WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 140: Javert’s Iron and Justice (7)
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Purgatory.
An Inverted Tower said to have been built by some eccentric architect in ancient times.
The genius, unrecognized by anyone and met only with scorn, had silently carved out the underground.
Some claimed Purgatory was their revenge against the world, but no record remained of their true motive.
The architect left no words about the tower.
At most, there was a single word left on Purgatory’s first floor.
[People]
It wasn’t even a sentence, and it was difficult to say it held any particular meaning.
Still, that word was certainly the architect’s work.
They had carved it into a massive boulder.
So it would not weather away easily, so its meaning would not fade.
Perhaps Purgatory’s structure was an extension of that word.
Its theme changed every ten floors.
The ten sins people were born harboring, recorded in ancient scripture.
‘The Ten Evils.’
Hatred, resentment, lust, and so on.
Those smaller motifs affected the structure of the floors as well.
Floors fifty-one through sixty represented [Resignation].
During that stretch, thick fog covered most of the floors.
Floors sixty-one through seventy represented [Rage].
Some of those floors had become sweltering fields of lava.
‘And.’
Floors eighty-one through ninety represented [Regret].
A chill had settled over the area.
The air was cold enough to freeze my lungs.
With every breath I let out, clusters of white flowers bloomed.
“...”
Should I call it freezing, or simply cold?
Only a cruel silence lingered on my lips.
Clothes could not ward off this cold.
The chill here meant something more fundamental.
Gloves and coats made no difference to the depth of the cold I felt.
“Ahem.”
It froze not the body, but the heart.
Once again, flowers bloomed from my lips.
Petals that bloomed for a moment before scattering away.
Even through that fluttering haze, the red could not tear her eyes away from the black.
“Congratulations.”
“...”
“You’ve finally uncovered the culprit’s identity.”
“...”
The words rang softly.
Javert understood what they implied.
Her throat closed up for a moment.
Across from her, black eyes watched her.
He wasn’t even wearing his usual mask, and his faint smile was directed straight at her.
“Investigator.”
“...”
Javert didn’t answer.
No, she couldn’t find an answer to give.
‘Why?’
Words surfaced, then shattered, over and over.
Even when she struggled to form them, they caught in her throat and broke apart.
Clink, clink.
Sharp fragments piled up.
Shards of glass scraped against her throat.
Finally, as though coughing up blood, she forced her mouth open.
“...Viktor.”
His name.
Javert trembled as she faced her student.
With her throat strained to its limit, she squeezed out the words surging within her.
“Say it isn’t true.”
Her green eyes wavered.
Through the flower-like breath, the boy’s figure blurred again and again.
“Say it isn’t true.”
She repeated herself.
“Investigator.”
“Say it’s all a misunderstanding.”
“...”
“Say you have nothing to do with this place, that you’re innocent.”
“...”
“Say what you just said was a joke. Say you’re only standing here because you got lost and wandered in.”
Her lips had slipped beyond her control.
Words she hadn’t even thought of poured out in a stream.
She couldn’t breathe.
Perhaps that was why the words spilling from her were so desperate.
‘Why?’
Why was she so desperate?
Why was she trying to deny the truth before her eyes?
Had she wished, perhaps, that the person beneath that robe wasn’t him?
“Answer me.”
“...”
“I’ll bury this matter of your unauthorized intrusion into Purgatory. I won’t press charges. I’ll reduce it to an appropriate number of demerit points.”
“...”
“If you confess even now that it was a joke, I’ll be lenient with the demerit points as well. In accordance with the academy rules, I’ll handle it in a way that gives you the fewest possible points. So...”
“Investigator.”
Her words went on and on.
But the boy before her quietly shook his head.
“It was me.”
“...”
“The unauthorized clearing of Purgatory’s seventieth floor. The unauthorized clearing of Purgatory’s eightieth floor.”
“...”
“I did all of it.”
“...”
Javert’s mouth closed.
The boy smiled faintly.
She couldn’t understand the meaning behind that smile.
Regardless, Viktor confessed every one of his crimes.
“I received no one’s help. No one put me up to it. I did it of my own will and with my own power. And I have no intention of stopping this, either. I’ll continue clearing Purgatory, and I’ll continue disrupting the order of Grandia Academy.”
“Why would you...?”
“Does the reason matter?”
“...”
“What matters is that I’m the death row prisoner you’ve been searching for.”
She had asked him why.
The usual Javert would never have asked such a question.
The boy pointed that out and shook her once more.
