忏悔录 Record of Repentance

某位不知名祭司的临终笔记，藏在神殿的隐秘角落，时隔多年才被人发现。 The final notes of an unnamed priest. It was concealed in a hidden corner of a temple for many years before being discovered.

我不知道还能活多久，我看到黑潮涌进圣殿，这里将变成废墟，而我垂垂老矣，却无能为力。但在死前，我必须写下这些话。不是为了请求什么狗屁宽恕，我只是不想带着这些秘密离开——我可不想在渡冥河时狼狈地背着一身枷锁，然后看着自己沉没于河水中，永世不得解脱。

I don't know how long I have left to live. I see the black tide flowing into the temple. This place is going to be reduced to rubble, and I am old and feeble. Before I die, there are some things I feel that I must get down in words. I'm not trying to beg for some kind of useless forgiveness — I just don't want to leave this world harboring secrets. I don't want to go into the River of Souls bound in chains of shame and watch myself sink into the murky waters never to achieve release.

五十三年了。

It's been fifty-three years.

我在雅努萨波利斯度过了大半生。从一个懵懂的见习祭司，到登上高阶祭司之位，再到如今这个藏身于废墟中的老人。年轻时，我总以为自己在做一份神圣的工作，将用尽此生为泰坦服务，但到头来却发现自己只是个利欲熏心的凡人。

I have spent the majority of my life in Janusopolis. I worked my way up from being an ignorant trainee priest to a high-ranking position in the priesthood. Now, I am just an old man hiding in a ruin. When I was young, I always thought that I was doing some kind of holy duty and devoting my life to serving the Titans. Looking back now, I realize that I was just another mortal driven by greed.

又或许，我们的行为，本质上是在亵渎泰坦。不，也许「亵渎」这个词并不准确。我们所做的事情更复杂。我还记得…当一个年轻的圣女第一次走进预言厅时，她确实能感受到某种力量。我亲眼见过太多次了：她们的眼神会变得空洞，身体会轻微颤抖，口中会说出连她们自己都不明白的话语。这就是真正的神谕，来自万径之门彼端的低语。但这样的预言总是晦涩难懂，充满矛盾的意象。正是这种模糊性，给了我们阐释的空间。

Or, perhaps, our actions are inherently blasphemous against the Titans. No, perhaps "blasphemy" is the wrong word... What we do is more complicated than that. I still remember... When a young Holy Maiden first entered the Hall of Prophecy, she really could sense some kind of power. I've seen it many times now: Their eyes glaze over, their bodies begin to shake gently, and their mouths begin to spout words that even they don't understand. This is a true prophecy — whispers that come from the other side of the Gate of Infinity. However, these kinds of prophecies are vague and hard to comprehend. They are full of contradictions. It is this lack of clarity that gave us room to interpret their meaning.

起初，我们只是…稍稍调整。就像园丁修剪枝桠那样，把预言中不合时宜的部分轻轻剪去，强调那些有益的警示。谁能说这样做是错的呢？毕竟混乱的预言只会引起恐慌，而经过整理的神谕能给人指引。

In the beginning, we were simply... Tweaking them slightly. Much in the way that a gardener would prune a bush, we would gently trim away any untimely parts of the prophecy and stress the warning signs that would be beneficial. Who could say that this was wrong? A chaotic prophecy would only cause panic after all, while a prophecy that has undergone some organization can guide people.

但权力是种奇怪的东西。它会让你觉得自己在做正确的事，直到为时已晚。渐渐地，我们不再满足于修改预言。我们开始筛选圣女，寻找那些更听话，也更容易听取我们的「指导意见」的人选。我们在她们的饮食中加入药草，美其名曰「帮助冥想」。最后，我们甚至开始提前写好预言，让圣女们在仪式上宣读。

However, power is a strange thing. It can make you believe that you are doing the right thing until it's too late for you to change. Gradually, we were no longer satisfied with simply changing prophecies. We began to filter the Holy Maidens and search for those candidates that were more obedient and more willing to listen to our "guidance and opinions." We would put medicines in their food and drink and say that they "would aid in meditation." Finally, we even began pre-preparing prophecies ourselves for the Holy Maidens to read out during ceremonies.

……

...

我还记得那个叫████的女孩。她是我见过最有天赋的圣女，有时候我甚至疑心是否在某一刻，某位泰坦在她身上降下一道投影…但她的预言总是不合时宜：在我们需要战争时预言和平，在我们贪图安稳时预警灾难，其他祭司因此对她非常不满。那时我以为自己在保护她，教她如何说「正确」的预言。现在想来，也许她是想拯救我们，我们却再三推却了一切先机。

I remember a young girl named █████. She was the most talented Holy Maiden I had ever seen. There were times when I began to suspect that one of the Titans was actually projecting through her... But her prophecies were always untimely: She would prophesy peace when we needed war and warn of disasters when we coveted stability. The other priests grew most displeased with her because of this. At that time, I thought that I was protecting her. I taught her how to give the "correct" prophecy. Thinking about it now, perhaps she was trying to save us — but we turned down this opportunity time and time again.

预言应当是真正的神谕，但我们却将它变成了我们的口谕。而真相则更微妙，我们创造的「预言」就像一面镜子，你越是想从中看到什么，就越容易看到什么。当一个祭司期待战争的预言时，任何风的呼啸都能被解读为刀剑出鞘的声音。我们或许没有伪造预言，只是选择性地听到了我们想听的部分。

A prophecy should be the true words of the gods, but we changed them into our own personal instructions. In truth, what we did was even more subtle than that. The "prophecies" that we created were just like a mirror. They made it easy to see whatever it was you wished to see. When a priest is expecting a prophecy of war, any light breeze can be interpreted as the sound of a blade slipping from its sheath. Perhaps we were not counterfeiting prophecies, but merely choosing to hear what we wanted.

最讽刺的是，即便是被操纵的预言有时也显露真实。某次仪式上，████突然发疯似的大喊：「深渊张开大口！黑水将吞没圣城！」那时我们都以为她是在说些无意义的疯话。现在想来，或许泰坦们从未离开，只是我们已经听不见了。

The most ironic thing is that even manipulated prophecies would sometimes reveal the truth. There was a ceremony in which ████ seemed to have lost her mind and started screaming in insanity: "The abyss is opening its jaws! The holy city will be devoured in black water!" In that moment, we thought it was just meaningless ramblings. Looking back now, perhaps the Titans had never left us. We just could no longer hear them.

我常常想，雅努斯是否一直在注视着这一切。命运之门后的神明是否在嘲笑我们的傲慢？我们以为自己在编织命运，实际上却是命运在编织着我们可笑的人生。

I often wonder if Janus had been watching over this whole situation. Had the god behind the gate of destiny been mocking our arrogance this whole time? We thought that we were weaving fate. In fact, it was fate that was weaving the ridiculous lives of us mortals.

现在看来，我所瞥见的未来——那片黑潮的来临或许不是惩罚，而是解脱。它冲垮了我们精心构建的谎言，让我们直面真实的世界。

If you ask me, the future that I saw — the coming of the black tide — may not have been a punishment at all. Perhaps it was a release. It has washed away all of the lies that we carefully constructed to make us face the truth of this world.

……

...

在圣殿后方的静修室里，我遇到了几位熟人，我还记得她们当年是如何谄媚于我的，漂亮的宝石，将绸缎荷包压得变形的金币…还有我最喜欢的玩意儿，从奥赫玛搞来的，从悬锋城弄到的，千方百计地送到我房间里。可一转眼间，曾经的圣女们都已年迈，眼神却比年轻时清澈。我们谈起过去的事，奇怪的是，她们似乎都不恨我。「预言本就是混沌的，」她们说，「或许没有人真正懂得泰坦的意志。」

I bumped into a number of familiar faces in the reflection room at the back of the temple. I still remember how they would dote on me back then... The beautiful jewels, the stacks of gold that would stretch out my silk purse... And all my favorite things from Okhema and Castrum Kremnos that they'd managed to get their hands on in one way or another and gone through hell to have delivered to my room. In what feels like the blink of an eye, these Holy Maidens are all old ladies now, but their eyes are clearer than ever. Strangely, when we spoke about the past, they didn't seem to hate me at all. "Prophecies are naturally chaotic," they said, "perhaps no one can ever understand the will of the Titans."

是这样的，预言或许是混沌的，但是圣女的吃穿用度与权柄却是由凡人所精准控制的。

That's how it is. Though prophecies are chaotic, the food, clothing, and authority of the Holy Maidens were precisely controlled by mortals.

我看到我的生机在一点点退去，那片可怕的黑潮越来越近了，尽管大家都看不见，但它却清晰地出现在我瞳孔里。不知为何，我竟感到一丝平静。也许这就是我的最后一个预言：在毁灭之后，新的真实将会重生。

I can see my chances of survival slipping away. The terrifying black tide is growing ever closer. Though no one can see it, it is as clear as day in my pupils. I don't know why, but I feel a sense of calmness. Perhaps this is my final prophecy: After destruction, a new truth will be reborn.