WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Irevi

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

Chapter 8: Miracle

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A familiar ceiling.

The colorless ceiling of the infirmary I'd been in and out of for three years.

It seemed I'd lost consciousness right after using Break.

"You're awake?"

I forced my half-lidded eyes open, and an unfamiliar voice came from beside me.

A girl was sitting by the bed.

Purple hair. Green eyes. Like Cecilia, she looked a little younger than I remembered, but her face was familiar.

Mine Rose, the Imperial Saint. The greatest healer in Academy of the End and one of its main heroines.

In the game, her overwhelming healing output meant she didn't join the scenario until the middle to latter half of Chapter 2.

First Cecilia, now Mine. At this rate, I'd meet every heroine before even enrolling at the academy.

"Soldier Halibal Velder greets the Imperial Saint."

"...You know who I am?"

"Yes. The captain has told me about you from time to time. She said you were a beautiful woman with viola-colored hair."

When I recited the exact line from her character introduction, Mine quietly averted her gaze.

At least she didn't seem to dislike it.

More importantly, if I was alive, that meant I'd defeated Shukarit, right?

Every boss-class monster in Academy of the End dropped rare items or Shards.

So if I'd killed that thing, something had to have dropped.

Yet I was wearing a patient's gown. I didn't know who had changed me, but all my equipment was gone.

Don't tell me someone took it while I was out.

I asked at once.

"Are the people who were with me safe?"

How many had there been?

More than twenty, I think.

The thought of tracking down and interrogating every one of them made my vision go dark.

Mine looked at me, her expression turning sympathetic.

"...I knew it. Sir Halibal, you're the kind of person who worries about everyone else's safety before your own as soon as you wake up."

"...It's not really like that."

"No, I'm happy. You're exactly how I imagined the Funeral Sword would be, Sir Halibal."

Then she broke into a bright smile.

"Everyone who took part in the ritual is safe. It's all thanks to you, Sir Halibal."

Whew. That was a relief.

If anyone had died, I might've ended up having to search their corpse. No matter what, that would've been a bad look.

"Then could you tell me what happened after I collapsed?"

"Of course."

⁎⁎⁎

Miracle.

To Mine, there was no other word for what she had witnessed.

How long had it been since the dungeon was consumed by demonic energy? At last, the energy subsided, and the tightly sealed entrance opened.

Adeline and Mine immediately rushed inside.

"Aah...!! It's Lady Adeline!"

"The Saint is here too! We're saved now!"

"There's a knight over there! He was badly hurt fighting the monster to protect us...!!"

Amid the confusion, the first person they found was Halibal, a soldier whose entire body was covered in soot.

Behind him lay a gigantic monster, its torso split in half. It looked as though it had died from a single strike.

At the center of it all, Halibal stood with his sword raised toward the sky.

Ash-gray flashes scattered from the sword's tip, spreading through the surroundings like lingering afterimages.

"Halibal, you... used Break...!"

Even at Adeline's cry, he gave no answer.

It was only natural. At that moment, he had drawn out every last bit of strength and surpassed the limits of his body.

And surely, he had made that choice to protect people with whom he had no connection at all.

"How long are you going to keep this up...?!"

Watching Adeline clench her teeth, Mine placed a hand over her heart.

Mine had grown up as a saint in Erandar since childhood, taught all her life the doctrine of devoting herself to others.

But could a person truly live that way?

How many people in the world could risk death for strangers whose names they didn't even know?

Now, she saw the answer to that question before her eyes.

That was the Funeral Sword, Halibal Velder.

Someone who could burn away even his own body for the sole purpose of protecting another.

For the first time, Mine wanted to worship not a god, but another person.

The boy before her seemed greater than every doctrine she had learned.

Then it happened.

The surrounding monsters began to scatter like dust, one by one.

And as if by magic, the demonic energy covering the dungeon entrance slowly began to fade.

"This is...!!"

"Is the dungeon disappearing...?"

Normally, even after a dungeon was conquered, the demonic energy never vanished completely.

Given enough time, the monsters within would revive.

But this was different.

Centered on the gigantic monster split in half, the demonic energy was being torn out by the roots.

In other words, the entrance of the Beast Dungeon was no longer the domain of the Evil God. It had become humanity's territory.

