Even in a Dark Fantasy, You Still Have to Eat - Chapter 36

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Haruto

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

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

Chapter 36: Army of the Dead # 1

──────

Damakos was a huge man with a neck as thick as my thigh.

No joke, he had to be well over two meters tall.

With all that metal-studded armor on, he looked like a rhinoceros stomping around.

“What the fuck are you staring at, idiot?”

And that rhinoceros was wriggling his eyebrows at me.

‘I'm supposed to hit that guy with this club?’

The club in my hand had never looked so pathetic.

As I hesitated, the instructor addressed Rhinoceros Damakos.

“Why didn't you run your hardest? Your punishment is ten strikes with the club!”

“Huh? What the hell are you talking about? I showed up, didn't I? I had to run too?”

Tension suddenly filled the air.

Everyone fell silent and watched.

Damakos snorted.

“Fuck this. You drag someone away from work, and now this? Commission? Graduation? I was bringing in plenty of Ether without any of that crap!”

Honestly, I could sympathize a little.

I had been living happily at the Wall too.

I missed Hammer and Hermit.

Even Felix!

‘They were good party members.’

She said I could see them again after just two weeks, right?

I shouldn't forget to buy souvenirs before I went back.

Damakos continued shouting.

“I'm Damakos, a promising prospect who reached Level 12 in half a year! I'm the one who killed a dragonkin centurion!”

Level 12 in half a year?

How did that compare to me?

As I tried to work it out in my head, the red-haired instructor approached Damakos.

“Oh, I didn't realize you were such an impressive person.”

“Good that you know now.”

“Then this officer should personally give our promising prospect a reward.”

Grab.

The instructor wrapped her arms around Damakos's waist.

Was she going to kiss him like she had kissed me?

Damn it, lucky bastard!

“What? I like petite women. Keh heh heh!”

Damakos snickered, and men nearby burst out laughing.

But their laughter did not last long.

Crack. Crackle.

“Uh? Ugh... Fuck! What is this? Let go!”

The red-haired instructor squeezed Damakos's waist even harder.

“Let go! Fuck!”

Damakos suffered so much under the pressure that his eyes nearly popped out, and even his plate armor crumpled.

“You crazy bitch! Let go!”

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Damakos even punched the instructor in the face, but...

“If you treat me, a contractor of the idol Moron, like this... Urgh... Guh!”

Crack.

His last scream caught in his throat. Damakos's body bent like a bow, then folded in half.

The eyes of all fifty or so people gathered there turned toward him, but no one spoke.

The sight of Damakos lying stiff with bloody foam around his mouth left us speechless.

‘Weren't the Blessed pretty valuable?’

‘Level 12 should have made him an incredible talent!’

What the hell was this?

Even as I stood there stunned, the instructor spat out blood and grinned.

“A bastard as clueless and arrogant as that would have caused trouble for other explorers before dying young anyway.”

Talk about hypocrisy!

Still, everyone must have hated Rhinoceros Damakos, because no one argued.

“If you die in the arms of a great woman like me, that's a good death!”

Thump, thump.

The instructor beat her chest with her palm.

“I'm Lieutenant Colonel Roze of the Hammer Unit! Who you were and what you did before today no longer matters! Understood?”

“...Uh...”

“Yes, ma'am!”

“Hmm...”

Everyone answered differently.

Even I could see that we were a ragtag bunch. Instructor Roze frowned deeply.

“This class is full of nothing but scrawny husks! I'll give you a chance to get lost! Cowards, stand over there!”

Someone raised a hand and asked,

“If we stand over there, can we leave the training?”

“Yes, idiot!”

Maybe because they had just watched a man get murdered, people gradually began leaving the group.

The trainees rushed over in a crowd.

....

Nearly half of the fifty trainees joined the line of people withdrawing.

If I went over there, could I return to my main unit too?

But I couldn't do that.

Brigadier General Ezakiel said she would grant me one wish if I graduated in the top five.

‘Would any wish really be okay?’

Half the competition had dropped out, so my chances of finishing in the top five had risen!

Lucky me!

“Hehe, bro. You stayed.”

Someone poked me in the side.

It was Weasel Sneak.

“Surprising! I heard not even half of all Thieves make it through officer training!”

“Really?”

“Especially with an instructor from the Hammer Unit. You saw Damakos just now. The Third Legion fights the Akam, and they don't think much of human lives.”

The Hammer Unit...

I had heard Hammer served there.

They said Hammer's name was Hammer because of the Hammer Unit.

Did Instructor Roze know Hammer?

And hearing the word Akam made me think about the necklace around my neck.

“Hehehe. But bro, your name is Yore, right? Are you the Yore who took out One-Eye?”

“Probably.”

“Damn! You took out that calculating, despicable bastard? Bro, you must be even worse!”

“Hehe. I just got lucky.”

