought about, thoughts honestly grew deeper the longer one dwelled on them.
Onik was still growing, and he had much more growing to do. Both in body and mind.
“So, if we can, we should help people whose hearts are broken too.”
What Onik said held thoughts that had deepened as he had grown.
“Not simply because they're pitiful. We should help them so they don't break any further. That will lower the chance that they hurt themselves or other people.”
This applied to Onik himself as well.
Because precious people cherished him, looked after him, and supported him, the frightening boy, born with a flaw in his soul, could keep trying to become less bad.
“Setting harm to themselves aside... what do you mean by harming other people?”
At the hunter's question, Onik tilted his head.
“Wouldn't people with broken hearts feel the urge to do bad things more often than ordinary people?
“You see things like that a lot in the news these days. Random assaults, random stabbings, random arson attacks.
“I think they're becoming more common.”
“...Uh, well. Isn't that a rather extreme assumption?”
“Hehe. It's only an example...
“And even if they don't do something that extremely bad, they might leave hateful comments everywhere, spread malicious rumors that hurt someone else, or even drive them to suicide. Isn't that true?”
“That is true, but...”
“If people who received help from Boss and me leave just one or two fewer hateful comments a day, I'd be reasonably satisfied.
“I'd think that helping them hadn't been completely meaningless.”
“Hah, this kid...”
“If the small help they received here stays in their hearts as discomfort, that would be even more meaningful.”
“What meaning?”
“If someone feels uncomfortable because they received help despite acting badly, that means they still have a conscience.
“Then there's still hope that they can become a better person. Of course helping people like that has meaning.”
“Oh dear. Isn't our little uncle just too kind?”
“No. I only thought about it reasonably. If you think I'm wrong, refute me logically! I accept your challenge!”
The boy spoke playfully, but there was an unspoken dissonance behind his words.
Because the frightening boy held a cruel double standard in his heart.
Everything Onik had said only applied when his precious people were not being threatened.
The boy still wished for his precious people to be one hundred percent safe from bad and dangerous people.
His grandfather and teacher, Pastor Kim, Sera, Hunter Uncle, the village elders, and all the other people precious to him.
If there were even the slightest chance they might suffer something terrible at the hands of bad and dangerous people, Onik found it difficult to accept.
It was a very bad double standard.
So Onik mocked himself inwardly.
‘I'm trying hard to become less bad... But no matter what I do, I'm still a bad child in the end.
‘And everyone sees me as a good child, so I feel guilty...’
But what could he do, even if he felt guilty?
Onik had to accept the praise and affection of precious people and make it strength for his heart. It was the only way he could endure, thinking even a little more positively about himself.
The strength of the heart, a person's mental strength, was not infinite.
That was even truer for the boy who carried an abnormality that would not leave him and an emptiness that could not be filled.
The frightening boy was always enduring evil impulses.
And his efforts to become less bad were lonely ones. He could not tell anyone the truth.
The truth necessary for complete understanding included the abnormality within him and his own dual nature.
Onik thought darkly.
‘If my heart breaks, there will be one of two outcomes. I'll take my own life... Or the terrible thing inside me will swallow me...’
The first ending would make his grandfather and everyone precious to him terribly sad.
The second might turn even those precious people into victims of his cursed abnormality.
So the realistic best choice, as Onik saw it, was to close his eyes and try to accept even untrue praise with ease.
So that one terrible monster would not come into this world.
‘I can't become completely not bad, no matter what I do anyway.
‘If I do a small bad thing to prevent a bigger bad thing, that must be the best I can do...
‘Receiving praise that isn't true doesn't really hurt anyone else...’
It was the best choice, but only the best choice available to a bad child who wanted to become less bad.
It was the resigned conclusion of a boy who carried both frightening abnormality and self-hatred.
Unaware of his thoughts, Sorin let out a long, troubled sigh.
“Our Onik, what are we going to do with you when you're this kind? Your big sister is really worried...”
Onik smiled brightly again and answered with a small piece of truth that carried guilt.
“You don't need to worry about that. I'm actually a bad child. A very, very bad child.”
“Hah. That's funny. Where exactly are you a bad child? Are you going to lie to your big sister?”
“It's true. I can't tell you why, though.”
“Don't try to con me, Jo Onik.”
“That's unfair...”
Onik hid his dark thoughts and smiled brightly.
Watching him, Ju-won felt deeply unsettled.
