WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 5: Terrorism Always Occurs on the Academy Entrance Train (3)
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* * *
Igorvich Station was a small, quiet rural stop. It stood in a modest village that served as nothing more or less than a Krasilov-Droan border checkpoint.
As a result, the passengers who got off here were limited. Villagers or logistics distributors. That was all.
Which meant...
‘They’re amateurs.’
The three men in one corner of the station were obviously suspicious.
First was the man in the waiting room corner, pretending to read a newspaper while glancing at the clock.
He looked as though he were checking train times, but he was not. He had already let three trains pass.
Next was the man sitting with his arms crossed, nodding off.
That man also looked like he was simply killing time, but he was not. Whenever Ivan stood up to head for the restroom or the newsstand, the man discreetly opened his eyes and watched him.
Finally, there was the man selling dried vegetables in the corner of the waiting room.
It was enough to make Ivan laugh in disbelief. Not only had the man failed to sell vegetables to anyone in the waiting room, but who would buy vegetables at an empty rural station like this in the first place?
More importantly, Ivan had been a tenant farmer. He could tell what state those vegetables were in. They had not been dried for long-term storage. They had shriveled because they had been left out for far too long.
Beneath the newspaper, Ivan moved his hand and gripped his pistol. It was nine o’clock. The train carrying Princess Aesidis would be arriving soon.
Well, he should confirm it.
He slowly stood, folded the newspaper, and walked toward the trash bin. As he did, he pressed the muzzle precisely beneath the nape of the sleeping man’s neck.
“!!”
“Quiet.”
The man reached for his coat in shock, but the cold touch of the muzzle froze him in place.
Good. One pistol in the left inner pocket.
His nearly immediate reaction showed training, too.
“W-What are you doing over there?!”
“Stop!”
The other two men in the waiting room shouted at the same time and sprang to their feet.
It was ridiculous. The pistol Ivan held was hidden by the newspaper, so from outside, it would have looked as if he had simply placed a hand on the man’s neck.
In other words, the three were together.
Still, he had to make sure of one last thing.
Ivan had said he did not need support, but Elizaveta might have sent agents anyway.
“Where does your loyalty lie?”
“W-What?”
If this man were one of Elizaveta’s agents, loyal to the Krasilov Royal Family, he would not question those words.
It was one of the first questions asked not only by the Annihilation Unit, but by intelligence agents belonging to the state.
It meant the same thing as a frontline soldier saying, “Stop! Move and I’ll fire!” It was the first, and perhaps the last, question that had to be answered, even with a lie.
Which meant this bastard was no more than a mercenary working for money.
-Bang!
The bullet flew from the muzzle and severed the man’s cervical spine.
The man Ivan held crumpled without even being able to react.
“Damn it!!”
“Shoot! Shoot that bastard!!”
The vegetable seller and the newspaper reader hurriedly stood and pulled pistols from their coats.
That meant several things.
One, they were together.
Two, they were amateurs.
Three, they did not belong to the Krasilov monarchy.
And lastly, they had never faced anyone classified as truly strong.
-Bang! Bang!
The reflexive shots grazed over Ivan’s shoulder and past his head.
They could line up their sights well enough, so they were mercenaries.
But since they did not know line-of-fire detection, they were truly cheap mercenaries.
As they adjusted their stances to fire again, Ivan was already swinging his axe at the vegetable seller while aiming his pistol at the man who had been reading the newspaper.
-Slash, bang!
“Gaaaah!!”
The man whose wrists had both been severed at once collapsed with a terrible scream. The other man, shot precisely between the eyes, could not even scream.
Ivan wiped the blood from his axe blade on the fallen vegetable seller’s coat and approached him.
“Are there only three of you?”
“Ghk... ngh... Where did a monster like you...”
“A monster...?”
For a moment, Ivan tilted his head, wondering if he had misheard.
A monster? Over this?
Was that not an absurd thing to say for men planning to attack Berserker Einar?
If Einar had come himself, there would not have been a fight at all. That madman would have cut down the entire waiting room in one stroke.
“This, this wasn’t... wasn’t part of the plan...!”
He was bleeding heavily. Once the ulnar and radial arteries at the wrist were cut, death within five minutes was certain without proper treatment. And both of his hands had been severed, so it was even worse.
The vegetable seller’s face had already turned blue, his jaw trembling.
Ivan sighed and searched the man’s clothes. Since the man had no hands, Ivan had to do it himself.
Scraps of paper, a few copper coins in an old pouch, naturally no identification, and a small device with a strange button. The mana it emitted was faint. Probably a signal transmitter.
“If you do not stop the bleeding, you’ll die within three minutes. Where are the others?”
“N-Near the tracks...”
“How many?”
“Fifteen... Y-You can’t do anything alone...! I, I’ll help you! P-Please spare me! They’re all armed, and our boss is there too! The boss is a real monster!! If you spare me, I’ll draw their attention!!”
The vegetable seller shouted desperately, trembling. Of course he wanted to live. Anyone would lose their mind watching blood pour out of them in real time.
Ivan nodded. The vegetable seller’s complexion visibly brightened.
“You were left behind to signal your boss if another variable appeared. You are the scouting party.”
“R-Right! I’m useful, very useful!”
This man did not know line-of-fire detection existed. That meant their boss was probably at the same level.
“Did you hear who was on the train?”
“I-It was a gold transport train...! A train carrying trade goods Droan was sending to Krasilov...!”
“I see.”
“Y-You’ll spare me, right? I answered everything you asked! I didn’t lie!!”
“No, there was a lie mixed in.”
“No! There wasn’t!!!”
Ivan looked down at the man coldly.
“The part where you said you were useful.”
“W-What...?”
These men were nothing more than bandits working for small change. Torturing them would not provide any useful information.
If he wanted information, it would have to come from their boss. At the very least, Ivan might uncover the connection.
-Crunch!
Ivan rose and swung his axe into the man’s head.
With a sickening crack, the man’s body went limp.
Ivan clicked the receiver’s button and gauged the direction in which the mana signal flared.
Not far.
He rubbed the axe blade clean against the man’s coat hem and fastened it at his waist.
It was 9:03. If the train ran on schedule, it would arrive at this station at ten.
The train terrorist attack would occur within fifty minutes.
Which meant...
“Plenty of time.”
Ivan smirked and cleaned up the bodies. Five minutes would be enough to erase the bloodstains and signs of battle.
Removing traces was one of the most important parts of Annihilation Unit training.
* * *
There was a reason Ivan was taking his time.
According to academy logic, a train terrorist attack could never harm the protagonist or the main cast.
When the train was attacked, the protagonist would receive someone’s help, escape safely, and arrive at the academy as planned.
Ivan had never intended to stop the train terrorist attack in the first place.
‘This is a Tutorial.’
Ivan ran through the forest. Whenever the mana signal from the receiver grew faint, he pressed the button again to confirm its direction.
‘A tutorial is a stage designed to help players adapt to the game.’
That was why they had hired such sloppy bandits for a plan to attack the children of the Hero Party. It was designed to let players grow accustomed to combat in the low-level section.
At first, Ivan had wondered which member of the Hero Party would be the protagonist.
He soon deduced the answer.
All of them.
Every one of them was a protagonist. Every child of the Hero Party was a protagonist.
Suppose a player created a character for the first time.
Then they would inevitably be given archetype characters, the kind with unique storylines in the setting. More importantly, they would all be characters with different traits or classes.
- Isabelle, the Hero’s daughter. Dual class, mage and warrior.
- Oscar, the knight’s son. Knight.
- Elphihara, the mage’s daughter. Mage.
- Aesidis, the berserker’s daughter. Presumably a dual class, bard and berserker.
- Lucia, the thief’s disciple. Thief or assassin.
When a player chose one of them, they would have to resolve the train terrorist attack as that character’s tutorial.
That was why Ivan shifted his thinking in another direction.
‘If every character’s tutorial has the train terrorist attack in common, I can identify the terrorist group in advance.’
Once or twice might go unnoticed, but if they did the same thing six times, they would inevitably leave a trail.
Ivan raced through the undergrowth and clicked the receiver again.
This time, he felt the mana signal flare from very close by.
‘Leave the tutorial to the protagonists. I’ll remove the variables.’
He would not stop the train terrorist attack. The attack was a constant, after all. If he prevented it beforehand, something might happen in a different way instead.
So he would identify the group behind the train terrorist attack.
Then, at the academy, he would find that group’s traces and eliminate them.
Avoiding open warfare, conducting intelligence operations from the rear, and exterminating threats. That was the Annihilation Unit’s way.
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Footnotes:
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