WeTried Translations x Flame Comics

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 116: 16. The Person Who Travels Abroad to a Conflict Zone During Vacation (7)

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* * *

Killing a high-ranking mage was difficult. Literally difficult.

Regardless of school, mages of every kind prepared spare lives for themselves through all manner of bizarre methods. Whether through protective spells or life-preservation spells.

If Ivan had to name the hardest school of mages to kill, he would choose necromancers without hesitation.

Half the reason was the spell known as lichification, which split the soul and preserved it in a phylactery.

The other half was that even if their bodies were destroyed, those bodies were wrapped in terrible curses.

The worst of them was, naturally, Aviditas. Even setting its spells aside, its body had been that of a dragon. It could face an entire legion on its own, spew curses when destroyed, and return within ten minutes even after being killed.

It flew through the sky, raining curses down like aerial bombardment while commanding tens of thousands of undead. Even after breaking through all that and reaching its body, one had to fight an immortal dragon in close combat.

Mana powerful enough to burst a heart just by facing it. Curses that rotted everything within sight. Divine power that shattered the mind with nothing more than a whisper.

The incarnation of desire. An evil dragon that mastered a thousand spells in life, gathered a thousand treasures, and brought down a thousand cities. Master of all necromancy and the undead.

Aviditas, Lord of the Evil Dragons.

Ivan always counted that time among the most horrific battles of his life. Aviditas had been his most vicious enemy, and that battle had taken the most from him.

Perhaps that was why Ivan sometimes dreamed of that day. The details always changed, but the result was the same.

Everyone except him died.

They looked at him and whispered as if blaming him.

You, foreigner from beyond this world. How did you alone survive?

Ivan could never answer. He only reviewed that battle again through his regrets.

If only he had moved a little faster. If only he had run a little harder.

If only he had not made that choice then, had not made that judgment, had not attacked that way.

Like a defeated chess player reviewing a match, he retraced each move and lamented. If he had done things differently, perhaps one more person might have returned alive.

Yet, as with every regret and lament in the world, Ivan's review always reached the same conclusion in the moves he replayed alone.

Nothing changed, no matter how much he regretted it.

He was still alone.

You, foreigner from beyond this world.

After finishing his review, he heard those words beyond the window.

Perhaps they were the ghosts of those who had departed. Perhaps they were a lament whispered by Ivan's reflection in the glass.

They had continued ever since the war ended.

* * *

But now the dragon was dead, and maggots feeding on its corpse were pretending to be dragons.

Absurdly enough, they claimed they would take revenge on him.

They had never held the right to revenge. That right should have belonged to him alone. They had no right to dare speak of revenge.

"Next."

"Uh, y-yes... This is the right one?"

"That's right."

-Pshk.

Ivan drove a needle into his forearm and crushed the syringe cylinder. With a sharp hiss, the drug flooded into his veins.

A biting sensation began in his forearm and gnawed through his entire body as if it were eating him alive. Strong medicine was poison at its core, so even his enhanced body reacted violently to it.

[COME OOOOUT!! SHOW YOURSELF, IVAAAN!!]

The booming voice swept across the entire factory district. Rats and bats scurried over the buildings, searching for him.

There was not much time. Ivan slowly adjusted his mana while injecting the drugs Lucia handed him into his forearm one after another.

Immune boosters, anti-mana resistance enhancers, neurotoxin neutralizers.

They were drugs closer to poison, capable of severely damaging the liver, mana organs, and central nervous system. But that was fine. Thankfully, a superhuman body had the strength to withstand all of them.

Ivan poured in undiluted drugs that even alchemists diluted as much as possible before administering during the most horrific surgeries. He could feel his internal organs being destroyed in real time.

The smell of iron filled his nose. Blood surged up his throat without warning, wetting it as it went down.

This much was necessary. If the opponent possessed even a fraction of Aviditas's true power, Ivan would have to reproduce alone and without rear support everything his team had once accomplished.

They, too, had spent years honing themselves solely for revenge, plundering the legacy of the dead Aviditas to build up their own strength.

Ivan was never arrogant. Only he in this world understood the limits of his abilities. Combat capability was a type of tool, and a good agent had to know the exact catalog specifications of the tools they used.

So Ivan did what needed to be done. He silently filled his body with toxins. Aviditas could never be faced alone, and its disciples would have come here just as prepared as Ivan was.

And Ivan, too, had no intention of running away today. Never. Not under any circumstances.

Only death would remain at the end of today.

His, or theirs.

-Hoo....

The final adjustment was complete. Ivan closed his eyes and brought his elevated body temperature under control. His heart pounded heavily.

"Lucia."

"Yes, Senior...."

"Send Enrika this message. Request rescue at Rally Point Three in three hours."

"What...? What?"

"You run at full speed to Rally Point Three now. Your role is over."

"B-but, Senior!"

"There's nothing for you to gain from watching this fight."

Ivan answered the startled Lucia coldly.

Lucia had served two purposes in this operation from the beginning. Exchanging information with Enrika in real time, and allowing Ivan to teach Lucia practical combat.

At this point, with the operation entering its final phase, communication with Enrika was meaningless. Either he would die, or he would kill them. Whatever happened, the other operation would proceed as planned.

And Lucia did not need to learn from this battle. This kid was destined to become a member of the Hero Party, so there was no need to learn how to fight alone while accepting losses.

Lucia had comrades who would support them from behind.

Unlike him.

This battle could not serve as a training example. That era had to end with Ivan's generation. Even the Hero had not faced the Demon King alone.

This was the fight of those who could not become Heroes, who could not become members of the Hero Party. The struggle of ordinary people. Not the battle of transcendent heroes, but the battle of people.

Ivan opened his eyes and stood. Lucia held his gaze for a long moment, moving their lips before swallowing their words.

"Go."

"Men... honestly!!"

Tears suddenly spilled from Lucia's eyes. Sniffling, they continued.

"Next time, at school. You'll teach me the rest then. I... I still want to learn. Even if I don't need to learn how to fight alone, I definitely want to learn how two people fight together. Do you understand?"

When Ivan did not answer, Lucia stepped onto the windowsill and looked down at him.

"Today will be the last time I'm a burden. You won't have to fight alone in the same kind of situation again."

"At your current level, you're still lacking if you want to become an excellent agent."

"Haha.... Your standards are way too strict."

Lucia grumbled softly and vanished into the darkness beyond the window. It was the distinctive movement of a vampire. Ivan followed the long trail they left behind with his eyes.

The moisture left along the way suited a human more than a vampire.

After gathering his final equipment, Ivan headed to the window on the opposite side, toward the sniping point overlooking the center of the factory district.

He picked up his axe, counted his ammunition, and tightened the armor plates.

Then he reminded himself how long the drugs flowing through his body would remain effective.

Tap. With a light footstep, Ivan vanished from the window.

* * *

-Tap.

One person landed in the middle of the open square.

The venomous insects that had been chirping noisily, the necromancers spewing rage, even the dwarves muttering in tension. The noise died away from everyone present.

Within that thick silence, the man who had revealed himself slowly raised his head.

[IVAN PETROVICH!! I AM GRATEFUL THAT YOU STILL LIVE!!]

Joy shattered the silence. Beyond the terrified dwarves, a massive corpse dragon cast its shadow.

Ivan silently glared at that shadow. It was an imitation made remarkably similar to Aviditas on the day it died.

Perhaps because they had failed to recover the dragon's remains, the monster's frame was made from countless human bones. It was a grotesque thing, stitched together like a mosaic.

Yet its presence was comparable. Countless hatreds, grudges, obsessions, and curses pulsed through it like blood vessels.

[BEHOLD. BEHOLD WHAT YOU FAILED TO ACHIEVE. YOU DID NOT SURVIVE. YOUR DEATH WAS ONLY DELAYED. YOU HAVE RETURNED TO THE DEPTHS BELOW, RETURNED TO YOUR DEATH!]

Footnotes:

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