He found it hard to bear the existence of this country boy, whose heart seemed to shine even when he did nothing.
‘He has to be... a fraud...’
When he watched Onik's broadcasts in secret from a house where he could not even close his bedroom door, Ju-won had firmly believed that Onik was a fraud.
The Jo Onik he had imagined was a hypocrite, different on the inside and outside.
He had believed that Onik acted pure and innocent on broadcasts and before other people, but was truly dark inside.
So when he had been kidnapped to this peaceful mountain village in another world, Ju-won had expected something.
He thought that here, he would be able to see Jo Onik's true nature, which he had not seen at the riding grounds or on broadcasts.
It would not be easy. But if he pretended not to care and watched carefully, surely there would come a moment when the fraudulent boy revealed his true colors.
How difficult and exhausting it was to control and restrain oneself around the clock.
Few people understood that better than Ju-won.
‘All of that must be something he made up because he wants praise. It can't possibly be sincere.’
People judged others by comparing them to themselves.
So Ju-won's expectation had been reasonable.
Just as he needed time for small acts of rebellion, the fraudulent boy would need such time too.
In the end, Ju-won wanted to drag the shining country boy down to a level even slightly closer to his own.
That way, he wanted the comfort of believing that he himself was not especially ugly.
It was a human desire that any ordinary person might have.
#
Even as days passed, the kidnapped high school student's wish showed no sign of coming true.
And so Onik became someone Ju-won found harder and harder to bear.
Whenever Ju-won became caught up in the thought that Onik might truly be exactly what he seemed, he felt deeply uncomfortable.
It was an unfamiliar kind of turmoil, something he had never experienced in his life.
At the same time, Ju-won felt aggrieved and wronged.
‘It makes no sense. Why is that real? Why isn't it an act...?’
The world Ju-won had learned about and lived in until now was one where people like Jo Onik could only be one of two things.
Either someone not in their right mind, or a foolish idiot who was far too naive.
Ju-won's world was one where the kindness of others was always nothing more than a disguise hiding desire and malice.
Therefore, to fully accept the existence of this kind country boy, Ju-won first had to deny the values he had always believed were right.
Here, right did not mean morally right.
It meant this was simply how normal people lived.
According to the lessons the high school student kidnapped to another world had received throughout his life without agency, morality was nothing more than a pretext for pursuing profit among ordinary people in this society.
But denying the lessons he had always believed were right?
It also meant denying much of the life Ju-won himself had lived.
Truths that revealed one's ugliness were difficult to face.
And so Ju-won eventually pleaded with Onik when they were alone.
It happened on the day another twisted participant appeared among the city people invited to Let's Play with Onik!, forcing Ju-won through another painful dose of mirror therapy.
“Please, please just get angry! Watching you makes me so frustrated that I feel like I'm going to explode!”
It was a lie.
He was raising his voice not because he was frustrated, but because he was unsettled.
“Why do you help people who aren't worth helping? Just leave them alone! Let them live like that and die!
“What difference do you think your help will make? It's completely useless!”
Those words also stabbed at Ju-won himself.
He was increasingly accepting the difficult truth in his heart, even if he avoided facing it consciously.
In the depths of his unconscious mind, Ju-won felt that he himself was a person not worth helping.
That was why he shouted.
Don't waste your valuable effort on someone worthless like me.
It only makes me feel more miserable and unsettled.
Don't make me accept how ugly I am.
Get angry at twisted people like me, even just a little, “like a person should.” Show me that you have at least some of the same normality that I do...
It was a feeling even Ju-won himself did not clearly recognize.
“...”
The boy magician who had forcibly summoned the twisted high school student to another world widened his eyes slightly, as if surprised.
Then his expression softened, and he smiled with a trace of loneliness.
“No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“There are no people who aren't worth helping. There are only people whom human beings cannot help, because of practical limits.”
“Practical limits?”
“Yes. Practical limits.”
The boy nodded as he answered.
Then he explained more fully.
“Maybe we simply don't have the means to help them...
“Or helping that person might cause far too much harm to other people. Or punishing that person might help more people... That's why we can't help them. Sometimes we punish them instead of helping them.”
In Onik's view, the Village Youth Association President who had become dog food and the police officer who had been pierced to death by a leaf spring belonged to the latter group.
Why would they not have had their own stories?
They must have had all manner of reasons for becoming that broken as people.
Even so, Onik had needed to kill them.
He could not endure without killing them.
They were people he could not help. People he should not help. People he had to punish.
Along with the practical limits he had just described, Onik also had limits in his heart.
He could not understand people who threatened those precious to him.
If he tried, his heart would go dark and die, and he would become an even more frightening boy.
It was the ending Onik wanted to avoid most.
Once again, the strength of the heart was never infinite...
Unaware of the boy's circumstances, Ju-won grew frustrated.
“That isn't what I mean! There are so many bastards in this world who aren't worth helping! People say that your true self comes out when times are hard!”
“What? That's really not true! Why would the side of you that comes out when things are hard be your true self?
“Your true self was already there. It's only that you became broken because things were difficult and painful.”
“No, no, ah...!”
“Think about it. The ability to endure hardship and pain bravely and overcome it maturely is... actually an extremely precious and remarkable ability, isn't it?
“There are so many people who suffer because they don't have it!”
“So?”
“Do you think there are really people who are born with such a precious ability already complete?
“Hmm, maybe there are strange people like that... But even if there are, there would be very, very few of them!”
“...”
“So the ordinary people who show their good side in difficult times are, almost all of them, people who received the help they needed beforehand.”
“They received help beforehand? What help?”
“They must have received many kinds of help. Nobody can become complete alone.
“Love, learning... Everyone receives something from other people and fills their heart with it. Isn't that normal?”
“No...”
“Oh, come on. Don't say no. If you truly think I'm wrong, refute me logically. Jo Onik, the Strongest in Town, will take you on!”
“...”
“You can't refute me, can you? Because I'm right!”
Before the troubled silence of the high school student transferred to another world, the middle school student known as the Strongest in Town puffed out his chest, pretending to be proud.
“People who show admirable sides of themselves when life is difficult and painful are, I think, people whose hearts were made strong by receiving the help they needed beforehand.
“Of course, people have inborn temperaments... But for ordinary people, that can't be everything!”
“...”
“Even people with hearts that strong will eventually break if they face hardship greater or longer than they can endure.
“There isn't any fixed maximum amount of hardship a person can experience, is there? Am I wrong?”
“...”
“When hardship you can't handle comes, everyone falls apart. The only difference is how much hardship each person can endure!
“So I think it's wrong to say someone doesn't deserve help just because they show an ugly and bad side of themselves during difficult times!”
After saying that much, Onik asked a question.
“Hyung. Do you think it's normal for people to live difficult and painful lives?”
“...I didn't say that much.”
“Right? It isn't normal, is it? Then why would the side that comes out in that state be someone's true self?”
“That is...”
“Isn't that strange? Why would the side someone shows in a situation that isn't natural or normal be their true self?”
Without realizing it, Ju-won squeezed his eyes shut. Then he clenched his fists and asked in return.
“Fine. Let's say you're right about everything.”
“You don't have to say I'm right. I actually am right.”
“Be quiet... Anyway, why do you help them?”
“What?”
“Why do you help them? Those people.”
The question had suddenly changed direction, but it was not impossible to understand.
Whether people were worth helping and whether one actually helped them were problems on different levels.
Onik blinked a few times, straightened his posture, and answered calmly.
“...Because human lives are precious. That's why I help.”
Helping people now was also part of Onik's effort to become less bad.
But it was only part of it.
Becoming less bad was only a secondary purpose and an added benefit for Onik.
When he had helped Sera long ago, he had not reached out to her with a calculated plan to become less bad.
“I don't need another reason for one person to help another. If you can help, and you want to help, then you help.”
He had seen the death hanging over Sera, and he had felt that he could not leave her like that.
So he had helped her. He had not thought about anything else.
“My grandfather taught me that, and my teacher said the same thing.
“After experiencing it myself, I found that my grandfather and teacher were right.”
After helping her, Onik had felt great fulfillment.
First, he had saved one precious life. He had also felt as though he had given the ominous abnormality within him a satisfying comeuppance.
That fulfillment from back then had led Onik to where he was today.
“I'll say it again. There are no people in this world who aren't worth helping.”
Throughout their conversation, Onik had kept his gaze fixed slightly beyond Ju-won's shoulder.
But at that moment, he briefly looked into Ju-won's eyes.
Then he spoke shortly, with sincerity.
“You too, hyung.”
It was a single sentence that seemed to read Ju-won's heart.
The feelings Ju-won himself could not admit.
The high school student kidnapped to another world was struck speechless.
Footnotes:
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