WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Irevi

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 72: Raphael

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"How's your Core? Is it still dead?"

"...Yeah."

Mar let out a deep sigh.

The ceiling he looked up at had a gaping hole in it.

"Another one's coming down."

Rustle.

A centipede monster dropped through the hole.

Thud!

It was an ordinary monster, so dealing with it wasn't difficult.

Even though it vanished and dropped a Tier 2 Shard, the expressions of the two people trapped in the pit remained grim.

"Are we going to die now?"

"......I don't know."

"Haah. I never thought there'd be a tunnel right in front of the entrance. We should've been more careful."

Centipede Dungeon.

Pasha and her Follower Mar had fallen into a pit near the dungeon entrance and couldn't find a way out.

Students who wanted to remain in the Raid Corps after dungeon practicum desperately needed to grow stronger.

Monsters like Halibal and Aren Bright could charge through dungeons and grow stronger that way, but that method wasn't viable for most students.

So, students mainly preferred what was called entrance farming: safely hunting the monsters that respawned at regular intervals near the entrance to collect Shards.

Unless it was an Evil God Dungeon, the entrance wouldn't become blocked, and there was no danger of running into a boss, making it a highly efficient method for students.

Pasha and Mar were among those students.

Pasha's feelings had been complicated lately.

Mine, whom she had criticized, had overcome her dungeon phobia and was gaining recognition alongside Halibal.

Mine wasn't the only one trapped in the past.

Pasha had also been trapped there ever since her father's death.

She couldn't accept that Mine, the person who had driven her father to his death, was the only one moving forward.

She had to move forward too.

Pasha persuaded Mar to go Shard farming with her.

They decided to choose one of the Upper Dungeons, which was how they ended up in the Centipede Dungeon.

But there was something she had overlooked.

Monsters might respawn, but the dungeon's terrain didn't change.

That was basic dungeon knowledge.

Yet a dungeon was an ecosystem.

And ecosystems always had exceptions.

Centipede-type monsters often traveled by digging tunnels.

That was why new traps not marked on the map sometimes appeared in the Centipede Dungeon.

Like the pit they were currently trapped in.

Rustle.

Another centipede monster fell through the hole.

"Damn it, again...!"

Mar cursed and swung his spear.

He dealt with the monster easily again, but he was already breathing hard.

"Tch. How many has that been now?"

"I'm sorry, Mar. I was too stubborn."

"What's the point of saying that now?"

Pasha couldn't continue and lowered her head.

Her strength was fading, and hunger was setting in.

Fatigue and drowsiness would follow soon.

No one knew where the two of them had gone.

And tomorrow was the weekend.

They couldn't even expect help from the academy.

She knew.

No one would come to save them in a situation like this.

Just like no one had come for her father.

Then another monster appeared above the pit.

"Huff, huff. I'm reaching my limit too...!"

As soon as he finished speaking, the monster charged at them.

Boom!!

At that moment, a pure white sphere flew in from somewhere and pierced through the monster's shell.

As explosions rang out one after another, the two looked up at the ceiling.

The person Pasha saw was someone she never could have expected.

"A-A-Are you okay?!!"

"......Huh?"

Tears and snot streamed down Mine's face as she wildly fired Holy Calling at the monster, looking nothing like a Saintess.

Pasha knew about Mine's role-playing.

Apparently, she projected herself onto a mercenary named Rosia.

She even changed her hairstyle, speech, and mannerisms, so from an outsider's perspective, it was bizarre behavior.

But right now, she looked exactly like the cowardly Saintess Pasha knew so well.

"You... How did you get here?"

"W-Wait a moment...!! I called for help, so...!!"

"Did you come to save us?"

Mine was just about to nod.

Whoosh!

"Kyah!"

A centipede's tail came from somewhere, wrapped around her body, and threw her straight into the pit.

"......?"

"......You're joking, right?"

The two stared blankly at their new guest in the pit.

Mine swallowed hard before speaking.

"Ah... I-I think I got caught too..."

⁎⁎⁎

Having a great deal of holy power also meant being more deeply connected to the Main Gods.

That was why Mine could receive revelations to some extent, though not complete prophecies like Master Jin's.

After school, as she prayed to the Main Gods as usual, a revelation came to her.

'The Centipede Dungeon... Pasha is in danger...?'

She immediately contacted Halibal.

But he didn't answer.

Normally, the proper course of action would have been to contact the instructors and explain the situation.

The problem was the tram schedule to Angel Plains.

The next tram would leave in ten minutes. If she missed this one, she would have to wait nearly three hours for the next.

How long would it take to contact an instructor, explain the situation, and wait for them to prepare to leave?

More importantly, revelations didn't come for trivial matters.

If a revelation had come, it might already be too late if she didn't act now.

When she searched herself, the pouch she usually kept Purple Cloud Herb in was empty.

Going back to the dormitory to get the herb would take time too.

In the end, she had no choice but to board the tram to Angel Plains immediately.

Now, as a newly made resident of the pit, Mine explained the situation to the other two in a trembling voice.

Her sentences didn't come out properly, but they understood the gist of it.

