WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 149: Present, Memory.
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"I know this world's future."
I said it in an even voice.
My breath stretched through the cold corridor as though writing out the sentence.
"......"
Javert gave no particular response.
She simply stared at me blankly, at a loss for words.
The already-confused air grew a little more complicated.
I smiled softly.
"You've gone quiet. Don't you have any questions?"
"......I do."
"Then?"
"It's just... I don't know where to begin."
"This is new. I never thought I'd see you so flustered, Investigator."
Her green eyes wavered intensely.
Just meeting her gaze told me how shaken she was.
The words I'd left behind must have been tumbling around in her head.
"Um, knowing this world's future means..."
"It means exactly what it sounds like."
Surprisingly, Javert didn't seem to doubt the statement itself.
Well, it would be stranger if she did at this point.
Too much had happened between us.
The future she'd just glimpsed, along with my words and actions that had been hard to understand until now...
'If she assumes I acted while knowing the future, even those things can be explained.'
Perhaps Javert had reached the same conclusion. Her breath stopped for a moment, as though she had forgotten to exhale.
Her swarming thoughts spread like a nightmare.
Her voice wasn't clear as she forced the words out as though they had been ripped out by the roots.
"Are you... a prophet, Student Viktor? Or something comparable?"
"That's close enough. Though I'm a little different from a prophet."
"Then the memories you showed me earlier were all..."
"Memories of the future. More accurately, futures I glimpsed."
"......"
Her shoulders trembled unevenly.
Her breathing grew thin.
"That was..."
A tragic ending.
Terrible nausea.
Javert seemed to be dwelling on those horrific memories.
The several hundred daggers with which she had stabbed her own throat, regretting it and weeping each time.
"......"
"Investigator."
I quietly stepped forward.
The corridor had remained steeped in darkness all this time.
Now, the sight ahead had become chaotic.
"Those are Chimeras."
Grotesque figures packed the corridor.
Monsters crawled along, their teeth and tentacles wriggling.
They were the transformed students.
Torn uniforms and chunks of flesh were scattered everywhere.
The scene looked far too much like one of the futures I had shown her.
"......"
Javert stopped walking.
Her legs seemed to have frozen stiff.
Strange mutants writhed across from us.
The future. The mistake she would commit had been recreated before her eyes, as though mocking her.
"Ugh..."
It was a hellish sight.
Javert stood there, unable to move either way.
The one who led her was none other than me.
"Take my hand."
I gently took her hand.
Holding her trembling hand, I stepped forward.
We crossed the corridor.
<Screeeech!>
<Squaaawk!>
<Grrk, aahk, skreee!>
We walked between the Chimeras.
There had to be at least several hundred of them.
They looked ready to rush at us at any moment.
"Slowly."
Yet I paid no heed to that murderous intent.
I calmly escorted Javert.
She held my hand tightly.
Squish, squish.
We stepped firmly across the floor pooled with blood.
The monsters raged, but they didn't attack us directly.
"......We're here."
At last, we reached the end of the corridor.
We had made our way through a dense forest of them.
The cries of the Chimeras echoed behind us.
Creak.
A wooden door stood at the end of the corridor.
The door that had allowed us to move from the past into the future.
Click.
The moment I grasped its handle, my warped perception returned to normal.
My darkened vision brightened.
The things that had been Chimeras regained their original forms.
When I opened my eyes again, only students were wandering through the corridor.
"Did you all hear? They say this exam is going to be insanely hard."
"Ahhh! I'm screwed! I played around and didn't study at all...!"
"I'm hungry. Should we go to the store before class starts?"
"The one who suggested it pays, right?"
"Where's the rule that says that? Let's settle it with rock-paper-scissors!"
Everyday life.
Students laughing and chatting as they passed by.
The sight behind us was utterly peaceful.
"Hehe, no one got hurt this time, did they?"
"......"
Javert stared blankly at the corridor.
Then Purgatory's announcement rang out.
[You have successfully conquered Regret "Imagination."]
[The next stage's trauma will now be set.]
A complicated light filled her green eyes.
I pulled her along by the hand.
"Shall we go?"
"......"
Creeeak.
Before I knew it, we were opening the final door of regret.
The bright scenery turned black again, and air as cold as ice brushed against my cheeks.
Our breath billowed out.
It was as distinct as cigarette smoke.
