WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 237: Suspended Sentence (9)

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It was a night heavy with insomnia. Some were sick of waking again and again, only for the nightmares to resume the moment they fell back asleep. Others were too elated by the fact that they were finally safe to calm down. So the campfires beneath the night sky only multiplied. No matter how good the beds were, they said, this was better than being alone in the dark. There was even an Ensign who said they had grown so used to rough bedding that the soft blankets kept distracting them.

Late that night, a priest and a nun came looking for Gyeoul.

“Please let us help. There must be children here who need the Lord.”

Gyeoul, who had stayed awake to prevent accidents, readily accepted the request.

“Go ahead. It may be dangerous, so I will accompany you.”

The priest was one thing, but the nun was at risk. To soldiers caught in chaos, gender might be all they saw.

Quite a few soldiers gathered around. The priest prayed for them.

“Almighty and eternal Lord, You are the Creator of all things and the root of peace. As You watched over Abraham’s journey when he left his homeland, and as You kept his family safe, protect Your children who look to You at every moment as refuge from all hardship. Give them courage when they fight, comfort when they grieve, and let them return safely to the people they love. The heroes who have already departed this life will, through You, be free from the second death. Lead them from darkness into light. We ask this in the name of Christ. Amen.”

Not everyone gathered there had come with pure intentions. While the devout closed their eyes and clasped their hands, the contemptuous cast cold looks. Someone was even twirling a rosary around a finger. Judging by the fact that the soldier carried such a thing, there must have been faith there, and yet.

What should he do? Should he stop this even now? Gyeoul hesitated, but when he saw a soldier sobbing in the priest’s arms, he decided to stay quiet. In any case, as long as Gyeoul was watching, nothing too serious would happen.

The priest and the nun tried earnestly to comfort each person.

That meant they could not avoid pointed questions. The questioner was the soldier who had been spinning the rosary. The soldier wrapped it tight around one hand and grumbled, the other hand shoved into a pocket.

“Hey, Father. I’ve got a question. Why the hell did God make that goddamn plague?”

“……”

“I was taught, and I confessed too, that God is infinitely good and that all His works are good. Even when there were filthy, annoying sons of bitches everywhere, even when wars broke out every damn day, even when my shithead friend scammed me and ran off, I figured it was all part of the Lord’s holy will. But this really isn’t it, is it? I resented Him the whole time I was running. Tell me. I want to know how you’re keeping your faith, Father, and what you’d say to a bastard like me.”

It brought to mind the outcry the death row inmate had let loose underground. Were those fucking zombies part of the Lord’s providence too? Faced with the end, many people doubted the goodness of the Absolute.

One question spoke for many angry people. The priest’s face twisted with pain.

“May I speak for a moment?”

It was the nun.

“I understand your grief, brother. I have struggled with the same question myself. But this anguish was not truly new. As you said, and as you experienced, there was much evil in this world even before the Great Plague.”

She waited a moment. It gave the listener time to take it in, and it was also a way to soften hostility.

“I do not know if you have already seen it, but there is a phrase written on the stained glass of this cathedral. Lord, be praised through our sister water. It is a line from the Canticle of the Sun. Saint Francis, who composed that hymn, called the sky and earth, the moon and stars, the wind and clouds, fire and water, and even death itself brothers and sisters to us humans. Matthew 23:8 says that all of you are brothers, so Saint Francis was saying that not only people, but all things in the world are one within the Lord’s will.”

Gyeoul understood. So that was what it meant. Just then, a radio message came in saying that new personnel, Preventive Scalping teams who had been operating in other regions, had arrived. He quietly replied that they should be sent this way. He should have gone out to meet them, but he was worried about this place too.

The nun continued.

“And so that dreadful plague, too, must be within the Lord’s will. After long prayers and tearful pleas, I reached the conclusion that the Lord makes people righteous through suffering.”

“Fuck. What kind of bullshit is that……”

“Please listen a little longer, brother. Do you know Helen Keller? She was a person who could not see, could not hear, and could not speak for her entire life. She said this: the world is full of suffering, but it is also full of people who overcome it.”

“……”

“Romans says the same. 「But where evil abounded, grace abounded all the more.」 If you have had faith until now, you must have read the Book of Job. Job lost his property, lost his sons and daughters, and suffered an incurable illness himself. His friends condemned him. They said the Lord’s judgment is always righteous, so Job must have done something wrong. But as you know, Job had done nothing wrong.”

“……”

“It was a trial. Even after the Lord struck away everything Job had, Job kept his faith. Through that, his faith became more righteous than anything else. Because he overcame suffering. The Lord created evil, but evil itself was not His purpose.”

“Fuck……”

“The Lord gave suffering even to His Son. Jesus, nailed to the cross, said, My God, my God! Why have You forsaken me? I feel that this is where the people of the world stand now. I feel that now is the time to protect one another, forgive one another, and comfort one another…… If there is no threat, there is nothing to protect against. If there is no sin, there is nothing to forgive. If there is no sorrow, there is nothing to comfort. People’s nobility becomes clear only when they face suffering.”

Then she ended with a sigh.

“Under the Lord’s grace, we are people who overcome.”

Gyeoul did not know whether this truly aligned with Catholic doctrine. But given how heartfelt and polished her words were, this was not a conclusion she had reached after only a day or two of thought. Considering the nature of this world, anyone with faith had no choice but to wrestle with their own questions.

To Gyeoul, who had come from a world of people who had not overcome, it was simply a beautiful story.

‘Looks like there’s no God in the outside world……’

He had told Schultz before. He wanted to believe, but he did not. It was hard to hope that the people living outside, the audience who so easily despised one another and found one another filthy, would overcome anything now. A dystopia of people who did not empathize. Unless a miracle happened, people would not become happy.

It was a thought Gyeoul had had once before. Had there been some branching point in the past? A moment when rampant hatred and contempt crossed an irreversible threshold?

Chak. The soldier holding the rosary lowered their head.

“Damn it. I’m saying I can’t believe, even if I want to.”

The priest said, “Simply be faithful to life. Treasure your comrades, love your family, and protect yourself. Then someday, the Lord will answer you through the shape of this world, through the result.”

Then he looked at Gyeoul.

“It was the same here. The people trapped underground had lost hope. They were about to do things no one should do as human beings. I asked them to wait for rescue at least until tonight, but even that became precarious. That was when Han Gyeoul knocked on the door. At the very moment they were about to kill one another.”

The newly joined soldiers were hearing what had happened in the underground shelter for the first time. Their gazes turned to Gyeoul. I don’t believe in God, though. Gyeoul stayed silent. If even wind and clouds, fire and water were said to be God’s will, whether one had faith or not probably did not matter.

“If the Lord had intended only to give suffering to the world, He would not have sent someone like Han Gyeoul. I believe the Lord is a righteous judge.”

A Captain standing nearby said quietly, “I only heard the second half, but that was quite an interesting story.”

Gyeoul greeted them.

“Both of you, welcome. I am Han Gyeoul.”

“Is there anyone who doesn’t know that? Tanner Long, Alpha Team.”

Alpha Team referred to a combat unit of the Army Special Forces, the Green Berets. The Lieutenant standing beside him saluted next.

“George Palmer, from the Ranger Regiment reconnaissance Company.”

Though they had been deployed to the same operation, the two gave off completely different impressions. It was hard to chalk it up to a simple difference in rank. The thick-bearded Alpha Team leader was somewhat imposing. Not on purpose, but as if the man himself had been built that way. Lieutenant Palmer, on the other hand, had a more restrained air.

Did that reflect the different nature of their missions?

“If you are Rangers, do you happen to know anything about Captain Emmert?”

“Captain Emmert? Is that man a Ranger too?”

“Yes. He is the Delta Company commander of the 2nd Battalion, and I heard he recently tracked a Humpback.”

“Ah, that…… I’m sorry. Our stations were different from the start. I heard the Major and our regiment had some connection, but it seems you were close enough to ask after him separately.”

The Lieutenant showed a faint smile. Beyond the fatigue he could not hide, there was goodwill and pride.

“Ahem. Let’s not stand around doing this. Let’s sit somewhere and talk. I can see some alcohol over there too. Major, may I give the kids a little? And if you don’t mind, we’ll have a drink too. To commemorate the end of the hunt.”

His voice sounded like a sandstorm scraping against rock. Captain Long pointed at a crate with whiskey left inside.

“Go ahead. Everyone must have had a hard time today.”

He was not the person to ask about casualties. If they wanted to talk about it, they would bring it up themselves.

“Major, you look a lot gentler than the rumors say. I wondered if you’d be different in person.”

Rough. But to a Green Beret Captain, Gyeoul might not look that impressive. No matter how excellent his record was, it would be hard to easily accept a superior officer with less than a year of service.

That did not mean he was being openly rude. Some feelings could not be helped by reason. It was probably closer to resentment or self-loathing. Without saying much, Gyeoul shook the bottle. The Captain held out a glass with a reluctant look. Glug, glug, glug. The campfire burned inside the amber liquor.

After Gyeoul filled Palmer’s glass too, the Captain gestured. Give me the bottle.

“You should have a glass too, Major.”

“I do not like alcohol much.”

“Huh. What man backs out in a place like this? An officer who doesn’t drink life isn’t an officer.”

With a half-formed smile, Gyeoul held up his glass. The Captain filled it almost to overflowing.

This would make it impossible to maintain combat ability. Even as he thought that, the glass was already in his hand.

“To friends who have gone.”

After giving a toast on his own, the Captain threw back his glass in one go. Then he looked at Gyeoul, so Gyeoul tilted his head slightly and emptied his glass in one swallow too. Huh. As the Captain looked bewildered, Gyeoul showed him the empty glass.

“I am an officer.”

That was probably the right thing to say.

Captain Long went huh once more, then took hold of the bottle.

“I will decline a second glass. I am responsible until we return.”

Even now, his vision was slightly distorted. The reproduced drunkenness did not paralyze Gyeoul’s thinking, but of course it caused problems for 「Insight」 and 「Perception」, the other sensory corrections, and the body’s fine movements.

“How exemplary.”

The Green Beret commander and the Ranger traded drinks.

The Green Beret, who had been about to ask something about the operation, spotted a child peering down intently from a nearby window. To a young child, even exhausted soldiers seemed to make for a curious sight.

“Hey! Little lady! What’s the name of that teddy bear?”

The child took one step back at the rough man’s rough shout, hesitated a little, then answered primly.

“A stuffed animal is just a stuffed animal. Why would it have a name? I’m not a baby!”

Then she turned away. The way she ran was visible through the row of windows along the hallway, almost like a panorama. The Green Beret smacked his lips.

“Damn. So it wasn’t just my daughter who was cheeky. Girls, I swear.”

Lieutenant Palmer burst out laughing.

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

#Q&A

Q. AngelCountry: So they just gathered them at an intermediate collection point. The problem is supplies. How are they going to supply that place? And does the doggy not have a name? I feel like they would have named it.

A. The doggy’s name is... I don’t know. Should we make it Hot?

Q. Kyogre: @If you want to eat a million a day, would you need enough compression force to turn carbon into diamond? LOL

A. The black hole each of you has in your stomach is enough.

Q. Pare: @If Gyeoul goes to Russia, will a pretty blonde woman be assigned as his interpreter?

A. In Russia, all communication can be replaced with vodka, so interpreters are unnecessary.

Q. KTH: One micro is 10^(-6), or one millionth. An engineering student’s nitpick. lol

A. The funny thing is, I wrote it like that while thinking “ten to the negative sixth power.” Negative six. Six digits. One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, hundred thousand...

Everyone! This is the reality of a liberal arts student who gave up on math!

Q. contrabassist: I came back after a long time and read straight through. I saw volumes 1 and 2 of Ossuary at the bookstore and bought them, which reminded me of it. I have a question. You use commas a lot. Is that a habit, or intentional? There are a great many in places where they shouldn’t be. I feel like the commas hurt readability.

A. I write that way on purpose. I will review it.

Footnotes:

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