WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 283: The Blessed Nation, the Cursed Human - 6

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Even when we came right up to her, Yuel was still praying with her hands clasped together. With the corpse resting on her lap, she looked like a stone statue offering a solemn prayer.

Nothing in the world seemed capable of breaking her focus, but apparently, nothing was absolute. The moment Captain AB mentioned the corpse, Yuel regained her emotions and became human again.

"It's our first time meeting in person. Nice to meet you, AB. I've really, really wanted to see you at least once."

Yuel greeted her cheerfully, then her expression changed completely as she looked up at AB.

"And I curse you."

She said something terrifying with a smile on her face. Captain AB seemed to take it impassively, but Yuel's eyes remained cold.

"Of all people, you, the communications officer most like me, would betray the military state... This is the worst situation I had imagined. Of all people, you brought the most dangerous person before me. I took every precaution to ensure your identity would not be exposed, yet in the end, it was, and you betrayed the military state?"

"Negative. This officer has not betrayed the military state."

"Are you trying to hide the sky with your palm, AB? You guided the military state's enemies all the way here. How can you claim you have not betrayed the military state?"

"That is the point. This officer does not understand why headquarters calls them enemies and opposes them while accepting such immense losses. It is not rational."

Captain AB had never actually attacked the military state. At most, she had defied and persuaded other communications officers. In other words, her claim was completely true, without a trace of falsehood, and she sincerely meant it.

Yuel's head turned stiffly.

"...You don't know? Really?"

"Affirmative. Even setting aside this officer's personal feelings, this officer still judges that to be rational. Hostility toward that group, including that dear man, without room for negotiation is meaningless and does not promise a better result."

"That dear man?"

Captain AB could not answer at once and stiffened. Seeing her reaction, Holy Maiden Yuel snorted.

"Ha, 'that dear man'? 'That dear man'! Kyahahaha!"

Yuel's snort gradually turned into an irritated laugh, then eventually sounded like sobbing. Once she fell silent, Yuel calmed her heaving chest and muttered.

"...I take it back. You really are like me, AB! Of all things, you fell for a worthless man!"

I expected Captain AB to deny it, but she said nothing. Yuel's expression grew wistful as she stroked the corpse's face.

"You didn't have to resemble me in that, too."

Everything about this was a question to Captain AB. A temple beneath headquarters. Communications Officer Yuel sitting at its center with a corpse in her arms. Above all, the fact that she was Eimeder's true identity. The secrets revealed amid all those gaps in information confused AB.

Still, Captain AB was a communications officer who handled information. Even amid her confusion, she calmly organized what she knew and dealt with the most urgent matter.

"Yuel. This officer cannot clearly understand what intent you are conveying. However, if you are a communications officer and Eimeder of the Six Generals, this officer requests that you comply with this officer's demand."

"A demand? What kind?"

"A demand that you cease meaningless hostile actions and make a rational judgment."

"Ha!"

Yuel clicked her tongue as if she found it absurd.

"AB. You watched Tantalus and still failed to realize it? That's unexpected. Did I overestimate you?"

"This conversation lacks an object. This officer requests clearer communication."

"About Mystery. I left you there so you could witness Mystery with your own eyes, yet you seem to have felt nothing."

"Question repeated. What did you wish this officer to feel?"

"Below the Abyss, in that deep place I cannot even peer into unless I look down from directly above. Are you saying you did not feel fear of Mystery?"

Captain AB tilted her head. In her memories, Tyr, Azzy, and the regressor were powerful, but none of them had behaved in a way that would inspire fear.

"Partially affirmative. Their power is certainly strong enough to be frightening. However, this officer believes the military state has room to hold talks with them."

Yuel mocked those words.

"Don't you think that's the problem? Why should a nation hold serious 'talks' with no more than a handful of rebellious people?"

"Because they have the ability to warrant it."

"The ability to destroy a nation on a whim, you mean? What remarkable power. Isn't it? They are escaped prisoners. They leisurely toured the military state from end to end, then stormed headquarters, and we still could not stop them!"

Captain AB flinched and froze. Yuel gave a short laugh, then muttered bitterly. Her fingertips returned to the corpse's cheek.

"It is the fruit he and I created. A nation we built by trusting each other, relying on each other, striving together, and understanding each other. One hundred million people live here, and billions more will be born and die here. A nest built from his corpse. So that precious dream... is not destroyed by someone's whim. I have to protect this nation from Mystery."

"...This officer understands your intent."

"No, you don't understand at all. Mystery does not mean the strong."

Yuel explained.

"Partlaxion is powerful, but he is only one person. There is a limit to the harm he can inflict upon the world. People praise him for bringing down a kingdom alone... but if that man had not stepped forward at the right time, Partlaxion would have eventually worn away and faded like countless others. What about the Progenitor, then? She created vampires in this world, commands a legion alone, and is even the queen of the Fog Duchy. She changes the world on a whim."

She did not seem to know it, but the regressor, needless to say, was a hero who held the fate of the world in her hands.

I spoke with them freely, but in truth, they were people who could sway the fate of the world. Their actions changed the world.

Even though they were only individuals.

"I understand, Yuel. Are you saying that no matter how rationally one approaches an individual from a broad perspective, one is ultimately powerless before their whims? No matter how strong they may be."

Surprisingly, Captain AB grasped the heart of it at once. Yuel looked startled for a moment, then smiled weakly as her expression darkened.

"...You were exceptional, AB. If not for the mental contamination, you surely would have become the center of the communications officers. Then the nation he created would have continued even without me. Now neither of us remains."

She spoke as though both she and Captain AB had already died here. I read an ominous sign in her thoughts, but it was not yet time for me to step in.

"Question. You have repeatedly used the third-person pronoun 'he.' Who exactly is he?"

The corpse had been mentioned again. Yuel had been trying to steer the subject away, but her hand stopped abruptly, as if Captain AB's interest made her deeply uncomfortable.

She was holding a corpse in her arms and stroking his face whenever she had the chance, yet demanding that nobody take an interest in him was absurd. Still, humans were deeply contradictory creatures. They desperately looked away to forget shameful memories, only to regret the void once those memories were gone.

Yuel summoned a painful memory and muttered.

"You cannot even remember him anymore. He was the father of the military state, yet you know nothing."

"Objection. The military state is not a living organism. Therefore, it has no being who may be called its father."

"I mean it figuratively."

"However, even figuratively, a person who could be called the father of the military state would be..."

Captain AB trailed off and examined the corpse again.

The war hero who had laid the foundation of this nation had a face that even communications officers would have encountered in photographs or paintings. Captain AB was no different. As a communications officer exposed to every kind of information, she had seen the war hero's appearance before.

The military state did not care for idolization, though. It showed the dead no more respect or mourning than necessary, so Captain AB had quickly forgotten him.

Yuel's words pulled an old memory from Captain AB's mind.

"...War Hero Valiorant? However, he was killed in an attack by remnants three years after the military state was founded. Why is he here?"

"Ha! Remnants! You call them remnants! Ha, haha! Heh, hehehe..."

Yuel broke off and laughed darkly. She seemed manic-depressive. Well, anyone would after spending nearly twenty years alone in this dark, dreary underground chamber with a corpse at their side.

Yuel muttered like a madwoman.

"If only they had been remnants! I would have 'seen' it! But they were not remnants. How could I possibly have seen that? I, who was supposed to be mysterious and elegant!"

This was no longer a conversation. It was only Yuel talking to herself. With my mind-reading, I roughly understood what she meant, but Captain AB tilted her head without understanding any of it.

"Yuel?"

"A place beside him. I wanted it so badly I could not bear it. Jealousy pierced my heart, but at the same time, I was drunk on my own superiority. She could never replace me. But I could replace her and more. So..."

There was quite a lot of interesting information in Yuel's thoughts.

War Hero Valiorant had a family. During the time of the kingdom, the royal family had matched him with a young lady from a prestigious family.

Naturally, they would never give the daughter of a powerful family to a commoner. Her family had a distinguished name, but it had fallen into decline. They granted the war hero a wife, as though he were donning an old, worn-out official's cap.

Still, the war hero was a devoted husband. He cared for his wife with the utmost sincerity, and because he was handsome to begin with, she gradually came to love him as well. They became known throughout the nation as a loving couple.

Naturally, even after overturning the nation, the war hero carefully ensured her family would not be harmed.

But it was still a knightly noble family. The knightly nobles were all bound together by close ties, and most of her relatives had died during the rebellion. No matter how much she loved her husband, she could not have helped feeling anxious.

And if he returned from the Sanctum with a woman of mysterious air riding behind him on his horse... If that Holy Maiden showed a peculiar affection for him. Perhaps that would be enough to drive someone to do something mad.

Hmm. I could not read her thoughts, so I could not be certain, but it was a plausible inference.

"I should have seen it. Even if it was filthy and lowly, I should have watched her. I should have thrown away my pathetic dignity and set my sense of superiority aside. I should have watched every part of her private life closely! If I had, he would have...!"

"Yuel. This officer does not understand what you are saying. Was the war hero not killed in an attack by remnants?"

"It was an attack by remnants! What, should I say he died in a crime of passion instead!"

As if trying to hide him from our eyes, Yuel suddenly wrapped both arms around the war hero. Her filthy hair covered his pale face. A human who had met his end by drinking poisoned alcohol looked as though he were only asleep.

"That woman took him from me... but sadly for her, I won. She could not bear his child, but I bore fruit with him. This blessed nation. I gave birth to this nation that will give birth to and raise hundreds of millions more."

"Yuel..."

"And this nation. The military state, the fruit I bore in pain. It will continue even after I die."

Yuel clenched her gaunt hand.

At that moment, something changed. The underground temple shook violently. Broken stones rained down.

This was dozens of meters beneath the ground, a place holding the military state's most fatal secret. The simplest way to bury a secret was surely the best.

"This is bad. No matter how I look at it, it seems likely to collapse soon. Is this a cliché trap?"

"...Surely not!"

'This is a disaster! We spoke with her and gave her time to act! Suppression should have taken priority!'

Captain AB's face went pale as she approached Yuel and grabbed her shoulder. Yet Yuel did not move at all.

Not because she resisted with strength. She was physically fixed in place. It was a kind of divine power protecting herself.

"Stop, Yuel!"

"You resemble me... but there is one great difference."

Of course, Yuel had no intention of stopping. To begin with, we could not stop her.

Clairvoyance was only the power to observe, but a high-ranking cleric like a Holy Maiden could invoke divine power, just as she had summoned the angel Eimeder.

The pillars supporting this chamber thirty meters underground began to gradually lose their strength under some kind of force. Before long, this entire stretch of land would certainly collapse.

Even with divine power, being buried would kill her too. Yet Yuel did not seem regretful in the slightest.

"I have much better taste in men. Goodbye, AB. It was a short meeting, but I enjoyed it. See you again in heaven."

Hey, why was she suddenly dragging me into this? What was wrong with me?

Just as I was about to protest, Captain AB activated her innate arcane and cried out.

"Negative! This officer cannot accept this!"

Footnotes:

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