WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 765: So What Can You Even Do?

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Beneath the tall wooden spire stretched a long thorn-wood wall running left and right. The wailing of vengeful spirits etched into the outer wall rolled toward them like waves.

Aaaaaah-!

Unintelligible whispers layered beneath a low, resonant sound that almost formed a melody, with a tearing shriek cutting across both. It was a chorus composed of Evil Spirits. The song of the vengeful spirits draped in thorn shrouds rang in their ears and set their hearts pounding.

It was a harmony of despair and fear, grief and agony all tangled together.

Unsettling. A chord designed to fill every listener with dread, to make them feel that joining those wretches or dying outright would be preferable.

For ordinary people, that might have been true. For the Madman Knights, it was a different story.

"Wow, real noisy," Rem said.

He had already constructed his own domain with Sorcery. Even without that, the screams of such lowly things could never affect him. He dug his little finger into his ear, pulled it out, and blew on it. Then he added one more line.

"Pipe down, would you?"

Sorcery's specialty was taking form. Pulling out exactly what the moment needed and tailoring it to the situation was Rem's specialty.

The instant his words ended, a black shadow surged up behind him.

No one standing there knew it, but what had risen was the spirit of a Tiger Beast that had survived over a hundred years in the Pen-Hanil Mountain Range. It was a creature that devoured souls, chewed them up, and swallowed them, making it the natural predator of Evil Spirits.

Aaaa- ah, ah.

The sound from the thorn-wood wall began to fade, little by little.

The eyes of the vengeful spirits carved into the wall shifted their gazes away. Sculpted from wood, they had no defined edges, only rounded shapes with no pupils, yet somehow that was exactly how it looked. The wall itself seemed frightened.

"Shh."

Rem raised his index finger before his nose.

Enkrid stared ahead without much interest. Teresa parted her lips slightly, then closed them. Not because she was surprised. She had been about to step in, but looking now, she saw there was no need.

What Rem had done was the sort of feat that would earn admiration from anyone, yet no one here was surprised by it.

That was simply the baseline.

Naturally, everyone's eyes drifted upward.

The tall tree was no different from a man-made spire. Its broad branches served as platforms, which was also why the indigo-skinned elf had been able to roll sideways and dodge the spearhead Enkrid had thrown.

The black-armored figure lowered a shield loosely.

The shield bore a shallow dent where it had blocked Enkrid's Throwing Spear at full force.

Wu-ung, wu-ung.

A vibration sounded from inside the visor, some form of expression, though no one could make out what it meant. The elf that had been knocked down pressed a hand to the ground and stood back up.

The elf's eyes turned toward Enkrid.

"You."

Her startled, nearly shocked eyes glared at Enkrid.

"Staring that hard is a little embarrassing," Enkrid said with a shrug.

Sinar added in a quiet tone from beside him.

"Rotted and festering, not even fit to become nourishment, steeped in nothing but poison, and yet it dares look at someone?"

In the meantime, Ruagarne stepped forward a few paces, worked the whip with practiced ease, and retrieved the artifact Throwing Spear from where it had landed. She tossed it to Enkrid.

He caught it with a thud, gripped the shaft, pressed it down to fold it back into its rod form, and clipped it at his hip.

"Flashy start," Ropord muttered.

"Should I cut it down?" Fell asked, pointing ahead.

The intent to slice through everything, wall included, was plain to see.

"For something no better than a stale old elf."

The dark elf ignored the two of them entirely and insulted Sinar.

"Fruit only tastes good when it's ripe," Sinar replied without missing a beat.

As though explaining that things aged long enough naturally became delicious, she also whispered it to Enkrid.

No matter how angry Sinar was, she still said what she had to say. That was the habit Enkrid had always seen in her.

This was the Cursed Ground, and what stood before them was the Thornwood Fortress, a rare structure even within the Cursed Ground itself. Nobody looked frightened. Beyond calm, they were almost leisurely.

It was an attitude completely out of step with the situation and surroundings, a dissonance.

"Look at these people."

Then it happened. Beneath the spire tree and atop the thorn-wood wall, a man appeared and stared across at them blankly.

His skin was dark, but still within the range that could be called human. He had an ordinary appearance one might see anywhere.

Brown hair, brown eyes.

If there was anything unusual, it was that he was large, though still smaller than Audin or Teresa. He stood too high above them to measure his exact height, but Enkrid could still make a rough estimate.

Enkrid's gaze moved toward him. Their eyes met. The man seemed to quickly realize who stood at the center of the group that had come calling.

Enkrid did not think many humans lived in the Cursed Ground, so he asked.

"Cursed Ground Holy Sect?"

He knew that Cultists of the Cursed Ground Holy Sect revered the Cursed Ground. That some of them lived within it was not particularly surprising. It was easy enough to guess that, beyond those operating on the continent, some would remain here.

"Cursed Ground Holy Sect? Why are you bringing up those idiots? I am an Apostle who serves the Red Foot."

Enkrid could not make sense of a single word the man said. Red Foot, now what was that?

A gap in information existed between them.

The problem was that neither side had any interest in clearing up the other's questions.

There was one more thing unusual about the man. He used the Imperial tongue, but his accent was strangely off.

"You talk a lot," Rem cut in.

"Should I cut it down?" Fell asked again. Ruagarne and Ropord had been searching for an entrance to the thorn-wood wall since earlier.

While the others talked, the two simply continued with their task.

But no entrance was visible anywhere. Did they climb the wall every time they came and went?

The dark elf held a longbow and kept her gaze on Enkrid, while Sinar watched her steadily in return.

"What's the Red Foot?" Enkrid asked the man, letting his companions do as they pleased.

The man answered not with information, but by looking over the group and saying, "The one who will become a god."

Ask more, and nothing useful would come out.

That was what his instincts told him.

"Right. Sure."

Enkrid answered without much care. The man on the wall let out a quiet sneer and said, "This place is the Thornwood Fortress. I am its castellan."

"Yeah, you look the part."

The man drew a breath, and Enkrid spoke before he could. Both had raised their voices, so the sound carried through the surrounding air.

Then the man curled one corner of his mouth upward and looked down at them all. His tone was easy and measured, which made what he said all the more unpleasant. The very fact that he could speak so calmly in a situation like this was unpleasant in itself.

"So what can you even do?"

His voice had dropped, yet it carried better than when he had been shouting. It was as though it lodged directly in their ears.

"...Hah."

The group fell briefly silent at his words, but Rem was the first to react, letting out an appreciative sound.

Look at this guy. He's overflowing with confidence.

The man lifted his foot and tapped it lightly against the wall. It seemed like a demonstration, as if to say that he had a fortress wall behind him.

Enkrid smiled. Moments like this filled him with something close to excitement.

There had been a time when his skill fell short and he could not protect the people behind him. That had happened more than once.

'What one needs to achieve what one desires is power.'

He had heard similar advice many times, and had reached the same conclusion himself. That was why he had swung his sword.

There were moments when he swung with everything he had and still could do nothing.

Yes, there had been times like that. Times when he was not strong enough and got pushed around. But this was not one of those times.

That was why, looking at a man stepping forward like this, Enkrid felt anticipation.

What would happen when the thing that man believed in crumbled?

He did not know what the Red Foot was, but he could tell it was something on par with the Cursed Ground Holy Sect.

And before coming here, Zhoroslavb had said it.

"You need to be careful of someone called the priest."

That was about all Zhoroslavb knew. Someone who had dragged people away from the village more than once.

"You're the priest, aren't you?" Enkrid asked.

The man now lifted both corners of his mouth smoothly. They rose so high they looked close to reaching his eyes.

An unnatural smile. Clearly not a human one.

Right, you are no ordinary person either.

Looking ordinary on the outside made it all the more certain that this one stood outside any ordinary category.

Anyone who built a fortress in the Cursed Ground and lived in it had no business being normal to begin with.

"You thought getting through the Grumroot pack was the end of it, did you?"

The man let out a low chuckle. From behind him, black soot rose and took form. It had no wings, but it was a shadow built from brutal muscle. Even as dark and smoky as it was, its bulging shape came through clearly.

"Far from it. Malkante Burta Han-"

The last words were not directed at Enkrid's group.

"Bur."

The answer came from the dark elf woman at the top of the spire. She put away her longbow and said, "Stay alive. I'll be the one to kill you."

Her words were meant for Enkrid.

Somehow, even though she whispered from up there, every word still reached them. The spire tree was high enough that they had to tilt their heads back to see its top, yet it made no difference.

"Do not worry. I will protect you," Sinar responded.

"I thought I was the one who protected you the whole way here," Enkrid said, turning his head blankly.

Sinar gave a quiet smile.

"Which is why I was glad."

A straightforward expression of goodwill. There was nothing to say to that.

Aaaaaaaaah-

The moment the priest's words ended, the wall cried out again.

The chorus of vengeful spirits in thorn shrouds rose louder and deeper than before.

At this level, even a Knight would find it hard to remain entirely unaffected.

"Hm."

Ropord exhaled through his nose. The grating sound rang from his ears through his whole body.

"They're coming."

That was Jaxon. No particular sensitivity was needed. The presence was easy enough to feel. From the left and right of the wall and from behind, dark masses tumbled and rolled across the ground toward them.

A Ghoul pack.

The way their entire bodies were blackened made the Cursed Ground Ghouls seem different from what they had seen before.

"Scream through the night. I'll take your screams as a lullaby."

The priest felt curiosity stir.

Yes, let us see how long they can run wild. It had been a while since anyone interesting had come through.

That was why he added those words.

Enkrid turned his head left and right, looked at the wall, and thought.

What should they do now?

Caaaw!

Meanwhile, three massive black birds circled in the air overhead. Each looked large enough to carry off a person in its beak with no trouble. A few feathers drifted down from their bodies.

Each fallen feather was about half the length of Audin's forearm. They were substantial Magic Beasts. More precisely, modified Magic Beasts, though no one standing there could know that.

Looking at the Demon Creatures and Magic Beasts, Enkrid realized one thing for certain.

'If we had left this place alone, everyone would have died.'

The thought came while he was still thinking of the Infiltrators' village.

They had already swept away the Demon Creatures and small Colonies outside on the way in. Through that, they had protected one village of Infiltrators tainted by demonic energy.

But there were so many Demon Creatures inside this place that protecting those people barely seemed meaningful by comparison.

The Ghouls closing in looked strange in another way as well.

Their heads were covered in stitches. Their mouths had been sewn shut, and their skulls looked as though they had been split open and stitched back together. Something had clearly been done to these Demon Creatures.

The first to move at the sight of the approaching Ghouls was Jaxon. In an instant, he had taken position behind one of them.

He drove the Stiletto into the back of its neck and smashed a kick into its ankle, snapping it.

After that, he abandoned any pretense of stealth and retreated in a blur, leaving an afterimage behind him. It looked as though a long line made of Jaxon had stretched out across the space.

From the Ghoul's neck, black-and-yellow pus-like masses swelled. They grew larger than the Ghoul's head, then expanded to the size of its whole body and burst.

Bang!

With the noise, black-and-yellow pus sprayed in every direction.

The moment Jaxon had seen the Ghouls' strange forms, he had sensed something wrong and moved to figure out their method of attack.

A sound and effective choice.

Now they knew that the creatures ruptured and sprayed pus when they died.

"Smells terrible," Sinar said, drawing her Leaf Blade a hand's width from its sheath.

The scent of flowers and forest rose around the blade, but that alone was not enough to hold back a pack of Ghouls that burst apart when they died.

When attacked, they scattered plague in every direction. Some resistance was possible, but there were far too many plague Ghouls.

Heh heh heh.

Somewhere, it sounded like that man's laughter was coming through again.

Enkrid watched the Ghouls charging toward them on all fours.

There were quite a few.

"Audin."

"It is not my turn, brother."

"Ah, Teresa then?"

"Yes."

The half-blood Giant answered Enkrid's call with calm, settled eyes and stepped forward.

She drove her shield straight down into the ground, then stepped up onto it. The shield became a small, narrow platform, creating a little stage of her own.

* * *

Count Molsen had once commanded a chimera unit. He had also tried to modify junior knights and raise them to the level of full Knights.

Trace the source of all that research back far enough, and one arrived at this man.

'Would they make suitable test subjects for plague Ghouls?'

It seemed like every notable figure from across the continent had gathered here, so they ought to provide at least that much.

The priest had hollowed out the Ghouls' bodies, refined plague-spreading Evil Spirits, and placed them inside the hollowed Ghouls.

It was something that could only be done by reaching into spells, Sorcery, alchemy, and every field in between.

Beyond that, he had also sent out modified crow Magic Beasts, and there were crystal armor knights as well.

'Hold out longer and show me something interesting.'

The priest sincerely hoped they would. They would probably last quite a while. For that, time was needed to let things ripen.

Thinking along those lines, he went back to his room and sorted through the research and ideas he had been working on. When night fell, the Demon Creatures would have their time to run wild.

Inside the Cursed Ground, even sunlight turned Ash-Gray. Unless it was a Red Moon, moonlight could not easily filter through either.

So night in the Cursed Ground was pitch black. Which meant more suffering for the humans outside.

A long stretch of time passed. Thinking he might watch for a moment, the priest began to rise.

Rumble.

A vibration moved through the ground. It was not a small one.

Screeeeech.

At the same moment, the aaaaaah song of the Thornwood Fortress shifted into something closer to a scream.

Rumble, rumble, rumble.

The vibrations grew. The entire fortress seemed to shake.

And it was not his imagination.

Footnotes:

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