WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
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◈ The Regressor and the Blind Saintess ◈
Chapter 54: Gilly
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Vera went with Rene to find Freide, at Rene's suggestion that they ask them directly about their connection to the Noier.
Vera did not think Freide would tell them the truth, but Rene had smiled faintly and replied, “If Freide truly is colluding with them, they’ll admit it themself.”
It was a puzzling thing to say.
Still, Vera trusted Rene, who had helped him come to understand. If Rene said so, she must have had a reason.
Thus, when they reached Freide, Vera asked bluntly,
“Do you know where the Noier are based?”
The question came without warning.
Freide blinked, then nodded.
“I do.”
Shing.
Vera drew his sword. Rene raised a hand to stop him. Freide merely watched them both.
Rene tapped her staff with a sharp Tap. and stepped forward. Still smiling, she asked Freide,
“Are you colluding with the Noier?”
“I am not.”
The answer came just as readily. Vera’s expression twisted at Freide’s response.
What was this supposed to accomplish?
Tension filled Vera. Facing someone whose intentions he could not understand naturally stirred hostility in him.
Yet he did not press forward more aggressively because Rene was there.
Because Rene wore a calm expression, as though she knew something.
Hearing Freide’s answer, Rene realized her guess had been right and continued.
“You don’t care how things turn out here, do you, Freide? Even if Aidrin’s essence is taken, even if every Noier dies.”
If the Freide she had observed until now was any indication, that would be true. Freide did not understand emotion. All of this was simply one of the things that was meant to happen. The outcome of this conflict could not matter to them.
Freide’s answer confirmed Rene’s suspicions.
“Hmm, the Saintess is quite perceptive.”
Their words carried a trace of laughter, but they were hollow all the same.
Whenever she spoke with Freide like this, sorrow welled up inside Rene again.
She did not ask whether Freide truly felt nothing. It would have meant nothing to Freide.
Instead, Rene said,
“Which side do you think is right, Freide?”
“What do you mean?”
“Aidrin dying, or the Noier dying. Which of those do you think is more right?”
She wanted to know where Freide’s reason led them. Rene vaguely knew the answer already, but she still wanted to hear it clearly.
“Neither has any value.”
Freide gave exactly the answer Rene had expected.
Rene knew as well.
Neither side was more right in this conflict. They merely stood in different places.
That was why the elves and the Noier acted for what each believed to be valuable.
Only Freide, without emotion, stood apart from them like an isolated island.
“Then do you truly intend to do nothing?”
“Of course not. My duty is to protect Mother from enemies who enter the Great Forest. I will carry out that duty until the moment my life ends.”
Freide smiled as they said this.
“Well, if Gilly kills me, then my duty will end in failure.”
She spoke only of the natural order she knew.
Even as they spoke, Freide watched Rene and Vera’s expressions. She examined the emotions arising in them and their reasons.
What appeared on Vera’s face was annoyance and anger. Perhaps he felt threatened by their refusal to take either side.
Freide understood that.
Then they looked at Rene.
What appeared on Rene’s face was sadness and pity.
Freide...
Why?
They did not understand that.
Their thoughts raced. Trying to determine the reason for Rene’s emotion, Freide considered every behavioral mechanism they knew. Yet they could not find where that emotion came from.
Their thoughts continued. Unable to find a feeling that fit, Freide substituted the elves for themself within Rene’s emotion.
Then she found an answer.
“Ah, you pity the elves.”
“No.”
Freide tilted their head. The blind Saintess Rene turned her vacant pupils toward Freide, Freide’s face reflected in their emptiness, and continued.
“I pity you.”
For the first time, Freide’s expression vanished.
* * *
Freide had not stopped moving because of emotion.
Naturally. Freide did not understand emotion, so they could not have an emotional reaction to being pitied.
If one had to make a comparison, Freide’s stillness was like that of a machine unable to find an input.
Freide could not feel emotion. But she could learn.
They knew what emotions arose from which words and actions. They knew how to respond to them.
Freide’s experience, accumulated over thousands of years, had made that possible.
Thus, Freide had never doubted any emotion that came before them.
All emotions could be understood through logic. Their mechanisms always had clear reasons.
Why?
This was the first time Freide had encountered an emotion they could not understand.
Unable to say anything, Freide waited for Rene’s answer.
“Freide.”
“Please speak.”
A smile touched Rene’s lips. It was a very small smile, as though it might vanish at any moment.
“I want to help the elves.”
“It certainly seems that way.”
“I want to help you too, Freide.”
“...”
Once again, Freide could not answer.
Like a scholar desperate for the answer to an unsolvable question, Freide’s thoughts expanded more than ever as they studied Rene’s expression.
At last, they asked,
“Why?”
“Do I need a reason?”
“Can there be no reason? Forgive me, but this dullard needs a clearer explanation.”
“Hmm, I don’t know.”
Freide’s fingertips twitched.
“I simply want to.”
Freide thought that the word simply was far too irresponsible.
So they spoke words they had never said in their life, words they had never thought they would utter.
“That cannot be a reason.”
It was a rebuttal.
They had never felt the need to rebut anyone before.
Freide did not even realize that they were responding illogically.
“You said you wished to help the elves. Then why do you not wish to help the Noier as well? They too have their own cause, and they struggle because they wish to live. Why are you indifferent to them?”
Rene considered their words for a moment before answering.
“I don’t believe in a cause sustained by someone else’s sacrifice.”
She spoke of the principle she believed in.
“A sacrifice forced upon someone who does not want it is not righteous.”
She spoke of the most natural principle.
“Because such things are not righteous, I don’t want to stand with those who are not righteous.”
Freide added another question.
“Then am I righteous?”
“You are not.”
“Then why do you wish to help me?”
“Because you are not evil either.”
Freide’s expression began to crease faintly.
Then Rene continued.
“Because you have not become anything yet. I think you can become anything, Freide.”
Freide could not understand.
They could not understand those words or that emotion.
They could not understand anything Rene showed them.
Then something Freide themself did not know began to sprout within them.
A wish Rene had once brought to fruition, a tiny miraculous seed no larger than a grain of millet, began to germinate inside Freide.
It took root in a land of questions.
It sprouted, fed by the growing confusion.
A brief rain had fallen upon a dry desert, rain that could not yet cool the heat, and it urged that seed to grow.
The fool who had known only dryness, who had not even known they were parched, felt something lacking in that brief rain, in rain that could not dispel their dryness.
This thing overturning their entire being was something that should rightly be called an emotion.
The unanswerable question, the thing that churned within them because they wanted to know yet could not find an answer, the first emotion Freide had ever realized was...
“Is that all?”
Thirst.
“That’s your reason?”
Freide was not satisfied.
Such an answer could not quench their thirst.
“Do you need more of a reason?”
“I do. Do you know? Even if we stop the Noier, there is nothing we can do for the Saintess. In the end, extinction awaits us.”
“I think that is better than dying like this.”
Rene spoke, her smile deepening as she added,
“Besides, no one knows whether a miracle might happen and let you survive.”
Freide could not understand those words at all. Like anyone facing something unfamiliar, they began to disparage Rene’s intentions using what they knew.
This was pretense, they thought. The flaw of those who disguised themselves as kind in order to elevate themselves.
They tried to tear Rene down that way, but it was still not enough.
Overwhelmed by a confusion she had never experienced, Freide lost control of her expression. Thinking she had to strip away that pretense somehow, she continued.
Their hand pointed toward the entrance to the Great Forest.
Freide did not even have the leisure to remember that Rene could not see it.
“Prove it. Gilly has entered the Great Forest.”
“...Gilly?”
“The leader of the Noier.”
Jolt.
Vera and Rene both stiffened.
Freide had sensed it long ago, but she had not mentioned it because of the confusion Rene’s words had caused her.
Her face full of turmoil, wearing the expression of an examiner seeking proof, Freide added,
“Come now. If the Saintess truly wishes to save the elves, then let us go stop Gilly together.”
Freide wished for it.
For Rene to grow frightened and flee.
For Rene to change her attitude and run away.
Naturally.
“...Let’s hurry.”
Freide’s wish did not come true.
* * *
With every step, Gilly heard the dry Rustle. of the forest and let out a deep sigh at the sight of the withered Great Forest.
“It has withered.”
The fertile land, the greenery that had seemed as though it would last forever, had all withered.
Only dying plants remained.
A pain that scorched Gilly from within filled them.
Why did it have to wither like this?
None of them had done anything wrong, so why did it have to end here?
Why did the history of their kin have to meet such a miserable end?
The burning pain became a sigh, and the sigh became anger.
As the current of emotion gnawed at Gilly’s entire body, tears flowed from their eyes.
Gilly walked.
They walked through the land where they had once played with their kin long ago, where they had gathered fruit together, gone hunting, and tended new plants.
They walked through the land where only the departed souls of their kin now remained.
In Gilly’s wake, fallen leaves reduced to ash scattered in the air.
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