WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Black Badger ◈
Chapter 51: Operation (3)
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Most of the creatures had been dealt with, but...
How was I supposed to get back?
I stood still for a moment, watching the vast gorge and the cliff beyond it.
The creatures whose names I knew were probably falling to their deaths without a hitch. But the creature that might have been Level 7 or 8 was likely still rampaging.
Not that I would be much help if I went back.
Would Ami be all right? I stood there, sword in hand, lost in thought.
It seemed all the senior Badgers had joined up, so nothing too serious should happen. Noon sunlight beat down on my head. I remained still, trying to catch the sounds coming from beyond the gorge.
The sounds I had been trying to catch soon drew near.
“Wow!”
Footsteps stopped, and Ami and Tvein appeared.
The two senior Badgers stood on the far side of the cliff.
Ami, dangling from Tvein’s back, brightened when she saw me.
“Hilde, you did it!”
“Ami!”
Her name flew from my mouth reflexively.
Thankfully, she looked unharmed.
I let out a breath of relief, then examined Ami more closely.
She looked paler than before, so she did not seem well. If she had been fine, she would not be hanging from Tvein’s back like that.
Still, all four limbs were intact, and she was conscious.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m okay!”
Ami craned her neck and shouted.
“I’m glad you look okay too.”
“Thanks to you... You two got here first, right?”
“Because this one had to make such a damn fuss.”
Tvein frowned and glanced sideways at Ami hanging off his back.
“She wants to know whether you fell down there.”
“Aren’t you worried, Jason?”
The senior Badger with wide eyes asked from across the gorge.
“It isn’t easy to drop a perfectly good bridge, you know.”
Tvein rolled his eyes.
But he did not argue. Instead, he bent slightly at the waist, as though trying to see the bridge I had dropped. A few strands of his bright blond hair fell forward.
“What?”
Explosions, the senior Badgers’ shouts, and the sound of the creature’s electricity came from a short distance away.
I took in the scene unfolding behind Tvein, who was craning his neck. The creature was running this way. A ghostlike thing wrapped in blue electricity.
The senior Badgers followed behind on motorcycles, surrounding the creature.
It would be here within a minute.
Tvein kept peering down the cliff regardless.
“What did you use to bring it down?”
“Yeah. There’s no sign of an explosion.”
“Oh. I cut it off with my sword.”
I answered readily.
Their gazes poured over me. The man and woman who had been looking down both lifted their heads and stared at me. Tvein’s vivid blue eyes and Ami’s dark eyes pierced straight through me.
Their reactions were completely opposite.
“What bullshit.”
“Wow!”
Tvein gave a mocking snort as if telling me to quit talking nonsense, while Ami cheered from behind him.
“Hilde, you really are good with a sword!”
Crackle, crackle, crackle! Boom!
Blue electricity tore across the ground.
The tremendous explosion battered my eardrums. The electricity struck precisely where Tvein had been standing. Before I could even shout a warning, Tvein nimbly twisted aside and dodged the attack.
The blond senior Badger wore a crooked smile as he frowned.
“That persistent bastard.”
Tvein spat the words at the creature drawing closer by the second.
“Looking like it was only half made...”
A huge eye.
An eye full of resentment and hatred. Gray strands covered its long face. It closed the distance in an instant, its gaze nailed to me. Bullets rained down from Aki and Lee Ho behind it, black blood splattering like ink from the places they struck.
But it did not stop.
It did not even look back. Green and Walker fired cannons as lightly as if they were waving handguns, but it did not so much as roll its eye. Its strangely human eye, bloodshot against its black sclera, fixed on me.
Its obsession looked almost desperate. It really hated me.
What did I do to you?
I can’t remember anything.
If only you could speak. Like that Level 10 creature Ye-hyeon stabbed to death. Then I could fill in my empty memories, and you could plead your grievance.
But reality could not be that easy.
It was truly close now. If not for the gorge, it would have run right into me.
Green, following on his motorcycle, shouted.
“Drive it back!”
Lee Ho, Aki, and Walker were chasing the creature alongside Green.
“Make it fall into the gorge!”
Crackle, crackle.
Boom!
Another electric explosion followed. Attacks spread beautifully in all directions from its gray body.
If they had been hit, they would have been sent flying with their motorcycles. They probably would not have been able to get up right away.
Thankfully, the senior Badgers tilted their motorcycles and avoided the attack. The creature was slower than before.
Ah. Its left arm had fallen off.
The gorge was directly ahead of it now.
“All right.”
That was when Tvein, who had stepped aside to watch quietly, suddenly sprang forward.
He had already set Ami down on the ground. Showing neat teeth, he widened his nasty grin.
“Get the hell out of here!”
A kick, supported by well-placed gunfire.
At last, I saw the textbook method for dealing with a huge creature.
My senior partner says Jason Tvein is “a vulgar idiot full of pointless inferiority toward Ye-hyeon,” but also “a person who is still alive only because he is at least competent.”
In simple terms, he was good at fighting.
The creature’s posture collapsed. It happened in an instant. If its left arm had still been attached, it would not have crumpled so completely.
It toppled headfirst.
It’s over...
...Hm?
The creature’s body, which had looked like it was falling, curled into a ball. The bloodshot eye with its black sclera, which had not stopped glaring at me even as it fell, disappeared from sight. It curled itself up as though trying to reduce air resistance.
Then it pushed off the edge of the cliff like a springboard.
The creature leaped into the air.
“What?”
“This is insane.”
“Hilde!”
Ami, who had been sitting on the ground, straightened.
“Move!”
Shhk.
I slashed diagonally.
Before the thing that had leaped into the air could land, I sent a sword strike at it.
Cutting down an opponent flying at me like that was unexpectedly convenient. It was not easy to dodge in midair.
Ah. Since it was big, the sword strike had to be big too.
I swung my sword in a wide semicircle. The creature’s body was shoved aside, black blood spraying in the shape of a crescent moon.
Screeeech!
A scream that sounded nothing like a person rang out.
This time, it fell. Its gray body rapidly grew smaller. After confirming that it had dropped into the gorge, I casually lowered the tip of my sword to the ground.
Then I quietly waited for the heat to leave the blade before sheathing it neatly.
The hot sunlight beating down on us, and the cold wind that tempered it.
A brief silence arrived. The surroundings, which had been filled with the sounds of flesh splattering, electric explosions, and gunfire, became quiet in an instant. Only the sound of wind sweeping through the dry city tickled my ears.
Aki was the one who raised her voice in that silence.
“Did you see?”
She pointed at me and turned to Lee Ho.
“Lee Ho. Did you see? Did you see?”
“I saw it. No...”
“Huh.” Lee Ho let out a dumbfounded breath from across the gorge.
Slightly confused, I looked at the senior Badgers opposite me.
They had gathered at the edge of the gorge and were staring at me with wide eyes. It was a familiar scene. But it felt a little different from before. There was no hostility or sense of betrayal in their eyes.
That was surprise.
The surprise of seeing something unexpected.
No. Did they really distrust the fact that I could use a sword that much...?
“Yoon was right. Give him a sword, and he is useful.”
Green’s rough voice carried on the wind.
“Good work. I will ask what you are later.”
“Ah. Thank you.”
“We are returning to the Safe Point first.”
The man folded his arms and fixed me with a piercing stare.
“Get across.”
“...How am I supposed to get across?”
“I’ll fly over and bring you.”
“No. Ami’s boots are almost wrecked. We don’t know when they’ll break.”
“Didn’t you learn how to use a wire?”
Aki grabbed Ami’s arm as she tried to walk away unsteadily.
Richard Green asked the question beside Ami, who was pouting. It looked like I was about to disappoint him again. I did not even know I was supposed to learn how to use a wire.
I nodded across the gorge.
“Yes.”
“Lee Ho. Bring him over.”
“Yes, sir.”
Lee Ho stepped forward.
I watched him pull out the wire hanging from the side of his motorcycle. A sharp anchor spike was attached to its end. Lee Ho gripped the middle of the wire and spun the spike through the air.
Then he threw it with a flick.
I stomped hard on the anchor spike, which landed exactly at my feet.
“Should I drive it into the ground?”
“Yeah. Drive it in and step on it.”
I did as he said.
Lee Ho crossed to my side in no time. Like Tarzan, he grabbed the wire and jumped into the gorge below. Then he quickly stuck himself to the cliff wall on this side.
I craned my neck and watched the senior Badger busily climb the wire. A primitive method. Still, primitive methods were sometimes the best.
Lee Ho climbed up the cliff and stood beside me, then pulled the anchor from the ground.
He patted my shoulder.
“Good work.”
“No, you worked hard.”
“Let’s get across now. It’s a crude method, but we’re strong, so it works pretty well.”
Perhaps the sense of betrayal he had felt toward me had faded a little. The senior Badger spoke to me as easily as before.
He held out the wire with the anchor spike attached.
“Here, I’ll demonstrate, so watch carefully. This is yours...”
Traitor.
A voice rang out.
Probably inside my head. Or from below the gorge.
It seemed I was the only one who had heard it. Whether I alone could hear it or I alone had heard it.
What was certain was that every one of my senses sharpened at that voice. And instinctively, I felt that its source was terrifyingly close.
It was climbing up the cliff.
It would snatch Lee Ho and me, then drag us down with it.
It would never let go. It would slam Lee Ho against the cliff and kill him. It would not grant me such an easy death. It would put me in its mouth and crush me to death.
The realization passed through my mind in an instant.
A long black hand rose over the gorge.
The senior Badgers shouted sharply. Gunfire rang out.
If I hesitated, it would be too late.
I shoved Lee Ho, who had been standing with his back to the gorge, aside and ran toward the massive hand rushing at me.
Then I leaped into the air and drove my sword down.
Thunk.
From above to below. A heavy blow.
Pain. Long fingers curled around my body.
Feeling the sharpened blade pierce its target precisely, I fell together with the creature that had climbed up the cliff.
* * *
I regained consciousness because of an anxious voice.
[...lde. Hilde!]
A familiar voice.
[Hilde! Where the hell are you?!]
It was Ska Owen.
Why could I hear Ska Owen’s voice beside my ear?
I blinked blankly as I thought. My body was heavy. My mind was hazy. My limbs would not listen. I could not quite grasp the situation with my muddled thoughts.
I lay there blankly, placing my right hand, the one limb I could move somewhat freely, on my forehead.
I did not answer Ska’s continued calls.
Couldn’t I sleep like this for a little while? If I could hear Ska’s voice, I seemed to be inside a Core.
If this was a hospital room, I could sleep a little more before getting up and answering...
My fading mind snapped awake at Ska’s next shout.
At the sharp words that delivered reality to me.
[Hilde! Why are you in A Zone?!]
Fuck.
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