WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 150: Javert’s Iron and Justice (14)
──────
How many more times had I died after that?
I hadn't bothered counting, but I must have died around fifty more times.
Crack!
[You have failed to conquer Regret 'Memory'.]
[The designated trauma will now restart.]
My neck snapped, and the trauma rewound.
Time in which life and death repeated.
A rough hand closed around my throat.
As I kept smiling quietly, my consciousness blinked out several more times.
[You have failed to conquer Regret 'Memory'.]
[The designated trauma will now restart.]
[You have failed to conquer Regret 'Memory'.]
[The designated trauma will now restart.]
[You have failed to conquer Regret 'Memory'.]
[The designated trauma will now restart.]
Dying wasn't easy.
It came with unbearable pain.
Sizzle.
Divine Power boiled in the woman's palm.
Again and again, I had to let my flesh be seared and melted away.
[You have failed to conquer Regret 'Memory'.]
[The designated trauma will now restart.]
Pure white light flooded my vision.
Again.
Again.
And again.
I died through several more lives and lived through several more deaths.
Even in that loop, I didn't scream once.
If I faltered here, I'd never be able to save you.
"Investigator."
That frightened me more.
I could let them burn as much of my flesh as they wanted, have my intestines pulled out as many times as they wished.
It didn't matter if this moment was neither illusion nor dream.
Even if all of this were real, I would've offered up my neck.
But failing to save someone, that was the one thing I never wanted to go through again.
"Muro."
I hoped the people precious to me wouldn't leave as they pleased.
My teacher's face flickered faintly through my mind.
So did my mischievous younger siblings' smiles.
That was why I smiled.
Even as I died, I smiled instead of crying.
I was so glad that, unlike back then, I wasn't powerless.
"Please breathe slowly."
You were close enough to touch if I reached out.
"No matter what you say, I won't leave."
Time was infinite.
A stretch of time where life and death repeated forever.
Crack!
"I wouldn't mind being trapped here forever."
Misfortune had been my old friend, adversity my companion.
That was how I had lived my entire life.
A mere hundred deaths couldn't wipe the smile from my face.
I smiled without crudeness or strain.
It was one of the things my teacher had taught me that I cherished most.
"Don't make a sad face. Keep smiling at all times!"
"I believe our Muro will do just fine."
I looked up at you with a smile.
Green eyes.
Your expression was terribly twisted.
Tears streamed down your face, and you looked as though you might shatter at any moment.
"Student Viktor..."
Clear droplets fell onto my cheeks.
They were hot, just as I expected.
Your heart wasn't silver.
It was red, no different from anyone else's.
"Please... stop. Please stop..."
Your voice was pleading.
I was a little surprised by how unlike you it sounded.
"It's already happened over two hundred times. Your mind will soon wear down and break..."
"Investigator."
"Please. Leave this place at once."
"I can't leave you behind."
"It doesn't matter what happens to someone like me. I was going to die anyway!"
"I came here to stop you from killing yourself."
"It's not Student Viktor's place to interfere!"
"Even so, I want to interfere."
"Why on earth...?!"
Crack!
My consciousness faded with a grotesque snapping sound.
Then the scene began again.
When I quietly looked up at you, you were crying.
I carefully reached out and wiped away the tears gathered at the corners of your eyes.
"Because you're precious to me."
"......"
"I don't want to lose you."
"......"
I don't want to lose you.
Those were words I once regretted not saying enough.
Crack!
[You have failed to conquer Regret 'Memory'.]
[The designated trauma will now restart.]
Javert's expression twisted into something even more complicated.
The numbness in her eyes had completely crumbled away.
She sobbed like an ordinary person.
Her expression was frightened and sad.
They were emotions utterly unfamiliar on her.
Her lips trembled before she finally spilled out the turmoil in her heart.
"I don't know anything anymore... I don't know anything at all."
It was a quiet confession.
"Everything has already become a mess... All I can think is that there's no reason to keep living. I wanted to live by my principles, but now I don't even know what those are anymore. I let Student Viktor go with my own hands. I destroyed what I had upheld my whole life with my own hands."
She looked like a lost child.
Perhaps she had been wandering ever since a winter night when she was fourteen.
"And if, in the future that will someday come, I only end up regretting this life..."
The future I had shown her.
In hundreds of futures, Javert had ended her life by suicide every time.
Her life had always been denied.
"What meaning is there in living through such a future...?"
The girl asked.
The one strangling me was a child who had never escaped being fourteen.
Crack!
[You have failed to conquer Regret 'Memory'.]
[The designated trauma will now restart.]
The girl seemed to want an answer from me.
An answer about the meaning of life she had lost sight of.
Her question was desperate, but I didn't answer carelessly. I only asked in return.
"What about you, Investigator?"
"......"
"What have you been living for? What did you want to protect while living so obsessively?"
"......"
Rustle.
I brushed back her red hair.
Between those red petals, her leaf-like eyes trembled pitifully.
A puff of breath fogged in the air.
The white mist blurred my vision.
"That doesn't matter. What I want..."
"It matters. I want to hear what's in your heart."
"......"
"Beyond principles, rules, and doctrines... What Javert Droit herself wishes for."
The reason you had clung so tightly to your principles.
The reason you had despaired and tried to kill yourself.
The reason you regretted that ending.
I wanted to know the truth beneath that tragic life.
No. Perhaps I already knew, but I wanted to hear it from your own lips.
"I want to hear your answer."
"I..."
The woman fell silent.
While she did, I lived and died three more times.
Crack!
[You have failed to conquer Regret 'Memory'.]
[The designated trauma will now restart.]
Perhaps she could no longer bear it.
The woman sobbed out her true feelings.
Words she had hidden deepest within herself were finally spoken.
"...I only..."
Drip. Drip.
Her tears fell like a downpour.
"I just didn't want anyone, anyone to get hurt..."
Her obsession had been the desire to protect someone.
The small wish of a fourteen-year-old girl who wanted everyone to be safe.
Javert bared her tender heart.
She allowed me to touch the essence beneath that armor of iron.
"Investigator."
Yes.
You were such a kind person.
"You know now, don't you? Principles are never perfect. Principles can only keep us from becoming beasts. They can't make us human. That is why the master of our lives must not be principles, but ourselves."
"But what if I ruin everything..."
"You won't. Even if you do, you can start again. If you keep moving forward, trying, and thinking, you'll reach the end eventually."
"How could I do all of that alone..."
A person was imperfect.
Perhaps it was impossible to maintain the balance of what was right alone.
That was exactly why I could answer Javert's fear.
"We aren't alone, are we?"
"......"
Living together.
The reason humans couldn't become human on their own.
"We live together, to support one another through uncertainty."
In the end, people were what made people human.
That was the belief I had learned from people.
People and love had made me who I was.
And now, it was my turn to help another person become human.
"I'll be by your side."
I wouldn't leave you alone.
I would share all of that anxiety, sadness, and fear beside you.
I would watch over the outside so you could break out of your shell.
If I could tell you those words, I would offer up my neck as many times as it took.
Crack!
[You have failed to conquer Regret 'Memory'.]
[The designated trauma will now restart.]
"I saved you twice today, Investigator. I saved you from the memories of the past and the imagination of the future. I did it all to earn your trust."
There was something I wanted you to know.
You weren't alone.
"You have me. No matter the situation, I'll come to save you. Whether disaster strikes because you break your principles, or you ruin things by clinging too stubbornly to them... I'll always be beside you. I'll support you when you stagger. I'll help you make better choices and achieve better results."
Your wish.
"You wished for no one to be hurt, for no one to be sad. I'll help make that dream come true. I'll be your support, so I want you to live, Investigator. Please don't let go of life."
"Why... why would Student Viktor go this far...?"
"Didn't I tell you? Because you're precious to me."
"For only that reason..."
"It's more than enough reason."
I smiled faintly.
Pity and affection mixed together, leaving my heart conflicted.
Still, I smiled.
Because I wanted you to feel reassured by my presence.
Because I wanted you to lean on me and begin again, even with a life so precarious it seemed ready to break.
"So, Investigator."
"......"
"I want you to live a little longer."
"......"
Since when had it been?
Javert's hand was no longer strangling my throat.
She was only clutching the hem of my clothes, her head lowered as tears fell.
I slowly raised myself.
My arms naturally drew her into an embrace.
Patting her back as she sobbed, I whispered into her delicate ear.
"You don't have to answer. You only need to hold on to me."
"......"
Javert buried her face against my shoulder.
She cried like that for a long while.
I quietly waited for her.
After some time, I felt her trembling arms wrap around my back.
"...You made the right choice, Investigator."
The will to live.
It seemed that, little by little, it had been restored within her.
Scratch, scratch.
I could hear the scrape of a pen nib against parchment near my ear.
When I gently raised my head, a contract recorded in a soft glow had appeared before me.
A blue screen appeared before my eyes.
Ding!
[You have successfully conquered Regret 'Memory'.]
[All traumas have been cleared.]
And with that,
we brought the nightmare to an end.
Footnotes:
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
