WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 71: 12. Academy Festival Common Sense (1)

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-Alchemy experiment in progress. Knock before entering.

-A child is sleeping. No knocking.

A faint stench seeped through the crack beneath the tightly sealed clubroom door.

This bizarre club, formed by oddballs from the College of Magic, the Theology College, the physical education department's Knight Department, was normally avoided. At this time of year, though, people avoided it even more.

No one dared approach the clubroom where undergraduates with nothing to do with alchemy were conducting experiments amid the overpowering smell of fermented herring.

The decent alchemy students who might have protested that this was tarnishing their department's honor were all crawling around their labs like zombies. This was why people should major in the humanities. (The arts and athletics count as humanities in the broad sense. They just play around and eat.)

"Add more anchovies."

"B-but... if we add any more here...!"

"Add them!! Are you trying to ruin the project?"

"Fine! Fine, damn it!"

The researchers, who looked as though they were about to create a homunculus or a Philosopher's Stone, dropped ingredients into a massive container with trembling hands.

"Taste it... Taste it!"

"I-I already did earlier. It's your turn this time!"

"I'm in charge of making it! Don't pass the bomb to me!"

"A bomb? Did you just call our passion and memories a bomb?"

After briefly putting on a heartwarming display of passing their research results around...

And after much more time had passed, at last...

"It's... finished...."

"Damn it. I never thought I'd actually see something like this."

"It is finished, right? To me, it looks like we dissected a monster corpse."

"Stop stating facts."

They gathered in the middle of the dark clubroom, looking like servants summoning an ancient god, and solemnly congratulated one another on their achievement.

Red liquid had splattered haphazardly across their pure white lab coats. Aside from the smell, it was no different from a slaughterhouse.

Oswald threw off his mask, damp with cold sweat, and sighed.

"It was a long time of hardship...."

Eugene quietly closed his eyes and made the sign of the cross. It was a perfect angle for a theology student.

"Our Father in Heaven, let Your glory bring peace to this land."

"Ah, stop blessing it. It'll get purified!!"

Yuri smacked Eugene on the back, then smiled warmly.

"But everyone worked hard. I honestly didn't think this would work."

"I knew it would. Of faith, hope, and love, the greatest is faith."

"It's still too early to relax."

Oswald calmly waved a hand. He slowly approached the preservation container.

"We've only taken the first step of the experiment. Our goal is far grander than this."

"Right. Soon... that day will come."

Eugene swallowed dryly and whispered in an eerie voice.

"That day. At the university festival... our club will rule every department and every club. May the Lord watch over us. With the power of advanced civilization...!!"

"Honestly, I don't think anyone will like this."

"Hey, don't you know the power of national pride? Watch what you say. This is a complete food that can prevent cancer, epileptic seizures, and dementia."

"You actually believed that?"

Vegetables salted, seasoned with chili powder and salted seafood, then fermented.

That was right.

They had completed kimchi.

Kimchi was, in the end, a simple dish. Salt vegetables, stuff them with salted seafood and spices, then let them ferment.

They had vegetables, cabbage. They had fish sauce, anchovies. They had chili powder. What reason was there that they could not make it?

It looked and smelled a little strange now, but every twenty-first-century Korean knew this much.

Kimchi usually became edible once it was stir-fried or boiled. It was a truth that owners of frozen pork belly restaurants, who stir-fried cheap Chinese kimchi, had proven over many long years.

It was common sense in transmigration stories to bring over twenty-first-century culture and ride the flow of enormous capital, so the three transmigrators gladly decided to seize the opportunity.

It was one day, a week before the festival began.

"We're going to be rich!"

That very day, they submitted an application to the student council for a concession stand. In a world without Michelin, they named it, of all things, "Micheling Fine Dining."

"There's not much time left until the festival."

"Mm."

"Do you have anything to do on the day of the festival?"

Ivan tilted his head at Isabelle's question.

A festival was ultimately an extension of the university schedule. From a broad perspective, that meant it was no different from an ordinary course of study.

So, to Ivan, a festival day was not all that different from any other day.

"No."

"F-finally!!!"

Isabelle threw down the wooden sword she had been holding and let out a strange cry. It was not a particularly pleasant sight, so Ivan silently picked up the fallen sword and placed it back in her hand.

"Then let's go see the festival together!"

"See the festival?"

"Yes! You know, shoot some targets and stuff, then... huh? What else is there at festivals? Maybe magic shows...?"

Could balloon shooting really be a popular game in a world where firearms were treated as low-grade weapons of war?

And in a world with magic, what would be special about a magic show...? Most tricks could be replicated with mana.

Even as Ivan tilted his head, Isabelle's eyes sparkled.

"Whatever it is! It's a festival! We can look around together, okay? Um, escort duty. That's right. There might be an emergency!"

"Mm."

She was not wrong. That alone was surprising, since a resident of this primitive premodern medieval fantasy world had offered a sensible opinion.

Normally, when an academy held a festival, one of the following disasters was guaranteed to occur.

An attack by hostile forces, a professor's death, bombardment, a dragon or an equivalent great monster going on a rampage, or a rebel declaration of war.

As Ivan had once reflected, academies suffered more invasions than front lines. It was only May, yet there had already been three major incidents at the academy.

Ivan looked at Isabelle with grave eyes and nodded.

"Let's do that."

"Wow!! No way!! Really!? This old man actually listened to me...?! Q-quick, pinch my cheek. I can't believe this is really happening."

"Stop making a fuss and finish your training."

"It really is real."

Ivan brought the wooden sword down toward the grumbling Isabelle.

* * *

There was no need to describe elves as arrogant and self-righteous. It was a tautology.

Even such elves, no, especially such elves, had firm divisions of status among them.

It was no different from the cultural systems Britain and Japan had built up over the ages, calling themselves "gentlemen" and "the people of harmony." Britain: pirates. Japan: pirates.

It was a shared trait of island peoples that transcended the world. In countries where the only place to flee was beyond the sea, people were forced to be polite unless they wanted mutually assured destruction.

Thus, like all island nations, elves were peaceful and harmonious cultural citizens who respected one another and accepted social inequality.

"Um... Miss Grikenkos?"

"Yes?"

"Since earlier, you seem to be... um. Has something upset you?"

"Oh my, upset me? What could you possibly mean?"

"No! Nothing! Forgive my rudeness!!"

One elf fled in terror. Elphihara watched the frail elf's retreating back and sighed.

Every last one of them was hopeless. The girls were sly, and the men were limp.

Ah, why was there not a single sturdy, robust man?

At this rate, would they not have to import manliness from humans? The future of elves was so bleak.

"Why do you keep scaring the others?"

"What?"

"You, yes you. You're practically overflowing with murderous intent."

The woman who dragged a chair over and sat in front of her was one of the few Elphihara could not drive away by force.

Evelyn Rustpitz, daughter of Duke Rustpitz, Chairman of the Privy Council.

She was the girl who had built the largest faction among the elves at this university. Under normal circumstances, Elphihara might have answered with a smile, but this was not a good time.

"We can speak later, Miss Rustpitz. My head hurts right now."

"Oh my, shall I call a priest for you?"

"Mind your own business."

Leaving the startled Evelyn behind, Elphihara rose coldly from her seat. She had not seen Ivan for ten whole days.

Her mood had been catastrophically foul, and she could hardly blame anyone else for it. She had had plenty of chances to see him, had even gone looking for him herself, and had prepared gifts.

The problem was that she could not get close enough for his features to register.

"Ugh...."

Elphihara clenched her sleeve tightly and ground her teeth.

It was good that she was a genius at magic. More than good, it was only natural! Who could dispute that Beolgreen's daughter was a genius at magic?

The problem was that the spell's effect had been too remarkable.

Completing an original spell, a unique spell, in her twenties was an achievement worthy of admiration even among elves.

The spell was a mental one that affected only herself, but how impressive was a powerful spell that warped the world's very perception, and had no side effects?

The only problem was that it was too impressive.

'I can't... look directly at his face...!!'

With the Illusory Shave Spell, she could see Ivan's clean-shaven face.

But once she saw Ivan's clean-shaven face, she could not approach him...!!

What kind of paradox was that? On the first day she completed the spell, she had confidently gone to find Ivan, only to turn around and flee.

A husky voice that seemed to scrape up from somewhere deep inside, deep-set serious eyes, the smooth curve of his mouth when he smiled faintly.... And the memories she shared with him that no one else knew.

It was a combination with far too much destructive power.

He had struck exactly at her type.

And he looked much, much younger than she had expected. Somehow, he even felt familiar. So... so...

'This won't do...!'

To gain an advantage over the stupid human woman trying to shave off his beard and the vulgar human woman who came running because she liked even the beard, she needed a greater weapon.

Fortunately, she knew something the other humans (calling them stupid was redundant) did not.

The illusion of happiness shown by the ancient evil god. Within it, she had confirmed Ivan's preferences. She knew every detail of Ivan's secret tastes, things the other humans would never even dare imagine.

A comb and a dog chew.

With those two things, she could claim an unmatched position even among those inferior creatures who only knew how to throw themselves at him physically.

Elphihara made up her mind and rose from her seat.

Footnotes:

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