WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 16: The Morning Star (6)

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"You think I'd betray my side just because you spare me?!"

That was what Ivan heard as he pressed one knee onto Aiphelos's shoulder and exposed the wound.

"Ha! Planning to torture me? Go ahead, then! I am Aiphelos, centurion of His Excellency the Sixth Dragon General's Imperial Guard Infantry Division!"

That was what he said while Ivan pressed around the wound, pried it open, and spread apart the torn flesh of his chest.

The moment Ivan began pouring the healing potion, the demonfolk's previously resolute voice started to shake.

"Hydrochloric acid...! You filthy... Ughhh...! You humans... will be cursed...!"

Ivan did not correct his misunderstanding. Still, he was impressed. One of the demonfolk's lungs had been completely torn apart. Just imagining how it would feel to have healing potion poured over a wound like that made Ivan's chest sink heavily.

Fortunately, he had never been badly wounded enough to entrust his body to healing potion like this.

The worst injury he had ever suffered had knocked him unconscious. He had heard that they had practically bathed him in potions, but even if he had not passed out, he probably would have lost consciousness at that moment anyway.

"Ugh... Ngh... It won't... do any good..."

At that point, Ivan could not help but admire him. His shattered lung was being crudely stitched back together, and healing potion residue must have pooled inside it. The fact that he could endure that was remarkable.

Then Ivan snorted.

"Remember me... I won't forget you either. Not even in the afterlife!"

-Crunch!

With grim determination in his eyes, Aiphelos bit down on his tongue. A horrible crunching sound followed. Ivan withdrew the potion and let out a sigh.

"Is it because you fought on the front lines? You still believe in that superstition."

"Mmph...?"

"Biting off your tongue won't kill you. People aren't made that fragile. To begin with, the only way someone who can't move can take their own life is through cardiac arrest."

For some reason, the superstition that biting one's tongue allowed for a glorious suicide had spread throughout the world.

Amazing. Had anyone ever seen someone accidentally kill themselves while eating?

Professional agents like Ivan had always wondered about that.

The more "valiant" the warriors, knights, and generals rampaging across the battlefield were, the more susceptible they were to such superstitions. Dramatic and glorious deaths were probably what they considered romantic.

After staring down at Aiphelos with disdain for a while, Ivan let out a long sigh and checked the remaining potion.

This was his last bottle, and less than a third remained.

"This will only prolong your suffering. I don't want to torment you, Centurion. This is treatment, and this is healing potion."

"Mmph... Ngh...!"

"Stop. You'll tear the wound open further."

He forced Aiphelos's mouth open, poured in every last drop of the healing potion, and clamped it shut. The demonfolk seemed determined to spit it out, but soon his eyes lost focus.

His half-severed tongue soaked in healing potion, and the liquid went down his throat in gulps, spreading through his body.

Healing potion only treated external injuries. Drinking it would not offer any particular benefit, unless he happened to have a perforated stomach or esophagus.

Of course, if he suffered from esophagitis, his entire esophagus would feel as if it were on fire before being completely healed, but that was beside the point.

"Mmph..."

"Feeling well enough to talk now?"

"Poison Spider Petrovich..."

"Hm?"

Aiphelos, his eyes unfocused, began mumbling blankly.

He glanced at the thick beard that covered the entire area beneath Ivan's nose, then raised his gaze to inspect Ivan's eyes and forehead.

"I heard... you were dead... This method... Ngh... The Annihilation Unit... So that's it... That's it..."

Had he worked directly on the battlefield during the war?

Ivan narrowed his eyes.

"Why did you come personally? Your circumstances can't be good enough to throw away someone at your level as if you were expendable."

A centurion was only the lowest rank of commander.

In other words, he had once been common manpower, the kind they had in abundance. Naturally, he was not an important person.

That had been true during the war, when the demonfolk still retained their full strength.

But after the Demon King and most of the Seven Dragon Generals had died, and the surviving remnants had been torn apart and driven out into the world.

Several years had passed since they began competing against one another, each pursuing their own ambitions according to the law of strength.

A centurion from those days was now a precious active officer, one whose combat prowess and command ability had been proven.

"Not... anymore. Cough! Not anymore."

"What?"

"Did you think we would stubbornly insist on operations that were doomed to fail...? The Alliance... Your complacency... Ngh... makes me sick..."

When they attacked Aesidis, the demonfolk had hired mercenaries while concealing their identities.

Followers still inside the Alliance had probably helped them. That operation had failed spectacularly.

Afterward, they realized that this operation had been compromised before it had even begun. Their trail had already been discovered before they could put it into action.

-We can't rely only on our followers. There is a spy among us.

Believing they had lost the intelligence war, they had to send someone reliable this time. This operation had to succeed.

At the very least, they had to kill one person, the Hero's daughter.

At the same time, they had to account for failure. If they sent someone too important and the operation failed, the damage would be impossible to contain.

So Aiphelos was their touchstone.

'A commander at just the right level. Capable of succeeding at most operations, yet not an unbearable loss if he fails.'

Ivan looked down at Aiphelos with bitter eyes. This man had volunteered while knowing exactly how he had been assessed.

Even if he succeeded, he could not return alive if they wanted to erase all traces of the operation.

No matter how long the peaceful era after the war had lasted, there was no way to carry out a terrorist attack near Pritchenkaya and return safely without leaving a trace.

Ivan felt a powerful sense of kinship with someone who had entered this death trap with death already in mind.

He let out a deep sigh.

"There won't be another attack now. Because you failed."

"..."

"I'm talking to myself. You don't need to answer."

Ivan sat beside him and looked up at the sky. Aiphelos's ragged breathing came from beside him.

"When you fail and are abandoned, they can say it was nothing more than a terrorist attack by a handful of extremists. Your superiors will explain it that way to the Alliance too."

"..."

"Your presence has already driven the Alliance's vigilance to its peak. Naturally, they won't do something as stupid as plotting another attack anytime soon."

"..."

"Is there something you want?"

"What... do you intend to do with me?"

"You have three choices left."

The first was to be detained and taken to Pritchenkaya.

Then he would receive a warm welcome from the Krasilov Counterintelligence Command, charged with attempting to assassinate a state figure.

Afterward, the Counterintelligence Command would frame his superiors as the Crown Prince faction and launch a political offensive.

Naturally, they would subject him to brutal torture and magical restraints.

The second was to be released and allowed to return home.

The Krasilov Counterintelligence Command would put a tail on him.

No matter how quickly he fled, there was no way for him to return intact to his camp from the outskirts of Pritchenkaya.

Even if he returned alive, he would face this suspicion.

'A traitor who sided with the enemy to survive.'

He would either be shunned among the demonfolk or interrogated and executed by them.

And finally, there was one last option.

"Do you understand your situation?"

"Kill me."

"You have been abandoned by your own kind. You can neither go back nor move forward. The only place left for you is the afterlife."

Ivan gripped his axe and raised it. Slowly, he seized one of Aiphelos's horns.

Aiphelos squeezed his eyes shut and murmured quietly.

"Though you wander through the valley of death,

"Do not fear, for I shall comfort you."

It was a prayer to the Demon King. Ivan had heard it far too many times.

When the Demon King was alive, the last words of nearly every demonfolk were the same.

They died longing for the Demon King. Fanatically.

So Ivan knew the rest.

"I am the star of the cross in the darkest night.

"I am the lighthouse upon the storming sea.

"I am your cradle, and I am your fortress."

"Do not fear, for I shall comfort you."

Still gripping Aiphelos's horn, Ivan whispered.

"Are your parents still alive?"

"...What?"

"If not, I run an orphanage."

"What are you talking about...?"

"I take in war orphans with nowhere to go. Regardless of nation or race."

Four years ago, when the Demon King died and Ivan decided to retire, his superiors had given him the following order.

-Kill the Seven Dragon Generals.

It meant, go there and die. It was the order given to every member of the Annihilation Unit.

The Annihilation Unit had consisted of eight strike teams. After that order, only one strike team remained.

When Ivan returned after succeeding, Elizaveta had stamped his retirement application through tears. She told him to live without ever letting them see him again. To live as though he were dead.

She apologized for being unable to stop the order. She thanked him for coming back alive, and for nothing more.

She said that even when the names of all those who had gone before were forgotten, their honor would remain forever.

So.

"If all you want is to survive, you can abandon yourself and live forgotten, as though you are dead."

"I don't deserve that."

"Everyone deserves it. Loyalty and faith do not define your life."

"If you wish, I will break your horns. They will be the last chains binding you."

"But if you wish otherwise, I will lower the axe a little further."

"It is the final choice you have, to live like a person or to leave like one."

At Ivan's words, Aiphelos closed his eyes.

He let out a deep breath.

Then he took several short breaths.

"I... want to live."

"You made the right choice."

-Crack!

One more person was added to the Saint Basilisha Orphanage resident register.

An orphan in his fifties, of demonfolk origin.

* * *

After the assassination attempt on Aesidis failed, the demonfolk's threat level had increased sharply.

The fact that Isabelle's tutorial had been designed to be this difficult meant that it was, in other words, the result of Ivan's own actions.

And that meant...

'The Tutorials do not proceed simultaneously.'

This was not a game where every character had to resolve their own incident at the same point in time upon character creation. The events experienced by each starting character occurred at different times.

Ivan rubbed his chin, lost in thought.

The demonfolk were not AI that simply moved according to a predetermined script.

Like everyone else in this world, none of them were NPCs.

Even events that unfolded according to cliché could ultimately reach fluid conclusions depending on the variables.

If that was true, what could he predict? What should he do?

Ivan turned his gaze to Isabelle.

She was looking at the survivors with sad eyes.

'Keep these people alive and see them graduate.'

This was an academy story. Because it had to be. Even if there were no players, characters, or NPCs, that one thing could not change.

He could dwell on useless thoughts later.

"Mister."

"Hm."

"If I hadn't boarded this train today, the families of those people... the people who were on this train... would have lived, right?"

The dead were not NPCs sacrificed for a cutscene either.

They probably would have.

Ivan looked at the night sky, faintly beginning to brighten, and answered.

"Do you know how many people the Hero killed?"

"...What?"

"Including indirect casualties, it was estimated at no less than thirty thousand a year. People forced onto battlefields they were certain to lose, to support the Hero's operations and draw the Demon King's army's attention."

The Hero Party was fundamentally an assassination squad. Their purpose was to kill the Seven Dragon Generals and the Demon King.

To make them let their guard down, they had to be handed a winning hand on other fronts.

As part of a grand strategy to strike east and attack west, there had been a time when defeats were forced on other fronts to support the Hero Party's infiltration.

"Everyone who was there knew it. The Hero, me, even the soldiers on the front lines."

"..."

"But the Hero smiled even then."

If he did not, if he imagined his own failure, if he lamented his own inadequacy.

If he allowed the weight on his shoulders to crush him.

Then the lives of all those who had died for him would have been wasted.

So the Hero smiled instead. Even in an era when hope was so scarce that they had to search the sky for the morning star.

He had to appear as hope to everyone.

The moment he broke, the Allied Kingdoms would have been finished.

"Look."

Ivan raised a hand and pointed to the sky.

In the east, the sun was rising, staining the sky blue.

In the west, the moon had already disappeared, yet even there, far in the distance, the morning star still shone during the brightest hours.

Just as it had continued shining through the darkest night.

"Ah..."

"That is the star your father bore in those days, and the star you must now inherit. A Hero does not mean the strongest person."

"The most... courageous person..."

"Yes. We called those who did not kneel beneath any burden and never lost their smile, no matter the moment, Heroes. So now, you must become their Hero."

Looking at the survivors gathered in grief, Ivan firmly pressed a hand against her head.

"Isabelle, daughter of Maximilian. Raise your head and straighten your back. The sorrowful earn pity, but those who always smile inspire admiration. Rise with hope, and live by remembering gratitude before guilt for someone's sacrifice. Live to prove to everyone that their sacrifice was not in vain."

Like the morning star. Never losing its light even beside the brightest moon.

Shining clearly even beside the rising sun.

As a symbol of hope, like that.

Isabelle stared blankly at Ivan, then suddenly came to her senses.

"Are you ever going to shave that beard?"

"No."

Ivan answered with utter disgust.

Footnotes:

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