WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 152: Javert’s Iron and Justice (16)
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Javert Droit.
Serian Droit.
The mother and daughter were reunited only after nine winters had passed.
As if making up for all the longing that had built up between them, they shared so many stories.
“Mother, that…”
Stories of sorrow.
Stories of loneliness.
Stories of agony.
Stories of longing.
Javert spoke as though retching up the knot in her chest.
Holding her daughter close, the elderly woman did nothing but listen.
A wrinkled hand patted her delicate back.
Time had settled upon Javert, wrapping her in the shell of maturity.
Even so, Serian still saw the fourteen-year-old girl she remembered.
“It must have been so hard, my daughter.”
“Your mother should have always been there to watch over you…”
The girl had grown up, yet before the elderly woman, she was still small.
The tears never dried from Javert’s cheeks.
They were emotions that had pooled at the bottom of her heart over the past nine years.
Emotions she had never shed as tears or expressed during a life lived coldly.
“I just… wanted to see your face again, Mother. Even once.”
Now, the words burst forth as though a dam had given way.
The pooled waters tore through her iron armor.
They became a stream, then a river, then an ocean.
The mother and daughter sat side by side, unraveling the confessions that had piled up layer by layer.
“You’re the Chief Investigator? My daughter has done so well!”
“If I’d been by your side, I would’ve celebrated so much.”
“It seems I’m very late, but congratulations.”
“No. I simply needed something to devote myself to.”
“Still, um… that is. Since Mother is congratulating me, I, I think I’m happy…”
Javert had passed through girlhood and become a twenty-three-year-old woman.
Without her mother, she had seen eight more seasons pass.
Yet no matter how much time had gone by, she was still Serian Droit’s daughter.
Javert had never forgotten that fact.
“Ahem.”
A gentle warmth bloomed in the air.
Then the elderly woman’s gaze suddenly shifted to one side.
“By the way… Javert, who is the gentleman standing over there?”
It was a black-haired boy.
Viktor had remained silent in one corner of the study the entire time.
When Serian showed interest, he bowed first and greeted her politely.
“Forgive the late introduction. My name is Viktor. I serve as the Chief Investigator’s personal teaching assistant, though I’m still lacking in many ways.”
“Viktor… You’re the person she’s been mentioning all this time! So you’re her personal teaching assistant?”
“That’s right. I’m always indebted to the Investigator.”
“Oh my, it sounded as though my daughter is the one who owes you.”
Serian addressed the boy with unfailing politeness.
Her particular elegance filled the study.
“I heard that when my daughter was about to make a terrible choice, Student Viktor appeared and stopped her. I don’t know how I could ever thank you…”
“It was nothing. The Investigator is precious to me as well.”
“What wonderful words. To think my Javert grew into someone loved this deeply by another person.”
The elderly woman smiled with satisfaction.
Her eyes moved between Javert and Viktor.
Then she murmured quietly.
“Well-groomed, good manners, a devoted nature, skilled enough to take first place at an elite academy… and only five years apart from Javert.”
A peculiar light flashed in Serian’s eyes.
It was a mischievous look, as though she could barely contain her amusement.
“Student Viktor. What do you think of our Javert?”
“Mother?”
“She is an excellent person. I’m always learning a great deal from the Investigator.”
“Not that sort of answer. I meant what you think of her as a woman.”
“Mother!”
“She is charming.”
“Oh? Charming, you say? Then that means…”
Javert looked flustered while Serian kept pressing the question.
Viktor quietly smiled at the mother and daughter.
Time passed warmly like that.
Yet if something had a beginning, an end was bound to come as well.
“Investigator? It’s time for us to return.”
“…”
They had glimpsed the past through a miracle.
But even that could not last forever.
“Go, Javert.”
The elderly woman pushed at her frozen daughter’s back.
Her touch was gentle, yet firm.
“You have your own world, your own time, don’t you?”
“…”
People could not live on memories alone.
They could not remain frozen in one corner.
They had to remember and imagine.
Because humans were beings who always lived across three timeframes.
A human life was one in which the past, present, and future were woven together.
“It’s all right.”
Memories accumulated into recollections, and accumulated recollections became nourishment for imagination.
A person could not truly live by remaining in only one time.
To be buried in memory was to become blind.
To cling to recollections was to become an antique.
To drown in imagination was to become a soap bubble.
“It’s all right for you to return now. If my daughter allows it, your mother will remain in a corner of your memories forever.”
“…”
The twenty-three-year-old daughter gave no answer.
She only spread her arms and tightly embraced the elderly woman.
Serian silently stroked the woman in her arms.
After a brief pause, the elderly woman turned to the boy across from her with a request.
