WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 147: Past, Memories.
──────
Purgatory.
An inverted tower said to have been built by some eccentric architect in ancient times.
Such a tower had a theme assigned to every ten floors.
The ten sins humanity was born carrying, recorded in the ancient Bible.
‘The Ten Evils.’
The evils humans committed throughout their lives.
Among them, the theme of the 81st through 90th floors was [Regret].
‘...Cold.’
Regret was an organic connection between memories, recollections, and imagination.
Perhaps because of that nature, the ten floors were bound together.
The 81st through 90th floors had to be cleared in a single attempt.
With ten floors compressed into one, their density was on an entirely different level from the floors before them.
Ding-!
[The phenomenon ‘Regret (SS-)’ has occurred.]
[Your trauma will be recreated on this floor.]
The floor showed entrants three regrets.
Past, future, and present.
The branching points of regret at each moment in time.
Entrants had to overcome their recreated traumas one by one.
But if they could not cast aside their lingering attachments, they would be trapped in that nightmare forever.
‘Where am I...?’
The first regret among them.
Past, Memories.
“Ugh, ngh...”
Javert opened her eyes through a fog of consciousness.
Severe nausea seemed to grip her heart.
She let out a breath that was nearly a dry heave.
“Cough...”
White breath rose before her.
She was not in a solitary cell.
Instead of a narrow ceiling overhead, she saw a dark blue night sky.
As if it were winter, snowflakes drifted gently through her vision.
“...?”
She was sprawled amid the rubble of what looked like a collapsed building.
‘What? I was definitely in a solitary cell...’
Javert had no choice but to question it.
The scenery had changed in an instant.
She had been attempting suicide in the academy’s underground prison.
Then a boy had suddenly appeared, interrupted her, and pulled her forcefully from her helpless state.
‘...And I think I lost consciousness.’
The last thing she remembered was herself and the boy falling somewhere.
When she came to, she was looking at a scene completely different from the solitary cell.
Javert steadied her muddled mind.
Had she fallen victim to illusion magic?
Could Viktor use magic too?
Pushing those questions aside, Javert forced herself upright.
“Haa...”
First, she needed to understand the situation.
She didn’t know what had happened, but if she looked around...
Stagger.
“Ugh...?”
The leg she used to push herself up from the rubble wobbled.
Javert nearly lost her balance.
She staggered, then stopped.
‘What is this...?’
Something felt wrong.
Walking, which normally came so easily to her, felt awkward.
Javert looked down at her body.
Then a dazed murmur escaped her lips.
“...I’m younger?”
That was exactly it.
Javert’s body had returned to how it looked when she was young.
Had she been sent back roughly ten years?
She looked around thirteen or fourteen.
“How did this...?”
Her body was smooth, without a single scar.
It was vastly different from her twenty-three-year-old body.
The biting air quickly snapped her out of her brief stupor.
‘Wait.’
Unease.
Déjà vu.
Anxiety.
Feelings mixed together.
Javert realized what they were.
The only smells lingering around her were the metallic scent of blood and a horrible burnt stench.
Her heart sank.
‘This is...’
A body about ten years younger.
A mercilessly destroyed building.
A stale burnt smell.
Cold air and light snow.
And herself lying amid that scenery.
‘No.’
That couldn’t be true.
As she swallowed down that denial, a voice filled her ears.
“Javert...!”
It was a voice she missed.
A sound she had never forgotten for a single moment of her life.
The girl’s mind went blank.
“Ah.”
Serian Droit.
Her mother.
The person who had pulled her out of the gutter.
The person who had taught her about love and kindness.
“...M-Mom?”
An old woman stood before Javert.
With her back to Javert, Serian clenched her fist as though protecting her from something.
Whoooooosh-!
Light raged around the old woman.
Javert’s eyes trembled on their own.
The scene was painfully familiar.
A woman stood opposite the old woman.
“Fuck, you’re such a pain in the ass...”
Leysha.
She had been a widow from the slums whom Javert had been close with as a child.
The cold wind sent her brown hair fluttering in every direction.
“Killian...?”
Javert felt as though her heart had stopped.
The woman’s real name was Killian.
She was an executive of the Cult who had planned to abduct Javert.
At the same time, she was the one who had murdered Serian and plunged the girl’s life into the abyss.
