WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 234: Suspended Sentence (6)

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“What will happen to me?”

The prisoner asked, anxiety in his voice, but with a faint trace of hope as well. He wanted to be treated better than the other prisoners. Gyeoul calmly asked back.

“Do you think protecting the children gives you a free pass?”

“......”

Unable to say yes, the prisoner only looked wronged.

“What’s your name?”

“Manuel, Manuel Hayes.”

“Good, Hayes. Tell me why you were sentenced to death. You’d better not lie. I can ask them to look you up by prisoner number. If it turns out later that you deceived me......”

What would happen then? The casual tone frightened the prisoner even more.

“I k-killed someone.”

“I figured. Why?”

“I was hungry. No, I didn’t mean to kill him. I really, really didn’t mean to kill him, but he suddenly pulled out a gun, a g-gun, so on reflex I... the knife......”

“Skip the excuses. You were hungry?”

“Yes. Back then, how do I put it, I hadn’t eaten for so long that I lost my mind...... I couldn’t think about anything. Nothing except cheeseburgers. I don’t know why it had to be cheeseburgers, but that was all I could think about. And then that man went into his house, and he had a hamburger bag in his hand, and the smell...... Damn it, why the hell did that bastard leave his door unlocked...... Someone like you wouldn’t know what that feels like. How trash like me lived in the refugee zone......”

“You really think I don’t know? I came from a refugee background.”

Refugee was Major Han Gyeoul’s background, but his life before death gave the words an added truth. Illegal casinos ran on an independent Virtual Reality network, so ordinary households could not access them. His parents, who had left home dreaming of striking it rich, saw the empty Energy Pack boxes and their hungry children and said this.

Ah, I forgot.

“Who else did you kill?”

Gyeoul asked.

“If there were mitigating circumstances and your sentence still wasn’t reduced, there must have been a reason. Since it happened in a house, the second victim was probably family. Did you kill the whole family?”

Perhaps it hit the mark, because the prisoner, Hayes, could not lift his head. Still, he seemed to feel guilt.

“I killed the man, and then someone screamed. After I killed the woman, the kids...... Fuck, fuck, fuck! I chased them up the stairs, and those kids, those kids......”

After sobbing for a while, he confessed the rest like a man who had given up. He had tried to drag the bodies around and disguise it as a marital fight, but gave up halfway through. After eating the hamburger, he called the police on himself.

“Maybe because it was the first thing I’d eaten in days, fuck, I nearly died while they were taking me away. But the really fucked-up thing is, that hamburger was so damn good. Insanely good. It wasn’t a cheeseburger, but I didn’t care. It was the best hamburger and fries of my life. I swear, it was better than my mom’s cooking.”

Gyeoul had known the disaster refugees had it bad. He had also heard stories from the boys and girls in Fort Roberts’ civilian zone. People did not want to go east. Conservative attachment to their hometowns probably played a part, but the bigger reason was likely the refugee relief supplies distributed to citizens first.

The very fact that civilians remained on military bases inside the contaminated zone proved that the disaster refugee shelters beyond the blockade line were at capacity.

“Major. Can’t you just let me go? This place is gonna be empty anyway. I’ll stay quiet as a mouse. Even if you leave me here, I won’t last long, so just leave me. Please?”

The prisoner cried again, hoping for pity. His hands were tied behind his back, so his face was smeared with tears and snot. Gyeoul stopped walking and looked at him as he pleaded in a trembling voice.

“I know I’m fucking garbage. I know. But I killed four people and saved five, so maybe, just maybe, you could cut me a little slack, couldn’t you? I saved one more than I killed! If I get dragged off like this, I might get treated like a toy again and die like a dog...... Please, please......”

Gyeoul shook his head.

“Human lives aren’t addition and subtraction. Every person is irreplaceable.”

“So you’re saying no?”

“There’s no way to undo what you already did.”

“Fuck......”

“I wasn’t finished. It’s also true that you did something good, so I’ll try to make sure you aren’t treated unfairly. Even if your sentence is carried out in the end, I’ll make sure you don’t suffer any other pain until then. At least while your lives and deaths are in my hands, I’ll give you some consideration.”

“That’ll only be for a little while anyway......”

“I’m planning to make a proposal after we return.”

“What if they don’t accept it?”

“This is the best I can do. Don’t ask for too much.”

The prisoner sighed up at the sky.

But it was not a small possibility. Unless something changed, Gyeoul would be given an independent company. That was enough to take charge of prisoners. Of course, it would depend on how Colonel Rogers in Olema took it. He was stubborn and stiff, so he might tell them to kill them all immediately.

