WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Irevi
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
Chapter 39: I Came to Sing, Though
──────
Boom!!
The doll monsters struck by Cecilia’s Shattering Light went tumbling helplessly across the ground.
‘Shattering Light doesn’t deal enough damage.’
They were trying to get back to their feet despite staggering around. Their Health was down to a sliver. The attack had just barely fallen short of taking them down in one hit.
Confirmed.
Cecilia hurried over.
“Are you okay?! Let me see where you’re hurt!”
The doll monsters’ attacks had nearly torn apart my right arm.
Was this the price of removing the Yellow Shards?
It was a wound that could threaten my career as a swordsman if it wasn’t treated immediately. Cecilia’s face stiffened in an instant.
“I’m sorry...! For some reason, my body wouldn’t move...!”
Still, Cecilia had nothing to apologize for. It was my fault for failing to anticipate the unfairness of turn-based combat.
According to the setting, Clown’s Domain distorted a person’s perception of movement.
In the game, it had only been implemented as a slow effect because it was so unpleasant, but in reality, it seemed to work exactly as intended.
Well, at least it was fortunate that it didn’t affect me.
A sharp pain ran through my arm whenever I moved it.
‘It’ll be hard to swing a sword with this arm.’
I had only let one attack through, but the next three had left my arm a mangled mess.
And I was right-handed.
Defeat was all but certain.
Okay, Clown analysis complete.
‘I can’t win.’
At least not in this run.
In that case, I’d abandon this run without hesitation.
That didn’t mean I intended to waste it. My turn had come around, so I had work to do.
‘I need to collect pattern data.’
I gently pushed away Cecilia, who was supporting me, and forced myself to my feet.
Switching my sword to my left hand, I kicked off the wall.
Then I charged straight at Maliaas, who floated in the air.
“Hoho?! As expected! Charging desperately at me despite suffering an injury that should leave you unable to fight! This is exactly how I imagined the Funeral Sword would be!”
“Who said I can’t fight?”
I activated Chrono Dive in midair.
Then I drove Carving Sword toward his heart.
Clang!
“...This...”
“Ha ha ha! Isn’t protecting one’s weak point the most basic thing for a human?”
A thin membrane formed around his heart and knocked Carving Sword away.
“Of course, it would be a different story if I received His baptism later!”
It was a barrier similar to Eugene’s Aegis.
A thin defensive shield made of demonic energy.
“Cecilia!”
“Huh? Ah, okay!”
Boom!!
Cecilia’s additional attack followed, but the barrier merely cracked instead of shattering.
“Oho?!”
Maliaas smiled playfully.
“Is this the talent of the Sword Princess?! To think my armor nearly broke from a single attack!”
“Ghk...!!”
Leaving the fuming Cecilia behind, he looked at me and asked,
“Sir Halibal, how does it feel? Do you find it hopeless? Or humiliating?!”
His smile didn’t last long.
“...?”
It was probably because he saw my expression as I fell from the air.
Cecilia couldn’t see it, hidden in the moon’s shadow.
Only he could see my face.
At that moment, I was desperately suppressing the corners of my mouth as they tried to curl upward.
He must have thought my attack had failed, but that wasn’t the case at all.
There had been something I wanted to check.
And I had just confirmed it.
‘This will work.’
The Bishops had a second phase called monsterification.
The trigger was death.
When an attack struck a Bishop’s heart and killed them, they finally cast off their human bodies and were reborn as true apostles of the Evil God.
That was why Bishops in their first phase didn’t actively protect their hearts.
No, they practically walked around with their hearts exposed, asking people to destroy them. They had to die to enter their second phase.
Then why was he desperately protecting his heart right now?
‘It’s certain. At this point, he has no second phase.’
I couldn’t help but smile because I could see a chance of victory.
“...What is that expression? You’re standing at the edge of a cliff, Sir. Could it be that you aren’t afraid of death?”
Before I knew it, Maliaas’s turn had come around again.
With a cold gaze, he swept a hand through the air.
“Well, even the great Funeral Sword is still only a boy. I suppose we can explain it by saying you lost your mind in the face of death.”
Dozens of knives imbued with Black Flame filled the sky.
“Then I shall finish this here. Young Lady, please wait a moment. I’ll see to it that you follow him soon enough.”
“Don’t talk shit, you piece of trash!”
The knives shot toward me like rain.
