WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 142: Trial (7)

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The inspiring speech was musically complete as well. Its steady stresses and poetic diction conveyed more than the words themselves. Excellent rhetoric was, in itself, a qualification for leadership. Gyeoul thought this was because language was a tool of empathy. But what one led people to empathize with was what divided the history of right from wrong. Hitler and Mussolini had both had crowds raving for them.

The president’s appeal was beautiful empathy.

The people who answered that appeal changed in their very atmosphere. They deepened. They grew firmer. Most of them would probably fade before long, but life was meaningful in every moment.

As Joanna cleared away the dishes, she said, “It’s a shame the current president’s term is almost over.”

Gyeoul nodded.

“No one else could have done it this well. I wish this wasn’t his second term.”

That assessment came from comparing the twenty-six apocalypses he had been through with this world. The stability of the nation was unmatched. There was plenty of friction over the acceptance of refugees and disaster refugees, and it was not as if there had been no other mistakes. Most of all, it was unfortunate that Manifest Liberation was being rushed far too much, but...

‘Worlds where a monetary economy survives are rare.’

As he sank into thought, his Intelligence correction output information about the current world. The present United States was running on an almost entirely domestic economy. Considering martial law, suspended trading, payment deferrals, payment guarantees, and even a domestic financial system barely rebuilt beyond all those lines, it was a human miracle built from effort, sacrifice, and luck.

Joanna sighed.

“Even so, I doubt he would have managed to win reelection. There are too many people who dislike him... no, who hate him. Fools who shout only about the harm they suffered, in a world where everyone is struggling. The problem is that the president has done too well until now.”

She meant that if they had felt a real sense of crisis, they would not have been able to act that way.

Gyeoul saw it a little differently.

“I don’t know. Aren’t there some people who can’t help hating him?”

“Even when this situation is the best possible outcome?”

“It’s the best outcome reached through necessary evil, and pain paralyzes reason.”

“Mm.”

Joanna’s brow tightened.

The past Gyeoul recalled then was the day they held Private Stan Page’s funeral. The boys and girls who had come to see the boy officer had denounced the cowardice of adults.

“This is a slightly different story, but in Fort Roberts, there were citizens who refused to go beyond the blockade line. On the other hand, I heard there were plenty of people beyond the blockade who wanted to come to the contaminated zone garrison.”

“Surely no one said that in front of you, Gyeoul?”

“Please don’t get angry. They were children who hated their parents.”

“Hated their parents? What does that... Ah.”

The investigator realized what he meant and looked depressed. Gyeoul made himself smile.

“The citizens who lost their homes must have their own hardships, but they can’t compare to real refugees. So should I condemn those citizens as shameless?”

“You have the right.”

“I don’t want to use it.”

“...”

“I don’t know if this comparison is appropriate, but even if I were a terminal cancer patient, I don’t think I could tell someone with both legs broken to shut up. Of course my pain would be worse. But either way, it’s the kind of pain most people can’t endure. It’s hard to expect common sense and reason from someone who’s hurting. Some patients are in so much pain that they lash out at their doctors.”

Joanna listened in silence, took a moment, then spoke carefully.

“I do think that may be an extreme comparison, but I understand what you mean, Gyeoul. My judgment was a little rash. It’s easy to condemn what shows on the surface. It was the same in Mexico.”

“Mexico?”

“Yes. There, drugs are often a livelihood. No, in truth, that was true in most cases. Aside from the ruling class at the top of the cartel pyramid, the couriers, enforcers, and corrupt police were only doing that work to survive. It was a society with no other options.”

Gyeoul listened closely as she continued.

“Seen without knowing the inside story, though, the surface was contemptible. They killed people, stole goods, and still cherished their own families. In the moment, they were villains aiming guns at me and my colleagues. In the moment, they were merchants selling drugs to American citizens. In the moment, they were only criminals my country had ordered me to remove.”

She calmly confessed that the number she had killed was far higher than the number she had arrested.

“The only difference between them and me was nationality. I was just lucky. It was a structure where lucky people killed unlucky people. The more I understood, the more hopeless it became, so I tried not to understand. I tried to become a machine that followed orders. Patriotism and a sense of duty were like highly addictive drugs. To shake off guilt, I had no choice but to abuse them, and the more I abused them, the duller I felt as a human being. Maybe that’s why. Why I end up disliking people so easily...”

Pressing her forehead as she wrestled with herself, she breathed out a single word. Boundary. I see. A boundary.

“It seems I fell into the habit of drawing a line where it was comfortable for me, then refusing to understand the people outside it. I think I did the same thing this time.”

“That’s what’s going too far. You’re blaming yourself too much.”

It was a familiar frustration. Gyeoul, too, had once told the masked counselor that there was hatred with no answer, the more one understood it.

If he looked only at what had been done to him, his father and mother were hateful. But had they become that way because they wanted to? Had they been fated to become that way? If they had had slightly better parents, slightly better education, slightly better chances, they too would have become much better people.

