WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 470: Final Chapter - Childhood's Beginning (8)

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“Believe me. As the new owner of Paradise, I want no blemish on my new business. Deals must be fair. Otherwise, would I really drag this issue into the light, even at the cost of immediate losses... of short-term damage to Afterlife Insurance’s image?”

“That is... true.”

The manager answered with difficulty. Go Geon-cheol’s obsession with fairness was famous even among the public, so what the current Gyeoul was saying fell within the bounds of what they could accept.

In truth, the fairness Gyeoul pursued and the fairness Go Geon-cheol had pursued were completely different in nature, but that much was not widely known. That was why people respected Go Geon-cheol as a businessman.

“Don’t be nervous. Even if this is a very big matter to you, to me, it’s only one of the countless injustices I’ll need to correct from now on. And I hope it becomes the same for you.”

Gyeoul reassured the manager by speaking of what had to be done.

“Any attempt to harm you will also be an attack against me. I have no intention of tolerating anyone who threatens me. So testify to what you know. As I told you, we have plenty of time.”

Perhaps Gyeoul’s persuasion worked, because even as the manager struggled with worry, they slowly began to piece together and offer up the details they had grasped about the 「Slave Market」. This was why the highest-grade subscribers had not shown off their lavish afterlives.

Subscribers with no ties in physical reality, or subscribers who had ties but no visitation records. Low-grade subscribers like that, facing disposal due to bankruptcy, would receive an offer from the company in charge of their disposal procedure. How would they like to become characters who existed for the wealthy in their afterlife worlds? The price was immediate survival, and freedom in some distant future with no promised date.

The more money the highest-grade subscribers spent, the more the virtual personalities they faced behaved no differently from people. Even though the subscribers did not treat them as people.

Yet luxurious consumption often obsesses over the tiniest differences, sometimes even imagined differences that do not exist. For example, there had been people who claimed that sound from a vacuum tube amplifier was warmer than sound from an ordinary electronic amplifier.

If virtual personalities were ordinary amplifiers, then the low-grade subscribers forced to sell themselves were vacuum tubes, a luxury good, in the eyes of high-grade subscribers.

In this era, a new form of vacuum tube was in fashion. In a world no one else could peek into, there was no need to guarantee human rights to a mere vacuum tube. That was why the lives of those sold away became miserable without exception.

At the end of the statement, the manager added,

“...Of course, it would look bad to people, but in the end, it’s an employment contract made with the person’s consent, so it would be difficult to hold anyone legally responsible. There may be issues under real-world labor standards, but... cases applying physical reality labor law to a world inside Afterlife Insurance are rare, so I simply let it pass as one of those things. The law isn’t on the side of people like me, is it?”

In other words, it could be called a contract signed under nominal free will in a situation where every other choice had been stripped away.

“But it was frightening and unpleasant, wasn’t it?”

“...”

At Gyeoul’s question, the manager gave a grim-faced nod. It was genuine disgust, and a rejection of people being treated as nothing but products.

“You know very well what happens to whistleblowers in this country. Public opinion protects you only for a moment. Once interest fades, from that day on, I’m just...”

The manager trailed off, putting many meanings into that blurred ending, then voiced their concern again.

“But are you really all right with this? With touching this?”

As the owner of Paradise Group, Gyeoul shrugged.

“It’s not a problem with the Afterlife Insurance system itself, after all. It’s only a scandal caused by collusion between the government-contracted subcontractors who handled the disposal procedure and the highest-grade subscribers. Starting with them and cutting away the people above them will bring me long-term profit. So you only need to think about the fairness you can contribute to.”

Watching the manager nod with a serious face, and reading that the gesture was sincere, Gyeoul thought he had found one person worth putting forward. A person’s name to leave in human history.

What humans could do had to be done by human hands. Heaven, which governed chance, needed those who helped themselves.

“In any case, thank you for telling me. Whatever your actual work attitude may have been, you did have the ability to understand the field you managed in depth.”

The manager blushed at the praise Gyeoul had prepared. Inside, they were probably cursing out the control personality that had written their work evaluation. Gyeoul smiled.

“To be honest, there wasn’t much for you to do as manager, was there? From now on, you’ll mostly handle administrative work. Ah, and before that, we’ll get rid of the useless security system.”

“There are roles stipulated by the relevant laws...”

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll handle it.”

Gyeoul said it so calmly that the manager’s face showed a fresh realization of just what level of power they were facing.

“So I can expect a more motivated performance from you from now on, yes?”

“I-I’ll try.”

“Haha.”

After that, Gyeoul spoke with the manager about more personal matters before sending them away. After all, this was someone he would one day raise into one of Go Geon-cheol’s new close aides. If they were to work together on a task meant for humans, building friendship and trust was also important.

After sending the manager away with a promise for the near future, handling work as Go Geon-cheol until sunset was not especially difficult. Of course, every matter he decided on was serious, but Bom had given Gyeoul herself, and Go Ah-young also handled a considerable share of the work as Paradise Group’s chief executive. She, too, was a person whose name would remain in human history.

Separately, she was also a friend who often visited Gyeoul. At the end of the day, she always came by with her child to see his face before leaving. Even when work remained. Since they worked in the same building anyway, coming and going was easy.

Gyeoul did not find the frequent visits troublesome at all. The reason he had rejected her in the past was that he had not wanted to build a friendship while never knowing when he might be disposed of. Now that the obstacle was gone, there was no reason not to build that friendship.

‘Even if there’s a little anxiety and calculation.’

Deep in Ayoung’s heart, where even she did not clearly recognize it, there was a desire to gain firmer certainty about Gyeoul. Gyeoul was the true ruler of the world her child would one day live in. As a mother, that was a natural wish.

Easing her anxiety was something Gyeoul, as her friend, ought to do.

“Would you like coffee?”

Ayoung’s child was absorbed in the AI robot Bom had made to be a friend. Ayoung had been watching the child run around the office with fond eyes, so she reacted a little late to Gyeoul’s question.

“Hm? What did you say?”

“I asked if you wanted coffee.”

“Ah. That would be nice.”

Since Ayoung was also under Bom’s direct protection, she did not need to worry about the half-life of caffeine consumed late at night.

In front of Ayoung, Gyeoul prepared coffee in the way he had recently practiced. He had prepared sugar cubes, but they were not simply added. He poured high-proof brandy into a spoon, placed a sugar cube on top, then lit it on fire. Only once a caramel scent began to rise from the nicely scorched sugar did he put it into the coffee together with the heated liquor.

The sugar flowed in like that, one spoonful, two spoonfuls, three spoonfuls...

Ayoung looked troubled.

“...A cocktail?”

“It’s coffee. cafe royale.”

If Anne had been there, she probably would have held her stomach and laughed. It would have been like seeing her past self. People who loved each other came to resemble each other.

“And you don’t particularly dislike alcohol, do you?”

“That’s true, but...”

Ayoung accepted the cup with a doubtful look, took a careful sip, then wore a faint smile. It was better than she had expected. Gyeoul was satisfied too. If he forced the point a little, would this not also fall under cooking? Correcting a hardened palate was a fairly difficult thing.

“How is it, working as my father? Are you used to it?”

At Ayoung’s question, Gyeoul paused briefly before answering.

“It’s mostly all right. Though there are moments when I feel strange now and then.”

“I see...”

“In a way, I also wonder if the things I accomplish by borrowing this position might become a bouquet offered before Go Geon-cheol’s portrait... Because I’m trying to make a world where no one like him will ever be born again. At least, one part of him...”

Gyeoul briefly recalled his meeting with the tyrant, then continued where he had stopped.

“The part that made him repeat once more that he would not apologize to his daughter... I believe that part would not dislike the world you and I are trying to build from his legacy.”

“Even so.”

Ayoung gave him a bitter smile.

“That’s only one part of my father.”

“But that part is probably closer to the father you remember from your childhood.”

“...”

Ayoung fell silent. A sad feeling had flickered through Gyeoul’s words. It was an emotion that had decayed long ago. Though her memories had grown faint, there had certainly been a time when her father had loved her. That love, while clumsy, had been very deep.

“You said it yourself. The real person named Go Geon-cheol had already died long ago, and only his wreckage remained, breathing in the shape of a person. It shouldn’t be wrong to affirm the part of that wreckage that seems closest to his original heart... Perhaps what matters is how you, his only family, feel about it.”

Could continuity of existence apply even to a person whose heart had died? If not, which part of the wreckage was closer to the Go Geon-cheol of the past? The argument was that the role of distinguishing that belonged to his one and only daughter.

“Besides.”

Gyeoul continued.

“Mourning is ultimately for the living. The dead receive nothing from the living. Not pity, not resentment, and not forgiveness... That’s why I called it a bouquet. Even if you offer a bouquet before a portrait, the ones who can smell the flowers are the living.”

“...That really hits home.”

“Pretty adult-like, right?”

“Pfft.”

Ayoung laughed as if she had heard an amusing joke.

“What are you saying now...? You say you’ve only just become an adult, but from my perspective, you’ve been strangely adult-like for a long time. That must be why you were able to raise Bom so well. Gyeoul, you’re already a much better parent than I am.”

“I’m grateful if you see it that way.”

At that moment, the child and the robot became noisy for a while. When Gyeoul and Ayoung looked back, the spherical robot equipped with an artificial intelligence subordinate to Bom’s system kept repeating that it wanted to go to space.

「Going to space. I’m going. I can’t wait anymore. Space. Going.」

The child, still clumsy with words, smiled brightly and repeated the word that appeared most often.

“Space! Space!”

「Spaaaaaaace!」

“Kyaa-ha!”

Where on earth had Bom taken the components of that strange mechanical friend from? The sight of the child and artificial intelligence mingling together and shouting about space was funny, but also rather symbolic. Gyeoul and Ayoung shared an impression that was half joke and half serious.

“It’s the future.”

“It is the future.”

Ayoung turned her gaze back and said,

“I’m more curious about the nearer future.”

Anxiety showed on the surface despite herself.

“First, I plan to start by turning people’s attention back toward the world.”

At Gyeoul’s answer, Ayoung, who knew why he had met the manager, asked as if confirming.

“By throwing cold water on their dreams of the afterlife?”

“Yes. Their only hope in a hard life will have been threatened, so I think everyone will get very angry. The deeper and more intense the emotion, the more a minimal bond and sense of sameness will form between the people who share it.”

“Hoo...”

This time, Ayoung sighed.

“You’ll see many disappointing sides of them.”

“I’m prepared for that.”

“I know this is late to ask, but why go that far for them?”

“Because I believe all of them have the possibility to become better beings than they are now, as people.”

“A possibility that can only be expected to sprout after preparing a world that will exist solely for people?”

Gyeoul shook his head.

“To me, this world has been as cold as winter until now. You can’t blame a flower that should bloom in a warm season for not blooming in winter.”

“...”

“In this world, there are people who become good only once they’re safe, only once they have enough. In truth, most people in the world are like that.”

From as close as the system administrator to as far away as Lt. Gen. Xieru, that included them all. Gyeoul remembered Lt. Gen. Xieru’s answer to the question of whether she had never stolen someone else’s desperate meal.

After summarizing his conversation with the lieutenant general and telling Ayoung about it, Gyeoul then evaluated the lieutenant general this way.

“I thought she was an ordinarily bad and extraordinarily good person. But if she had not satisfied her desire for success and wealth, the extraordinarily good person would have disappeared, leaving only the ordinarily bad person behind. How many ordinarily bad people like that are there in the world?”

“You’re right. Now that I hear it...”

“It’s something I often think while looking at the stars, but beautiful things have value in themselves. Goodness that only appears when life is warm must have value equal to its beauty. If so, wouldn’t the effort to make it sprout and protect it have value too?”

A world for everyone, where a person’s goodwill would not be betrayed.

“That effort may never be repaid.”

“That just means we don’t know.”

Gyeoul smiled gently.

“I believe that someday, we’ll leave the waterway this world has followed until now, all become extraordinary people together, and all swim out of the water together.”

From the perspective of a flower seed buried in snow, the frozen world was wrong. People blamed flowers in greenhouses for being weak because they had no ability to do anything about the cold world. It would be fair to call that learned resignation humanity’s sour grapes. At least, Gyeoul chose to believe so.

Ayoung stared at Gyeoul, then gave her thoughts.

“I feel like I understand a little more why Bom follows you so much.”

“That’s embarrassing...”

“No, really. I thought I already knew.”

Only now did Ayoung realize that she had been anxious. With a heart lighter than when she had first come, she sipped the cafe royale. In truth, if Bom and Gyeoul had truly held ill intentions, they would have had no reason to deceive her with such care. It was only that, for humans, knowing something in the head and accepting it in the heart were two different things. The temperature of the coffee was the warmth of the person who had made it.

A little later, Ayoung set down the empty cup.

“I’ll go for today.”

“Already?”

“I realized I haven’t been a purely good friend all this time. And I don’t want to take any more of the evening from someone who has a lover.”

“Oh.”

“I’ll come tomorrow as a better friend.”

As Gyeoul stood up after her, Ayoung picked up her coat and smiled at him warmly.

“Don’t come out. And...”

“...?”

“Good work today too, Father.”

It was a joke affirming the way Gyeoul treated Go Geon-cheol’s legacy.

After she left, Gyeoul, alone, walked to the window that had changed since morning and looked out at the city where dusk had settled. When he placed his hand on the glass, the chill of late winter came through exactly as it was. Time had to pass slowly and dully before that transparent cold could be colored by body heat.

The view he watched now was probably not dark only on the surface. Focusing his mind on the senses he shared with Bom, Gyeoul could feel the people who had spent dark hours even under the bright day wrapping up an exhausting day. Of course, there were still many who had not finished their daily work. They were the ones still dreaming of hope after death while peeking into the afterlives of others.

As he contemplated all of it, Gyeoul thought.

In this world that was only so cold and lonely,

‘Let there be Bom.’

#The Little Prince in the Ossuary, complete.

#Continues in Afterword - Anne's Wishlist.

#Anne's Wishlist is scheduled to begin serialization on January 14. Please keep this in mind.

Footnotes:

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