WeTried Translations
Translator: Goku
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became a Villain Perfect for Leveling Up
Chapter 040
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40. Eagles and Horses (3)
Inside the altar, a conversation more uncomfortable than the silence began.
“I circled the entire continent to find you... Though... I didn’t know you were living so close by...”
Perhaps she had truly circled every continent in such a short time. Dark circles and fatigue were etched beneath Altair's eyes.
Exhausted from traveling day and night, her eyelids fluttered shut, and she soon let out a yawn.
“May I... sleep for just a moment?”
As if hoping this wasn't a dream, she grasped my hand tightly and asked with an innocent smile.
It was just a request born of sleepiness, but mixed within was an anxiety that I might disappear again.
Would everything be a dream if she opened her eyes? Even as sleep overcame her, she fought to stay awake.
“...I won’t run away.”
“...I will... believe those words.”
“Ugh?”
I didn't want to abandon Altair and run away like this. As I nodded and swore I wouldn't vanish,
Altair, as if that weren't enough, pulled on the hand she was holding.
With a dizzying sensation, the scent of deep musk spread out instantly.
The soft fabric of her clothes, well-maintained, tickled my face.
The subtle fragrance of sweat and toil made my head spin.
Holding me to her chest, Altair stroked my hair with a hand devoid of any hostility.
“...Commander?”
I called her name, but she had already closed her eyes and begun to rest.
Perhaps it was her natural instinct not wanting to let go of me. Even in her sleep, Altair’s hand did not stop.
Like a mother patting the back of a young baby.
As she drifted into a deeper sleep and her hand slowed, she would subconsciously snap back to awareness and tighten her grip.
“.........”
Listening to the soft rustling of her hair, the guilt I felt toward Altair seemed to grow even heavier.
What on earth had I done to a woman who possessed not a shred of malice?
I had hurt her like a hissing cat cornered against a wall, simply because I had nowhere left to run.
The truth was, my actions were intended for rescue, yet...
I took the hand that was stroking my hair and clasped it, so the Commander could sleep comfortably.
“...Mm.”
Perhaps talking in her sleep, Altair made a cute humming sound and naturally moved her fingers to interlock them with mine.
As evening turned into night.
A soft wind blew, as if the insects in the grass were growing louder one by one.
“.........”
I hadn't been able to fall asleep easily due to the anxiety that Eirene might find me, or that Dina might track me down, but the warmth of Altair's touch calmed me down from the turmoil I had been in.
The Aquila Knights were the place that had made me understand the concept of goodwill once again, so I felt a desire to return there when everything was eventually resolved.
Even for me, who had been so disillusioned with military life that I wanted to avoid it, the rest she and Commander Altair had given me was something I would gladly choose to re-enlist for.
With my sense of smell nearly paralyzed by the dizzying scent, I tried to suppress my lust and closed my eyes.
....
“Good... morning.”
“...Yes.”
When the morning sun rose and bathed us both in warmth, Altair opened her eyes softly and greeted the morning.
“...?”
Suddenly, she felt the sensation on each of her fingers and wiggled them awkwardly.
“...!!”
Realizing our hands were still interlaced, she quickly pulled her hand away and clenched it into a fist.
“O-oh, by any chance... y-yesterday, was there any... incident...!!”
Perhaps only now realizing how low her guard had been, her usual charismatic voice was gone, replaced by a high-pitched feminine tone.
“There was not, Commander.”
“.........”
“We merely slept holding hands, so you need not worry.”
“...I-I see.”
Whether it was a sleeping habit, she noticed her short hair had gotten into her mouth; I reached out and tucked the side strands behind her ear.
“.........”
When I smiled gently while looking at her, Altair made a breathless expression, rolled her eyes left and right a few times, and squeezed them shut.
Watching a woman soaked in girlish sentiment, so different from the direct and forward woman I knew, brought me a feeling surprisingly full of happiness.
It felt like a warm, fuzzy something rising up, much like watching children on the street acting cute for their parents.
“With that handsome face... staring so intently...”
Following her usual direct personality, Altair’s voice, which had poured out her inner thoughts, grew smaller and smaller until she wanted to burrow into a mouse hole.
“S-stop...!! They say men and women shouldn’t sit together after the age of seven!”
Pushing me away with great strength, she exhaled hot breath and widened the distance between us in an instant.
The way she quickly put on the armor she had neatly stacked on the floor to hide her body’s curves, and the way she took a deep breath while dusting off her shoulders repeatedly.
I took advantage of that scene to do some simple stretching to loosen up my body.
Altair, having returned to the appearance I remembered, tried to fix her hair back to its original state, but perhaps thinking better of it, she left the style as it was.
The silence that had fallen on the altar, where the refreshing morning breeze blew, lasted only a moment.
“...Commander. May I ask why you came looking for me?”
I asked for the reason she had left the Aquila Knights behind to find me.
“The darkness you face alone... I could not leave you to face the ruin by yourself.”
“.........”
Not yet fully understanding what 'ruin' was, I looked into her eyes.
I knew that the world would eventually be devastated by ruin, but I was still puzzled as to what this ruin truly signified.
“...It seems you don’t yet know what ruin truly is.”
As befitting a leader of a group, the perceptive Altair began her explanation.
“Ruin. The existence has many meanings. How far does your knowledge go, Dean?”
“...I know it destroys the world.”
“If you know that much, there is almost no problem in understanding. Because ruin is that kind of existence.”
“That kind of existence...? Does it have a physical form?”
My realization at the mention of ruin having a form lasted only a moment.
“No. Ruin has no form. ...Though I cannot say it has none at all. It is closer to a concept.”
Altair continued with a shocking truth.
“Turning humans into the undead. Turning ordinary wild animals into demonic beasts. The collapse of cities... The fall of gods and the usurpation of their powers. We call all of that 'ruin'.”
“....”
“And at some point, ruin began to feed on the despair of many and appeared with a physical form. That is what we know as demonic beasts.”
Altair, who had imparted information about the ruin, drew a simple maze on the dust piled on the floor.
“The Maze of Rifts. Go there, and you can see the ruin with a physical form.”
Soon, she drew something with eight legs and a worm next to the circle.
“Arachne. The Giant Serpent Freud. Those two are famous ruins that possess a physical form.”
Her drawing skills were worse than a grade-schooler’s, but since I had encountered and even subdued both by chance, I kept the conversation going.
“Then... who is the one casting ruin over the world?”
“No. There is no such being.”
“....”
“Ruin is closer to an inevitable causal relationship where all events that occur are intertwined and tangled. Even if there are those who contributed to bringing ruin upon the world, it is almost impossible to intentionally cast it.”
Altair added that there was no such thing as a mastermind in the way I thought.
“So. Will you allow me to help you, Dean, and stop the ruin?”
After finishing her explanation, she made her final request to become my companion.
“...I am sorry.”
But all I could offer was a refusal.
“Why?”
Altair’s eyes went wide, perhaps not expecting to be rejected so easily.
“...You are not someone who should be by my side. It would be better to keep your place in the nest that is the Aquila Knights.”
“.........”
“Besides... I am not such a good person as you think I am.”
Since possessing this body, my resolve to kill no one had long since shattered.
Had I not killed people even in front of Altair?
Just like how I had killed the owner of the manpower agency in the past, I was a villain who obtained what I wanted through improper means.
It was only natural to instinctively recoil at the thought of a virtuous person like her being entangled with someone like me.
“Dean.”
Altair slowly approached me and met my gaze.
“I do not know how you think of yourself, but I believe that there was a purpose and reason for every action you took.”
It was sophistry.
Everything I had done was merely driven by instinct and a thirst for revenge.
“Just as every sound a young baby makes has meaning, even if you say it is not so, I know it is.”
“...Commander, don't you have a place where you belong?”
I couldn't understand why she chose me when she had the nest that was the Aquila Knights.
With her ability to know the ending of the 1st Playthrough, she could surely prevent the downfall that would inevitably come.
“I abandoned the small righteousness for the sake of the greater. As much as my subordinates were precious... I had no choice but to turn my back on them.”
“....”
“And I, too... am not as good a person as you think.”
She looked at her palms, now free of blood, and reflected on her past.
“Because I stained my hands with their blood, hands that should have saved someone...”
Whispering to herself, Altair took my lost hands and smiled.
“We are in the same boat, both feeling compassion for each other’s predicament. Can’t we travel together, even if you think of me as a convenient tool?”
“Commander...”
“I am no longer a commander. Call me Altair.”
Sending her back to the Aquila Knights now would be impossible, for the landscape reflected in Altair’s blue eyes was far too precarious.
The title of Knight Commander itself seemed to feel like a poison arrow lodged in her heart.
“Rangel came to see me.”
At the mention of Rangel’s name, Altair was startled and her eyes widened.
“Rangel...?”
“He told me to take responsibility for the Knight Commander and bring her back.”
It was a ruse.
It was true that he had told her to help Altair, but he had never told me to bring her back to the Aquila Knights.
However... I felt that without doing this, I wouldn't be able to persuade her.
“.........”
Hearing the name of the subordinate waiting for her, Altair met my gaze quietly.
“...Did you happen to see the letter?”
“I still have it.”
I took out the crumpled letter from my pocket, and soon after receiving it, Altair broke her silence.
“...I left a total of two letters for the Knight Order. One was about the succession of the commander position, and the other was this one.”
“.........”
“I had planned to go through the formal process and pass on the position. But time was of the essence, so I left this letter without a succession ceremony and disappeared.”
The silence she broke carried the meaning that she had seen through the lie I had told.
“You knew that what I said was a lie.”
“...I am sorry. It is just that I am thorough about these things.”
“...I lost.”
If I pushed away someone who wanted to be with me this much, I felt like I would be committing an even greater sin. In the end, I raised both hands to Altair’s thoroughness and signaled my surrender.
“I look forward to working with you. I will try not to be a burden.”
“...Likewise.”
I reached out to Altair, intending to accept her as a companion, and she shyly smiled as she clasped my hand.
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