WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B

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Chapter 81: 13. Meeting the Family (2)

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Einar led Ivan to Saint Basilisha Orphanage. He said he wouldn't be satisfied until he saw for himself where his little brother lived.

"An orphanage! This is fucking incredible!"

Einar kept bursting into laughter as he wandered around the place. The children screamed and ran away from his vicious-looking face.

"You really spared no expense here!"

"Mm."

"War orphans look better cared for than the noble brats living in our royal palace. What the hell is this world coming to?"

Even as he said that, Einar patted Ivan's back with obvious pride.

"This bastard's better than me."

"Mm."

It was an objective fact, so Ivan saw no need to argue.

Einar burst into hearty laughter, then slung an arm around his shoulders.

The horrifyingly developed muscles wrapped around Ivan's neck, and he had to suppress a shudder for a moment.

"All right, let's have a look at your home now."

* * *

After looking around the director's office once, Einar nodded.

"A very modest office. So, where do you sleep?"

"Here."

"What...?"

"I sleep on that sofa."

"Oh...."

Einar hesitated as he looked around.

One worn-out sofa. One old coffee table.

One wardrobe and one desk. The weapons hanging on the wall were polished and well maintained.

Why was this bastard still living alone in the middle of a war?

Einar narrowed his eyes. Living and sleeping in the director's office was one thing, but...

He had been ready to leave at any time.

Einar was the king of a nation, Droan's greatest field commander, and a man who had fought beside his soldiers at the front lines.

He saw through Ivan's state at once. This office contained only the things he needed, not the things he wanted, so he could leave without regret in any situation.

Other than the weapons on the wall, anyone could sit at the desk and use the office without a problem. That was how little color the place had.

A space gained its color from its owner's possessions and tastes. There was none of that here. It was a completely colorless space.

A clear, empty space with no sense of belonging at all.

"Ivan. Sit."

Einar gestured with heavy eyes. The moment he sat on the sofa, Huscarls rushed over and arranged bottles and glasses in front of him.

"Let's hear it first. How did you kill a Seven Dragon General and come back alive?"

A man ready to disappear at any moment, a man whose sudden disappearance would not have seemed strange.

Einar knew someone like that.

Maximilian. Humanity's Hero.

He had been exactly like this just before he vanished.

* * *

An accidental mistake by the god who created a race. The culmination of tens of thousands of years of racial evolution. The finest product created by some destiny of the world.

The strongest and greatest individual in an entire race.

During the war, humanity called them the Seven Dragon Generals.

Beings who bore the names of gods in mortal flesh. Concepts made manifest in the world. Representatives of every race that made up the demonfolk.

For humans, they might have been comparable to the Hero. No, that wasn't right. Even the Hero had not been the strongest individual among humans.

They were beings who could represent their entire race alone, literal Race Gods.

Seven such beings, and one who ruled over those seven. Multiracial allied forces pouring in under their command. Humanity losing half the world within ten years of the war's outbreak.

That was the cause and history of the last war.

"How did you come back alive?"

Einar asked Ivan as if he were looking at a miracle.

He had faced the Seven Dragon Generals himself. He was one of the very few people in the world who had encountered them and survived.

Of course he had questions.

Even the Hero Party had felt despair when they fought the Seven Dragon Generals. They had known fear and pain. They had learned defeat.

They had only managed to defeat them one at a time after the entire Hero Party entered battle and fought with everything they had.

And Ivan had faced one with only a handful of well-trained soldiers, killed it, and returned alive?

"The one you killed was... Aviditas, right? I think that's what I heard."

"That's right."

"The Lord of the Evil Dragons? Didn't that bastard live in the Ipera Sky Isles? How did you kill him? How did you make it back alive?"

They were reasonable questions. Einar put his feet up on the table, drank the liquor the Huscarls poured for him, and tilted his head.

Ivan sat across from him and quietly tipped his own head.

It made him uncomfortable.

He could not understand why this man had come to the city, why he was meeting with him alone, or why they were having this conversation.

It simply made him uncomfortable. Especially this conversation, which reminded him of that time.

-Lieutenant Colonel. Did you see that? Wow, I was fucking amazing, wasn't I? I held back a Seven Dragon General, of all things.

-Ahaha, I think I could do it again if I had to, but it's a shame.

-If I had, maybe I could've saved Sasha, that idiot. What a shame. Lieutenant Colonel, really.

-At least we won't be lonely. We won't.

-We built up such good connections in heaven and hell, didn't we?

-Live a long time, Lieutenant Colonel. Come as late as you can.

-If you come early, I'll commit insubordination.

Ivan clenched his teeth at the voice striking his ears like an auditory hallucination.

The blood Cherenovika had vomited that day still burned hot against the back of his neck. And that was not all. He remembered every name of the subordinates who had died then.

One hundred and fifty-six Annihilation Unit members had died to kill a single Seven Dragon General.

There had been five active Seven Dragon Generals at the time, so it would not have been wrong to say that the Annihilation Unit's roughly seven hundred members had all fallen on the same day.

Kill the Seven Dragon Generals. That had been the Annihilation Unit's final order.

Ivan did not want to remember that day.

"Let's talk about something else."

"No. We can't."

Einar's green eyes burned like flames.

He glared at Ivan with blazing eyes, as if he could see straight through his heart.

"Is it guilt? Or fear? I understand. I can accept it. I heard Enrika and Patricia are in this city too, but didn't they tell you? Then again... they weren't the ones who killed them directly, so perhaps they wouldn't know."

"...What are you trying to say?"

"I'm saying that someone who kills a Seven Dragon General with their own hands, someone who gets covered in its blood, can't remain normal."

Einar flicked his fingers. His glass filled again with thick distilled liquor.

He drained it into his mouth and swallowed harshly. After letting out a deep breath, he continued in a languid voice.

"The first time I noticed was... let's see. When we killed Tumor, perhaps. When we killed Tumor of Mount Tai, that son of a bitch, Maximilian acted strange for a while."

Einar closed his eyes as he recalled the distant past.

"He went back to normal after a few days... but even if the others didn't notice, I could see it. The rage he kept deeply buried beneath his eyes. That bastard had always been kind, but after that, he became strangely considerate."

"Did he?"

"Yeah. We took down another Seven Dragon General after that, and even with his arm blown off, he dug in his heels. He insisted that he had to kill it himself. It was strange. He had never cared about things like honor, yet he demanded that he be the one to take the bastard's head."

Einar had not thought much of it at the time.

Those days had been cruel to everyone. The Hero Party had gradually spoken less and become more emotionally volatile.

It had been a long time since they had seen their families, and they rarely even spoke to other humans. Demonfolk were everywhere underfoot, and both the earth and sky sought their lives.

It was an age when one had to split the sky open to see hope.

The Hero's strange behavior had seemed understandable. That was what Einar decided. What did it matter who cut off the head? The important thing was that they had killed a Seven Dragon General.

"And in the Demon King's castle... Mm. It would be a problem if the others heard this. You lot, wait outside."

"Yes, Brother!!"

At Einar's gesture, the Huscarls left the director's office together.

Once they were alone, Einar slowly reached out and filled his own glass.

He slid the full glass toward Ivan, then waved the bottle in his hand.

"Drink. Your big brother is thirsty."

Ivan picked up the glass. Einar raised his bottle and clinked it loudly against Ivan's glass.

The two men drank at the same time.

The heavy, bitter liquid burned like fire as it flowed down Ivan's throat.

After a moment of silence, Einar set down the bottle.

"Maximilian personally cut off the Demon King's head. At the time, he was in no condition to move. Even with Patricia's healing, he needed more than a week of rest."

Even so, the Hero had walked over and struck down the Demon King's head while suffering injuries so severe that no one else would have been able to move a finger.

The blood spilling through the gaps in his armor was already enough to kill him. Patricia had poured healing miracles into the Hero until she lost consciousness.

Gilles Ver had passed out standing up, Einar had been gathering the party and preparing to flee, while Enrika and Beolgreen fought off the forces rushing toward the Demon King's castle's highest floor.

In that situation, Maximilian had kept striking the dead Demon King's neck. Until they retreated. Relentlessly, even after he had collapsed, even after he lost consciousness.

Only Beolgreen and Einar had found that strange.

Beolgreen had noticed through intellect, and Einar through instinct. They had noticed something wrong with the Hero that the others had missed.

"That bastard dared... bear the curse in our place."

"...A curse."

"Yes, a curse. The filth poured upon mortals who kill gods. The curse imposed upon godslayers drenched in a god's blood."

Dense killing intent spilled from Einar's body.

"How dare he, how dare he bear that sin in my place. Thinking we couldn't bear it. All alone, because he thought so highly of himself...!!"

To Ivan, it looked like guilt disguised as rage.

Grief, guilt, sorrow beyond expression, all forced out in the shape of anger.

Ivan silently ran a hand over his glass.

"When we killed the first Seven Dragon General, that's when he realized it. That it was a curse humans could not bear. Then he must have thought this."

If someone had to bear the same curse later,

would it not be most efficient for the one already cursed to receive it?

"That idiot. Without even thinking of discussing it with the others, he took everything on himself...."

Einar tipped back the bottle and drank deeply. Only after he let out a heavy breath did his eyes open halfway.

"Kill one Seven Dragon General and the soul is tainted. Then what happened after he killed the Demon King? The others thought Maximilian's disappearance was strange, but I didn't. That bastard finally became unable to bear it."

Einar put down the empty bottle and stared at Ivan.

Heavily, as if he intended to look into Ivan's soul.

"The concept Aviditas held was greed. You have lost desire, Ivan Petrovich. The world's gold and treasures, honor and fame, connections and love."

He had spent every asset he earned through the war to establish an orphanage, yet he slept on a sofa.

Nobles from every part of society and high-ranking generals were still active, yet Ivan alone had disappeared and lived as though he were dead.

He had rejected every marriage proposal from the daughters of high society and grown old alone.

Einar quietly steadied his breathing and swallowed his anger.

He swallowed his grief, his guilt, his sorrow.

"How are you still alive? Over the last four years, what has kept you in this world?"

"..."

Ivan raised his head at Einar's words.

"Duty."

Then he continued heavily.

"Respect, faith, responsibility, hope."

Respect for the former king.

Faith in the ending page.

Responsibility for all those who had died in his place.

Hope that he could return someday.

And if he had to add one more thing.

"Survival."

Not searching for a reason to be alive.

The blind drive that made being alive itself the reason.

It would not have been an exaggeration to say that was everything Ivan was.

After finishing those words, Ivan thought for a moment, then took a small box from inside his clothes.

"And I have not lost every desire, Einar."

"Brother."

"Einar."

"I said brother."

"...Brother Einar."

"That's right."

Einar snorted and gestured with his chin toward the box.

"All right, what is it? This desire you haven't lost. Let's see what it is."

"Don't be surprised."

Ivan slowly opened the box. He carefully took out a gleaming metal comb that had been meticulously maintained.

Click.

He opened the comb fully and spoke in a low voice.

"This can also be used as a dagger."

"That's fucking incredible, you bastard!!"

Einar shouted as he jumped to his feet.

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Footnotes:

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