WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 285: The Blessed Nation, the Cursed Human - 8

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"This woman's name is Yuel. She's the same person as Eimeder of the Heavenly Link, and the foremost of the three Six Generals brought in by War Hero Valiorant. She was also the great figure who continued building this country after he died. In short, the military state's hidden king!"

"...Don't call me a king."

"You called me a barbarian! I'll call you whatever I want! Anyway, if you have questions, ask her! She can explain everything, from the military state's birth to its ideology! At last, it's time to grant your wish!"

Yuel glared at me with hollow eyes. Until moments ago, she had seemed unwilling to even face me, but now I was the only one she could look at.

If she turned her head, the princess stood on one side and Siati on the other. Both were children abandoned by the military state. The children the Holy Maiden had cast aside to preserve the War Hero's legacy had stubbornly made their way here to find her.

"...Did you bring those two here intending this from the start?"

"No. I'm not a prophet, so how would I know the future? I didn't even know who you were until I came here."

Those real prophets had really spoiled people. Whenever things happened to work in my favor, people asked whether I had predicted it all. What nonsense.

"But it doesn't matter whether I knew the future or not. Those two carry enormous wishes within them. Those wishes drove them here, and because the two did not give up, they finally came face-to-face with you. Of course, without me, they might have met with an accident along the way."

"You shouldn't have the ability to make humans follow you anymore."

"It's not that kind of ability. Power and authority don't matter. How many times do I have to say it? They led themselves here."

Even without me manipulating or deceiving them, the two were walking toward this place. Their tired footsteps crossed the hard stone floor, but their eyes remained fixed ahead.

"And you're the one who made them what they are. It was inevitable that Siati and the princess would come here. They might fail, or they might succeed. Even that isn't important."

Regrettably, I could ask questions on their behalf and hear the answers, but I could not reach a conclusion for them. In that sense, bringing these two, who had a real reason to be here, had been an excellent choice.

Siati, with her long strides, approached first. I shifted aside and gladly took on the role of observer.

Go on. Show me. What will you do with this Holy Maiden?

I watched with a faint flutter of anticipation, but strangely, Siati looked at me instead of Yuel.

"That corpse is the War Hero?"

"Someone who used to be the War Hero. Now it's nothing but a corpse."

"Why does that woman have it?"

"Rather than saying she has it, wouldn't it be more accurate to say she was buried with it? This looks like a temple basement... Wait a moment. Why are you asking me? Ask her."

I had brought her here so she could ask, so why was she grabbing the wrong person? I could read Yuel's thoughts, but I could not answer for her. My mind-reading would be exposed.

When I looked reluctant, Siati shrugged.

"How am I supposed to trust that woman when she looks so obviously suspicious?"

That was fair.

After fleeing the chaos underground, Siati would naturally be confused if I suddenly told her this woman was the mastermind behind everything.

Siati was ordinary, like everyone else. She could only see what lay before her. Whether it was true or not, the reality was too vast for Siati to grasp at a glance.

"You trust what I say?"

"Relatively."

"Thanks for that."

Siati snorted, then muttered with an indifferent expression.

"And it doesn't matter much anymore. Who the real mastermind behind this country was, or what she plotted. It's complicated enough to make my head hurt."

"Huh?"

What a letdown. Where had that rage gone, the kind that seemed ready to burn down the entire military state? I knew she had been discouraged after seeing a communications officer younger than herself, but had she given up on revenge over that alone?

"Is that fine with you? Your revenge against the military state?"

"Like you said, I didn't know the military state. Even as I learned about it, my thoughts only became more tangled, and no clear conclusion came. Who was evil? What exactly should I take revenge on? I started to lose my way."

Siati had grown as a person after all she had gone through. But personal growth meant giving something up.

It was a disappointing ending for me, after I had listened to her wish and guided her here.

"That woman isn't younger than me either, is she?"

"Come on. You look old because you've been through so much, but she's still older than you."

"Hah. Still, I don't feel much about it. I didn't know who she was either. I only met her today. Even if I beat her to death, who in the world would care?"

It was completely unlike the Siati who had been charging forward like mad until now. There was something strange about the way she spoke so openly.

"Siati..."

'That's right. What's right in front of us matters more than anything! She understands...!'

The princess looked moved, her eyes glistening, but I was not pleased by Siati's detached expression.

"What brought this on?"

Siati answered with a bitter smile.

"I snuck into that room earlier and met a communications officer. IN, I think. They said they were the same age as me. If the children who died in Hamelin had grown up, they'd be exactly that age. Someone was the same age as them, yet one drowned to death while the other became the hidden power behind headquarters. But..."

