WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Abstract

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Chapter 775: As Expected of the Iron Wall

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"That makes no sense."

A man appeared in the dream and showed Enkrid his life.

He had modified his own body using knowledge gained by capturing humans, researching them, and experimenting on them. That was how he had lived for two hundred years.

To put his life simply, he had lived by using the lives of others without restraint to preserve his own.

Nothing else of note was visible.

"O Red Foot."

The man from the dream murmured those words. He left nothing behind but that utterance, then came apart like wet, torn paper and was swept away by the river.

Enkrid blinked. He found himself at the gunwale of a small ferry. The ferry's owner let out a low, rattling chuckle, not a real sound, but something conveyed directly to the mind.

In other words, the Boatman was deliberately making it clear that he was laughing.

The dying man was the Apostle of the Red Foot, so what Enkrid was seeing now was clearly the Boatman's doing.

"I have bad taste. Is that what you wanted to tell me?"

Enkrid said it without much feeling. The Boatman showed no irritation at the words.

He let out that low, rattling chuckle once more and spoke.

"Do you know what it means to kill their Apostle inside the Cursed Ground?"

The Boatman asked.

Most of what the Boatman said was hard for Enkrid to follow. The Boatman had not considered everything Enkrid knew or did not know.

He simply said what he wanted to say.

"They know you now."

Water sloshed.

The sight of the Boatman at the gunwale of the rocking ferry felt unfamiliar. Enkrid tilted his head as he watched him, unsure whether the Boatman was mocking him or merely wanted to emphasize that he was laughing.

Enkrid was not a fool. From the Boatman's words, what he himself had done, and everything he had experienced until now, he pieced together what the Boatman meant.

Who were they, in this context?

An Apostle was a devotee. Someone who served and dedicated themselves to another.

Audin had called himself an Apostle of the God of War.

That answered the question of what Red Foot was.

'The Six Demons.'

It had to be one of the Six Demons that ruled the Cursed Ground.

He should have been frightened. The lord of Thornwood Fortress had lived a mere two hundred years, but there was no guessing how long a demon had existed on this land.

If beings like that were now targeting him, it would be natural for the first stirrings of fear to take root.

Enkrid, of course, did not.

"It seems I have earned the right to be called truly bewitching."

He threw out the joke and woke from the dream.

"You mad fool."

The unfamiliar Boatman cursed at him from behind, but it did not bother him.

Everything around him blurred, and reality returned to wake him. Enkrid opened his eyes, sat up, and turned over the events of the previous night.

'Back to the city of the Infiltrated ones.'

The moment they saw Enkrid, the inhabitants dropped to their knees and wept or prayed.

"Demon god!"

Some of them, swept up in their fervor, had called Enkrid a demon god on their own. Ruagarne did not like that, and she corrected their attitude and wording.

"Not demon god. Demonic charm. Or you may call him the one who bewitches all things."

Some of the villagers, frightened by the momentum Frog radiated, hurriedly repeated her words.

"The one who bewitches all things."

This was not some theater performance.

Enkrid let it go without much thought. Frog puffed out her cheeks in satisfaction, clearly pleased.

When they went farther inside, a life-size statue was being erected in the center of the village.

"I would like an explanation for that."

Enkrid stopped and stared. Zhoroslavb, who served as the village chief, bowed his head and spoke.

"We are sculpting it to honor the Knight of the End and War's End."

Most of the villagers had exceptional skill with their hands. Their talent for working Magic Beast and Demon Creature hides carried over into carving, at least somewhat.

It was not the work of a master sculptor, but the sincerity behind it was genuine.

"Why is there not one of me?"

Rem looked at it and raised the question.

Ragna, who had been wounded in several places while cutting down the Apostle, showed no interest whatsoever and walked straight into the village hall that was serving as their temporary lodging.

"Not bad."

Jaxon stopped and studied the sculpture. He also knew a great deal about buying and selling art.

The Information Guild was skilled at handling stolen goods, and as the head of the continent's foremost assassination guild and Information Guild, it was only natural that his eye for art was exceptional.

"It is not an image of the Lord, but if it gives them peace of mind, that is enough."

"Yes."

Audin and Teresa each offered their own brief impressions as well.

