WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Mordor
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel ◈
Chapter 66: Your Name (7)
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“I... didn’t want this.”
We were sharing the results of our research while leaving Daisy, slumped in a corner with a tearful face, to herself.
“It absorbs magic too, but not as well as sword aura.”
“Hey, Ms. Tinky Winky. How could you not know something like that?”
“No, think about it. The Demon King is the center of the Demonkin, and unless the author gets blinded by their pension and revives the Evil Gods, the Demon King is the final boss. Would someone like that fight on the front lines? There was one appearance at the introduction. Then only two or three more after that! We only fought the Four Heavenly Kings, Legion Commanders, and the bit players beneath them. The Demon King was waiting for the romance-fantasy male leads in the Demon King’s Castle!”
“For a Demon King, they sure play it safe.”
“The Demon King is a king! Besides, unless it was important, the battle scenes were skipped from the beginning.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a romance fantasy. If you wanted battle scenes, you’d read martial arts fiction!”
I felt like I had heard that before.
Well, people read romance fantasy for the romance, not the battles.
“Even so, that’s an absurdly overpowered weapon. How are you supposed to beat it?”
The Demon King’s magic sword was simply too powerful.
“Of course, because the romance-fantasy male leads get all the continent’s overpowered items dumped on them.”
Looks like the author, bastard or bitch, had thought things through.
“How is anyone without one supposed to live?”
“You’re not one to say that!”
As we bickered, the results of our analysis of the magic sword were enticing.
“It absorbs raw mana, so it doesn’t seem very efficient against magic.”
“But it cuts away the mana at the source, so the spell’s power decreases.”
“That’s true. Still, if we hadn’t drained your mana beforehand, that spell could have been a little dangerous.”
“It’s only because Daisy’s raw strength is lacking right now. If I used it, magic at that level wouldn’t be dangerous.”
“That’s true, but...”
The more I sized it up, the more I wanted it.
Do you desire power?
The magic sword had not said anything, but I felt as if I could hear it whispering that.
Ah, if only I had that. All the hardship of trying to beat Prince Ellen might finally be over!
“Can’t I use that?”
“You want it?”
“Of course I do.”
“A knight of Leon shouldn’t use such a heretical weapon.”
“Did you forget that I took drugs before fighting Silence? Besides, our royal family doesn’t use Dwarf-made weapons much.”
Even human-made swords were forged by Leon’s master craftsmen, who could rival Dwarves.
We simply did not commonly use magic swords with special abilities. We only cared about the highest quality.
Few people used them, but we did not reject swords imbued with magic, either.
As long as it was not dark magic, there were no particular restrictions.
So...
“Can I try it?”
“Ah, that.”
Daisy looked as though she had remembered something she had been about to say, then nodded.
“Go ahead.”
Having received the owner’s permission, I reached for the magic sword’s hilt.
“If you can use it.”
Then Daisy smiled wickedly.
“Ah.”
And I immediately lost consciousness.
* * *
When I woke up after being out for around ten minutes, Daisy stuck out her tongue at me.
“Revenge.”
Apparently, this was her revenge for treating her like a lab rat.
“The Goddess told me it would be difficult for anyone but me to handle it.”
Contrary to how it looked, the magic sword’s seal had not been undone.
It was simply...
“It feels like I’m the only one allowed to use it? Though I don’t think there’s no way around that...”
That method was apparently charging the magic sword with Daisy’s own divine power.
“Can you charge it for me later?”
“That depends on how you behave.”
Was my joke about extending our relationship by a year actually about to become real?
Just as I began to feel a little alarmed...
“A sealed magic sword instead of a holy sword...”
Arang, who had heard the explanation beside us, closed his eyes and sank into thought for a moment.
“Cool.”
When he opened his eyes again, they glittered like starlight.
“A sealed magic sword. Those words stir a man’s heart.”
He was an individualist who knew a thing or two... no, a Dogfolk who knew a thing or two.
“On top of that, she can wield such a magic sword freely. Is this what a human Saintess is like?”
Arang looked at Daisy with eyes full of interest and fighting spirit.
He looked less like he was looking at an apostle chosen by the Goddess and more like he was looking at a warrior.
“Still, she lacks skill.”
“As far as I know, this is only the second time she has held a sword.”
“What?”
At his regretful tone, I told him that she was practically a complete beginner who had barely ever held a sword.
“Though I have staked everything on these two fists, it is not as though I have never learned to use weapons. The Saintess is far too unskilled to be called a master, yet she did not feel like someone holding a sword for the first time...”
He admired Daisy’s talent, but she still had a long way to go.
“She is actually more familiar with fists than swords.”
“Oh?”
His eyes began shining even more brightly.
“She learned simple self-defense when she was young.”
He was just about to look disappointed again when I added,
“With only that, she utterly destroyed the entire order of Holy Knights from the Holy Kingdom after they picked a fight with her.”
“...Impressive.”
There was a little exaggeration in that, but it was not a lie.
“She first took up a sword then, and with the Goddess’s power, split the Holy Kingdom in half...”
According to Agent Tinky Winky, the story had become considerably exaggerated.
But that was the rumor spreading through our kingdom.
...And rumors around the Dogfolk tribe would only grow larger, not smaller.
So I freely spread Daisy’s legend.
