WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Chen
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Incarnation of the Malevolent Star ◈
Chapter 119: Part 1 - Whispers of the Dark Brother (119)
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“Hey. Why, why are you doing this much for me...? Buying me a horse is way too much...”
The tsundere high school student asked, stammering.
With a clear smile, Onik brought out a truth he had kept buried ever since the first day he had kidnapped the high school student and brought him to the village.
“Because I wanted you to live, hyung.”
“What?”
“Hyung, do you remember what I said on your first night in our village?”
“What did you say?”
“Over there, in front of the servants’ quarters. I said your life force was too low for you to argue with me.
“I said we should have a serious talk after your HP had recovered and your status ailments had cleared.”
“...I remember. It was weird.”
“The second day I visited the International Equestrian Center, I saw you sitting all alone. The mood around you was so, so dark.
“And I just knew.”
“Knew? Knew what?”
“Ah, hyung is thinking about suicide. If I leave him alone, he’ll take his own life before long.”
“...?!”
“Now that we really are friends, be honest with me. You were seriously thinking of dying then, right? Not just that day. You’d been thinking about it for a long time, right?”
“You, h-how...?”
“I told you, I just knew. I’m very good at sensing things like that.
“If someone is really thinking of dying, I can just tell. I take one look, and I know!”
“...”
“That’s why I lied to your mother and brought you to our village. I didn’t want you to die.”
The good rural boy clasped his hands behind his back and lightly tapped the ground with his toes.
“Even though we didn’t know each other well back then...
“A human life is far too precious to be lost to suicide. It doesn’t matter who that person is.”
Ju-won naturally remembered another conversation from the past.
Other things the good rural boy had told the tsundere high school student when he had demanded to know why Onik bothered helping people who were not worth helping.
「Human lives are precious. That’s why I help.」
「People don’t need another reason to help people. If you can help, and you want to help, then you help.」
「I’ll say it again. There’s no such thing as a person who isn’t worth helping.」
「That includes you, hyung.」
Even looking back, that warm moment made him feel as though he might cry for no reason.
Now that Ju-won thought about it again, the words that includes you, hyung had stood apart from everything that came before.
Perhaps he should have realized it then.
The kind and thoughtful rural boy had already seen through the depth of pain carried by the mean high school student.
Onik watched the speechless Ju-won closely for a few breaths.
Then he let his gaze slide aside and asked,
“Hyung, have you enjoyed the time you’ve spent in this village this winter?”
“...Yeah. I have.”
“I knew you’d say that. You looked happy.
“And I could sense it. That you had moved farther away from death.”
“...”
“But unfortunately, vacation is almost over. Your time in our village is nearing its end.
“I think that’s why you haven’t been sleeping well lately. Am I wrong?”
“How did you know that too...?”
“Because I’m Jo Onik. Strongest in Town Jo Onik, who is absolutely not a con artist, no matter what bad people slander me with.
“Did you think someone like me wouldn’t notice his friend wasn’t sleeping enough?”
“You...”
“Friends are supposed to share their happiness and their sadness. You were worrying, so I secretly worried with you.
“What should I do? Hyung is okay now, but once he goes home, his heart might become troubled again!”
“...”
“Isn’t that right? When you go home, back to your old life... all the things that made you think about dying will still be there, won’t they?
“If you have to deal with those bad things again, you might suffer and start thinking about dying again. But that can’t happen, right?”
The tsundere high school student’s eyes grew hot.
Not because he feared the “bad things” the rural boy had mentioned, but because he was so grateful for the rural boy’s sincere concern.
‘Not even my parents have ever worried about me like this.’
People said a parent’s love was the finest example of agape.
They said there was nowhere else to find love as unconditional as a parent’s.
That was not true.
Not for Ju-won.
People who said such things were merely lucky enough to have good parents.
Those lucky people rarely understood children raised by bad parents.
When children raised by bad parents spoke of their resentment, they only muttered frustrating things like, “But they’re still your parents...”
Ju-won had met an understanding person like Onik for the first time in his life.
That understanding person continued, concern in his voice.
“Now that you have a friend who’s Strongest in Town, it probably won’t happen.
“But even if it’s unlikely, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.”
“...So?”
“So I decided to give a present to the hyung who promised he’d keep being a good person.