"But?"

"...They didn't look any better off than I was."

With a clunk, Siati dropped something crushed. It was an empty can of beans. They tasted terrible, but they were nutritious and compact, making them the most efficient meal possible when survival was the only concern.

That was why they were also the least popular meal.

"A powerful person eating canned beans. Living shut inside a dark room. What kind of power is that?"

The details concerning communications officers were classified, but a few secrets had been unlocked for those who had already entered the module. Information about the working conditions of communications officers, for example. Anyone could learn that simply by observing.

As a result, Siati had realized just how...

"I feel too sorry for them to curse at them."

...cowardly the communications officers were.

Because they suffered more than anyone, they were free from others' blame and responsibility.

I pointed at Yuel.

"This person here. She's the one who made the communications officers."

"...I guess so. It does annoy me a little. But she doesn't look all that different."

There were no ordinary cooking tools or food ingredients here. Even the bed was only a stone coffin layered with cloth, and the only thing that looked warm was a single corpse.

Siati did not know what the Holy Maiden ate, but she understood that Yuel suffered too.

Siati looked down at Yuel. The meeting between the monster who made the military state and the monster made by the military state was astonishingly peaceful.

"I just... I'm not angry anymore."

It was an unexpected reaction. Not just for us, but for Yuel as well. Yuel had expected Siati to attack at any moment, and the completely different response caught her off guard.

"...Do you pity me?"

"Maybe."

Communications officers knew everything. They gathered information through dozens of golems and received reports from hundreds of communications officers.

At the same time, they knew nothing. They were imprisoned in windowless rooms.

Communications officers had no lives of their own, so they bore no responsibility. Therefore, they had no sin. Who could blame them? All anyone could do was pity them.

All of this was Yuel's arrangement. Communications officers had been created for that purpose in the first place.

Yet when Yuel herself became an object of pity, she felt a strange discomfort.

"Thank you, Resistance. If you understand enough, why not give up and go back? If you remain by the princess's side, at least your life will be spared. Just as it always has."

"I've never valued my life that highly. Not even now."

Siati extended her prosthetic arm. A steel prosthetic could not interfere with the Holy Maiden's prayer. Trusting that, the Holy Maiden simply watched.

But Siati's arm was not aimed at Yuel.

The corpse in Yuel's arms slipped free. Siati grabbed it by the collar and pulled it out in one motion.

The corpse was not a praying Holy Maiden. Siati could pull it away with her own strength. Yuel, who had been praying in the proper posture, watched helplessly as his precious remains were taken from her.

"Ah, ah?"

"Still, I got one good thing out of this. Hui, this is the War Hero? The founding father of this country?"

"That's what they say."

Ah, right. That was a corpse.

To someone who read thoughts, a corpse was just an object that had once been human. I could not sense thoughts from it, so I had not even considered it.

Siati seemed to have found a use for it. Looking the corpse over, she asked me.

"It looks good for a corpse. Is it really dead? There isn't a single wound on it."

"It was probably poisoned, so there wouldn't be any wounds. As for why it's in such good condition for a corpse... she must have cared for it dearly."

"Anyway. People who were somebody in the military state would recognize this face, right?"

"I don't know about elsewhere, but this is inner-circle headquarters. There should be plenty of old soldiers with high rank who can't stand on the front lines anymore. Those old soldiers will probably recognize it."

"Good. If I use this, at least a few people will pay attention."

'There may be one last thing I can do.'

Siati started dragging the corpse away like baggage. At that moment, Yuel stopped the prayer that had seemed as though it would continue forever. She reached out in haste and grabbed the hem of the corpse's clothes.

"What are you going to do with him?"

"You don't need to know."

"He's already entered his rest! What do you intend to do with his corpse?"

Siati answered calmly.

"Even if it's only a corpse, wouldn't people be quite shocked if I cut off the War Hero's head?"

That was Siati for you. She did things I could never imagine without hesitation.

Well, dragging out the body of a War Hero announced dead twenty years ago would not cause an enormous uproar. Yet for one person, Yuel, it would be a horrifying desecration she could hardly imagine.

The Church of the Celestial God encouraged cremation, but not everyone was burned. Holy Maidens and renowned clergy were sometimes laid to rest in temples in their original form, where Holy Maidens blessed and cared for them regularly.

What Yuel had done was part of that practice. It was filled with personal feeling, but Yuel had done it for over twenty years.

"Until now, I tried to vent my anger at things I couldn't even see. But what is this? Some secret mastermind nobody knows about? It's ridiculous. Hmph. I'd rather find the god who made this world and curse at it."

"S-so you're going to vent your anger on his corpse?"

"I don't have any feelings toward the corpse. But if I take this with me... at least the people who know the War Hero's face will listen to what I have to say."

Then Siati grabbed the corpse by its pant leg and dragged it away. The corpse scraped along like luggage, moving farther from Yuel.

Yuel sprang up and clung to the corpse. Siati paused at the added weight.

"Let that go! He isn't someone who should be treated like that by the likes of you!"

"They treated even me, a living person, as material. What does a corpse matter?"

Wow. Even after death, that man was being pulled between two women. Would he be pleased if he saw this from heaven...?

No, wasn't being caught in a tug-of-war until something snapped why he died in the first place? He probably would not be pleased. It might even be painful.

Whew. I should make sure I never end up like that.

Yuel struggling to reclaim the corpse was pitiful beyond measure. Siati pulled at its pant leg, while Yuel could not bring herself to grab its neck and only held its body in both arms. She was clearly terrified of damaging it.

How had someone who was once a Holy Maiden ended up like this? Siati muttered.

"I just found one more reason to use this corpse."

"Ah!"

The tense confrontation ended surprisingly easily. The instant Siati applied force, Yuel's body tumbled to the ground in an undignified heap. A Holy Maiden who had spent over twenty years shut away could not overcome the strength of the Resistance's field commander.

Siati sneered down at the fallen Yuel.

"If you hate it, that's even more reason not to stop. Watch closely from there. Watch what I do with this corpse."

"You...!"

Realizing she could not win through strength, the Holy Maiden cowardly clasped her hands and prayed. She possessed tremendous power, but had no simple, straightforward ability to knock down the person before her.

Instead, Yuel tried to call an angel while delivering lines straight out of a third-rate villain.

"You insolent thing... Just because luck brought you here, you act as though you're something?!"

The sacrifice was herself. It was a slightly steep price to pay just to protect one corpse.

But to Yuel, the corpse was everything in this narrow world. She had already prepared herself for death. Yuel readied herself as a sacrifice without hesitation.

"Siati! Please wait a moment!"

Fortunately, the princess intervened before the angel descended. Siati obeyed the princess's words, and Yuel, who had looked ready to kill, calmed her rage before the princess for a moment.

The princess, who had stopped the fight, appealed to Siati.

"Siati. There are still things I want to ask. That person's corpse may provide the answer to my questions. Could you wait a little?"

"Only a little."

Siati obediently released the corpse. The leg she had held hit the ground with a lifeless thud, and Yuel flinched as though her own leg had been struck.

The princess stood in front of the pale Yuel. Yuel addressed the new intruder.

"...You said you had something to ask me, Princess Grandiomor."

"Yes. You said your name was Yuel, right? There was something I wanted to ask the military state, no, you."

Yuel gestured with her chin, telling her to hurry. After clearing her throat several times, the princess voiced the question she had held onto for so long.

"I have watched the military state for a long time. That is why I know how strong and wealthy it is. The Resistance stole and seized a considerable amount of supplies over a long time, but the military state suffered no significant blow."

"You speak quite proudly of stealing and seizing."

"Ah... I-I apologize for that. We were struggling while living in hiding too... A-anyway! The military state was truly an incredible country! Its systems, its scale! It was astounding, beyond comparison with the Kingdom!"

The princess began in her own noble manner, but Yuel maintained her cold attitude.

"I never expected to hear praise from a Resistance member who came all this way. I've heard your valuable opinion. Why not surrender, then?"

"Th-that's not what I mean! I only want to know what it is all for!"

The military state was rational and efficient. It exploited humans to extract the greatest possible value under the conditions it was given.

That was only natural, but the princess asked why.

"A country must care for and provide for its people. The Kingdom could not do so, but the military state that overthrew it and was born in its place could, couldn't it? If it made people work a little less, cared for them a little more, and was a little less harsh, this country called the military state could have become close to paradise on earth."

"..."

"But... the military state seems to be deliberately avoiding that. Why? Everyone is a citizen of the military state, after all. Why are you reluctant to provide for them?"

Yuel did not answer. Thinking the question might have been too vague, the princess brought the question in her heart into sharper focus.

"It isn't for luxury, either! If it were, you yourself would be enjoying greater luxury! You would be cared for in a magnificent palace instead of staying with a corpse in a cramped room! But you aren't. What are you forcing humans into a hellish cycle for?"

"...Because."

"Pardon?"

Yuel opened her mouth with difficulty.

"Because this blessed country he and I made must continue forever."

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