If Enkrid was being honest, he could not say he felt bad about it either, though he had sensed something a little odd in the way the villagers looked at him.

He figured out why their gazes were strange just before falling asleep, through a child. A few children had been humming a familiar song.

"Sing that song again."

It was a song that used the words End and War's End interchangeably. The same song he had heard as a child and been carried away by.

"Why are there two different versions of the lyrics?"

It was a casual question. The child, their expression half curious and half frightened, explained at length.

To end all war, the world itself must end, so it was called the End.

When asked what world that meant, the child said they were not quite sure.

If Enkrid had to make sense of it himself, they probably saw the suffering and despair surrounding them as a kind of world, and called ending it the End.

'Lead that world to its End.'

Because it ends the fighting, it is War's End. Something like that.

They had returned from ending the fight inside the Cursed Ground in the early morning hours. The group skipped eating, washed, and went straight to sleep. This was after they had rested deeply and awakened.

Enkrid set the brief reflection aside, went outside, and loosened his body as he always did.

There had been fierce fighting just the day before, so he kept it light, simple stretches rather than rigorous training.

Hunger crept in and his stomach growled. Right beside the entrance of the hall, a basket woven from twisted branches held an assortment of fruit. He filled himself on apples, a hard fruit he had never seen before, and tough bread about a forearm's length. Then he sensed someone behind him.

"You're up."

Dawn had not yet broken. Today, thick clouds had gathered and the sunlight would likely be faint. Still, it was nowhere near as gloomy as it had been inside the Cursed Ground.

Sinar, the green-eyed elf of otherworldly beauty, was twice as pale as usual. She looked like someone who had been bedridden with a serious illness and had only just managed to stand.

'No surprise there.'

Before Ragna had cut down the Apostle, Sinar had fought the corrupted spirit known as Black Lightning. The corrupted spirit handled a sword as well as she handled a bow.

The sword's curved tip gouged out flesh whenever it caught someone. Poison seemed to coat it as well, because even a graze caused the skin to rot. The exposed skin of Sinar's arm was proof of that now.

The torn wound was black. A scab had formed, but this was no ordinary laceration.

'Still, Sinar won.'

How? Enkrid had watched the entire process. Black Lightning had used without restraint the power called Will or demonic energy.

The fact that she had survived for many long years in the Cursed Ground was no lie, for her sword shone dark gray.

In contrast, the vital energy Sinar had channeled into her Leaf Winter Sword looked precarious. If one was a refined blade, the other was a sharp needle.

'And yet.'

The one who survived was on this side.

Sinar showed the momentum of someone about to swing using the principles of Vortex, then delivered a sinister cut. She clouded Black Lightning's five senses with vital energy and stabbed her through the heart, and that was when her arm took the deep cut.

'It was close to Jaxon's silent thrust.'

Elves, who restrained and controlled their emotions from childhood, were skilled at concealing themselves within their surroundings.

They were extremely skilled at moving without sound and hiding their presence.

'She mixed elven technique with Jaxon's.'

Sinar watched Enkrid with a still gaze. She knew the lunatic in front of her. She knew where his interest would land.

"Umbra-Acleus. In the continental tongue, it means Shadow Needle."

She named the technique she had used without preamble, and Enkrid's eyes lit up. Right, she had known he would be curious about that.

As she spoke, Sinar held her wounded arm forward so the injury was more visible, then asked him a question.

"Before I die, could you grant me one request?"

Sinar asked, but Enkrid was still turning over yesterday's fight in his mind.

The corrupted spirit Black Lightning's blade had been sharp. Unless it was an assassination, there had been no answer. Just as Enkrid had seen in his mind's eye, the opponent had held the advantage.

Of course, having the advantage was no guarantee of winning and surviving. Sinar had watched for an opening.

She released vital energy, made it seem as though she intended a direct exchange, played a mind game, and stabbed Black Lightning through the heart. There was no doubt that she had drawn on Enkrid-Style Orthodox Swordsmanship.

Black Lightning had not expected an elf to fight that way, and that was partly why she had been caught off guard so easily.

Elves do not lie.

But they know how to distort the truth.

Sinar had said she would fight, and she had released vital energy to signal her intention. She had not spoken a single falsehood.

A perfect rationalization.

