WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 173: Alliances and Maneuvering (8)

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Two days after the briefing, Lieutenant General Xieru summoned Gyeoul.

There was not much time left before the generals’ meeting.

Preparations had already been made. Chadwick had talked about patriotism and asked whether Gyeoul was ready to die, but apparently there was no way to simply leave him unattended. Or perhaps the boy officer had been tested only after countermeasures were in place from the start.

There was supposed to be another collaborator attending the meeting. Even Gyeoul did not know their identity. That collaborator was meant to believe they were America’s only asset. Judging by the tone and the circumstances, though, the person was likely a general-grade officer. Otherwise, they would not have the ability to help Gyeoul in an emergency.

While he was quiet in thought, Lieutenant General Xieru asked, “Are you offended, perhaps?”

Gyeoul shook his head.

“No. When we met before, you already said you would test my ability. I’ve been waiting to see when that would happen. I have no reason to be offended.”

They were on a passenger ship currently being used as a barracks. Kurt Lee’s verification would take place here. He still did not know how, but the general’s friendly attitude was no different from before.

“The men I’ve seen weren’t always like that. They wanted to be trusted blindly before offering any proof. In their minds, that was their pride.”

The general gave a twisted smile.

“Come to think of it, Christian scripture has a saying like that, doesn’t it? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Gyeoul nodded.

“I believe it was from the Gospel of John.”

Even without Intelligence correction, it was a phrase he had heard often. From the mouths of fanatics who distorted it however they pleased, regardless of its original meaning. From their cries. Faith as a means of fleeing reality.

“Oh my. That’s unexpected... No, considering the country where you grew up, perhaps it isn’t strange. Are you also a believer in Yesu, Jesus?”

In front of the general, who sounded both curious and cautious, Gyeoul immediately denied it.

“No. I went to church briefly when I was young, but only to fill my empty stomach. Even the small bit of faith I had died on the battlefield. If there were a god who loved humans, things like war should never happen.”

That was part of Kurt Lee’s prearranged setting. After a short pause, he added one more line.

“Still, these days, I sometimes feel like I want to believe.”

“To ask an absolute being for salvation?”

“No. I’m not that weak. Besides, after killing countless people, it would be laughable to hope for heaven.”

“Then?”

“I think it would be nice to have someone to resent. The world is too terrible. If there were a root cause behind all this, wouldn’t that at least make it easier on the heart?”

At that, the general laughed aloud.

“Different. You really are different. If only my subordinates were half like you.”

Then came a deep sigh.

“Wudoumi Dao, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, all sorts of heretical cults flourishing in a chaotic world... that much is hardly unfamiliar, but I never thought the same thing would repeat even after the Great Leap Forward. For someone who has to deal with them one by one, it is truly irritating. Each individual in the People’s Army must surely have been among the finest talent... It makes me wonder if the foundation of intelligence and philosophy humanity built up was truly this weak.”

“No, pretend you didn’t hear that.” The general’s face, as Gyeoul saw it, was colored by a deeper emotion than any expression he had seen from her before. Gyeoul understood that emotion well. Was it not a problem he himself had long worried about and dealt with in the Gyeoul Alliance?

As befitted a country with strong communist leanings, their faith in philosophy must have been greater than their trust in religion.

Even if folk beliefs and superstition were common, those belonged only to the realm of tradition and culture.

“Weakness is not a sin. But there must be a limit to how much someone else can take responsibility for them.”

That limit was ultimately the limit of human beings. A wall he wanted to overcome.

A gloomy smile appeared on the general’s lips as she sympathized.

“The line between a great person and a petty one must depend on where that limit lies. If I abandon them simply because it is difficult, then I too become the same kind of petty person as them. I will protect what is within my fence. Even if they go mad or fall ill, they are still my subordinates and my people.”

Twisted though she was, she had a strong character.

“What test will I be taking today?”

The general took the lead.

“Follow me.”

It must have been ordered in advance, but the guards protected the general and Gyeoul as equals.

