WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Even in a Dark Fantasy, You Still Have to Eat ◈
Chapter 40: Elected Class President!
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When I opened the chest, a golden pillar shot high into the sky.
Sir Mancha grabbed my wrist.
“Wait! First, let’s decide exactly how we’re splitting this!”
Splitting it.
At those words, I looked over the members of the special unit.
Mouse, whose wrist had been blown off, and Batuli were both staring at me seriously.
With tension hanging in the air, I realized something.
‘This golden pillar must be incredible enough that losing a wrist doesn’t even matter.’
‘It’s loot that could change someone’s life!’
“Wouldn’t it be best for Mouse and Miss Batuli to focus on treating their wrists first?”
Sir Mancha cleared his throat.
Batuli held out her cleanly severed wrist and clicked her tongue.
“A Healing blessing can’t fix it when it’s cut off like this. I’ve stopped the urgent bleeding, so that’s enough.”
...Wasn’t she being a little too tough!?
Meanwhile, Mouse trembled anxiously.
“Th-this is a place where no one would know if one of us disappeared, as long as we all keep our mouths shut.”
Squeeze.
Mouse tightened his grip on his staff.
Glance.
Sir Mancha looked at the cavalry lance he had tossed aside.
Batuli, too, watched everyone’s reactions with a serious expression.
And the one getting the most attention was me.
‘I have the advantage right now.’
Everyone else was injured.
Meanwhile, I was mostly unharmed, and my weapons were intact.
What if I suddenly snapped, killed everyone in the party, and took the item emitting that golden pillar?
But ironically, the fact that I had the greatest advantage could also become my weakness.
‘What if those three team up without me?’
Then I would be the one dumped into this sewer.
“...”
“...”
“...”
“...”
The tension was greater than when we fought the Akam Erdari.
It felt like a dream that we had desperately fought to survive together just moments ago.
Was that simply how the world worked?
Even if we had trained together for several days, we were complete strangers.
‘The cause of Thief deaths is murder by party members!’
‘If this keeps up, these people might kill me!’
If I had to make a decision, it had to be now!
“Everybody, don’t move!”
Thud!
I closed the chest.
Click.
Then I used the three-key lock I had taken from the potion chest earlier to lock the bone chest.
A complete seal.
Sir Mancha gasped.
“Wh-what is this?”
“We finally took down the Akam lord. If we start stabbing each other here, we’ll all die for nothing!”
“Ahem, stabbing each other? What are you talking about?”
Sir Mancha twisted his wet beard between his fingers.
The tension eased a little.
“How about we split it evenly between the four of us?”
I made the fairest proposal.
Sir Mancha clicked his tongue.
“If the item creates a golden pillar, it must be extremely valuable. Things like that take a long time to sell, and they cause plenty of disputes.”
“Then what should we do?”
“How about this? We each write a name on a piece of paper, collect them, and whoever has their name written the most gets the item.”
He wanted to vote?
It sounded reasonable, but if everyone wrote their own name, wouldn’t it be pointless?
“I think that’s a good idea.”
Batuli nodded.
Mouse cautiously stroked his chin.
“...Jweperi... says that sounds like a good method too.”
I suddenly became curious.
Was Mouse really listening to Jweperi?
What if Mouse could lie however he pleased by claiming Jweperi had told him to do something?
While I was thinking that, slips of paper were handed around.
Mouse handed out brushes as well.
Scratch, scratch, scratch.
We each wrote a name on our paper and gathered them together.
“Then I’ll check them.”
Sir Mancha unfolded a piece of paper.
“Yo... Yori? Who is Yori?”
“I think that one’s mine! It says Yore!”
“Good heavens, your handwriting is terrible.”
Soon, Sir Mancha unfolded another piece of paper.
“This one says Yore as well.”
“Wow!”
I already had two votes!
My legs trembled because I was so happy.
But I also became anxious.
What if someone refused to accept the result?
“The third paper says Yore too.”
More people had voted for me than I expected?
At that point, there was no need to check the fourth paper.
Elected with three out of four votes!
Still, just in case, I opened the final paper.
「Yore」.
My name was written there too.
“No wayyyyy!?”
A unanimous vote!
Yore was elected!
For the first time in my life, something warm welled up from deep inside my chest.
“My name is on all four papers!”
“J-Jweperi kept nagging me to write your name...”
Mouse scratched the back of his head.
Sir Mancha soon cleared his throat.
“I was the one who suggested we run away and leave Mouse and Miss Batuli behind. If I got greedy over an item now, I would be nothing more than an ugly old man, not a knight.”
Pat.
Batuli placed a hand on my shoulder.
“You saved my life. But since we didn’t know what everyone was thinking, I wanted to support you through the vote. It seems we all thought the same thing.”
No way!
It was the first time I had ever received such recognition from people, and tears welled up in my eyes.
At that moment, I felt as though I could see the path of the Thief I wanted to become.
‘A thief who steals people’s hearts!’
‘I’ve stepped onto that path!’
I carefully put the four papers with my name on them into my pocket.
Then I told everyone.
“Even if the day comes when I’m starving to death, I won’t touch your pockets!”
It was a heartfelt cry.
Everyone’s expressions suddenly became strange.
“So what is the item? I’m curious, so show us already.”
“Y-yeah. Jweperi is curious too!”
Click.
I unlocked the chest and opened it.
Twaaaang!
A golden pillar once again shot toward the sky.
What kind of item could be inside to give off such a dazzling light?
Then I grasped it in my hand.
“A hand bone?”
It really was a hand bone.
From the wrist to the neatly gathered fingers, it almost looked like a small gardening trowel.
There was a handle at the wrist, and words appeared.
「Bone Dagger: Piercing Hand」
「A dagger that carries a sinister aura.」
“Could that be Virales’s Hand-Bone Dagger?”
Sir Mancha acted like he recognized it.
“Do you know what this is?”
“There was once a martial artist named Virales. It was said that his fingers could pierce iron plates and split rocks.”
But one day, someone killed Virales and cut off his wrist.
Was this that wrist?
“...Ugh, I don’t know if it’s real, but it definitely doesn’t suit me.”
Batuli frowned.
Mouse took a hesitant step back too.
“I-it’s creepy.”
Was it?
I swung the dagger through the air.
Whoosh.
The sharp sound as it cut through the air was anything but ordinary.
“There’s a rosary with the Sun Church symbol. May I take this?”
Batuli picked up a wheel-shaped necklace from the chest.
Beside her, Mouse picked up a fountain pen.
“Jweperi wants me to choose this fountain pen?”
“I suppose I’ll take this medal.”
Sir Mancha also took a piece of loot from the chest.
Everyone seemed satisfied in their own way.
# # #
When we reunited with the main force, Weasel shouted loudly.
“I knew you could do it, brother! Those corpse bastards suddenly went weak, all wobbly as if their puppet strings had been cut!”
Defeating the Akam lord Erdari had helped the main force.
“There are plenty of wounded, but nobody died! What an incredible achievement!”
Weasel slapped my back.
Then Weasel’s eyes turned to the dagger at my waist.
“You’ve got something I’ve never seen before. Its shine is no ordinary thing!”
Weasel’s eyes gleamed greedily.
He recognized it was valuable at a glance. He had a good eye.
“It’s a long story!”
“Anyway, the Ranger found an exit, so let’s head that way!”
“Oh, the Ranger did?”
“Still, Rangers are no match for us Thieves. Kekekeke.”
It seemed the time of the Night was approaching.
We cut down Akam and found the escape magic circle, sending out the seriously injured first.
“Weasel, you leave first.”
“You’re not going?”
“I’m staying a little longer.”
“What are you planning to do by staying behind?”
Weasel clicked his tongue as though he couldn’t understand me.
But the Akam I could see ahead looked too tempting for me to leave.
So I stayed behind alone.
When the bustling unit members disappeared, the feeling of security vanished too. But in another way, I felt relieved.
‘If I gather more Ether here, my score will rise when I complete training, right?’
Shing.
I took out a shuriken and threw it at a wandering corpse.
Thwack!
“Urrrgh...”
It struck the corpse in the head, but it didn’t die in one hit.
If the poison damage from blood kicked in too, would it become a one-shot somehow?
“《Shadow Companion》.”
I summoned my shadow too.
Whoosh.
Whoosh.
Thwack, thwack!
When I threw a shuriken, the damage doubled.
This time, the corpse died in one hit and dropped Ether.
“So I can only one-shot them while Shadow Companion is active.”
Then how about this dagger?
I stabbed the bone dagger into a rushing corpse.
Crunch!
Its penetrating power was better than I expected.
It was strong enough to pierce cleanly through even corpses wearing armor, ragged as they were.
“The dagger can one-shot them even without that?”
In the game Night Diver, a Thief could use either ranged shuriken or a close-range dagger.
But there were no such restrictions here.
Shuriken and dagger.
Dual wielding!
I could earn twice as much Ether!
Clink!
Clink!
The corpses stood stupidly after losing the control of their “lord.”
I took them down in one hit and picked up the coins!
‘This is fun!’
‘This simple work drives me crazy!’
“Ugh, these rotten Rendos stink. I feel like I’m going to throw up.”
“Idiot, breathe through your mouth.”
“Are you sure this is the right place?”
Huh?
I suddenly heard people talking.
What was that?
The voices came from not far from the exit.
I stopped what I was doing and hid behind a corner.
Soon, I saw Erdari holding two swords each cutting through the Akam.
‘Damn it! The demonkin are here too...!?’
They said Erdari didn’t come here because this was Akam territory!
Why did those bastards keep getting in the way of my life?
‘Whatever, I should just escape.’
I was about to turn around when one of them said something I couldn’t ignore.
“Are you certain Valara has it?”
“Yes. It is our treasure.”
“We have to recover it, no matter what.”
Valara was the name of the Akam Erdari I killed, right?
That bastard had a treasure?
The Erdari went straight to the lord’s chamber without resistance.
Then they found Valara’s corpse, lying miserably dead in the underground waterway.
But the next part was shocking.
“I am... Akam... savior... of life.”
Akam lord Valara, who I had thought was certainly dead, stood up.
Why was that bastard alive!?
Then Valara held two bone swords and performed a sword dance, far sharper and more violent than when we fought them.
It was difficult to follow with my eyes.
An Erdari clicked their tongue.
“Is this what an ascendant has become?”
“It can’t even display half the strength it had while alive.”
“To become nothing more than a corpse. I’m ashamed just looking at it.”
Fuck, that wasn’t even half its strength while alive?
It was a horrifying truth.
The dual-sword Erdari easily chopped Akam lord Valara’s limbs apart.
Then they searched through Valara’s pouch.
“It isn’t here. The Skeleton Key.”
“What do you mean it isn’t here?”
“Search properly!”
“We can’t open that door without it!”
The Skeleton Key...
Could it be the item I had looted from that pouch?
It looked like the key I took was not simply for opening the bone chest.
‘This is incredible information!’
‘It must be an even more incredible treasure!’
Then one of the Erdari examined a broken glass bottle on the ground.
“A potion bottle. It smells like blood too. It seems recent.”
“Did that bastard take it? They must be nearby.”
“Find them!”
Fuck!
I had to run!
Author’s Note
September 6...!!! There are readers who sent support...!!!
Ahh-!!! Thank you to lMagal and Anti-Mint-Choco Faction for sending King Coins...!!!
Please check the announcements for the detailed thank-you list...!!!
Footnotes:
“Yori” is a mistaken reading of Yore’s poorly written name, creating a joke because yori means “cooking” in Korean.
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