WeTried Translations
Translator: Botanica
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ I Became the Slit-Eyed Henchman of the Evil Boss
Chapter 5
──────
Business Trip to Partner Company (2)
“…Hey.”
“Wake up!”
“I said everyone, wake up!”
My head hurts. Clutching their temples, the people who woke up realized that the place they had opened their eyes to was a facility they had never seen before in their lives.
Among them, those with sharper wits recalled their last memories before collapsing and hardened their expressions.
Captured by unknown thugs, and upon waking, a strange space.
In this world, it was all too obvious. Especially for those who lived in the slums with poor security, it was a familiar occurrence.
They would either be brought in as test subjects for a mad mage, or be modified and sold off as slaves.
Just as sobs were about to burst out among those who sensed their fate.
“It’s too early to despair!”
The voice of the young man who had woken them rang out.
“It seems the bastards who captured us were a bit sloppy. They didn’t retrieve the Magic Imprinting Drive I had on me. We can escape.”
The young man, claiming he was originally a dealer in illegal cracked versions of Magic Imprinting Drives, gathered the people and began to distribute the Magic Imprinting Drives to them.
To the young man persuading the people to escape together, someone asked cautiously.
“B-but….”
“If we get out, won’t we all just be killed by the mages?”
It was a self-deprecating lament from people who had lived their lives being trampled upon. The young man readily acknowledged the possibility.
“That might very well be the case. Such trivial magic that can be used with a Magic Imprinting Drive might not even be a joke to real mages.”
“But everyone. What difference is there between dying standing up now and slowly wasting away in the clutches of mad mages?”
Is a life lived praying for someone else to die in your place so you can survive one more day a proper life?
The young man emphasized the mages' horrific experiments and corrupted personalities, declaring that he would rather die standing than live on his knees.
After distributing the spare Magic Imprinting Drives to everyone else, the young man slowly looked around.
“I know well that it’s hard for you to trust me easily. It’s possible I might use you all as bait and escape alone. So I’ll go out first and draw their attention.”
Leaving behind words for everyone to escape in the chaos outside, the young man stepped out the door.
In the solemn atmosphere, those left behind waited for the signal of the uprising.
Of course, no one knew that the young man had already been to three other slave holding facilities, stirring up similar incitements.
***
Wiiiiiiiiii!
A warning sound like scraping eardrums. Flashing red lights. All were alarms signaling a slave escape.
The branch director, Taknia, irritably cycled through the screens. It seemed a group of slaves had escaped from Storage Facility 3.
He recalled the delivery manager for Storage Facility 3. A bottom middle organization from a worthless city called Etna or something.
Vowing to make that manager pay the price next time they met, he summoned his subordinates.
“Finish it quickly. It’s fine if you take off an arm or a leg, but leave the head attached. They’re goods to be sent to the main tower, so only leave them alive.”
His subordinates were skilled combat mages. Masters of techniques that manipulated the bioelectricity of humans to knock them unconscious.
Against the beggars from the slums who couldn’t even use proper magic, they could subdue them in under five minutes.
Occasionally, some with persistant willed people resisted the nervous system manipulation magic, but if you broke their will to resist by directly attacking their bodies, they would eventually succumb to the magic.
He could handle this level of disturbance himself. Taknia suppressed a bit of irritation and sat down.
‘I can’t rot away in a dead-end position like this. Someday I’ll return to the main tower and….’
Wiiiiiiiii!!
The noise rang out again.
Taknia’s expression, which had been waiting for a report of the situation’s end, twisted. Alarms began sounding in succession, as if escapes had started in other holding facilities too.
“A cunning fellow must have been mixed in….”
Those with a bit more brains knew that the more people attempting escape, the easier it was to run.
The sight of not only those confined in their own storage facility but also slaves from other facilities joining the escape.
Though it was only a temporary collection point, not a Magic Tower, so they hadn’t invested much in facilities, seeing the bulkheads being broken so easily to attempt escape suggested a wild mage was mixed in.
Wild mages, who instinctively wielded mana without having formally learned magic, were certainly high-priced goods for the Toress Magic Tower, but.
“Incompetent bastard. When delivering a wild mage, either use stronger anesthesia or just cut off their limbs entirely.”
Taknia gnashed his teeth. In a large-scale escape, especially one involving a wild mage, one or two escapees inevitably get away.
A future of being scolded by the old men at the main tower was taking shape. Taknia’s entire body began to fill with rage.
‘Was it Cryton? I’ll make sure to report him to the main tower and make him taste humiliation.’
First, he had to report the situation to the main tower. The scolding for losing a precious wild mage was on a different level from just a few slaves escaping.
He pressed the emergency signal transmitter.
And nothing happened.
Amidst his bewilderment, a strange voice flowed in.
“May I ask you something?”
“Who is it…!”
As he circulated mana. His dormant prosthetic body is activated. His enhanced optic nerves find the intruder in the red-tinted field of vision.
In fact, the intruder wasn’t even hiding.
“Is this the office of Taknia, the head of the Toress Branch?”
He was simply standing calmly in front of the door, blocking the way.
Taknia felt a sense of deep unease. It was certain that the man was there, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what he looked like.
A blurriness that didn’t register clearly in his vision even though he was looking directly at it. Was it camouflage magic?
Camouflage magic, which refracts visible light, was a stealth magic often used by light-attribute schools.
‘He must have hidden his appearance during the slave escape and destroyed the communication relay device to the main tower….’
Taknia gauged the intruder’s level.
The camouflage of high-level users perfectly blends with the surrounding landscape, hiding the caster.
