WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 106: Project Alice-02 (4)
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“Vik, tor...”
My hand rested against her delicate cheek.
Pitiful tears and lukewarm body heat mingled, dampening my palm.
“Yes, I’m right here.”
“Ugh, hng...”
Perhaps the tension had finally left her body. Alice staggered and leaned against me.
Her frail shoulders trembled as if they might break at any moment.
Afraid she might shatter, I carefully wrapped my arms around her.
Like I was handling a newborn fawn, every touch was cautious.
“You held on well.”
The words were a whisper.
A few traces of relief colored my voice.
As I patted her sobbing back, I mulled over an unnecessary thought.
‘...For now, should I call it a relief?’
For a moment, Alice’s body had turned pitch-black.
It was the same sight I had encountered during training a few months ago.
It was how she had looked when nightmares consumed her and the [Black Queen] wrested control away from her.
It seemed the Black Queen had tried to cross into this world through the window while Alice had lost her senses.
‘Had I not kept it in line enough back then?’
It was a power that tried to devour its owner whenever it got the chance.
Still, Alice had regained her senses in time, so disaster had been avoided.
I had nearly ended up facing a swarm of enemies and a legion of nightmares all at once.
‘I knew meeting Oz might be a problem, but...’
I never thought a few words would drive her to the brink of rampage.
They hadn’t even had a deep conversation. At most, she had briefly come face-to-face with him.
Yet Alice had quickly lost herself.
‘That must mean the wound runs that deep.’
Experiments, torture, nightmares.
Every moment she had spent there must have remained as trauma.
At the same time, I was proud that she had managed to shake off that nightmare in the end.
Maybe the trust we had built up over time had shone through. The girl steadied her breathing with nothing but my warmth.
“Haa, haa...”
“It’s okay. Breathe slowly.”
Her breaths were ragged, but she was trying not to lose herself.
The sobs mixed into them sounded almost desperate.
I carefully supported the girl’s head.
Swoosh-.
I met her clear, tear-drenched blue eyes and held her gaze so it would not drift somewhere pointless.
As if telling her not to look away, as if telling her to focus only on me, I locked eyes with her and held her attention there.
Only I was reflected in those eyes.
““...””
It was only a moment of silence.
Still, the girl’s sobs gradually faded.
As I smoothed her disheveled hair, I quietly spoke a few words.
“Miss Alice.”
“...”
“I’m here.”
“...”
“I’ll never let that ugly face get near you.”
“Viktor, I...”
She listened blankly to me, then tears welled up in her eyes again.
I stroked Alice’s head a few more times.
“Sir Yarpa.”
“Yes, Captain Garulik.”
“Please take care of Miss Alice.”
“I shall.”
Ranne, who had quietly approached, supported Alice.
The signs of her rampage had completely subsided.
I turned around and looked at the one responsible for this mess.
<Well, well... I never expected you to find yourself a boyfriend while I wasn’t looking.>
“Nice to meet you, Father-in-law.”
Oz (OZ), the Mage of Life.
It sounded like a holy epithet, but he was actually a mad psychopath at the forefront of Chimera-related projects.
He was one of the Cult’s three leading figures, a great evil responsible for bringing about the end of the world several times.
‘He looks vicious too.’
A face with no eyes, nose, mouth, or ears.
I had heard those bizarre features were his own work as well.
<What a polite son-in-law I’ve gained.>
“Thank you for thinking so highly of me. But I have one request. Please stop calling yourself Miss Alice’s father. Setting aside how disgusting it is to witness, she seems quite distressed by it.”
<Ah, then that’s truly wonderful! I want that child to suffer.>
“Crazy bastard.”
<Isn’t that how children always are? They grow up a little, then act as though they don’t know their parents at all.>
“That was the least funny joke I’ve heard in a while. If it wasn’t a joke, please hang yourself immediately.”
<Unfortunately, hanging myself would not be enough to kill me.>
Oz formed a grotesque smile.
No, could that really be called a smile?
It was a horrible expression.
<Ah... Still, I’m glad. I finally got to meet Miss Alice like this.>
“Are you planning to put on a show of fatherly love now?”
<No. I only wanted to confirm how well she was living after escaping at the cost of her sister’s life.>
“That’s a strange thing to say. It was an accident, wasn’t it? Miss Alice likely never did anything that caused it.”
<Why wouldn’t she have? Every one of her actions was a trigger. If she had not dared to think of leaving the laboratory, if she had not dreamed of the outside world, if she had not dared to seek happiness, if she had stopped her sister when she suggested they escape... then she would not have died.>
“What?”
<At the very least, on the day they escaped the laboratory, if it had been the younger sister running ahead in the corridor instead of the older one, she could have died in her place. She gave it all those causes, yet you claim she didn’t kill her?>
“Your logic is beyond imagination.”
It was nonsense.
Yet Oz continued as though my dismissal meant nothing.
His target wasn’t me, but Alice behind me, who was listening to this conversation.
‘Is he trying to provoke her?’
Sure enough, Alice had gone pale.
Oz asked in an exaggerated voice, brimming with excitement.
<How was it? The outside world you stepped into after sacrificing your sister? Were you happy enough? Was killing your sister worth it? I’m so, so, so curious! Please answer me! I’m sure it would make excellent research material.>
“Stop.”
<You don’t think of your sister at all anymore, do you? She was only a test subject. You killed her and gained freedom, so don’t you think it was a reasonable trade? Weren’t you secretly thrilled? If you went back to that time, you think you’d kill your sister again, don’t you?>
“It’s useless. Miss Alice won’t be shaken.”
<Really? I wonder if that’s true?>
Fuck.
I spoke as though I had plenty of room to spare, but I couldn’t let this continue.
Alice surely carried guilt over her sister.
Oz had dug perfectly into that weakness.
‘Even if he’s a bastard who deserves to be chewed to death, is he still her father? He knows his daughter’s weakness frighteningly well.’
I needed to change the subject.
Alice was vulnerable to trauma.
Words like those would quickly break her down.
It seemed better to give her a clear target instead.
So she wouldn’t drown in self-blame, I exposed the truth behind that day’s incident.
“And... shall we stop with the bullshit now?”
<Hm? What do you mean?>
I had noticed something during our conversation.
I stared coldly at Oz.
“You were there, weren’t you?”
<There?>
“The day Miss Alice’s sister died.”
<You are mistaken. I was not at the laboratory that day.>
“Then where were you?”
<I had briefly gone away on business.>
“You’re lying.”
<...>
Perhaps because of my firm certainty, Oz, who had been about to deny it, was stopped by my accusation.
‘You can’t fool me.’
His explanation had been strangely detailed.
He had clearly said, “If it had been the younger sister running ahead instead of the older one, she could have died in her place.”
How did he know that?
Details like who ran ahead and when they escaped had not even been described in the original work.
It made no sense for someone who claimed to have been absent from the scene to know something even I did not.
“You were watching, weren’t you? Pretending you had left the laboratory.”
<Well, you are quite sharp.>
“You were there.”
<Of course. I watched it all clearly with my own two eyes.>
“Did you really only watch? Wasn’t everything that happened that day a play you arranged?”
<...>
It was a simple deduction.
If Oz had been there, why had he allowed the laboratory to collapse?
Why had he let the test subjects escape and allowed one of the Alices to die?
Sometimes, the answer came when you turned unreasonable events on their head.
“You were the one who leaked information to the Church.”
The one who had quietly leaked information and caused the branch to be attacked.
The one who had let the Alices in the laboratory escape.
The one who had tampered with the corridor’s security system and killed Alice’s sister, making it look like an accident.
“It was all you.”
<...>
Everything had been part of his plan.
He must have known everything, even Alice’s rescue and her journey to the Academy.
<Oh-ho.>
That meant it had all been in the palm of his hand.
Oz seemed genuinely impressed by what I had said.
<I only made a few slips of the tongue, yet you used them as clues to uncover the entire truth... You possess impressive insight. I would like to recruit you as my laboratory assistant immediately. With your talent, you could make the spectrum of life even richer.>
“Why did you set it up that way?”
<That, too, was part of my research. I needed to drive the test subject into as much despair as possible. I only judged that if I pushed her to the edge of a cliff, the window within her would grow and thrive.>
“...”
It had been necessary, was that it?
There was even pride in his answer, which came without hesitation.
<Miss Alice was material destined for greatness.>
<So... I planted her in the Academy beforehand.>
<I knew that if I left her alone, she would be consumed by nightmares and erupt spectacularly within a few years.>
Oz’s calculations were accurate.
In the original work, around next year, Alice would fail to endure the corruption and be swallowed by the [Black Queen].
The nightmares born from her would run rampant, and undying dreams would turn the world into hell.
<That is it.>
Grandia Academy.
The very heart of the Empire.
A place where its most promising talents gathered.
To hide a calamity in such a place, then have the awakened weapon slaughter everyone around it.
<That is the true purpose of Project Alice.>
Project Alice-02.
The project had not failed.
It had only unfolded according to the script written from the beginning.
Alice and the team members listening beside her all froze stiff.
A crushing shock.
Oz grinned.
<So... you should all run away while you can.>
<What stands before you is a seed that will destroy the world.>
His voice rang out over the scene he had eagerly arranged, as though it were the climax.
Those words were meant to tear down everything Alice had built until now.
Her blue eyes wavered.
The children could only stand silently beside her.
“...Ha.”
I gave a hollow laugh.
I had roughly deduced it in my head, but hearing it directly felt different.
It made me sick.
Far more than I had expected.
“You said this was all your doing, right?”
<That’s correct.>
My voice lowered.
How long had it been since I had been this angry?
If I didn’t crush this bastard right here, the irritation would keep me awake all night.
‘He must have thought everything was in the palm of his hand.’
But your experiment had overlooked one variable.
Me.
“That won’t do. I think you need to be taught a lesson.”
<Ha ha! I can’t wait to see how you will teach me a les...!>
“Activate. Thorns.”
The coin I had casually tossed in front of him earlier.
Crack-.
The scythe that had been compressed into the form of a coin rose from the ground.
A thick thorn shot out, touched the bridge of his nose, and punched a palm-sized hole straight through the man’s face.
“...”
“Like this.”
I said it simply.
With his head completely blown off, Oz only hung from the thorn, dangling in the air.
“Do you still have anything left to babble about?”
“...”
Seriously.
Who the fuck told you to mess with my favorite?
Footnotes:
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