WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 141: Javert’s Iron and Justice (8)
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"Kill me."
"......"
A hellish command rang out.
Javert clenched her fist.
A black-haired boy lay sprawled beneath her.
He had been restrained so thoroughly that he couldn't move, only letting out ragged, icy breaths.
"Investigator."
Black eyes looked up at the woman.
His gaze was calm.
There wasn't even a trace of fear in it.
Javert's eyes, on the other hand, trembled as if an earthquake had struck.
"Isn't this the moment you've wanted so badly?"
Javert clearly held his life in her hands.
Yet the atmosphere felt like the opposite.
The boy was utterly at peace.
The woman breathed as though she were the one about to die.
That disconnect made Purgatory's cold air feel even heavier.
"Kill me."
"......"
"If you don't, I'll escape again."
"......"
His voice urged her to carry out the execution.
The boy provoked her.
'Why?'
She couldn't tell what he was thinking.
Javert clenched her fist tighter.
Everything was a mess.
Despite his words telling her to kill him, static crackled in her ears.
-You're going to kill me anyway, aren't you? Whoever's under this robe.
-That's your justice.
There were no exceptions to principles.
Words like awls stabbed and tore through her eardrums.
-Don't you know that even those principles are a flawed kind of righteousness born from humans?
-What you call principles are nothing but oppression dressed up as principle.
-And you're still going to entrust yourself to principles alone?
The robed intruder.
The few words the boy had thrown at her.
And then,
-Mom! Give Lua a hug!
-I like Mom as much as Dad.
-Ahem. Lua seems to like Professor quite a lot.
-It's because you treat Lua kindly.
-I always think I made the right choice in becoming your personal teaching assistant.
Memories of peaceful days drifted past.
Brief days that hadn't been particularly special.
It felt as if her heart were being gnawed away whole.
Her clenched hand trembled violently.
Even so, the voice within her forced its way through.
'Kill him.'
Her heart pounded.
There was something before her that she had to finish.
'I have to kill him.'
Kill him.
You can't let him get away this time.
'What are you hesitating for?'
It's your principle.
You decided to follow your principles.
All you have to do is drive your fist into his face.
'You're not... going to do it?'
You ruined everything with your own hands, and now you won't even atone for it?
Shameless bitch.
You bitch, I'll tear you apart and kill you.
You swore before Mother's memorial portrait.
You swore as you watched Father cry in his dark study.
It's because of you.
Don't repeat the same mistake.
Everything will fall apart.
Who cares whether some student lives or dies?
What matters is following your principles and living forever without straying from them.
-Investigator.
Drive your fist down.
Crush him so thoroughly that nothing remains.
Do that, and prove your vow hasn't changed.
-You have a surprisingly careless side to you, Investigator.
Kill him.
-The honor is mine.
-To think I get to play your lover, even if it's only for a day.
Prove it.
-You look... wonderful today.
-You shine even in nothing but your uniform, Investigator.
-Oh, flattery? Not at all! I mean every word, without the slightest exaggeration.
Keep your vow.
Javert.
My beloved daughter.
You bitch, I'll bite you to death.
Investigator.
Javert Droit.
Professor.
An unfilial wretch.
Professor Javert.
A bitch beyond forgiveness.
Chief Investigator.
"Haa, haa..."
Her thoughts became a tangled wreck.
It felt like she was about to lose consciousness.
The woman staggered from dizziness again and again.
Still, Javert finally gritted her teeth and raised her head.
'Do it.'
Her readied fist fell.
A savage flash drove toward the floor.
KWAANG-!
"......"
But the light didn't shatter the boy's head.
Her fist barely grazed his face.
Then it slammed fiercely into the floor right beside him.
Perhaps his cheek had been cut by the passing blow, because beads of red blood gathered there.
"......"
"......"
Viktor didn't even look surprised.
He only looked up at her.
Silence settled between them.
For a brief moment, time in place of death crept through Purgatory.
"I... can't do it."
After a long while, the woman murmured.
Sound barely escaped the lips that had remained silent until then.
"I can't."
White breath bloomed.
Amid the frigid air, the woman retched up a flower.
The sound withered before it could carry any meaning.
"I..."
Drip.
A raindrop fell.
Onto the boy's cheek.
It was a cold place.
Yet rain fell from the sky instead of snow.
To the boy, those raindrops felt hot.
"I can't kill you."
Javert's expression remained blank.
Her gaze was lifeless.
Drip. Drip.
Tears flowed down her face.
They pooled in her dead eyes, then fell along her scarred cheek.
"Investigator."
"......"
Javert was crying.
...No, perhaps crying wasn't the right word.
She wasn't sobbing, her emotions weren't flaring, and her brow wasn't furrowed.
Tears simply kept falling from her eyes.
"......"
"......"
Stillness returned.
Javert's light went out, and darkness came to the corridor.
'I broke my principle.'
The woman had finally derailed from her track.
Her clenched fist loosened without killing the boy.
Her chest felt cold.
"......"
Javert released the boy's collar.
Then she staggered to her feet.
The woman took a step.
She turned around and walked into the dark corridor.
Click, click...