“You wicked thing! You dare covet my daughter with those filthy hands!”
“You’re damn persistent for an old hag!”
Serian was fighting desperately to protect her daughter.
Her opponent, however, was a high-ranking executive of the Cult.
For an old woman whose strength had waned, Killian was too much to handle.
“Just... die already!”
Thud-!
Javert didn’t have time to do anything.
A pitch-black fist shot forward and pierced deep into the old woman’s abdomen.
“Nooooo!!!”
The girl screamed without realizing it.
Her usual expressionless face had shattered completely.
A distorted cry echoed through the winter night sky.
Killian pulled out her fist and clicked her tongue as if this had become a nuisance.
“Because of you, I only wasted time.”
The exact words she remembered.
The scene Javert had hated and regretted was recreated before her.
“Tch... The pursuers will be here soon. Should I call it a day and run?”
Killian turned away as if she had lost interest.
Javert stumbled toward the old woman, who was barely alive.
Something hot ran down her cheeks.
It didn’t matter whether it was blood or tears.
The girl only clung to her mother lying on the ground.
“Mom...! Mom!”
She couldn’t understand what was happening.
Her arms moved on their own and embraced the old woman.
Serian’s body was soaked, and blood had pooled thickly on the ground.
“Javert... my beloved daughter.”
Again.
The exact words she remembered.
“It’s not your fault. You were just unlucky...”
A wrinkled hand brushed the girl’s cheek.
A red streak remained behind.
After a few coughs, just as Javert remembered, the old woman breathed her last.
Javert screamed before her until her voice broke.
Ding-!
[You have failed to clear the regret ‘Memories.’]
[Restarting the designated trauma.]
An announcement rang through Purgatory.
Then the girl’s consciousness was cut off.
* * *
It was a cold winter night.
Javert opened her eyes to the same scenery.
“Ugh, urgh...”
Nausea rose with severe motion sickness.
It felt as though her entire brain had been crushed.
Javert panted for breath.
When she hurriedly looked down, her body had the form of a fourteen-year-old.
‘I’m back again...?’
The same place.
The same situation.
The same arrangement.
“Fuck, you’re such a pain in the ass...”
“You wicked thing! You dare covet my daughter with those filthy hands!”
“You’re damn persistent for an old hag! Get the hell out of my way!”
“If you want to hurt my child, you’ll have to put me in a columbarium first!”
The same people.
The same words.
The same smell.
‘No... If this continues, it’ll end just like before.’
Javert’s mind was in utter chaos.
Still, her judgment came quickly.
The girl gathered as much Divine Power as she could.
Light wrapped around her entire body as she stepped forward to help her mother.
“Hup...!”
“What? The little brat came to die on her own?”
The Divine Power the girl unleashed with all her strength.
Its output was far too weak.
It didn’t even seem to be one percent of what she could normally produce.
“Fuck, are you kidding me? You think you can come at me with this pathetic power?”
Thud-!
Javert was sent flying helplessly.
The girl rolled across the ground, powerless to resist.
“Urgh...!”
“Javert!”
It wasn’t simply because she had become younger.
The 90th floor itself was suppressing the entrants’ resistance.
Purgatory was an unfair place.
The hundred-story Inverted Tower did not forgive the incompetent.
If they failed to complete the task, escaping that nightmare would be impossible forever.
“You’re really taking your eyes off me? Die, you old hag!”
The task demanded that she overcome her regret.
For Javert, whose very life was regret, it was no different from an impossible task.
“Mom...!”
Thud-!
Once again, the fist pierced Serian’s abdomen.
The old woman collapsed to the ground.
The woman turned away.
The girl fell to her knees and screamed.
Ding-!
[You have failed to clear the regret ‘Memories.’]
[Restarting the designated trauma.]
Again.
Javert opened her eyes in the winter night.
“Bleurgh...!”
Nausea.
Winter.
White breath.
“Mom...!”
Woman.
Girl.
Mother.
“Javert... my beloved daughter.”
A nightmare.
Regret.
Repetition.
“It’s not your fault. You were just unlucky...”
Thud-!
Thud-!
Thud-!
Serian was killed over and over.
Sometimes she was pierced after letting her guard down, crushed in a clash, or ruthlessly torn apart.
There were times when it seemed like she might win, only for Killian to suddenly reveal a trump card and make her body explode.
