WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 762: That's What the Air of the Cursed Ground Is Like

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The ferryman had appeared in last night’s dream and said something.

“Be grateful.”

Was that what he said?

His tone, as always, was drab and grave, like a cloudy winter sky. There was a settled calm to it as well, the kind that sank in like old dust inside an abandoned house. Even so, Enkrid caught a faint playfulness beneath those words.

‘How strange.’

The owner of a ferry drifting along the Black River knew how to joke. That was the thought that had crossed his mind.

But whether it had been a joke or sincere, Enkrid bowed his head with complete sincerity. He did so politely and respectfully. His chest became parallel to the ferry, and his head dipped low.

Slosh.

The ferry rocked gently with the current.

The ferryman still sang of frustration and Despair, still wanted Enkrid to give up on life and remain in today. Yet regardless of what the ferryman wanted, Enkrid had gained no small amount through him. That was simply the truth.

Lately, he had even begun to feel as though the ferryman was helping him.

“Yes.”

He answered with his head still bowed.

“Do not answer so readily.”

The ferryman seemed to scowl. His face remained expressionless, of course, but that was the impression conveyed to him mentally.

“Yes.”

He answered again.

“Answer, no. Don’t.”

This time, the ferryman’s head visibly moved from side to side. It was slow and out of rhythm, like a broken clock.

Still, the meaning was clear.

It was a headshake that said he would no longer exchange this sort of conversation with Enkrid.

Enkrid raised his head. He was not walking along the riverbank as he had before. Perhaps because of that, it felt different from walking along the gunwale after it had turned into a riverbank, yet somehow familiar all the same.

The atmosphere the ferryman gave off made it feel that way.

Enkrid felt a strange calm in that moment. It felt as though he were exchanging pleasantries with the ferryman. Whatever the subject, the ferryman’s tone carried that sort of air. Of course, it was conveyed mentally.

“You do not expect what is inside to be easy, do you?” the ferryman asked. It was still strange that he spoke without moving his lips.

His lips were like a gray wasteland, parched and cracked after a long drought.

“Do I look like I am entering the Cursed Ground because I take it lightly?”

Enkrid answered as he listened to the sound of water lapping against the ferry behind him.

Could that truly be how the ferryman saw him? As though he were doing this because he underestimated the Cursed Ground?

“You answer a question with a question, yet I have not sewn your mouth shut. You should be grateful for my generosity.”

The ferryman spoke, and something like a quiet laugh was conveyed mentally.

Another joke.

Staring into the ferryman’s black hollow eyes, Enkrid tried to answer faithfully instead of asking another question.

He did not think the Cursed Ground would be easy. At the same time, he was looking forward to what might emerge from within it. That was the meaning he put into his answer.

“Yes.”

He answered with a half-bow.

“Somehow, the longer this conversation goes on, the more I feel I am losing out.”

“I see.”

“Do not answer.”

“......”

The ferryman realized once again that he could not win with words. This bastard had been like this from the start.

“The Cursed Ground is different from here. Your senses, instincts, and your body’s reactions will all be different. Do not assume your five senses and sixth sense will function the same way they do here.”

The ferryman said what he had to say. It would not be a bad thing to show Enkrid a little more “consideration,” either.

He shook the lamp once, waved his other hand, then extended it forward. The gesture was peculiar, almost like showing his palm straight ahead and pushing.

As the lamp swayed, its light scattered and threw Enkrid’s vision into disarray. That palm was like the ferryman’s lips. A gray wasteland, with lines that might have been palm lines or wrinkles, like crevices in a cliff whose bottom could not be seen.

Had his gaze been caught for only a moment?

Before he knew it, the ferryman stood right before him.

‘When?’

It must have been a feat possible only because this was not reality.

Before even Enkrid’s instincts could respond, the ferryman’s hand touched his chest and pushed him over the gunwale. The gesture that had begun from afar ended here.

His sense of balance and everything else aside, his body tipped backward on its own. Behind him was the river. Black, bottomless, and ominous water.

Just before he fell, Enkrid hooked a calf over the gunwale, braced his abs and lower back, and held on.

The body he had trained in reality affected even his mind.

His falling body came to an abrupt stop halfway through. It looked even more like a trick than anything the ferryman had done.

He curled his toes and tensed his calves, thighs, glutes, and abs, holding his back straight as a rigid rod.

Thanks to that, he stopped at a slanted angle halfway through his fall.

The ferryman’s black eye sockets widened. Was that surprise those enormous hollows showed?

No mental impression reached him this time, so Enkrid could only guess.

Still, violet flames rose within the ferryman’s black eyes. Perhaps it was irritation rather than surprise. That was possible.

“You’re holding on?” the ferryman said.

“Am I not supposed to hold on?”

Enkrid shot back.

“Fall.”

His gaze showed either annoyance or surprise, but his words carried a subtle goodwill. Enkrid also knew well that even if he fell into the river here, this was only a dream.

“Hurry.”

The ferryman urged him. Enkrid released the tension in his body. As his muscles relaxed, he fell backward as the ferryman intended.

Splash.

His body sank into the black water. Enkrid felt a light impact against his back and the texture of water filling the space around him.

It was natural that he could not breathe, but this river water wrapped around him like molten iron, heavy and solid. It could hardly be called ordinary water.

Even when he forced his eyes open, he could see nothing but black. Through that darkness, the ferryman’s voice reached him.

“Adapt.”

He had no intention of asking why the ferryman was doing this to him. How could he question the ferryman’s whims?

He already knew there was no point in questioning even human whims.

Looking only at the facts, this was close to a dreadful Nightmare.

No one could call continuously floundering after falling into water a pleasant dream.

‘It’s suffocating, but it doesn’t seem as though I’ll die.’

Enkrid calmly swam through the molten-iron-like water. Heavy or not, he had to at least try to rise to the surface. So he endured, struggled, and floundered.

How much time had passed? It felt as though he had floundered for months.

He barely hooked his fingertips over the gunwale and hauled himself up. The air itself felt awkward against him. That was how long he felt he had spent floundering in the water.

He could not breathe, yet it did not seem as though he would die. Still, it was painful. The pressure was not easy to endure.

Mentally exhausted, he heard the ferryman’s voice.

“That is what the air of the Cursed Ground is like.”

It was time to part with the ferryman. His figure blurred and began to scatter like grains of sand.

Just before he opened his eyes, Enkrid saw dozens of visions flicker over the ferryman’s face.

Blurry, trembling grains of sand formed shapes on their own.

Among them was an angry ferryman, an indifferent ferryman, a laughing ferryman, and a weeping ferryman.

It even looked as though the ferryman had split in two and was fighting himself.

‘Inner conflict? Something like that?’

The thought crossed his mind, and then he woke. That had happened last night.

When they crossed the boundary into the Cursed Ground, Enkrid understood that what the ferryman had done for him yesterday had been practice and training.

Because of it, even as his five senses twisted and his body became heavier than before, he reacted.

Pivoting on his left foot, Enkrid spun his body and swung Duskforge straight up toward the sky of the Cursed Ground, striking the lightning that came flying in. The rippling lightning was a single arrow.

It was twice the length of an ordinary arrow, with a pitch-black arrowhead.

Clang!

Not only the head, but even the shaft was made of metal.

Could this not be called a small ballista?

The arrow struck by Duskforge bounced sideways and slammed into the ground with a boom. Not a thud, but a boom. The earth was gouged out, and dirt burst upward as though struck by lightning.

Though he had struck the arrow, he had not completely neutralized its force.

‘An arrow containing Will, or something similar.’

He could tell from receiving it once.

Everyone in the group flinched. Enkrid’s palm tingled from the impact.

It was little different from blocking a bolt fired by a large crossbow.

He almost worried that the sword’s blade might have been damaged.

There was no time to inspect it, however.

Whoever could fire an arrow like that had no reason to stop at one.

“Prepare.”

Jaxon muttered. Everyone reacted to those words. That was enough.

Enkrid steadied his breathing using the method the ferryman had trained into him the night before, while the others prepared in their own ways.

Ropord hid behind a thick tree, and Fell stood behind Ropord.

“What are you doing?”

“You’re my meat shield.”

“Are you crazy?”

Leaving their whispered exchange behind, Teresa raised her shield. Its exterior was covered with melted hardest iron, while Manticore hide lined the inside. It was the hide of the Manticore Audin had killed before.

It could withstand an impact by force, but when an arrow struck like lightning, Teresa could redirect part of that impact as well.

Half block, half deflect.

It was not an easy technique, but Teresa possessed that level of skill.

A faint light flowed over Audin’s entire body. It was not Sacred Light Armor, but he had raised his divine power enough for it to show.

Whatever came flying at him, he would react and block it. If he could use Sacred Light Armor, he could also use a Sacred Light Shield. He only needed to gather his divine power and layer it on as protection.

It was a far easier technique than the blade of Will Ragna had shown before. He only needed to gather it.

Of course, that was only because Audin often gathered and used divine power, and knew how to perform Sacred Light Armor.

If Teresa were told to do the same, she would say it was impossible.

Ruagarne and Sinar moved back to stand behind Enkrid.

Sinar was an elf, and elves were a race that needed the vital energy of the forest. For her, fighting here would be like fighting a fish underwater. If they fought in the heart of a forest, elves would display abilities beyond their usual limits, but there was no vital energy of the forest here.

The Cursed Ground was a deadly place for elves.

Ruagarne knew that with her abilities, she could not block that lightning. Her judgment was quick, and her movements natural.

‘Behind someone who can block it.’

That meant behind Enkrid. That was why Sinar and Ruagarne stood behind Enkrid, using him as a shield.

Rem and Ragna, on the other hand, merely stood in place and stared ahead.

Their five senses had dulled slightly, and the air was filled with unpleasant pressure and an ominous feeling. Still, in a state of readiness like this, they could react to arrows like the one from before.

Everyone reacted at once, and as though they had been waiting for it, arrows came flying in.

Two drawn-out bangs overlapped in Enkrid’s ears from far away.

The arrows targeted the two people standing plainly in view.

Rem and Ragna.

Rem noticed what Enkrid had noticed. His hand moved with optimized thought, an axe technique that had become the foundation for Flash, the sword art Enkrid had created.

He raised the axe at an angle, received the arrow with the axe blade, and pushed it aside.

To someone unaware, it would look as though he had simply swung the axe with all his strength. But the process within that motion was an axe technique meant to deflect.

Clang!

Sparks flew from Rem’s axe. Though he had deflected the arrow with a technique close to perfect, the force transmitted to his hand was heavy.

It was little different from receiving a boulder and deflecting it. The weight felt that way.

Ragna showed a similar technique. Naturally, he knew how to use a flowing sword as well. He raised Ilchul, his greatsword, perpendicular to the ground and used it as a shield, receiving the arrow’s force and knocking it aside.

Claaang!

The difference between the two was that Rem deflected flexibly around his wrist, while Ragna used the flat of his greatsword, predicted the point of impact, and rotated his entire body.

The sound proved that difference. Sparks flew from both weapons.

The two arrows passed them and flew toward the rear.

Boom! Boom!

The consecutive explosions gave some idea of the force contained in those arrows.

They were arrows that tore up the ground and shattered massive trees. It was little different from large Throwing Spears flying in.

“Arrows launched with Transference loaded into them.”

Rem spoke while rotating the wrist of the hand holding his axe. He meant that Will had been loaded into them. There was no way Rem had failed to notice what Enkrid had discovered.

“So?”

Ragna replied in an indifferent tone.

“I’m telling you, you insane lazy bastard.”

“It’s up ahead. I’ll take the lead.”

“You’re doing this to make people laugh, right? Are we all supposed to tour the continent together? No, if we start here, would it be a tour of the Cursed Ground? It might be fun.”

Enkrid had heard the sounds and blocked the incoming arrows, so he pinpointed their direction.

Yes. It was up ahead.

Beyond a wall of dense trees in shades of deep red and reddish brown.

In other words, the arrows had flown through the gaps between trees and leaves that could fairly be called a wall.

Footnotes:

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