------------------
[Translator - Tangrine ]
[Proofreader - Seeker ]
------------------
Chapter - 17: More than yesterday
[Zara is the most unfortunate girl in the world.]
In the world of the game Endless, this sentence is not just a description—it is a truth.
No matter how destitute someone is, starving to death in the streets, they are not more unfortunate than Zara.
No grief, not even the loss of a loved one, compares to Zara’s sorrow.
That may sound strange, but—
Unhappiness is something that cannot be measured against another person’s life.
It can only be compared to one’s own happiness.
The hunger of someone born into poverty is not as cruel as the hunger felt by someone born into wealth who loses everything and ends up on the streets.
Unhappiness is the absence of happiness, and only someone truly happy can ever be truly unhappy.
The misery of being a worse person than someone who compares themselves to others is more unfortunate.
So when we say Zara is the most unfortunate girl in the world.
“Yesterday… was a better day than today.”
We mean that Zara was once the happiest girl in the world.
.
.
.
Zara hears voices every night.
They’ve echoed in her mind since the day she was born.
-Let’s kill that dog. Its wagging tail is annoying.
-You don’t deserve to take a life.
-It wasn’t my fault. The dog tried to bite me first.
The voice has a name.
Zara.
But it’s not a hallucination.
It’s just what she thinks—every single night.
She was born a villain.
“I was such a lucky child… I had a family who cared for me. There was a warm dinner waiting every evening…”
Zara had a comfortable, even privileged, childhood.
The phrase ‘raised in a good home with nothing lacking’ fit her perfectly.
-Let’s kill that man. He bumped into me and didn’t even say sorry.
-You weren’t watching where you were going.
-What’s with those stupid eyes? Just gouge them out.
-It’s not my fault.
That comfort, that privilege—it was far too much for someone born a villain.
There’s no need to excuse it with ‘she was a poor, pitiful soul.’
She was simply someone who could reach out and have anything, and with a flick of her hand, destroy everything.
That was it.
She was lucky.
Yesterday more than today. The day before was more than yesterday.
“I wasn’t happy because I did something to deserve it. I was just… born that way.”
As a child, she believed that happiness was something natural.
Something given.
And then—
The world took from her the happiness she had once considered the most natural thing of all.
“When I was little, my mother passed away. I cried my eyes out. I’d believed she would always be there. That was the first time I realized… that a mother’s love isn’t guaranteed. That it was luck.”
There are orphans in this world that thrown out like trash the moment they’re born.
There are people who’ve never known the warmth of a mother’s embrace, the comforting scent of her clothes, or how soft her hands feel when they tuck you in.
Happiness isn’t a given.
Whatever form it takes, it’s nothing but the result of senseless, undeserved luck.
“Back then, I thought being happy was normal.”
She began to speak about just how fortunate she had once been.
How graceful her mother was. How gentle her father had been.
How cute the puppy they raised together was. How soft her bed had been.
How warm the hearth. How sweet the cake was. How silky her pajamas were.
It was a list of everything she had lost.
“The day before yesterday, I thought having a roof over my head was normal. I only realized it wasn’t… after the planks gave way.”
The moment those wooden planks collapsed, Zara resented the world.
She cursed how fragile they were.
She felt miserable falling asleep with no ceiling over her head.
She thought, If this is living, I’d rather die.
-Just kill that person and take their house. Then we can sleep in a warm bed.
-You don’t deserve a home. A trash heap suits you better.
-You’re garbage. Can’t even stack planks right.
-You should’ve just died when the boards fell on your head.
She wanted to kill them all.
Those people who live comfortably under solid roofs, people who’d never known the sting of a cold dawn.
And the one she wanted to kill most of all was herself.
The Zara of her childhood.
“Who should I be angry at? The person who threw away the rotten plank? The ants that ate the plank? I, who made a house by stacking the planks roughly? Should I have resented this world?”
She could have decided to destroy everything.
She could have killed the bald man who had been cruel to her, killed the family who resented her for killing the bald man, killed the soldier who tried to punish her for killing her family, and killed the hero who tried to deal with her for killing the soldier.
It could have all been so simple.
Like a dream. But she didn’t do it.
She didn’t curse the world and try to kill everyone.
“If I give up on everything…Then I became truly unfortunate. Because there’ll be no ‘worse’ left to fall into. Because tomorrow will be just as miserable as today. And if that happens…I won’t be able to say ‘Yesterday was a luckier day than today.’”
Yes, Zara resented the world.
The reason she resented it today was different from the reason she resented it yesterday.
Today’s world is worse than yesterday’s.
And tomorrow’s would probably be worse still.
That very fact made it impossible for her to truly hate the world.
Because she knew that today’s misfortune was a fortune that she could not have even in her dreams.
“It’s shameful to take for granted the happiness that you received without effort, and then complain about the misfortune that came without reason.”
-I hate this world. I hope everything ends tomorrow.
“I’m a shameful person. I’m always complaining.”
-I hate everyone. Let’s kill them all.
“The me from yesterday was even more shameful than the me today.”
-I hate myself. I wish I’d just die already.
Zara’s inner voice and her outer voice spoke at the same time.
As her voice grew louder, the whispers grew quiet.
“If this voice is my ‘inner self’...then my goal is to make it feel ashamed of me.”
And in that wreckage, only one voice remained.
“Today was a lucky day.”
A voice steeped in deep, self-devouring contempt.
“Yesterday was luckier than today. And the me from yesterday was more shameful than I am now.”
She doesn’t love herself.
She doesn’t cry over her sorrow.
She doesn’t crumble under her suffering.
She doesn’t curse her misfortune.
Zara is twisted.
Her compassion toward the world is held together by her cruelty toward herself.
“Happiness is not something to be taken for granted. Luck is not something to be expected.”
She was a poison that was born by devouring countless ‘inner selves.’
Zara didn’t overcome her inner malice.
She simply swallowed it whole with an even greater hatred turned inward.
The blood of demon kings and cursed stars alike was all consumed by it.
A terrible pitch-black darkness.
She has forgotten how to love herself.
“So I won’t be persuaded. Because tomorrow’s me will be a better person than I am today. Hehe.”
Though it was a very unlucky thing for her, standing before Zara was none other than Gigachad himself.
-“You Fucking Idiot!!!”
“Gehk?!”
It wasn’t some ‘inner self’ nonsense.
-“Cut the pussy talk. You’re ashamed of your past self? You think today’s misery might feel like luck tomorrow? That crap has nothing to do with doing your best right now. You’re not standing in yesterday or tomorrow. You’re here. Now.”
“...But yesterday’s me and tomorrow’s me are still me.”
-“Zappy. Maybe you are a lucky person. Maybe even this exact moment is some ridiculous stroke of fortune. But that doesn’t mean you have to just sit there and take every shitty thing life throws at you. If something sucks, say it sucks. If something’s wrong, say it’s wrong.”
“It feels cowardly to stay silent through happiness but raise only when you're unhappy…”
-“If this world is cursed to be cruel from the moment you’re born, then you’ve got to fight to find happiness inside that misery.”
“That’s… impossible.”
-“This isn’t about what’s possible or not. This is a choice, Zappy. Forget about ‘can’ or ‘can’t’.”
What kind of life Zara had lived—that wasn’t important.
The past was a trace.
The future, an illusion.
The only thing within her reach… was this very moment.
-"If you were supposed to get twenty coins and only got four, fight to get all twenty. If you can get one more, that's good, and if you don't, you're no longer a 'coward who stays silent in the face of injustice'. That's what it means to 'become a better person'. Do what you can do. To become someone different from the pussy version of you who just gave up.”
Zara didn’t answer.
She stayed silent.
-“Even if you lose everything again tomorrow, the fight you gave today still matters.”
-“Stop chasing meaning in yesterday’s happiness or tomorrow’s suffering. That’s what Fucking Idiots do. It doesn’t mean anything.”
Gigachad’s voice echoed through the ruin.
-“The meaning of your life…is something you’ll have to find in yourself.”
That night was bitterly cold and lonely.
The next day, Zara had a foolishly good day as usual.
She didn’t get angry even when she was mistreated.
Didn’t raise her voice even when something was unfair.
Didn’t complain, even when she was hurt.
-“Zappy, you don’t have to just sit there and take that insult. Show that bald bastard the Fucking Lion inside you.”
But something had changed.
She started to listen to that strange, nonsensical voice.
Just a little bit more than yesterday.
------------------
[Translator - Tangrine ]
[Proofreader - Seeker ]
------------------