“Nothing changes. Even if what I did was to save countless lives. Or if I had been threatened into doing it. Or even if I truly intended to destroy the academy out of sheer malice. In the end, nothing changes. Even if I were someone with a long, tragic story, abandoned by my parents as a child and raised in an orphanage, only for that orphanage to burn to the ground because of a blind arsonist. Even if I had lost everyone precious to me...”
Reasons.
Personal stories.
They were all meaningless.
“Shouldn’t you carry it out? The execution.”
“...”
Because principles had no need for such petty details.
Whatever answer he gave, the action Javert had to take would be the same.
“Isn’t that right?”
That was Javert’s world.
Javert felt her mind turn into a complete mess.
Nausea rose in her throat.
She was dizzy.
She couldn’t tell heaven from earth.
It felt as though her brains would spill out if she lost her reason for even a moment.
Yet even in that cornered state, one memory gripped her heart tightly.
-Javert.
-This is why I told you never to break your principles.
Her adoptive father, his face buried in his hands.
Beyond him, in the darkened study, hung an old woman’s memorial portrait.
-Otherwise, everything will fall apart...
That memory drove Javert onward.
It made her clench her fist.
Pure white bloomed from her fingertips.
Crackle, crackle!
Light burst forth alongside snowy-white sparks.
As if he had been waiting for her, Viktor raised his dagger into the air.
“Are you coming?”
“Viktor.”
“Yes.”
“You are the perpetrator responsible for the unauthorized clearings of Purgatory’s seventieth and eightieth floors. In accordance with the execution-on-sight order issued for those offenses, I will carry out your execution.”
Javert no longer called him her student.
The person before her was no longer a student, but a condemned man about to be executed.
Javert opened her eyes wide.
Her distinctive green eyes wavered as though they had lost their way.
Yet despite that uncertainty, her body followed its familiar movements.
“Submit quietly.”
Boom!
She leaped across the corridor.
The ground beneath her caved in as her red hair shot forward.
“Hup...!”
The boy did the same.
Her shining fist collided with the tip of his dagger.
Clang! Boom!
The heavy sound of tearing air filled the entire floor.
The explosive crash did not end there.
Steel screamed again and again.
Clang! Whine! Screech...!
The two fought each other as enemies.
What they felt inside was impossible to know, but their actions were undeniably hostile.
-Droit Style Martial Arts, Fourth Form-
‘Extinction.’
Boom!
The boy wore a Broken Crown upon his head.
On top of that, his strange movements scattered Javert’s focus.
“It won’t work.”
“Urgh...!”
Of course, she wasn’t driven back.
The two clashed explosively.
Before long, the corridor was a wreck, as though it had been bombed apart.
Clang! Screech, crack!
Sparks flew every time their bodies collided.
The flashes that burst out each moment briefly drove back the darkness around them.
Clang!
Sword and fist savagely knocked one another away.
Pushing aside,
scraping downward,
cutting through the air as though they meant to break each other.
‘Why?’
Javert no longer felt like she could know.
She simply followed her principles out of habit.
The wavering in her vision did not subside.
Javert swung her light-clad fist even more fiercely.
-Droit Style Martial Arts, Seventh Form-
‘White Extinction.’
Boom!
A dazzling flash surged down the corridor.
A scorching strike that seemed ready to melt everything before it.
“Princess!”
The boy shouted.
Then dark crimson blood enveloped him.
-Blandir Style Bloodcraft, Seventh Form-
‘Scarlet Half-Heaven.’
Creak!
The boy and Javert matched each other evenly.
A precarious balance continued.
But it was only temporary.
The boy’s crown wasn’t an item that could remain active forever.
“Cough! Urgh...!”
In the end, Viktor was the first to be thrown back.
“Cough, huff...”
The boy lay sprawled where he had been slammed into the floor, breathing hard.
Javert had him by the collar.
Black eyes looked up at her.
Javert clenched her fist and aimed it at Viktor.
“Ha ha...”
She was poised to swing.
At this rate, the boy’s head would be smashed to pieces.
“What are you doing?”
“...”
But Javert couldn’t swing.
Her fist was frozen in midair.
Their eyes had met.
Viktor still wore a smile.
He was somewhat exhausted and disheveled, but the corners of his mouth were clearly raised.
“Investigator.”
His voice came between ragged breaths.
It was calm, strangely gentle.
“What are you hesitating for?”
“...”
The freezing air stabbed into their lungs.
White breath repeatedly veiled the space between them, then cleared.
Javert’s gaze kept wavering.
Though he knew that, the boy quietly parted his lips.
“Kill me.”
A single hellish phrase echoed through the air.
Footnotes:
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