His Art from the original game, Hundred Knives.
Though there were clearly nowhere near a hundred of them.
Even with me injured, he focused entirely on attacking me alone.
[Just Guard!]
[Just Guard!]
[Just Guard!]
I desperately knocked away the knives, but my left arm wasn’t enough.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Several knives began piercing my body.
One became two, two became five.
Soon, more than ten knives had pierced flesh and split bone.
“...Huff.”
The surviving monsters charged again.
Crunch!
My shoulder and side were torn away, and blood rushed to my head as my consciousness began to fade.
It felt similar to when I was struck by Varhatan’s spinning attack.
Death.
“Ah...!! H-Halibal...!! No...!!”
Cecilia ran to my bloodied side, sobbing.
Her body shook like a leaf, as though she were trying to grasp something she couldn’t hold onto.
‘This is a scene I’ve never seen before.’
Cecilia had never shed tears of sorrow in the story.
If you chose her as the heroine at the ending, I thought there had been a scene where she cried tears of joy.
This was a cutscene I had never seen before.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll come back.’
I wanted to say that, but my mouth wouldn’t open.
Cecilia’s rage immediately turned toward the monsters.
“You bastards!!”
A flash of light gathered around her blade.
‘Is that a different Art from Shattering Light? If she had something like this, why didn’t she use it sooner?’
Before I knew it, Cecilia’s gaze was fixed solely on the doll monsters instead of Maliaas.
But that was wrong.
Look carefully.
They weren’t the ones you needed to target.
I forcibly raised my unmoving left arm and tapped her side.
When Cecilia lowered her head to look at me, I pointed my chin at Maliaas.
What we needed now wasn’t to deal with those minor monsters. We needed to draw out as many of Maliaas’s patterns as possible.
To do that, she needed to land at least one more attack on him.
“...Why?”
Cecilia’s face was already covered in tears after realizing what my gaze meant.
“...Look ahead.”
At my strained voice, she finally turned the sword she had aimed at the monsters toward Maliaas.
Then she spoke.
“...This... is my technique... I made it to show you.”
Don’t worry. I’m watching.
You, him, and the path I need to walk. All of it.
“Cecilia Sword Style. Secret Sword.”
As though she had steeled herself, she brought her sword straight down toward the ground.
“Radiant Chain Fang.”
“...!”
A new Art I had never seen before.
Boom!!
With a deafening roar, the entire alley was swallowed by light.
When the light faded, the doll monsters were scattering as dust.
Maliaas was standing right in front of Cecilia.
“...Ghk.”
For the first time, he let out a groan. His whole body was covered in blood.
The sword marks across him were comparable to the wounds carved into me.
He had not moved there on his own, either. Cecilia’s Art had forcibly dragged him in front of her.
“Haa... Haa...”
Even the armor protecting his heart had been completely shattered, leaving a huge wound across his chest.
The power of this new Art, Radiant Chain Fang, far exceeded anything I had imagined.
“How was it... my Art...?”
‘That’s more than enough.’
Then Maliaas began clapping.
“Yes! I think so too! As expected of the young lady of the Ren House! To think you had been hiding such a technique!”
“...Shut up.”
“But this is the end, Sir Halibal. Death is right at your doorstep.”
He approached me and lowered his head.
“Well then, would you like to leave behind any last words? I’ll make sure your acquaintances hear them! Ah, though you might meet them yourself by then!”
I stared straight at him and said,
“You said you wanted to hear a funeral dirge, right?”
“...Pardon?”
“Just wait. I’ll pound it straight into your ears.”
At that moment, Renee in my pocket began to shine.
A sign that an ability had activated.
Blue light burst from Renee and rose into the sky, soon dyeing the entire night sky blue.
The stars overhead glittered like jewels.
“This is... what happened back then...”
Cecilia murmured without even wiping away her tears.
I had no intention of wiping them for her.
I intended to make sure she never shed them in the first place.
That was when it happened.
“Funeral Sword... no, Halibal Velder. What... are you?”
Maliaas’s expression froze.
It was an expression he had never shown, not even after Cecilia’s critical hit, not even when he died in the original game.
It was as though he had encountered something unexpected.
For some reason, his gaze was fixed on me.
‘What is this...?’
“Why... are you...?”
I couldn’t hear the rest.
The gem above my head shattered into pieces the next moment.
