WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 32: Resistance - 7

──────

The tools were ready. I had even decided on the ending. All that remained was to see how convincing a performance I could give.

Now then. Shall we begin?

"I know. I know everything. How ugly you are, and how you drove promising young people to their deaths with such terrible lies and deception."

"Don't be ridiculous!"

"Alpha, Beta, Delta, Gamma. Even you, Kanisen."

His head whipped toward my voice. I heard Kanisen click his tongue after missing his target. He looked around at empty space, then turned and began narrowing his search with greater care.

There wasn't much room left to evade him. The closer he came, the harder it would be to move. I had to finish preparing before then.

"Once they came down here, they were bound to die, weren't they? If the operation succeeded, they would explode with Tantalus and be buried beneath the Abyss. If it failed, they would die facing the military state's pursuers. The moment the Resistance entered this place, they were already dead."

"We were prepared for that! Don't belittle our resolve!"

"Ha. Belittle it? You're the one who belittled their resolve."

With a sneer, I calmly laid out the truth I had read from him.

"You didn't let them decide for themselves. You forced them into a situation where they had no other choice."

'It's foolish to answer such sophistry. Let him keep talking. I need to focus on the sound and find his position.'

Kanisen no longer replied. He told himself he was staying quiet to find me, but my mind reading saw the feelings beneath that excuse.

He was desperately trying to suppress the truth that would spill from my lips.

Not much longer now. I carefully crawled out from beneath the cabinet and spoke toward a wall fitted with control panels, making my voice echo.

"You had the ability to break through the military state's cordon and escape, didn't you? You had time to hide inside a supply box. With that much leeway, perhaps you, Kanisen, whose wanted notice had already gone out, had no choice. But the others, who hadn't been identified yet, could have played innocent and pretended to be ordinary citizens."

Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Gamma.

They had only been preparing for terrorism. On the surface, they were just reckless young people you could find anywhere. They held subversive beliefs, but during a large-scale sweep, perhaps one of them might have been unlucky enough to get caught. There was no way to know.

Yes. They could have survived.

"But you didn't save them. No, you drove them toward death. You were the one exposed, so why did they have to flee too?"

"Nonsense."

"What if you hadn't told them you'd been exposed while you escaped? What if, instead of ordering everyone to gather and run, you had told them the operation had failed, ordered them to hide the evidence and wait for another chance? What if you had told them to leave you behind and each survive on their own?"

"Nonsense!"

"What if you hadn't presented the path to death as their only option when they didn't know what to do? If they had hidden in a safehouse instead of infiltrating a supply line with nowhere to run, couldn't they have survived?"

He was wavering. Breaking. Collapsing.

Kanisen's firm resolve, his mind armed with noble spirit and chivalry, was crumbling beneath the guilt he carried.

I was the trumpeter of his conscience.

It spoke through my mouth, but what truly gnawed at him was his own ideals.

Kanisen, whose wound had been torn open, lost his reason and shouted.

"No! They were all warriors. Every one of them wanted to serve the cause even at the cost of their lives! Don't insult them when you're nothing but a dog who surrendered to oppression!"

"You're the one insulting them, Kanisen. They wanted to pay with their lives to seize the future they desired. Joining your suicide operation was not among the things they wished to buy at the price of their lives."

Crash!

Kanisen hurled the iron pipe with all his strength. The pipe, carrying tremendous force, struck somewhere nearby. The haphazardly piled debris collapsed at once, and broken boards rattled.

"Shut up!"

As though he no longer wanted to hear my voice, Kanisen shouted while making noise at random.

And I was a kind-hearted person who always wanted to add one more word whenever someone told me to shut up.

"Once the military state stopped and searched you, you were doomed to die anyway, Kanisen. Sooner or later. Whether you killed yourself or were shot. The moment soldiers rang your doorbell, no, the moment the military state's leadership planned a large-scale inspection, there was no way to save you."

"What do you know?"

Everything.

I repeated that briefly in my mind, changed position to evade him as he pursued me, and continued.

