WeTried Translations

Translator: Joy

Editor: Joy

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Damned Transmigration

Chapter 76

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Engine

The next day, the Orsia knights saw them off. Yuri, Haryeong, and Estor stood before a large carriage, a gift from the family.

“A carriage,” Haryeong remarked, her voice flat.

The vehicle was plain on the outside, but she could feel the thrum of several enchantments woven into its frame.

“Wouldn’t a winged horse be faster?” Yuri asked.

“You do not understand, Yuri-nim. A heavenly horse is a liability. We are not touring a city. We are travelling through open country. What do you imagine happens when something flying for comfort is attacked from the sky, or from the ground?”

“We fall?”

“Precisely. You might survive the fall, if you keep your wits. It is simpler not to take the risk. We will travel quietly on the ground.”

‘Fair point.’

Yuri nodded, eyeing the two horses hitched to the front. They looked like perfectly ordinary animals.

“So who’s driving?”

Haryeong’s eyes narrowed, sweeping over Yuri and then Estor.

When she had been in Elena’s employ, the driver’s seat had been her domain, but she no longer had any obligation to.

“We could take turns,” Estor offered.

“I am not concerned about Yuri-nim,” Haryeong started.

“I taught him myself. But you, Estor-nim…”

“Don’t worry. I can handle a carriage.”

“Alright.”

Haryeong never refused such a request.

“A relief. We shall see how our youngest manages.”

“Youngest?” Estor’s composure cracked.

He looked at Yuri, flustered.

“Why am I the youngest? I’m the same age as you.”

“You joined last,” Haryeong stated plainly.

Yuri, who had no intention of driving first, seized his opportunity.

“She’s right. You’re the new recruit.”

He added a twist of the knife.

“Don’t tell me you’re not up to it?”

Estor’s expression hardened. He vaulted into the driver’s seat.

“I may have lost the contest, but I am confident I can drive a carriage better than you.”

It seemed the young master of the great Orsia family was a quick study.

“The destination?” Estor called down, taking the reins.

“Jeokwon,” Haryeong answered from beside Yuri as they settled inside.

‘Eastern city, Salhomun territory.’

“Jeokwon,” Estor muttered.

“That’s a long way.”

From Panteleon, the journey east would take the better part of a year by carriage alone. A ship would cut the time, but an airship could make the trip in a fortnight, though ticket prices might make you reconsider.

“First stop, Alderan,” Estor announced.

Alderan was a major city on the western continent, home to one of only three airship ports and dominated by the Habert Mage Tower.

“We don’t have the money for an airship,” Yuri pointed out.

“And they are not for just anyone,” Haryeong added, her tone reverting to its usual formality.

She was clearly more comfortable that way.

The main users were merchants. The great trading houses owned their own fleets, but smaller outfits fought for space to transport their goods.

“No problem.”

Estor offered a confident smile, saying nothing more. If the heir to the Orsia family requested passage, a space would be made.

The carriage was spacious, the ride smooth.

“This will be my second time on an airship,” Haryeong said, her voice a low murmur.

“A few years ago, when I was assigned to the young lady’s escort, Cheonroe-nim sent me a ticket. It was a strange feeling.”

“Strange how?”

“That such a huge thing could fly. ‘Whoosh’. I looked down from the rail and the city was a toy. The people were too small to see.”

‘Hmm.’

There was a flicker of something in Haryeong’s eyes, a rare crack in her composure that was, Yuri admitted to himself, almost cute.

He felt an urge to one-up her.

He leaned his arm on the window frame, affecting a worldly pose.

“What is that face for, Yuri-nim.”

“What face?”

“A very unpleasant one.”

“Now you’re just looking for a fight.”

“What could you possibly be thinking to make you look so smug?”

“Nothing special.”

He switched to telepathic message, since Estor was outside.

[I’ve never been on an airship, but I have been on something similar. Even better.]

Haryeong’s mental voice was as dry as her spoken one.

[Similar but better?]

[It’s called an aeroplane.]

He recalled his one round trip to Jeju Island.

It was his only experience, but it was more than enough to lord over someone who had ridden an airship once.

[An aeroplane?]

Yuri grinned, launching into an explanation. As he continued, he could feel Haryeong’s scepticism hardening into a wall.

[You are inventing stories, Yuri-nim, because you trust I cannot travel to your world and see for myself.]

[It’s not a lie.]

[So you are telling me a giant bird made of iron flies through the sky.]

[Essentially, yes.]

[Without an air-sphere?]

[Correct.]

[And how does it fly without an air-sphere? You said your world has no magic.]

[My knowledge of the principles is... insufficient to explain in detail.]

[Yes. I am sure it is.]

The sarcasm was palpable even without a voice. Haryeong was done listening.

Yuri felt a prick of irritation.

[There’s a thing called an engine, and with that engine...]

“Jeokwon is a small city,” Haryeong said out loud, cutting him off completely.

She had no more time for his fantasies.

“It is in the Underworld’s sphere of influence. Salhomun is there, along with several other sects. They are of no consequence.”

“...”

“Why are you looking at me like that, Yuri-nim the liar.”

“I didn’t lie.”

“Of course not. To continue: even if we go to Salhomun, we may not be able to meet the Sect Leader.”

“Why?”

“He is a busy man. As you know, our Salhomun undertakes escort requests alongside assassinations. He is the most skilled special-grade salsu in our sect.”

‘Checks out with the game lore.’

Salhomun was in Jeokwon. If you farmed enough honour points, you could hire one of their assassins as an escort, but the Sect Leader himself was not an interactable character.

‘The Faceless Killer.’

