WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 168: Do You Think I’m Late?
──────
At the sound of the thunderous explosion, Tata closed her eyes and thought:
Finally.
It was not as though she had felt no unease.
Rimon had arrived far earlier than she had foreseen, and her precognition concerning him had continued to waver after he drew his sword.
But it had been needless worry.
With the filming site blown up and a major tragedy involving casualties having occurred, Music Challenge would never air again.
Rimon would never forgive her for causing this, but that did not matter.
Since she and the other traitors had acted of their own accord, Rimon would not hold Ainsha accountable.
Now, only one thing remained.
Her own death.
With that, the precognition would be complete.
The predetermined future would come to pass.
The ending where Rimon and Ainsha became bound together.
To create that future, Tata could gladly die.
She was a member of the White Dragon Clan, willing to give everything for the Princess she revered. She was also Ainsha's only nanny and family.
“...?”
But as she waited for the end, Tata sensed something strange and opened her eyes again.
Then her face went blank with disbelief.
“Everyone, you were startled, weren't you?”
“To meet your expectations, we begin this time with a spectacular celebratory blast!”
“Everyone, take on the challenge!”
“Music Challenge!”
Clap clap clap clap clap!
A bomb had clearly exploded.
Yet the filming site was neither engulfed in flames nor collapsing. It did not even have a scratch. The audience clapped without understanding anything, while the broadcast and its hosts calmly carried on.
Tata could not close her gaping mouth.
“Why?”
As Tata murmured vacantly, Rimon answered with a cold sneer.
“You said I was too late. Want me to tell you something funny?”
“...”
“When you asked how I found out you were here, you said you wanted to hear the complicated reason.”
Tata recalled how Rimon had strangely kindly explained the process of tracking her down.
And the two choices he had offered before answering.
“But I had an even simpler answer.”
The complicated answer and the simple one.
Since Tata had chosen the former, Rimon had not had the chance to tell her the latter. Now, he revealed it in an even tone.
“I knew from the beginning.”
“...
What do you mean?”
“It means I could have followed your presence easily enough without wandering around after clues one by one.”
“...!”
Tata's eyes widened at the answer she had never imagined. Rimon gave a short laugh.
He was the Sword Master.
A superhuman who had hunted down and beaten the Demon God even after it fled to the other side of Earth.
If Tata had been someone he had never seen before, perhaps it would have been different.
But if he had truly wanted to pursue Tata, who had been tailing him, three steps would have been enough from the beginning.
“Then why do you think I came this late?”
Only then did Tata realize.
Rimon and Ainsha had arrived far earlier than she had foreseen.
But in truth, they had only appeared here after wasting all the time they could afford to waste.
“Why do you think I went along with your scheme to drag things out by asking for a complicated answer, which is so unlike the White Dragon Clan?”
...
Tata was not the only one trying to buy time.
* * *
Kwwwaaaang!
[Wow, that was a spectacular explosion.]
At the very moment the deafening blast rang out from the filming site, Yoo Na-gyeong gazed in admiration at the bombs exploding into dazzling fireworks across the darkening sky.
Li Qing-yu calmly praised her efforts.
“You worked hard.”
[It was nothing. I only took what was there while the team leader distracted them.]
“Even so, secretly taking that many bombs was not easy.”
[In that case, Princess, you had it harder finding out where the bombs were.]
“No, I only asked a few questions.”
Li Qing-yu smiled faintly.
Then, from one corner of the rooftop where they had come to launch and detonate the bombs Yoo Na-gyeong had recovered, she looked calmly at the Divine Dragon Corps members sitting in a row at their feet with blank expressions.
Her eyes gleamed darkly like obsidian.
“If we must assign credit, it belongs to these people who kindly answered us, along with everyone else.”
Meanwhile, chatter continued at the filming site below.
“PD, wasn't that explosion sound effect a bit excessive? It sounded like a bomb went off...”
“It was at the investor's request!”
“Ah, then we have to do it.”
“Now that you know, stop worrying about other things and make sure there isn't another broadcast mishap. If something goes wrong again, this station is finished!”
“Hahaha, that won't happen. It is not like we'll have two broadcast mishaps in a row.”
As Kim Seung-jun focused on the broadcast, others at a place far from him were focused on something else.
[Team 1, the defended target is secure.]
[Team 2, the surveillance target is secure.]
[Team 3, there was a White Dragon Clan attacker targeting the escorted person, but we subdued them in advance.]
[Team 4...]
A man silently listened to the communications.
Wang Ryun, the newly appointed Clan Head of the Shanghai Wang Family and Guardian's new Security Team Leader, spoke in a stiff voice.
“Do not let your guard down. Remember that the Shanghai Wang Family's fate depends on how successfully we conclude this matter.”
* * *
“You would do well to abandon the thought that dragging things out longer will change anything.”
“...
You knew? Everything?”
“Yes.”
The bombs she had planted.
The attackers she had set aside.
The schemes to halt the broadcast by killing those involved or destroying the facilities.
Rimon calmly told her that the measures he had prepared before coming here would have already taken care of it all by now.
“How could you, without precognition...!”
“You fools. Something as trivial as precognition is not necessary to do this much.”
Tata's lips trembled.
Even she, who had calmly accepted death, could not hide her shock at seeing every part of her plan come to nothing.
Rimon snapped sharply, then continued while looking coldly at Tata and the White Dragon Clan.
“You view the future too narrowly.”
“...”
“You always look at the future and move only to fulfill your precognition. Yet you never think about the important processes or reasons behind them.”
Every member of the White Dragon Clan was the same.
They foresaw several futures, then repeated exactly what they had seen to reach the future they desired.
They dressed, ate, spoke, and acted exactly as they had seen in their visions.
In the end, it might not have been a bad choice. After all, it was a way to obtain the best future they wanted.
But because that best future was already set, they did not think.
Why they said these words.
Why they imitated these emotions.
Why this action produced that outcome.
They stopped thinking altogether and merely followed processes whose reasons even they did not know.
“That is why you do something foolish whenever you try to change the future.”
When they foresaw the future, they could respond perfectly to every situation.
Because they knew what they had to do.
But when they could not foresee the future, every action became a mess.
Because they did not know what to do.
It was like a student who could read answers with godlike cheating skill and score a hundred with ease, only to be left blindly guessing once they could no longer cheat.
“Worse, you have the idiotic mindset that if you remove only the bad outcome, the rest of the future will happen exactly as it should.”
They believed that killing a villain fated to commit a crime would automatically make the future better.
They never considered that the villain's once kind sibling might become an even more terrible villain out of vengeance.
They could not understand that, because they had obstructed the development of a dangerous weapon, countless people who could have been saved by technology created during that process had died.
To them, the future was fixed.
Until they saw it and chose it, it would not change on its own.
They believed the future would not change, yet acted to alter only their precognition. It was a contradiction that could only lead to foolishness.
“Because I know that, I deliberately tracked you down step by step.”
Rimon sneered coldly.
If he had found Tata right away, the terrorist attack would have succeeded.
Because she had foreseen a future where Rimon killed her, she had planned the attack on the assumption that she would be discovered.
But Rimon had deliberately and persistently followed her clues.
Just as Tata had burned the bag Moon Cheon-yeop gave her without even opening it, he gathered the causes and processes Tata had neglected by acting only upon the result.
This was the result.
By blocking every step in between, even the outcome of success had vanished.
“Well? Do you still think I came too late to stop you?”
“...”
Tata remained silent with the expression of someone whose soul had left her.
Rimon's blade-sharp words.
This reality her precognition had changed.
Either one was enough to leave her utterly stunned.
And Rimon no longer paid attention to Tata or the Divine Dragon Corps.
Their plan had ultimately failed, and no matter how they struggled, they no longer had any way to achieve their goal.
That was why he swung his sword at Tata.
Slice.
After the sword light cut through the air, a single thread fluttered down.
Rimon had blocked the hidden attack that had been about to secretly coil around Tata's neck. Then he slowly turned around.
He looked at Ainsha, who stood expressionlessly across the ceiling and had launched the hidden attack.
Rimon smiled coldly.
“Now, only you remain.”
“...”
“Do you still intend to execute your nanny?”
“...
Of course.”
“They betrayed you for your sake, and in the end, they did nothing but waste their efforts.”
“Betrayal is still betrayal.”
Ainsha stated it bluntly.
Rimon gave a short laugh at her appearance, like a doll without emotion.
“You are certainly persistent. It is almost amazing how easily you changed your mind about wanting to save your nanny.”
“That and this are different.”
“I do not see much difference myself.”
“They are different. They are clearly different.”
“Well, if you want to believe that, then believe it.”
Rimon moved the foot pinning Tata down and stepped forward.
He stood squarely between Ainsha and Tata, pointing his sword straight ahead with its tip aimed at Ainsha.
Then he spoke quietly.
“If words cannot make you understand, I only need to teach you the hard way.”
Rimon wore a cold smile, while Ainsha remained expressionless.
Amid the brilliant lights and deafening sounds filling the filming site, the two held each other's gaze in silent stillness.
Then Rimon drew back his sword.
Ainsha opened one hand.
A storm of powerful psionics collided with sword light sharp enough to raise goosebumps.
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