* * *
#1 Daisy: The Legend of the Magic Sword
“It hurts...”
When I opened my eyes, it felt like my whole body was screaming.
Why was this happening?
I gave my head, which had briefly stopped working, something to do again.
And it quickly reminded me why my body felt like this.
“Bad people.”
Sniff.
The moment I remembered what happened yesterday, I almost started crying.
My most precious friend and my first boyfriend ever, fake though he may have been, had betrayed me.
The two of them had held hands and betrayed me.
“This is cheating.”
After cheating once, he was cheating again without the slightest hesitation.
Violet told me that was the kind of bad man I should never date.
Yet she herself had betrayed me with that bad man.
“Just wait.”
Until my body recovered, I would hold onto her and not let go.
I would throw tantrums until I got sick of it!
After making up my mind, I got up to find my target, Violet.
I carefully opened the door and stepped outside, looking around cautiously.
“...Gasp!”
A Dogfolk who met my gaze saw me, gasped, and ran away.
“Did I get something on my face?”
They had looked so startled that I retreated into the room.
I found a mirror and checked my appearance, but I did not look particularly different from usual.
“Ah, is that it?”
I had heard at the Academy that other races held an aversion to humans.
The price of the wrongs humans had committed in the past.
Even if we had been invited, not every Dogfolk could welcome us.
After preparing myself, I stepped outside again.
Then I encountered the Dogfolk who had run away earlier.
But...
“...”
There were so many of them...
Several Dogfolk were watching me from a short distance away.
W-was there something they needed?
“Um...”
When I cautiously spoke to them, the Dogfolk startled and began whispering.
“The Saintess? That person really is that Saintess, right?”
“Captain Arang took the other guests with him.”
“But she doesn’t have that legendary sword.”
“Maybe she is confident enough without that sword?”
“Ooh!”
W-what were they talking about?
I could only catch bits and pieces, but the atmosphere was strange.
Unless I was mistaken, they were not looking at me as a woman. Or a student. Or even the Saintess.
“I request a duel, Saintess.”
It was the sort of thing warriors said to each other in novels!
“M-me?”
As I stood there wondering, one of the Dogfolk watching me stared at me with an expectant expression.
T-to be honest, my whole body was screaming in pain!
If I moved any more, I felt like I might really die!
But I had learned that beastkin were a race that loved battle.
Some looked down on them as rough, violent, uncivilized people.
But I had learned that this came from not understanding the beastkin’s traits and way of life.
Battle was simply the result of beastkin struggling to survive in the harsh wilderness.
That meant this request for a duel might be an effort to forget the bad history between humans and beastkin and meet me as a person!
“A-all right!”
And as proof...
“Wow!”
Look at how excitedly they wagged their tail when I accepted the duel.
The other Dogfolk watching from behind were looking at them with envious eyes.
“Ah, the sword...”
“I left it in the room before going out. I’ll get it right away!”
No one but me could even touch it anyway.
I had simply left it in the room, but I needed to bring it quickly.
Following the Dogfolk who had challenged me, sword in hand, I arrived at a wide clearing.
A clearing like this inside a cave.
The more I saw of it, the more amazing the Dogfolk village seemed.
“Please go easy on me!”
“Sure!”
The duel that began like that ended even faster than I expected.
“What? How...?!”
The mana gathered around their fist was easier for my sword to consume than the mana around Adam’s sword yesterday.
We had not even exchanged many blows, yet my sword held all of my opponent’s mana.
“As expected!”
Even to me, it looked downright heretical.
But the Dogfolk only made their eyes shine, clearly satisfied.
“If you don’t mind, I would also...”
There was even someone else immediately stepping forward to challenge me!
The duel had ended so quickly that I nodded and accepted.
“As much as you like!”
“Thank you!”
And so I defeated my second opponent.
I used a little of the mana stored in my sword, but it had absorbed even more. It looked at least one and a half times as large as it had before.
“Then me too!”
After defeating my third and fourth opponents, even more Dogfolk had gathered to watch.
“Next...”
The Dogfolk challenging me had formed a long line.
“U-um?”
T-this was not what I wanted.
Today, I only wanted to sprawl across Violet’s bed and complain all day while making her tell me everything she had hidden.
“N-next!”
But I could not disappoint the Dogfolk who were looking at me with such expectant expressions.
Just one person. Just one more.
“...”
But the line was not getting shorter.
Ah, this was...
“I’m screwed.”
Yes. I could not explain it very well.
But I was definitely screwed.
* * *
There was not much to do until Daisy, who had collapsed into sleep as soon as we arrived at the Dogfolk village, woke up.
So Bell, Arang, and I were looking around the village when...
“The human Saintess is facing off against the warriors!”
“I heard thirty warriors have already fallen!”
“Just as the rumors said!”
I had no idea what was going on, but the village was in an uproar.
When we headed to the source...
“Hey, hey! Stop!”
Daisy’s magic sword had absorbed so much mana that it had swollen to nearly reach the ceiling.
I had no choice but to hurriedly stop her.
At this rate, she was going to destroy the Dogfolk village!
Author’s Note
I finished fifteen minutes ago and was happily planning to upload early today.
Then I thought the illustration slave working on the painting had finished, so I waited. But they told me to upload it because it would take a while longer.
I’m angry.
I think I should make them draw the next illustration as punishment.
Footnotes:
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