WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 48: 10. Stalker vs Stalker (3)

──────

* * *

“Oh my, Miss Einarsdottir. Did you get a new violin?”

“Ah, yes....”

“My goodness! Isn't that a Frauschlitz Line?! Something this expensive... No, wasn't your last violin expensive too?”

“Yes... M-my uncle bought it for me.”

“I'm so jealous!”

Their eyes were full of envy, and beneath that, contempt.

It was a familiar, sad look to Aesidis.

As though they had already forgotten how she had sacrificed Kkangkkang III to hold back the Knight Department freshmen.

That was how Aesidis of the Orchestral Department was always treated.

Perhaps it was only natural. Droan was a powerful nation in the Allied Kingdoms, but it had not earned that status through culture and the arts.

A land of uncivilized barbarians with nothing but strength. That was all the country was considered to be.

And then she had enrolled in the Orchestral Department with talent that was not particularly outstanding.

Despite that, the instrument she carried was always top of the line, and she had a habit of breaking even those.

She was not good with words, and the strange man she called “uncle” had enrolled as a freshman and kept coming to see her.

Aesidis had always been a beloved girl. Her father was the king, and one of the strongest people on the entire continent.

This environment was far too harsh for her.

“Sniff... Hic...”

During her next class, she shut herself inside the empty ensemble room and sobbed.

No one had passed along the notice that the lecture building had changed, so she sat there alone, trembling as she cried.

Her hand, which had drawn the bow across Kkangkkang a few times, fell limply.

“Dad... Uncle...”

Holding Kkangkkang tightly as she sniffled, she placed it in its case with trembling hands and lifted it.

This was one of those moments when she wanted to give up.

In truth, every moment had been like that. Every moment she had played an instrument or sung.

To Droan citizens, the violin was an unfamiliar foreign instrument. A fragile thing that cost an absurd amount to obtain properly, yet broke easily.

Droan was a dry land. Even brief exposure to the outside air could warp its fingerboard and body, ending its life as an instrument.

Tuning it every day made no difference. String instruments were luxuries that required the delicate care of skilled hands.

The Huscarls thought the king's daughter was indulging in extravagance, while the teachers they had managed to find were ignorant people, no better or worse than wandering minstrels.

So she had finally obtained sheet music and taught herself for a long time.

How happy she had been when she was later accepted into Saint Yansk University's world-renowned Orchestral Department.

“...Sniff.”

Aesidis gently stroked the bag slung over her shoulder.

All her life, she had always wanted to give up. She had thought it might not be so bad to let go of everything and live quietly as a princess.

But living as the king's daughter meant being displayed like an expensive object, preserved in stillness.

She would weave cloth to increase her value, sing to refine her voice, and occasionally learn martial arts.

Then she would marry the warrior most suited to continue the king's bloodline. That would have been her fate.

She did not want to live that way.

She wanted to learn an instrument. She wanted to learn music. More than anything, she wanted to play the violin.

It had begun ten years ago, with a conversation by a campfire.

With a story she had heard from a man whose face had now grown hazy in her memory.

* * *

Einar was a logical man. It was Droan logic, admittedly, but he was still an excellent father who thought rationally.

Therefore, he brought his wife and children with him to the battlefield. There were several reasons for this.

First, his children had to breathe the air of the battlefield for themselves.

Second, the Droan Jarls could not be trusted.

The latter reason was more important. Einar was a great warrior, a man who had already had no equal within Droan at the time.

If he returned safely after the war, any one of the Jarls could very well take his wife and children hostage.

That was why Aesidis knew war.

And why she knew the Hero Party from those days.

She remembered the backs of heroes who always returned wounded. They came back with their limbs broken, sometimes missing limbs entirely, or crushed beyond recognition.

They would wipe away the blood, bandage their wounds, then sit exhausted before the campfire and share drinks.

So, in those days, she had asked the man who was always hurt the worst outside the party this question.

“Why don't you run away, Uncle?”

“Hmm?”

He was at least fifteen years younger than her father, though still at least ten years older than her.

Except for the Saintess, he was the youngest person in the party, so Aesidis often spoke to this taciturn man.

The man watched the campfire for a moment, then smiled faintly.

“Where would I run? The world is turning into hell.”

“But wouldn't that still be better than going to fight? You go somewhere you could die every day, every time.”

“This isn't something a child needs to be taught so early.”

Sometimes, he used words she could not understand. They seemed so cool that Aesidis secretly admired him.

Children always thought difficult words sounded impressive.

“Aesidis. There is only one reason your father and I wield axes, why Maximilian and Gilles Ver wield swords, why the Saintess somehow keeps us alive, and why Enrika risks her life to infiltrate enemy lines.”

