WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Even in a Dark Fantasy, You Still Have to Eat ◈
Chapter 51: Dog and Raccoon # 3
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Before I knew it, I was inside the tent.
For starters, there were piles of pottery everywhere.
The archaeologist's house I had robbed before looked exactly like this.
There were thick books overflowing everywhere too.
It wouldn't have been an exaggeration to say books covered the floor instead of mats or carpets.
“You really are something. In that short time, you were already looking around?”
A woman's voice rang out.
My eyes fixed on the center of the tent.
Long golden hair flowing down her back, dazzling white skin, and blue eyes.
A small beauty mark beneath her left eye strangely drew my attention.
“Are you Debora?”
I reached for my waist.
But the dagger that should have been there was gone.
Spin.
Debora was already twirling my bone dagger in her hand.
“Nice item.”
This feeling of getting pickpocketed without realizing what had happened.
It was similar to when I first met Jermain.
“You. How did you escape the special prison?”
“I can't just give away trade secrets.”
“You freed the guests I had locked up, then came into my tent to attack me. You're quite the piece of work.”
Spin.
Debora held out the dagger's handle toward me.
“So? How about working with me instead of Jermain?”
“...Working together?”
I took back the dagger and put some distance between us.
Debora ignored me and began picking up books and jars that had fallen on the floor.
“As you saw, the gang of thieves in this mine is just a temporary bunch of riffraff.”
“They didn't seem entirely useless.”
First, keep talking.
Buy time.
Find an opening.
“Well, Dambi is about the only one worth a damn. I need talented people.”
“To turn this mine into a second Kerning Town?”
“Exactly.”
Debora smiled.
At that moment, I was staring at the beauty mark beneath her eye.
For some reason, my gaze kept returning to it.
But when I looked closer, there was another beauty mark on her exposed chest.
I hadn't noticed because I had been looking at her face.
Her chest was very white and very large.
‘Are those melons or breasts?’
At this point, I got angry at myself.
‘Yore, you crazy bastard.’
‘Is this really the time to be looking at breasts?’
“I'll get rid of Dambi soon. Then the deputy guild leader position will be open. Huh? What is this little brat looking at?”
Fuck!
I got caught after all!
Debora burst into laughter.
“This beauty mark is bothering you, isn't it? It can't be helped. It's a blessing called 《Alluring Beauty Mark》.”
“A blessing?”
“One tiny mark is enough to hold someone's gaze.”
So it was a blessing from an idol!
It wasn't for nothing that the mark had drawn my gaze.
“I have four of these marks. One is beneath my eye.”
Tap.
Debora pointed at her eye.
“One is on my chest.”
Sway.
Debora bent at the waist.
Her breasts hung under gravity, swaying with remarkable elasticity.
“And the other two...”
Slowly.
Debora straightened up again.
Now that I looked properly, she was about half a handspan taller than me.
“It's a secret where the other two are.”
Fuck!
A secret?
Now I was even more curious!
“Why tell me that? Wouldn't it be better to keep them hidden as a trump card?”
“Little boy, some things show their true value only when you're honest about them.”
Damn it, that was true.
Once I knew the marks beneath her eye and on her chest were manifestations of that blessing, they bothered me even more.
I hadn't known something like this existed.
I learned something today.
“I heard you did in One-Eye?”
Step.
Debora took a step closer.
“Yep, more or less.”
I stepped back.
Debora stepped closer again.
“If someone as talented as you came under me, I could do anything for you.”
“...Anything?”
Gulp.
I swallowed dryly.
“Anything you want. As long as you listen to me.”
It was a lie.
That was definitely a lie.
But what if?
‘Just stop looking at her already!’
I lowered my gaze.
Once the marks were out of sight, I felt a little better.
“You looked away from my 《Alluring Beauty Mark》. You're a virgin, aren't you?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“The more someone knows women, the harder it is to escape my marks.”
...Fuck!
At that moment, I became certain.
This woman was several levels above me!
“Come to think of it, you kept staring at my breasts. Have you ever even touched any...?”
The longer we talked, the more I felt myself getting dragged along at her pace.
‘No more talking.’
Then I spotted something.
「Idol Research Report: Hermit」
Hermit's name was on a pile of papers on the floor?
Come to think of it, Hermit said someone had stolen her thesis.
‘That must be it.’
‘But why would a thief steal a thesis?’
It wasn't like a thesis was easy to turn into money.
That question helped clear my head a little.
Shing.
I raised the dagger Debora had returned and pointed it at her.
“What do you want, forming a group of thieves in a mine like this? You even betrayed the guild and its people.”
“Betrayed them? I was supposed to inherit the Wall's guild from the start! My master said so too! If that bitch Jermain hadn't suddenly appeared...”
Master.
That was a keyword I had never heard before.
Let's dig into it.
“Your master?”
“That man. Baine.”
“The Emperor of the Abyss is your master?”
“So Jermain never told you? That bitch and I are fellow disciples who trained under the Emperor of the Night. We're from Kerning Town, the city of Thieves.”
A disciple of the Emperor of the Abyss.
She was a much bigger name than I had expected.
I had wondered why the Emperor of the Abyss had recommended this abandoned mine to Debora.
Looking at it now, there had been a clue.
“Little boy, you understand now, don't you? No matter how capable you are, there's no way you can take me in.”
If everything she had just said was true, that was right.
The woman before me was at least a step above me.
But that was exactly what bothered me.
‘Why hasn't someone that amazing killed me immediately?’
‘Does she really want to make me her right-hand man?’
I knew my own worth.
Honestly, I wasn't that impressive.
Promising rewards so excessive they could shake someone's heart?
There was only one answer.
‘That's it!’
‘A scam!’
By my guess, this was a romance scam.
Only after reaching that conclusion did my head start to clear.
My sense of smell came back too.
The scent of sweat brushed against the tip of my nose.
And there was the piss-like smell of an anesthetic potion.
I looked at Debora's feet and fingertips.
Then I noticed they were trembling ever so slightly.
‘...Fuck, I got played!’
A chill ran down my spine.
I had just figured out Debora's plan.
“No more talking!”
I drew my dagger and rushed at Debora.
Whoosh.
The dagger cut across her waist.
“Aaagh, fuck!”
Debora screamed as the sharp stab wound opened in her side.
She hadn't been able to dodge my attack.
It wasn't as if I was as fast as Velzer.
“So you were affected by the anesthetic potion after all! It was a lie that it had no effect!”
“You fucking little brat!”
Debora had only been buying time.
Spouting all kinds of nonsense!
Maybe some of what she said had been true.
According to Weasel, the clever thief, mixing lies and truth together was the best way to fool people.
“You little bastard! How daaare you cut my siiiide!”
Debora clutched her side and glared at me.
The face I had thought was pretty twisted like an evil spirit's.
“You little bastard! You'll be offered as a sacrifice!”
Whoosh.
Debora leaped toward the back exit of the tent.
‘Is that even possible?’
An anesthetic potion strong enough to put an angry lion to sleep.
Yet she could move that fast while under its effects?
She had even pickpocketed my dagger in that state.
What if Debora had been in normal condition?
‘I have to subdue her before the potion wears off!’
‘If there's a chance, it's now!’
I grabbed Hermit's thesis first, then ran through the tent's back exit after Debora.
# # #
The tunnel was filled with black stones and boulders.
I followed the scent of blood after Debora.
‘Thank goodness I have Hound's Nose!’
Without Nihil-Raz's nose, finding Debora in this twisting mine would have been practically impossible.
I kept descending deeper into the mine.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Fwoosh!
“Why are there so many damn traps?”
The path gradually changed too.
Instead of a simple tunnel, corridors built with elaborate stone walls appeared.
Then, at last...
Rumble.
Woooooom.
“...What in the world is this?”
I was stunned by the massive man-made structure built underground.
It reminded me of a book called 「Eight Wonders」 that I had stolen from a library and read in my previous life.
It was the only book I had ever liked.
Pyramids and hanging gardens were cool, after all.
The fact that they had treasures and lots of tomb robbers was romantic too.
Anyway, from my point of view...
‘It's just like Machu Picchu!’
‘It looks like an Aztec or Incan civilization!’
Why was there something like that beneath this mine?
It seemed this Black Rock Abandoned Mine was not an ordinary mine.
“...Huff, huff. That little brat made it here already...?”
Debora stood on something like an altar at the top of the stairs.
An altar piled high with black stones.
Standing on top of it, Debora shouted.
“Don't come any closer!”
“No chance! Get down here before you get hurt any worse!”
“Normally, there should be a mage here. But I have no choice now.”
Rumble!
Debora operated a handle mechanism rising from the floor.
“Come forth, dragon of death! I offer these stones and that virgin boy before me as sacrifices!”
Rumble.
A loud mechanical device began turning.
“If I make a contract with this idol, I can defeat Jermain too! No, I can even take the place of Baine, the man who abandoned and betrayed me!”
Woooooom.
The idol's temple shook.
Soon, a stone door at the center of the temple, shaped like an Aztec pyramid, opened to both sides.
Flash!
Debora smiled brightly when she saw two lights shining beyond it.
“De-Rr-Ju-Ra’k-Pal-Rav-Ra-Di-!”
It sounded like she was chanting a spell.
It was similar to the chant Hermit used when she meditated to prepare magic.
In response...
The lights beyond the temple's open door shone more brightly.
‘Eyes?’
With Black Eyes, I could vaguely make out what the lights were.
They were eyes.
Enormous ones at that!
Rustle.
Soon, grass and flowers grew from the temple's earthen floor around us.
The barren underground mine became as lush as a jungle in an instant.
“Ooh, it's coming! Come! Come and make a contract with me!”
Debora burst into laughter.
At that moment, my mind lit up.
‘Her goal was to summon the idol beneath this mine!’
She was plotting something through the temple in this abandoned mine. More precisely, through the idol found in that temple.
An idol that could let her take the Emperor of the Abyss's place if she made a contract with it.
I was already afraid of how terrible it would be.
‘Should I run?’
Rustle, rustle.
Soon, an ominous sound came from deep inside the temple.
Then a huge snake appeared, large enough to wrap around a building with ease.
The most horrifying thing was that despite its massive body moving, it made no sound at all.
“You three vicious things! Ruler of shadows and swamps! Make a deal with me!”
Rustle, rustle, rustle!
The snake wrapped itself around the temple.
A dragon.
It would not have been strange to call it that.
Its scales gleamed black, and each eye was as large as a human head.
“You false dragon! Devour these black stones and that boy, then grant me power...!”
Debora cried out.
Flash!
The giant snake sprang forward like a coiled spring and swallowed the boulders on the altar.
Crunch, crunch.
The way it chewed hard stones like cereal reminded me of something I knew.
It looked different in many ways, but...
“...Could that be Sabranik?”
Footnotes:
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