Her red hair receded with the sound of her heels.
The boy didn't stop Javert.
Her back disappeared into the darkness.
Viktor simply lay sprawled on the floor.
[Viktor.]
Once even the faint echoes had completely faded, the bat hidden in his arms spoke.
[Is it over now?]
"Probably."
[Weren't you startled? Provoking her in such a hair-trigger situation...]
"I was a little bold."
[It's fortunate she pulled back her fist. What would you have done if that child had truly tried to kill you?]
"It's fine. I have over a hundred plans prepared for an occasion like that."
[You're trying to brush this aside with wordplay again.]
"Do you think it's wordplay?"
[......Is that true? A hundred?]
"Who knows?"
I laughed as I lay sprawled on the floor.
Then, behind that laugh, I added a small footnote.
"I simply trusted the Investigator."
I had drawn out Javert's answer.
That alone meant a great deal.
I rummaged through my clothes.
"It isn't over yet, but I think we're almost there."
Then, I took out something I had carefully folded away.
Ding!
[Forgotten Sage's Contract]
-Category: Document
-Rank: A+
-Status: Pristine
-Description:
It was the reward for clearing Purgatory Floor 80 last time.
The item I had obtained after shattering my reflection in the mirror and passing beyond it.
I ran my fingers over the parchment.
"Should we wait a few days?"
A faint sense of relief mixed into my exhale.
* * *
Meanwhile.
Javert left Purgatory.
"......"
She walked blankly.
Unlike her usual immaculate appearance, her uniform was a complete mess.
Without even straightening it, Javert continued forward on unsteady steps.
Her broken stride was unlike her in every way.
-I can't.
The tears had stopped, but their traces remained around her eyes.
Her reddened eyelids stung.
-I... can't... kill you.
Her stomach churned.
Her vision was hazy.
She kept walking.
The place the woman eventually reached was none other than the headmaster's office.
Though it was late, her adoptive father was still at his desk, working.
"...Javert?"
The headmaster was startled by her sudden visit.
He couldn't help it.
There were traces of tears on her face.
As far as the old man remembered, Javert had never cried even once since her mother's death.
"W-What happened...?!"
She had been a child like a doll.
The headmaster sprang from his seat.
Javert offered no detailed explanation.
She simply laid out the result, as though she were a criminal.
"Why are your eyes so red...?"
"Detain me."
"What?"
"I lost the criminal. No, I let him go with my own hands."
"The criminal from the unauthorized Purgatory raid? No. What do you mean, you let him go yourself...?"
Javert calmly reported what had happened in Purgatory.
The headmaster could only listen in a daze.
The old man's lips pressed tightly together, only opening again after his daughter's report was over.
"...You're saying you met the criminal behind the unauthorized Purgatory raid again. This time, you saw his face and even succeeded in subduing him?"
"Yes."
"And you let him go."
"Yes."
"Did you learn who he was?"
"Yes."
"Can you tell me his name?"
"His name is..."
A sharp thorn caught in her throat.
Her green eyes trembled.
"...No. I can't tell you."
"...I see."
The reply fell heavily.
Headmaster Valter Droit's expression darkened further.
Perhaps he had roughly guessed what would come next.
"Please detain me."
"Javert."
"I let a criminal I had subdued go, and I even concealed his identity. At this point, I'm no different from his accomplice. Please give me the punishment I deserve. Until my punishment is decided, I will confine myself in the underground prison. Open the smallest cell on the lowest level."
"Javert."
"Headmaster."
"My child, don't..."
"I'm going."
"......"
"I have to go."
"...All right. I'll open it."
The old father couldn't stop his daughter.
Everything she had become was his fault.
'Javert.'
Even as Valter's heart broke, he arrested his daughter himself.
* * *
Javert was detained.
In the underground prison.
The deepest and narrowest solitary cell.
She was assigned a cell meant only for Class 0 death-row prisoners.
-Hey... did you hear? They say the Chief Investigator was detained.
-Isn't that just a rumor? Why would Professor Javert be detained?
-It's true! I heard she's even being held as a death-row prisoner...
-What? Why all of a sudden? She was teaching our class just a few days ago...
Rumors had already begun spreading throughout the academy.
It was a shocking matter, so word traveled quickly.
The academy began to shake.
As the atmosphere gradually grew more unsettled, two full days and fifteen hours passed since Javert's detention.
"......"
"...Hmm."
An old man was meeting alone with a boy.
Headmaster Valter Droit.
He wore a deeply troubled expression.
His wrinkled hand lifted a teacup, but he finally turned his gaze forward.
"...Everything went exactly as Student Viktor planned. There wasn't even the slightest error."
Only a masked boy sat opposite him.
Viktor.
The boy who had introduced himself as a prophet and claimed they needed to prepare for countless tragedies.
Valter watched him uneasily.
"So... what do you intend to do now?"
The old man asked as though pleading for an answer.
He knew that this entire chain of events had begun with the boy.
"There really is a way to save Javert... isn't there?"
The smiling mask.
The ominousness it carried.
The boy answered far too simply.
"Of course."
Viktor's breathing was utterly calm.
Footnotes:
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