WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 33: Resistance - 8

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Clothing packets were based on the avatar information stored in a bio-terminal. Insert one into a terminal, and it would form clothing tailored perfectly to the wearer’s build, height, and size before wrapping around their body.

Convenient. You didn’t have to bother putting clothes on or taking them off, and laundry was easy. There was no need to buy new clothes whenever you grew or gained weight. They could wear out from prolonged use or be damaged beyond repair, but that was true of everything in the world.

The military state’s citizens had become addicted to that convenience. Few opposed the military state’s policy of implanting bio-terminals in every citizen, and convenience was a greater reason than the military state’s authority. Most citizens gladly underwent the procedure, believing their country was finally doing something useful.

The majority’s silent consent naturally led to the persecution of the minority. At some point, failing to have a bio-terminal implanted became a serious crime in the military state.

Thanks to that, the military state gained the ability to restrain most of its citizens with a single packet.

"No!"

Fibers wrapped around Kanisen’s body. They couldn’t be pulled off or cut away. The fibers formed directly over Kanisen’s skin, binding Kanisen in place.

Armor counted as clothing too, so the military state had weaponized clothing packets by creating military gear. Naturally, that wasn’t all.

When I fell into the Abyss, I had been wearing a restraint suit.

A restraint suit was clothing too.

Then how had I put on that restraint suit?

That’s right.

The military state had found another way to abuse clothing packets.

Clothing packets that couldn’t be voluntarily removed once inserted. Living handcuffs.

Restraint suits.

There was a reason the regressor ground her teeth whenever she saw a bio-terminal. Unless you had a sword that floated around like Skywarbler, or had reached a level where you could strengthen your body with qigong.

Even a beast that could smash rocks and chew people up, bones and all, couldn’t move once caught in a trap. Humans went without saying.

Well, anyway.

"Thank you for your cooperation. You were my best assistant of the day."

It had been a pretty good magic show.

Calling it a weakness made it sound simple, but was inserting a packet into someone’s bio-terminal during a fight really that easy? It would’ve been easier to slash their wrist with a blade. How was I supposed to tear open their sleeve and shove a packet inside while they were staring right at me?

It would’ve been impossible for anyone who wasn’t a magician of my caliber and a former legendary pickpocket.

"Ugh! Ugh! Mmph!"

Kanisen’s arms were bound behind his back and fixed in place. His legs were restrained as well, leaving him unable to move. Sturdy straps bound each of his five fingers tightly, while iron cuffs wrapped around his wrists and linked them with metal rings.

Kanisen couldn’t even move his mouth. A custom-made gag formed automatically, mercilessly digging between his lower jaw and upper gums. A blindfold appeared as well, blocking his vision.

It was perfect restraint, designed to prevent him from even thinking of resistance. As expected of the military state, its ergonomic design eliminated resistance at the source.

It was a little embarrassing to admit, but even a magician like me couldn’t escape it.

They said covering an excited beast’s eyes calmed it down. The same concept applied to humans.

After struggling for about a minute, Kanisen, forced to look inward with his eyes covered, realized he couldn’t remove the restraint suit with his abilities.

Closing your eyes and adopting an uncomfortable posture had long been known as a way to calm the mind. Meditation, wasn’t it? Kanisen was practicing the finest meditation possible, especially since he couldn’t stop on his own, and quickly calmed down and regained his senses.

'When? Since when? Where was that packet hidden? No, why did I...'

Good. Now Kanisen was ready to appreciate the magic trick. Smiling, I walked behind him and removed the blindfold. Kanisen bristled the moment he saw my smiling face, but soon relaxed.

He had accepted defeat.

As I always felt, you only got something back when you gave something first. See? I gave Kanisen a restraint suit, and he’d become much friendlier.

"Now then, look closely. I don’t reveal my tricks just anytime."

Smiling, I held up the sharp spike. I flipped it once and turned it into a card, then spread both hands with it hidden in my palm. The long spike vanished into my hand in an instant.

Kanisen’s eyes widened.

'I thought I made him drop it...!'

"Correct! I only pretended to drop it, changed it into a card, and hid it! Then I used this to slit open your clothes and slip the packet into your sleeve! You catch on quickly. I like that!"

A sharp spike. Pickpockets carried one as a thief’s tool.

Its tip was ground to a point. Hidden in the hand, it could be brushed lightly over a bag to expose everything hidden inside.

'I didn’t notice, damn it...!'

"Don’t blame yourself too much. I used to be a promising pickpocket. I slit so much leather that, for a while, leather bags nearly stopped selling because of me. I cleaned up my act after that, but thankfully, it seems my skills haven’t rusted away."

'Damn it... What the hell are you...?'

"Ah, that is..."

I was about to say something when Gamma’s tearful voice drifted faintly over from far away.

"Commander? Commander? Are you all right?"

Kanisen’s eyes widened.

'No. Gamma! Shut up! Plant the bomb and do whatever damage you can!'

Kanisen’s thoughts couldn’t get past the gag. Unfortunately, Gamma wasn’t a mind reader and couldn’t hear Kanisen’s wishes.

