WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Copy Skills with Affinity! ◈
Chapter 13: In the End
──────
Aiden walked the streets at daybreak.
The docks at the edge of the Imperial Capital.
A massive ship was cutting through the bluish dawn as it came in.
Most weapons smuggled into the capital arrived on ships traveling through the canals. This was where today's incident would break out.
[Quest Info]
▶ Failure in the events listed below will result in massive penalties!
◈ Life Is Beautiful
- Katia Heinkel Craven desperately wants something from you. Help her as much as possible so that she can fully experience sensation!
- A related event will occur soon. (D-Day!)
★ If you handle the event wisely, the way Weaver of Fate applies to the target will change.
◈ Act I, < Imperial Capital Rift >
- Your encounters with the scenario's key figures are becoming frequent enough.
- You will soon be formally incorporated into the scenario. The direction of the scenario will be determined by your course of action!
- A related event will occur soon. (D-Day!)
♠ Main Quest
◈ Act I, < Imperial Capital Rift >
- A group is smuggling weapons into the Imperial Capital. Arrest every one of them.
- Clear Condition: Do not allow civilian casualties.
- If you fail the quest, you die!
Wow.
Seeing all the events set to happen today shoved in his face like that made his chest tighten.
Especially that smartly placed line in the main quest.
If you fail, you die!
Unlike the side quest he had received once before, this one seemed especially determined to emphasize that he absolutely had to succeed.
'It's exactly like the game.'
The brutal threat of, Do this or I'll kill you, reminded him that he really was standing in a game world.
Unlike a game, where he could try again after dying, he only had one life.
Still, perhaps the one fortunate thing was that today would be the last day he had to worry about all this.
'I'm sure...'
Aiden reviewed the event's progression in his mind.
No matter how secretly they brought them in, smuggling enough weapons to be connected to a coup would inevitably leave a trail. The Imperial Capital Watch would catch wind of it and launch a raid. That was the beginning of the scenario that would sweep across the entire world.
'He'll be there.'
And among the members of the Watch responding to that raid would be Aiden's target.
Our savior, who would awaken their talent during the crisis they would face today.
The protagonist of this world.
At this point, they were probably only a rookie in the Imperial Capital Watch.
Aiden did not know what they looked like or what sort of person they were, but they would definitely appear here today.
No, they had to appear.
For the future of the world, if nothing else.
'So take some of this stuff that landed in my lap, would you?'
That was closer to Aiden's true feelings.
And anyway, before taking that first step, he needed to meet up with the person he had arranged to see.
She had said she would wait somewhere around here.
As he looked around, a face suddenly dropped into view from above.
Katia was hanging upside down from a nearby streetlamp, one leg hooked over it like a bat.
...His heart nearly stopped.
"Hello."
Katia waved at him with a bright smile, still upside down in midair.
She looked like an ordinary girl, but the pressure of facing a massive predator gripped his entire body.
He felt something similar when he saw Noel, but at least he was not certain Noel would harm him. Unlike this ticking time bomb.
"That's strange."
The human-shaped beast spoke as soon as she saw Aiden's face.
"What is?"
"That you didn't notice me at all until I got this close."
"..."
"Why can't someone remarkable enough to use the same divine power as me do something so simple?"
"..."
"You've got all this power, but it seems like you have no idea how to use any of it. I want to drag you straight to the Holy Empire and cut you open to see what's inside."
Her habit of suddenly striking right at the heart of the matter probably contributed greatly to the pressure he felt around her.
She was entirely correct.
Every supernatural ability Aiden possessed was absurdly powerful, but he did not know the first thing about using them effectively in combat.
To Katia, who had been raised as a real fighter, he must have looked utterly pathetic.
"Well, it's fine."
Thud. Katia dropped down beneath the streetlamp and continued.
"As long as you keep your promise, little things like that don't matter. So what do we do first?"
"There's someone I want you to meet. Let's find that person first."
If it was our protagonist, making Katia feel something would be no trouble at all.
After all, in the original story, Katia became a companion because she felt something when she first met the protagonist.
Not long after they met, they would somehow break through her congenital lack of sensation and make her feel something, whatever kind of sensation it was. That was how the personal quest involving Katia began.
Aiden clearly remembered scenes of Katia eagerly trailing after the protagonist after that.
Katia smirked.
"I'm looking forward to it."
...Her words sounded cheerful.
But they also sounded like a warning to make sure he kept his promise.
▣
The raid site was boiling with heat.
Not figuratively. Bombs were exploding and bullets were flying, so the temperature really was high.
The Watch's repeated calls for surrender through loudspeakers, the criminal group's curses, and the piercing gunfire and explosions made the area unbearably loud as well.
It was hard to believe this was only a weapons-smuggling raid.
'At least there don't seem to be any casualties.'
The Imperial Capital Watch might not have been a regular army, but it was certainly an elite law-enforcement organization. They were not people who would struggle to crush a criminal group like this.
The clear condition about casualties did not seem likely to be a problem.
At the edge of that fierce battle, Aiden and Katia watched from the shadows.
"Do we really have to stay quiet like this?"
Aiden's stress level had already skyrocketed just from being here. Katia, on the other hand, seemed deeply dissatisfied that she had to stand around here doing nothing, bored out of her mind.
'Honestly...'
Since Katia lacked sensations that directly reached her body, she enjoyed committing every sort of bizarre act just to feel something mentally.
"Just be patient a little longer. There's nothing for us to gain by jumping in there anyway."
"If you made me this bored and it ends with nothing special happening, I'm really going to get mad."
"..."
This lunatic was calling it boring while bullets and explosives flew right in front of her.
But if Katia got angry, it would be the sign of a catastrophe with a body count in the double digits, perhaps even triple digits. He could not take her lightly.
'It should be about time...'
Fortunately, before Katia could complain further, the event Aiden remembered began unfolding before his eyes.
"Everybody back off!"
Right.
Aiden nodded inwardly as one of the cornered criminals emerged carrying a box that was obviously dangerous.
"...A Hellfire Bomb?"
Even Katia, who had been watching with bored indifference until then, gave a whistle.
"Weren't those too expensive to use much even during the Coalition War? What is something like that doing in the back alleys?"
As she muttered, Aiden saw the faces of the Imperial Capital Watch personnel turn pale one by one. They must have realized that if it exploded, the entire area could be blown away.
"Wait, calm down..."
"Put down your weapons! If every last one isn't on the ground, I'll detonate it!"
Ah, it even brought back memories. Wasn't this the first cutscene after the tutorial?
And here.
Our great protagonist would appear and instantly subdue the petty criminal threatening to blow up the whole area. That was where the grand story began.
Right, any moment now.
One.
Two.
Three.
"Team Leader, what do we do?"
"Don't provoke him for now. Can't you see that bastard has lost it?"
"Hey, what are you whispering about? I said put your weapons on the ground!"
"Wait, calm down. All right? I'm telling you, we'll put them down. We'll put them down."
"..."
They were supposed to appear.
No.
They were supposed to be here...?
Aiden stared at the scene before him, unchanged in any way, as a chill ran down his spine.
His hands and feet went cold.
Of course.
The person who should absolutely be there was nowhere in sight.
'They're not here?'
At this moment, they had to be here.
In a situation turning into this much of a disaster, there had to be at least one person who stepped forward first and showed courage.
But.
There was no one.
Everyone was only watching each other, afraid they might lose their lives.
There were only ordinary people here.
That shining person who carried the fate of the world.
The protagonist Aiden had hoped to throw his burden onto.
They were nowhere here.
"..."
Aiden squeezed his eyes shut.
In the end.
The worst situation he had tried so desperately to avoid was taking shape right in front of him.
"Hey."
Before he could even sort through those thoughts, a chilling voice came from beside him.
"So where is this person you said you'd let me meet?"
"..."
"Don't tell me they're among those pathetic fools over there."
This was not an atmosphere where he could honestly say the person was not here.
If he did, it would hardly be surprising if his head came off right here.
Considering Katia's usual disposition, that would actually be normal.
Click.
A switch flipped in Aiden's mind again.
His personal survival instinct, which always activated in extreme situations.
"Aiden, your answer?"
Even the smile Katia usually wore like a mask was starting to fade.
It was practically an ultimatum. As though she were asking whether he had really wasted her time with this nonsense.
Meanwhile, calculations were racing through Aiden's mind at terrifying speed.
'The urgent thing is...'
What he needed to do right now was somehow make the monster princess beside him hurt.
If he could not break through every layer of Katia's divine power and force some kind of sensation into her.
He would die here.
'That's the prerequisite.'
He had considered a way to achieve that goal before.
He needed to land a strike powerful enough to pierce through all the divine power she possessed.
What he had now was one revolver he had brought for self-defense, along with several half-baked supernatural abilities he only carried around without knowing how to use.
A shabby weapon and abilities wasted on him.
With that, he had to land a strike stronger than the power of a monster comparable to Noel.
'Then...'
Could he do it?
Was there a way?
The calculations were fast, and the conclusion came even faster.
"What, did you go deaf? I'm asking you..."
"Shut up for a second."
There was.
Exactly one way.
He had reached this conclusion before.
A method he absolutely did not want to use.
A method he really, really did not want to use.
"I..."
To do it, there was someone he first had to call.
Aiden reached inside his coat and pressed something hard.
"I told you to wait."
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
He counted all the way to ten.
After that brief silence, the anomaly came at once.
"What is that?"
Someone sharp-eyed at the docks said it aloud.
They must have sensed that something in the environment had changed.
It could not be seen, but anyone with good instincts would have realized that a violent current was forming around them.
It began as a faint movement.
Then became wind, then a storm, then a typhoon that whipped even fairly heavy objects through the air.
Finally.
From the sky.
A human wrapped from head to toe in pure white mist plunged down like a meteor.
BOOM!
BOOOOOOM!
With an explosive roar far more violent than the battle sounds that had seemed to tear apart their ears moments before, almost everyone nearby screamed.
Everyone except Aiden, who had called this person, and Katia, whose eyes were now gleaming.
"Fuu..."
Noel adjusted the hat that had shifted slightly in her violent landing, then raised her head and looked around.
"Ah."
When she spotted Aiden, she smiled faintly.
"Were you calling for me?"
It was an utterly calm greeting, completely unsuited to her terrifying entrance.
"..."
Aiden stared blankly at Noel as he toyed with the switch he had kept inside his coat.
This was the signal device she had given him earlier, telling him to press it if he was in danger.
'...She said she'd come running if I was in danger.'
It had not been a lie.
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