WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 754: Selling Tomorrow for Today

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Enkrid took in the faces around him, those who welcomed him and those watching from a distance. Purple skin, clear brown eyes. More or less.

"My name is Zhoroslavb. This way, please."

The man named Zhoroslavb led them toward a house with a round dome at its center. Along the way, Enkrid noticed others peeking out from afar, craning their necks or ducking back like frightened squirrels or curious cats. It was no different from the look any stranger got in any ordinary village.

If anything, it was a very human reaction.

The building Zhoroslavb led them to was plaster and brick. It seemed to serve as both a village hall and something close to a church, the only structure large enough to hold more than ten people at once.

"We would like to offer you a meal, though I am not sure it will suit your tastes."

A woman stepped forward behind him.

"Welcome. I do not think we have ever had this many guests at once."

She was the kind of woman anyone would call beautiful without hesitation. She guided them to a room that served as both parlor and dining hall, where they sat around a large table on handmade wooden chairs the color of dark chestnut.

No threat. No danger. The whole group seemed to feel the same.

They were given ordinary tableware amid ordinary furnishings.

Jaxon sampled the food for scent and taste, then nodded. No poison. Setting Sinar and Ruagarne aside, since they ate differently, the rest simply ate. A stew of meat and potato-like root vegetables, served with bread that was tough but had a pleasant, nutty flavor.

They had been fed and had stayed for half a day. Rem let out a low "hmm" and looked around.

"Kind of awkward."

What did that mean, exactly?

It meant that for all the talk of serving the demon god, these people looked ordinary enough that swinging an axe at them felt wrong. Something like that.

Sinar's brow tightened, barely enough to notice unless you were watching.

Stepping into the Cursed Ground always brought a shift in the air. This village felt the same.

Enkrid felt it too.

'Not quite as bad as the Cursed Ground itself.'

An unsettling current ran through the place.

For Sinar, it dredged up bad memories, the moment she had been held captive in a demon's den.

The discomfort was understandable. But she was no ordinary elf, so she kept it in check.

"Fiancé, do not stray from my side."

That was all she said.

Enkrid took her mood into account and did exactly that. He stayed close to Sinar as much as he could.

Romen scratched his head, looking the group over.

"I did say it wasn’t exactly normal, but it’s still a bit of a shock, right? I felt the same."

Enkrid nodded. The others reacted much the same.

After only half a day, if he had to sum up his impression so far, it was this.

'Ordinary.'

There were oddities, yes, but in the way these people ate, drank, rested, worked, and went about their days, they were as ordinary as anyone could be.

Fields cleared inside the village boundary were planted with various crops, and the trees growing in rows beside them were being harvested for blue fruit. Not ordinary crops or fruit, most likely. They did not look it.

'Still, nothing that seemed inedible.'

The one clear oddity was that the villagers prayed three times a day. To whom? The symbol at the center said it plainly. To the demon god.

"Let us pray."

Before the evening sun set, wherever they happened to be standing, bare dirt or anything else, they knelt before the demon god's effigy at the village center and pressed their foreheads to the ground.

Those who had been indoors came out and did the same. The coughing and sick villagers rested as well.

This was not something done under compulsion. There was no need to dig into why they served the demon god.

And watching how they prayed, it did not look like they were putting much heart into it, either.

The attitude was simply: we do it because we are told to.

"Strange place," Ruagarne said, twitching her cheek.

Calling this the border of the Cursed Ground would be generous. The demon god's front yard was closer to the truth.

What that meant was this.

A flimsy wooden fence was not enough to survive here.

Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts would naturally see this place as a pantry to raid.

And were there not several more roaming Demon Creatures nearby, notorious for being difficult to kill?

"The demon god's protection," Enkrid murmured. Those words fit remarkably well.

This village was a gathering of people who lived under the demon god's cover.

The purple tint in their skin probably came from the same source.

Ropord looked around the village. "When a beast is infiltrated by demonic energy, it becomes a Magic Beast, so should we call these people Demon Lords?"

As a label for humans infiltrated by demonic energy, it was quite fitting.

* * *

So what were they supposed to do about this place, right now? The problem was that these people were simply living their lives.

"Leave them be. They are only trying to live."

Serving the demon god was the work of the Cult. Yet Audin was the first to say let them be.

"Ha. The me of years past would have said differently. I would have expressed the anger that rose like flame and scattered divine power to drive the demonic energy from them. But not anymore. I have learned to respect how others choose to live."

As he spoke, white light gathered in Audin's eyes. Divine power, rising on its own. Enkrid met that gaze directly and nodded.

"Then that is what we do."

People who were only living. People who served the demon god in order to live here. What could he say about them?

Zhoroslavb came by at intervals to explain how the village worked.

"That is correct. We serve the demon god and so we are protected. But if you ask whether we do so with a full heart, well."

Did they hold blind faith?

No. Nothing like that.

Then what?

"It is to survive."

They served a god for a purpose. And they said it plainly:

"We are content with this. Even if it means living at the edge of the Cursed Ground, worshipping its god."

This small village, this community, was of one mind. There was no discord. Those who created disharmony had all been driven out, made into Sacrifices, and killed.

So did that mean they should all be killed? No.

If this was what they had chosen, the only thing to do was let them live by it.

Enkrid knew himself well. He was a swordsman, not a speechmaker.

So in situations like this, if he was not going to cut everyone down, the right move was to walk away and do nothing.

Zhoroslavb, the village representative, had started with a warm welcome. His tone was plain now.

"Then let me ask you directly. Did you come here to judge us as evil and punish us for it?"

To Zhoroslavb's eye, these visitors were a threat.

Several swordsmen, a Frog, and an elf. How would a group like that look at a village of Infiltrated ones?

The question had all of that folded into it.

Enkrid asked himself quietly.

'Are these people evil?'

No one could answer that carelessly.

Enkrid knew better than most that good and evil could not be split into clean halves. What was good for one person was evil for another. A person who fought for justice could look to others like a guardian of injustice.

Even so, this did not mean he would withhold his sword from them simply because he did not want to become evil to them.

He simply did not want to lose respect for them.

They had said they would live as they chose. Enkrid respected that.

"No. That is not why we came."

Zhoroslavb smiled at the denial.

He had seen people who gave pieces of themselves to the demon god and lived on.

He would respect them. But whether this was truly the life they had wanted for themselves was a question worth considering.

And what could he actually do for them right now? That was another question entirely.

Zhoroslavb gave the group a place to rest.

When the next day came, Ragna said he felt cooped up and wanted to go out. Ropord fell in behind him.

"You should not go alone."

"Why?"

Rem answered from the back before anyone else could.

"You really have to ask?"

"If I knew, why would I ask? It’s common sense, Savage."

Enkrid watched the exchange in silence. Rem turned his head toward Enkrid.

"...I genuinely want to know, can't we just bury him somewhere and move on? Having to go looking for him every time is more trouble than it's worth."

Rem was about half serious. That same day, Ragna came back with Ropord, having cleared out a small Cursed Ground.

The core of it had been swollen water monsters known as the Drowned and a pack of Ghouls, with a hunched, magic-wielding demon at the center.

"Ah, those ones had been setting up since last year. They caused us no end of trouble. Whenever we crossed the boundary even a little, they would eye us, intent on taking us away."

Zhoroslavb was greatly delighted.

According to Ropord, the creature called a demon had been hurling lightning from its hands when Ragna's sword suddenly blazed with light and burned it to nothing.

"I’m getting used to it now," Ragna said, like it was nothing.

A Knight, a genius of exceptional talent at that, ran wild with a family heirloom passed down through generations, one that surpassed even an Inscribed Weapon.

The result was no surprise, and yet it was not quite something that could be called unsurprising, either.

"We have little to offer."

Zhoroslavb slaughtered a sheep. They kept livestock, it turned out, and in considerable numbers.

Real livestock, not Magic Beasts. The group had mutton for dinner that evening.

"Using this place as a base would make things easier," Ruagarne said after surveying the surrounding terrain.

What had their original purpose been? Crushing every small Cursed Ground they came across and hunting down roaming Demon Creatures.

Balrok was among the roaming type, and since pinning down his location was impossible, they needed to sing a serenade of temptation to lure him in.

The village sat in a useful spot geographically for a base camp.

Enkrid nodded, then walked the perimeter of the village. As he walked, the dreams he had had over the last two days kept surfacing.

To the sound of rolling waves, Enkrid watched the ferry grow much wider.

Clatter.

Gravel had piled up on the floor, and the waves lapped all the way to its edge.

He was still on the ferry, but it felt like strolling along a riverbank.

"Let us walk a little."

The Boatman spoke calmly, lamp in hand. Enkrid fell into step beside him. They walked three and a half paces apart. The Boatman's voice was softer than usual, thinner.

"Yes. I wanted to ask what you thought of the village."

A stroll. An ordinary conversation. The first day had been like that, and the next day was much the same.

"Did you observe those who believe in the demon god? Did you see the traces of the Sacrifices?"

The Boatman asked again.

It was not hard to read what he was driving at.

The Boatman did not bother hiding his intent, and Enkrid was quick to catch things. Both of them knew it, so the Boatman moved to the real question a little sooner than he had planned.

"Are these people the ones who stand behind you?"

Are they worth protecting? Or are they ones who should be cut down?

Where is the line between good and evil? Where does the road you walk actually lead?

Can every person who serves the demon god be called evil?

A cruel hypothetical followed by a cruel forced choice. That was what this time was.

The Boatman could not determine the future, but he had seen countless branching paths.

He drew out Enkrid's futures and looked at them.

One tomorrow in which Enkrid cuts down every last resident of the village.

"They were just people."

Romen condemns Enkrid for it. Enkrid himself wavers.

'Is this truly the right path?'

A second branching tomorrow in which he leaves every resident of the village alone.

Then, years later, every one of them would reach a point where they could only survive by consuming human flesh and blood. That end was clear.

People who had sold their future in order to live in the present. Something anyone could do.

Selling tomorrow for today, and nothing more.

Between those two choices, the Boatman asked.

"Where is the path you want? Does a right path even exist in this world?"

Enkrid realized the Boatman's trial had not ended. It was still going, picking up where it left off.

"What are you so lost in thought about?"

Sinar's voice pulled him out. Enkrid blinked and looked at the elf with her otherworldly beauty.

'Was the Boatman a woman too?'

Somehow, looking at Sinar had sparked the thought. And from there a natural question followed.

"After the migration, your home changed, your way of living changed. Was that all right?"

The elf village had begun trading with humans and had to exchange all manner of techniques and knowledge.

It was a question he had never thought to ask until now. At that, Sinar showed the smile she rarely let people see.

The corners of her dark green eyes curved upward. Golden hair drifted in the wind.

"Wherever elves live is an elf village."

She was right.

Enkrid turned the Boatman's question over again in his mind.

'What is the path I want?'

Footnotes:

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