So Kanisen’s thoughts only reached me, the last person he wanted to convey them to.

"Ah. Right. There was that."

'No! Gamma, set off the bomb! This is your last chance! Gamma!'

"I should deal with that first."

'Please! Gamma!'

I grabbed the restraint suit’s straps and dragged Kanisen along. He bumped against debris scattered across the floor at every step. It took effort, which annoyed me, but I figured it hurt Kanisen more whenever he struck the rubble, so I pulled harder. Honestly, this was Kanisen’s fault. Who told him to overturn all the debris?

I returned to the passage leading underground. The rope tied to a pillar swayed pitifully, like a fishing rod that had lost its owner.

A rope stretched deep underground through a broken fissure. Gamma, who had been tied to it and investigating below, was now pulling on the rope while looking for Kanisen.

'Why isn’t the commander answering? I finally figured out Tantalus’s structure... If I don’t place the bombs soon...'

Tantalus’s structure?

I paused before cutting the rope and read Gamma’s thoughts. Let’s see. What was its structure like?

Oh.

Hmm.

What? Really?

After thinking for a moment, I removed Kanisen’s gag instead of cutting the rope. The buckle came undone with a click, and the saliva-soaked gag fell to the ground. Kanisen took a moment to understand the situation, then immediately raised his voice and shouted.

I sat down nearby and calmly read Gamma’s thoughts.

"That’s an order! Gamma, detonate the bomb!"

"Y-Yes?"

Gamma shouted without understanding why.

"Commander! Pull me up! There’s nowhere to stand down here, so I can’t get up unless you pull on the rope!"

"I’ve been defeated! There’s no chance left! Detonate it before the rope breaks!"

"B-But if it explodes here..."

"There’s no chance left! Detonate it now!"

"I’m carrying the bomb."

"Yes! The bomb you’re carrying! I’m telling you to detonate it right now!"

Gamma was an engineer named Wicrol. Gamma had dipped his hands into the military state’s darkness and watched tools he created with his own hands take people’s lives. Overwhelmed with guilt, Gamma couldn’t endure it and threw himself into the Resistance. That was how the promising engineer Wicrol became Gamma of the Resistance.

Yet even after joining the Resistance, Gamma was still an engineer. No matter how much Gamma respected his commander, he didn’t obediently follow irrational orders.

"There’s no point in detonating it here! The explosion will only escape downward!"

Gamma recalled the sight he had seen below.

A control room littered with broken junk. If you moved the wide desk with its broken legs, there was a passage beneath it leading underground. The stairs had collapsed along with everything else during the attack, so the only way down was by relying on the rope. Gamma had hung from that single rope and squeezed past the rubble, descending farther and farther.

Then he reached a vast open space, as though he were standing upside down and looking over a plain.

At that moment, Gamma understood Tantalus’s structure.

The first feeling to come was an engineer’s thrill. The exhilarating sensation of an unfamiliar mechanism falling into place according to a single principle, every piece fitting perfectly. Then came the joy of smashing the prison the military state had painstakingly created.

A mere caseful of bombs. With this alone, the astronomical cost the military state had spent building Tantalus would literally vanish beneath the Abyss. How efficient was that? The exchange rate was absurd. If Gamma had been a merchant, he would’ve been called the greatest swindler in history.

Yet the commander, ignorant of technology, was forcing Gamma to accept an order he could never accept. Gamma shouted furiously.

"Tantalus is structured like a tray supported at both ends. It isn’t resting on the bottom of the Abyss. It’s suspended in the middle of the Abyss!"

The way to break a suspended plate was simple. Remove the parts supporting it, and it would fall without needing to touch anything else. Mother Earth would take care of the rest.

"We need to divide the explosives into three, set one off here and one at each end! Then Tantalus will lose its balance and fall below! That’s the only way to bring down this enormous Tantalus!"

There was only one correct answer. The rest was meaningless. Gamma desperately tried to persuade the commander.

"How many times must I tell you that’s impossible? Can’t you hear me telling you to detonate it, Gamma? Blow it up now!"

"Then I’ll be the only one who dies!"

"I’m ordering you to die!"

"...What?"

Gamma’s thoughts stopped for a moment.

"He’s nearby! Detonate it now! It’s the only way to do even a little damage to that wicked military state and the one who killed our comrades!"

"B-But this..."

"De-to-nate-it!"

Gamma looked around. He was hanging from the underside of Tantalus. Explosions spread outward. Even if he detonated it somewhere so open in every direction, the force would only disperse uselessly below.

He would have to climb the rope, place the bomb in the fissure, and detonate it to do any meaningful damage. Even that would be nowhere near enough to bring down Tantalus.

But more than that.

Gamma faced the fear surrounding him.

What if he made Tantalus fall? Gamma would eventually die too, but it wouldn’t be very painful. This was the Abyss, so the fall would be eternal, giving him time to calmly accept death. Maybe he would meet his friends while falling. Gamma would reunite with his friends, celebrate their success together, then strike something and die in an instant. There wouldn’t be time to feel pain. Mother Earth would hold his body swiftly and warmly.

Perhaps, because this was the Abyss, the fall would continue forever. Then Gamma would talk with his friends, laugh until he was sick of it, and eventually fall asleep from exhaustion. He would never wake again. Death would come as though he were falling asleep in the darkness.

But what if he detonated the bomb? His body would break into pieces and scatter in every direction. The burst of light would blind him, the heat would burn his lungs, and the explosion would tear Gamma’s body apart and scatter it into the Abyss.

Gamma’s hands trembled.

He had prepared to die the moment he came down here.

But he was still not ready.

I had finished reading his thoughts. Clenching the spike, I stood up.

"You're not ready? Then I’ll help you."

"No!"

Kanisen’s shout and Gamma’s tearful voice grew louder. I shrugged as if I had no choice.

"I’ll pay for this sin in hell."

I said I’d do whatever the fuck I wanted in the most religious way possible, then slashed with the spike.

The rope snapped.

A mournful scream escaped the commander’s mouth. Even from outside Tantalus, Gamma’s fading voice echoed in the distance.

Gamma had now become lost in the Abyss. In the place Mother Earth had abandoned, he would wander through eternity until he died.

Until he accepted death enough to kill himself.

Kanisen sobbed. No one could help him succeed now. No one could stop me from cutting out his ugly side and holding it up before his eyes.

"Ugly, isn’t it? What you kept saying to the very end was an order for Gamma to throw away his life even sooner. Even while you were restrained and lying beneath me, all you did was pressure someone else to die."

"Kill me! Stop humiliating me and kill me already!"

Truly great people were few. The rest were driven to the edge of a cliff, then jumped as if they had chosen it of their own will. Lost souls of an era who could become neither heroes nor ordinary citizens.

Unfortunately, Kanisen Riverwood was not among that handful. In the end, Kanisen too had simply been driven into the Abyss.

"Self-justification. Excuses. Meaningless repentance and confession. Contradictions. And hypocrisy. You poured manpower and resources into a worthless operation just so you could comfort yourself by saying you did your best. What a lavish suicide. Four young people were buried with you, and the Resistance’s assets became your grave goods."

"Just kill me!"

Kanisen pressed his face to the ground. Squirming like a worm, he slammed his head down again and again.

That wouldn’t kill him.

He put stones in his mouth and chewed. Broken shards tore through his mouth. He swallowed the shattered pieces, letting sharp fragments rip apart his insides.

That wouldn’t kill him.

He bit off his tongue. His teeth cut through soft flesh, and blood poured out.

That wouldn’t kill him either.

Wishing he could simply die and be forgotten like this, Kanisen continued hurting himself.

But.

Even if Kanisen couldn’t be recorded in history. Even if his story couldn’t be passed down and carved into the world.

Having read it all, I couldn’t forget him.

"I know you. The life you lived, what you saw and felt. I read everything about what you lived for and how you lived. So, because I did, I won’t judge you."

I read.

Thoughts.

Lives.

Dreams.

The brief eternity when a life flashes before one’s eyes before death arrives.

I read every thought passing through that flickering panorama and bind them into a book.

"I am the smallest columbarium in the world. A library that mourns those who will be forgotten. A columbarium doesn’t judge the sins of the dead, and a library doesn’t rank the worth of its books. It only remembers and preserves them."

For a moment, the commander tensed his entire body. He fired one of the stone fragments from his mouth at me. The shard, stained with blood and bits of flesh, traced an arc through the air... and landed by my feet.

This wasn’t an attack. It was a protest.

A desperate protest begging me to kill him now and end this pain.

If that was what he wanted.

I gripped the spike and moved behind him. I sat on Kanisen's back and raised the spike, gripping it tightly. Its pointed end was chillingly sharp, sharp enough to pierce a person easily.

"Goodbye, Kanisen Riverwood. Last knight raised drinking romance beside a beautiful river. The whole world may forget you, and no one may know your end. But I’ll remember you and the four young people who followed you."

When did a person die?

Opinions differed on that, but at least Kanisen Riverwood’s death was decided now.

He had lost the will to live.

And I had no intention of leaving him alive.

Kanisen Riverwood closed his eyes and lifted his head. He stretched out his neck, wishing I would kill him quickly.

He had always been prepared to die. He had been prepared to kill others too. Whether he killed someone or was killed by someone, he wouldn’t have batted an eye.

He had only lacked the resolve to face his own ugliness.

There was no hell in this world. No heaven either.

There was only one abandoned columbarium.

It wasn’t a comfortable place, but I still hoped he would rest in peace.

I placed the spike against his throat and pulled. The blade moved at an angle. A person’s neck lay in its path. Skin split, and red life flowed from within.

Whether he suffered as he died or found peace.

No one in the world would know.

Except me.

A brief pain and a life-flashing panorama as long as eternity passed by. Before long, Kanisen’s thoughts stopped. What had been Kanisen’s body became a corpse.

Trivial and meaningless.

A small period was placed at the end of a book.

Footnotes:

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