WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 333: Snowfield Fox
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Go Ah-young had always been lonely. On the night mother’s infidelity was discovered, six-year-old Ayoung had stood alone in the snow-covered garden, and her father, Go Geon-cheol, had become a tyrant beyond all return. The children who had been her brothers and sisters until then vanished from her life because they had different biological fathers. There had been times when she missed them enough to cry, but now they were nothing more than faded memories.
Her memories of mother were even worse. The year she turned twenty, Ayoung was not surprised to realize she could no longer remember the woman’s name. Her father had erased every trace of mother when Ayoung was still small. Even families separated in childhood often forgot one another’s names, did they not? If she tried hard enough, she felt she might be able to recall it, but Ayoung saw no reason to. Even if she did not exactly sympathize with her father, mother was enough as 「that woman」.
Even so, the sight of the garden blanketed in white on the night everything began to go wrong remained strangely vivid. The heat of her pretty mother and handsome uncle tangled together, panting. The outside world she had fled to from that hot indifference. There, winter had been so clear and still. The girl had thought it felt as though she had come to another star. It was the last time she had dreamed.
Looking back, her heart was still there.
After that, Ayoung was the tyrant’s daughter, and that fact trapped her. No one approached her easily, and no one dared come close. The doll she sometimes spoke to became, at some point, an ugly thing gathering dust. After that, she wrote in a diary. It was a conversation with herself.
Still, there had been moments in her life when her loneliness briefly broke.
The first was when she gave birth to her child. Her marriage had been her father’s tool, but the baby was her joy. Holding that newborn warmth in her arms, Ayoung felt tearful relief before she felt anything like maternal love. Now I won’t be lonely. Now I won’t be lonely...
The second was when she met a boy she wanted to befriend. The boy’s name was Gyeoul, and his heart was winter too. Ayoung wished Gyeoul would not be hurt. Apart from their worst possible first meeting, she felt an indescribable kinship with him, as though she were looking into a mirror. Before it was comfort for the boy, it was pity for herself. After all, the one in the mirror was herself.
The boy had an impressive stillness to him. A clarity she had never felt from anyone else. The way he saw the world was clear and clean as well. However filthy the world might be, once snow fell, it became pure white.
But the baby was taken by her father, and the boy rejected her.
After that, Ayoung was alone again. Her social position was nothing but a shell, and a mother whose baby had been taken hostage could not escape her prison. Passing her days in helplessness, Ayoung began writing in her diary again, just as she had before.
Most days, three or four lines were enough. Her schedule was not busy, and what little happened was nothing special. Most of the time, she finished in seconds with 「Teletype」 and felt empty afterward.
Today was different.
While she was writing, sentences that had not been in her mind surfaced in a rush. At first, she thought it was her subconscious. There were moments when the 「Teletype」 module caught thoughts even she had not noticed. It happened more often when the sensitivity setting was raised on the best equipment. For Ayoung, this was sometimes a way to kill time. So there are things like this inside me, she would think.
But when she read the sentence, a chill ran down Ayoung’s spine.
「Go Ah-young. Do you want to take back your child?」
It was rare for the subconscious to form a coherent sentence. Rarer still for that sentence to refer to her as if she were someone else. And beyond even that, there was one decisive abnormality.
The sentence would not erase.
Delete, delete, delete. Even though the interface read brainwaves and responded to will, the letters on the paper-like graphic showed no sign of disappearing.
「It is no use.」
Someone beyond the letters spoke.
「Do not be shaken. I am not your enemy. I have no intention of harming you. Rather, I wish to help you. We will come to need each other.」
Polite words crossed her corneal display.
Ayoung trembled faintly and immediately lowered 「Teletype」’s sensitivity. Now only focused surface consciousness would be recognized as sentences. She could not afford to be exposed to the other side without any defense. Fortunately, the sensitivity option worked normally. That meant control had not been taken from her completely.
‘Even so, there really aren’t many people who could do something like this...’
Ayoung was the Chairman of Paradise Group, if only in name. Her terminal was therefore designated as a highest-grade protection target. Still, under Paradise Group’s internal regulations or related laws, a small number of people did exist who could conditionally bypass the Trinity Engine’s security.
Even they could not look into Ayoung’s terminal whenever they pleased. Legally, in particular, a warrant had to be issued first. Otherwise, the law would have to be revised to ignore personal information. The control personality of Afterlife Insurance itself had been designed to obey the law.
Had powerful figures in politics secretly made some move to shake Go Geon-cheol?
Or was the hound entrusted by the tyrant with watching his daughter playing a prank? Special Secretary Kang Young-il was fully capable of that. Capable enough to find amusement in watching a mother miss her child.
All kinds of suspicions flashed through her in that brief moment. Ayoung even considered an operation by a foreign intelligence agency. There had been no precedent for it, but who knew? Major advanced nations had invested in artificial intelligence for a long time. They also wanted to bring down the Trinity Engine.
Ayoung activated a security system independent of her terminal. The conversation was recorded. At the same time, a circular icon indicating tracking spun round and round. It did not look likely to finish soon. She had to attempt a conversation, if only to buy time.
「Who are you?」
At Ayoung’s question, the other side answered right away.
「I cannot tell you my identity now. You are wary of me, are you not? First, we must build mutual trust. The serious conversation, including who I am, will come after that.」
「Trust? How can I trust someone trying to threaten me with my child?」
「You misunderstand. I am not trying to threaten you. I am trying to help you.」
「Don’t joke with me. You must have approached me because there’s something you want.」
「Of course. There is something I would like you to do for me. But that comes later. I mean that I will not use your child as bait.」
The unwavering politeness scraped at her nerves. Ayoung bit her lip.
「For now, you’re saying you’ll help me without conditions? So I can take back my child?」
「That is correct. As I said, trust between us comes first.」
「What if I refuse your request later?」
「That will not matter, though the possibility of it actually happening is extremely low. What I want is something you will want as well. I understand the person you are well enough.」
At the part about understanding her well enough, goosebumps rose over her once again. There were two possibilities. Either they had been watching her through physical means, or her computer security had been breached long ago. If it was the latter, the other side must have grasped every detail of Ayoung’s daily life. The corneal display was also an input device. They might have shared her field of vision not only when she used her diary, but even when she changed clothes or showered.
「How long have you been watching me?」
Perhaps detecting the displeasure in her question, the other side’s response was slow and careful.
「You must feel offended. I understand. But it was unavoidable. For your sake, for mine, and for the sake of your child and others as well.」
It was not an answer to what she had asked. Ayoung narrowed her eyes and thought, then asked something else instead of pressing the point.
「Who do you mean by others?」
「That is still a secret.」
「I suppose it has something to do with your goal?」
「That is correct. I hope you will not ask beyond that.」
The answer dragged its feet to the very end. It could have been intentional theater, but if it was sincere, it carried real meaning. The other side had said Ayoung would want what they wanted. In other words, Ayoung also knew those people. It was a maze made of language.
‘Who is connected to me?’
The one who came to mind immediately was none other than Gyeoul. Surely it would not be her father. But the other side had used the plural, “people.” There was no one particularly close to Ayoung, and no one else distant but dear to her either, so no matter how much she thought, no answer came.
As her silence stretched on, the other side’s text updated.
「I also need trust. I will tell the future you everything. But the current you carries an element of uncertainty.」
After gathering her thoughts, Ayoung consciously tried to keep herself sharp.
「Fine. Then let’s confirm something else. Do you know where my child is?」
「I do. I will show you directly.」
Show me? Ayoung had just begun to wonder what that meant when, in the next moment, she forgot to breathe. An image formed on her retina. Her child was inside a Virtual Reality childcare pod. The child’s closed eyes looked peaceful, as if asleep, but there was no way to tell whether the baby was actually napping or playing with the virtual Go Ah-young. It was what she had expected, but Ayoung felt her vision blur and sorrowful anger rise in her throat. The image and text on her retina scattered into watery color.
Ayoung sincerely despised people who had children only for financial reasons. And Virtual Reality childcare pods were precisely the childrearing method favored by such people. Worse, the usage fee was added to the total child support and became debt the child would have to repay one day.
But parents of this era did not care. To them, a child’s value was nothing more than the sum of tax cuts and monthly subsidies. Some did not even realize they were doing anything wrong.
Suppressing the emotion surging inside her, Ayoung wondered again about the other side’s identity.
‘How on earth? Father’s handling of this shouldn’t be that sloppy.’
Go Geon-cheol had described her child as a safety device. Since control of Afterlife Insurance was at stake, he would have been that careful. The suspicion that this might still be a trap circled through her mind, but her heart kept leaning toward accepting the risk. After hesitating, Ayoung asked.
「Do you have a plan for after my child is recovered? If Father notices, it won’t be a small problem. Everything will come to nothing. And that’s if it ends there.」
「I believe what I can do should be sufficiently clear from what I have shown you so far. But there is room for concern. Namely, if Chairman Go Geon-cheol tries to physically check your child. Even if I hack the corneal display, I cannot deceive touch or weight.」
「Then?」
「I intend to move another baby who looks as similar as possible into that childcare pod.」
Revulsion surged in Ayoung’s heart. It felt as though another person’s baby was being used as a tool. A child who had probably not even received their parents’ love.
As if guessing this, the other side added immediately.
「I am certain that no harm will come to that baby. If your father tries to harm the child, I can remove him as a last resort. I will also prepare the means to do so. Even if it disrupts the original plan. You would not oppose that.」
“...”
The unidentified party was saying shocking things far too easily. They would kill the ruler of Hyeseong and Paradise. Surely they knew how thorough the security around him was... If they said it knowing that, it was even more frightening. It meant no one in this country was safe.
And what was this plan supposed to be?
「What are you, really?」
The answer to her question returned as the exact same question from the beginning.
「Go Ah-young. Do you want to take back your child?」
“...”
Ayoung turned her gaze. The circle showing that tracking was in progress was still spinning. It felt like a meaningless empty rotation.
「Soon, I will send someone to help you during the process of recovering your child. They are a highly capable agent, so you will be able to rely on them in many ways. Until then, please live as usual. Let us end today’s conversation here. Stay healthy in both body and mind.」
With that one-sided notice and farewell, the other side erased the sentences.
Ayoung wrapped both hands around her shoulders and groaned.
Footnotes:
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