WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 144: Javert’s Iron and Justice (11)
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“Leysha... Sis?”
They had arrived at the ruins.
But waiting there was not a haggard woman.
It was a monster clad in a pitch-black dress, tears of blood streaming down her face.
“Ah... You came at last? You finally fell for it.”
“Do you have any idea how many years I spent undercover just to catch one little brat...?”
“I spent three fucking years rotting in this godforsaken slum.”
“Still, fuck. I guess it was worth it. I achieved my goal, after all.”
It was Leysha’s usual voice.
Yet the atmosphere around her was nothing like the Leysha Javert knew.
Dark-red demonic energy poured from the woman, filling the room with murderous intent.
“Leysha... Sis? What is this...?”
“I came here today for treatment...”
“What? Leysha? Treatment? Pfft... You can still say that after seeing me like this?”
“You stupid little brat. You were fooled from beginning to end.”
“Do you know how hard I worked to pull this off...?”
Javert did not want to believe it.
But the woman’s eyes were cold enough to jolt the girl awake.
“I came here to kill you.”
The one standing there was not a widow from the slums.
She was simply a murderer who had waited for this day for years.
A chilling sneer crossed her face.
‘Killian, the Shape Trickster.’
That was the true identity of the woman known as Leysha.
She was an executive of the Cult, a monster ranked among its ten most dangerous members.
“Haah... Do you even know how many of our members your father has killed?”
“We’ve suffered so much damage that it’s humiliating in every way.”
“I approached you to get revenge, too.”
“I’ll kidnap you and show you what hell really looks like.”
The words made her skin crawl.
Javert hurriedly searched for her guard knight. But...
“Sir Rubin...?”
“My apologies, my lady.”
“They offered me far too much money.”
For some reason, Rubin stood beside Killian rather than Javert.
She could not understand what she was seeing.
The guard knight had accepted a fortune.
Everything she had trusted shattered in an instant.
Killian laughed at the girl and lightly snapped her fingers.
“Oh my... Isn’t it too soon to be surprised?”
“I haven’t even properly told you what I’m going to do to you yet.”
Rumble.
Cult members who had been hiding nearby emerged.
Intending to abduct her, they cloaked themselves in demonic energy and began drawing a teleportation circle.
“It’ll be so much fun once we return to the branch.”
“Should I start by peeling off your skin?”
“I’ll pull out your fingernails one by one, burn you, stitch up your insides...”
“Then I’ll record every last part of it and send it to that fucking old man.”
Fear closed in around her.
Javert felt as though someone were choking her.
“I’m so curious what kind of expression he’ll make!”
“Don’t worry. I won’t kill you.”
“Even if you beg me to, I’ll keep you alive.”
“I could slice strips of flesh off you and feed them back to you as your meals!”
The cost of trust was enormous.
The kindness she had held in her heart had been repaid with deception and mockery.
As she stared blankly, tears ran down her face, and an old woman’s warning rang in her ears.
“Do not get too close to the people of the slums.”
“It is good to show kindness, but that does not mean you should trust them.”
So that was why.
Mother had been worried about something like this.
And I did not even understand that. I broke the rules because I wanted to.
‘Why did I...?’
Her vision blurred into a mess of color.
Just as the girl was about to be abducted by the Cult...
“Stop right there!”
Boom!
A flash of light suddenly burst through the ruins.
Javert jerked her head up.
The voice that reached her ears was familiar.
An elderly woman stood before her.
“Mother...?”
Serian was dressed in priestly robes.
She aimed blazing, pure-white light at the Cult members.
Radiating pressure, the old woman stepped in front of Killian as though shielding Javert.
“How dare such wicked creatures target my daughter...!”
“Do you not fear divine punishment!”
“No one will harm my child.”
“If you wish to do so, you’ll have to put me in a tomb first!”
Serian had realized what was happening too late, then followed their trail and rushed there.
To protect her daughter, the old woman unleashed all her Divine Power.
Javert’s mother was strong.
She was not Valter’s equal, but she was still a formidable figure within the church.
But an aged and weakened woman could never contend with a Cult executive.
“Fuck, what a nuisance...”
The battle lasted nearly thirty minutes.
The ordinary Cult members, along with Rubin, had long since burned away under the Divine Power.
The old woman bought as much time as she could against Killian.
Yet she was ultimately overwhelmed by the vast difference in their strength.
“You’ve only wasted my time.”
Thud!
A savage fist tore through Serian’s abdomen.
“Tsk... A pursuit team will be here soon.”
“Should I call it a day and run?”
“Well, I didn’t kill the daughter, but I killed the wife. I suppose it wasn’t a complete failure.”
The old woman collapsed to the floor.
Killian turned away as though nothing more mattered and disappeared.
Javert was left alone, holding Serian as she died.
“Javert.”
The girl sobbed.
She desperately tried to draw out Divine Power, but it was useless.
Serian had barely retained consciousness. Her injuries were beyond anything Javert could treat.
“Don’t cry.”
The old woman’s breath was fading.
Even then, Serian’s eyes looked only at Javert.
