WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 757: Not Iron Wall, but Salvation

──────

Chaos, unease, pandemonium.

Everything was in disarray. Some of the residents saw hallucinations.

“I will come find you myself.”

It was the demon god’s call.

Someone had to weep. Someone had to despair. That was the kind of time it was.

Still, they were human. Naturally, they were swept up in the atmosphere.

They said that exceptional people could change the mood of an entire group. A hero who drew out the fighting spirit at the forefront of battle did so, as did the passionate speech of an orator who persuaded everyone.

Right now, it was a madman’s attitude that did so. The mood was not despairing. Though the future ahead was truly bleak, it almost felt as though nothing like that would happen.

Why?

Because of how calm they were in the residents’ eyes.

Not one resident could step forward. Dumbfounded, they became mere spectators.

A few children among them began to murmur a song.

It was a song passed down through oral tradition for a long time, one with lyrics about the end and War’s End.

* * *

“I need training. Training.”

Fell muttered as he swung his sword. The madman who had been asleep for some time, who was always obsessed with training, woke from his near-catatonic state.

“Uwooo!”

He even let out a battle cry alone. He certainly did not look normal, but he remained calm.

Fell’s state of mind was simple and clear. Demon Creatures were enemies, and these people were to be protected. That was enough.

Purpose filled Fell’s eyes as he raised the Idol Slayer and began dancing off to one side.

“You’re making quite a racket. You said your name was Romen, right? Come over here for a moment.”

After seeing Enkrid’s sword and that mad display just now, Ropord’s confidence had wavered a little. One of his strengths was objectively examining and observing his own state.

Having faced his condition honestly, Ropord found an answer.

‘What I need now is the experience of winning.’

Immediately finding nearby Demon Creatures and killing them would be one way. Sparring with Romen, who needed it, would be another way to gain a similar experience.

In truth, more than the experience of victory, what Ropord desperately wanted was the fulfillment of knowing he could be useful to someone.

“How do you intend to reach the point where you can put force into a single strike?”

Ropord gently coaxed Romen as he spoke. Romen blinked and approached him.

You want to stand around swinging swords at a time like this?

His expression was full of that question, but he too had been swept up by the atmosphere.

Ropord simplified his thoughts. Enkrid would find his own answer to what he had done. So Ropord would simply do what he could now.

‘Maintain my best condition.’

It was for both body and mind.

With Romen before him, Ropord narrowed his thoughts and focused.

Having faced Fell countless times, he knew his strengths and weaknesses. He also knew the common traits of those who tended to stake everything on a single strike.

He had accumulated many secrets and tricks while training the unit called Enkrid’s personal guard.

He could make use of all of it.

To decide a fight with a single strike, one had to know how to build the process leading to that strike.

Enkrid had said that what Romen needed was an arduous process.

‘Put more simply, he needs to suffer enough for his life to be genuinely on the line.’

Ropord intended to give him that experience.

Some residents had been horrified to see Enkrid cut down the idol, but none collapsed in shock. Those among them with quick minds accepted the changed situation. Their shift in attitude was astonishingly fast.

In truth, they had no choice.

What could they do if they did not bow their heads here and now?

The Demon God’s Cleanser was dead, and the demon god’s touch was distant, but this swordsman stood right before them. With the slightest movement of his hand, they could all be slaughtered.

Those who realized that simple fact awakened their survival instincts, bowed their heads, and revered Enkrid.

“Oh, oh.”

Of course, they might have had reasons of their own as well.

Rem watched and snorted.

“They’re changing their stance like a Velopter that hasn’t eaten for three days snatching up rat meat.”

Velopters were mad for rat meat, which was why rats were hard to find in the west.

It was likely also because of the Demon Creatures called Copycats that were common in the west. Cats caught rats readily enough, or rather, they would if any remained.

“Sparring?”

Ragna approached Enkrid, who had just finished fighting. Seeing that, Rem furrowed his brow.