The atmosphere changed with the floor. Dry air carrying a faint stench. Vivid bloodstains here and there. Bars fitted onto every cabin. A long howl coming from somewhere. Thanks to 「Tracking」, which automatically analyzed those clues, Gyeoul could tell that countless punishments, torture sessions, and other brutalities had taken place here.

Soon, an open space appeared. The sky was visible. The ceiling had originally been covered in glass, but after several places broke, it looked as if they had simply removed all of it.

Armed soldiers guarded key points around the plaza. One of the officers seated in the prepared chairs sprang to his feet. It was Lieutenant Colonel Tan Guosheng, the son of Lieutenant General Xieru. After saluting his mother with proper discipline, he greeted Gyeoul with open delight.

“You! It’s been a long time! Have you been well?”

Gyeoul returned a smile to his joy-filled face.

“Thanks to your concern, nothing much happened. How have you been, Lieutenant Colonel? I heard you suffered badly from illness after you returned.”

The young lieutenant colonel looked embarrassed.

“I suspect it was more an illness of the heart than the body. Holding funerals for my subordinates made it worse.”

The watching general said, “Lieutenant Colonel Tan Guosheng. This is not a private meeting. Return to your seat.”

“Ah...”

The young officer’s embarrassment deepened in a different way. But his mother’s attitude toward her son was as cold as ice and as firm as steel. It did not feel as though she was acting that way because others were watching. It felt like she drew a strict line between public and private matters.

Gyeoul looked at the center of the plaza. It had been enclosed with an iron cage. Thick glass had been set up on the side facing the assembled officers. At a glance, it was clearly bulletproof glass.

Lieutenant General Xieru said, “Those scumbags over there are the ones prepared for the test.”

Gyeoul answered, “I’m not some thrill killer.”

The method the general intended to use to test Kurt Lee needed no explanation. The sacrifices were chained to shackles welded to the deck. Thick chains that would not break even if shot limited their movement. Their permitted range was about one meter forward, back, left, and right.

In front of them lay various firearms, fully disassembled.

The reason they did not dare touch the weapons before their eyes was likely the snipers aiming at them.

The only table with neither firearm nor person was probably where Gyeoul would go.

“I don’t want my aide-de-camp to be a killer either.”

The general continued in a calm voice.

“Do you see that one there, the man with hair half brown and half black?”

In the direction she pointed was a haggard-looking former officer. Former, because his rank insignia had been ripped away. Still, there were small differences from an enlisted soldier’s dress uniform, making it possible to guess his previous status.

Judging by the way his hair was dyed, he must have lived in relative abundance until recently. Even if hair dye was not that rare in the waters off San Francisco, packed as they were with cargo ships, it was not something just anyone could use freely. It would be less a matter of supply rarity than of the organization’s atmosphere.

“That man raped five women and two men. What he did to the men wasn’t even driven by desire. He did it just for fun. He tormented them until they died from ruptured organs. Human scum.”

“...Is that so?”

“He committed countless other crimes as well, but he smoothed them over with the prestige of his older brother, a heavyweight in Tuanpai. Until now, I had no choice but to tolerate it while taking care of my people, but after the world became what it is, what reason is there to keep watching him run wild like a spoiled brat?”

Tuanpai was the abbreviation for the Communist Youth League. Within the Communist Party, where factional struggles were fierce, it could be called a powerful rising faction. After quickly reviewing the sociocultural background provided by expert-level 「Chinese」, Gyeoul studied the rest of the sinners.

The general noticed his shifting gaze and poured out a string of cynical venom.

“The curly-haired bastard beside him had the nerve to sell hailuoyin, heroin. They say he was only an intermediary who brought it in from overseas and passed it overseas again, but to dare sell drugs in this country, and opium at that. I once swore I would flay him myself.”

The general showed a strange patriotism even as she obsessed over her own fence, but Gyeoul felt it was understandable. The raw material for heroin was poppy. The same as opium. And in Chinese history, few events were likely as humiliating as the Opium Wars. It was also why China reacted so violently to drugs.

‘What was he really thinking?’

It was not just that he had no thoughts. It had to be seen as a serious lack of any sense of reality. Wealth and power had the ability to make a person stop being human. A misfortune that made someone unable to even realize they were becoming unhappy. They felt happy, but only drifted farther from true happiness.

Judging from the intense contempt the general revealed, it did not seem like a lie.

The horrible statements were not over yet.

“That mad woman there boiled and ate fetuses to nourish her body. And the balding middle-aged man in the back took bribes and tampered with supplies. Fake food was loaded for a long voyage, so what do you think happened? The soldiers nearly starved to death as a group. And yet all responsibility fell only on the producers and suppliers. Hmph, not even funny.”

The man she pointed at was the calmest among the sacrifices. Sometimes he glanced this way, and sometimes he focused on the pistol parts spread out before him. He had realized what sort of chance he would be given. Inside his head, the pistol’s complete disassembly and reassembly must have been repeating countless times.

“I understand why this unsettles you. Soldiers are different from murderers. War is a tragedy created by fools, but someone still has to fight. Is the willingness to answer for the stupidity of the government and the people with one’s life not a soldier’s honor and pride?”

The general spoke again.

“They deserved to die from the start. Even if you don’t kill them, they cannot leave this place alive anyway. Rather, because you are here, they have at least gained a chance.”

“I understand what you mean.”

“Once again, I ask for your understanding. Please don’t take offense at this test.”

“I’m satisfied just to receive this degree of special treatment from a general. However.”

“However?”

“There is one thing I’d like to ask.”

Lieutenant General Xieru looked puzzled at Gyeoul’s words.

“What is it?”

“Before I ask, I’d like you to know in advance that there is no malice in my question. I only want to know a little more about you, General.”

“I asked for your understanding, so you may ask for mine as well. But you want to know me?”

The general waited for the question with an intrigued air.

Was it an unnecessary question? Gyeoul’s doubt did not quite suit Kurt Lee. He also felt a pang of self-reproach, thinking he had been careless.

But after bringing it up, stopping here would be awkward. At last, Gyeoul opened his mouth.

“Are you different from them, General?”

Lieutenant General Xieru narrowed her eyes.

“What do you mean by that?”

Gyeoul showed her the watch he still carried, the gift he had received from her. The precisely interlocking precious metals glittered with astonishing variety even under the dim light. It was an object the CIA had struggled to inspect. A work of art that would be difficult to disassemble carelessly without a master craftsman.

“I heard you purchased this for sixty-four million yuan. I assume that was not your entire fortune.”

“Of course not. My wealth was greater than that.”

After a brief pause, the lieutenant general asked in return.

“Are you asking whether there was corruption in how I accumulated my wealth?”

“Yes.”

The general’s expression softened before Gyeoul’s immediate answer.

“That was not a difficult question. What a relief.”

Gyeoul added a few more words to clarify his intent.

“In this world, money can sometimes be someone’s life. Have you ever taken another person’s meal away, General?”

Then a faint laugh slipped from Lieutenant General Xieru.

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

#Q&A

Q. Erin’s Bard-nim: @This may be a minor nitpick, but did you really need to include the part about how in China, Balhae history and Korean Peninsula history are seen as mainland history...? It did not feel like a necessary impression.

A. It was meant to evoke the emphasis on loyalty as members of the same Chinese nation, but after hearing what you said, I realized some people might get heated over national sentiment, so I decided to simply edit it out.

Q. LewdDemonF-nim: @I went to the hospital, and luckily my friend caught it early, so they say treatment should be possible in most cases. Also, I’m infecting my friends with this novel. One of them has already been saved from Japanese anime.

A. No, wait a second. What do you mean, “infecting” them with this novel? This novel is a disease. Being infected is correct. That’s too much.

Q. KuroPai-nim: @The world outside the novel is sad, so if things get sad here too, most people won’t be able to endure it. But if the novel becomes sad, maybe reality will look happy.

A. A drastic cure...? Honestly, I do think the initial plan was better in terms of completeness, but it’s not as if I dislike the changed plan either.

Footnotes:

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