WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

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Chapter 755: Minotaur

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This was before they came to be called Infiltrators, in the days of their ancestors’ ancestors.

If you asked why they worshipped the demon god, the answer was simple enough. When their ancestors first settled here, the demon god had helped them. That alone was reason enough.

The demon god received offerings and sometimes demanded sacrifice, but by now stopping was no longer an option. Stopping meant death.

‘O Demon God.’

They did not even know the demon god's name. They carved its symbol into a statue and venerated it, though they had no idea whether that shape truly resembled the demon god at all.

A round piece of wood scorched black over fire, raised high on a long pole. A black sun.

It was said to represent the god that would one day snuff out all light in this world and take dominion over this land.

That explanation had come from the one they called a priest. The priest was the one who had taught them everything needed to survive as they lived now.

"Worship it."

The priest said so, and they obeyed.

Refuse, and there was only death. There was no one in this land to protect them.

Going back to live among ordinary humans was out of the question, not with the way they looked now.

Without something to serve, they would all simply die.

Even as neighbors, family members, and friends vanished into the Cursed Ground over the years.

Even as the priest took some of the children born among them.

All of it had to be endured.

They had long since given up thinking for themselves and decided that merely surviving was enough. Decision, judgment, choice, all of it had been handed over to someone else. That kind of dependence did not vanish overnight.

In truth, calling it impossible would not be far off.

These were people who could not live without leaning on something.

A fish cannot survive outside of water.

A life steeped in decades of habit could not be changed in a single morning.

The village of the Infiltrators was an entirely opposite kind of settlement from the Hidden Village in the Pen-Hanil Mountain Range.

* * *

There had been a few people over the years who marched in under the banner of justice to punish the village of the Infiltrators. Every one of them died. The Demon Creatures sent by the priest had always passed judgment on people like that.

* * *

How far did the demon god's protection actually extend? Did the Demon Creatures attack anyone who crossed the boundary? Were they being watched the whole time?

No. It was not like that.

"There is a relic buried here."

Enkrid had already felt something off before Jaxon said it. Sinar had been complaining of headaches the entire time they were in the area.

"My head hurts. Fiancé, I need something to lean on."

It was not bad enough to actually need support, though.

Sinar did not seem disappointed that her attempt had failed to land. Instead, she worked out what the relic Jaxon had found actually was and told them.

Separate from Jaxon's sharp senses, an elf's senses and ability to handle vital energy made identifying the nature of a relic buried underground entirely reasonable. All the more so given that she herself had been the target of a demon's courtship and had spent a considerable stretch of time in close proximity to one.

She could fairly be called the finest demon detector among the elves.

"It's a demon."

A firm, flat statement. Not that the relic itself was a demon, but that it was a relic made by one.

"I agree."

Jaxon concurred. When they brought Audin to the spot, white light began to gather around him on its own, a reflex, divine power surfacing without being called.

"The air here is thick with something unpleasant."

He did not elaborate, but the atmosphere of the place clearly sat badly with Audin. Was he alone in that? Hardly. Everyone felt it. They all knew how to respect others, were capable of enduring, and had exceptional patience.

Though looking at the way they regularly tried to put blades into each other, Enkrid thought, patience really did seem like a quality reserved for the moments when it actually mattered.

Enkrid walked the outskirts of the village and observed. Ruagarne had been right.

Centered here, it would be easy to strike wandering Demon Creatures or small Cursed Grounds in the area.

The land was close to flat, which opened up clear sightlines in every direction. Behind them was a stretch of forest. Far in the distance stood a black mountain whose peak had been dyed red.

Most importantly, the area around the village was untouchable ground. Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts simply did not approach. The buried relic worked like a stray dog's urine or a bear's droppings, an unmistakable claim of domain.

What needed to be done now was obvious, direct, and clear.

"No reason for us all to move in one group, is there?"

Enkrid asked. Not to empty air, either. Sinar walked on his left, Ruagarne on his right. Today's companions for a stroll.

Rem had gone off buzzing around the edges of the village, saying there was all sorts of interesting Sorcery-related things to look at. Audin and Teresa had decided that a place like this was precisely where prayer should not stop, and had gone into quiet practice.

"Agreed."