“I want you to gain strength from this present. Strength to overcome the things that make you suffer!”
The tsundere high school student blinked rapidly and grumbled weakly.
“Hey... When did I ever promise that...? Promise I’d become a good hyung...? I don’t remember making any promise like that...”
“That’s strange. I heard it.”
“Heard what?”
“The voice of your heart!”
“You’re conning me again. Voice of my heart, my ass...”
“Then it isn’t true? That’s really strange. You were saying it with everything except words. Did I hear wrong? It would be a big problem if I did!”
“...Let’s just say that’s how it is.”
“I knew it!”
Having lightened the mood with a joke, Onik smiled brightly.
“You’re my friend now, hyung, and I don’t want my friends to die. So just accept the present quietly. Then there won’t be any bloodshed.
“Ah, don’t misunderstand. I won’t be the one causing that bloodshed.”
“Who would misunderstand that...?”
The tsundere high school student finally burst into tears.
At that moment, every scrap of jealousy he had still held toward Onik melted away.
“Geez, hyung. Why are you crying?”
Watching Ju-won repeatedly wipe his eyes with his sleeve as he sniffled, Onik looked troubled.
“There’s no demand for tears shed by a dark, tsundere male high schooler.
“If I were streaming right now, the viewers would be flooding chat with ‘Blech! Blech! Blech!’”
“Shut up...”
“Santa doesn’t give presents to crying children. That bad old fraud won’t give presents even if you don’t cry, but still.”
Santa said he would not give presents to crying children. He never said he would give them to children who did not cry.
Santa Claus was that kind of person.
“How old do you think I am? Why would I believe in Santa?”
Even while crying, Ju-won spoke in a needlessly grumbling tone.
“Hey. Let me ask one thing.”
“What is it?”
“I understand that you want to save people who are going to die. I understand that you want to help without conditions.
“But if that’s the case, there are more efficient ways to spend money.”
“More efficient ways?”
“Yeah. With enough money to buy a horse for someone like me, you could save hundreds of children in Africa who are on the verge of starving to death.
“Wouldn’t saving hundreds of people be a better deal?”
Onik put his hands on his hips and looked at the high school student with a deliberately stern expression.
“No saying ‘someone like me.’”
“...What?”
“I said, no saying ‘someone like me.’ Don’t call yourself that.
“Other people can, but not you. Not yet. If you want to say it, ask my permission later.”
It was similar to Sera. People with low self-esteem easily spoke in ways that insulted or mockingly diminished themselves.
“What are you even saying...?”
“Anyway, it’s forbidden! Got it?”
“Okay, okay. I won’t say it. Happy?”
“Do you promise?”
“Yeah. I promise.”
Only after getting the high school student’s promise did the rural boy relax.
Then he turned his gaze away.
For a boy who was always wary of himself, he had looked directly at the high school student for noticeably longer than usual.
It was proof that the barrier of his trauma now worked to some extent even against the tsundere high school student.
“Um...”
After organizing his thoughts and choosing his words, the rural boy asked the city high school student in return.
“To answer your question... hyung, is that really helping people while seeing them as people?”
“...What are you talking about?”
“You called it a better deal.
“That feels like helping people while seeing them as objects or numbers, not people. Like completing a game achievement.”
The phrase game achievement struck Ju-won as especially clear.
Whenever the church in his big city held a charity event, many people donated in exactly that way.
Such people saw those they helped as numbers.
They regarded them as a kind of score they had to accumulate to pass through Heaven’s gates.
To them, charity was an achievement and an accomplishment, a trophy that earned recognition and respect from others.
“I don’t like that. And it’s wrong.”
The kind rural boy said it firmly.
“That attitude is definitely wrong. You mustn’t lose sight of treating people as people.”
“...”
“My grandfather told me that so many of the tragedies in this world happen because people don’t treat other people as people.
“So he told me that I must always treat others as people, wherever I am.”
This was wisdom that the wise old man Jo Jeong-ho had taught his grandson from his experience as a war veteran.
On the battlefields the old man had experienced, people treated other people as something other than people all too often.
And so an immense amount of blood had flowed through the jungles of Vietnam.
Deaths too terrible to put into words had piled upon one another, painting a vision of hell upon the earth...
The grandson had carved the old man’s teaching, born from those horrific memories, deep into his heart through his love and respect for his grandfather.
Almost as if it were a commandment.
Therefore, it was safe to say that this good-natured boy would never see people as anything other than people.
Even people who deserved to die.
Even if he killed them, he would kill them while seeing them as people.
That was why the boy believed himself to be bad.
There was no other way he could believe.
The boy pointed toward town. The high school student did not know it, but the direction the boy pointed was accurate to a mechanical degree.
“Hyung, on the mountain below town, there’s an old temple Grandpa and I visit sometimes.”
“...Yeah.”
“Once, the head monk there said this.
“No matter how great a donation you make to save others, if your heart lacks compassion, you cannot gain merit. He said it was the Buddha’s teaching.”
Compassion, loving-kindness, sympathetic joy, and equanimity, the Four Immeasurables.
It was the teaching that without a heart that wished to give sentient beings happiness and free them from suffering, helping others was ultimately nothing but self-attachment and self-satisfaction.
Joy and suffering were things felt by people. Thus, compassion meant sharing in another person’s joy and suffering.
In other words, there could be no true compassion if one did not see the other person as a person.
“The monk also said that compassion begins by taking another person’s suffering into your own heart and understanding it.
“But if you start seeing people as numbers, there’s no way you can understand them like that. Right?”
“...”
“And Pastor Kim said something similar. He said there’s a teaching like that in the Bible.”
“...What teaching?”
The boy with the excellent memory recited Pastor Kim’s words, which had deeply impressed him, clearly and without missing a single word.
“First Corinthians, chapter thirteen, verse three. ‘If I give away all I have and surrender my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.’
“Have you heard it before? You said you go to church too, hyung.”
“I’ve heard it...”
He had heard it.
But he had never seen anyone genuinely practice it.
The church Ju-won attended was that kind of place.
A space for worldly people who consumed precious truths as empty words and vanity.
The tsundere high school student had thought everyone in the world was like the church people.
At least, there had been no exceptions around him.
Not until he was kidnapped to this mountain village in another world and experienced rules different from those of the world he had lived in.
Even the churches in this village were completely different from the churches in the city.
Pastor Kim’s Three-Way Intersection Church was a place that gave the high school student peace of mind.
“If you’ve heard it, you’ll understand quickly.”
The kind boy smiled brightly.
“The love Mr. God spoke of here is a feeling one person gives another, right?
“So in the end, helping someone only truly has meaning when you treat them as a person, right?”
“...”
“My grandfather taught me first, then the head monk on the lower mountain taught me again, and finally our kind Pastor Kim taught me once more.
“Starting with Grandpa, three teachings all say the same thing, so there’s no way it can be wrong.”
“...You’re right. All of it.”
“Right? As expected of me. Strongest in Town Jo Onik.”
“Yeah. You’re the strongest.”
“Yes. Someday I’ll become Strongest in the World Jo Onik, and I’ll help everyone I can help and am allowed to help.
“I’ll help people in Africa too, and I’ll help you too, hyung.
“Anyone I’m able and allowed to help who looks like they might die, just let them appear before me. I absolutely won’t leave them alone.”
“I get the people you can help, but what do you mean, people you’re allowed to help...?”
“There’s something like that. I have to distinguish between the two. I have to, if I’m going to keep living.
“Even when I become Strongest in the World, I’ll have limits.”
“...?”
“Anyway, stop crying now. Stop shedding tears nobody wants to see! Otherwise, I’m turning the stream on right now!”
“Seriously... Don’t ruin the mood at a time like this.”
To the high school student who could not easily stop crying, the kind rural boy continued offering warm words of concern and encouragement.
“Once vacation ends, both of our competitions will be here soon, right? Mine is an archery competition. Yours is a riding competition.”
“Right.”
“I have nothing to worry about, but I think that competition will make things harder for you.
“Am I wrong? It hasn’t been long since you properly started practicing again.”
“...You’re right. Mom and Dad will give me a lot of grief. They’ll say they spent all that money sending me to an equestrian center, and this is the result.
“And people at the riding school will laugh at me too.”
Before being kidnapped to this mountain village in another world, Ju-won’s mind had been filled with pain and thoughts of death.
After neglecting his practice in a lethargic state for nearly half a year, Ju-won’s instincts as an athlete had dulled considerably.
For ordinary hobbyists, it was a decline small enough to be nearly nonexistent.
But by the strict standards applied to athletes, it was a dangerous decline that could never be ignored.
After coming to this village and healing, he had resumed normal training, but little more than a month of training could not make up for half a year of losses.
Moreover, the training he had resumed was closer to rehabilitation than actual training.
His trauma from the accident had not fully healed yet.
The high school student thought,
‘I’m a lot better, but... I’m still scared. Just getting in the saddle makes my heart pound.’
Maybe it would be better to give up competing this time.
As if he had read those thoughts, Onik gave him a gentle smile.
“The present I really want to give you is anticipation and hope for the future.”
“...”
“Whether you compete this time or not, it will be hard for you. But I hope you can endure that hardship while looking forward to the future.
“With the hope that one day, you’ll ride the horse I gave you, a horse of your own, in a competition and achieve better results.”
“A horse of my own...”
“That’s right! You aren’t a horse-less loser anymore! The other older brothers and sisters at the riding school might laugh at your results, but at least they can never call you horse-less again!”
“That’s true.”
The crying high school student’s lips lifted slightly.
The horse Onik wanted to give Ju-won would be a retired racehorse, like Thunderbolt.
Normally, riding a retired racehorse would only earn more mockery from the wealthy children who attended riding schools.
Now, Ju-won knew that much of that mockery had been karma for his own actions.
But because the person who had given the retired horse was none other than Onik, those wealthy children would instead envy Ju-won.
Perhaps they would even be jealous.
Ju-won’s own prejudice against retired racehorses had disappeared long ago.
He saw how Onik rode Thunderbolt every day.
Then Onik continued.
“And I believe riding the horse I give you will help you recover faster too.”
“Why?”
“Because it’ll be a horse I gave you. It’s a present from your only friend, so won’t it be especially precious to you?
“And the more precious it feels, the less afraid you’ll be when you ride it.”
His only friend.
Ju-won could not refute it, which made him a little annoyed.
“You really have a talent for saying things that are right in such an irritating way.”
“Don’t worry! I only do it to you, hyung! You can be proud!”
“You little...”
In the end, Ju-won let out a laugh.
The kind rural boy’s comfort and encouragement had worked.
‘He suffers in secret himself, and yet he cares this much about other people...’
Ju-won remembered seeing Onik cry not long ago.
Then he compared that image to the Onik standing before him now.
The two sides of the boy stood in stark contrast.
That contrast made the crying high school student realize the strength of the middle schooler who was Strongest in Town.
The middle schooler was not only physically strong.
His heart was stronger than his body.
The crying high school student came to admire that strength.
‘I want to be strong like him too.’
In truth, that vague wish was the first independent goal the crying high school student had ever formed in his heart.
‘...I want to become that strong, and someday be able to help this irritating brat instead.’
At that moment, the crying high school student resolved to be on Onik’s side no matter what happened.
Naturally, the deadline was until he died.
Without Onik, it was a life he would have thrown away himself.
Being on someone’s side also meant always believing in them and cheering them on.
Ju-won thought that day would never come when his feelings changed.
#
Some time later, several new visitors came to the aging village.
They included government officials led by the provincial governor, many reporters, Song Gyeong-a, the elementary school mathematics teacher in town, and the director of a large academy in Seoul’s most prestigious school district.
The academy director, who had a gentle impression, greeted Onik.
“It’s good to meet you, Onik. I heard you’re close to Teacher Gyeong-a here. Is that right?”
Onik rolled his eyes around, then answered brightly with a broad smile.
“That’s right! Teacher Song Gyeong-a and I are very, very close!”
Watching from a short distance away, Ju-won felt an intense sense of familiarity.
It was an exact copy of the lie the middle schooler who was Strongest in Town had told Ju-won’s mother at the riding school.
「That’s right! Ju-won hyung and I are very, very close!」
Thanks to that sense of familiarity, Ju-won saw through Onik’s lie.
‘Why are you conning someone again...?’
It had only been yesterday that he had resolved to always believe in and cheer for the kind rural boy.
But...
‘Separate from that, this brat really is a con artist. A con artist who does good things.’
It was an evaluation that would have made Onik feel terribly wronged if he had heard it.
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