“What is it?”

“Because we want to be the last.”

The man held his axe blade up to the campfire and inspected it. The edge was chipped badly enough to be dangerous, nearly ready to break.

“Because we want this life, where we kill an enemy's day just to survive another day with a weapon in hand, to end with us. Because we want you and your siblings, the many children who come after us, and their children to hold plows instead of weapons.”

The war could not go on any longer. The Allied Kingdoms could no longer endure it.

No war should last longer than a generation. Even if they won after that, it would not be a true victory.

Their generation was the final line at which people could still have lives, at which a nation could still function as a nation.

With that meaning in his heart, the man quietly set down his axe.

“So don't become like your father.”

“Um... Then what should I do? I, um... I'm good with an axe!”

“I know. Once you grow a little more, you'll be formidable. Still, if possible, try holding something other than an axe.”

“I'm not very good at sewing....”

“You don't have to sew. Hmm.”

The man looked at Aesidis with troubled eyes. He was not good with words, so he was not confident he could explain this at a child's level.

After rubbing his chin for a moment, he spoke.

“If you must hold something, an instrument would be better.”

“An instrument?”

“Weapons kill people, but instruments save them.”

Good music could cross borders, cultures, and languages, becoming a bridge that connected people to one another.

If an age of peace came, instruments would become one of the things most needed.

Aesidis stared at the man blankly. Ash-gray hair, piercing blue eyes, and neatly shaped eyes quietly watching the campfire.

The young girl admired this steadfast man.

“What instrument do you like best, Uncle?”

“Well, I don't really know the instruments of this world.”

He rubbed his chin awkwardly. It was a habit he had whenever he was lost in thought.

Ah, but there seemed to be one instrument they had in common. The man tilted his head as he thought. He had spent ten years rolling around battlefields since becoming a conscript, so he had not encountered instruments often....

Probably the instrument he had seen when our Great King held a celebration. He remembered that this world had the same instrument with the same name.

“Was it a violin...?”

“A violin?”

“Mm.”

Aesidis repeated the name over and over, committing it to memory.

Ten years passed after that. During that time, she had gone from being the daughter of a great warrior to the daughter of a great king.

The world had changed into one where the Great King no longer needed to rule his kingdom with an axe. It was now an age that needed eloquence more than axes, written treaties more than eloquence, and gold most of all.

Just as her uncle had said, a world had arrived that no longer needed weapons.

Aesidis picked up the violin. She persisted despite her parents' worries and her other uncles' criticism. She pressed the fingerboard until her hands blistered and drew the bow until her wrists nearly gave out.

She wanted to one day visit the uncle who had ultimately fallen in battle and leave behind the most perfect requiem for him.

She had heard that his remains were buried at Pritchenkaya National Cemetery in Krasilov.

And Krasilov had the continent's finest music department.

Her admission to Saint Yansk University was practically fate.

So she would not give up. Never, never.

* * *

Aesidis wiped away her tears and left the main building of the Orchestral Department.

She had effectively skipped class without permission today, but there was plenty of room to practice at home.

She would never give up.

“An instrument is a bridge connecting people....”

Never.

* * *

“Mord.”

“What?”

“You don't need to keep coming here anymore.”

“...What?”

Ivan spoke quietly as he looked at the countless pieces of laundry Mord had mangled.

“While you volunteered at my orphanage, the orphanage's financial losses rose substantially.”

“...Urgh...!”

“Did you know that laundry means washing clothes, not tearing fabric to shreds?”

“Urrgh....”

Mord bit his lip and avoided Ivan's gaze.

Still, he had something to say in his defense.

“I... I've never done laundry in my life!”

“Even someone who had never done laundry in their life should have been able to wash children's underwear after two months.”

“Urgh...!!”

Ignoring the wounded Mord, Ivan started walking.

He was abandoning his plan to keep this fellow close and track the movements of whatever spies Droan had sent.

Now that he had learned one of the “spies sent by Droan” was after Aesidis's life, there was no reason to hold Mord back.

Mord was an idiot, but he was also one of Great King Einar's trusted retainers, someone who genuinely cared for Aesidis.

For Aesidis's safety, Mord needed to return to his duties. He had not enrolled in the university to attend classes in the Knight Department, after all.

His role was to guard Aesidis.

‘And if Mord is by Aesidis's side, someone will surely approach him.’

As long as Mord protected Aesidis, she would be safe. To separate him from Aesidis, someone from Droan would try to contact Mord.

Ivan would watch Mord, find whoever did, and follow that person's trail to eliminate the people at the top.

Ivan watched the middle-aged man leave the orphanage with a sorrowful expression for a long while, then turned away.

* * *

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried