WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 289: The Blessed Nation, the Cursed Human - 12

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No matter how obvious an answer might be, the time it takes to arrive at it differs from person to person. People call those with a very short interval rational and those with a long one emotional.

But when something as weighty as a country is at stake, anyone would become emotional.

It took her a long time. Yuel spoke with resentment in her voice.

"...Was this country really so wrong? Wrong enough that you had to destroy it yourself?"

"There's no right or wrong in this world. It simply turned out this way."

"I only wanted a country led by the people... I only wanted to fulfill his dream... There was nothing wrong with that..."

"I told you, there is no right or wrong. Oh, and one more thing."

She kept calling it a country led by everyone, and it sounded as though she truly believed it.

What part of the military state was a country led by the people?

"The military state isn't a country led by everyone. It's a country no one can lead. Of everyone I've seen, not one person was leading this country. If anything, they were being crushed beneath it."

"...That..."

"Don't speak as though that was the only way. You simply couldn't trust anyone. Not the soldiers, not the people, not even yourself."

For the people to lead, the people had to be the masters. Yet people were not ideal. The more they formed a group, the more easily they made cruel choices that no individual could have imagined making alone.

Unable to trust humanity, Yuel created an imaginary existence called the military state. The military state watched over them, monitored them, and judged them.

Just like a god.

Was it because she was a Holy Maiden? Even what she copied was filled with faith. The difference was that the military state judged people in this life rather than the next.

"I don't know what kind of person this 'he' you're talking about was, but one thing is certain. He wouldn't have wanted a country like this. Unlike you, he must have trusted people more. Otherwise, he wouldn't have dreamed such a foolish dream."

What he wanted to build must have been a beautiful sandcastle, not a cruel, eternal castle of steel.

My words, packed tightly with nothing but facts, made Yuel cry out.

"How could I trust them?! I 'saw' everything! They approached with smiles on their faces, but I saw what they did behind people's backs! I watched it all...!"

Even as the kingdom collapsed and the military state was rebuilt, selfish people remained. Those who cared only for their own gain, those who envied the power of the past, and those who wanted to become a new privileged class in place of those who had fallen.

Well, to the Farsighted Holy Maiden, who had seen only the most beautiful things in the world, humanity's ugliness must have seemed alien. Did she want to strip them of freedom, responsibility, and sin as though extracting organs?

"What can we do? That's what humans are."

But what could be done? Even that was part of being human.

Her voice, which had sounded as though she might sob, cut off. Yuel clenched her fist and lowered her head. Her mutter, directed at the floor, echoed off the stone and reached my ears.

"...AB. You will destroy the military state. Or it will destroy you."

"This officer has no intention of doing so."

"Wouldn't it be nice if everything went as planned? But it won't. If you're incompetent, external pressure will crush you. If you're capable, it will eat away at you from within. Every sin committed in this country will become yours. Tragedies that happened without your involvement will become your responsibility, and resentments carelessly spoken will become blades that pierce your heart. You won't endure it. Especially if you can see more than others."

In most cases, advice from someone experienced looked like stale territorial behavior to someone inexperienced. This time, though, it somehow got through. It was probably thanks to Captain AB's empathy, pure empathy unrelated to synchronization magic.

Captain AB firmed her resolve.

"This officer is prepared to be resented. This officer will simply do what must be done."

"What must be done... AB, what will you do first? Do you intend to stop the war that has already begun, as that child demanded?"

The regressor's stated goal was to stop the war between the military state and the Lesser States. I had assumed the military state would never accept it, but that was what she claimed.

Captain AB glanced at me, then nodded.

"War is a tactical action with enormous costs. That is especially true if a powerful entity launches an assault to stop it. If the situation can be resolved peacefully without waging war, there is no reason to continue it."

"There is a reason. You wouldn't have heard it because you were cut off from communications at the time. The reason is clear."

"What is it?"

Yuel watched Captain AB ask that question, then spoke with pity in her eyes.

"The problem with war is that it can begin even if only one side intends it. Even if the military state does not start one, war will happen if the Lesser States decide to."

"Are you saying we should strike first before they attack? That would be irrational. Something that has not even happened yet..."

"No. I 'saw' it. The Lesser States have already begun the war. They gathered troops without even declaring war and are heading for the wasteland where the Abyss stood."

"What?"

Thinking about it again, farsight really was absurdly overpowered.

The military state's weaknesses were its short history and lack of mystery. Thus, it had few means of resistance when asymmetrical forces possessing mystery, like Tyr or the regressor, swept through. This weakness was especially apparent in espionage, because intelligence work was practically impossible without the ability to catch the enemy off guard.

...But it was a different story if a Holy Maiden with farsight had been feeding information to communications officers. She had been hiding here and spying on the entire world. That was one of the military state's greatest strengths.

"The Lesser States are made up of peoples who became nomads only later. Mobility is one of their few advantages, abandoned as they were by the land. Our only advantage over them is organization. Thanks to the communications officers urgently assembling troops, skirmishes should already be taking place in the Abyss wasteland."

Yuel recalled what she had 'seen' through her farsight.

While we headed for headquarters, the legions gathered by meta-conveyor belt marched north. As the heavily armed main force advanced, the vanguard established positions in the wasteland before we had even reached headquarters.

Then the Lesser States' cavalry arrived. The armies of the two nations faced each other over land once abandoned by the Earth Mother and ignored by all. It was a situation on the verge of exploding.

Even as the attack on headquarters unfolded, Yuel could not take her eyes off that front. A small group wreaking havoc through the military state was, at most, a guerrilla force. On the battlefield, though, an all-out war that would decide the fate of nations was about to begin. She had been so focused on watching the Lesser States that she could not spare much attention for us.

Perhaps we had entered the military state's headquarters so easily because most of its forces had been deployed there.

"This isn't a war we started unilaterally. It's a full-scale war with both sides' interests tangled together. The Lesser States desperately need land they can settle. While the Abyss existed, that land was useless, but now that the Earth Mother's curse has been lifted, it is tempting prey. While you were bewitched by him, I 'saw' all of that and passed it to the communications officers. Every communications officer who confirmed it through cross-verification judged war unavoidable. Then an unidentified armed force suddenly appears and tells us to stop the war. Should we stop?"

With this belated information, Captain AB felt the need to reassess every judgment she had made so far.

When Captain AB met the regressor, she heard her demand to stop the war. Cut off from the other communications officers, Captain AB had accepted the proposal as it was. She must have believed a ceasefire was the only way to stop this attack.

But the war had already begun. The regressor's demand could not be accepted from the start. That meant they had to repel or persuade her.

"If that fact had been explained, would the other side not have accepted it?"

"How could we prove something that had not happened at that point? Should I reveal myself? Should I stand before the Progenitor and explain every detail? That I was once a Holy Maiden, and that I saw a future that had not yet arrived?"

She was revealing that she was a Holy Maiden here. I already knew, so I remained calm, but the princess looked fairly shocked. Holy Maidens were not common figures one could find around every corner like a local pastor.

There were no secrets left now. Yuel snapped sharply.

"Ha! I guarantee that would have been several times more dangerous! What guarantee is there that the Progenitor would not call the Fog Duchy?! Could you handle the Fog Duchy's entire force bringing darkness down upon us?! If we were going to repel her anyway, this was the first and last chance while the Progenitor was alone! Though it is already too late!"

It truly was a difficult situation. Captain AB acknowledged that.

‘Yuel's words are reasonable. Stopping the war at this point is impossible. Shei's demand is not only irrational but impossible, so the military state's only available response is to repel him...’

Still, that was not the only difference between Captain AB and Yuel.

Captain AB had been the Abyss's administrator and had met the regressor rather often. Through me in particular, they had exchanged quite a few words.

After seeing the regressor's immense power, Yuel seemed to have defined her as a kind of phenomenon. Like a typhoon, lightning, or Progenitor Tyrkanzyaka. From the perspective of someone who could 'see,' it might have been the most rational judgment.

Captain AB did not know the future, but she knew the human being named Shei. She knew Shei was sharp and curt, yet unexpectedly rational and strangely full of openings.

Humans were small compared to phenomena. Difficult to trust.

Yet the ones who answered wishes were not phenomena, but humans.

"It is not too late. This officer judges that there is still room for compromise. In fact, compromise may produce a better outcome."

"Compromise? How?"

"If his demand is sincere, and if he is truly willing to make certain efforts toward that goal, there is a way to direct this force aimed at the military state through diplomacy."

Captain AB presented a proposal the military state of the past could never have made.

"Appoint him as a special envoy and dispatch him to the Lesser States. If he truly wishes to stop the war, and if he is willing to project force toward that goal as he did against the military state, he will be the most effective means of breaking the Lesser States' will to fight."

Footnotes:

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