“It isn’t your fault.”
Her voice was gentle.
Dark-red blossoms splattered between her ragged coughs.
“Cough...”
Broken stems spilled from the old woman’s body.
Her graceful leaves had been torn apart, and the roots that had supported her long life had been ripped out.
It was horrifying.
“Javert... our beloved daughter.”
Even at the end of your life, you smiled.
A weak, wrinkled hand rested briefly against the girl’s cheek.
“It isn’t your fault.”
“You were simply unlucky...”
Perhaps she had hoped this moment would not become a wound.
Until the very end, the mother did not blame her daughter.
Like cherry blossoms that fell without resenting the May that had cast them down.
“Everything will be all right.”
Words that were not all right at all.
Until her heart stopped, her life sheltered the girl.
It was damp and warm, then gradually cooled and turned cold.
Serian’s red stained Javert’s cheek.
“Everything... will be all right...”
After that, Serian breathed her last.
“Mom... Please, open your eyes.”
“It was my fault. I’ll never do it again...”
“Sniff, please... No, you can’t go...!”
The girl wailed before the withered flower.
Javert was rescued by the pursuit team that arrived too late.
But there was no way to bring back someone who had already died.
[The star that shone most quietly.]
[Serian Droit rests here.]
The old woman’s life was laid to rest in a coffin.
A long funeral followed, and rain clouds gathered as though the world itself mourned her.
Flowers were laid down in bunches.
Javert stood there, hollow-eyed.
Without moving from her place, she watched the cycle of life and death unfold before her.
‘It was all because of me...’
It was her fault.
Everything had become a mess because of her.
‘Mother.’
The person she loved most had died.
She had killed the person who took her in and broadened her world.
It was no one else’s doing.
It was the result of her own choices and stubbornness.
Javert did not even deserve to cry.
So she sobbed without making a sound.
“Serian, Serian...”
The girl was not the only one whose life had fallen apart.
For the first time, Javert saw tears from the father who had always seemed so great.
“Ah... Serian.”
In the study where Serian’s portrait had been placed, Valter did nothing but cry before it for days.
He buried his face in his wrinkled hands and called only for his wife in his old voice.
“...”
Javert could only stand frozen.
Without saying a word, she could only watch her father.
“Javert...”
Cruel guilt.
Valter staggered toward her and pulled her tightly into his arms.
“This is why I told you not to break the rules.”
“Otherwise, everything becomes a mess...”
Rules.
The reason rules had to be followed at all times.
“That is the right path.”
Javert could never forget that moment.
She had committed a sin that could never be forgiven.
She had ruined her mother’s life and her father’s life.
‘Rules must be followed. In any situation.’
And so, the girl’s entire outlook on life was turned upside down.
Javert became a machine without emotions.
Was it because she wanted to avenge her mother?
Or was it an extension of the punishment she inflicted on herself?
After completing her training as a priest, the girl immediately became an Inquisitorial Investigator.
“Investigator Javert.”
She was only fifteen years old then.
For four years, Javert lived in a sea of corpses and blood.
She acted like a machine built to slaughter Cult members.
Her reputation grew, and enemies began trembling at the sound of her footsteps alone.
“Javert... It’s time to stop.”
Then, on a day steeped in the stench of blood, Valter suddenly stopped her.
“I should have looked after you.”
“It seems I’m too late.”
“I will not ask you to forgive this father.”
“But I cannot leave you in a hellish place like this any longer.”
The old man looked a little older, his face marked by a few more wrinkles.
Tears gathered and trembled at the corners of his eyes.
That day, Valter suspended Javert from her position.
Afterward, the old man announced his retirement and became headmaster of Grandia Academy.
“From now on, work here.”
“I know it won’t be easy, but I hope this place can heal you...”
Javert became an academy professor.
She had no particular complaints.
The girl had abandoned herself long ago.
All she had to do was act according to the orders she received and the rules that had been set.
“Professor Javert.”
Time passed.
The girl became a woman, leaving behind her blood-soaked youth.
As much time passed teaching as she had spent working as an investigator.
“Our beloved daughter.”
“Even without Mom, you have to stay strong, cough...”
The years did not erode Javert’s nightmares. She still lived only within them.
She was twenty-three years old.
It was her fourth year as a teacher.
Then, one day, as she mechanically repeated the same routine...
“Greetings, everyone.”
“My name is Viktor, and I will be meeting you as the top student of this class.”
Javert met a boy.
And a crack formed in her world of endless gray repetition.
* * *
A basement prison without a speck of light.
A black ceiling and cold iron bars blurred before her eyes.
“...”
The red-haired woman blankly relived every moment.
Her blood-red vision, and all the things she regretted.
Her eyelids weakly fell shut again.
Her eyes, always so lifeless, had shattered into fragments.
“...Mother.”
Her pale-red lips suddenly moved.
A word calling out to someone.
“Javert, our daughter.”
A thin trail of tears ran down her cheek.
The woman was trapped in that moment.
A life like hell.
The world seen by one who lived by principles was that cruel.
Footnotes:
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