"But you always wanted to spend your life somewhere meaningful. You wanted to give it for greater honor. Being caught in a surprise inspection by the military state, having your terrorist plan exposed, and getting shot after resisting. That pathetic, meaningless future wasn't part of the plan you dreamed of. Was it ambition for honor, or revenge? You didn't want to die alone, so you dragged your comrades out and tried to force the plan through."

"Shut up! Don't talk as if you've read my mind!"

I was only saying what I had read from his thoughts, yet he was the one being hurt.

It wasn't surprising. The person who hurt you most was usually the version of yourself that failed to satisfy you.

"After hiding inside the supply box, the only path left to you was to sneak into Tantalus. Since Tantalus had been emptied by the prison break, inspections wouldn't be too strict. The problem was that a neutralized Tantalus wasn't worth risking your life to attack."

It was only natural. A group dissatisfied with society would attack a prison only if they needed the people locked inside. Whether they recruited prisoners or freed them to burden the administration, there had to be people inside.

If Kanisen had thought Tantalus was functioning normally, attacking it would have been a fairly good choice. Setting aside whether escape was possible.

But put another way.

"Kanisen. You were smart enough to know a mass prison break had taken place at Tantalus."

A prison without prisoners.

"Yet you persuaded other Resistance members to carry out the attack."

It wasn't worth destroying.

"Even though you knew it had no value, you pushed that thought aside. You kept repeating to yourself, as if brainwashing yourself inside that cramped, dark supply box, how enormous a target Tantalus was and what it symbolized to the military state. To deceive them, and yourself."

That was why Kanisen deceived them. Though he knew Tantalus had no value, he persuaded them to take part. Instead of solemnly telling them to plan for the future even at this point, that he would act as bait and they should escape, he demanded they offer up their lives.

Not for the country.

Not for justice.

"You told them to die for you."

"Shut... up...!"

Anger consumed his reason. He ran now without even looking behind him. Unarmed, he tore through the debris with both hands and pursued me in a straight line. With one thought alone: to beat me to death and silence my babbling mouth.

The stronger someone's self-love was.

The more firmly they believed themselves noble.

The higher and sturdier the walls around their ego, the more vulnerable they became to attacks from within.

"What could the likes of you know?! They didn't hesitate to spend their lives to bring down the military state! Their resolve would remain unchanged! If we could bring down Tantalus and leave even our names in the history books! If future generations could remember us! Wouldn't that be enough?!"

Kanisen flipped over a desk with both hands, shoved aside a fallen cabinet, and charged. He tore at steel frames like branches without caring that his hands were being cut. He was ready to bring down all the debris now, rampaging in every direction. I had no choice but to keep retreating from his indiscriminate charge.

"I won't let you die cleanly. I'll catch you and tear you apart with my bare hands!"

The provocation worked. I didn't know whether that was a gain or a loss.

He was too excited. Maybe I should calm him down a little.

"Ahahaha. Calm down, old man. What's the big deal? You only demanded that others give their lives. It's common enough. The military state does it whenever it feels like it! You hated the military state so much that you ended up exactly like them! Hahahaha!"

"I'll tear that mouth apart first! I'll chop your tongue to pieces! Let's see if you can keep talking after I rip out your lungs!"

Oh dear. If he caught me, it would be a human slaughterhouse. I wondered what grade I'd be.

In any case, humanity's greatest weapon was reason. The moment he lost it so completely was my chance to win. I pulled a packet and a card from inside my clothes, hiding them in my hand.

This time too, I would only get one chance.

Well, I always only got one chance.

I measured the distance. When he overturned a pile of debris, our eyes met through an empty bookshelf. I showed him my back with a slight look of surprise. An explosive crash followed, and he brutally knocked over the bookshelf as he came after me.

I jumped, ducked, and ran. Behind me, Kanisen, his entire body covered in Bullet-Deflecting Qigong, deflected everything as he charged like a tank. A chair with broken legs flew through the air, and shattered light fixtures bounced away like balls before breaking into pieces. Clang, crash. I could hear the chaos unfolding in real time. Even getting clipped by him would leave me seriously injured.

