WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Got a Gallery in the Wild ◈
Chapter 95: Plot Hook (1)
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Nothing lasts forever. The same was true even of a country that seemed like it would never fall.
Countless nations had risen and fallen throughout history. It was common for their legacies to be inherited or wiped out completely.
As long as people lived, conflicts both great and small would arise. Once those cracks widened, collapse was inevitable.
This world was no different. Countless kingdoms and empires had existed, then vanished.
I wasn't particularly interested in history, but since this was another world, I couldn't help becoming a little curious.
└ [Wild Grylls]: I'm here. What's written over there?
└ [Allfather]: Oh! You've arrived! Grylls, you've found an incredible record!
└ [Wild Grylls]: Is it really that big a deal?
└ [Allfather]: I've only translated half of that page so far, but it's a record from the Balkan Kingdom! Do you have any idea how remarkable that is?
└ [Wild Grylls]: No.
└ Hey. You said you could do math, right? Doesn't that mean you received a basic education?
└ You got a basic education but don't know the Balkan Kingdom?
└ [Wild Grylls]: I told you I'm from another world.
Even if I had received an education, the only old countries I knew were Joseon, Goryeo, Goguryeo, Silla, and Baekje.
If I broadened that a little, there was Mongolia, Nazi Germany, Britain, and so on.
Going further back, there was Rome, but that was about it. I wasn't big on history.
‘Even what I know comes from digging around online.’
Some countries had an absurd number of memes about them. Britain was a prime example.
There was a meme that whenever something happened anywhere in the world, blaming Britain was usually right. The “evil Britain” meme.
Britain had committed plenty of atrocities, but there was one country that made it look harmless by comparison.
Nazi Germany, which treated massacres like an industry. The pinnacle of madness.
That was about where my knowledge ended. I knew nothing about this world's history.
└ [Wild Grylls]: So the Balkan Kingdom was a ridiculously awesome country or something?
└ [Allfather]: Hoho. I feel like dropping a Meteor on you right now.
└ [Wild Grylls]: Huh?
└ [Allfather]: It wasn't simply a ridiculously awesome kingdom. It was a kingdom that reached the very peak of magic, especially Necromancy.
└ And it's the kingdom where the Undying King was born.
└ All related records disappeared when it fell, but one is just sitting there in the Forest of Four Seasons lol
└ But why did they go into the Forest of Four Seasons? I'm curious.
One by one, history lovers began leaving comments.
As someone who knew nothing, I couldn't understand any of it.
I considered looking it up, but I might miss the conversation if I did.
‘Not that I even know who the Undying King is.’
As far as I remembered, Wizard King Kadir had defeated the Undying King.
Other than that, I knew nothing. I'd never felt the need to know.
└ [Wild Grylls]: I don't get any of this. There was a powerful kingdom long ago, and it fell because of the Undying King, right?
└ [Allfather]: More or less.
└ [Wild Grylls]: And the Wizard King defeated the Undying King.
└ [Allfather]: That is also correct.
└ [Wild Grylls]: So when did the Balkan Kingdom fall?
└ [Allfather]: It fell roughly thirty years ago.
└ It was complete chaos back then. Everyone was fleeing everywhere.
└ My dad was a holy knight, then we got a notice saying he died in battle.
└ Stay strong.
└ Wasn't there a previous Hero too?
└ I heard the previous Hero died a glorious death, which let Kadir defeat the Undying King.
Thirty years ago wasn't that long ago. Its effects were bound to remain strong.
World War II had only happened about a hundred years ago.
The Korean War, the worst war in Korean history, had happened a much shorter eighty years ago.
For all practical purposes, the current generation had suffered because of the Undying King. The Undying King must still have been a source of immense fear.
└ [Wild Grylls]: Did the Undying King destroy me or something?
└ [Allfather]: The Undying King turned every citizen in the country into undead. It was the worst incident in history, one that nearly swallowed the entire world.
└ That one incident made the Holy Kingdom strictly ban Necromancy.
└ Didn't they go beyond banning it and classify it as heresy?
└ More like they classified necromancers as evil people rather than heretics. Still, it's a shame. Necromancy was really useful for replacing labor.
└ Necromancy had been controversial from the start. The Central Plains banned it from the beginning. They said it wasn't respectful to the dead.
└ Screw respecting the dead, the living need to live;;
└ Fuck, you try farming with your bare hands. Things were so much easier whenever our village had a necromancer.
└ Necromancers are creepy. You never know what they'll do.
└ That's prejudice. Necromancy was also used to find out causes of death by casting magic on corpses.
└ [Wild Grylls]: Holy shit. That's possible?
└ [Allfather]: It remains an unsolved problem. But perhaps we may find an answer in the book you discovered, Grylls.
I still didn't really get it. It sounded like something happening in a completely different country.
Maybe I'd lost my sense of reality from being holed up in the Forest of Four Seasons for so long.
Or maybe it was because this was the gallery. None of it really hit home.
The Balkan Kingdom, the Undying King, none of it mattered to me.
└ [Wild Grylls]: I'll take pictures of every page and upload them. Can you translate them? Please focus on how this person survived in the forest rather than the history.
└ [Allfather]: Oh my! Thank you so much! How could I ever repay such an honor...!
└ [Wild Grylls]: Just tell me if there's anything related to survival.
Like I'd said before, survival was what mattered most. I turned the pages and photographed them one by one.
It would take time to upload all of this to the gallery. That was why I'd returned so quickly.
‘Should I just give them to Allfather?’
I wondered when I'd ever finish uploading everything, but decided to put it all up anyway.
Even if Allfather was smart, they might have trouble deciphering it.
If I uploaded it publicly like this, I could at least get more objective information.
If someone was a big help, I was willing to give them an Adult Mandrake.
‘I should ignore Anonymous Users.’
All kinds of people gathered here, so I planned to ignore Anonymous Users whenever possible.
They might decipher things strangely or incorrectly and confuse everyone.
‘Still, I'll give the books to Allfather.’
Separate from uploading them to the gallery, I intended to give them to Allfather.
They were useless in my hands, and Allfather seemed the most trustworthy.
Academic value and all that meant nothing to me. Information related to survival came first.
‘This person was impressive too. They survived in this hell of a forest and even kept a diary.’
While photographing the pages, I turned toward the sack holding the bones.
What kind of person had managed to survive in this hellish forest and write a diary?
Hoping the journal contained some useful tips, I photographed every page carefully.
For something so old, it had been preserved remarkably well. There were barely any letters I couldn't make out.
‘Oh. What kind of plant is this?’
Most of the first book was packed with writing, but as I moved on to the others, there were drawings too.
Some of them looked like they could help me survive.
There were pictures of various plants and animals, as well as drawings of specific locations.
Those were exactly what I needed right now, so I took extra care photographing them.
“God, my neck hurts.”
Photographing the books took up most of the afternoon.
Still, it took less time than it normally would have, since I didn't need to hold anything in one hand like a camera.
All I had to do was turn the pages and take pictures with my eyes. The image quality was great too, so the text wouldn't get distorted.
My eyesight was the image quality. And I had good eyesight. Therefore, high resolution.
‘Time to upload everything to the gallery.’
I uploaded all the book pages I'd photographed to the gallery.
Why go through all this trouble? Wouldn't it be easier to leave it to Allfather?
People who didn't understand why I wanted objective information probably wouldn't understand.
It just felt like I should. Weirdly enough.
‘I should upload each book separately so they're easy to distinguish.’
There was no limit to the number of photos I could upload to the gallery.
Still, using the gallery wasn't entirely free of mana costs, so there was a limit of sorts.
Each upload consumed a tiny amount of mana.
The more photos there were, and the longer a video was, the more mana it consumed.
[Post title] First book I found
[Author] Wild Grylls
[Post] (Photo of book contents)
[Post] (Photo of book contents)
[Post] (Photo of book contents)
[Post] ⋮
[Post] (Photo of final book page)
[Post] I uploaded the whole book.
[Post] I'll give one Adult Mandrake to whoever deciphers information related to survival, so keep that in mind.
[Post] For the record, I'm only listening to registered users, so keep that in mind too. I'll upload more books later.
I posted exactly that, then uploaded all the other books as well.
It was simple grunt work, but finishing it left me oddly proud.
Once I'd uploaded all the book contents, I sent Allfather a trade request.
Allfather accepted immediately, not even three seconds after I sent it.
[You]: Hello, Allfather.
[You]: Did you see the posts I uploaded?
[Allfather]: I'm reading them with a raging boner.
[You]: ;;
That was just the kind of person they were, so I let it slide.
If I got awkward for no reason, I might end up being the weird one.
[You]: Anyway, I was thinking of donating the books I found?
[You]: Well, giving them to you.
[Allfather]: No! Those precious books...!
[Allfather]: Are you truly sure you can give them to me?
[You]: I can't store them or decipher them anyway.
[You]: Just let me know right away if you find anything related to survival.
[Allfather]: That would be easy enough.
[Allfather]: Is there nothing you're curious about concerning the Balkan Kingdom or the Undying King?
[You]: Wasn't the Undying King just a king who raised a skeleton army and started a war?
[Allfather]: Hoho. That's such a perfect summary that I have nothing to add.
[You]: You're just not interested, are you?
[You]: I'm too busy worrying about myself.
[Allfather]: I see. Understood.
[Allfather]: I'll tell you how this person survived.
[You]: Thank you.
[You]: Oh, could I ask one more thing first?
[Allfather]: Go ahead.
[You]: I want to know this person's name.
It would be nice to at least know their name. There was a big difference between knowing it and not knowing it.
Fortunately, their name must have been written on the first page of the book, because Allfather answered immediately.
[Allfather]: The last scribe of the Balkan Kingdom, Rais Kraone.
[You]: Rais Kraone.
[You]: Got it.
Now that I'd given the books to Allfather, only one thing remained.
Burying the skeleton in the sack somewhere sunny.
I took a shovel, a hammer, and the sack containing the skeleton, then headed out.
‘A cross... no, I should just use a stone.’
A mixture of a cross and ancestral rites? What kind of mutant ceremony would that be?
It would be better to find a suitably flat stone and stick it in the ground.
Thud! Thud!
I began digging with the shovel.
I only dug the grave long enough for the skeleton to fit inside.
All that remained was placing the skeleton from the sack inside and covering it with dirt.
‘Strangely, all the bones are connected.’
Like a model skeleton in a science classroom, it consistently held its proper shape.
It should have come apart, but it didn't. That meant it kept its form.
I didn't know enough about this stuff to know if that was normal, but it wasn't a bad thing.
I carefully laid the skeleton in the grave, then covered it with earth.
Thud! Tap! Thwack! Tap!
Then I planted a flat stone at the head of the grave. I hammered it down to make sure it stayed firmly in place.
The preparations were finished. I bought a bottle of reasonably priced alcohol from the Auction House.
For the record, it was alcohol from the Central Plains. Its Eastern style felt more familiar to me.
Pouring beer on a grave just didn't suit my taste.
Trickle, trickle.
I poured the alcohol over the marker stone and grave, soothing the spirit.
Then I bowed twice. It was a little sloppy, but it should have been respectful enough.
What mattered was respect, not ceremony. At least, that's what I believed.
‘Oh. Right. The name.’
I'd forgotten to write the name on the stone. That had almost been a disaster.
I laid the stone I'd set at the head of the grave down on the ground.
Then I bought ink and a brush from the Auction House and carefully wrote on it.
Naturally, I wrote it in Hangul. That was the only script I knew.
The last scribe of the Balkan Kingdom, Rais Kraone, rests here.
That should be enough.
Once the ink dried, I set it back over the grave.
That was the end of paying my respects to the dead. The funeral was over.
The only thing left was the belongings... but I didn't need them.
I hadn't even touched the pendant the skeleton had worn around its neck until the end. I'd buried it as it was.
In other words, my awkward little funeral was completely over.
As I turned toward the cave...
[Grazas.]
A strangely sinister voice came from behind me.
At the same time, an icy chill ran through me, making every hair on my body stand up.
Startled out of my wits, I hurriedly looked back at the grave.
And...
“...”
There was nothing there.
It was enough to make me think I'd imagined that voice.
Only the quiet surroundings and the grave where I'd just performed the rites greeted me.
‘...Am I hearing things now too?’
I rubbed my face and returned to the cave.
Maybe I felt drained even though I'd eaten eel.
‘I should take a nap.’
For some reason, my body felt completely exhausted.
* * *
While Grylls was taking a nap.
└ Hey. If I translated that right, this is going to blow up.
└ What is it?
└ It says the Holy Kingdom massacred the Balkan Kingdom's people to create the Undying King;;;
└ ???
└ Fuck, what the hell does that mean??
└ The Holy Kingdom? Why the hell would they do that?
An unexpected revelation was unfolding.
Footnotes:
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