So Gyeoul’s hatred had to aim at all the conditions that created parents like that. Resenting only his parents without doing so was, in a way, no more than compromising with reality.

Joanna gave a bitter smile.

“The president said it in his speech, didn’t he? That day by day, he hoped the limits of our own selves would widen.”

“So?”

“Thank you for pointing it out. I will keep overcoming myself. I believe other people can overcome themselves too. I will hope for that as well. So Gyeoul, don’t be disappointed in people.”

Disappointed? Gyeoul did not understand and felt puzzled. Joanna explained.

“I may be mistaken... but I’ll say it anyway. A moment ago, your words carried a deep understanding of people. But at the same time, I felt cynicism. At first I didn’t know why, but as I listened, I understood.”

As an investigator with profiling experience, she looked at Gyeoul.

“People are only capable of that much by nature. I won’t expect anything more from them. That was the feeling I got. But Gyeoul, people, including me, may be able to become better beings.”

“...”

“I’m sorry if I jumped to conclusions.”

“No. No, you didn’t. That may be true.”

She had hit the mark. A familiar thing that felt strange. In other words, himself as seen through someone else’s eyes. It was hatred asserting its presence. Even if it rolled around less often as time went on, the stone inside his chest was still heavy. If anything, it felt heavier now than when he had lost his body.

Gyeoul looked at Joanna with fresh eyes. Yes. Fresh. She felt like a person to him in a new way. Even though he had realized long ago that whether someone felt like a person depended on how one treated them.

The investigator asked carefully, “Did I offend you?”

“Not at all. I think about that all the time too. That I want to surpass my own limits.”

He wanted to melt a stone that could not be melted, hate a world that could not be hated, and fight things that could not be fought. He was chasing that impossible wish in reality through a precarious daydream after death. Caring for people with abilities not allowed to humans.

‘I have never once succeeded, though.’

Across the hills of apocalypse and apocalypse and apocalypse, he had become something close to superhuman inside the dream, but still, he was swept along by causality beyond perception and the great currents of the world. It was the same in this world. The people he had left behind in Fort Roberts. The story of Gyeoul that Gyeoul had walked away from. The day he could have good dreams remained far away.

If anything had improved with time, it was one thing: little by little, he was learning what he wanted. The more he knew, the more helpless it felt, but it was better than not knowing.

‘You have to know before you can give up.’

Without knowing, wouldn’t it stay endlessly sad? Taking his anger out on things shaped like people was only passing entertainment that evaporated. Even that had not gone well lately. April Pacific was still dirty.

For a moment, he had been unguarded. Joanna, seeing Gyeoul through the break in the smoke, was restraining herself. It couldn’t be helped. It was not as if he had shown her some ugly emotion. Wearing his mask, Gyeoul tapped his wristwatch and showed it to her.

“We’re almost out of time. Shall we go?”

“Yes.”

On the way back to the shooting range, Joanna eased the unnatural silence with a new topic.

“In the coming presidential election, you will have the right to vote too, Gyeoul.”

“Really? Even though this is California? Wouldn’t that be difficult in practice?”

U.S. troops deployed on military operations usually could not exercise their right to vote. Polling stations were not set up in operational areas. Because of that, when the Iraq deployment was at its height, about 250,000 people became bystanders to the presidential election every year.

Even if California was nominally part of the mainland, right now it was only a contaminated zone that authorized personnel could enter. It was a slightly different case, but just as the federal district of Washington, D.C. had no Senate seats allocated to it, he had judged that voting rights might be restricted in a special disaster area.

Joanna’s answer was different.

“Like the radio, it’s a symbolic measure. They say they’ll hold voting somehow in the three contaminated-zone states... Washington, Oregon, and California. Online voting may be allowed only in the contaminated zones. Some even argue that votes should be collected from isolated citizens. Unless this operation is extended until fall, voting should not be a problem.”

It was hard to imagine a more symbolic measure than that. On the other hand, it worried him.

“Online voting? It seems like the chance of fraud would be high...”

“There are already many voices of concern. This is the most important election since the founding of the nation. No fraud can be tolerated. There will need to be more discussion about how to carry it out.”

“I hope someone decent gets elected.”

“I agree. The fate of humanity will change depending on the election result.”

Survival, or extinction. What kind of person would be elected? Right now, he did not even know who the candidates were.

“Anne. Do you think you could get a portable radio?”

“Why?”

“If I’m going to vote, I should know at least a little. I’d like to listen to things like debates.”

“Come to think of it, Super Tuesday is coming soon. Understood. I’ll look into it.”

Super Tuesday was in early March, the day when the Republican Party and Democratic Party held their presidential candidate primaries. Since it was mid-February now, fierce opinion polling should be underway ahead of both parties’ national conventions. He was curious about the progress. He also wanted to know what kind of people the candidates were, and whether this world would rush toward apocalypse in madness. Trying to predict it was impossible when he knew far too little.

“I’m sorry for making a personal request.”

“Not at all. Looking after the convenience of agents deployed to an operation is also the role of a supervisor. I’ll make a formal suggestion for the sake of the other personnel too. And...”

Joanna rolled some words around in her mouth, then shook her head.

“No, never mind. I’ll tell you if it works out.”

“...?”

Gyeoul wondered about it, but he did not press her.

The training area, which took up an entire floor, had several shooting ranges installed. Until the afternoon sun vanished beyond the Golden Gate, Gyeoul continued taking tests. He completed courses filled with obstacles and moving targets, including shooting while moving, changing magazines while firing, and switching weapons while firing.

In every test, Gyeoul broke the existing best records by a wide margin.

The hardest one was the shooting test conducted in a darkroom.

When he first entered, it looked like an ordinary shooting range. There were multiple moving targets hanging from rails. But when Gyeoul finished getting ready, Skyler and the others flipped on night vision goggles, and soon the room went black.

Then came the motor noise of targets moving. Skyler, acting as the instructor, spoke.

“In a moment, when the targets stop, the lights will come on for 0.5 seconds. There are three targets. Memorize their positions. After the light disappears, fire according to instructions.”

Clang. With the echoing sound, red light came on. 0.5 seconds really was only an instant. In that time, Gyeoul etched the revealed targets into his retinas. The gaps between them were irregular, and their heights differed.

The correction that helped here was 「Combat Sense」. 「Firearms Mastery」 only affected his ability to handle firearms, his accuracy, and the chance of a fatal hit.

“Stand by.”

Tension could be heard in Skyler’s voice. Someone approached. A person put a blindfold on Gyeoul. It was meant to keep him from confirming the targets through muzzle flash.

After enough time passed, the order came.

“Shooter, target one, fire!”

Bang! Gyeoul fired according to the sensation catching in his body. Even without visual correction like a line-of-fire warning, there was a sensation of his nerves being tugged when he aimed in the correct direction.

“Target three, target one, target three, target two, continuous fire, fire!”

Up to this point, it was easy. He fired the first shot at the same time as the command, then fired three more at the same interval. Between the metallic sounds of rolling casings, there was a suppressed groan. So he had shot correctly. Gyeoul lowered the muzzle and waited again.

The next condition was harder.

“Move three steps left, one step back.”

His corrections blurred. Gyeoul realized it through the dulling nerve stimulation. He was certain every bullet he had fired so far had struck a vital point on the targets, but from here on, it would be difficult. “Target two, fire!” After the command came, he took about one second to aim. Bang! A different reaction leaked out from before.

How far had that one strayed from the previous grouping?

After that, he moved several more times. Five steps right, three steps left again, one step forward, one step back... And shooting, shooting, shooting.

It was spatial awareness in the realm of genius, but the limit came quickly. Before even the tenth moving-fire instruction, all of Gyeoul’s corrections had been crushed down to the point where they might as well not exist.

“You may take off the blindfold now.”

It was Captain Fowler’s voice, not Skyler’s. After removing the blindfold, Gyeoul squinted at the light but checked the targets first. He wanted to measure his ability properly, after all.

“This one is at least human.”

The captain’s evaluation reflected the distribution of bullet marks exactly. Skyler marked numbers on each bullet hole based on the records. After the movement instructions began, the first shot to leave a vital point appeared on the third firing. A missed shot appeared on the fifth firing, and on the ninth firing, he fired three shots and not one of them even grazed.

I should engrave this into my body.

Gyeoul already considered his combat power strengthened enough. For the time being, this experience would be his limit. He did not know whether he would ever have a chance to use it in real combat.

Lieutenant Skyler, who was organizing the records, looked troubled.

He also heard mutters like, “This is exactly how I felt the morning I saw the news about corpses running around,” and, “For me, it was the day my wife, who was my girlfriend at the time, confessed she was pregnant. Truly horrifying.”

“We set the adaptation period at one week. But.”

The captain, speaking to Gyeoul, did not meet his eyes.

“Based on what you showed today alone, you’re more than capable of doing one person’s share. I’ll expect results in the field.”

“Thank you.”

Gyeoul bowed his head to the captain.

============================ Author’s Note ============================

#Q&A

Q. HanmoeSaram-nim: The winter solstice is my birthday... The gift from the Great Old One is really...

A. Mm... Then it can’t be helped. I’ll delay the end of the world a little more... How about Christmas? Humanity wandering around outside for no reason on Christmas deserves to be punished...

Q. Guaaaaak-nim: @Office of the President’s Chief of Staff (written that way, read as author-nim.) You worked hard. The president didn’t write that speech personally, did he?

A. Thank you. That makes it feel worth it. After writing the speech, it took about four hours to polish it. Haha.

Q. CyBac-nim: @While reading the speech, I didn’t really understand the part about “a fork between necessary evil and necessary evil.” What does it mean?

A. You can think of it as a fork where either path goes against your conscience. Choices where there is nothing but necessary evil.

Q. svjk-nim: By the way, are Danny Chen and Daniel Kwan the same person?

A. No. Daniel Kwan is a Chinese-American who was shot and killed during the riots. The newscaster mentioned him before the speech began.

Footnotes:

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