More astonishing still was that Halibal had accomplished all of it alone, without Mine, the "key."

It was something no one in the history of the Cyrus Empire had ever achieved.

No, it was humanity's first victory against the power of the Evil God.

As Mine looked at the boy holding up his sword, his body covered in burns, a realization suddenly came to her.

The word devotion, which she had always spoken so freely, had never once come from her heart.

The title Imperial Saint was only a shell the Empire had placed over her. She was simply a child trained by duty.

Yet this boy was doing it without anyone's command or coercion.

More holy than any priest.

Far nobler than she, a saint, could ever be.

With trembling hands, Mine looked at Halibal's sword.

The flashes flowing from its tip had almost faded, yet their lingering light settled deep within her heart.

She knew it was a dangerous feeling.

She knew it was a feeling she shouldn't harbor as a saint.

Yet she couldn't turn away from it.

She found herself wanting to know more about his name, his voice, and the person he was.

Halibal Velder.

As she repeated his name inwardly, her heart trembled.

'This person is probably unlike anyone I've ever seen in my life.'

Perhaps she would never meet someone like him again, no matter how long she lived.

And perhaps the fact that she, who had never had her heart stolen by anyone before, had fallen for such a person was another miracle he had brought about.

With that thought, Mine carefully reached out and poured holy power into Halibal, who had collapsed.

"Huh...?"

Something shining amid the monster's corpse caught her eye.

⁎⁎⁎

"Halibal Break!"

On the way out of the dungeon, Adeline stopped at a child's shout from behind her.

Halibal and Break. It was strange to hear those two familiar words together, so she asked the child.

"What do you mean by that?"

"That knight said it before he defeated that monster!"

"Not just Break?"

"Yes! Really! He said that, then flash! Light came out of his hand, and then boom! The monster went down in one hit!"

Adeline's eyes wavered.

'Come to think of it, Carving Sword and Ashen Light. None of the Arts that child uses overlap with anything I know.'

At first, she had thought he'd simply adapted existing Arts through their sparring session.

She had dismissed the names as nothing more than personal preference.

But if even his Break had taken on a new form, then this was beyond something that could be explained by talent alone.

The wounds carved into the monster's corpse were completely different from the marks left by ordinary Break.

Break was a technique for shattering defenses. It didn't have the power to cut a gigantic monster in two.

There was only one conclusion.

'He created his own form of Break...!'

In other words, Halibal possessed the talent to create swordsmanship.

Adeline swallowed without realizing it.

'Could this child's talent... be the talent of a Grandmaster?'

A Fast Sword that completely sealed off any opponent's evasions.

A Phantom Sword whose two slashes were so fast they looked like a single strike.

And a Strong Sword whose power increased whenever Arts connected with one another.

If he had created all of those himself, he was certainly worthy of being called a master in the future.

"So that makes it Halibal Style, First Form: Carving Sword?"

At Adeline's absentminded mutter, the child beside her cried out with sparkling eyes.

"Halibal Style?! That's so cool! Is that knight's swordsmanship? Halibal Style?!"

"Huh...?"

"Mom! You heard that, right? Halibal Style, Halibal Style! Do you think I can learn it at a dojo?!"

As the child began running around excitedly, that cheerful voice soon reached the others.

"Halibal Style of the Funeral Sword... That name alone sounds incredible."

"So we survived thanks to Halibal Style!"

"Once we're outside, let's spread the word about this swordsmanship throughout the Empire!"

The enthusiasm spreading in an instant left Adeline flustered.

The name Halibal Style was something she had casually made up by following aristocratic swordsmanship naming conventions.

It wasn't even a name Halibal had created. Wouldn't it trouble him if it became widely known?

Yet after giving it some thought, it wasn't entirely a bad thing.

Halibal was a commoner.

Because of the deep burn scars from his past, many people avoided and dismissed him before getting to know him.

But everyone who approached Halibal without prejudice was captivated by him.

If Halibal's name spread far and wide, if everyone learned what he had accomplished, wouldn't the way they saw him change as well?

Most of all, as a fellow swordswoman, she couldn't bear to let this child's talent rot away in obscurity.

So Adeline made up her mind.