What was this lazy lunatic on about?

“Are you out of your mind?”

This was anger at a level Rem truly did not show often. It was as though someone had insulted his parents or children.

Westerners were especially vulnerable to insults about their blood relatives.

Rem drew his axe without hesitation and voiced the reason for his anger.

Enkrid had thought Ragna might have insulted Rem as he approached, but that was not it.

“I’m sparring first.”

…Was that worth getting this angry over?

“Brother, the Lord did not tell us to endure injustice. Why do you always step forward first?”

Audin cut in.

“He’s my fiancé. Of course I go first.”

Sinar added her own words.

But Sinar could not display her full strength here. Elves could not properly use their power where vital energy was scarce. Since arriving here, Sinar had repeatedly joked beside Enkrid that she felt dizzy and would feel better if she held him for a night.

Those jokes were rooted in her condition, weaker than usual.

“Do you even know how to imbue it?”

Ragna asked all of them. Could they imbue their swords with Will? Could they make their blades shine? If they could not, was it even sparring?

In other words, Ragna was saying they would be sparring at a high level from now on, so the weaklings should stay out.

“Hey, you just insulted western Sorcery.”

Rem maintained his anger. The expressed fury took shape. It was his own way of using Pressure.

Rem’s shadow grew, ignoring the moonlight. Then it seemed about to stand up entirely.

If they fought now, that shadow looked as though it would swing an axe as well.

“The Lord said there is nothing that cannot be accomplished through divine power.”

While Audin continued cutting in, Enkrid detected an attack aimed at his back.

Put into words, what he sensed was no more than someone waving a willow branch from about five steps away, yet his instincts caught it.

All his senses had been sharpened by the battle just before. Enkrid’s body reacted on its own.

Clang!

When he turned and raised Duskforge, the outstretched dagger blade struck it. It was Jaxon’s thrust.

Before the sparks could even scatter, Jaxon had retreated more than three paces and stared at Enkrid.

His thrust-and-retreat footwork was faster than Rem’s.

“You wildcat bastard!”

Rem’s anger exploded, but Jaxon ignored him.

“I’m good.”

That single strike had let him gauge Enkrid’s reactions and the sharpness of his senses. That was enough for Jaxon.

‘It’ll be hard to get behind him now.’

A simple sneak attack would not work. That was certain.

‘Then?’

Whoosh.

Jaxon avoided the flying hatchet and organized his thoughts.

‘I need to pull out everything I have too.’

Only then could he face Enkrid. Even then, he would have to secure advantageous ground first.

Otherwise, he could not kill him.

It was the judgment of the head of Georg’s Blade, the legendary assassin guild passed down in tales across the continent. Assassinating Enkrid had effectively become impossible.

“Enough.”

For the first time in a long while, Enkrid calmed them down and called Rem out first. He wanted to trade a few moves with Rem. In other words, he wanted to spar.

“As expected.”

Rem nodded and drew his axe. Strangely dense black smoke seemed to gather around it.

He had expended Will when killing the sword-wielding bull-head earlier, but his undried Will and the body tempered by the Isolation Technique were not weakened by something like this.

“Muscles are beautiful.”

Audin had seen through Rem’s condition.

Teresa quietly took in the entire sight. She also took in the people standing beside Enkrid.

‘Should I call this bold?’

Or should she call it uninhibited?

The moment Teresa saw those fit to be called Infiltrators, veins rose on the back of her hand. Strength entered her grip on its own.

She wanted to swing her greatsword at once, cleave them apart, and crush them.

They were foul and unpleasant. The kind of unpleasantness that felt like thousands of ants crawling across her body.

She should tear them apart, kill them, and purify this land.

Teresa heard the God of War’s call. Then a hand caught Teresa’s arm. It was large and warm, a hand capable of pouring out white light at will.

“If the Lord tells you to kill them, will you kill them all? The Lord’s will is righteous, but we who receive it are imperfect.”