In that scene, I was pinned to the floor.
"This hurts a little."
Familiar air.
Familiar positions.
Familiar space.
Ding!
[You will now begin conquering Regret "Memory."]
[The designated trauma will be recreated.]
This was the final regret.
Present, Memory.
Javert and I were tangled together in the cold corridor.
I lay sprawled on the floor, while Javert gripped my throat as though strangling me.
It was a familiar sight.
"Investigator."
"......Student Viktor."
The green eyes I looked steadily up into trembled.
She seemed to have realized the situation as well.
This was the corridor on the eighty-first floor of Purgatory.
The moment when Javert had subdued me after discovering my identity.
Squeeze.
Javert's hand brutally tightened around my throat.
She looked flustered, as though it wasn't by her own will.
"Wait, my hand is moving on its own...!"
My breathing was being crushed, her grip slowly growing stronger.
I was fine for now, but at this rate, my neck would soon break.
'Is that it?'
This seemed to be the final trial.
What she regretted was her life.
Javert regretted the very fact that she was alive.
This stage was likely testing whether I could change Javert's heart.
'So I'm supposed to give her the will to live again.'
Failure meant the end.
Javert and I would be trapped in an eternal nightmare.
"Investigator."
It was what I wanted.
I had caused all this to save you, after all.
I could offer up this measly neck as many times as it took.
I calmly looked up at you.
"Student Viktor! Leave this place at once...!"
Your eyes looked frightened.
You flinched as if resisting the force controlling you.
Cold sweat formed on your forehead, but it was no more than a meaningless gesture.
Crack!
A grotesque snapping sound.
Unable to withstand her grip, my neck broke.
Javert's face turned pale.
Even that scene gradually faded away.
'That hurt more than I expected.'
I died.
And then...
Ding!
[You have failed to conquer Regret "Memory."]
[The designated trauma will now restart.]
My vision returned.
I blinked.
'Is this what regression feels like?'
The same air.
The same positions.
The same space.
I was sprawled on the floor, and Javert was strangling me.
I wasn't the only one who had gone through that rewind.
Javert had gone deathly pale as she cried out.
"No...! Leave, leave this place at once!"
"Investigator."
"Student Viktor, haven't you already completed the trial?!"
"That's right. If I want to, I can escape this floor immediately."
"Then hurry and escape...!"
She shouted for me not to get dragged in any further, telling me to leave now.
She seemed to know from experiencing the earlier stages.
This hell didn't end.
It would repeat endlessly until the task was completed.
If I remained here, it meant my neck would break over and over.
"Student Viktor!"
Divine Power seethed in her palm.
Javert tightened her grip around my throat.
Sizzle.
A sensation like being seared with a branding iron spread through me.
Beneath the awful burning pain, pressure built as though my neck bones would shatter.
"Leave this place at once...!"
"I don't want to."
I smiled.
I smiled even as my flesh cooked and my breathing stopped.
Crack!
[You have failed to conquer Regret "Memory."]
[The designated trauma will now restart.]
I died and came back to life.
My third death was already approaching.
Javert strangled me as she desperately pleaded for something.
"Investigator."
I parted my breathless lips.
Stumbling over the words, I pieced together the sentence I needed and spoke.
"Would you... listen to what I have to say for a moment?"
"Leave at once! You've already died twice!"
"I told you, I don't want to."
"Even if it's temporary, death is still death! If these experiences pile up, your mind won't be able to endure it...!"
"Never."
I smiled.
The flesh at the back of my neck melted away.
"I will never leave you alone."
Thud!
This time, it seemed my whole head had burst.
My stomach churned.
[You have failed to conquer Regret "Memory."]
[The designated trauma will now restart.]
I died and came back to life.
Javert was strangling me again, without fail.
"Investigator."
"Student Viktor, please...!"
Time was infinite.
I wasn't going to leave this place, or your side.
"So, let's talk."
A deep and sad story.
A story that lets us live on despite it all.
A story where I become your life, and you become mine.
"Investigator."
The reason you have to live.
The reason I have to save you.
The reason I want to live with you.
Ding!
[Forgotten Sage's Contract]
-Category: Document
-Rank: A+
-Status: Pristine
-Description: This is a parchment left behind by the ancient sage, Anael. Its effect is...
"Please listen to my story."
That story, with you.
Footnotes:
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