WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 13: The Right Thing to Do

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“...Sir, don’t make this any bigger than it already is.”

The man behind the plan to bring in the Liberation Brigade and kill Rimon.

The PAB director whom players called the King Yama.

Kang Jeong-su stepped out from among the PAB agents and spoke in a stiff voice.

Kang Jeong-su had considered revealing himself depending on how things went, but had not expected Rimon to call him out first.

“If you didn’t want to make a mess, you shouldn’t have started one.”

“This was not something I did by choice.”

Even now, Kang Jeong-su did not forget his formal speech.

Was it because there was no respect behind it that it did not sound respectful?

Or was it the resentment in Kang Jeong-su’s eyes?

Rimon dismissed the pointless thought.

Instead, he looked down at Yoo Na-gyeong’s body in his arms and spoke quietly.

“I can roughly guess the circumstances, but out of basic decency, I’ll ask you first.”

Had it been anyone else, he would have immediately begun what needed to be done.

But because he had watched over their family for three generations, Rimon calmly asked:

“Why?”

Kang Jeong-su gritted their teeth.

Ever since Kang Jeong-su was young, they had heard stories of Rimon from the elders of their family until their ears could have calluses.

That was why Kang Jeong-su understood the meaning of the question.

But Kang Jeong-su had already made their choice.

There was no way to reverse that decision.

No, even if there had been, Kang Jeong-su would not have wanted to.

Kang Jeong-su had merely made the best choice possible under the circumstances. They had done nothing wrong.

“...This is all the result of your own actions, sir.”

“Because of me?”

“Yes. None of this would have happened if you had not incurred the Infinite Monarch’s displeasure.”

“...”

“Did you truly think you could lay a hand on the Infinite Monarch’s brother-in-law and simply get away with it? Just because you are a hero who saved this country?”

As Rimon remained silent, Kang Jeong-su spat out the words.

“Wake up, sir. This is no longer the age of heroes!”

Kang Jeong-su knew well what Rimon had once been.

What a great hero he had been, what achievements he had made, and how much respect he had received.

And what an utterly reckless mad dog he had been.

“In the old days, you could have gotten away with anything. Back then, this country needed you no matter what happened.”

Before the Iron Age began, Rimon had been an absolute power by any measure.

It had been an era when neighboring nations coveted the country’s territory from without, while unsavory elements plotted within.

Overwhelming strength had been necessary to keep the peace, and the Sword Master had stood at the apex of that strength.

That was why it had been the age of heroes.

A time when the world was protected by a handful of heroes, and everything they did was accepted as heroic.

“But now, sir, there are players, and there is a Monarch.”

But the times had changed.

Players had turned a world guarded by strength and violence into a peaceful one through wealth and prosperity.

Above all, the emergence of another absolute, the Monarch, had naturally made people realize one fact.

The Sword Master was no longer irreplaceable.

“You are an obstacle to this country’s growth.”

If Rimon had been nothing special.

If he had accepted the times and quietly stepped aside.

If he had at least compromised with reality for his own benefit.

Even if he had lost his place as an absolute power, he could still have remained a hero in history books.

“If the times have changed, why can’t you understand that you need to change too?”

But Rimon had not changed.

He had lost power that once surpassed even royal authority.

He had been stripped of wealth accumulated over centuries.

His honor as humanity’s guardian had been forgotten.

Even after falling so far, so miserably that it was almost incomprehensible, that he had become nothing more than a low-ranking civil servant.

That old-fashioned hero had continued playing at being a hero, still obsessing over his damned chivalry and justice.

“How long must we keep sacrificing for someone like you, who acts however he pleases just because he made a few contributions to the country long ago?”

Kang Jeong-su remembered.

No, Kang Jeong-su could not forget.

Kang Jeong-su’s grandfather had been a war hero who should have been praised.

Yet he had been mocked his entire life as a lucky man who had avoided death because of Rimon and even earned merit from it.

Kang Jeong-su’s father had been a politician who should have been respected.

Yet he had wasted his political career struggling to preserve Rimon’s standing in a changing age.

And when the Sword Master finally fell, he had withdrawn from the presidential race and been driven from politics.

Even so, Kang Jeong-su had tried not to resent Rimon.

Though Kang Jeong-su had been unable even to enter politics and had suffered all kinds of disadvantages simply because their family was close to Rimon.

Remembering the tales of Rimon’s accomplishments Kang Jeong-su’s grandfather had told them, Kang Jeong-su had desperately cleaned up the messes Rimon caused, just as Kang Jeong-su’s father had.

“I am tired of covering for you. If you want to resent someone, resent yourself for falling behind the times!”

But that too had reached its limit.

Now that Rimon had provoked the Infinite Monarch’s displeasure, Kang Jeong-su had no choice left.

Whether for the national interest.

Or for his family.

It was obvious which side he should choose between the fallen Sword Master and the Monarch, the new absolute power of the age.

And Rimon gave Kang Jeong-su’s heartfelt cry a simple assessment.

“What the hell is this idiot babbling about?”

“...What?”

“Hey, bastard. When did I ever say I wanted to hear that kind of excuse?”

Kang Jeong-su had finally poured out a lifetime of resentment, only to be utterly ignored. As Kang Jeong-su froze with a blank expression, Rimon growled.

“Didn’t I tell you when I fucked that bastard up? Tell anyone who asks later that it was all my responsibility.”

“That was...”

“Then what are you letting slide, and who are you covering for, you asshole? Anyone listening would think I owed your family a debt.”

Rimon sneered.

Kang Jeong-su spoke as though Kang Jeong-su’s family had been making sacrifices for generations to protect Rimon.

But was that really so?

Kang Jeong-su’s grandfather may have been mocked as a lucky man, but that had been when the Sword Master was an absolute power.

Having his life saved by Rimon three times was something to boast about, and he had risen rapidly through the military by flaunting that connection.

The same went for Kang Jeong-su’s father.

Because he had supported Rimon, he had been able to ride the old hero’s popularity and gather voters.

Had he not boasted of his friendship with Rimon to voters, he would not have become a presidential candidate. He would not even have become a member of the National Assembly.

And Kang Jeong-su?

They talked as though they had suffered nothing but disadvantages because of Rimon.

But without that connection, could an ordinary person like Kang Jeong-su really have become the director of the PAB?

“Well, none of that matters. I’m not even curious why you stabbed me in the back.”

Rimon did not bother to point out those facts one by one.

When things went well, people took the credit. When they went badly, they blamed their ancestors.

It was Kang Jeong-su’s freedom to believe that they would have lived better if Rimon had never existed.

More importantly, Rimon had no interest in Kang Jeong-su.

There was only one thing he wanted to hear.

“What I want to know is why you did this to Na-gyeong.”

Only then did Kang Jeong-su seem to notice Yoo Na-gyeong’s corpse in Rimon’s arms.

Kang Jeong-su flinched, then frowned uneasily.

“...It was Agent Yoo Na-gyeong’s choice.”

“Is forcing someone to blow themselves up by taking hostages a choice?”

“That was not my doing.”

“But you allowed it.”

“I protested too! But the Monarch would not listen. What more was I supposed to do?”

If Kang Jeong-su had acted rashly, they might have lost not only Yoo Na-gyeong but the hostages as well.

Even if Kang Jeong-su had refused, they would have been killed, someone else would have become PAB director, and the plan would have gone ahead.

As Kang Jeong-su shouted irritably, Rimon spoke in a low voice.

“You should have fought.”

“...What did you say?”

“You should have come at them like a mad dog until the end.”

He could have stormed in with PAB agents and died.

He could have cursed out the Infinite Monarch on a broadcast and gotten himself killed.

He could at least have stepped forward and offered himself in Yoo Na-gyeong’s place.

Watching Rimon calmly say that Kang Jeong-su should have done something, anything, Kang Jeong-su stared in disbelief.

“A-Are you saying I should have died in Agent Yoo Na-gyeong’s place?!”

“Yes.”

“...!”

“At the very least, as the PAB director, you should have died yourself rather than let threats from players send your subordinates to their deaths.”

The PAB was an organization meant to control players.

Its director should not have feared players’ power.

As a former hero and the man who had once led the organization from which the PAB had originated, Rimon spoke coldly.

“If you could not die because you lacked the courage, I understand. But then, the proper thing would have been to at least be ashamed of remaining alive.”

Not everyone in the world could be a hero.

Not everyone could risk death to do what was right.

So Rimon could forgive Kang Jeong-su for betraying him.

“But Jeong-su, even to the end, you will not lower your head even once, not to me, nor to Na-gyeong.”

“...!”

Excuses, excuses, excuses, excuses.

Even with Yoo Na-gyeong’s body before him, he merely shouted about the justification for his betrayal and insisted on its righteousness.

Rimon knew why Kang Jeong-su never apologized.

It was how those drunk on power behaved.

It was the habit of people who saw others as tools and therefore felt neither shame nor remorse.

In the end, Kang Jeong-su had not feared death.

Kang Jeong-su had simply abandoned the old tie that was the Sword Master, latched onto the new one that was the Monarch, betrayed Rimon, and stood by while Yoo Na-gyeong died.

And that was beyond what Rimon could tolerate.

“...Say whatever you want. Nothing will change now, no matter what you say.”

Seeming to give up on further excuses, Kang Jeong-su glared at him.

Rimon met his gaze calmly.

“You think so?”

“Is there any reason not to?”

“Yes. Because I’m going to kill you.”

“Ha!”

Kang Jeong-su openly mocked him.

Then Kang Jeong-su pointed at the forces surrounding them.

“Do you think you can get through them and kill me?”

The people surrounding Rimon were no ordinary soldiers or players.

Thirty elite agents, outstanding combatants even within the PAB, which consisted solely of high-level players.

Fifty members of [Unit 909], the military’s finest, armed with advanced weapons designed to kill players and high-grade items.

Forty raid-party members from [Stardust] and [Cheonjong], two of the country’s leading large guilds.

Fifty S-rank mercenaries from [Black Wolf], an international private military company notorious for doing anything for money.

And some thirty prisoners, criminals, and killers brought in through plea deals and enormous payments.

More than two hundred in total.

Every single one was either a high-level player above level 60 or an expert of equivalent skill.

It was a force capable of wiping out five or six cities in the blink of an eye, enough to wage a war in all but name.

That was why Kang Jeong-su was confident.

This much force could contend even with a Monarch.

Let alone a relic of a bygone age like Rimon, there was no way he could break through them and harm Kang Jeong-su.

But Rimon did not answer his question.

As though looking at ants gathered around sugar, he slowly surveyed the two hundred people with indifferent golden eyes.

Then he spoke quietly.

“Before I answer that, I have one last question.”

“What is it?”

Perhaps it was Rimon’s strange calmness.

Although Kang Jeong-su held the overwhelming advantage, they reacted irritably to the unease rising within them in waves.

Rimon asked Kang Jeong-su quietly.

“Is your attempt to kill me truly your own choice?”

“Or is it the will of the one-eyed crone who is snickering as she eats away at your brain?”

At that moment, Kang Jeong-su flinched without thinking.

It was not merely because of the abrupt question, which made no sense.

Rimon’s eyes rested on him as though he could see the unseen.

Or as though he could see straight through his soul.

A jet-black gleam, like the night sky, lurked within eyes that should have been golden.

It sent a chill down Kang Jeong-su’s spine.

“What kind of nonsense is that?”

“If it is nonsense, does that mean this is entirely your own choice?”

“Yes!”

Perhaps Kang Jeong-su was ashamed at having been overwhelmed by Rimon’s gaze.

Kang Jeong-su answered firmly, if only out of stubbornness.

Rimon watched Kang Jeong-su with indifferent eyes, then slowly nodded.

“...Fine. If this was something you did of your own will, then that is enough.”

As though his confirmation was complete, Rimon looked away from Kang Jeong-su.

Then he looked over the two hundred people surrounding him.

No, over the hundreds of bizarre shadows half mingled among them, smiling as though they were hunters looking upon trapped prey.

Footnotes:

King Yama is the Korean name for the Buddhist judge of the dead, used here as an intimidating nickname.

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