Ruagarne answered.

They had spent a few days here, gathering information about the surrounding Cursed Grounds from the villagers. The locals knew quite a bit. More precisely, everywhere the villagers considered dangerous turned out to either have Colony-level packs of Demon Creatures or contain a small Cursed Ground.

Even with the demon god's protection, walking blind into a danger zone meant people vanished, so information had accumulated naturally enough over the years.

To Enkrid's eye, the whole region had settled into a kind of fixed shape. Many of the Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts had staked out territory and reached a strange equilibrium, neither side crossing into the other's ground.

Demon Creatures pushing in from the south.

He had run into that kind of wandering pack often enough on the continent. It was part of why Harrison Viscount, who held land on the southern agricultural belt of the kingdom of Naurillia, had spent his whole life dealing with things that, from his perspective, were practically natural disasters.

Some of those creatures were probably born in places like this and pushed outward from there.

Either way, they had a full knight order's worth of strength. No reason to bunch up.

"Put Ropord and Ragna together as one group. Ruagarne, Teresa, and Fell can move as another."

He had not worked it out carefully. It just came out. But Enkrid had a way of reading intentions on the battlefield using nothing but instinct, and over time that ability had carried over into situations like this one. The groupings were off the top of his head, but they were right.

"Good."

Ruagarne gave a small nod.

What came after was both the same as before and different. Easier, in other words.

Even if it was not easy, these were people who would see it through regardless. The Madman Knights went straight for the surrounding Cursed Grounds. They moved at sunrise and finished before sundown.

"There was a pack of Scalers. They had no special abilities, but their scales were unusually hard."

That was Ropord's report, after returning from clearing one Cursed Ground in under half a day. Ragna's Ilchul had torn through a stretch of marshland, scorching, searing, and cutting it apart.

"I thought Sir Krais would have been pleased if we'd brought back some Scaler scales, but it's regrettable."

Enkrid just nodded at that without much reaction.

The bulk alone would make it impractical. If there were some other way to transport byproducts from Demon Creatures in this region, it would be enormously useful. Armor made from processed Scaler scales would do a great deal for the Border Guard Standing Army's equipment. Looking at what the villagers wore made that clear. Somehow they had managed to tailor clothing from hides and scales, and the craftsmanship was genuinely impressive.

"There was an interesting Magic Beast out there. It was a snake with small wings and a triangular head that spat venom needles."

Ruagarne came back and mentioned it. Apparently Teresa had blocked the venom with her shield, then closed in, grabbed the snake by the neck, and tore it apart.

"She relied on physical superiority rather than technique, but it was well done."

That much alone said something. Teresa's skills had grown. If overwhelming strength was her advantage, using it was the obvious approach, and her tactics made full use of the monstrous strength she carried.

Audin moved with Jaxon. They went looking for one of the wandering Magic Beasts and found it in two days, which counted as lucky.

A giant centipede. It used telekinesis, apparently, though that made no difference against those two.

"Any trouble?"

"None at all, brother."

Enkrid had asked just to be safe. Audin shook his head, and Jaxon shrugged.

The villagers were stunned.

It was hard not to be, looking at what had been done.

The surrounding Cursed Grounds, Demon Creatures, and Magic Beasts had simply been torn apart. Among them had been a demon that changed its appearance to lure people in, and there were more than five Cursed Grounds anchored by Ghoul packs. Formless Evil Spirits appeared in numbers too. A monster called the Twilight Witch, which commanded plague maidens, was the most notorious Demon Creature in the region. Left alone, people had worried it might become a new demon. Its presence had been so overwhelming that even the Red Cloak Knights had it on their list of targets to hunt.

A large man and woman, along with three fierce-looking men, went out and came back with it finished.

Somewhat absurdly, Frog looked the most fragile of the group. The villagers would not have known the difference.

Either way, it was the kind of thing that left you wondering what in the world had just happened.

Through all of it, Enkrid was reminded anew of how brutal the southern Cursed Ground territory was.

Land unfit for people to live in.

And yet people lived there.

That contradiction had produced the village of the Infiltrators.

The Boatman in his visions asked. No, the Boatman had been asking for days.

"What will you choose?"

A cruel fantasy, followed by a forced demand for an answer.