[Unique Ability - Rewind Action 1 / 3]
⁎⁎⁎
“What... what happened? Why are we here again?”
‘It sends me back to this exact point.’
The moment we’d been stopped while retracing our steps.
I had only confirmed once more that escape was impossible.
“Cecilia. Change all your Shards to White.”
“What? Why all of a sudden? And what was that just now?! If you know what’s going on, explain it!”
“I can sense killing intent beyond that alley. I think we’ve fallen into a trap.”
As I gave the prepared line, I rearranged my Shards.
╔═════════╗
◈Abyss Core - Renee◈
╠═════════╣
▸ Equipped Shards: 16/16
□ □ ■ ◎
● ● ● ●
● ● ● ●
● ● ◆ ◆
╠═════════╣
□ = Red Shard II 2
■ = Blue Shard II 1
◎ = Green Shard II 1
● = Yellow Shard 10
◆ = [Adamant]
◆ = [Self-Love]
╠═════════╣
▸ Stat Bonuses
Attack Power 4
Health 11
Defense 13
Critical Hits 2
╚═════════╝
Cecilia peered into my sockets.
“You told me to take out all my Blue Shards!”
“I have something in mind.”
I had already figured out Maliaas’s opening pattern.
The moment the battle began, he deployed Clown’s Domain, summoned monsters, then focused his attacks on me.
He even unleashed Hundred Knives on me, and despite taking a massive hit from Cecilia, he gritted his teeth and ignored her.
I had instinctively felt it then.
I needed to take on the role of tank in this battle.
That was why I loaded up on Yellow Shards. Fortunately, I also had Self-Love and Adamant. With this setup, I should be able to endure the monsters’ and Arts’ attacks.
Since I had already experienced it once, I should also be able to aim for Just Guards.
I was worried about lacking damage, but Cecilia’s final Art should be enough.
The problem now was securing the first turn.
‘Will this work?’
I wasn’t sure.
I had trained with a focus on agility even outside turn-based combat. And Maliaas was clearly the slowest among us.
Even without Black Shards, wouldn’t I still be faster than him?
‘No choice.’
Slice.
Without hesitation, I lightly cut the back of my calf with my sword. A stinging pain spread through it.
I hadn’t cut the tendon.
If I had, I wouldn’t have been able to move at all.
Still, it was uncomfortable enough that a groan would slip out whenever I walked.
“Hey?! What are you doing?!”
Naturally, Cecilia was horrified.
Sudden self-harm.
At a glance, I looked completely insane.
It was unfortunate that I couldn’t tell her why.
“Don’t worry. I’m doing it because I have to.”
This time, I spoke first.
Cecilia’s eyes widened at those words, then she nodded.
“...Explain it properly later.”
“If I get the chance.”
After that, I explained the outline of the plan to Cecilia.
It took considerable effort to explain it while leaving out words like Maliaas, Bishop, Clown, and my knowledge.
Cecilia watched me suspiciously the entire time, but perhaps she ignored the parts that sounded strange. Before long, she accepted the plan.
“...So, to sum it up, I just hit whoever I see as soon as we enter the alley?”
“That’s not quite enough.”
I pulled [Cheap Keyring] from my pocket.
The keyring was hard, with sharp edges.
In other words, it looked like the most throwable thing I had.
Sorry, Richard.
I’ll buy you a better gift next time.
“Let’s go.”
After finishing our preparations, I stepped around the corner and into the alley without hesitation.
“P-please... save me...”
The moment we turned into the alley, I hurled the keyring straight ahead with all my strength.
“...What is this?”
The keyring struck Maliaas’s wrist, and the man he had been holding fell to the ground.
“Cough...! Cough...!!”
The man I had thought was dead gasped for air.
‘What? That person was alive?’
I had only tried it just in case.
Lucky.
He was nearly drained of life, but being alive and being dead were completely different things.
Absorption prevented.
That raised our odds, even if only slightly.
Maliaas, whose meal had been interrupted, turned with a displeased expression.
“You are...”
Yeah, skip.
I had no intention of hearing the same lines again, so I drew my sword and charged at him.
Clang!
My sword collided with his armor, and the shockwave swallowed the alley.
“Ghk...?!”
Clown’s Domain deployed at the same time.
“...Sir Halibal? How are you here?”
A blue gem appeared above my head.
“Me? I came to sing, though.”
Footnotes:
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