WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

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Chapter 768: The Seizure's Name Is Jaxon

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“What.”

One of the dark-blue-skinned elves, one of the dark elves, opened their mouth at the sight unfolding far in the distance.

They did not sound particularly surprised. They had seen divine power countless times.

Still, spreading it out so broadly to block the way was a somewhat unusual method.

Naturally, the castellan was not the only one living in Thornwood Fortress. Several others lived there as well.

Besides the Demon Creatures under the castellan’s command, there were people to assist with research, two Sorcerers skilled in forbidden arts, and several Demon Creatures that lacked intelligence but fought as well as Knights.

Three dark elves stood watch atop the thorn-wood wall. Their role was to report anything that happened and harass intruders.

More precisely, they were to thoroughly batter intruders, drain their strength, and offer the exhausted materials to the castellan.

That was their duty.

They expressed their emotions more freely than ordinary elves. Having become part of the Cursed Ground, they had forgotten their elven nature.

They looked at the distant wall of white light and exchanged a few words.

“They’re struggling.”

“It will be enjoyable to watch mortals flail about.”

“They stopped the plague Ghouls and think it is over.”

“Divine power, of all things.”

All three dark elves had filled themselves with the Cursed Ground’s energy, commonly called demonic energy, instead of elven vitality. As a result, one could control the minds of Demon Creatures, while the other two were skilled with bows.

Naturally, they could also infuse their arrows with demonic energy.

Of course, they were far inferior to the archer who had first targeted Enkrid’s group.

That was why they had been assigned as sentinels here.

Corruption had not erased the elves’ natural gifts, either. They still possessed swift bodies.

“That woman with divine power must be skinned and examined. Would a half-Giant’s skin be hard as well? If so, it would be useful when creating chimeras.”

Giant skin was like stone. If hers was the same, it could be put to use in many ways.

They possessed a cruelty unseen among elves. Whether it came from the influence of the Cursed Ground, their time spent here, or both, no one knew.

They believed that, having cast aside their lives as children of the forest and flowers to become the adopted children of the Cursed Ground, they had gained strength and abilities superior to those of ordinary elves. Even from the perspective of someone watching them, their differences from true elves were obvious.

‘Dull.’

The difference was even more apparent when compared with Sinar or the elves from the elf city who had moved to Border Guard.

True elves nurtured even a single blade of grass without harming it carelessly. They believed their sensitive nature could harm them in turn, so they restrained and controlled their emotions.

The elves before him were not like that.

They openly displayed their emotions and performed disgusting biological experiments without hesitation. They were no longer as sensitive as elves should be.

Jaxon did not know all of that. He only knew that the things caught by his senses were duller than expected.

That was enough.

The moment Jaxon cut down a couple of plague Ghouls, he moved against the flow, toward the direction from which the Demon Creature horde was charging.

Even Enkrid would have found it impossible to quietly pass through creatures with their mouths sewn shut, creatures that wanted to die even if they had to burst their own bodies.

Jaxon could do it.

‘The air of the Cursed Ground is different.’

Once he understood that difference, all he had to do was adapt to it.

Assimilation: a technique exclusive to Knights, called blur within Georg’s Blade. The name came from its ability to make one’s presence fade.

What did the name truly matter?

‘There is no meaning in distinguishing them.’

He had realized that long ago.

He could conceal his presence among the Ghouls and move against the current, so he did. Keeping low and moving his feet swiftly, he ran along the outer edge of the Ghoul horde.

Then, after spotting a shroud-clad vengeful spirit glowing from the thorn-wood wall, he planted his foot and leaped upward.

Several Evil Spirits stretched out their hands to stop him, but it was useless. Jaxon even used those outstretched hands as footholds while climbing the wall. A few Wraiths let out long, eerie shrieks, half-emerging from the thorn-wood wall as they reached for him, but Jaxon drew a dagger imbued with divine power and swept it through them to drive them back.

Kieeek.

An Evil Spirit screamed as it died, but its cry was buried beneath the song of the vengeful spirits echoing through the thorn-wood wall.

