WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 764: Thornwood Fortress

──────

Neither Rem nor Ragna had any real intention of fighting each other. If they had, Enkrid would have stepped in first.

"The air of a Cursed Ground, of all things."

Rem muttered as he watched Ragna. He had experience tearing through the western Cursed Grounds even as a child. Something like this was nothing to him.

Sorcery was especially well-suited for enduring hostile environments and pressures like this.

All of it was, in the end, a kind of curse.

He circulated his sorcery through his entire body and let it spread. He only had to keep it up, dyeing the surroundings with his own power. Simple yet difficult, difficult yet simple.

Put plainly, he let his sorcery flow and converted the hostile air nearby into something familiar, a trick that Will alone could not replicate.

That let him move through the Cursed Ground much the same way he would move outside it.

He had to keep bleeding off a portion of his sorcery above a certain threshold, which meant using major sorcery would limit what he could draw on, but that was a fair trade.

"Hm."

Different from Rem, Ragna did something similar. The Ilchul in his hand was both an Inscribed Weapon and a magic weapon.

The Will passed down through generations inside Ilchul communicated with Ragna's own Will and pushed the hostile air back.

It did not cover everything nearby, but it was enough to keep his own body moving without issue.

Though, honestly, even that was not strictly necessary. Ragna was adjusting his five senses in real time, adapting as he went.

Rem was doing the same, to be fair.

Between the two of them, a large frame moved through with a quiet that did not suit its size at all. The sound of feet tapping the ground was light.

"If you two intend to keep at it, the Lord's little servant will go on ahead."

Audin was the kind of figure regarded across the continent as peerless when it came to divine power. Overcoming the air of a Cursed Ground was nothing to him.

He let white light flow across his whole body and stepped forward. He was using a simplified form of Sacred Light Armor.

A Demon Creature that could well be called a tree Giant saw Audin approaching and swung a branch at him.

The swing looked almost reflexive. Audin glanced at the branch and opened his hand into a Hand Blade.

White light took shape along that Hand Blade, standing upright and straight.

The light clinging to his Hand Blade resembled a sword edge, and it immediately proved that resemblance was more than cosmetic.

Swick.

Not the sound of cutting through something hard, more like tofu splitting clean. A living reddish-brown branch came apart along that Hand Blade with startling ease.

Sap sprayed in all directions from the cut.

A few drops caught Audin on the cheek, but the white light wrapped around his body hissed and burned them away in a curl of smoke.

"This consumes a fair amount of mental strength."

It was the Will blade Ragna had demonstrated, reproduced at a smaller scale. Even so, it was barely enough to keep the edge sharp for the instant of the cut.

Short and small as the blade was, it was remarkable. Making that happen with a bare hand instead of a sword?

Audin smiled, released the Hand Blade, and closed his hand into a fist.

"I still prefer this, brothers."

He raised that fist in front of his face, stepped lightly, and closed the distance to the tree trunk. The same Restraint and quiet as before, every movement measured.

Fast and nimble, he dropped low, drove off the ground, and cut the gap in one surge. He spread his right foot to the side while his left hand swung horizontally, a hook curving from outside in.

White light gathered in that left hand, round and dense like a Mace head.

His footwork was like a butterfly's. The fist that shot out was like a bee's sting.

The power behind it, though, was nothing a bee could ever compare to.

The fist, loaded with condensed force, struck the bark.

Boom.

It wasn't just the outer layer that broke. The trunk burst. It bent at an awkward angle, and black sap exploded from the point of impact, scattering in all directions.

A few drops reached all the way to Enkrid's feet.

How hard did you have to hit for that?

Only Audin knew.

"Lord Father! Here, I send You a servant to attend You!"

He cried out. With that cry, the light erupting from his entire body deepened. His movements grew lighter still.

Light trailed through the trees like afterimages.

Boom. Crack.

One by one, the tree Demon Creatures toppled, spraying black sap in radial bursts from each strike.

One hit, one soul dispatched to the Lord's side. A diligent conversion effort. Whether the Demon Creatures grasped the deeper meaning behind those punches was another matter.

After taking blows like that, they would have to contemplate their meaning up there in the heavens. Could they even feel the pain at the moment of impact? They would simply be sent to heaven in a single strike.

Thwang.

Another arrow flew in, and both Rem and Ragna struck it down simultaneously. Their heads had already snapped forward before the arrow arrived. Remarkable instincts. The incoming arrow was on a trajectory meant to skewer both of them at once.

Whatever killing intent they had been showing each other a moment ago, Rem's axe and Ragna's sword struck the arrow's front and rear at the same time.

Clang.

The iron arrow snapped in two at the middle with a sharp crack and spun off to either side.

"We'll settle this afterward, you crazy directionally-impaired bastard."

"We can settle it now."

Neither was willing to yield a syllable. They split off in opposite directions. Hard splitting sounds and grinding crunches followed immediately, the noise of tree Demon Creatures being cut apart and smashed with purpose.