The act itself succeeded, and Sinar was able to tear through the part of Black Lightning's body that would have horrified Ruagarne, with her cardiophobia, to see. In the final moment, Black Lightning had tried to borrow the Apostle's power and swell the flesh of her whole body in a last transformation, but her wish went unfulfilled.

The vital energy that had bored into her heart severed every muscle fiber inside her body in an instant.

It was the victory of an elf who had prepared from the start to stake everything on a single stroke.

"A rotten potato must be buried in the ground while it is still rotten."

Sinar said those words, and Black Lightning did not accept her end quietly.

"Fuck off."

As a final act of defiance, she swung her sword and cut deep into Sinar's forearm. Had Sinar not dodged, it would have taken her head clean off.

Back in the present, Sinar's eyes held a distant, longing look.

Surely you can grant one request to an elf on the edge of death?

That was what her eyes said.

Enkrid met her gaze directly. Desperation filled the two green gems.

It was genuinely rare for an elf to let this much feeling show.

"Let us marry."

Could you not grant a dying elf her final wish?

That was what everyone would think. The rest of the group had woken at some point and were watching or listening to the two of them from inside and outside the hall.

The one watching openly was, of course, Rem.

"Have you applied the spring water from the Dryad clan and the salve Bran made?"

Enkrid asked.

"...I have."

Sinar's reply came a beat slow, but she did not look flustered. Maintaining composure was a specialty of elves.

"You're carrying on as if you will die at any moment. How much longer can you actually live?"

Enkrid knew that elves could distort the truth. Enkrid-Style Orthodox Swordsmanship struck at gaps in an opponent's intent, and Enkrid was the founder of that swordsmanship.

A short silence followed.

"Tch."

Sinar clicked her tongue, a gesture that did not suit an elf at all.

"As expected of the Iron Wall."

Ruagarne spoke and nodded. There had been no shortage of things to marvel at before and after the fight.

Rem saw it and snickered.

Ragna was still asleep. Fell and Ropord had not been paying much attention from the start.

They all knew the elf, Sinar to be precise, well enough.

What she had said about before she died was not a lie. It was simply true that, measured by lifespan alone, she would die later than Enkrid.

"What a shame."

That was what Sinar said after clicking her tongue.

Enkrid thought this elf put an absurd amount of effort into her jokes.

He found himself wondering whether a joke really called for that much effort.

The group spent two more days resting in the village.

"You cut your way through a fortress inside the Cursed Ground, won the fight, and came out alive?"

During that time, Romen nearly fell over in shock at what the group had accomplished.

That evening, with a full stomach, Enkrid was swinging his sword while turning over various thoughts when he realized he was lost.

'I'm lost?'

'I'm not Ragna. How could I get lost on the outskirts of a village?'

That should have been impossible. So how?

He looked around. Without noticing it, he had walked into terrain he did not recognize. It was not narrow exactly, but walls had formed on both sides, compressed earth packed together until it looked like stone.

The walls ran on like a long corridor and curved somewhere ahead, about twenty paces away. From beyond that bend, a shadow stretched out indistinctly, then a person stepped around the corner.

"Oh, a visitor."

It was a face Enkrid had never seen. The man wore loose-fitting clothes, and his eyes were small. The wide sleeves and baggy garments concealed his build completely.

His arms hung at his sides, and somehow two Shortswords had appeared in his hands. It was a trick one might see from an acrobat. He had a sword belted at his waist too, but these blades had been hidden in the wide sleeves of his outfit before he drew them.

Enkrid had practiced a similar trick himself once, long ago.

'hidden knife.'

Torres of the Frontier Guard stationed in Border Guard had used a technique like that.

The instant the man finished speaking, his body seemed to sway, then stretch forward in a long lunge that put him right in front of Enkrid.

The two short blades drove straight for Enkrid's heart and throat.

There was no hesitation in the charge or vicious double strike.

The moment Enkrid registered the man, he read his momentum. More accurately, he felt it. And once he felt it, he reacted.

Duskforge, in his hand, drew a line from low to high and split the man's torso lengthwise down the middle. The result was that both of them had only cut through afterimages.

From that single exchange, Enkrid knew his opponent was a Knight, and no greenhouse knight either, to use the expression Valmund of the Empire favored.

Footnotes:

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