WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 53: 10. Stalker vs Stalker (8)

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* * *

-Drip, tap.

Summer rain began to fall, rain that thickened the darkness of night and cooled the hot air.

Ivan stood in the rain and watched the dark house.

The rain and the dark had lowered visibility quite a bit, but he was certain. There was no sign of anyone inside.

"Tch."

He remembered Dionar. In truth, he had memorized most of the people closest to each nation's rulers. He had even met quite a few of Einar's old Huscarls in person.

Several Huscarls, Mord among them, were figures the Allied Kingdoms had kept a close eye on as well. The "reserve." Promising candidates expected to fill vacancies in the Hero Party.

Reserves had been prepared for every role, Ivan himself included. Among them, Dionar was one of the strongest contenders to succeed Einar.

Has he already played his hand? Ivan considered it for a moment, then shook his head.

Probably not.

Even the low-ranking agents assigned by the Counterintelligence Command to the Pritchenkaya "guests," Aesidis included, still meant they were under protection. The surveillance was not especially heavy, but it was there.

And the Counterintelligence Command was currently pointing to "Droan rebels" as the most likely suspects behind the recent terrorism. No matter how perfectly Dionar had slipped into the country, the moment he showed up beside Aesidis, he would be caught in the net.

Which meant, if the house was empty now...

Aesidis had willingly gone somewhere with Mord.

He could not guess why, but still. If they had merely gone out for a walk at night...

'That makes it less safe, not more.'

Ivan turned at once and ran.

The rain was getting heavier.

* * *

Enrika wiped the blood from her knife onto her sleeve and frowned.

"I told you to stay behind me."

"But Master, shouldn't I be doing something too?"

"Watch well and learn well. That's your job."

In the darkness, scarlet eyes blazed. The pupils of a vampire, driven wild by the smell of blood.

The Pritchenkaya Underground Waterways. This city, older than the history of this nation itself, had waterways first built ages ago, then expanded into a tangled labyrinth.

Small shadows burst through the gaps one after another.

-Grrrk!!

Under the dim light of the waterways, pale gray skin came into view.

Cave goblins, miner type.

Enrika frowned and muttered,

"I should have expected this the moment dwarves showed up on the outskirts."

Dwarves infiltrated by digging underground passages. Their main purpose was rear infiltration and disruption behind enemy lines.

As long as there was earth, there was nowhere dwarves could not infiltrate. That was the common saying. Of course, once supply lines and maintenance costs were considered, that was not always strictly true, but still.

And once dwarves had infiltrated an area even once, it was only right to assume they had already laid their own routes beneath it. This should never have been dismissed as nothing more than terrorism by a few scattered dwarven remnants.

This country had gone soft in only four years of peace.

No. That was not quite right. She herself had done the same. It simply meant humanity was already forgetting war.

People instinctively tried to avoid painful memories. That was the domain of instinct. The war had been something close to a historical trauma, and humanity was overwriting that history with pleasant memories as quickly as it could.

Civilization was being rebuilt at astonishing speed thanks to that, so it was not entirely a bad thing. Even so, she should not have allowed it.

Not her. The woman once called the ruler of the Pritchenkaya Underground Waterways, once the thief of the Hero Party, and before even that... the one who had personally butchered an Elder and become the ruler of Pritchenkaya's vampires.

"Lucia. Watch closely."

Enrika gripped two daggers in reverse and whispered.

Grrk, grrk. Distorted cries echoed through the entire waterway.

The cave goblins were a slave race used by dwarves, and if goblins had surfaced on the front line, that meant a dwarven special operations unit was hiding somewhere in that darkness.

This ends here. Not a single demonfolk will dare trespass into the city above.

Enrika drew one breath, then shot forward like lightning. Through the countless crimson eyes flashing in the dark. Through that mass of demonfolk standing like a forest and writhing like insects.

-Grr...

-Skraak.

The goblins charging toward her froze in place.

Then came the sound of something being sliced clean to the bone.

-Kwajijijik!!

The heads of the goblin horde filling the front exploded all at once.

The lightning that had flashed alone through frozen time finally returned to the world's flow.

A delicate painter's single stroke. Death woven from light ran on in one seamless line, then slipped back into the scabbard.

As blood poured down like rain, Enrika walked out through it and rolled her shoulders.

"This is the battlefield of the Hero Party."

"I'd need to be able to see something first to watch properly..."

"If you couldn't see it, then feel it. One day, you'll reach it too."

Enrika gave her disciple's shoulder a couple of pats, then started walking again.

* * *

-Rumble....

The street rattled. At this time, roads paved for carriage traffic were made from trimmed brick blocks.

Those bricks were grinding against one another, trembling in place. Cracks ran across the road and the outer walls of the buildings alike.

An earthquake? No, that was not it.

This was excavation noise.

Ivan frowned and kicked off the ground.

-Tak.

He kicked off one wall, hurled himself across to the opposite side, kicked off that wall, then threw himself back again. Then once more.

By the time the movement ended, he was hanging from the rooftop railing of the tallest building.

-Rumble....

Dust rose clearly despite the rain. Buildings shook, the ground warped, and the roads writhed like snakes.

Excavation noise. Main force. An assault on a major city.

Dwarves.

"How...?"

During the last war with the demonfolk, the dwarves' excavation main force had been crushed so thoroughly it bordered on annihilation. They had been one of the demonfolk's most dangerous legions. Wyvern assault battalions in the skies, dwarven scout units underground. Forces that dragged the entire scale of warfare onto a different plane.

As a result, not a single Earthweb Excavator should have survived. Ivan clearly remembered the mission in which the last excavator had been destroyed.

And yet, an operation on this scale, an assault large enough to cover an entire city, required an Earthweb Excavator.

That was impossible. First, the technology to manufacture dwarven excavators had already been lost. Second, there was no way that many attackers could tunnel in through the ground without anyone noticing.

The Counterintelligence Command was not incompetent. And beyond that, Krasilov was not even a front-line state.

How many countries and cities would they have to cross to reach Krasilov? There was no reason to attack this city in the first place.

"No."

There was one reason, the Hero Party. Ivan nodded. So there was a reason after all.

But that still did not answer the question of how.

Other countries were one thing. They were premodern. If the dwarves avoided legion garrisons and major city centers, slipped carefully through the wilds, then honestly, maybe they could have gotten through unnoticed.

No matter how capable an intelligence service might be, how were they supposed to catch moles digging tunnels underground?

But home soil was different. Krasilov had no excuse not to know.

A dwarven terrorist attack had happened right beside the capital only a few days ago. After seeing signs like that, there was no way the military, especially the Capital Royal Guard Division, had failed to try a ley line probe.

The military knew about this. It had to.

"The Central Bank, the amphitheater, Saint Yansk University, Saint Chereta Cathedral, North-Pratchenko Central Police Bureau...."

Ivan rapidly scanned the affected parts of the city. If there were tunnels underground, and if an excavation relic was active beneath the earth...

Then by backtracking from the quake's epicenters, the traces surfacing aboveground, and the strength pattern of the tremors spreading like a spiderweb, he could identify the source.

Which meant those five locations were the centers of this terrorist attack.

And probably all of them were decoys.

The real focus was the Hero Party's children.

"Lucia, with Enrika, excluded."

"Isabelle and Oscar, same district, hold for now."

"Elphihara, excluded given the elven residential quarter."

"And Aesidis."

The other children of the Hero Party all had, by circumstance and by where they lived, some way to stall for time, whether dwarves came crashing in or rebels struck.

That brief stretch of time should be enough for the Counterintelligence Command to react.

Which meant Aesidis was the one in the greatest danger right now.

-Tak.

Ivan kicked off the wall and dropped down.

He did not know Aesidis's scent. But assuming Mord was with her, he remembered Mord's scent.

He had fought that bastard more than once, both of them shedding blood and sweat. To begin with, Droan men barely washed. The falling rain might cost him time, but it would not scatter his senses.

* * *

"Why... why, brother... why...?"

"Have you ever stopped to think that something was strange?"

Dionar smiled, Aesidis unconscious over his shoulder.

Mord lay on the ground with a sword driven into his stomach like a nail. Gasping, he reached out. His dropped axe was out of reach. Even so, he did not stop.

He had to protect his niece.

Because she was his brother's daughter.

And because he was his brother's younger brother.

That alone was reason enough. That was a Huscarl's duty. His trembling hand clawed toward the axe lying far away as he gasped for air.

"If the right of countless kings and rulers of the world to govern others is divine authority granted by the Heavenly Father, then why is the rule of those who hold that authority so different from the heaven described in scripture?"

"What are you...?"

"A joke."

Dionar looked down at Mord's vacant face and gave a short laugh.

Those who could neither understand nor even think to understand were nothing more than cattle and sheep. Fools who would not refuse the slaughterhouse so long as they were fed, even under the shepherd's whip.

"What other reason would there be? My father was a Jarl, so why should I not be one as well?"

"My brother would never forgive you..."

"He won't. Ah, good. I have no intention of forgiving him either."

Dionar shrugged, Aesidis still on his back, and stepped out toward the mouth of the alley.

-Rumble....

The quake went on. Mord felt the blood cooling in the rain and lamented.

He had failed to protect Aesidis. He had allowed an ambush and was dying without even managing a proper fight.

He would not be worthy to join Heaven's eternal struggle. He would fall to the bottom of Hell and go on living there, so this was... yes. A fitting punishment.

"Don't tense up."

"...?"

A low voice came from above his head.

Mord lifted his dimming gaze and saw, beneath the dark night sky, the face of a man soaked by rain.

"M-my last words..."

"Say that when you're dying."

The man reached out and gripped the sword embedded in Mord's stomach.

-Krrk.

With a sickening sound, the blade came free.

Blood gushed out. Red spilled through the puddles.

The man looked down at Mord's wound and set a hand against it.

"This is going to hurt."

"Ivan...."

"Yeah."

"My niece, my niece...."

"I'll protect her."

Ivan uncapped a healing potion.

Even while the potion was poured directly into the wound in his abdomen, Mord endured it all without letting out a single scream, his eyes red and bloodshot.

By the time the emergency treatment was finished, Mord was completely spent. In a cracked voice, he muttered quietly,

"I... believe you."

Ivan dragged the unconscious Mord beneath an eave where the rain could not reach, then took off his coat and draped it over him.

As long as the mana in his body remained intact, a superhuman whose wound had been sealed and who had received enough healing potion would not die of hypothermia.

Ivan peeled the scrap of cloth from Mord's clenched fist.

He must have grabbed it by accident during Dionar's attack. That was fortunate.

-Sssshhhp....

He remembered the scent.

Ivan closed his eyes, let out a deep breath, then turned and sprinted into the darkness of the city.

-Rumble...!!

The quake was still continuing.

* * *

"Today, I will empty the throne of Krasilov. Prepare."

"Yes, Your Excellency. No..."

Dmitry bowed deeply toward the terrace where the rain was blowing in.

Three times he struck his forehead against the floor in prostration, then corrected his own slip.

"Your Majesty. I receive your command."

Wet silver hair shone brilliantly beneath the terrace lights.

* * *

Footnotes:

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