“Hey, don't you know luck is skill in this line of work? The one who survives is the strong one!”

I realized I was weak to compliments.

As I rubbed my itchy nose with my index finger, Sneak held out his hand.

“Lucky bro, let's get along for the next two weeks.”

I shook his hand.

“Let's get along, Weasel.”

“Hey, you got snot all over my hand!”

We laughed together, but kept a close eye on each other.

‘This bastard is definitely trying to win me over so he can scam me somehow.’

Weasel was probably looking at me with the same suspicion.

That made it a fair relationship.

“By the way, Weasel, what do you mean the Hammer Unit fights the Akam?”

“You've never seen an Akam, bro?”

“I've only heard about them.”

“Figures. The Second Legion fought in Erdari territory...”

It sounded like each legion had its own enemy.

So I was an explorer belonging to the Second Legion.

“The Akam are literally messengers of death. Not even an ant is left alive wherever they pass. Compared to them, the Erdari are angels. Angels!”

“The Erdari are angels?”

“Yeah! At least those pointy-eared freaks can talk! I heard they look all plump like little rabbits too.”

What nonsense was that?

It immediately put me in a bad mood.

“Weasel, you only say that because you don't know them. Every Erdari is a demon. If you get fooled by their looks, they'll crack open your skull and leave you like a dissected frog.”

“You've met them?”

“Three times!”

“And you're still alive after meeting them three times, so they don't sound that bad. Anyone who meets the Akam dies on the spot, so nobody sees them more than once!”

I didn't know what the Akam were, but could they really be more dangerous than the wicked Erdari?

How could I make this country bumpkin understand how dangerous the Erdari were?

“Enough chatting!”

Instructor Roze's voice thundered across the training ground.

Her loud voice made sense if she came from the same unit as Hammer.

“I clearly gave you a chance, and you chose to stay!”

# # #

The training for commissioning was harder than I expected.

I think we ran around thirty kilometers every day.

We also did exercises lying on the ground and lifting our legs.

“Eighth Exercise of Hell, thirty reps! Skip the final count!”

“Twenty-eight!”

“Twenty-nine!”

All we were doing was lifting our legs left and right.

Yet it felt like my entire body was being squeezed dry.

“Ungh!”

“Argh!”

Screams like tearing muscles filled the training ground.

Warrior classes seemed to endure this physical torture well enough.

But my desire to withdraw sprouted like horns.

“...”

“Thir-ty!”

“I said not to call the final count, you idiots! In all my years as an instructor, I've never seen such moronic bastards! First three to touch the pillar in front of the dining hall and return!”

Everyone bolted.

These races were pretty fun.

I could usually come in first.

“Hehe, you're fast, bro. About as fast as me.”

“You live up to your name, Weasel.”

Thieves were definitely faster than other classes.

Testing our limits together like this made me understand the other classes better.

Mages and Priests were undoubtedly the slowest.

“Huff, huff.”

“I... I'm dying...”

After that, I learned how to read maps, pitch tents, splint broken bones, and treat injuries.

There was more useful information than I expected.

‘Hammer will like it if I learn all this properly, right?’

Instructor Roze praised me often too.

“Damn it, pretty thing! I've never seen a Thief train as hard as you!”

“It's thanks to your excellent teaching, Instructor!”

“You talk well too! If you could just stop calling the final count, you'd be perfect!”

Was I really made for the military?

Anyway, after sweating through about four days, everyone felt as comfortable with each other as if we had known one another from the beginning.

“Yore, is it true you were put on the gallows twice?”

Batuli, a Priest of the Sun Church, asked me.

Batuli was the only female cadet in our class.

She came from a nomadic people, with small eyes and dark skin, so she wasn't especially pretty. But everyone liked her because she was innocent and diligent.

“You were really put on the gallows twice?”

“Yeah! The rope snapped right before I was hanged, so I lived!”

If I had died then, it would have been a completely pointless death.

As I thought about how lucky I was to survive, Batuli giggled.

“You're just like the Emperor of the Abyss!”

“The Emperor of the Abyss?”

“Didn't Baine survive two hangings too?”

That bastard?

It suddenly felt like my special trait was no longer special.

I couldn't lose.

“When I was born, the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck, and I almost died. Strictly speaking, I've been hanged three times. I'm better than the Emperor of the Abyss.”

“What are you talking about?”

Ding, ding, ding, ding!

Then the bell rang.

As if we had agreed on it beforehand, we ran to the training ground.

“Today, you deploy to Undine Citadel! That place is Akam territory, so remember that the careless bastards will be the first to die!”

Deployment!

Finally!

My body tingled just thinking about all the Ether I had failed to earn until now.

More than that, I liked that we were going to Akam territory.

The treasure necklace Shaman Moltma left behind.

Maybe I would finally get a chance to use it.

Author's Note