WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Irevi

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 25: Why Are You Running Away?

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“Halibal Velder? Why did he apply to the Reconnaissance Corps?”

“The Ren House’s sword princesses are here too? Not the Raid Corps?”

“Even a young lady of the Grace Family joined the Reconnaissance Corps... Could there be something there?”

As the students’ murmuring over the class assignment results grew louder, more and more eyes turned toward me.

At first, barely anyone recognized me, but holy power healing could only erase scars.

Once they took a closer look, it was only natural that people would gradually realize, ‘Ah, it’s Halibal.’

Eugene’s gaze was the most irritating of all.

His eyes practically dripped with competitiveness.

It was as if he were saying:

‘Why didn’t you join the Raid Corps?’

No, look at Aren standing beside you.

Why not focus on the protagonist instead of me?

Still, other people’s stares weren’t what truly occupied my mind.

‘Then Aren doesn’t have a magic DPS at his side...’

Academy of the End was an action RPG.

Aren, the protagonist, was the inheritor of the Ultimate Divine Sword.

Since he was a character defined by his obsession with the sword, he couldn’t equip any weapon other than a sword.

That might have worked in an old game, but modern games usually gave players the freedom to choose their weapons.

There were players who wanted to use all sorts of weapons, not just swords.

That was why Academy of the End, despite locking each character to a specific weapon, had a system that fulfilled that need.

The playable character system. It allowed players to control a different character depending on the dungeon or gimmick.

If the player chose another character as the main character, Aren would follow along like a mercenary and clear the dungeon with them.

In other words, Academy of the End handled weapon changes through a character-switching system.

The first opportunity to choose a playable character, and therefore a weapon, came during the Academy’s first class.

The player chose one student from their class as their first companion, then cleared the Beast Dungeon together.

The problem was that I’d already cleared the Beast Dungeon.

That naturally moved the next objective to the second Evil God Dungeon, the Doll Dungeon.

To easily break the special gimmick used by the Doll Dungeon’s boss monsters, though, a magic DPS was practically essential.

Academy of the End didn’t have many magic DPS characters to begin with.

Excluding Alicia, who couldn’t be recruited yet, and Mine, who was a healer, only Cecilia and Luna had hybrid builds.

And both of them had joined the Reconnaissance Corps.

That meant Aren suddenly had no magic DPS left at his side.

‘Now I have to rebuild the plan from scratch.’

I intended to continue growing stronger as Halibal Velder.

But that only meant I wouldn’t rely on Aren. It didn’t mean I would abandon him.

There were scenarios that absolutely couldn’t be cleared without Aren.

That was why my original plan had been closer to following the scenario thoroughly and fully supporting Aren.

There were choices where I could steal the opportunities that would have originally belonged to the protagonist, but unfortunately, Academy of the End was full of opportunities only the protagonist could obtain.

‘Does that mean I have to clear the Doll Dungeon too?’

One such opportunity lay in the deepest part of the Doll Dungeon.

The special Abyss Core only Aren could equip, [Sun Shine], appeared when you opened a treasure chest.

The moment he obtained it, Aren’s stats would soar as though he’d grown wings.

The issue was that being handed something someone else had obtained was completely different from receiving a reward from a boss you defeated yourself.

Finding a way to bridge that gap seemed like it would become my new assignment.

‘This is all because of those two.’

I glared at the Ren sisters resentfully.

“I told you during the test, didn’t I? I know all of Halibal’s habits.”

“You know you never speak clearly when you’re hiding something, right?”

Noted.

Just wait until next time.

Once the Support Corps assignments were finished as well, a man who appeared to be an instructor stepped onto the platform. I’d seen his face during the entrance examination too.

The person who should have been standing there was Adeline.

And I knew better than anyone just how much I could gain from Adeline, both in the original story and in reality.

In the end, the void left by her absence would be another one I had to fill.

“The place you have set foot in is not an ordinary school.”

The instructor’s gaze swept across the entire testing ground in an instant.

“Now that you have entered Ruidel, you will soon face the Dungeons of the Evil God. The Academy will not protect you from that threat. The only ones who can protect you will always be yourselves.”

His gaze lingered on Aren for a moment.

Then it passed Eugene, Ran, and the Ren sisters.

“But fighting beneath Ruidel’s name means bearing humanity’s pride. You will face countless deaths from this day onward. Whether you shine among them or fade away depends entirely on your choices.”

Finally, his eyes reached me.

“That is why Ruidel will do everything in its power to support you, so that you may shine even a little brighter. Prove yourselves in your own places, in your own ways. And lastly...”

The instructor raised one hand high and shouted.

“May the glory of humanity’s unquenchable sun be with you! This concludes this year’s Ruidel Academy entrance ceremony and class assignments!”

At that moment, as though it were a signal, Ruidel’s faculty and officials emerged from all around the testing grounds.

When they applauded and cheered for us, the testing grounds soon filled with the students’ shouts.

The sun. That was the slogan of both Ruidel Academy and Academy of the End.

It was also why Aren Bright bore the epithet, ‘The one who will bring the sun to the Empire.’

I’d thought that, since it was a scene I already knew, seeing the entrance ceremony speech in person wouldn’t move me much.

Yet now that I was facing it, my chest felt strangely full. Or perhaps it made me reflect on myself.

Right. What was done was done.

I couldn’t just keep complaining.

‘I have to keep thinking.’

I had to move faster and think more coldly.

Only then could I survive. Only then could I see a happy ending in this reality that was no longer a game.

So I decided to bring forward something that would normally only happen after the semester began.

As I turned my head amid the thunderous applause, I saw a tall male student with black hair sitting with his hands over his ears.

‘Elia Work.’

If someone asked for the most unusual character in Academy of the End, Elia would be the obvious answer.

The other characters all had clear strengths or roles, but Elia was incredibly awkward to use.

That became even clearer once he joined after Chapter 2 and you used him as a playable character.

In keeping with his setting as a mechanical genius, he wielded firearms despite the world having an atmosphere somewhere between the medieval and modern eras.

Unfortunately, Academy of the End was a world where swords were stronger than guns. His combat performance fell short not only of Ran’s, but even Eugene’s, so he was bound to disappoint players.

Then what was Elia’s purpose?

He handled all the technical chores.

Weapon and Abyss Core purchases, repairs, crafting, and enhancements. Everything went through the Work Workshop, which meant Elia’s workshop was the place players visited most often.

More than anything, though, Elia was important because he made Shard crafting possible.

Despite his appearance, he was the caring type who could never turn away when someone close to him faced death.

That was why, even at this point, he was already developing a machine that combined lower-tier Shards into higher-tier Shards.

Still, development couldn’t possibly be completed at the time of the entrance ceremony. There was no way he had enough lower-tier Shards to use on an unidentified machine.

That was why the Shard synthesis system only appeared after Chapter 4 in the original story.

By then, lower-tier Shards had piled up, giving players enough room to seriously attempt synthesis and crafting.

‘I’ll bring that forward immediately.’

Thanks to all my dungeon grinding, I had more lower-tier Shards than I knew what to do with.

In other words, I could immediately supply the Shards needed for Shard crafting.

As long as I could turn useless Shards into higher-tier Shards, I didn’t care if the exchange rate was terrible.

After the entrance ceremony ended, I pushed through the crowd and approached Elia to arrange a meeting at his workshop.

There was no way he would refuse free lower-tier Shards.

I stepped right in front of Elia and called his name.

“Elia...”

“H-Holy shit! Valhilar?!”

“...?”

No, why are you running away?

⁎⁎⁎

That night.

After returning from the entrance ceremony, Elia sat in his workspace at one side of the Work Workshop.

As usual, he held a hammer in his hand, but he couldn’t focus on his work.

‘That bastard... What the hell does he want?’

It was because of Halibal Velder, who had suddenly spoken to him at the entrance ceremony.

Elia still couldn’t forget what had happened on the day of the entrance examination.

When he stepped into the boss room, a knight clad in old, rusted armor stood before him.

The armor’s design was at least ten years outdated, but Elia recognized its specifications at once.

It was unmistakably armor belonging to the Cyrus Imperial Guard.

As someone deeply knowledgeable about armor, he could be certain.

The armored knight eliminated Elia on the spot and whispered:

‘Do you understand? Valhilar, the Blade of Ruidel.’

“Haah...”

Elia mulled over those words for a long time.

And this was how he interpreted them.

‘Valhilar, the Blade of Ruidel, knows.’

Knows what?

At first, he had been unsure. But when the man turned out to be the famous Funeral Sword during the examination and declared that he was connected to Princess Alicia, Elia had no choice but to become convinced.

The Blade of Ruidel meant Alicia’s blade, since she was Ruidel’s student council president. At the same time, it also meant the blade of the Imperial Family.

Alicia’s nickname was Red Scales. It was widely said that her information network within the capital rivaled even the Emperor’s.

No matter how carefully he hid it, there would be nothing she couldn’t uncover if she wished to find it.

If someone like that said they “knew,” it surely referred to the unfinished machine before him.

“But I can’t just dispose of it now...”

The machine, only one step away from completion, was called the [Shard Converter].

It was a device that compressed lower-tier Shards dropped by monsters as much as possible and converted them into higher-tier Shards.

In theory, it was perfect.

The problem was the number of lower-tier Shards needed to complete and operate it.

Even a single Tier 1 lower-tier Shard was an expense Elia could hardly afford.

Yet to properly operate this device, he needed dozens, no, hundreds of them.

He couldn’t ask for donations. Nobody would hand over precious Shards for an unidentified machine.

Nor could he seek investment from others. The development he was conducting was illegal, after all.

But Elia was certain.

Someday, the Shard Converter would greatly help prevent many deaths.

Once it was complete, anyone could rise to the ranks of the strong using only Shards obtained from low-level dungeons.

‘Is there any way... I can persuade the Imperial Family?’

That was when it happened.

A knock sounded at the workshop door. After hesitating for a moment, Elia carefully opened it.

The instant he saw who stood beyond the door, he instinctively sucked in a breath.

“Halibal... Velder...”

Halibal’s sudden visit late at night, without so much as a message beforehand, convinced Elia.

Red Scales of the Imperial Family had finally decided to pass judgment on him.

“Could it be... Her Highness has decided to deal with this personally?”

Halibal watched Elia mutter to himself, then silently stroked his chin with a somber look in his eyes.

‘I made a mistake!’

A chill ran down Elia’s spine.

That gesture had to mean Halibal was considering whether to execute him on the spot after hearing the word princess slip from his mouth.

Then Halibal spoke in a low voice.

“Can I come inside first?”

Footnotes:

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