“Student Viktor.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Please take good care of our Javert.”
“Don’t worry. I promised I would always stay by her side.”
“Really, the more I see of you, the more I like you. You seem perfect as my daughter's husband.”
“I’ll gratefully accept that, even if you’re only being polite.”
Viktor stepped forward and gently took Javert’s hand.
At some point, a wooden door had appeared before them.
The boy carefully drew the woman toward him.
Following his pull, her red hair left the elderly woman’s embrace.
“Javert.”
“…”
“Will you say goodbye one last time? Smile for your mother.”
“…”
It was the elderly woman’s request.
Javert stood in front of the wooden door for a long time.
Her tears threatened to spill, but the boy’s hand, tightly clutching hers, kept her steady.
“…Mom.”
Thanks to him, she could find her voice.
Even as tears fell, she managed to raise the corners of her lips.
“Take care…”
“Yes. You take care too, my daughter.”
“Thank you. Truly, for my whole life…”
“Thank you too. For being the daughter of such an inadequate mother.”
“If… I could live again, then too. I’d want to be your daughter, Mom…”
“If I could live again, I’d want to be Javert’s mother then as well.”
Both Javert and Serian cried.
Their tears looked exactly alike, as though proving they were mother and daughter.
Click.
Javert turned the doorknob.
A door that ended a recollection and returned them to their original time.
White light poured through.
“Mom.”
“Javert.”
“I love you.”
“Your mother loves you more.”
Their final words.
The two women exchanged final smiles, then the scene went dark.
Her consciousness surged upward and was violently flung back into the real world.
Ding!
[You have cleared the sub quest!]
-Title: On Things Regretted.
-Details: Clear Floors 81-90 of Purgatory.
And with that, the 90th floor of Purgatory had been cleared.
* * *
After returning from the 90th floor of Purgatory, cold air brushed against our cheeks.
“Mom! Dad!”
The first to welcome us back was Lua.
The black-haired girl came toddling over and threw herself into our arms.
I could feel the softness of her plump cheeks against my hand.
Thankfully, it seemed she had waited quietly until we got out.
Before entering the memory phase, I had sent Lua out of Purgatory in advance.
‘It wasn’t a scene I could show Lua.’
Lua was terrified of discord between her parents.
I couldn’t show a child like that a scene where her mother broke her father’s neck hundreds of times.
‘I sent her outside beforehand.’
Thankfully, Lua greeted us with a bright smile.
Whenever I held that small body tightly, the fatigue of the past few days seemed to wash away.
‘Quite a bit of time has passed.’
About two days had passed outside.
I had expected it, but time within the phenomenon on the 90th floor seemed to flow differently from reality.
We calmly sorted out the situation.
Surprisingly, the academy was not in an uproar.
Javert had suddenly disappeared, so I thought there would be chaos over whether she had escaped or something…
‘It looks like the Headmaster handled it well.’
Thanks to that, we could wrap things up without causing a commotion.
Javert seemed lost in thought, then said she would visit the Headmaster’s office first and left.
Perhaps there were things they needed to discuss.
I smiled and let her go.
They would probably share many stories now.
‘There had been far too little conversation between them…’
The father and daughter had always seen themselves as guilty before each other.
The Headmaster felt guilty for leaving Javert alone when she had been suffering.
Javert, on the other hand, believed she had destroyed their family and could never raise her head before him.
Their father-daughter relationship had never recovered in the original story.
This time, I hoped the wounds between them would finally heal.
Neither of them had expressed it, but there was no doubt they loved each other.
“It’ll be all right this time, won’t it?”
I murmured lightly.
Perhaps it was a wish. Or a prayer.
“Whew.”
After everyone had left, the corridor became quiet again.
I was left alone in Purgatory’s hallway.
Taking advantage of the moment, I opened my status window.
When I pressed the notification button, all the messages that had piled up appeared at once.
Ding!
[You have cleared the sub quest!]
-Title: On Things Regretted.
-Details: Clear Floors 81-90 of Purgatory.
[You have cleared the stage perfectly!]
-A reward has been issued. Please check your inventory.
Ding!
[You have completed a hidden quest!]
-Title: Devotion and Love
-Details: Achieve ‘mental death’ 100 times or more for someone else.
[You suffered mental death 349 times for another person!]
-A special reward has been issued. Please check the Saint System.
Ding!
[You have cleared the main quest!]
-Title: Javert’s Iron and Justice
-Details: Prevent the tragedy of Blue Night.
[You prevented the tragedy through remarkable efforts!]
-A reward has been issued. Please check your inventory.
“Got to do what needs doing.”
It was time to settle the accounts.
Time to collect all the rewards that had been piling up.
Footnotes:
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