It was the man who saved Heavenly Thunder Orca from a trap fifteen years ago. He’d heard the story from her, but she hadn’t explained the nature of the trap.

‘If I meet him, will he tell me what happened to her?’

Orca had said that while the story of her rescue wasn’t exactly a secret, the details of the trap were, meaning the Faceless Killer would probably keep his mouth shut as well.

‘Feels like it has to be related to a transmigrator. Or… the Sect of Chaos.’

The pieces were beginning to connect in Yuri’s mind, forming a messy timeline.

About thirty years ago, the first transmigrators arrived. Twenty years ago, the prestigious Raspion family was massacred in Sairan. Around the same time, the Sword Lord of the Orsia family cut ties and vanished with his wife. Fifteen years ago, Orca nearly died in that trap.

The events were clustered together. It was a leap, but he felt it in his gut. This was all the work of one of those two.

‘Maybe those bastards they call the Saints of the Sect.’

It would remain a speculation until he heard the story of fifteen years ago from the only other witness.

***

Lacey Yuzha had long since reached the peak of the 5th Circle. The wall to the 6th Circle stood before her, but it was no obstacle. She could step over it whenever she chose.

It was a simple matter of principle.

Reaching the 6th Circle would make all 5th Circle magic trivial. Understanding would become unnecessary; the sheer difference in power would be enough to brute force the spells and Lacey hated that idea.

She wanted to ascend only after she had achieved perfect mastery of her current Circle. Reality was not a game. You couldn’t delete your character and start again, you had to savour each stage for what it offered.

‘Magic is such a joy.’

Rustle.

She turned the page of an ancient grimoire, a 5th Circle text she’d recently acquired from the Le Seyun auction house. It was not a lightning-attribute book, her specialty, but that hardly mattered. All magic was a pleasure.

‘I wonder if you find it a joy, too.’

She thought of her junior, Elena, still stuck in Rutlan, souring her mood.

Lacey had once shared a room with the girl, but she had made little effort to soothe the strange emptiness in her. It was Tower Master Orca’s will, and Lacey did not disobey Orca.

Truthfully, it was also because losing herself in research was far more interesting than tending to the fragile mind of a ten-year-old.

‘Though I never imagined she would turn out like this.’

Not getting along with the other mages? Lacey didn’t see that as a great failing. She herself rarely socialised. A mage tower was a place where ability was the only currency that mattered.

‘That man…’

If it wasn’t for him, Elena would not have become so twisted.

Lacey let out a short sigh and closed the book. Her concentration was gone.

After Elena, her thoughts had drifted to him.

‘Who is he?’

He was a transmigrator, that much was certain. Elena was still in denial, but Orca and Lacey were convinced.

The problem was his name.

Seventeen years had passed since Lacey had come to this world. The online community and the users she had known were all faded memories. The names that remained sharp could be counted on one hand.

Since new people would have joined after she left, it was impossible to guess Yuri’s identity.

‘FUCKINGSEXY, Cat Panties, and USAUSAMI came before me.’

They had been grouped with Moonlit Reveller as the community’s malicious users. They all hit number one on the Hall of Honour and crossed over.

‘Could he be UrMumSpammer?’

Silver Wood of the Habert Mage Tower was the last transmigrator Lacey had known of before Yuri’s existence came to light.

When Silver Wood reached the top, UrMumSpammer had been languishing at the bottom of the Hall of Honour, yet everyone in the community treated him like some kind of hidden master who had solved the game.

‘I don’t think it’s him, though.’

It was only a gut feeling.

If she knew what skills he had specialised in, she might have a better idea, but the man had been notoriously secretive, almost never revealing his build on the message boards.

He’d posted a few screenshots for character verification in the very early days, before the hidden bosses were even discovered, but they had turned out to be doctored fakes.

As far as Lacey knew, UrMumSpammer was Korean, like Moonlit Reveller and Cat Panties. Yet Yuri had shown no reaction when he met Moonlit Reveller.

‘And his personality is all wrong.’

Lacey stared at her own trembling fingers. The name UrMumSpammer was an object of pure hatred for her.

She could still feel the sting of his dismissive refutations of her meticulously written guides. The sneering tone of his every reply, even after seventeen years, made her blood hot.

‘Someday.’

Someday, if he ever came to this world she would bring him to his knees and torment him.

The reason Lacey had chosen the Dersia Mage Tower in this world, just as she had in the game, the reason she had dedicated herself to lightning magic, the reason she treated every single spell with obsessive reverence, was not just love for the art.

It was also a vicious wish to one day teach magic to the man who had always despised it as trash.

‘How does it feel to learn the Dersia magic you called worthless?’

She had pictured it so clearly.

She would make UrMumSpammer, struggling and refusing, kneel before her. She would make the mouth that had spouted such filth say the words Master-nim.

Lacey had not abandoned that wish. It was why she could not stop thinking about Yuri’s identity.

What if, just what if, he was him?

‘But he also defeated a Bishop of the evil god.’

Another gut feeling, but there had always been a suspicion that UrMumSpammer was an apostle of the evil god.

Lacey was undecided, but Silver Wood of Habert was convinced, and he wasn't the only one. Several of the transmigrators in his circle believed it.

It seemed to be the prevailing theory among those who had crossed over in the last decade.

“Huu…”

There was no clear answer.

She opened the carriage window, sticking her head out. High above the walled city, airships floated like serene whales in the sky.

Alderan.

Lacey, a homebody by nature, left Rutlan to come here at the same time every year, meet with Silver Wood and to browse the annual magic exposition.

‘I wanted to come with you, you know.‘

She remembered Elena’s face, refusing the invitation without a moment’s thought. A bitter smile touched Lacey’s lips.

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried