Even in a Dark Fantasy, You Still Have to Eat - Chapter 35

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Even in a Dark Fantasy, You Still Have to Eat ◈

Chapter 35: A Word Like Magic

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“It’s a shadow!”

“Fuck, he learned shadow manipulation!?”

“That was a real thing!?”

The five thieves panicked.

“Our swords don’t work on it!”

“Idiot! Of course they don’t, it’s a shadow!”

Hehehe.

This felt good.

Still, controlling the shadow demanded more concentration than I expected.

I felt like I would lose focus the moment my mind wandered.

‘One minute. That seems to be the limit.’

I had caught the thieves off guard and taken down two of them already. This really was a skill with limitless potential.

Just like Jermain said, listening to her never hurt!

“I... I saw it in a play about the Empire’s Four Stars! To get rid of a shadow, you have to put out the lights!”

“Ooh! Right! Put out the lights and get rid of the shadow!”

Then the thieves extinguished the torches in their hands and the campfire.

Whoosh. Ssssss...

With the light sources gone, the shadows had nowhere to exist.

My concentration rapidly faded too, and my connection to the shadow broke.

“Fuck, I can’t see anything!”

“Find the carriage first!”

“Drag them out and take them hostage!”

It was a moonless night.

Several thieves stood tense.

Meanwhile, I could see them as clearly as if someone had adjusted the gamma.

That was thanks to Black Eyes, the blessing I received from Asibarr.

Whirl.

I spun the shuriken in my hand, got a proper grip on it, and casually threw it.

“Urgh!”

“Fuck! What hit me!?”

“Shadow techniques and night vision too!?”

Thud.

The thief hit by the shuriken collapsed.

It seemed pricking my fingertip and smearing my blood on the tip had worked well.

“P-poison!?”

“Fuck! Reynold, do something!”

“This carriage won’t open!”

Rattle, rattle.

Sir Reynold shouted as he grabbed the carriage door handle.

“Fuck, no choice!”

He gripped the handle of the greatsword on his back.

“I don’t care what happens to the ones inside!”

“Hey! Don’t hurt the Erdari!”

“She’ll lose her value!”

Click.

Then, with the sound of a lock opening, an Erdari holding a lantern stepped outside the carriage.

“Damn, look at that body. Makes me want to knock her over.”

“You sick bastard. You don’t care what race they are as long as they’re women, do you?”

“Wait, why isn’t the Erdari being transported tied up?”

I wondered why she wasn’t tied up too.

Nineveh, the Erdari, said,

“Burn!”

Whoooosh!

A massive blaze surged from the lantern and lunged at the remaining thieves like a wild beast.

“Aaaah!”

“Fuck, the Erdari can use magic!?”

“Nghaaaah!”

The thieves became blackened lumps of charcoal in an instant.

The only one left was Sir Reynold, the knight who had somehow escaped the flames by rolling away.

He raised the greatsword from his back and aimed it at the Erdari.

“...An Erdari witch? You fucking bitch! For Lieutenant General Raiden’s sake, I can’t let some other race like you walk the Empire’s streets!”

Whoosh!

The knight with the greatsword leaped high into the air.

“Long live His Majesty the Emperor! For the glory of the Empire!”

He brought down his raised greatsword with all his strength. With that immense weight and strength, even an evil Erdari might be crushed like minced garlic.

‘I don’t care who wins!’

One side was the lackey of the thieves who had tried to capture and kill me.

The other was an Erdari, a descendant of evil demons.

Either way, I came out ahead!

Lucky me!

Then Sir Reynold’s body suddenly stopped in midair.

“Guh... urk!”

Sir Reynold flailed in the air like a puppet on strings.

He clawed at his throat, the smell of urine spread sharply from between his legs, and his eyes were bloodshot.

As if he were being hanged.

It was as though an invisible rope had tightened around his neck.

“Ezaki... el!”

Crack.

# # #

I managed to collect several coin pouches from the less mangled corpses.

It was pocket change, but compensation for the trouble was better than nothing.

“They must have been thieves who fled from the Wall. It seems they lived on the roads, killing travelers and taking their valuables.”

Brigadier General Ezakiel looked at Sir Reynold’s corpse.

“To think Reynold was working with thieves.”

Brigadier General Ezakiel clicked her tongue.

I removed Sir Reynold’s necklace.

Was it pure gold?

Gold-plated?

I stuffed the portrait of his wife carelessly into Sir Reynold’s pocket and kept only the necklace.

“Thanks to you, Yore, we survived.”

Brigadier General Ezakiel grinned at me.

At that moment, I remembered how Sir Reynold had died.

The truly terrifying one had actually been the Erdari.

“Burn!”

She had burned people alive with just one word.

I imagined what would have happened if she had used that magic when Felix and I freed her. The thought sent a chill down my spine.

‘She could have done it if she wanted to.’

But she had not.

‘Maybe she never intended to kill us in the first place?’

‘Was that why Brigadier General Ezakiel told us to free her?’

It was chilling, but it had taught me something useful.

If I captured an Erdari next time, I would make sure to gag them properly.

“Yore, can you ride a horse?”

“No, but I’ll have to try.”

I ended up riding Sir Reynold’s horse too.

My view was suddenly much higher, and the saddle was more uncomfortable than I expected.

Still, the horse must have been gentle and kind, because it moved well on its own.

“From now on, I’ll call you Moltma.”

Shaman Moltma was the most polite person I knew.

Perhaps the horse liked the name too, because it snorted a few times.

Since the coachman had died, Brigadier General Ezakiel drove the carriage herself.

It ended up looking like we were escorting Nineveh as an honored guest, which bothered me a little.

‘Me, escorting an Erdari?’

‘I can understand why Reynold was so pissed off.’

How had the great Empire come to this?

Trying to compromise with the descendants of demons!

It was truly lamentable!

By the time morning came, a tall headquarters building stood in the distance.

“Yore, you go that way. I’ll go this way.”

I had heard the Officer Academy was an out-of-the-way annex of headquarters.

It was my first time here, but signs reading “500 Steps to the Officer Academy” had been placed everywhere, so I did not think I would get lost.

“This is your admission permit for the Officer Academy.”

“The school has an Ether Table too, right?”

I asked again, suddenly uneasy.

I had never had a good experience attending school.

People always mocked me for being an orphan. Whenever lunch money or after-school academy fees went missing, I was always the first one suspected.

That was why I hated sharp little brats.

“Yore, if you place within the top ten at the Officer Academy, all your criminal records will be erased. You should work hard.”

“Really?”

“Have you ever seen me lie to you?”

Fireworks burst in my mind at Ezakiel’s words.

Having a criminal record made it hard to get a job, and even other Thieves looked down on you.

You would think people with long records, like fourteen convictions or twenty-two convictions, would strut around proudly, right?

But people actually looked down on them.

“You got caught by the guards that many times?”

“You useless bastard!”

Even people from the streets, where everyone had a criminal record, hated criminals.

Respectable women probably did too.

‘If I want to build a happy family, it would be better to get my record erased.’

My mood instantly improved.

Then Brigadier General Ezakiel added,

“If you place within the top five and receive a commission, I’ll grant you one wish as well.”

“...A wish?”

“I mean I’ll grant you anything.”

“Anything...!?”

“It means I have that much faith in you.”

Brigadier General Ezakiel grinned, then drove the carriage away into the distance.

She’d grant me a wish.

Anything.

My heart pounded wildly, my vision spun, and my legs trembled.

Could there be words more magical than those?

All of a sudden, I really wanted to attend school.

So I went to find the Officer Academy.

There was a huge training ground and lots of wooden training dummies.

“That guy came on horseback.”

“Is he from a noble family?”

“Who is he?”

Perhaps because I had arrived on horseback, everyone seemed to think I was very high-born.

“I’ll leave my horse at the stable.”

“This way.”

Holding my recommendation letter, I went inside.

There were lots of people in military uniforms.

Seeing people lined up in front of service windows made me think of a bank. But unlike them, I could go straight to the counter without waiting.

“Those who arrived on horseback, this way.”

I could feel envious looks from the long line.

This must be why people wanted to drive nice cars.

“Please show me your recommendation letter.”

A woman with glasses smiled kindly at me.

In her uniform, she looked like a real professional.

‘Women with glasses look smart. That’s nice.’

My heart fluttered a little.

I gathered my courage and spoke.

“That black horse outside is mine.”

“Ah, I see.”

The woman smiled without looking away from the documents.

My affection score had definitely gone up.

“I’ll verify your identity. What is your name and occupation?”

“I’m Yore. My occupation is... financial services. I radically redistribute people’s assets.”

“Hmm, what does that mean?”

“A Thief.”

“Haah, a Thief?”

A wrinkle formed between the formerly kind woman’s brows.

She stamped the document with a bang and said,

“Barracks Room Five! Next!”

My brief spring had ended.

I headed to Barracks Room Five.

Creak.

When I opened the door and entered, lots of fierce-looking people were sitting on wide wooden platforms.

I found a suitable spot and sat down too.

The sunlight came in nicely, and I could see the view outside through the window. Not bad.

Then someone whispered to me.

“That’s Damakos’s spot. You should move if you don’t want a fight for no reason.”

He had such small eyes that they looked like slits.

He seemed younger than me.

Just in case, I moved to another spot.

Soon, a giant armored man built like a rhinoceros appeared and plopped down where I had been sitting. Then he shouted at everyone around him.

“What are you looking at? Want me to tear your eyes out?”

If I had stayed there, a huge commotion would definitely have broken out.

“Thanks for helping me avoid trouble.”

I thanked the squinty-eyed man.

Hehehe.

The squinty-eyed man laughed.

“I’m Sneak. Ever heard of Weasel Sneak?”

“No.”

“Well, you’ll be hearing it often from now on. Anyway, want to buy some rice from me?”

“Rice?”

What rice?

When I frowned, Sneak looked around and grinned.

“I mean Ether. I sell ten million Ether for fifty gold. You won’t find this price anywhere else.”

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!

Then a loud bell rang.

“Gather at the training ground! The last bastard to show up is expelled!”

“The first one here gets a reward!”

I did not know what was happening, but my body moved quickly.

Crash!

I smashed through the window and went out to the training ground. A large woman stood there with a massive hammer resting on her shoulder.

“You crazy bastard! I said gather quickly, and you smashed through a window? What’s your name!”

“Yes, ma’am! I’m Yore!”

Huff.

She leaned close enough that I could feel her breath and clearly see her freckles.

She was not exactly beautiful, but her red hair tied back behind her looked healthy.

Maybe because of her large build, her chest was large too.

“Yore? No, you are not Yore!”

“Then what am I?”

I was not Yore?

That was a twist even I did not know about.

“From today on, you are this Instructor Roze’s pretty thing! When I tell you to bark, you bark. When I tell you to wag your tail like a dog, you wag your tail! Got it!”

“Yes, ma’am!”

“Then here’s your reward for coming first!”

She pulled me into a hug and gave my cheek a loud smooch.

She smelled faintly of iron, but my heart raced.

“Ooooh!”

‘School is fun!’

‘A woman even kissed me!’

“Then, pretty thing! Starting today, you are the barracks platoon leader! Use this club to give the maggot bastard who arrives last ten strikes!”

Thump.

Instructor Roze held out a wooden club to me.

I did not know what a platoon leader was, but was it like being class president?

It was my first time ever being in charge of a class, and I felt like I might burst with excitement.