'Halibal Velder is coming.'

At best, he would arrive on the next tram.

At worst, the one after that.

"If it's Halibal, we can trust him."

"Whew. So we need to hold out for at least three hours?"

Mar sighed and scratched his head.

Pasha's gaze was fixed on Mine, who was crouched in a corner of the pit.

She was trembling as she bit at her nails.

The pit was terribly dark.

Just like the Undead Dungeon that had traumatized Mine.

'...Liar.'

What did she mean, she had come to help?

She had gotten trapped herself.

Looking at her now, the rumors that she had overcome her dungeon phobia had clearly all been lies.

Rustle.

"Mar!"

Mar immediately tried to swing his spear, but with Mine's arrival, the pit had become too cramped for him to swing it properly.

Just as the monster lunged at Pasha, Mar pushed her away and took the attack himself.

"Urgh!"

Clang!

Pasha's follow-up attack brought down the monster, but Mar's arm was wounded.

It was serious enough to leave lasting damage if it wasn't treated right away.

"Haah, haah..."

"Ah... Ngh... N-No..."

Mine immediately tried to gather holy power, but for some reason, it fizzled weakly and dispersed.

Pasha supported the panting Mar.

Three more hours.

There was no end in sight.

"How long are you going to sit there and cry?! You said you came to save us! You came here to get in our way, didn't you?!"

Mine curled up even smaller at Pasha's shout.

"You fucking liar!"

"Pasha, stop."

"Move, Mar! You know too, don't you? Because of that bitch... Because of that bitch, my father...!"

The reason she had forced herself to come here in the first place was because of Mine.

Hatred boiled inside her at the thought that the enemy who had caused her father's death was now driving them to their deaths as well.

Pasha's rage became a dagger that lodged itself in Mine's heart.

'You came here to get in our way.'

'Because of you, my dad...!'

'Liar.'

Pasha's voice echoed especially loudly within the pit.

Over the past month, Mine had thought she had grown.

But she hadn't.

'I haven't grown at all.'

She had only briefly walked the path Halibal had opened for her, borrowing the strength of Purple Cloud Herb.

'I'm still trapped in that dungeon from back then.'

Mercenary Rosia was nothing more than hollow armor that couldn't appear without drugs.

When a real crisis came, all that remained was the helpless Mine, too frightened to even gather holy power properly.

The light vanished from Mine's eyes.

That was when it happened.

Crack! Crunch!

An elite centipede monster appeared above the pit.

As though Mine, curled up in the corner, wasn't even worth noticing, the monster charged straight at Pasha.

"Pasha!"

Mar tried to push Pasha away, but his injured body wouldn't move as he wanted.

Before Mine's eyes, the image of a middle-aged soldier, covered in blood and dying, overlapped with Pasha.

The stone door that had opened at her touch.

The skeletal giant that had burst out.

The soldiers dying with screams.

Even the nun's final retreating figure.

Memories of the past surged over her like a flood.

Then those memories went back further, to the night she had overheard the nun and a priest talking.

'Was your father really a mercenary?'

'Hehe. No, he was a fisherman who caught fish in Baran.'

'Then why...?'

'Because the children like it.'

She had known for a long time.

The nun had been lying to her.

Even so, Mine deceived herself.

That false story had brought her comfort.

'Ah.'

And it had been the same that day.

Maybe.

If she had overcome her fear and used holy power, some of the soldiers might have survived.

Maybe she could have saved the nun too.

But she couldn't do it.

Because deep inside, there had been a part of her that wanted to collapse, whispering that she was weak.

'From now on, live your true story.'

Her real guilt wasn't that people had died before her eyes.

It was that she had failed to save even those she could have saved because she was weak.

That was why she had deceived herself all this time.

I have a dungeon phobia.

I'm a coward.

But she knew better than anyone else.

From the moment she stepped into the Beast Dungeon to see Halibal, that lie couldn't last forever.

'...How could you tell such a lie?'

That was really something she was saying to herself.

And Halibal had told her,

'Then make it true.'

Back then, in the Beast Dungeon, the boy holding his sword high had already shown her the path.

Not the path of the false mercenary Rosia.

Nor the path of the Saintess Mine, trembling in fear.

Her own path.

'You're my equal, or even greater.'

So it was time to move toward atonement.

She couldn't let someone else die before her eyes again.

No more lies.

'Because I'm not weak.'

"Raphael!!"

Boom!!

A blinding white flash swallowed the entire pit.

Clang!

Just as the monster's jaws were inches from Pasha's face, someone appeared from within a pillar of light and casually blocked the attack.

When the light faded, an angel stood there.

An angel with long purple hair, holding a mace of light and a rosary.

The pure white wings on its back scattered immense holy power throughout the dungeon.

Pasha and Mar stared at the sight in a daze.

The angel's face was that of Rosia, the ideal mercenary Mine had imagined, admired, and acted as over the past month.

And Mine appeared behind the angel.

The ability of [Abyss Core - Raphael] was Summoning.

It summoned an angel that assisted in battle.

Footnotes:

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