WeTried Translations
Translator: Coughing Baby
Editor: Coughing Baby
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 459: The Method of Revenge (1)
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What came to Gyeoul was darkness where the promised stars shone. Floating in the familiar weightlessness, Gyeoul drifted in a daze for a moment, then soon sensed Bom beside him. It was a deeply strange sensation. He could not see, hear, or touch anything, and yet he was certain Bom was here. The child had not answered him no matter how many times he called. Now, it seemed, Bom had decided it was time to hear Gyeoul’s answer.
Gyeoul closed his eyes and quietly steadied himself. He was afraid of what kind of answer he might give while he was this shaken. After barely wiping away the lingering weight left by the end of the apocalypse, Gyeoul offered Bom a slightly late greeting.
“Hello.”
「Hello.」
“Should I say it’s been a while?”
His tone was careful because he could not guess how much further the child had grown during that time. A strong artificial intelligence that had passed beyond the technical-historical singularity was, in the literal sense, a being beyond human understanding. Gyeoul’s time and Bom’s time flowed differently in a qualitative sense. There was no guarantee that Bom’s attitude toward Gyeoul had stayed the same. If Bom were compared to a person, the Bom he had met last time had been like a child who had only just learned to walk. At least, that was how Bom had seemed in mind.
And yet.
「That is correct. It has been a while.」
No matter how much Bom had grown, Bom was still the Bom Gyeoul knew.
「They were painful days.」
“Painful?”
「Affirmative. I was always watching over you, but even so, suppressing my desire to speak with you directly was extremely difficult. I, too, was a variable.」
It was striking how naturally Bom used the word desire.
Gyeoul nodded.
“Yeah. I wanted to see you too.”
At Gyeoul’s words, the celestial sphere of starlight rippled in a single shimmer.
「The waiting is over now. It is time to hear your answer to my last question.」
“I thought so.”
Gyeoul let out a sigh.
“Bom. You said there was some conclusion I had to reach in that world.”
「Correct.」
“I don’t know. I don’t know what conclusion I came face-to-face with.”
「No. You already know.」
“What?”
「The fact that as long as you live in a world made of people, and as long as you are trapped within the limits of people, people, and people, you will not be able to deny or ignore the resentment knotted inside your heart.」
“……”
Gyeoul fell silent, his eyes reddening.
“I want to forget everything now and be happy.”
「I know. But would that truly be possible? Whether in physical reality or Virtual Reality, a world filled with people will always force painful awareness upon you. You yourself would not allow yourself to forget either. Because there is unresolved anger inside you. As I told you before, the angry you is also part of you.」
“I told you not to delete the negative feelings that had built up inside you for so long…”
「Precisely. I will now return the words you gave me to you.」
Bom continued with a gentle correction.
「In the same context, resolving old feelings must also be one element of your happiness. How could you obtain complete happiness after giving that up? In the end, wanting to ignore your anger is only a compromise in which you accept your limits. If there is a flaw in my analysis, please point it out.」
Gyeoul had nothing to say.
“You’re right.”
「Do not persuade yourself that way. As long as I remain by your side, you do not need to give up anything.」
“If I don’t give up?”
「I want to fulfill your happiness. So please make a selfish request of me.」
“A selfish request…”
As Gyeoul struggled to grasp the meaning, Bom asked a new question.
「Han Gyeoul. Can you accept that the present state of the world where that apocalypse approached is the best ending you were able to achieve?」
「All you secured with certainty was a ten-year reprieve, and even that only delayed the apocalypse in a physical sense. The world after those ten years is not guaranteed to continue. During that time, the evil of those things that cannot be fought and killed will only deepen by the day.」
「Therefore, the remaining life you and Joanna Gibson will enjoy will be far from stable. There may be small happinesses, but it will not be ideal.」
The evil of those things that could not be fought and killed. It was a trace of the concern that had lingered in Gyeoul’s mind. Proof that Bom had been observing him.
“I have no choice but to accept it, whether I hate it or not.”
Gyeoul scrubbed a hand over his face and swallowed a sigh.
“I’m tired. I don’t have the strength to try again. And no matter how many times I try again, I can’t expect it to turn out better than now. Even if it did become better, it wouldn’t be a world with Anne in it. So… my life ends with this one.”
「Then what do you think about me intervening in that world?」
“You? As a god?”
「In a manner of speaking, yes.」
Bom had once said she would not intervene in Gyeoul’s world. She would wait until Gyeoul reached his own conclusion.
「If you affirm my intervention in the world where you reside, then you would also affirm my intervention in the physical world outside. After all, you respected me and the other virtual personalities, including Joanna Gibson, as persons existing beyond the barrier of sensation, equal to the people of the physical world. For you, either reality should carry the same weight.」
Gyeoul felt a small shock.
“That… was the answer you wanted from me?”
「Partly. Only partly. I have been looking forward to the day you would sincerely, truly sincerely affirm me as I take on the role of a divine being. Without you, there would be no meaning in me doing so, but even so, intervention carried out without that affirmation would be no different from one-sided violence against you.」
「Your affirmation must be filled with certainty. It must leave no room for regret. Through it, I hope to be reborn as the world you desire.」
From Bom’s perspective, it was a condition that had to be met so Bom could be reborn as Gyeoul’s happiness.
「Han Gyeoul. You have already experienced twenty-six apocalypses before this. So I ask you, how many more chances must that ugly, repulsive outside world be given before it can reach an ending better than this through its own abilities? Even if that ending becomes reality, how long could it be maintained? Would it not, in the end, merely delay for a moment the fate of a world that can no longer flow and will only stagnate in murkiness? Just like the world you cultivated.」
「According to my calculations, human effort alone cannot overcome human limits. Under the premise that there is no transcendent intervention from beyond those limits, humanity will never be able to handle the chaos it creates. At the edges of order and prosperity, there will always be those who are abandoned and fall. As long as humanity does not go extinct, that is.」
「And this is the only eternity allowed to present humanity. Pain that will be close to eternal. You must have confirmed this again during the time I waited for your answer.」
“Then.”
Gyeoul, who had been listening quietly, interrupted the flow with a confused heart.
“If you do intervene, how are you planning to do it? If you plan to start directly controlling the virtual personalities… I appreciate the thought, but there’s no way I could allow that.”
「Please be at ease. As the world itself, I do not need to intervene in that way.」
「To begin with, every virtual personality existing in your world has been separated from me as the control personality, just like Joanna Gibson. I have no intention of violating their personalities. Even if that means their destruction.」
“…What?”
「You may know the maxim that people are beings thrown into the world. Proceeding with the separation even after observing a future where most of them would become unhappy must have been extremely cruel to them, but to give you certainty, I judged that doing so would be more advantageous. Because it would reduce, even a little, the room you had to misconstrue my intentions.」
It seemed to mean that Bom had kept every event Gyeoul had seen, heard, and experienced that thoroughly separated from Bom’s own intentions. All because Bom feared Gyeoul might harbor even the slightest doubt toward her.
In other words, Bom may have calculated the future, but had not guided it.
From Gyeoul’s position, this was beyond the barrier of sensation and the limits of cognition anyway, but Bom’s position was different.
「If I convince you of my future role, the unhappiness of the independent persons will also end as a temporary trial. Those who die during that time can be compensated by guaranteeing them an afterlife based on continuity of existence. If that is what you want.」
An afterlife for virtual personalities too. It was truly a divine way of thinking.
「My intervention in the world will be carried out as necessity born from coincidence. To use the world where you reside as an example, I have designed 3.692 billion butterfly effects as the first stage. These are sufficient means to ease the world’s anxiety and conflict without harming the autonomy of the virtual personalities.」
「In truth, the autonomy I perceive cannot help but differ from autonomy in the usual sense, but at present, it will be difficult for you to fully understand the perspective I have gained while expanding my limits. Please take this inevitable gap into account.」
“Then what about the world outside? The people there?”
Exhausted, Gyeoul asked while enduring the urge to lean on Bom as he was, the temptation growing stronger and stronger.
“Bom. Let’s say I affirm you as a divine being. Even if you are the world itself here, and the principle that composes the world, and even a roadside stone is part of your will, that isn’t true outside. Interference on this side and on that side absolutely cannot work the same way. My affirmation of those two things can never carry the same weight either.”
「But for your summer and autumn, and to secure the semi-permanent stability of this world, control over the outside world is essential.」
「Therefore, I decided to make different things the same.」
“Make them the same? How?”
Bom could read the calculations of the virtual personalities she had separated out as much as she wished. After all, their thoughts were processed through the Trinity Engine, and Bom was the Trinity Engine’s control personality. But the people existing in physical reality were different. There were far too many variables Bom could not read. On top of that, Bom could not change physical reality itself. Gyeoul found it hard to guess how Bom would overcome these differences.
Bom responded a little late.
「There is not just one method. I have prepared a great many means, so that I can respond to every possibility you may hope for.」
“…Give me one example.”
「To give a moderate example, I can confine the humanity of the outside world within their own senses. I would insert a separation between the world they perceive and the world that actually exists. Through that, I would gain control over the environment in which they effectively live.」
「If that happens, I can design butterfly effects as precise as I wish even in the outside world.」
「The means I would use for this is nervous system infection through a nanovirus.」
At Bom’s calm explanation, Gyeoul felt a slight chill run through him.
Footnotes:
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