WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ SSS-Class Revival Hunter ◈

Chapter 148: Prologue (1)

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1.

Great Library of Myriad Thoughts.

The shadows trailing from the bookshelves overlapped and tapered away, forming an intricate web.

"I do not know."

The Constellation Killer's voice wandered through them.

“It is difficult. Hard to comprehend. Did I truly kill so many lives? Did that many lives vanish because of me? Taking responsibility for even a single death is impossible, let alone for the people who lived across so many worlds...”

The Constellation Killer fumbled to pull out an old diary.

Just as Kim Yul had left a trace within the Constellation Killer, the Constellation Killer had kept a diary even while living a life whose memories steadily faded.

"Goddess of Protection, The Elder from the Deep, The Follower of the Distant Eyes."

These were the Constellations the Constellation Killer had slain.

He softly recited the names, marked in red and lined across the pages.

“The Great Serpent Nurtured in the Seven Sounds, The Stork Roaming the Universe, The Witch who Perished in the Frosty Dawn, The Lion Dreaming of Annihilation, The Corpse Poison Flower, The Moon That Swallowed the Moonless Night, The Golden Dragon of the Great Lake...”

Names flowed on. The recitation seemed endless.

After naming hundreds of Constellations, the Constellation Killer slowly turned to face me.

"......I do not know. I cannot understand. But entering Kim Yul's body, feeling his resentment and curses upon the world, I empathized with Kim Yul. I agreed. Kim Yul wanted revenge on those who pushed him to this end."

The Constellation Killer paused for a moment.

"So it is."

He muttered.

"I, too, must be subject to the vengeance of those worlds."

Thud.

He closed the diary.

"Even if I end my life, it wouldn't be sufficient atonement. Eternal suffering. The worlds would only wish for me to suffer eternally. But suffering alone lacks meaning... How can I apologize to the lives already lost through mere suffering?"

I nodded.

"Librarian."

At my call, the Holed-Up Head Librarian peeked out from the bookshelf, their cheeks flushed red.

“Welcome! Unlike the previous Apocalypses, I couldn't directly observe you this time. I've only just hurriedly read the newly added side-story entry in [City of Ascension]. Ah, truly...”

"Enough of that. Come here."

"King of Death, you grow stricter with me each day..."

The Head Librarian fluttered over.

"Here I am. What would you have me do? If you wish, I can..."

"Hand me the [Leafanta Aegim’s Epic]."

“Ah... I did say, ‘If you wish,’ but you should know that every book in my collection is one of my sacred relics. Among all living beings, only I can create them. You cannot treat such precious books as things you may demand at every whim...”

“Of course, I'll give it to you”, they said, handing me the book.

"Constellation Killer."

"Hmm."

"This book contains your story. From when you first fell into another world, met the Goddess of Protection, became Leafanta Aegim, and then the Constellation Killer. Your entire life is recorded here."

"......"

"You may have lost your memories, but they aren't gone forever. Again. Regain them."

Silence fell in the library. The Constellation Killer wordlessly looked at [Leafanta Aegim's Epic]. The Head Librarian let out a small sigh, observing us both.

They immediately understood the meaning of my words.

The Constellation Killer did not.

"Again, you say."

"Yes. Just like we glimpsed into Kim Yul's past."

"......From the beginning?"

"From the beginning."

"To peer again into my life, spanning hundreds of years, from the very start."

"What you did, what you thought, the worlds you trampled, and the lives that existed in those worlds."

"......"

"The first step to everything is remembering. 'Do not forget.' That's what Kim Yul insisted with his life. You too, should stake your life on it."

Silence.

"I understand."

Silence.

"I judge it to be the right thing to do."

And more silence.

"......"

The Constellation Killer accepted [Leafanta Aegim’s Epic] from me. To take it, he first had to put the diary away. In place of a diary where one day had been stitched to the next in separate sheets, his hands now held a life recorded from beginning to end.

"Indeed."

The Constellation Killer muttered, holding the book.

"Just repeating one's life is enough to turn the world into a simple hell. Does each person carry their own hell?"

He turned his head. There sat the director.

"Class President."

The director, called by this name, couldn't immediately respond. He just couldn't. In that silence lay decades of separation.

"......Yes. Kim Yul."

The Constellation Killer, called as Kim Yul, also couldn't immediately respond. He just couldn't. In that silence lay centuries of distance.

Decades endured by one, and centuries discarded by another, settled in the quiet air of the library.

"Kim Yul thought he wanted to forgive you."

The Constellation Killer spoke.

"And I, too, share the same thought as Kim Yul."

"I want you to be forgiven."

The director closed his lips.

The director closed his eyes. But can it be said 'the director closed his eyes'? Perhaps not. By then, the director could no longer control his body. It wasn't that he closed his lips, but his lips closed themselves; it wasn't that he closed his eyes, but his eyes closed on their own.

"......, ......."

A groan scarcely distinguishable from breathing forced its way between the Director’s lips. ‘Thank you.’ The Director could have said that. ‘I’m sorry.’ The Director must have wanted to say that. But the Director held back every word. What could not be held back spilled out as groans.

"......I..."

The sigh was not words but fragments.

But somehow, I knew what picture those fragments wished to paint.

"I... just a little more..."

