Suikoden Short Stories - TRANSLATION - Richmond (2)

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CarmenMCS
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Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2014 11:32 am

Suikoden Short Stories - TRANSLATION - Richmond (2)

Post by CarmenMCS »

Hello, this is Carmen. I've seen some people posting translations around so I want to contribute!!! I am sure this isn't the best format but I've been wasting so much time trying to make it look better ha ha ha. Sorry.

Find all the fan-traslations we’ve got in this masterpost -> http://carmenmcs.tumblr.com/post/756423 ... r-the-fans

If someone doesn't know what I am talking about: there are a number of OFFICIAL Genso Suikoden Novels and Mangas. They were never released overseas, except for the Suikoden III manga which is available in English in the USA. So some of us fellow fans are trying to -slowly- translate more for everyone to read, especially now that the Suikoden Revival Movement is on fire! We understand this may be a bit “illegal” but given these books are very old and difficult to find first hand, no money is being lost on Konami’s part, we think. We feel this would help a lot get the fandom more excited and educated on the Suikoden lore that was always so inaccessible to most of the western fans.


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In this post we bring you:

- From "Genso Suikoden Short Stories nº 4" (ISBN4-8402-2106-5)

- A short story about Richmond, Bianca and detective times!

*** Japanese scans -all of Richmond’s chapters- (by CarmenMCS http://carmenmcs.tumblr.com/) ---> DOWNLOAD http://www.mediafire.com/download/8vi77 ... chmond.rar

*** English translation of Richmond Chapter 2 (by Rachael http://rachaellikespink.tumblr.com/)





RICHMOND’S SHORT STORY


CHAPTER 2



The doctor the innkeeper brought quickly sewed up the wounds and completely stopped the bleeding. In a vertically striped kimono and with snow-white hair, he was certainly an old man who looked the part of a famous local doctor.

“Then there’s no serious threat to his life.” I sighed with relief.

“Yeah, your emergency treatment was good. It just looks like he lost a lot of blood, so it will be a while before he regains consciousness. Have him take this medicine with water in the morning and evening.”

The old man gave the medicine to Milan’s wife, Rose, bowed to the innkeeper, Glidden, and me, and left the room.

The now-quiet guest room was filled with sighs of relief among the three of us. However, as time passed, a heavy feeling in the air began to descend upon us. Both Rose and Glidden gazed at Milan as he lay on the bed, neither speaking for a while.

Finally, I spoke first: “Hey, if it’s all right, why don’t tell me who would do such a horrible thing?”

“I have no…” Rose answered with a pained expression. “I have no idea. I heard him scream and when I ran up to the second floor, my husband had collapsed…”

“Covered in blood?”

At my question, Rose averted her eyes. Instead, Glidden answered.

“Yes, that’s right. Ms. Rose and I were in the dining room when it happened. We panicked and ran up to the second floor, but the door was locked.”

“Locked? Why? Mr. Milan was inside, wasn’t he?”

“My husband always takes a shower before dinner. He probably thought it would be careless to leave the key in the lock. I went to ask Mr. Glidden when he wanted to have tea and dinner.”

Glidden took over Rose’s words. “We had no choice but to return to the front desk and bring back another key. When we opened the door, he was in the exact state you saw him in.”

“What about the inside of the room?”

“Nobody was there. Only Mr. Milan, collapsed.”

“I see…Hmmm, I see.” I scratched my head. When I put both accounts together, it sounded like Milan was attacked in a locked room. As for the room being locked, I was talking to Rose while waiting for the doctor I had looked around to see what state the room was in. It wasn’t in any sort of disarray, and the windows were all locked.

Thanks to my investigative character, I had unconsciously begun to move around the room and was already ready to begin a detailed investigation. Glidden spoke up as though he had remembered something by seeing me like that.

“Hey, please wait a minute. Come to think of it, who are you? It doesn’t look like you’re a guest here.”

“Y-yeah. That’s right.” I panicked, stopping on the way to the bathroom. “I’m a little late in saying this, but my name is Richmond, and I run a private investigation office in South Window.”

“You’re a private eye?” This time it was Rose who spoke.

“Yeah, I am. I came to this town by chance, and I happened to come across this incident by chance. This incident is just my specialty, so you can rely on me and contact the South Window Public Order Department. In any case, if we want to capture the crimina, we’d better act quickly.”

“I see. All right, then.” Until now, Rose had seemed helpless, but now anger showed plainly on her face. “I will find the criminal who hurt my husband. I will never forgive him! Who would want to do this to such a kind person…?”

“Then will you rely on me? I’ll tell you right now, I don’t work without compensation.”

“What? Compensation?” Glidden drew his eyebrows together. “No, no! I thank you for having saved Mr. Milan, but I can’t entrust this precious guest to a suspicious guy like you any more than I already have!”

“Suspicious, huh? I don’t care what you think. I’m used to it.”

Glidden looked shocked at my comment, and said to Rose, “Ms. Rose, there’s no need to leave everything to a guy like this. Let’s go to the Public Order Department. That’s the surest way, and it’s free, too.”

“But…”

For some reason, Rose was disturbed. My intuition reacted to that heartbroken expression. It was truly vague, but I felt some notion that Rose was shouldering some dark secret.

In fact, it was enough to make me think, for a moment, that maybe she was the one who had killed Milan. The one who first discovers the body is the first one you should suspect. The shadow in her expression was enough to remind me that this is an inviolable rule of investigation.

But both the fact that she had tried with all her might to save Milan and the innocent tears she had shed when she knew her husband would be helped were also evidence that she was not a bad person.

Whether I was urged by the anger I felt toward the dastardly deed, or by the sorrowful expression on Rose’s face, that side of me that always aimed for the perfect resolution of any case had already come full circle. To put it plainly, I wanted to take on this case. But I couldn’t do anything without an official commission. That’s what it means to be a detective. I spoke to Rose in order to urge her to make a decision.

“Ms. Rose, this may sound like I’m boasting to a traveler such as yourself, but the South Window Public Order Department is superior. Even I feel inferior to it. But here in Radat, there are a lot of people around here who aren’t too quick-witted. Because it’s that kind of place, mobility is prioritized over investigation. If the culprit flees amidst all the confusion, we may as well give up hope. We can wait for Mr. Milan to wake up, but that will take time, and we’ve got no other firsthand witnesses.”

“So now you’re threatening her? You dirty bastard!” Glidden turned his eyes to me. But ignored him and continued.

“I’m not threatening you. Even you must understand from looking at the situation. This is a cleverly attempted murder case. At any rate, you need a sharp-witted man like me. I don’t mean to make light of Ms. Rose’s feelings. She says she wants to hunt down the criminal who hurt her kind husband. And there is one more thing.”

I took a deep breath and said my next words with emotion.

“I am indeed a detective, but I like seeing people dying or helplessly shedding tears because of someone’s ill will, and I pray inside my heart that someday we can see a world where that doesn’t happen. Obviously it would be better if these sad things didn’t happen. Right?”

As Glidden heard my words, he looked as downhearted as a child. Rose, too, dropped her gaze to the floor, her mouth tightly closed.

After the light from the lamp had shaken several times, Rose lifted her gaze, bathed in a strong light.

“I understand, Mr. Richmond. I will trust you, the man who saved my husband. Please look for the man who tried to murder him. So, how much will you want to be compensated?”

“Let’s see…” I thought for a moment, and answered, “Let’s decide on the amount once the case has been solved. If I can’t solve it, I don’t need any compensation. How’s that?”

“I understand. Well, then, please proceed.”

Finally, a smile appeared on Rose’s face. Even Glidden’s expression softened a little. It was decided. I gathered my fighting spirit and immediately began my investigation.

As the first step of my investigation, I decided to squeeze information out of the suspects. I asked Glidden to gather together everyone who was in the inn, the guests as well as those who had merely come to dine, in the dining hall. For the sake of interrogation, and also to find out if there was anyone who meant to deceive. If there were someone who had run away they would be acting suspiciously, and if there weren’t, the suspect might still be in the inn.

Glidden was very grateful and eager, and he passionately fumed that he would capture the perpetrator without fail. That pride was evidence that he cared deeply about the people who came to his inn. I was ready to remove him from the list of suspects.

Then I decided to search every nook and cranny of the room. No matter how many times I checked, all the windows were locked. Nothing in the room was knocked over or broken, and nothing appeared to be stolen.

If one were to assume that it was not a crime of theft, then the criminal’s objective was to hurt or kill Milan from the beginning. The perpetrator must have been acquainted with Milan, and had some sort of quarrel with him. According to Rose’s story, she and her husband had gone travelling with a small sum of money they had earned from farming. It had been four days since they had come to Radat and stayed at this inn. There was something that kept me stuck on that point.

“What was your objective in coming to Radat?” I asked without stopping my investigation.

“We meant to just stop by during our journey, but the atmosphere of the inn was so nice that my husband and I decided to stay longer.”

“Oh? I’ve also come to this inn several times, but I didn’t know it was such a good inn.”

“Yes, not just the owner, but everyone here is open-hearted, and kind to us…”

“I see.”

If they didn’t have an objective, then they were just passing through. At some point during those short four days, had there been some sort of conflict strong enough to make somebody want to kill Milan?

But Rose had referred to Milan as “such a kind person.” As far as I could tell, Rose was a trustworthy, level-headed woman. Milan must be a good person, then.

My head was just a little bit jumbled. A completely locked room, the absence of a deadly weapon, an unseen motive. I had run an investigation business for a long time, but this was the first time I’d seen such a baffling case. The more I thought about it, the more I felt as though I were lost in a mysterious maze.

Unsure about what to do, I looked at Milan on the bed. Rose grasped his hand tightly, looking as though she were praying. As I looked at the close, quiet couple, I remembered the strangeness of Milan’s wounds. There were several slashes on just the chest, as though they were aiming for a target. When people’s chests are targeted, they try to deflect the attack with their arms, right? But there were no wounds on the arms, just the chest. And if the attacker was aiming for the chest, stabbing rather than slicing horizontally would be a surer way of causing damage.

There was a possibility that the perpetrator had used some kind of special tool in this sealed room. If I could find it, or—as I thought this, the door opened halfway, and Glidden looked in with a tense expression.

“Mr. Richmond, I have gathered all the guests in the dining hall below.”

“All right.”

I smiled at Rose a little as I put on my coat, then left the room and went down the stairs. As long as I didn’t have any evidence, the interrogation would have to be a wee bit harsh, and I gathered my resolve.

In the dining hall and bar that were lit by the lamp’s dim light were six people. They were all men. Some of them looked around the room anxiously, while others stood up straight as if to say, “It’s got nothing to do with me.”

“Is this everyone?” I asked Glidden.

“Yes, these are the only people who were in the inn at that time. Other than these men, there’s our landlady and…Yes, there’s the landlady, but she went shopping before the incident and still hasn’t returned. She’s probably gossipping with the lady next door.”

I was curious about why he interrupted himself, but for now, I needed to sort through the guests before I worried about whether he was a suspect or not. I sat down with Glidden on the counter and looked around at everyone seated at the dining hall tables. (Not entirely sure about this sentence.)

“Everyone, I’m sorry to interrupt you while you’re enjoying a drink, but I want you all to hear what I have to say. What I mean to say is that Mr. Milan, who is staying at this inn, has been critically injured by someone.”

“If you mean the scream, we heard it, too…” a large man wearing fur overalls said. He appeared to be a woodcutter. “So something that horrible was going on, huh? Well, I was shocked. So how is Mr. Milan doing?”

“For now, he’s alive. It will take a while, but I’m sure he’ll regain consciousness. I am the detective Richmond, and I was asked by Mr. Milan’s wife, Ms. Rose, to solve this case. Please give me your cooperation in this investigation.”

“How worthless. What are you thinking? It has nothing to do with me. I’m going home.”

A man stood up suddenly and forcefully. His body was sturdy and covered with scarred leather armor. He wore a well-used sword at his waist, and there was a danger in his eyes, as though he would cut up anyone who touched him. But the only expression I could see was in his eyes; the lower half of his face was hidden by a triangular bandana. Was there some reason he couldn’t show his face?

Regardless of who it was, I couldn’t just let anybody leave by himself. I laughed shortly and called his bluff.

“I see, mister. All right, go. Instead, I’ll let the Radat Public Order Department pay you a visit later. Then it will be too late to cry and beg for mercy.”

“What did you say!?”

The comment about the Public Order Department was a provocative one, but it was extremely effective. The swordsman obivously had his feathers ruffled. He was doubtless aware of how terrible the Public Order Department could be. If that was the case, I could make this quick.

“I told you it had nothing to do with me, right!? I don’t know this guy Milan, and I just came here to have a drink!”

“Yeah, that may be. But now you have to stay here.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me! Why?”

“Because every person who was in this inn when the incident took place is a suspect. Until I hear everyone’s story, I won’t let even one person go home.”

“You bastard…”

The swordsman glared at me with an intense gaze. Not about to lose to him, I returned the glare. If I backed down from this swordsman, I didn’t deserve to be called a detective. (Very loose translation here.)

Finally, as though he had been outlasted, the swordsman heaved a big sigh and dropped into his seat. At the same time, I sensed that he was not as strong as his outward appearance suggested. He was the type who couldn’t do anything and would put on a show when he was with a crowd.

“All right, good boy. Be good now,” I said, and looked around at all the guests. All right, now I want Glidden to tell me everyone’s names and what they were doing when Mr. Milan’s scream could be heard. If there’s anything he gets wrong, please say so.”

I exchanged glances with Glidden, who then began the introductions in a tense voice. Here, there was only one thing that surprised me. Glidden, whom I had thought to be a senseless and inflexible man, was able to accurately grasp what kind of person each guest was, and even gave me a detailed description of the moment of the incident.

“His name is Santos and he works on a barge, loading and unloading cargo. He’s a serious guy.”

“At that time, Miguel was, yes, playing around with his glass, stroking the edge so that it made a tinkling sound.”

Every time Glidden introduced someone, the guests nodded in agreement. That was evidence that his memory was accurate, and also evidence that he paid attention to his guests. This was how one would want an innkeeper to be. Then the guests would relax as they drank.

I decided to eliminate those whose alibi Glidden could prove from the list of suspects. And there were three people who did not have alibis.

Among them was the swordsman who had wanted to go home. According to Glidden’s introduction, he was a wanderer who had shown up at the bar for the past two or three days and his name was Dogg. After the bar was closed for the night, he snuck onto a ship floating on the fiver and dozed. Naturally, his country of origin and personal history were unknown.

I took a single step and prepared to interrogate them.

“Then I’ll ask everyone. Is there anyone here who is acquainted with Mr. Milan?”

There were two who raised their hands, but they both had alibis. But among the three without alibis, there were two who were beginning to look uneasy. In order to reel in my prey, I mentioned it to Glidden.

“Glidden, is this really all? Surely you know, right?”

“Yes, indeed.”

In contrast with when he introduced the guests, this time his voice was tinged with tension. Undoubtedly, someone was lying.

In a low voice, Glidden gave me the names of a trader who was staying here, Bollons, and the wanderer, Dogg. Those two certainly did look uneasy.

“Why me!? I don’t know Milan, I’ve never spoken to him!!” Dogg shouted in a constricted voice.

Glidden glared at him without changing his tone of voice. “No, when Mr. Milan came down to the dining hall yesterday, you were glaring at him from the counter. Although indeed, you did not speak with him. I certainly think there’s something going on…”

Glidden stopped speaking and heaved a great sigh. When I looked at him, there were large beads of sweat on his forehead. It was doubtless a courageous action for this unarmed innkeeper to oppose a man with a sword.

“Come to think of it, this guy…” a woodcutter interrupted from the side. “I also know that he was drinking alone at the counter the whole time, a little before I heard the scream he staggered off, and after I heard the scream, he hurred back. I think he’s suspicious.”

“You bastard, don’t speak so carelessly!” Dogg stood up as though he would cut him down, making the chair fall over with a crash. The woodcutter, too, pounded the counter and glared at him threateningly. The moment I saw Dogg place his hand on the hilt of his sword, I quickly flipped the coin in my pocket without catching their attention.

“What!?”

It had hit Dogg’s hand, which he drew back in a panic. Looking at both Dogg and the woodcutter, I declared, “Mr. Dogg, nothing will come of violence. If you want to say you’re innocent, I’ll tell you a good way to do it.”

“……What’s that?”

“It’s simple. Comply with the investigation, and offer proof.”

I told everyone but the two who had made their names known to go home. They all lived in this town, so even if I did discover something suspicious about anyone, Glidden surely knew where they lived.

As I watched everyone leave with relief on their faces, I mentally applauded Glidden. He had done a good job of detaining Dogg. After all, the most suspicious at present was the only man who had a deadly weapon.
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