Were even these people something to be protected?

Or something to be cut down?

Or just something to be left behind and walked away from?

Whichever choice he made, did his oath as a Knight still hold?

Oath and conviction, in the end, came down to the coherence of what lived inside him.

Take one clumsy step, and the Will would take damage. He knew it through instinct and through experience both.

Valmund Balpier, Knight of the Empire, had told him many things, and most of it came back to the difference between a greenhouse knight and an Empire knight.

"There are plenty of greenhouse knights on the continent who treat their oaths like a joke, right? The ones who compromise just a little? Those ones can never climb higher."

The words had come from Valmund's mouth, but the Empire's history had proven them true.

Fail to keep the oath, and a knight's worth diminishes. Which means the Will takes damage.

So an answer to the question the Boatman kept throwing at him would need to be found, eventually.

The villagers were startled, but they had not driven Enkrid and the others away. There was no need to.

Which meant the thing the villagers had been expecting happened. The demon god's relic had been watching the village, and it sent a cleaner.

Mmmm-MOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

The outskirts of the village had no proper fence to speak of. A Bull Giant stepped through the fields the villagers had planted. A flock of sheep bolted to one side in a panic. A few dogs whimpered and scrambled for cover.

"A Minotaur?"

Jaxon spotted it first. He had caught a faint, strange animal smell laced with something sharp, and then the creature appeared.

It announced itself with a roar. What the roar meant was plain.

Fight me.

No one present ignored it.

Dusk was settling in. The twilight was dreary. The roar tore through the damp air, and the Minotaur's shadow stretched out beside it and ran long across the ground. It was big enough that you had to tilt your head back to take it all in, and with the sinking sun behind it, the thing looked even larger than it was.

The momentum radiating off its whole body matched.

"Nothing clears the head like moving."

Enkrid stepped forward as he said it. The meaning was clear enough. He would handle it. Everyone else could watch.

"Always trying to eat the good stuff alone."

Rem grumbled, though he would not go against Enkrid's word.

Two moons slipped quietly into view behind the setting sun.

While everyone watched, the Minotaur placed one hand at its waist, stretched out its neck, and threw its head back.

MMMM-MOOOOOOOO!

The kind of roar that made every set of knees in earshot go weak.

At its core were killing intent and raw wildness.

Enkrid let the Will of Refusal rise on its own, ignored the Bull Magic Beast's roar, and raised Pressure. The Pressure took shape and formed a wall that blocked the space ahead. Iron Wall, a wall built for protection.

"Well, look at that."

Rem murmured, a note of surprise in his voice.

The bull carried two broad-bladed swords at its hips. Wide like a Glaive but with shorter handles. Modified weapons. Where had it gotten those?

The Minotaur gripped both blades and took its stance.

Could wildness carry swordsmanship inside it? Normally, no. But the creature standing in front of him was not ordinary.

If there were Scalers with hardened scales and Demon Creatures that used telekinesis, then something like this was possible too.

Or perhaps a Cursed Ground was simply the kind of place where you saw things that made no sense anywhere else.

This was a Demon Creature that used swordsmanship.

The kind that, generally speaking, carried more raw physical power than an ogre. The kind said to be as dangerous as a Medusa. And this one also used a sword.

Legs spread wide. Both arms holding blades at different heights.

Every part of it said the bull knew what it was doing with those weapons.

Enkrid raised Duskforge and took aim.

The Minotaur could use a sword. Fine. So what?

Right now all Enkrid was really wondering was whether the bull's scream would also sound like a moo.

Apart from its stance, the bull's weapons were no ordinary things either. Relics were the right word. More precisely, relics imbued with demonic energy, or perhaps Demon Swords.

Enkrid faced the bull and drew in a slow, low breath.

Duskforge trembled. It felt as though the blade was saying it wanted to cut down the Bull Magic Beast already.

Enkrid decided to give his Inscribed Weapon what it wanted.

He kicked off the ground without a sound. The distance collapsed in an instant. The Minotaur's arm muscles swelled, and a blade came screaming through the air. All of it happened in the span of a breath.

A booming crack struck his ears a moment later.

Before that sound ever reached him, one human and one Demon Creature had already traded blows.

Footnotes:

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