WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Haruto
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Even in a Dark Fantasy, You Still Have to Eat ◈
Chapter 58: Kerning Town, Party Quest # 4
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Felix pointed his fingers at the woman's throat and shouted.
“Get us out of this forest right now! Otherwise, this woman dies!”
The girl Felix was holding hostage had hair as white as moonlight.
Like Nimble, she had animal ears and a tail.
She had terrible luck, getting taken hostage by Felix.
The question was whether this hostage situation would work...
“Wooo...”
“Grrr...”
The beastkin were confused and did not know what to do.
That meant it was working.
“Hermit! Let's go too!”
Hermit and I joined Felix.
Felix shouted.
“Bring back everything you took from us! And bring Mr. Hammer too!”
“...D-Do as he says!”
The girl in Felix's grasp shouted while trembling, and beasts appeared from somewhere to return our equipment.
Mr. Hammer was brought out by the beastkin as well.
“What the hell is going on!?”
“Mr. Hammer! Get over here, quick!”
I waved him over, and Mr. Hammer hurried toward us.
“Kuahaha! What a fiery first night of marriage!”
Thud!
At that moment, a presence with overwhelming weight descended from somewhere.
Dust drifted through the air.
Beast King Yan-Mit stood at its center.
“You are rare Blessed ones, so I gave you my most cherished daughters, yet...”
Whoooosh.
A prickling pressure poured from him.
“Is this how humans beyond the Wall trample on goodwill?”
Grrrrr.
The beasts began growling from all directions.
“You are no longer guests. You are slaves. Man or woman, I will use every last one of you as breeding stock.”
If they caught us now, we were truly fucked.
I slipped behind dependable Mr. Hammer and asked.
“Mr. Hammer, do you think we can beat him in a fight?”
“Fuck, honestly, I don't feel confident! This is just my estimate, but that guy is at least Level 16.”
“What? Really?”
“Yore, you must have felt that piercing force just now too. It's a skill called 《Intimidation》, something a warrior-type can only use at around Level 16!”
At least Level 16 meant he was on Instructor Roze's level?
Shing.
Then Felix pointed his sword at the hostage.
“Don't come any closer! Unless you want to watch your daughter die!”
“...Father! Do as this man says! I don't want to die!”
The Beast King's daughter burst into tears.
Even the fearsome Beast King could not easily attack us.
We slowly backed away through that opening.
Still, I doubted how long this hostage situation would last.
A bad feeling would not leave me.
Maybe I had the key to easing that worry.
“Yan-Mit! If you let us go, I can give you information that will help you!”
“Information that will help me?”
Yan-Mit crossed his arms.
Mr. Hammer quietly asked me.
“Yore, what are you planning?”
“Mr. Hammer, this is their map.”
Rustle.
I spread out the map of the Wandering Forest and the nearby plains for Mr. Hammer.
Mr. Hammer admired it after seeing it.
“This map is extremely detailed. With this, we could escape the forest.”
“But compared to your old Imperial map, Mr. Hammer, there is one clear difference. It doesn't show where Kerning Town is.”
Kerning Town.
How many humans would be packed into that place?
There would be plenty of men too.
“Beast King! There is a human city near this forest! It is two days away if you walk quickly! You will never find better hunting grounds than that city!”
“A human city?”
It looked as if the Beast King did not know where Kerning Town was either.
‘I knew it.’
With Mr. Hammer's help, I marked the city's location on the forest map.
Then I tossed it over, and the Beast King easily caught it.
“There truly is a human city here?”
“Hehehe, I don't lie.”
The Beast King stared at the map for a long time, then let out a breath.
“Go.”
# # #
It was not easy to leave the dark forest with only one torch to guide us.
“It's this way.”
But the woman Felix was holding hostage guided us well.
Soon, the edge of the forest came into view.
Mr. Hammer let out a deep sigh of relief.
“Haaah, Yore, your plans are far too bad for my heart!”
“Puhehehe! But we pulled it off, right?”
We had entered the tiger's den and survived through negotiation.
At that moment, I realized something.
The tricks I had learned while surviving in back alleys still worked in the Land of Night.
“...So, what do we do with this girl now?”
Hermit pointed her staff at the hostage girl.
“A human-beast hybrid. If I presented her to academia, I would become famous overnight.”
Hermit's eyes gleamed with greed.
She looked ready to take the beast-eared girl away and dissect her.
But Felix pushed Hermit's staff aside with his hand.
“Move it. We survived thanks to Daisy.”
Swoosh.
Felix released the woman.
“Daisy, I'm sorry. Your neck may have been cut a little when I held the sword to it.”
“I-It's okay, Sir Felix.”
The girl named Daisy blushed.
What the hell was this situation?
Everyone stood there with their mouths hanging open in shock.
“Goddamn it, Felix! What the hell happened?”
Mr. Hammer asked.
Felix was applying ointment to Daisy's wound as he gave a simple answer.
“I heard Miss Daisy's mother was a Blessed who was stranded in the Land of Night.”
“Her mother was human...!?”
Hermit jumped in surprise.
Felix glanced sharply at her before adding an explanation.
“Perhaps because she learned many things from her mother, Miss Daisy is a sensible young lady.”
“P-People should not kidnap or hurt other people. Forcing someone into marriage is something barbarians and beasts do...”
Daisy gently swayed her soft, dog-like tail from side to side.