"That's right. Halibal Style. It’s a sword style personally created by the Funeral Sword, Halibal Velder. Please tell as many people as you like."

Once they left the dungeon, she would go straight to the Imperial Swordsmanship Institute and register Halibal Style as an official sword style.

"Halibal Velder defeated the Beast Dungeon boss with Halibal Break!!"

"Ooooooh!!"

"Halibal Break!!"

"Halibal Breeeeak!!"

Amid the people's cheers, Adeline quietly looked at Halibal on her back.

'You don't have to thank me too much. Just surviving that day has already given me so much.'

One week passed after that day.

Halibal's name and Halibal Style spread throughout the Empire.

Along with the ultimate technique, Halibal Break.

⁎⁎⁎

"...That's what happened."

After hearing the full story from Mine, only one thought lingered in my mind.

'What the fuck?'

Dungeons of the Evil God were originally set to be more difficult than other dungeons.

So whenever a mid-boss was defeated, the demonic energy would be purified up to that point, allowing a save point and Base Camp to be established naturally.

In other words, the monsters ceasing to respawn as far as the dungeon entrance was just how the game system worked.

It wasn't like I'd done anything special.

But according to Mine, as soon as news spread that the dungeon had been purified, the Empire sent in an expedition force and built a Base Camp there.

And apparently, a flag with my name on it had been planted there.

'The Miracle of the Empire, Halibal Velder.'

What miracle?

If someone else had defeated Shukarit, the result would've been exactly the same.

And Halibal Style? What the fuck was Halibal Style, you goddamn weebs?

I couldn't use ordinary Arts, so I'd squeezed my brain dry and barely made those techniques.

Calling them swordsmanship was embarrassing. I just slashed hard twice in a single turn.

But apparently, people saw it as some wildly creative swordsmanship.

There were plenty of Arts stronger than Carving Sword and Ashen Light. If I could've learned them, I would've done so long ago.

And putting "Style" after something meant it was a school that could be passed on to others.

But I couldn't teach this to anyone.

Where else in the world was there another turn-based person besides me?

And Halibal Break?

Come to think of it, I vaguely remembered saying something like that.

Back then, it had only slipped out while I was half out of my mind from that electric rat's attack.

What kind of lunatic names their ultimate technique after themselves? It was humiliating.

Anyway, I had spent a week lying in the hospital, and during that time, Adeline and Mine had joined forces to officially register Halibal Style with the Imperial Swordsmanship Institute.

The Imperial Sword and the Imperial Saint had shown up saying, "Please register this," so they probably couldn't refuse.

For one week, this was a whole new level of bullshit.

"I'm sorry. We moved forward with this without even discussing it with you, Sir Halibal."

"...It's fine."

It wasn't fine at all, but it was too late to ask them to cancel it now.

As I could only sigh to myself, Mine carefully spoke up.

"Um... Please take this."

She took two small boxes from her robes.

"This is...?"

"My reward to you for this matter."

"I haven't done anything worthy of receiving a reward from the Saint."

"No. You showed hope to the Empire, and you shared the burden on my shoulders."

My knight act came out naturally, so I refused without thinking, but honestly, I didn't want to refuse.

You had to accept whatever people gave you. Thankfully, she urged me once more, so I eagerly took them.

"One of them isn't actually a reward. It's something that should have been yours from the start."

'Something that should have been mine?'

When I opened the box, inside was...

[Black Cloud]

"It's a Shard that came from the corpse of the monster you defeated. I picked it up."

"Ah..."

'No way... This dropped?'

Shards were normally divided by color, but sometimes there were Special Shards with unique names like this.

Among them, [Black Cloud] was a rare Shard that raised Fluidity by eight. One of the so-called endgame Shards.

Special Shards had the drawback of only allowing one of each Shard to be equipped in a Core slot, but that was a fitting restriction considering their outrageous effects.

My hands trembled because I had no idea how to handle this. With this alone, I could literally become a first-turn demon.

Tears rolled down my cheeks from how overwhelmed I was when Mine opened the other box.

"The reward I prepared is..."

Inside was a vial filled with holy power.

"...It's a treatment for burn scars. If you take it regularly for about three years..."

Her gaze met mine as she trailed off, while tears ran down my face.

Footnotes:

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