After ending the walk that had also served as an interrogation, Gyeoul borrowed a cigarette from Morales. He put it in the prisoner’s mouth and lit it for him. He even untied the prisoner’s hands for a short while. Coughing at his first smoke in a long time, the prisoner’s eyes reddened again. For anyone, the heaviest person to carry in their heart was themselves.

“Major. This is the duty rotation. I made sure one of our people is always included in each shift. It’s my turn now. Even if they’re police, trusting them blindly felt a bit risky. There are a few with military experience, though.”

Gyeoul checked the note Morales handed him. There were more people than expected. Weapons and military service status were also written beside the names. There were reservists too, so it did not seem like there would be any major issue.

“Looks fine. Run it like this.”

“Hoo-ah. If you get a break, go inside. Schultz got the TV in the first-floor quarters working. It’s satellite cable, and seeing hot ladies again after so long really got the blood pumping. Everyone’s probably already fired one off.”

Morales grinned like an accomplice. Gyeoul gave a vague nod. TV. He was curious about what was happening in the wider world. His view had been too narrow for too long.

After leaving Manuel Hayes with the sheriff and entering the clergy quarters, the people resting inside greeted him warmly. There was another reason they had been waiting so desperately for Gyeoul: beer. A small portion of airdropped supplies included alcohol. It was a measure taken with the emotional state of civilians isolated in the contaminated zone in mind.

Alejandro gave him a pleading look.

“Can’t we each drink just one bottle while off duty? I’m confident I absolutely won’t get drunk.”

Gyeoul nodded.

“Sure. But I’m going to watch the news.”

“......”

The three soldiers exchanged glances, then looked back and forth between the moaning man and woman on the screen and the crate of beer, conflicted. Their expressions were deadly serious. After whispering among themselves, Schultz carefully proposed.

“How about thirty minutes?”

“One hour.”

“Could we compromise at forty-five minutes......”

“One hour.”

“Important information like the war situation appears on the PDA anyway, so is there really a need to double-check it on the news......”

“One hour.”

“Then I think it would be better to increase the beer to two bottles.”

“No.”

Rank was tyranny. The team members accepted the deal with gloomy faces, grumbling that the beer was too expensive. The beer was already lukewarm too. Gyeoul paid them no mind and changed the channel. The numbers and functions were unfamiliar, so he fumbled a little, but it did not take long to find it. Alejandro pressed the stopwatch.

“......”

What came on was, unexpectedly, news from overseas.

「Breaking news from Russia. Ulyanovsk, one of the major bases on the Volga River quarantine front, is reportedly in danger of falling. Our correspondent at Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations, EMERCOM, will give us the details. Ms. Douglas? Can you hear us?」

「Yes, this is Hayley Douglas.」

「What happened? There were no problems at all until recently, were there?」

「That’s right. But the situation is always changing. According to the announcement by Minister of Emergency Situations Lieutenant General Alexander Yemilov, at 6:11 p.m. local time today, the collapse of the city’s outer defensive line was reported. Satellite images show the mutant horde numbers at least 200,000, and scattered troops and civilians are continuing a desperate fight.」

「Then has the city completely collapsed?」

「That was how it was initially reported, but it is not true. As you can see, Ulyanovsk’s city districts are divided around the Volga River. Since the two bridges crossing the river have been blocked, the eastern city district is still said to be safe. However, they say the number of citizens who failed to evacuate exceeds 100,000. The shock seems even greater because Russia had maintained the quarantine front in stable condition for some time. We will show you EMERCOM’s local situation broadcast directly.」

Next came footage taken from the sky. Judging by the blinking Cyrillic letters, it seemed to be transmitted by an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft. A city split by a huge river came into view. In the darkened city, the east side was lit by artificial lights, while the west side was stained by fires flickering here and there and by black smoke, forming a stark contrast.

“Whew, look at that. They’re packed in there. Russia’s hell too.”

Harper sighed and drank some beer.

Russia felt like it should always be a white northern country, but the scene on the screen was not like that. The area around the city was a vast green. It was full of neatly arranged farmland. Land that had once cultivated hope was now full of plague closing in from every direction.

The mutant horde was so huge that it was hard to even estimate the numbers. Special mutants with unfamiliar forms were mixed into the pack. Even from high above, the difference was clear. That side must have individuals with command ability too, because the overall movement had a clear purpose. Soldiers who had been firing from a rooftop down at the road looked up at the sky. They waved their arms desperately toward the camera. Behind them were civilians.

Alejandro said,

“Even looking at something like that, I don’t feel sad at all. I don’t know if it doesn’t feel real, or if I’ve just gotten used to it......”

The others all looked depressed too. Gyeoul held out the remote.

“I think maybe I shouldn’t have asked to watch this. I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting this kind of thing. Anyone can change it to whatever channel you want.”

No one took it. Schultz stroked the dog and answered.

“I’ll keep watching. It feels like a duty.”

“A duty?”

“Yes. Like we should cheer for those people...... Or maybe it isn’t duty, but fear. I keep wondering what we’ll do if we really are the only ones left in the world.”

The dachshund sensed the kindest soldier’s gloom and whined. It must have been washed in the meantime, because it looked quite clean. Its rough fur was still messy, but it looked almost like an entirely different dog than before.

Harper raised a question.

“But why are they showing that as is? Even we often cut out unfavorable content before broadcasting it, so Russia doing this feels really strange. It doesn’t suit them, I guess?”

Gyeoul thought he knew the reason.

“We got hit by nukes.”

“Huh? What does that have to do with it?”

“They must be worried support will shrink or get cut off. I know people were already saying things like, why are we helping other countries when it’s hard enough for us to survive? I don’t know for sure, but I think that opinion got much stronger after the nukes went off. That was one of the reasons I wanted to watch the news.”

American isolationism had a long history, even before the disaster.

There was no way Russia did not know about that current. Their embassy was still intact, and they would have spies too.

“Wow. Is that it? Hearing it now, it does kind of make sense...... But Major, you really think on a completely different level from someone like me. You must’ve been pretty good at studying when you were a student.”

Instead of answering, Gyeoul made an awkward smile and refused the beer offered to him.

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

#Q&A

Q. PAM: @With an interesting topic. Among future technologies, there are things like warp, right? For objects, if you break them down into particles and make all information identical at the fundamental unit, the function is the same, so they can be used. Then what about people? Memories and such would be identical, but you could also say the former me died and the later me is a different person. But if you examine continuity microscopically, every moment becomes discontinuous in the end. One common statement is that absolute evil may exist, but good does not. It contradicts things like the Bible, but anyway, evil is easy to define, while good is hard to define. The opposite of good is evil, but the opposite of evil may be another evil. For a person to discuss goodness seems arrogant, since it is hard even to know what goodness is. To put it in math terms, ideally it would be nice to compare sizes among integers, but in reality it feels like it happens among complex numbers, quaternions, or beyond, so equality signs exist and there may be some kind of relationship, but there are no inequality signs..

A. First, regarding continuity, if the AI becomes a new Han Gyeoul, I think the majority of you would feel, as you said, that the original Gyeoul had died. That is why I said it would not be a happy ending.

I think I mentioned this once before in a comment reply, but in the original plot, which I planned as half hope and half sadness, the Control AI was going to be destroyed. The subtitle was When the Star Falls.

So I did not think of a development where the Control AI replaces Gyeoul. Truly.

There are times when I’m surprised because the readers’ childlike innocence seems to overpower the author. :)

As for good and evil, I hope many of you will think about it in different ways. A text is completed when it reaches the reader.

Q. BlueWave2: Ah, continuity is an important topic... @There’s nothing super-scientific like the SCP Foundation in that world setting, right?

A. There is no such thing. But I, the author, am there.

Q. rumen: @Why do they make them do mine removal work? Because it obstructs the soldiers’ retreat?

A. It is work to secure a new supply route.

Q. LifeSaver: @Seeing talk about good and evil reminds me of Miracle in Cell No. 7, which I watched at dawn. The true story involved pressure from dictatorial power creating and pinning a false crime on someone... The injustice he cried out about through fifteen years of suffering was proven to be innocence, but while the people who created and dumped a nonexistent crime on him lived well, the person who suffered received no compensation at all. If that happens even in the Republic of Korea, there’s no way America doesn’t have things like that too, since plenty of people are accused and shot dead just because they’re black.

A. Shot dead... feels like a slightly excessive? unsuitable? expression. The statement that there must not be one wronged person even if it means letting ten criminals go is correct. It is also why more countries sentence people to death but do not carry out executions.

Q. Calpis: @If I could, I’d like to lock author in a studio apartment and make you do nothing but write lol So, coupon Throwing!

A. Thank you. But please don’t actually lock me up. I’m a creature that doesn’t go outside even if you don’t lock me up.

Q. Wipkiss: @Is the internet still alive in this world setting?

A. Yes. Connections to other countries are unstable, but the domestic network itself works very well.

Footnotes:

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