Javert couldn’t save her in any way.
Ding-!
[You have failed to clear the regret ‘Memories.’]
[Restarting the designated trauma.]
The entire process was a stage built to deceive the girl.
Just in case, Javert even tried killing herself first.
But that didn’t change the fact that the phenomenon repeated.
A voice like the floor’s notification or an announcement echoed in her ears again and again.
[You have failed to clear the regret ‘Memories.’]
[Restarting the designated trauma.]
[You have failed to clear the regret ‘Memories.’]
[Restarting the designated trauma.]
[You have failed to clear the regret ‘Memories.’]
[Restarting the designated trauma.]
[You have failed to clear the regret ‘Memories.’]
[Restarting the designated trauma.]
Mother’s abdomen was pierced.
Time rewound.
Mother’s head exploded.
Time rewound.
Mother’s heart was ripped out.
Time rewound.
“Ah...”
The atrocities she had committed.
The nightmare she had never been able to shake off repeated dozens of times.
“Javert... my beloved daughter.”
Her fading breath.
Mother’s final words were always the same.
Those words hurt Javert most of all.
“It’s not your fault. You were just unlucky...”
It was all Javert’s fault, yet Serian only told her not to think about it.
She stroked Javert’s cheek as if telling her not to blame herself.
Each of those moments gnawed at Javert’s heart.
It would have been better if Serian had cursed or scolded her instead...
‘I hate this.’
This was already the fortieth repetition of the same scene.
Javert could only shed silent tears.
Her powerless hands only tore at her hair.
Sobs caught in her throat, and shrill screams rang out beneath the night sky.
‘I want it to stop. Please... someone, save Mom...’
Her shell of iron had shattered completely.
Her soft inner self was exposed, and the girl who had hidden inside the closet raised her head.
A voice pleading for salvation.
“Haha! Your mother’s a pain, so should I kill you first?”
Perhaps Killian had noticed the dazed Javert.
She charged at the girl.
Javert couldn’t even think of resisting.
She only sat in that hellish scene as if she had given up.
“Die!!”
That was when it happened.
Something black flew in from somewhere and deflected the fist.
Clang-!
“Ghk...?!”
“Activate. Thorns.”
An activation phrase was uttered.
Then dozens of thorns drove Killian back.
The sudden onslaught filled the space.
Boom-!
In the end, the woman was sent crashing into the building across from them.
A tragedy repeated forty times.
For the first time, a variable had appeared.
Javert had no choice but to raise her blankly lowered head.
A boy wreathed in black like the night sky looked down at her.
“Investigator.”
A scar bloomed across his face like a flower.
When their eyes met, the boy gave her a faint, complicated smile.
“I’m sorry I’m late.”
“Mom!”
The scythe in the boy’s hand dissolved.
In an instant, Lua returned to her small childlike form.
Lua toddled over and threw herself into the arms of her now-smaller mother.
Javert remained dazed.
Only the tears pooled in her eyes ran down her face.
“Professor Javert.”
“...”
Viktor held out his hand.
He stroked fourteen-year-old Javert, the still-young, deeply wounded child.
His warmth was enough to melt the freezing air of the winter night.
Lua rubbing her cheek against Javert’s was the same.
“...Student Viktor.”
“I wanted to get here faster, but things didn’t quite go as I thought.”
The boy spoke as if he felt guilty.
Her tousled red hair was smoothed into place.
Rustle.
His hand searched through the inside of his robe.
Before long, Viktor pulled out a mask.
It was the uniquely designed mask he always wore.
“You can relax now.”
The boy placed the mask over the girl’s face.
So she wouldn’t be hurt anymore, so she wouldn’t suffer in this nightmare.
“I’ll destroy all of it for you.”
“...”
A gentle voice.
Soft warmth.
Shing.
Grasping Lua, Viktor stood back up.
Before him stood the trauma that had made Javert’s entire life into hell.
“Who the hell are you?! Where did some worthless extra like you come from...!”
When had he gotten so close?
Killian’s eyes widened as she swung her fist.
Viktor answered in a tone that sounded utterly indifferent.
“Who knows.”
Slice.
Blackness flashed for a moment.
“I’m a hack therapist.”
Then Killian’s severed head flew into the sky.
Footnotes:
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