Only a few of the sensitive ones reacted.

That was how Jaxon deceived even the eyes of the vengeful spirits. It was natural to him, for this was the craft he had trained his entire life.

If they had been as sensitive as true elves, even Jaxon would have been detected. Several factors had combined to create this outcome.

They were dull, and Thornwood Fortress, the Cursed Ground fortress, had never faced such a full-scale intrusion.

Over the years, some of those called Knights had seen and learned of the fortress, but judged that they could not deal with it immediately.

Going alone was suicide, while launching a concerted attack would leave them shorthanded.

Above all, those within had not yet caused any major problems. From the outside, they merely appeared to be quietly keeping to themselves within the Cursed Ground.

All of that had created the current situation.

Jaxon instinctively exploited every one of their weaknesses. That was how he had climbed the wall and arrived here.

After confirming the three sentinels watching from the wall, he got behind them and, gripping a Stiletto in each hand, punched holes into the backs of two of their necks.

From their perspective, it was a horrifying sight.

“...!”

The remaining dark elf could not even make a sound as they turned around with wide eyes.

To them, it looked as though a shadow had suddenly risen and stabbed two of their companions.

They swung the longbow in their hand like a blunt weapon. Jaxon moved like flowing water, retreating as the two dark elves who should have died suddenly stopped in the middle of falling.

Jaxon’s gaze shifted to them. That was not a normal reaction for someone who had been stabbed.

Still, there was no need to be surprised.

This was the Cursed Ground. Any number of things beyond his expectations could happen here.

The waists of the two stabbed dark elves stopped while bent halfway over, and they raised their heads. Their necks made a crunching sound as bones slipped out of place. Their movements resembled broken dolls, and their eyes lost focus. Only the whites remained. Their pupils had vanished.

Then, from the napes of their necks, precisely where Jaxon had made the holes, flesh swelled with a wet gurgle instead of black blood emerging. New organs formed.

Long masses of flesh swayed like huge pythons and hung to the ground.

It could not be called a tail or an arm, since it grew from their necks. Then what should it be called?

There was no way to know.

A neck-hand? A neck-tail? Whatever it was, the new organs of the malformed dark elves hung against the ground, contracting and releasing sections that appeared to be muscle. In an instant, their ends sharpened into points and shot toward Jaxon.

They were as fast as arrows. Jaxon watched the newly formed organs.

Thick black veins stood out amid the dark-blue flesh. They almost resembled enormous earthworms.

Jaxon evaded and slashed with his Stiletto.

Fwish.

Even those malformed organs had gaps that looked like joints, so he split one open there. It was an application of the Soft and Flowing Sword, using the enemy’s charging force against it.

Perhaps it could be called the pinnacle of the Sword of Chance.

It was such a calm cut that it seemed as though he had expected everything.

Had Enkrid been present, he would have applauded Jaxon’s remarkable eye. He would also have been unable to contain his admiration at how Jaxon used the opponent’s charging force against them.

Black blood sprayed from Jaxon’s cut, but the malformed organ ignored the wound. Like a snake changing direction, it coiled around to target the back of Jaxon’s head.

“This bastard.”

Meanwhile, the third dark elf, the one still relatively intact, nocked an arrow to their longbow. The moment they did, a blade struck their forehead.

Thwack!

The sound of a blade splitting skull was strangely crisp. It was the silence dagger Jaxon had thrown while evading.

As Jaxon dodged the two flesh-worm organs targeting him from behind, the dark elf struck in the forehead also lost the light in their eyes. Their pupils went slack, and their body began to tremble.

Jaxon observed once again.

‘A curse? Or does death act as the trigger?’

It seemed that something had been implanted in their bodies to make them function that way.

Darkness settled in and limited his vision, but Jaxon was more comfortable in darkness.

He had no difficulty perceiving objects even in the dark. He only had to replace insufficient vision with his other senses.

As he watched, listened, and felt, the silence dagger lodged in the dark elf’s forehead pulled itself free.

Rrrr. Thud.

The silence dagger fell to the ground. Flesh then grew from the hole in the forehead, producing another organ identical to the ones still targeting Jaxon.

Even then, Jaxon did not stop watching, listening, and feeling. As he continued, he noticed something unusual.

What he had thought were blood vessels raised along the skin of the flesh-worm organs were not blood vessels.

Those thick lines pierced through the outer layer of skin, grew upward, and bloomed into Black Flowers.

‘They implanted cursed seeds.’

Then what was moving them now?

Will moved.

Jaxon’s Will moved in a different direction from that of the other members of the Knight Order. His Will, which stimulated his five senses, went beyond observing his opponents and searched through them, contemplating their insides.

‘To continue moving even after death.’

They would have to become undead or Evil Spirits.

Having dealt with the plague Ghouls below, he felt he understood some of his enemy’s preferences.

‘They implanted plague Evil Spirits inside the Ghouls.’

These dark elves had instead been implanted with strange plants that grew in the Cursed Ground.

Highly developed senses could accomplish things akin to magic. It was natural to Jaxon, but astonishing to anyone else.

Within the three moving, malformed creatures, Jaxon saw black, pulsating oval entities.

Black powder scattered from the Black Flowers blooming on the malformed organs protruding from the necks of the three dark elves.

It was an Extreme Toxin that could poison even a Knight if inhaled and kill an ordinary person merely by touching their skin. Yet Jaxon had accepted dozens, even hundreds, of poisons into his body since childhood.

That did not mean he intended to calmly drink an unfamiliar poison.

He took out a small hood and covered his mouth. It was a spec object made in the elf city that purified air entering through the mouth and nose.

Even during his time in the Madman Squad, he had made deals everywhere. He had a talent for obtaining what he needed, even from the elf city.

No one, including Enkrid, knew.

With his respiratory system protected by the Spell Object, poison entering through his skin was harmless to him.

The flesh-worms twisted and coiled, scattering powder in every direction as they struck the ground and slashed through the air. Yet their wild thrashing was less threatening than the axe swings of a mad Barbarian. Through fighting the madmen, Jaxon’s ability to fight head-on had clearly improved.

He hated to admit it and would never say so aloud, but yes, those lunatics had been helpful.

Jaxon slipped through the gaps in their attacks, found the seeds inside all three bodies, and pierced them.

Controlling information was the foundation of combat. He wholeheartedly agreed with Ruagarne’s words.

That was why Jaxon had come forward. This would delay news of what was happening before the fortress from reaching those inside, even if only a little.

Jaxon was satisfied. It was not the first time he had used his own strength for something other than killing people for Krona, but he would be lying if he said he was not enjoying himself now.

He was helping someone, and that person was pursuing a great ideal.

His teacher’s voice came to him as a phantom.

“That’s right, you bastard. It looks damn good. Use your natural talent. But use it for what you believe is right. I’ve said it hundreds of times. Aren’t your ears bleeding yet?”

His teacher’s tone had always been endlessly light. Jaxon now knew it was because Jaxon himself had been so gloomy.

‘I know.’

He had heard those words until his ears bled, and only now were they engraved upon his heart.

When had it begun?

Jaxon had learned what was right by watching Enkrid. Therefore, anything blocking Enkrid’s path was an enemy.

As it happened, that righteousness and everything else were approaching the fortress.

* * *

The plague Ghouls had burst and fouled the surrounding air, so approaching this far should have been difficult. Yet Teresa’s hymn purified the path they walked.

Enkrid looked upward. Several shadows that had been pacing along the wall were dropping one after another.

They looked, in a way, as though they had suddenly suffered seizures and collapsed. But no one needed to say that the seizure’s name was Jaxon.

‘What is that now?’

The fallen creatures changed shape, and a fight began. Only then did Jaxon’s silhouette become visible.

Should he help? Enkrid considered it only briefly and took no action. There was no need.

Before long, all three malformed creatures crumpled to the ground.

He had no idea why snake-like things had burst out of bodies that looked human.

Footnotes:

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