Audin was teaching her what he always taught. The half-Giant took three shallow, long breaths, then nodded.

Sending them to the divine’s side might give them rest as well, but they would have wishes of their own.

In any case, Teresa came to a conclusion inwardly. No, she had already come to one.

‘They cannot be saved.’

There was no salvation. She had thought there was no way.

“Astonishing, simply astonishing!”

Ruagarne’s voice rang out repeatedly from beside her.

A madman of a different caliber truly saw things differently. His train of thought was different.

Teresa watched Enkrid cut down the idol and Audin use divine power to blow apart the relic buried in the ground.

‘They will protect this place somehow.’

They would somehow save them too.

‘Perhaps Salvation suits him better as an epithet than Iron Wall.’

Until just moments ago, it had seemed that leaving these people alone went against the Lord’s teachings. Now it was different.

The God of War Teresa served brought peace to her heart.

‘Lord.’

Teresa prayed and bowed her head. In truth, how this place would be defended was none of her concern.

That was the responsibility of the person who had started all this.

Would Enkrid summon Krais?

But would Big Eyes come just because he was called?

No matter how much Enkrid asked, Big Eyes would not come to the Cursed Ground.

Then how?

Such questions briefly passed through Teresa’s mind, but they were still none of her concern.

Teresa was not the only one who recognized the practical problem.

Rem also recognized it. Though he understood that solving it would be difficult in reality, he looked away from it.

Even now, after the idol had been cut down, he could sense signs of Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts nearby.

Thinking about it, that was only natural.

‘How appetizing must this place have been all this time?’

It was like throwing a freshly caught rat before a Velopter and telling it not to eat. A well-trained Velopter would endure. It would hold back without eating.

But what if its owner told it that it could eat now?

‘Then it would not be a Velopter if it did not pounce.’

It was what instinct demanded.

Rem withdrew his axe as he thought. They were in the middle of sparring. If they became even a little more serious, one of them would be badly hurt.

The black soot clinging to his axe faded, rose like smoke, and vanished.

“What was that?”

Enkrid asked. It was a technique similar to Will yet different. It followed a path different from gathering Will and imbuing it into a sword.

It was not the realm of skill or martial technique, but something accomplished purely through talent for handling Sorcery.

“Spirit descent.”

It was a technique he would not even dare attempt without an Inherited weapon. It let Sorcery dwell in the axe and manifest outwardly.

It was not easy to use. There were dozens of hurdles to overcome to reach this level.

Rem stared at Enkrid. There was nothing to ask. The knack of gathering Will like before? He did not need it. Besides that, he had already seen and learned everything, so there was nothing left to ask.

‘Handling weapon arts and Sorcery are separate matters.’

To reach the level called a Knight here and a warrior in the west, one had to do both. Training the body and training Sorcery were separate, but connected.

The odds of excelling at both?

‘Low. Far too low.’

Without talent, one would not even dare dream of reaching this level.

‘Still, I know how to teach it.’

It was almost entirely an imitation of the system Enkrid had built up.

“Well, I learned plenty.”

So Rem said grudgingly.

Enkrid blinked twice, then spoke.

“Where did Rem go? What Evil Spirit are you?”

“…Damn it.”

Why was this bastard doing this when someone was trying to thank him?

“Should I purify him?”

Audin reacted. It must be a moment that required his divine power.

“Were you struck by an Evil Spirit?”

Teresa chimed in. Jaxon had already drawn his dagger and looked ready to throw it.

“Ilchul burns anything.”

At Ragna’s added remark, Rem burst out laughing.

“You bastard…”

The insult was never completed.

“Time to work, Rem.”

Enkrid cut him off casually. He had teased Rem enough.

The door to a high-quality food storehouse, once protected by a fence, had opened. It was time for Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts to come flooding in from all directions. They were visible now.

Their sounds could be heard as well.

Footnotes:

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried