Beyond Salvation
Translated by boilpoil
Edited by boilpoil
Mystic thinks, she should have known.
Madness in schools meant to study;
Those who do not, are punished.
What they are seeing inside the public bathhouse, are two children, with their clothes on, as boiling hot water is poured onto their heads.
Soon enough, their skin suffers deep burns. Blood and sweat mix together, and flow freely across the ground.
Their clothes are inseparably stuck to their skin, until they get casually pulled and torn away.
“One of the physical punishments,” He Shujün explains at Mystic’s side, “they are seen as not being passionate enough about studying, so they must fire up their passion more. Naturally, they chose a method that also happens to save time having to shower later.”
“And the parents have nothing to say about this?”
“No…” He Shujün’s tone is sinking, “the parents undergo the same punishment as their children. When the children are studying, their parents supervise 24/7 by their side. So naturally, if their children are distracted, the parents are held equally responsible.”
“Their punishment takes place at night.”
“But then…” Mystic thinks and says, “they’ve put all the blame on the family? What happens to the teachers?”
“The teachers don’t have as severe of a punishment, per se, because they have to be in charge of dozens of students, and the effort they put in can’t be compared.”
He Shujün explains with a conflicted tone that she’s had since entering the dormitories, “the teachers are judged by the results of the weekly tests. The students’ performance seals their fate.”
Hesitant, Mystic musters enough will to ask, “what if the results were bad?”
“Then the teacher did not do their job well enough,” He Shujün replies, “a teacher whose class ranks last among the others would be publically punished, by a secret ballot of the students voting on a punishment.”
Mystic shakes her head, and says, “never mind. Let’s drop the topic.”
He Shujün tries to put a smile on.
Then later, she turns around and tries to be cheery, asking, “so are we ready to leave?”
“Let’s do that…” Mystic gently replies, “you don’t like it here either, right?”
He Shujün then looks up, feeling her eyes blinded by the clean, white tiles lining the ceiling of the dormitories. It is so cold and mechanical. It’s freezing.
She says, “I don’t. Maybe my friends have once been through the ‘heat punishment.’”
Mystic asks, “these two kids. Should we save them?”
He Shujün remains silent for a long time, before saying with a gravelly tone, “even… even if we did, it wouldn’t have helped; but, we still have to. Perhaps, we could succeed this time?”
“Succeed…” Mystic appears confused, though then she adds, “yes. We will succeed. Everyone is counting on us.”
He Shujün really can’t tell if Mystic did or did not regain her sense of self.
Curious, she wonders if this is the true purpose that Mystic was included in this operation. Her extraordinary, inexplicable senses are a form of shelter and support.
At least, He Shujün knows she is feeling much better with Mystic by her side and saying those things.
She repeats what Mystic just said, “yes, everyone is counting on us.”
Mystic looks quietly at He Shujün.
After meeting back up with her daughter, the paranoia and anxiety in her demeanour seem to have faded a lot.
They shut off the tap in the bathroom, even ending up all wet themselves in the process. They can’t help the students further, though, other than to move them to the benches in the changing room and letting them lie down there.
“Would they die?”
“No,” He Shujün says, shaking her head, “but they’ll be in considerable pain for a while. A doctor will come check on them soon enough.”
Mystic is speechless. Then she looks at the two students, completely mute to their involvement at this point, and asks, “why don’t they run away?”
“Because the students actually share the sentiment,” He Shujün’s tone turns cold, “they are equally crazed because of the madness. They’ve become… the personification of studying.”
“That’s terrifying…”
He Shujün looks at the students, whose faces are covered in blisters from the hot water. The scars might be from similar, earlier experiences; there are always those troublemaking kids at every class in a school.
Finally, she says, “let’s go. We should leave this Nightmare now.”
“Nightmare?”
He Shujün realises she’s let the term slip, but she decides against covering it up, and explains, “scenes like these… are called Nightmares.”
She takes Mystic towards a certain bedroom, and says, “Nightmares are what happened after humanity has gone mad, and… after the world was destroyed in the Raining Hellfire.”
Mystic listens, but it is hard to tell whether she understood anything. She also doesn’t seem bothered to have missing memories, and she solely asks, “but how are these Nightmares created? And… able to be visited by us? This is truly curious indeed.”
“This is… a game.”
“A game?” Mystic seems even more confused, “but by games, you mean what we create and play for entertainment, right?”
Entertainment…
Yes. Obviously people play games to be entertained. Regardless of market developments, games that could bring simple joy to people would be popular.
And ‘Escape’ is a game.
Who, though, could extract entertainment from it?
Obviously not humanity… So, is it the one behind all this?
Those people that put them into the Tower, are they watching people’s ‘dances’ in the Tower like watching a theatrical performance?
He Shujün doesn’t think it holds up, though, because if there really are people who can do that, then humans would be equivalent to naught but mere ants. Who’d extract entertainment from ants, even?
Children? Perverts?
A laughable hypothetical. It was simply an idle thought of He Shujün’s.
After all, they do not even know who the actual perpetrators are, or whether they even exists or are mere figments of their imagination. They do not know. They do not even know how or why all of humanity ended up in the game.
So in the end, He Shujün just says, “I don’t know the details either. Let’s just say, it was like the Apocalypse.”
The Raining Hellfire certainly does deserve to be described as the Apocalypse.
Mystic still looks confused and surprised, but she doesn’t ask anything else either, as they’re already at the door to a certain dorm room.
He Shujün whispers to herself, “she might not have wanted to study a lot, but she’s by no means a bad kid. She just wants out from this school, and got labelled as one.
Bad kids, end up receiving punishments for being a bad kid.”
He Shujün takes a deep breath, and then says, “inside, the child is the owner of this Nightmare.”
Mystic looks around them, and sees that this is the room at the furthest corner of the corridor. It is the gloomiest, the darkest, the dampest room.
She can feel the cold and the dark seeping into her at this female dorm room.
She mumbles, “this is a bad place to be.”
“Certainly…” He Shujün is smiling, but it does not look like she is glad at all, and she says, “it bodes only misfortune.”
She pushes the door to the room open.
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