But the intruder’s form was only blurry; his presence was clearly felt. Therefore, his proficiency in camouflage magic was a second-rate level.
That must certainly be the case.
Yet, he felt an inexplicable ominousness.
The unknown intruder’s entire body was blurry, but the black board-like object he held was vivid.
“You are Taknia, correct?”
Though he had now risen to a fairly high position and rarely participated in direct combat, Taknia was a battle-hardened mage who had climbed from the bottom.
He knew well the weapon the intruder was holding. A high-frequency blade.
An invention of a certain school that deals with sound. A weapon utilizing the principle that cutting power increases when sound, heightened to a level ordinary living beings cannot hear, is imbued into the blade.
‘A high-frequency blade is a mass-produced item, but it’s not cheap enough for someone with nothing to have. Did another Magic Tower catch a scent?’
But the fool. If he snuck in, he should have launched a surprise attack.
Taknia activated the Magic Imprinting Drive embedded in his right hand. One on each finger.
The accumulated lightning spells were released in an instant. Chains of electricity, five layers thick, rushed toward the intruder.
At the same time, he input the next spell into the computational chip installed in his brain. Taknia notified his closely connected subordinates of the intruder’s appearance.
He could block communication to the main tower by destroying the relay equipment in advance, but there was no way to stop the short-range communication between the brain chips granted only to the refined ones of the Toress School.
However, no answer came back.
“Are you looking for these?”
Thud. The intruder threw something.
Five chips, still dripping with blood.
It meant all of them had been killed by a precise strike targeting the brain chip without even a moment to send a communication.
The next moment, Taknia’s action was a desperate struggle of instincts built up on the battlefield. He threw his body to the side with all his might.
A black line was drawn from the intruder, passing through where Taknia had been standing moments before, and continuing beyond. The high-frequency blade thrown while the brain chip drew Taknia’s attention.
The black blade embedded itself, shattering the control panel of the facility’s surveillance system installed on the office wall.
Taknia shouted convulsively.
“Which Magic Tower sent you!? Plauros? Typhon? Directly from the Yellow Thunder Tower!”
His scream was also an attempt to buy at least a little time. Using lightning-manipulating magic, he tried to revive the circuit connected to the microphone inside the control panel somehow, to notify the situation here.
Taknia calculated that the mages deployed to subdue the slaves would hear the sounds of battle in the office and, upon grasping the situation, would move to rescue him.
“So, How would you like it done?”
An absurd question came back.
“If you have a preference, please tell me. I’ll arrange it and send you there.”
“You son of a bitch-!!”
A provocation to choose how he would die. Taknia began unleashing the spells he had prepared.
First spell. Neural Disruption.
The intruder remained nonchalant, as if it were only natural. If it had worked properly, he should have collapsed on the spot from neural overload.
The second spell was also manipulation of the nervous system, but the target was not the intruder, but Taknia himself. He sharpened his senses to the point of reading even the flow of air by enhancing his sense of touch, and maximized his reflexes.
The third spell was a lightning attribute enchantment limited to the parts modified into prosthetics. Yellow crackling electricity flashed ominously.
All in one breath. Taknia leaped.
A gamble he took because the intruder had thrown his weapon. Close-quarters combat relying on his modified body and enhanced reflexes.
‘If he gets shocked by the electricity even once, he’ll be paralyzed. Then I win!’
It took less than a second to close the distance with the intruder. Taknia, sensing victory, looked the intruder in the face.
A distance close enough to see each other’s irises. The blurry figure of the man came into view.
‘He’s smiling?’
The intruder’s Magic Imprinting Drive activated. It wasn’t a threatening spell. Water Bullet. A basic water-attribute spell that compresses and fires water.
Unless used by a skilled mage, it was a weak spell stored in the drive, a low-output temporary magic that could only push someone back and leave a bruise.
However.
Electricity was flowing through various parts of Taknia’s body. He tried to hurriedly withdraw his mana, but it was too late. The sphere of water that struck his body scattered, soaking it.
Yellow electricity penetrated even the non-prosthetic parts. Taknia’s scream rang out.
At that very moment. The intruder, Ortes, finally moved his feet.
He instantly retrieved the blade stuck in the wall. Before Taknia, pushed back by the Water Bullet, even touched the ground, he swung the blade and severed his right arm.
The high-frequency blade continued its black arc without ever sheathing. The right arm containing the Magic Imprinting Drive. After removing the most dangerous weapon, the two legs. He cuts away agility.
Thud-
By the time Taknia crashed onto his back, only one of his four limbs remained.
“What… What are you?”
Taknia spoke, trembling with fear. Though it was a brief clash, he could tell for certain.
That man is not a mage.
If the blurry form was the effect of camouflage magic, the magic should have worn off during the intense battle, or at least the flow of mana should have been felt.
Yet, no flow of mana was felt from that man.
If he were a mage capable of perfectly controlling the flow of mana, he wouldn’t need to subdue him in such a roundabout way.
If he were at a level that the elders or the Tower Master of the Toress School could show, he would have died without even realizing it.
That was also the reason why the magic he barely brought out using the Magic Imprinting Drive was at the most basic level.
Most mass-produced Magic Imprinting Drives can only contain very little mana.
Therefore, magic above a certain level cannot be used with the mana built into the drive alone; the user must personally infuse mana into it.
Desperately trying to figure out the intruder’s identity, Ortes approached Taknia’s bedside.
A faint smile.
The intruder’s smile, looking down at him against the red backlight. Taknia closed his eyes.
“You seem ready to talk now.”
Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried
