NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 373
WeTried Translations
Translator: ZERO_SUGAR
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The Receiver IV
"Oh, you're back? Guild Leader?"
"…"
Go Yuri welcomed my return from the cruise liner with a perfect, hundred-point smile.
Tilt. Go Yuri cocked her head.
"Whatever became of Ms. [Dream Demon of the Grand Pleasure Palace]? Since you came home safe, it looks as though you won."
"…Ah, yes."
I opened my right hand.
Fwoosh, light blossomed. Seeing it, Go Yuri pressed her palms together with a soft "Oh my."
A tiny meteorite on my palm was radiating pearly-white light.
"A Star Fragment! It's the drop you get for felling a Constellation. Waaah, as expected of you, Guild Leader! I knew you'd succeed. What sort of game did you use to topple [The Dream Demon of the Grand Pleasure Palace]?"
"We just wagered on who had better luck. We rolled a die: odd numbers meant my victory, even numbers hers. A pure gamble, free of any outside interference."
Tilt.
Go Yuri's head tipped once more.
"Uh-oh. But if an even number had come up, wouldn't that have been bad?"
"Hmph. In the worst case I still have a secret weapon called you. Even if I'd lost to [The Dream Demon of the Grand Pleasure Palace] and been reduced to a slave, you would have come to rescue me. Right?"
"…"
Tilt.
"Yes, that's true! Ufufu. Still, Guild Leader, as I always say, depending on me too much isn't healthy, you know? You must remain the protagonist of this stage."
"I'll be careful."
I was about to slip the Star Fragment back into my pouch but hesitated.
"Come to think of it, how should I store this? You already swallowed [The Collector of All Anomalies]. Should I hand this over to you as well?"
"Hmmm."
Go Yuri's gaze slid from my face to the fragment and back again.
"No. That's a trophy you earned yourself, Guild Leader. I think it ought to stay with you!"
"Very well. I'll keep it."
"Great. Let's head for the next port of call!"
I strolled along the gunwale and flicked Lü Bu on the head. The comically over-inflated snot bubble popped with a bang.
"Geh-hyeck?! Wu—Yuan Benchu[1] is a hypocrite! Cao Mengde is a spiteful villain jealous of a hypocrite! Only Lord Xuande[2] truly acted for the people! Long live the Han! Long live Shu Han!"
"It warms my heart to see you using sleep-learning so constructively. Now back to your post as the engine."
"…Yessir."
"Oh? What's with that look?"
"And what's wrong with my eyes, exactly?"
"They look as though you're pining for a former sister who filed her change-of-address inside Go Yuri's stomach. Seeing such beautiful sisterly love makes me think that reuniting separated families might be the noblest deed of all."
"Yahoo! Driving the Red Hare is the whole purpose and meaning of my life! Engine, fire! Overwhelming engine power! Wooooong! Lü Bu is happy!"
The kid, her face alone the spitting image of the Saintess, began rowing with such fervor that even Roman galley slaves would have gasped in admiration.
Rumble-rumble-rumble—
Once we had put some distance between us, the cruise liner in mid-ocean crumbled apart.
That casino liner had been all but a personal relic of a Constellation. Its collapse proved that [The Dream Demon of the Grand Pleasure Palace] was dead.
"Uwaaah! B-balance! Brother! Keeping our balance is murder, sir!"
[The Monarch of the Crimson Horsescreams from the depths of her soul.]
It was not the Pacific, no.
By now, in the 999th cycle, the whole surface lay submerged, so calling it Panthalassa[3] was more accurate.
The wave kicked up by the sinking mega-liner tossed our skiff this way and that.
Blue spray, like cherry petals, brushed across Go Yuri's cheek.
"…"
Watching that, I remembered—
—the private conversation I had just shared atop the liner with [The Dream Demon of the Grand Pleasure Palace].
"We may have split into assorted Constellations, but in the end our essence traces back to Mother Saintess nya."
Flap-flap.
[The Dream Demon of the Grand Pleasure Palace], whose face was the Saintess's twin save for the rabbit ears, spoke.
"True, Lü Bu-nya is far more violent than Mother. And I myo am frank about desire and pleasure beyond the original. Even so, essence is essence nya."
"What are you getting at?"
"The unbreakable rule that we exist for humanity."
Hop—she jumped down from the baccarat table in the liner's casino.
"Think of it as the Three Laws of Robotics, nya. Mother Saintess isn't foolish. She anticipated 'monstrification,' where Constellations slip her control and run wild-nya."
"…"
"Undertaker-nya, why did you decide the moment you fell into this ruined world that you had to hunt us Constellations nya?"
"Because if I let things be, you would degrade into Outer-God-class monsters bearing the very title Constellation for real."
"Sound analysis, myo. But are you sure you reached that conclusion entirely on your own nya?"
I was not.
If you thought about it, neither [The Monarch of the Crimson Horse] nor [The Collector of All Anomalies] had ever truly threatened me. For ocean-class anomalies they were disconcertingly mild—
—true to their origin being the Saintess.
"…Was my train of thought guided? Without me even noticing?"
"'Manipulated' would be the precise word nya. And it wasn't simple brainwashing either myo."
"What is Go Yuri after? Why egg me on to cull Constellations?"
"No idea, nyoom."
[The Dream Demon] shook her head.
"To be frank… I expected 'it' to board the liner at your side and was terribly on edge nyan. Obviously so myo."
"…Because the longer I act alone, the greater my chance of shaking off Go Yuri's conditioning."
"Exactly, myo."
Even so, Go Yuri had let me leave her side without protest.
In fact, in a way she seemed to want me not to rely on her too much.
Paradoxical.
She was brainwashing me at will, yet kept handing me chances to escape her grasp—an uncanny situation.
I frowned.
"In its own way, it's an opportunity."
"Nyoom?"
"…In my long life as a regressor, I've mostly avoided Go Yuri."
True, I had discovered that the Leviathan Priestess—the silver-haired psychopath—acted as a vaccine against Go Yuri alone.
But every vaccine has a shelf life.
Across the next centuries or millennia, Leviathan's aura would see less and less use.
Just as Hecate was fated to wane, Leviathan too would fade quietly from the universe.
"It's nearly time I faced her head-on."
"…"
"If I've decided to enter the 'narrow gate' for the sake of saving the world, I inevitably have to investigate the riddle called Go Yuri. Perhaps… the 999th cycle is, where she is concerned, a kind of tutorial stage."
"Nyo-ho-hong."
[The Dream Demon] laughed oddly.
"If so, what a colossal prologue! Needing 999 play-throughs just to attempt the tutorial—what kind of outrageous boss is that, nya!"
While she laughed, the exact opposite question flashed through my mind.
If a boss had to wait alone on her stage while 999 rounds of the game revolved before a player could reach her—
—what was in that boss's heart as she waited?
"Good, myo! If Undertaker-nya is resolved to fight that being, we'll do everything we can to help nya."
"'We'?"
"Myooong. As I said, Mother Saintess isn't foolish nya."
The rabbit-eared Constellation grinned.
"And we daughters who share her source—aside from Lü Bu-nya—aren't hopeless idiots either myo!"
She flicked a casino chip.
The black-and-gold chip spun, then landed perfectly on her palm.
At that very moment—
[The Morning Star of the Second Comingis watching you.]
[The Librarian of the Great Libraryis watching you.]
[The Understanding of Anguishis watching you.]
My mouth fell open.
"No way?"
"That very way, nya. With that terror stalking around, do you think we'd idle away our time in civil war, nyoom?"
――The Constellations were already cooperating.
More precisely, only those who agreed to cooperate had survived.
The rest must have been exterminated after fierce fighting. Maybe even among the allies there had been casualties.
"Yet I sensed none of that from Lü Bu…"
"Ah, she's one-hundred-percent dumb by sheer stats, myo."
"…"
"Try talking 'strategy' or whatever and she'll only set off filial fireworks for her parents. We agreed from the start to use her, nya. Lü Bu-nya is bound to believe she was acting on her very own will, myo!"
An idiot.
Yet precisely because she was foolish, she remained safe from Go Yuri.
If she understood nothing of the current schemes, the chance of leaking info to Go Yuri dropped to zero.
"And [The Collector of All Anomalies]?"
"A scout, nya. We wondered if brute force might work, tried it, and got crushed like me—nyoom. A waste of talent myo…"
So that was how.
"Oh, but that jerk was unlucky-nya, so part of me feels refreshed. Serves her right, myo."
"…"
Is the Saintess perhaps suffering extreme self-loathing and fragmentation??
"I see. Then my goal, besides saving the Saintess, is to learn every possible way to resist Go Yuri's brainwashing—for this run and the ones to come."
"Nyoom. Agreed."
"So what will you do? Say our duel ended in a draw and postpone your culling?"
"…"
Grin. [The Dream Demon] smiled.
"Undertaker-nya really is always kind to Mother, nyoom."
Except for the face, nothing in her manner or aura resembled the original, yet the faintness of that smile felt like the Saintess's.
"Just curious, myo, but any chance you'd like to share a kiss with me?"
"………"
I take it back. Including the smile, she resembles the Saintess in no way whatsoever.
Seeing my expression, the Dream Demon burst into uproarious laughter. When she finally calmed down, she spoke.
"Well, if it were Mother, she'd be glad she could still help Undertaker-nya even after falling to a monster. And unlike a certain idiot, I'm a genuine filial daughter, myo, so I follow Mother's will to the letter."
"…Considering what you said twenty seconds ago, I can't endorse that claim."
"Have you heard the tale of Jing Ke[4], nyoom?"
The topic changed without warning.
"Jing Ke… The assassin who failed to kill the First Emperor?"
"Exactly, myo."
The Dream Demon chortled.
"If you're going to assassinate an emperor, you must first lull him, and to lull him you need a convincing tribute nya. Undertaker-nya, it's been fun, nyoom."
Before I could grasp her meaning, the Dream Demon summoned a sword—
—and, without hesitation, pierced her own throat.
"…"
No blood sprayed.
She was not human but an anomaly.
Right after her head severed, pitch-black fluid dripped like candle-wax. Soon her whole body melted away, leaving only a lone meteorite gleaming.
An anomaly could kill itself.
I'd long known that fact, yet it was never the sort of shock one grew used to.
[The Morning Star of the Second Comingrecommends you pick up the Star Fragment and return to the skiff.]
[The Librarian of the Great Libraryinforms you the Dream Demon's death was pre-arranged.]
[The Understanding of Anguishwishes to discuss avenues for communication with you from now on.]
"…"
I bent down and picked up the meteorite. Warm, as though it still held the sun's heat.
"All right."
In the empty casino, I muttered toward allies who were not present.
"So the alliance has flipped."
Number of Constellation fragments remaining:
Three.
Footnotes:
[1]Yuan Shao, courtesy nameBenchu, was a Chinese military general, politician, and warlord who lived in the late Eastern Han dynasty. He occupied the northern territories of China during the civil wars that occurred towards the end of the Han dynasty.
[2] TheXuandeEmperor, also known by his temple name as theEmperor Xuanzong of Ming, personal nameZhu Zhanji, was the fifth emperor of the Ming dynasty, reigning from 1425 to 1435. He was the son and successor of the Hongxi Emperor.
[3]Panthalassawas a vast superocean that surrounded the supercontinent Pangaea during the late Paleozoic and early Mesozoic eras, roughly 300 to 200 million years ago according to Wikipedia. It encompassed nearly the entire Earth and is considered a precursor to the modern Pacific Ocean.
[4]Jing Kewas a youxia during the late Warring States period of Ancient China. As a retainer of Crown Prince Dan of the Yan state, he was infamous for his failed assassination attempt on King Zheng of the Qin state, who later became Qin Shi Huang, the Qin Dynasty's first emperor.
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