"Stoooop!"

Kanisen ran, grabbed the backrest of a nearby chair, and hurled it at me. I heard a terrifying sound. Having noticed in advance through mind reading, I barely ducked before the chair could smash the back of my head. The backrest flew over me. The sound of it cutting through the air was chilling.

"I might actually die at this rate."

I rounded a corner and hid behind a wall. Instead of running farther to widen the distance, I held my breath and pressed myself close against it. Heavy footsteps thundered closer.

I read his thoughts. Kanisen, consumed by rage, was right behind me. I focused and measured the distance between us with mind reading.

Two steps.

One step.

Now.

I aimed my gun at the shadow beginning to appear and fired.

Bang!

"Ghk!"

At the gunshot, Kanisen flinched and raised a hand toward his eyes. An instinctive reaction. While his body stiffened, I threw the gun away and shot around the corner like lightning. I lunged at Kanisen and swung the card hidden in my hand. Brushing past my wrist, the card transformed into a sharp spike.

I drove the spike forward with my full weight behind it. Kanisen's eyes widened.

"Take this! This is the spike that killed Delta!"

The pointed tip flew toward his temple. It wasn't perfect, but it was the best strike I could manage.

And then.

'Just as I expected. A cheap trick!'

Kanisen saw it clearly with his wide-open eyes.

His right hand shot up and seized my fist. He gripped it hard enough to crush my hand, twisted its path, then bent my wrist and made me drop the spike. At the same time, he grabbed my collar with his other hand and slammed me into the wall. My body lifted off the ground, then my entire back struck the hard wall.

"Ghk!"

He was choking me. I hurriedly grabbed his wrist, but it wouldn't budge. It was like stone.

Kanisen muttered with a grim expression.

"After talking that much, I trust you were prepared to die."

"Ghk, wait. Cough."

"I can't hear you. Where did that relaxed attitude from earlier go?"

"Ghk, ghk."

I couldn't speak until he let go, you bastard. Desperately, I tapped the hand wrapped around my neck.

After several taps, Kanisen loosened his grip as if to say he would hear me out.

Ah, I could breathe again. I sucked in ragged breaths and said,

"Ta-da!"

"What?"

It was a good script. Smiling, I raised both arms.

"Pickpocketing successful. Look at your left wrist! I stole something very important from you!"

'Pickpocketing? My left arm? What did he do now?'

Even so, his gaze naturally fell to the left wrist holding my collar. It couldn't be helped. Whether someone told you not to look or to look, once you became aware of it, you had to recognize it.

Kanisen looked at the sleeve on his left arm with a puzzled expression.

At last, he was looking this way. Ah, I couldn't wait.

I shouted excitedly.

"Your freedom!"

The left sleeve was torn open. Kanisen's bio-terminal was exposed through the scratched clothing.

His personal Aki avatar was a device formed by converting biological information into mana. It was a symbol of the military state's control ideology, and for that very reason, something even Resistance members had to have inscribed on their bodies to avoid inspections.

And now, a strange packet was plugged into it.

Kanisen muttered blankly.

"A clothing... packet?"

It wasn't an ordinary clothing packet. It had been stored in a prison alongside instructor-uniform packets. The packet I had found and been delighted by bore a symbol shaped like chains.

'A restraint-suit packet!'

Startled, he tried to pull out the packet, but it was already too late. The packet forcibly drew mana from his bio-terminal. Having recognized his avatar, it began to vibrate.

It unraveled thread by thread, then wrapped around him like tens of thousands of snakes.

The arm choking my neck withdrew. I landed on the ground, rubbing my throbbing neck. Kanisen was making a futile attempt to resist the restraint suit closing over him. Of course, it didn't last long. A trap made for an individual, and the military state's worst invention for controlling humans, was something an "ordinary" powerhouse like him could never escape.

I gave him a deep bow and said,

"Pickpocketing upgrade, sleeve planting! A huge success!"

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried