WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Irevi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Academy's Turn-Based Swordsman ◈
Chapter 111: Rhythm Game
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Black Cloud's Instant Kill and Dark Cloud's Fruition.
Both were powers that had not existed in the original game, manifesting only within my singularity of turn-based combat.
So why had I assumed this unknown power applied only to combat?
There was no room for doubt now. This power had been granted because I needed it.
Perhaps the abilities of [White Tome], [Star Radiance], and even Luna's [Nebula] would be unlocked in the same way.
“The anvil is over there, and there is iron everywhere. Now then, shall I see how well this genius swordsman can swing a hammer?”
Enedor said mockingly with his arms folded.
Rather than replying, I used tongs to pull a piece of metal carelessly shoved into the furnace from the fire.
I had confidently picked up a hammer, but...
'What am I supposed to do with this?'
I practically had no knowledge of metallurgy. With a sword, I could at least swing it and make something happen, but a hammer was different.
As I stood there holding the hammer and blankly staring at the anvil, unsure where to begin, my vision wavered.
A red haze rose from the metal's surface.
At the same time, a blue haze rose from the head of the hammer.
'...Could this be?'
I brought the hammer down toward the red haze.
Clang!
With a pathetic sound, the hammer bounced away, leaving one side of the metal deeply dented.
[Weak!]
I had struck its weak point.
'This is insane...'
I realized it immediately.
I was currently fighting the piece of metal.
My hammering was my turn. The recoil I felt in my arm when the hammer struck was the metal's turn, in other words, the enemy's counterattack.
That last hammer strike had been awful.
But I had definitely struck its weak point.
What happened when I hit an enemy's weak point in combat?
'An extra turn is generated.'
Enedor wore an expression that said, See? But I ignored him and raised the hammer again.
My turn again.
This time, I eased up on the force.
I timed the blue haze to strike the weak point I had made on the previous turn.
Clang!
[Weak!]
Unlike before, a clear and lively sound rang out as the hammer sank deep into the metal.
The impact that should have traveled into my arm vanished again. Instead, that force began reshaping the metal.
“...!”
Enedor's brows twitched as he stood with his arms folded.
Meanwhile, the red haze above the metal moved around. Its weak point had changed positions.
'Right. If it's an enemy, of course it would move too.'
Unless I distributed the force of my hammer strikes evenly, there was no way a proper item would come out of this.
My turn.
Clang!
[Weak!]
Clang!
[Weak!]
'Is this the feeling? Not bad.'
Bringing down the hammer in rhythm felt like playing a rhythm game.
My opponent was not a monster, but an inanimate object. I called it a counterattack, but naturally, I did not take any damage.
Thanks to that, I could keep extending my turns and pound the metal without resistance.
How much time passed?
The metal's original shape disappeared, revealing something hammered thin and sharp that barely resembled a sword.
It was not a sword, but I was fairly satisfied for a first attempt.
Just as Enedor had said, while hammering away, I had a vague premonition.
'I will have to make my ultimate weapon myself.'
I did not know what materials it would require or when I could make it, but I had the faint feeling that it had to be that way.
I held out the metal to Enedor.
“Can this speed things along?”
Enedor took the metal and remained silent for a while.
Then, after a moment.
“Elia.”
“Y-Yes!”
“Close the workshop.”
A deep smile formed on Enedor's lips.
“From today onward, you are not leaving this place.”
⁎⁎⁎
Showing Enedor my hammering had been a mistake.
I realized that less than ten minutes after finishing my first piece.
I had thought turn-based combat would let me coast through metallurgy too, but unfortunately, that was not the case at all.
Apparently, I had gotten lucky the first time. The haze vanished the moment I made a mistake in distributing my strength.
Sweat poured down my body in the furnace's heat, and the unfamiliar tools quickly strained my muscles.
As a result, my hammer strikes began missing more and more as time passed.
But the biggest problem was...
'Again!'
Was Enedor secretly a former drill instructor?
He treated me as though he had discovered someone naturally gifted at Smithing, working me mercilessly without giving me a moment to rest.
Enedor collected the lumps of scrap from failed forging attempts and put them back into the furnace.
Then, shortly afterward, another piece of metal would appear on the anvil as though he had unlimited refills.
For fuck's sake.
Just as I began to fear that I might change classes from swordsman to craftsman at this rate...
'Yaaawn.'
A yawn from the sleep-loving middle-aged man signaled the end of the Smithing training that had begun against my will.
'That's enough for today. Come to the workshop tomorrow morning at seven.'
'...'
Of course, I was not going.
By the time I left the workshop, darkness had long settled over the city.
Still, the cool summer breeze outside the workshop door cooled my overheated body.
I saw two people waiting for me at the entrance.
“Good work.”
“See? I knew something would happen eventually when you went around acting all high and mighty because you're a genius.”
I never called myself a genius.
I was about to complain, but closed my mouth.
For some reason, seeing them wait for me outside like this eased my heart.
Then I remembered that I had skipped dinner, and my mood sank again. Fortunately, the two of them said they had bought something for me to eat.
Just as I was about to leave the workshop in lighter spirits, I saw a figure moving around in a sealed room on one side of the workshop.
“Over there...”
“Ah. They said it's Elia Work's research room. Though he calls it his training room.”
I had seen Elia quietly slip away in the middle of my special training.
Still, I should say hello.
“Come in.”
The instant I opened the research room's door and entered, an atmosphere entirely different from the workshop unfolded before me.
A faint smell of oil lingered throughout the room, mixed here and there with the acrid scent of gunpowder.
Various ore samples were neatly arranged on the workbench, along with metal components that appeared to be gun barrels.
Rather than a place for working iron, this room looked like a place for making far more modern objects.
Beside Elia, who was struggling at the workbench, lay his signature weapon, a Mana Gun.
Every colorful Shard fitted into the Mana Gun was at least Level 3. I had no idea how he had acquired them all.
'Now I understand why he calls this a training room.'
Elia's training consisted of modifying Mana Guns and making ammunition.
In the original game, Elia was the very model of a jack-of-all-trades character.
As the only one to use firearms, he could fill every role in the party depending on which bombs he equipped.
He could deal damage, heal, and even serve as a buffer or tank, so his early-game floor was unmatched.
There was even a saying on the community boards: “1. Just put Elia in.”
But players familiar with the game knew what the term jack-of-all-trades meant.
'A character who's good at nothing.'
As the game went on, nearly every character outclassed him in damage. Mine surpassed him in healing, Alicia in buffs, and Eugene in tanking.
He naturally fell out of the party, a tragic character.
Perhaps the developers knew that too. By the final chapter, they removed him from the combat roster entirely and made him a weapon-crafting NPC.
The reason he used firearms in the first place was because his own abilities were so far below those of the other characters.
But regardless of his abilities, no one was more determined to clear dungeons.
Elia's mother had died fighting monsters on the front lines in the past.
Elia did not look our way even though he knew we had entered.
He treated Luna and Adeline no differently. His attitude was completely unlike the way he had flustered himself earlier that day.
“What are you doing?”
“...Maintaining my gun. I need to prepare for the next dungeon during break.”
Elia asked.
“So, how was my father's metallurgy?”
“...I thought I was going to die.”
“Heh heh. Right? He works you incredibly hard, so stay alert. It hurts a lot if you take one of his punches head-on.”
Wait, he even hit people?
My resolve not to go became even firmer.
Still, Elia normally stuttered around me or famous people, yet when he was maintaining his weapon, there was not a trace of hesitation in his speech.
He even added this.
“Do your best. It's been a long time since my father taught someone so passionately. Who knows? Maybe you'll become the successor of the Work Workshop.”
I had been choosing my words because I thought it was a sensitive topic, but he brought it up himself.
Enedor had actually seemed to be considering it as well.
He had even said, 'At this rate, you cannot inherit the Work Workshop!'
I had not the slightest intention of becoming a craftsman, but Elia might think differently.
Would he feel that I was a stone that had rolled in out of nowhere to take his place?
“Is it all right for you to say that yourself?”
“Yeah. It doesn't matter.”
Elia answered casually.
“My father and I are walking different paths.”
Elia raised the Mana Gun he had finished maintaining toward the ceiling light.
The brilliant glow of the Shards embedded in its barrel reflected across the workbench, scattering in every direction.
“My father makes equipment for the people who enter dungeons, but I'm different.”
He looked down at the muzzle.
“I intend to enter the dungeons myself and destroy the Evil God.”
“...”
“No matter what it takes, I will sever the Evil God's Abyss in my generation.”
A deep shadow fell across Elia's face.
His desire for revenge against the Evil God surpassed even his need to prove himself as a craftsman, along with his resolve to walk a path different from his father's.
And yet, his pitifully inadequate abilities could not support any of it.
'I wanted to go with all of you too... But it can't be helped. I will stay here and pray for your victory. Come back whenever you need your weapons repaired!'
I remembered Elia's line as he smiled sadly at the entrance to the final dungeon.
Enedor had said this too.
'There is no need to indulge Elia's stubbornness. Your path and his are different.'
So he knew his son's goal.
Perhaps Enedor had worked me so harshly in front of Elia to warn his son, “If you chase foolish dreams, you could lose even your current position.”
But unfortunately, the path Elia sought was the same as mine.
In the brief epilogue cutscene that appeared after the story ended, Elia became widely known as the next master of the Work Workshop.
Was that really the ending he wanted?
Was that line truly a reflection of how he felt when he alone was left behind as all his fellow students departed to kill the Evil God?
“Right.”
After staring at the muzzle for a long time, Elia changed the subject as though he had remembered something.
“Come to think of it, there is something I have wanted to ask you to test for a while.”
“You could have done that at the Academy.”
“...Ahem... It's awkward there... Her Highness the Princess is there too...”
“...”
“Ahem... Please understand. This is my research room, so I feel less awkward here.”
He took out a round bomb from a box.
“Take a look at this. It's a new weapon I developed. I want to know whether it would work in Dungeons of the Evil God.”
He placed a dog-shaped test dummy in a corner of the research room, surrounded by layers of barriers.
The tangled wires attached to it connected to Shards and his Abyss Core. When he sent a signal, demonic energy began to gather around the dummy.
It was about as much demonic energy as an ordinary monster from the Undead Dungeon.
“Watch closely.”
Elia threw the bomb at the dummy.
KABOOOM!!
The bomb exploded the instant it touched the demonic energy emitted by the dummy, rather than its body.
“Did you detonate it remotely?”
“No. It's a Reactive Bomb. It explodes the instant it touches demonic energy, and its damage is proportional to the amount of demonic energy the monster emits.”
Oh.
It was like damage that scaled with demonic energy.
“It's only a prototype, but... You have the most experience with Dungeons of the Evil God. I wanted to ask whether this much power would work in a dungeon.”
Well.
All kinds of variables came up in dungeons.
It might explode well here but fail in actual combat, or the opposite might happen.
But one thing was certain.
If it could truly deal damage proportional to demonic energy, even Elia, who lacked the raw stats, could inflict meaningful damage on boss-class monsters.
Thinking back, the faster I cleared Dungeons of the Evil God, the sooner Elia's shelf life would run out.
“If possible, I'd like you to evaluate it without holding back. After all, things like this are all someone like me can do.”
Elia was doing everything he could to delay that shelf life somehow.
“What do you think?”
He was a good kid.
So I gave him the answer he wanted.
“This will work.”
Color returned to Elia's face at my reply.
“Haa... That's a relief.”
Elia collapsed to the floor as though all his strength had left him. Perhaps because he had relaxed, he fell asleep just like that.
Adeline brought over a nearby blanket and draped it over his shoulders.
After confirming that Elia was asleep, breathing steadily, she turned to me.
“So, do you really think it will work?”
“It will be difficult.”
I answered immediately.
It might have worked until now, but unfortunately, it would not be easy for it to work from here on.
The monsters we would face from now on would all come covered in demonic-energy barriers.
The bomb would probably be neutralized before it even made contact.
Still, the idea of dealing damage proportional to demonic energy itself was good. If he improved it in that direction, he might make something useful.
“Let's head back. It's late.”
“Right. You're supposed to be busy from tomorrow morning onward too.”
I wasn't.
Just as we turned off the research room's lights and were about to leave.
'...It explodes the instant it touches demonic energy?'
A bolt of lightning went through my head.
My gaze naturally turned to Luna.
“Halibal?”
She tilted her head as though she did not understand.
Purple Flame.
Specialized in debuffs.
Damage over time.
And the original game's description.
'Pure mana close to demonic energy.'
Huh?
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