"Remarkable that you made a knight order out of a unit like this."

Ruagarne marveled anew. That such willful people had gathered so neatly in one place was genuinely strange to her.

"They were impossible to control from the start, so they got lumped into one unit, and I ended up as their squad leader."

Enkrid answered. That was the truth of it.

Though without him, they would probably have scattered and gone their separate ways, each doing whatever they pleased.

More than that, they might not have been living as they were now.

Rem would have spent his days crushing noble skulls. Ragna would have lost his way and ended up a Knight of Azpen or the Empire, or been hired by the southern powers.

His ability was the kind anyone would want.

Audin might still have been living alongside the phantoms that blamed him, his divine power sealed away.

But all of them were here, right now, in this place.

At the center of every experience they had shared, every change they had undergone, was one madman.

"Let's clear them out."

That madman looked ahead and said it. Black hair, blue eyes, the kind of face you remembered.

"Yes. And if arrows come again, you can leave them to me. I can block that much. Alright?"

Fell displayed something like displeasure and walked forward with a loose stride. Ropord simply dipped his head and moved in the opposite direction.

Whrrr.

Watching them both, Ruagarne drew her whip.

"My turn to have some fun."

Though not as powerful as a Giant, a Frog still possessed considerable martial strength.

Her curiosity was greater still, though her fighting spirit was far from lacking.

Ruagarne lit the whip's flame for the first time in a while.

The blazing whip was something she had supposedly learned by watching a Balrok Fragment fight.

The thought crossed Enkrid's mind as he stepped in front of Sinar.

"Are you alright?"

Sinar looked worse than Enkrid had ever seen her. She had drawn the Leaf Blade, but there was no reason for her to drain herself here.

"You can rest."

Sinar exhaled a few shallow breaths, then lifted her head and looked past the tree Demon Creatures toward the dense forest still standing like a wall before answering.

"How considerate."

"Pardon?"

"I suppose I'll fall for you because of that thoughtfulness once again."

Enkrid honestly wanted to admit that he had lost.

"Can you not put that joke to rest already?"

The demon that had tried to seize the elf city was dead. Or rather, the thing that had barely half-become a demon.

So the burden Sinar had been carrying was gone. No more obligations.

Even though the being that had demanded a marriage proposal was gone, Sinar kept reaching for that joke as if it had calcified into habit.

"Does it sound like a joke to you?"

Sinar asked with an entirely serious face. She had turned her head and was looking directly at Enkrid with those green eyes as she spoke.

"Let's say it doesn't. Either way, stand back and watch."

Enkrid gave up. He could always tease this ancient elf back well enough on his own terms.

He stepped forward and raised his blade, unmarked and undamaged.

Thwang.

Arrows kept coming at intervals. Same force as before, but none of them found a target.

That was probably because of what Rem had said earlier.

"The one who takes an arrow loses!"

That had made every last one of them desperate to dodge. The Madman Knights fought well between the arrows, weaving around each one as it came.

Over to one side, Teresa let out a battle cry with shield and sword in hand.

"Aaaaaaa!"

The mixed Giant blood in her was running hot. The number of tree Demon Creatures dropped fast. Enkrid did not even need to move.

Thinking about it, that made sense. On their side, the fighting strength was something close to that of an entire nation.

A single Knight was already a calamity. They had nine at that level.

'Even excluding me, Sinar, and Jaxon.'

Six remained.

Those six alone could topple a kingdom and still have something left over.

Boom, crack, clang.

All that scattered between the varied sounds of impact was black sap.

Not one person bled red. Well, almost.

Fell had gotten excited and jumped into the middle of three tree Demon Creatures, and while dodging an arrow that came through the gap, a branch shaped like a blade edge caught him across the forearm.

Fortunately, his bracer covered up to the forearm, so it was not a serious wound. Just slightly bad luck.

The bracer itself was not pierced. It was made from three layers of Harpy and Troll hide with thin sheets of Nuairian Wrought Iron sandwiched between them.

The joint area had been thinned to preserve flexibility, and that was exactly the spot that got caught, sending a few drops of blood flying. Still, it was no worse than a scrape.

"Fell, you lost."

Ropord saw it, dodged a tree root that had shot up like an awl, came running over, and said it.

Faster than a three-day-starved human-faced dog.

Ropord had done all that while evading the attacks of the tree Demon Creature targeting him, with what could only be called precision acrobatics.

The word madman fit Ropord just as well now.

Any old comrade from the Red Cloak Knights who saw him would wonder if this was the same Ropord.

He had taken a real risk just to not miss the chance to taunt someone.

The safety-first Squire Ropord was gone.

"That doesn't count. I wasn't hit by an arrow."

"After a cut that size? That's a medevac."

One drop of blood had flown, and that was the end of it. Nothing more since.

Squeeze it and maybe a few more drops would come, but if that qualified as a rear evacuation injury, then turning an ankle would be a near-death wound.

"Did a Demon Creature's sap splash in your eye?"

Fell pushed back.

"Heh."

Ropord answered with a laugh and stepped away again.

"Idiot."

Rem blamed Fell for it.

"Everyone meets with setbacks."

Ragna offered comfort. Which somehow made it worse.

Fell decided he needed training specifically for absolute defense.

By then, all the tree Demon Creatures were down. Jaxon had vanished the moment Black Lightning flew in, and now he popped out just in front of the forest that had looked like a wall.

Black sap coated the ground, and the Cursed Ground forest made even the sunlight look gray, dull and flat. But nobody seemed bothered.

Some of them still found the air of the Cursed Ground uncomfortable, but that would ease with time.

Either way, everyone had black sap splattered somewhere on them. Jaxon was the only one who came out looking clean.

Rem was about to say something to him when Jaxon spoke first.

"I've cut a path through this way. And there's something 'interesting' ahead."

Rem and Jaxon used the same kind of language.

Meaning something that looked dangerous. And calling it interesting meant it was dangerous enough to be worth the name.

"Let's go."

Enkrid did not wait for everyone to adjust to the air of the Cursed Ground.

That was what the enemy would want, and there was no reason to oblige them. The arrows had stopped coming for now.

"You can't fire hundreds of Will-laden arrows with Transference."

Rem said it as he took the lead. He knew techniques similar to that himself. Sustaining that kind of power behind each arrow would require preparation.

Following where Jaxon led, the group cut their way forward, swords clearing space on all sides.

They did not need to walk far. The tree wall was thin.

And on the other side was the real wall blocking their way.

Grraah.

Human faces had been carved into it, and irregular bundles of thorns jutted out around those faces. A wall. More precisely, a fortress wall.

The Cursed Ground outpost, the place known as Thornwood Fortress.

"I understand what Black Lightning meant, but what are those things supposed to be?"

Rem scratched his head with the handle of his axe. He looked up at the same time, and above the thorn-wood wall, on a tall tree rising even higher like a pointed spire, he could make out a figure holding a bow.

Ears pointed, hair falling past the waist in a dull ash gray, skin a deep indigo.

The sharp eyes and the strong bridge of the nose told him what this creature was.

"An elf?"

Ropord said it, less a question aimed at anyone than a small slip of surprise.

"Wrong. Those are like sprouts from rotten potatoes, things that have decayed and rotted until even their form has changed. Corrupted spirits."

Sinar answered. Killing intent showed in her eyes in a way it never had before.

The elf on the tall tree above the wall blinked several times, purple pupils tinged with demonic energy.

The fortress wall was high, and the tree above it higher still. Not close enough for a face-to-face conversation, but Enkrid's pupils contracted as he fixed his gaze precisely on the figure's eyes.

And the figure looked back at Enkrid in kind.

"Not bad looking."

The elf murmured it.

Enkrid quietly measured the distance, then pulled a rod from where it had been tucked at an angle against his hip and snapped it through the air.

Clak-tang.

The rod extended, and a spear blade shot out from one end.

He did it all at once, pulling and shaking the rod to deploy the spear blade with his right hand, while at the same moment driving Duskforge blade-first into the ground in front of his left foot to use as an axis.

Then, with his left hand, he gripped the sword's handle and pulled back, rotating his whole body with Will behind it, and launched the Throwing Spear in his right hand.

It was a knife-throwing technique imbued with the artistry of Vortex, a technique of the Heavy Sword Style. What he threw was a Throwing Spear, but the principle was the same.

Either way, who would have predicted this the moment they came face to face?

Every motion happened in the span of an instant.

One move that shattered everyone's sense of what was coming.

Bang. Crack.

The Throwing Spear tore through the air and became a streak of light that struck the top of the tall wooden watchtower.

Not that he had expected it to, but the throw did not kill the elf.

The elf fell sideways in surprise.

What deflected the spear was a mass clad in black armor standing beside the elf. A figure in full iron plate, a helmet fitted with a visor pulled firmly shut.

A Morningstar was in one hand, the blunt weapon trailing what looked like black soot even from a distance. No one needed to say it was a magic weapon.

The figure held the weapon in the right hand and a shield in the left, and it was that shield that had stopped the spear blade.

It made a tremendous sound, but the target was not hit. The deflected spear blade tumbled upward and dropped with a thud somewhere between Thornwood Fortress and the group.

"A shame."

Enkrid said it. He had driven all his power into that throw and ended up with his right foot half lifted off the ground. He settled his stance and stood again.

Grraah.

The trapped souls that made up the thorn-wood wall let out shrieks, and somehow even they seemed shaken.

What was that, why did you throw something the moment you arrived, that was terrifying, aren't you scared?

Something like that might have passed between them. Though whether those souls could actually express surprise at all was another question.

"When someone gives you a gift, it's only polite to return the favor."

Enkrid said it again in a flat tone.

How many arrows had the group deflected by now?

"Can't argue with that."

Ragna agreed. The others' reactions were not much different.

Footnotes:

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