“I only wanted to let Sir Felix go free.”
Daisy's face was bright red as she spoke.
“Whoa...”
Hermit's mouth fell open.
I was shocked too.
What had Felix done to win that girl over?
My bride had run away the moment she saw my face.
“Th-Then, Sir Felix. Goodbye...”
Scamper.
Daisy quickly ran toward the deep forest.
Watching her go, Mr. Hammer clicked his tongue.
“We took that girl hostage and threatened her. At this point, I cannot tell who is beast and who is human!”
“Hehehe, we survived, so we're human. If we had died, we'd be corpses.”
“Kuahaha! That is true!”
Whoooosh.
The morning sun rose before us.
A road across the plains stretched out ahead.
Unlike the chaos from moments ago, it looked completely peaceful.
Felix recognized it.
“Isn't that Saint Marta's Pilgrim Road? I heard every knight dreams of wandering that road and going on adventures!”
“Tch, did you win Daisy over with romantic lines like that?”
“What are you talking about? What does Daisy have to do with me?”
We kept walking along the road through the plains.
Hermit was especially eager to hear my story.
“Newbie, what was your bride like?”
“She had black hair, and a tail like a dog or wolf. Then she saw me, said I wasn't her type, and ran away!”
Mr. Hammer burst out laughing at my story.
“Kuahaha! Our Yore has become a divorced man in an instant!”
“Don't make fun of me. My heart really hurts.”
A woman had rejected me.
It hurt so much that tears almost came out.
Was I really that uncool as a man?
“Mr. Hammer, I guess I have no luck with women. I don't even know what to talk about when I'm alone with one.”
I shared my worries with the older Mr. Hammer.
Mr. Hammer would surely understand how I felt.
“But you talk just fine with Hermit.”
“That is true. Why is that? Hermit, why?”
“Why are you asking me? I don't know either.”
“Could it be because Hermit isn't a woman?”
“What kind of nonsense is that!”
Smack!
Hermit hit my forehead with her staff.
On the second day, we walked the Pilgrim Road while talking about such pointless things.
Then the second night arrived.
We prepared camp.
We would light a torch and spend the night there.
Scrape, scrape.
Mr. Hammer carved wood with his dagger, making something like a spear.
Felix read a book.
Hermit was meditating.
Was she using Spell Loading?
“Come to think of it, Hermit, I found this.”
I showed Hermit the 「Soul Contract」 I had found in the chest.
Hermit was greatly surprised after reading it.
“This is a demon's contract!”
“A demon?”
“The Beast King offered souls and sacrifices to a demon! That is why he could become stronger than others.”
Hermit was right.
There was not a dragon living in the distant mountain, but a demon.
“Hermit, do demons have lots of treasure?”
“They probably have cursed magic swords and piles of ancient books filled with forbidden magic.”
Just imagining it was thrilling!
Then someone spoke in my ear.
【Kakakaka! A demon's contract!】
【You have acquired something rare!】
【Give that contract to me, and I will show you something interesting.】
It was Asibarr.
“What is this interesting thing?”
I asked, but Asibarr did not answer.
What a suspicious idol!
After spending the night imagining a demon's treasures, the next day came.
We walked through the morning of the Night, where the sun never rose, carrying our torch.
Caw...!
Caw...!
It was a marsh.
After walking for a long time along a path where our feet kept sinking, bats attacked us.
“Thunderbolt Shuriken!”
Crackle!
One-shot kill.
“Ah, this is why good equipment matters.”
「+1,000 Ether」
「Swamp Bat Membrane: Dense and light, making it suitable for crafting waterproof goods.」
“Ooh, one thousand Ether per bat!”
It felt like my brain was frying.
We could earn ten thousand Ether by killing just ten bats!
Mr. Hammer explained while collecting the Ether.
“We are deep enough in the Night's territory that we cannot travel here using an Ether Table.”
“Why does that matter?”
“That means monstrosities steeped in the Night's magic appear here!”
Aha, so this was a high-level hunting ground.
That was when we were passing through the marsh.
Something strange caught my sharp night vision.
“Mr. Hammer, there is a light over there.”
“A light in this pitch-black Land of Night? Stop bullshitting me!”
“I'm not bullshitting you. It's real!”
Something really was shining.
When we approached to see what it was, we found a wooden building.
Many Ether Torches burned around it.
“Did you hear? Monsters attacked Kerning Town.”
“Ugh, they say they were talking beasts...!”
Noisy voices came from inside.
“This is an inn tavern.”
Mr. Hammer reached that conclusion.
Hermit brightened, apparently tired from the long journey.
“Let's go in! I want to sleep in a bed!”
“Hey, are you seriously an idiot?”
Felix frowned.
Hermit bristled.
“What did I do!?”
“An inn in a place like this cannot possibly be normal!”
He had a point.
They were doing business while burning Ether Torches worth one million Ether each?
Did they have so much Ether that it was rotting away?
My fingers itched.
“I'll go in first and see what kind of place it is.”
“Fair enough. You are a Thief, Yore. You should be able to blend in easily, even among criminals living in the Land of Night.”
Mr. Hammer had given me permission, so there was no reason to hesitate.
I opened the door to the suspicious tavern and went inside.
Author's Note
September 24...!!!
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lMagal-nim!!! Thank you, thank you for the support...!!!
Please check the announcements for the detailed acknowledgements...!!!
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