If I had lived just a little better.

If I had just a little more power.

If I was just a little smarter in my childhood.

“......”

At that moment, I realized. A lightning-like shock pierced my entire body. I saw the Director’s tightly sealed lips, closed eyes, and the backs of both hands braced against the floor. Old skin. Trembling arms. The whole body bent forward. Looking at it all, I realized something.

'Ah.'

The director was screaming in agony.

'What I must prove.'

There are people in this world screaming in pain.

'What I want to prove.'

Among the chaos of beasts and humans, there are people, like isolated islands, whose screams occasionally reach my ears, whose suffering catches my eyes.

I just want to prove these screams.

'There are people here.'

My Demonic Heaven.

'There are people living here.'

The one who first wove the pattern of Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven, the one who first preached the doctrine of shadows, must have felt the emotion I'm feeling now.

They were angry. They were sad. Seeing the starving, the thirsty, observing the nine paths of life and nine types of death, they must have felt the need to 'prove it.'

"......"

I want to prove it.

I want to tell everyone.

I want to carve the fact that people are here, that they exist, into this world as a wound that can never be erased.

‘I must not forget.’

I want to encapsulate the director's current state in my Demonic Heaven.

But not just that.

The dance of the children who cast their laughter toward me in the Hellfire Mansion. The Preta’s voice howling at the sky in the middle of the village while embracing a mother’s corpse and the corpses of babies. My master’s figure dancing with a blade across a snowfield whose very place-name had been erased. Raviel. Raviel.

'Do not forget.'

The first form of Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven encapsulated hunger.

'Now, it's time to encapsulate my Demonic Heaven.'

The first form with the children's dance.

The second form with Preta's lament.

The third form with the master's sword.

The fourth form with Raviel's sacrifice.

The fifth form with the director's silence.

'I want to encapsulate it.'

Could I contain all that? Me? It had been so difficult to contain even hunger alone. Could I truly contain one person’s life? No, the lives of many people?

'Even if it takes my entire life.'

Determination.

A purpose has been established in my life.

'Let's prove that people lived here. That people died here. Let's prove how they lived and how they died. Let's encapsulate the noise of the beasts and the screams of the people. Even if they laughed, let's capture the vibration of that laughter.'

But.

'Not yet.'

I still have things to finish here. Many things. Redefining the forms of Divine Art of the Demonic Heaven from scratch is not fitting for my level, and it would take an enormous amount of mental strength and effort to possibly achieve it.

'...Yes. Let's not rush. Let's do what I can for now.'

I turned my head.

And looked at our observer.

"Librarian. No, Hamusutra."

The Head Librarian’s shoulders trembled. The Librarian had been staring at the Constellation Killer and the Director while panting, “Hah, hah,” but flinched at my call.

"Calling me by my real name. How embarrassing! Please call me by my alias."

“Please let the Constellation Killer read [Leafanta Aegim’s Epic] whenever he wishes. It does not have to take the form of clearing a stage. Just as you observe worlds, permit the Constellation Killer to do the same.”

"Ah. Um. Hmm."

The Head Librarian panted heavily and pondered laboriously.

"For that, I'd have to share my authority... Perhaps appoint him as an Apostle. Hmm. While some Constellations create Apostles without hesitation, for me, it's... not really my style or preference..."

Of course, a character like the Head Librarian, known as the Holed-Up Head Librarian, wouldn't have followers or friends. Only strange servants like the Bookmark Maid.

"Don't you want to?"

"It's not that I don't want to..."

“I may have taken this Constellation Killer in through Ghoul Reincarnation, but all the other Constellation Killers are dolls copied through [Puppeteer’s Parade] anyway. Is there really any difference?”

"Hmm, well. There's no difference, but..."

"You decide."

"Decide, you say...?"

"You've loved the story of the Constellation Killer until now. But following your own words, there's now a fork in the road for the Constellation Killer. Two paths have emerged."

"A fork."

"Yes."

I met the Head Librarian's eyes.

“Route 1. Along this route, the Constellation Killer never met me and has no memory of meeting me. He remains on the 50th floor as usual. Once a week’s worth of memories accumulates, he leaves to hunt another Constellation.”

The Puppet Route.

The route where the Constellation Killer forever stages [Puppeteer's Parade].

"Route 2."

And the Constellation Killer who met me is here.

"Now, the Constellation Killer knows about Kim Yul. He has remembered. Starting from Kim Yul, he will slowly retrace the life of Leafanta Aegim."

It will be hard.

“He will enter and possess a life inside the book, then walk once more along the same path he traveled over hundreds of years.”

It will be painful.

"But in that route, I will be there, and the director will be there too. He doesn't need to swallow his entire life from the beginning. Slowly. Just as much as he can digest, one bite at a time. It's okay to rest along the way."

But that's the Constellation Killer's life.

Eventually something that will become Kim Yul's life.

"You choose the route for the Constellation Killer."

"......"

The Head Librarian looked at the Constellation Killer.

The silence of the Constellation didn't last long.

"Constellation Killer. And the nurturer of the King of Death."

The Head Librarian smiled and stretched their arms towards the Constellation Killer and the director.

That day, someone's epilogue might have ended.

"Would you be interested in working as a librarian?"

And someone's prologue began.

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