WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Natty
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Copy Skills with Affinity! ◈
Chapter 70: Encounter (2)
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“Ow, ow... Ow, that hurts. A little gentler, please...”
Noel was certain that even when she had been seriously wounded in battle, she had complained less than this.
Yet despite her narrowed eyes fixed on Aiden, he only let out pathetic groans at the feel of the bandage being wrapped around his arm.
Of course, disinfecting a deep cut that had been bleeding heavily and binding it with a pressure bandage would hurt enough to make even Noel groan.
Still, this grown man, appealing for mercy with tears in his eyes, looked so pitiful that it was hard to believe he was the same person who had just driven a pen nib into his own arm to intimidate someone.
The infected girl whom Aiden had brought outside to give medicine to clearly had some similar feelings in her gaze as well.
“Why would you do something so insane in the first place?”
“There are things more important than pain.”
“...I wish you would consider me that important too.”
“Pardon? Could you speak up a little...?”
Noel answered by tying the bandage knot as tightly as she could. Aiden made a dying sound, but she paid him no mind.
“Ah, anyway.”
Aiden, struggling to regain the composure of a decent adult, straightened himself and turned to the girl. She had come out because he had led her outside, but she looked as though she had no idea why she was here.
Fortunately, Aiden was fairly used to dealing with infected people like her.
“So, what are your symptoms? Where does it hurt?”
At the abrupt question, the girl only rolled her eyes around and delayed answering. Aiden had not really expected an answer when he asked, so he was not disappointed.
People living with infections without even basic necessities tended to be extremely reluctant to talk about themselves.
They must have lived harsh lives, harsh enough for being rejected the moment their illness was discovered to be ingrained in them as instinct. That was especially true for a child like this one, who did not seem to have a proper guardian.
So in cases like this, Aiden sometimes had to use a method he disliked.
He sighed and turned to Noel.
“Noel.”
“Hmm?”
“I’m not some weird pervert.”
No matter how one might chart Noel’s Affinity for Aiden, it would surely require a great deal of space. Still, there were moments when even Noel wondered what insane thing this man was suddenly saying.
So no one could blame her if she clutched her head against the incoming headache and muttered a particularly vulgar curse in the dragon language.
“Why would you suddenly say that?”
“No, don’t get the wrong idea.”
With that, Aiden approached the girl.
He grabbed the rag-like thing she was wearing in place of a top and smoothly lifted it in one motion.
“...!”
It was not that she did not resist. It would be more accurate to say that she was too frightened to react at all.
Even at the sight of the girl trembling with a deathly pale face, Aiden carefully examined her body with cold eyes.
Normally, Noel would have stopped Aiden even if she had needed to strike the back of his head. This time, however, she decided to stand by and watch.
There was a familiarity in every one of his movements that inspired trust.
At the very least.
Aiden had clearly not encountered people like this only once or twice.
After examining the trembling girl for some time, Aiden lowered her clothes again.
“I can think of a few possibilities.”
Then, in a voice mixed with a sigh, he stated firmly.
“Stop using your ability.”
The girl’s eyes trembled. This time, it was clearly not mere fear. She looked shocked.
“I don’t know what kind it is, but I know it’s the kind that’ll cause serious trouble if you keep using it. You haven’t been able to control it well lately either, have you?”
There was no answer, but Aiden did not wait for one before moving on. He held out the bag hanging from one arm.
It contained the medicine he had forced the pharmacy owner to sell through a threat involving self-harm. Setting it down, Aiden neatly lined up the bottles before the girl.
“One of these, two of those, and two of these. Even if you can’t manage a proper meal, take them after eating something. Understand?”
The girl still gave no response. Her dimly glowing eyes wandered through the air, and that was all Aiden got from her. This time, he did not add anything else.
Instead, he carefully took her hand.
“...”
He had expected her to pull away, or even bite him. Fortunately, the girl quietly accepted his touch. Aiden remained still for a while, as though he were trying to warm her hand with his own body heat.
“...”
“...”
Silence settled between them. Then the girl’s breathing steadied. Then her body, which had been trembling as though with chills, gradually calmed.
Still holding her hand, Aiden pointed at the medicine bottles.
“One of these. Two of those. And two of these. Do you remember?”
“...”
“One of these. Two of those. And two of these. Say it.”
“...O-one. Two. Two.”
“Again.”
“One. Two. Two.”
“Good. Don’t forget. Can you read?”
“...”
Again, no answer came. Aiden waited patiently.
Only after enough time had passed to drink a cup of tea did a quiet, weak voice finally reach him.
“...Are you helping me?”
“As much as you trust me.”
“...Mister, are you a bad person?”
“First, I’m not old enough to be called mister. And I’m not a bad person.”
“I can read.”
“Good.”
Aiden took out a business card from inside his clothes. He also took out the fountain pen he had stabbed into his arm earlier and scribbled something on the back of the card. Thankfully, despite all the blood on it, the pen still wrote fine.
“Take this and go to the place written here. They’ll let you stay for about a day.”
The girl accepted it uncertainly, looking back and forth between the card and Aiden. After repeating the motion several times, she spoke louder than before.
“I can’t give you anything.”
“I know.”
“Why are you doing all this for me?”
“Because I’m a proper adult.”
“Adults weren’t kind like you, mister.”
“Those were things that called themselves adults. This is what real adults do.”
“You seem like a strange adult, mister.”
It was such a sound argument that Noel, watching nearby, let out a snort of laughter.
▣
“How did you do that?”
After the girl disappeared, Noel suddenly voiced her question.
“Pardon?”
“She was shaking so badly from fear, but she calmed down the moment you held her hand. Did you use some kind of magic?”
“Ah, that?”
Aiden had absentmindedly leaned against a flickering streetlamp, then realized it was the arm with the bandage and writhed in pain. Groaning, he answered.
“Well... I learned it from someone too.”
“You learned it?”
“Yes. But I don’t remember who taught me.”
Aiden frowned slightly. It was a rare show of displeasure from him.
“I think I learned it in a really important situation. But that’s all I remember.”
Noel quietly nodded to herself, then suddenly stiffened as something occurred to her. Aiden turned toward her, wondering what was wrong. With deadly seriousness, she asked a solemn question.
“Was that person a woman, by any chance?”
“...No. I said I don’t remember.”
For a moment, Aiden wondered why that even mattered. But he was in no position to argue with Noel today, so he quietly closed his mouth.
And Noel had no choice but to fall silent as well.
What Aiden had just said had struck deep in her chest.
‘...He said he doesn’t remember.’
That was an important phrase to Noel, who had lost parts of her childhood memories.
This man had missing childhood memories too...
“...”
What an unfortunate coincidence.
After considering that fact for a while, she asked another question.
“But where did you learn all that?”
“All what?”
“The medical knowledge. Anyone watching would have thought you were a doctor.”
Aiden snorted and rubbed his chin.
Certainly, anyone could mistake him for one.
But it was not really specialized knowledge.
“I saw a lot of kids like her.”
“Kids like her?”
“...During the Coalition War, there were plenty of kids whose illnesses got much worse than that.”
“...”
“It’s knowledge I picked up on the streets back then.”
The sights of the back alleys were still deeply etched into Aiden’s mind.
War orphans. Defeated soldiers missing arms and legs.
There was no better description for such a place than hell descended upon earth.
There had even been a strange rule of thumb that was fairly widespread.
Someone who could stand and speak had a week. Someone who could only lie down had three days. Someone who could not swallow anything had two. Someone who could not speak properly had one.
Aiden had merely watched countless lives and deaths become tangled and cross paths in a place like that.
Infectious diseases had naturally been among them. The girl he had just examined looked exactly like an orphan in that hellscape who had used an ability.
The more that child used it, the more their insides rotted away. Had they ultimately died before the person they had tried to protect?
“...”
Noel silently watched Aiden with shadowed eyes.
Every person contained a story as long as the path they had lived, and Noel knew better than to make assumptions about it.
But this man.
What kind of hells had he passed through before now?
Even Noel, who had witnessed every kind of hell and carnage on the battlefield, could not imagine what he must have been hiding inside.
“Well, that’s that. Shall we head back? What a way to start the morning.”
“...”
Watching him brush it off so casually was something she could never get used to.
‘What is this, exactly...?’
And honestly.
Aiden had no choice but to let it go as well.
-System Message
▶ You have successfully completed the “Bonus Quest.”
▶ The target, “Drakan,” has developed Affinity for you. You can copy 1 skill!
▶ The target, “Ganesha Aldebaran,” has developed Affinity for you. You can copy 1 skill!
▶ An additional event will follow due to your successful progress. Raise their Affinity further!
Aiden blankly read through the words.
No, he knew some kind of bonus quest would appear.
‘...Was that just now...?’
Apparently.
Something had happened without him realizing it.
▣
The girl walked out through the alley, clutching the bag of medicine tightly to her chest.
It was what Aiden had given her earlier.
But there was one difference between the girl then and the girl now.
Unlike when she had been with Aiden, her walk was perfectly normal.
As though her sickness had all been an act.
Then a voice came from farther down the alley.
It belonged to a young man.
A monocle, a silk top hat, and a suit.
He looked every bit like a merchant.
“You’ve gotten much better at imitating people, haven’t you? Before, you could barely maintain your disguise.”
“...Master.”
“Your way of speaking, your behavior, it all looked real. Training you paid off, didn’t it?”
Then, as the girl faced him, an ability pulsed around her body.
Mana.
Neither the Empire’s Ki, the Great Plains’ Spiritual Power, the Holy Empire’s divinity, nor demonkind’s demonic energy.
An ability forgotten long ago.
Proof of magic, whose traces had vanished even in this modern age filled with superhumans.
As the mana swept over the girl’s body, her true form appeared, rather than the slum girl she had been pretending to be.
She barely retained a human shape.
Her entire body was covered in scales. Her eyes were slit like those of a reptile.
Clear proof of dragonkind.
A descendant of dragons believed to be extinct.
“So.”
Even with such a rare species before him, the man continued without concern.
“Now that you’ve met him yourself, what do you think? This generation’s Omnipotent One. What kind of person is he?”
“...”
The dragonkind hesitantly looked down at their hand.
Their body had grown much larger, and the bag was nearly tearing, but the bag of medicine Aiden had hung from their hand while earnestly giving instructions was still hanging there.
Looking at it, only one conclusion came to mind.
“...I think he is a good person.”
“I think so too.”
The man smiled and pulled his silk top hat low over his face.
“He really is worth getting to know more deeply, isn’t he? The previous Omnipotent One was a bit disappointing... Let’s see whether this one will be different.”
The Merchant of Death rubbed his chin with interest.
However.
His eyes gleamed sharply.
“Whether he is someone worth staking our fate on.”
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