WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 186: Under Black Water (4)

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“What would it mean to you if I killed Anne?”

[No need to overthink it, Lieutenant. It is only a proposal that we become comrades.]

“Comrades?”

[Yes, comrades. Honestly, you and I are closer to enemies right now, are we not? In a situation like this, sharing a secret is the surest way to build trust. A secret that must never be revealed to the outside world. Since you already know one of my secrets, if I come to know one of yours, that should balance things out. I am saying we should create that secret. It also gets rid of the witness.]

“....”

[The scene of you shooting Miss Gibson will be transmitted to Langley by satellite. The face is a problem, but that can be edited.... Then I will attach suitable context before and after it and use it as a safety measure. It is good for both of us.]

“I don’t know. I think that should be called being accomplices rather than comrades.”

Gyeoul immediately rejected his own words.

“No, not accomplices. Slave would fit better. Your secret, Team Leader Chadwick, will burn away here, but the wrong I commit will remain.”

For a boy trying to protect his heart, this had never been a crossroads where hesitation was possible.

“Do I want to live? After killing someone I should not kill, and acting as a puppet whose weakness has been seized? No, I do not want to live that way. I will not become Han Gyeoul without Han Gyeoul.”

That was how fragile Gyeoul felt. He had been at his limit for a long time. If he collapsed even a little, there would be no turning back. That was why there could not be a single exception when it came to protecting his heart.

[Oh dear. Lieutenant, you are misunderstanding me.]

Chadwick grew even more serious.

[A puppet? I swear on everything I have. That will never happen.]

“You are not telling me to believe that right now, are you?”

[I am not joking, Lieutenant.]

What followed was unexpectedly sincere.

[Why do you think I am making this proposal? To use you? No. It is simply because I want to save you. Because America needs you, and nobody else can replace you!]

As if his personality had changed, the crooked patriot poured out his patriotism.

[Regrettably, countless tortures taught me just how important hope is to people. To American citizens right now, and to the military personnel on the quarantine front, how much hope do you think you represent, Lieutenant? And you expect me to kill that many people’s hope with my own hands? Ha, don’t make me laugh.]

“I suppose the people lying dead here are not people.”

[At least they are not American citizens.]

“You really are insane.”

[Correct. I am not sane.]

Chadwick’s tone changed again.

[But my country, surrounded by enemies, needed someone like me. It trained me to become this way. And I volunteered even knowing I would stop being human. I have never once regretted that decision. If anything, I was always proud of it. Because every sacrifice I made was for national security.]

“....”

[Things the government can never do, but must still be done. Handling such things is the role of trash like me. Human experimentation is the same. Do you think I do not know that infecting innocent men, women, children, and the elderly alive, dissecting them, shooting them, and disposing of them is a terrible sin? I know. I know better than anyone that what I am doing is no different from those Nazi bastards. But if you are researching a disease that infects only people, using people as test subjects is the most effective way, is it not?]

“....”

[I swear, I have no intention of taking my sins to the grave. One day, American justice will judge me. The verdict will be death. I will gladly pay for my crimes. For my country, I do not mind if my soul falls into hellfire. Because I am the sinner, America will remain honorable.]

Hoo. The sigh breathed into the microphone from the other side spread into rough static. That harsh sound carried the feelings of a patriot who knew he was insane.

[After I die, my grave will be buried under the trash people throw on it. But I am not Stalin. I do not hope the winds of history will clear that trash away. To me, Nathan Chadwick, a filthy grave will be a pride like no other.]

Self-absorption so deep there was no answer to it. Gyeoul judged that conversation would be meaningless.

Chadwick sobbed in a new voice.

[I beg you, Lieutenant. Do not make me abandon you. A patriot like you must not die pointlessly in a place like this. The only death that suits you is an honorable death in battle.]

It was still madness, but unexpectedly, Joanna nodded.

“Gyeoul, look at me.”

She continued in a calm manner, her tone steady.

“You do not need to give any weight to the bullshit from that bipolar idiot bastard, but one thing is true. Gyeoul is not someone who should die here. People need Lieutenant Han Gyeoul.”

“Anne.”

Gyeoul shook his head with more meaning than words, but the FBI agent’s posture did not waver.

“Operation Manifest Liberation has effectively failed. The immediate task now is not retaking the contaminated zone, but safely withdrawing troops whose supplies have been cut off. An army without ammunition has combat capability only slightly better than a group of ordinary civilians.”

She was speaking of the hope the madman had discussed.

“I do not know how many casualties there will be from now on. Hundreds would be a miracle, and thousands would still be fortunate. But the Department of Defense is preparing for losses in the hundreds of thousands as a broad estimate, and more than that in the worst case. Many people will despair. Manifest Liberation gathered that much expectation.”

“I understand what you are trying to say, but....”

“Please keep listening.”

Joanna cut the boy off.

“At a time like this, Gyeoul must not disappear too. Gyeoul is already an unprecedented war hero. Even the bigots in backwater Texas towns that still hang Confederate flags pay respect to Lieutenant Han Gyeoul. Your death would leave a shock that would make Werther’s suicide look laughable. Maybe, although the chance is low, it might even change whether the quarantine war succeeds or fails.”

Werther’s suicide. Werther was only the protagonist of a novel written by Goethe, but his suicide produced countless copycat suicides. Because that many people had given their hearts to a fictional character, projected themselves onto him, and even accepted him as part of themselves.

The bonds people formed did not always care whether the other person was real.

Could a bond someone would stake their life on be called fake?

Perhaps listening to this conversation, the madman remained quiet beyond the static.

“When Kurt Cobain died, some FBI investigators went on emergency duty.”

Joanna gave a gloomy smile.

“An individual’s suicide is a relatively mild case. Aimless unrest that follows a famous person’s death. Crime. Terror. The citizens’ sense of loss that causes all those phenomena. That is an enormous cost paid by society as a whole. But Gyeoul’s popularity... No, even calling this popularity would be inappropriate. Gyeoul’s public esteem is unmatched. It makes a single rock star look insignificant.... At this point, I cannot even guess what chaos Gyeoul’s death would create.”

Whether it would pass without incident, or become the beginning of a total catastrophe. The future was a realm of unsettled fortune and misfortune. That was what she was saying.

From Gyeoul’s position too, the world did not end immediately after he died. Through the Situational Computation of the control personality, even after his death, the world would continue flowing toward the apocalypse. Rarely, and though Gyeoul had never experienced it, he had heard there were cases where a world whose connected user vanished avoided the apocalypse.

Through that entire process, the connected user’s contribution was evaluated.

“Kill me, Gyeoul.”

Joanna spoke calmly.

“What you fear will not happen. Gyeoul is an important enough person, and the Department of Defense regrets lending Gyeoul to this operation. In other words, from now on, you will rarely have reason to leave the quarantine front.”

“....”

“The higher Gyeoul’s reputation rises, the more attention every kind of agency will focus on you. It is embarrassing to say this, but just as our Bureau and the Intelligence Agency do not get along, the intelligence agencies under the Department of Homeland Security do not consider one another allies. That means the already weakened Intelligence Agency... much less some rogue private faction inside it, will no longer be in any position to play tricks. A secret? Tell them to go ahead and reveal it. The White House will not sit still, for starters.”

As Gyeoul stared at her, she let the strength leave her shoulders and smiled softly.

“It is okay to go back now.”

“To where?”

“To the people you were taken from against your will.”

To the story Gyeoul himself had built up.

Those words matched the gloomy thoughts he had often carried until now, and Gyeoul’s face hardened. It felt as though this world was reading what was inside him. No, surely not. The unseen child could not intervene this way.

“Lieutenant Han Gyeoul. It was an honor to be with you until now.”

The FBI agent said farewell. With the detachment of someone putting life in order without regret.

“Please. Shoot.”

She looked straight at him and spoke.

“You do not need to feel guilty. This situation is only an unfortunate accident. So do not think that Gyeoul is killing me. Think that I am dying for Gyeoul. Not for Gyeoul alone, but for the many citizens who have placed their hope in Gyeoul.”

Clap, clap, clap. Applause came from the speaker.

[Gibson. In the end, you were a patriot too.]

The madman babbled in excited sorrow.

[What a shame. What a real shame. Why did our paths have to diverge like this? If there were any way to set up insurance, I would want to save you somehow. Hey, Anne. Have you committed any crimes before? Diverted drugs at the border, maybe, or looked the other way on illegal entry and taken bribes?]

Things that happen often in the Bureau, I mean. The madman casually picked up her nickname as he spoke, and Joanna’s eyebrow twitched, but her answer was calm and cold.

“I have not. Unlike someone else, I have not lived a filthy life smearing shit on my country’s name.”

After that, Joanna urged Gyeoul on without words. She nodded and closed her eyes. Her chin and shoulders trembled faintly from fear of death, but she was forcing it down through willpower.

Gyeoul stared at her in silence. After a moment, he let out an unguarded laugh.

“Why are you acting like everything has already been decided? Without even listening to me.”

“...Gyeoul?”

The agent opened her eyes and studied the boy officer. She seemed cautious. As if she had sensed the emotion beyond his laughter.

Gyeoul heard the auditory hallucination of a stone rolling inside his body. He had held back so much until now. From the virtual personalities he thought of as people, to the self-proclaimed counselor who had come to him feeling sorry, he had given his overflowing emotions to nobody because that was the choice he made to protect himself.

Because all it takes to bring down a dam is the first overflow, a mere handful of water.

For some reason, he felt tired. The boy tilted his head. Without him realizing it, because of such a trivial trigger, the fatigue piled inside him seemed to have reached a critical point. He must have been drawn too taut all this time.

[Lieutenant Han Gyeoul. Surely you do not intend to ignore such noble self-sacrifice?]

With unfeigned irritation, Gyeoul aimed his pistol at the closed-circuit camera. Bang! Shattered glass rained down. The ejected casing bounced up, then rolled across the ground.

Gyeoul slowly shook his head at Joanna, who was trying to speak urgently and painfully.

“I can’t shoot. It is not that I will not. Do not ask me to do something impossible for me.”

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

Q. Calpis: What about hiring Ada as a mercenary?

A. Connecting it to the Resident Evil world setting is a little... haha. Well, the monsters over there and Morgellons mutants do have a similar feel. That place has long since gone beyond ordinary zombies too.

Footnotes:

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