WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 388: Change (5)
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On election day, after an early meal, Gyeoul prepared for combat for the first time in a while. The war heroes were scheduled to patrol individually near polling stations, encouraging citizens to vote. The weight of his vest, packed with full magazines, and his body armor felt satisfying, but Gyeoul still had one small worry.
‘I hope this doesn't just make people more anxious for no reason.’
If encouragement was the only goal, wearing Dress Blue with medals would have been better. He had heard that opinion had actually come up, as a way to show that order had been restored. Even so, the higher-ups, probably the White House command room, had decided to arm the war heroes.
He understood why. At this point, they were reluctant to ignore even the smallest risk. Gyeoul checked his rifle and inserted the magazine. A crisp metallic sound rang out as he chambered a round. He left the selector on safe. Anne, watching with her arms crossed, looked worried.
"Are you really all right? Does the fracture hurt?"
They were still in the hospital. Gyeoul answered honestly.
"It's a little uncomfortable."
"Then-"
"But I can move around fine. I'll have to be careful, though."
That was both Gyeoul's judgment and the doctor's diagnosis. The bone had not fully knit yet, but as long as he avoided strenuous exercise, he could return to daily life. All his wounds other than the fracture had healed. A relaxed patrol on horseback was well within what he could handle.
Anne let out a dissatisfied sigh.
"You have to tell me if it gets hard."
"I will."
Even her concern was sweet. Gyeoul smiled and gestured outside with his chin.
"Let's go."
They headed together to the underground parking lot. Xcel, who had been waiting there, welcomed his rider. After hugging his neck and patting him calm, Gyeoul looked at Manuel Hayes, who had brought Xcel over.
"It's good to see you safe. I heard you went through a lot."
"Yes..."
"Thank you for protecting Xcel. It makes me think all over again that saving you was the right decision."
At Gyeoul's words, the death-row inmate bit his lip. His face looked as though he was struggling to hold back a surge of emotion.
When the rebellion broke out, the trailer carrying Xcel had been caught in a traffic accident in front of the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. An armored Cadillac from some government-in-exile had slammed into the passenger side. The officer riding along to supervise him had died instantly. Normally, there would have been at least one patrol car in front or behind, but not then. One prisoner, doing a peculiar kind of forced labor as a public spectacle, had been left alone like that.
"Let me ask you one thing."
Gyeoul tilted his gaze toward him.
"Why didn't you run away?"
There had been plenty of room to escape. The dead officer had the key to his shackles and a weapon. As a death-row inmate with no future promised to him, disappearing at the first opportunity might have been the better choice than continuing to play herdsman with no idea when it would end.
Even so, Hayes had not abandoned Xcel until the last moment. He had hidden in the Thomas Jefferson Memorial, protected Xcel, and waited for the chaos to pass. Once the situation had settled, he had gone to the police on his own.
Gyeoul had already read the statement included in the report, but he wanted to hear the answer in Hayes's own voice.
There was a reason for that.
Hayes answered with the cowed manner of someone with low self-esteem.
"I wanted to try acting like a person."
"Acting like a person?"
"I'm kind of ignorant... so it's hard to explain properly... but I felt like if I ran away there, I'd never get another chance. A chance to be, uh, proud of myself..."
His voice lost confidence and shrank as he went on. Even so, Gyeoul recognized the thirst in it. Hayes wanted to be acknowledged. He wanted to affirm himself. Gyeoul pointed that out.
"So did you get anything out of it?"
"What do you mean by get..."
"A sense of accomplishment. The feeling that you'd done something."
"..."
Hayes watched his reaction, then hesitantly nodded. Gyeoul patted his shoulder.
"Have confidence. At the very least, I'm grateful to you."
The prisoner's eyes reddened.
To tell the truth, Gyeoul was not the only person who saw him that way. Other citizens had also hidden in the memorial where he took shelter, that temple dedicated to a Founding Father. Crouched in fear, they had asked the prisoner what he was doing there. The prisoner had answered that he was keeping Lieutenant Colonel Han Gyeoul's word. That exchange was now being treated as a heartwarming story. Hayes's image had become that of a surprisingly admirable bastard. Stories had even spread that Lieutenant Colonel Han Gyeoul had rehabilitated him. It was hard to avoid.
Gyeoul mounted Xcel and looked down at Hayes.
"Keep living like this from now on."
"..."
"Your sins will never disappear, but that doesn't mean those sins have to be everything you are. Whenever you're given the chance, act like a person. So even if you die, you can die as a person. And so other people can remember you as one. Just because you don't know when the sentence will be carried out, I hope you don't make the rest of your life meaningless too."
Even when someone was sentenced to death, cases that actually led to execution were extremely rare. There were exceptional states like Texas, but this was not Texas. The prisoner knew that, and so did Gyeoul. Even so, the reason he deliberately mentioned execution and death was to wake him up. Good deeds could not erase evil ones. Evil deeds were evil deeds, and good deeds were good deeds.
"I'll say it one last time. Thank you for protecting my friend. I'll remember you."
Hayes rubbed his wet eyes. Gyeoul looked away and signaled Xcel. The horse began walking, his hooves clicking against the ground. Anne, also mounted, and one mounted police officer followed Gyeoul.
As they went up the ramp, Gyeoul thought back over the conversation from moments ago. His feelings toward Hayes were complicated. It seemed to show that anyone could become a better person if given the chance. Of course, a world made up of other people was not generous or abundant enough to give everyone a chance. Whether here or outside, that was impossible from the start. Even so, Hayes's tears could not help leaving an impression on Gyeoul, who had been feeling impatient without quite knowing it.
Cheers poured out.
The crowd filling the front of the hospital cheered at Gyeoul's appearance. Camera flashes burst. Gyeoul saluted them while wearing a slightly troubled smile. It was a sight he had often looked down on from his hospital room, but the number of shirts with skeletons printed on them only kept increasing.
Then he met one man's eyes. Emotion spread across the man's face. His joy cut through the noise.
"Lieutenant Colonel Han Gyeoul looked at me!"
The person next to him scolded him.
"No! He was looking at your T-shirt!"
"..."
The troubled part of Gyeoul's smile grew larger.
When he glanced back, Anne was still on edge despite the atmosphere. Her busy, vigilant gaze was not fully hidden even by her dark sunglasses. That level of focus would drain stamina all by itself. Thinking about how she would be like that all day made him feel sorry for her already.
‘She doesn't need to worry that much...’
It was a thought he kept to himself. There was no way to convince Anne.
As a result of overcoming a fatal crisis, Gyeoul was now stronger than he had ever been. There were limits to strengthening combat techniques, but most of his senses had entered the realm of the superhuman. Even now, with his injury not fully healed, he was confident he could project greater combat power than before he had been hurt. The odds of an assassination attempt against Gyeoul succeeding by any method were extremely low. At best, it would only seem possible if one of the world's greatest snipers performed at the absolute peak of their life.
There had also been remarkable progress in 「Disease Resistance」 and 「Toxic Resistance」. Each had reached a level impossible without being born to it, so it would be difficult to kill Gyeoul through ordinary means. At the very least, he was certain he was free from necrotoxin.
Even so, he regretted that 「Plague Immunity」 was still so far away. Only a few more stages remained until he met the conditions, but those few stages felt impossibly distant. So distant that his investment in his senses seemed minor by comparison.
Sometimes he wondered if he should just settle.
It was no exaggeration to say this world was Gyeoul's realistic best option. He could persuade himself by asking how serious the remaining threat of apocalypse could possibly be. No, to be precise, he wanted to persuade himself. This was another side of the impulse that kept trying to cross the wall, another side of his feelings for Anne. A life where he gave up everything else, pushed away the audience in the outside world, and was satisfied as long as Anne stayed by his side.
But that life would be an insufficient answer in the end. For Bom, and for Gyeoul. From the start, Gyeoul had no talent for living while deceiving himself. How long had this afterlife gone on with him protecting at least his heart?
How many times had he repeated those shallow thoughts while keeping his guard up?
"Lieutenant Colonel Han Gyeoul!"
A reporter covering the polling station held out a microphone from a distance. Worried about being stopped, the reporter quickly poured out several questions.
"This is the first time you've been hospitalized due to injury! Are you all right now? Are you pushing yourself because of orders from above? How is President MacMillan's condition? Is there anything different from what has been publicly announced?"
He knew rumors were spreading that the president was already dead. Gyeoul answered with calm warmth.
"As you can see, I'm perfectly fine. It's thanks to the support so many people have sent me. I'm glad to be able to perform my duty again. As for the president's condition, it is exactly as announced. I hear he will regain consciousness soon. I believe in the strength of the man who overcame the harshest period in American history. He will definitely return to our side."
After hesitating for a moment, the reporter asked a new question.
"Recently, many celebrities have put their cherished possessions up for charity auctions to help the citizens of D.C.! Do you also intend to participate in such an event, Lieutenant Colonel?"
"...I'd like to, but the problem is that I don't have anything I can call a cherished possession."
The only things that came to mind right away were the pocket watch he had received from Lieutenant General Xieru and Kurt Lee's wedding ring. But he planned to bring the pocket watch when he reunited with the lieutenant general, and the ring was a promise he wanted to put directly on Anne's ring finger one day. Medals were prohibited from being bought or sold in the first place. He was reluctant to sell personal gifts. As for anything else, he doubted how much money it would bring in.
The reporter mentioned something Gyeoul had not thought of.
"What about the commemorative coins?"
"Ah?"
"As a Medal of Honor recipient, I understand you received two types of commemorative coins! Some in the industry estimate that those alone could raise a significant portion of the budget needed for damage recovery! May we expect another noble act of dedication from you, Lieutenant Colonel?!"
It was a rude question, one that could easily turn into coercion. Gyeoul stopped Anne as she grew displeased and tried to step forward, then shrugged.
"Come to think of it, I did have those."
"May I take that to mean you agree?!"
"Yes. I'll donate both."
The answer came without hesitation. The reporter faltered. The noise from the onlookers also quieted.
"Both... of them? Do you not feel any regret? That is an honor beyond money."
The gold coins given to Medal of Honor recipients, or to their surviving families, had thirteen stars engraved on them instead of serial numbers for identification. In other words, they were unlike any other coins, and special. As the reporter said, that was an honor difficult to convert into money. Collectors would spare no expense for them, of course.
He needed to show off a little. Gyeoul chose his tone and words before speaking.
"It would be a lie to say I don't feel any regret. But wouldn't it be more honorable to help the citizens? Thank you for telling me about a good opportunity."
"Then are you making that promise here?"
"A promise... Yes. You may take it that way."
The reporter tried to say something more, but was buried under the voices of the citizens chanting Gyeoul's name. Anne used the opening to block the reporter at last.
After the patrol turned away from the polling station, Anne asked Gyeoul with a troubled look.
"You didn't force yourself to agree because the mood made it hard to refuse, did you?"
Gyeoul smiled to reassure her.
"You said I was a virtue to the people who like me. To prepare for the world that will change after today, I'm trying to become a virtue for even more people. Before helping others, this is something I'm doing for myself, and for you too. What is there to regret?"
Even if this had not happened, he would have donated them anyway.
"I've decided to believe there is no fixed future."
"..."
At the very least, he would be able to avoid becoming bound by a prophecy until he fulfilled it himself. Anne looked puzzled by his vague words, but Gyeoul skipped any further explanation. It was impossible to explain anyway.
At dawn the next day, Gyeoul learned who the new president of the United States was. There had been no upset.
Footnotes:
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